I fabricated myths to guide the revival of spiritual energy.

The 28th day of the twelfth lunar month marks the peak of the Spring Festival travel rush.

Shanghai's Hongqiao Railway Station was teeming with people. Carrying large bags and suitcases, travelers heading home filled this largest transportation hub in Asia to the point of near collapse. The air was thick with the smells of instant noodles, sweat, and a restless yet expectant atmosphere of the Lunar New Year.

A strange vacuum appeared in the bustling crowd.

No matter how crowded the surroundings are, people will subconsciously avoid this small area, their eyes filled with curiosity, amazement, and a hint of awe that they have just learned from the news.

The person walking there was a young man wearing a light blue long gown.

That person was Chu Tian, ​​who had casually completed a Xuan-level mission just last night.

He wasn't dragging a suitcase, but carrying a very old-looking sword case on his back. In this season where down jackets and windbreakers were everywhere, his thin clothes seemed out of place, but within three feet of him, it felt as warm as spring, and even the falling dust seemed to automatically avoid him.

"Is that...cosplay?" A middle-aged woman muttered quietly in the distance, unaware of the situation.

"Shh! Don't talk nonsense!" The young man next to her immediately covered the middle-aged woman's mouth, his face flushed. "That's Kunlun's student! Look at that sword case, and that aura... he's a true sword immortal!"

"A sword immortal? The one from yesterday's news..."

Whispers surged forth like a tide. Chu Tian frowned slightly; he felt very uncomfortable being stared at like a giant panda.

Six months ago, he was just a college student who was overwhelmed with exams and would fight tooth and nail for a seat on the subway.

Six months later, standing here, he felt like a high-dimensional being who had strayed into a low-dimensional world.

Humans breathe too polluted air; every breath is filled with industrial exhaust and anxiety.

The steps of mortals are too heavy; each step is like dragging a heavy body and struggling in the mud.

"Is this feeling... what the principal meant by 'refining the heart in the mortal world'?" Chu Tian sighed inwardly.

He walked to the security checkpoint.

"Sir, please put your backpack in the security scanner..." The security officer's words were cut short.

Because he saw the long, narrow object behind Chu Tian.

"Is...is this a controlled knife?" The security officer nervously pressed the walkie-talkie. "Captain! Someone's bringing it to Gate 3..."

"No."

A middle-aged man in a black suit ran over from the VIP passage on the side, sweating profusely, and immediately showed an ID card with the national emblem and special runes.

"749th Bureau, Special Operations Division," the man whispered to the security guard, then turned to face Chu Tian, ​​bending at almost a ninety-degree angle.

"Mr. Chu... no, Master Chu. I'm Lao Wang, the liaison officer for the Rainbow Bridge area. I'm so sorry to have troubled you."

Old Wang wiped the sweat from his brow, his tone almost humble, "We've already been instructed that the magical artifacts of Kunlun disciples are 'part of the body,' so they don't require security checks. Besides, we've prepared a private jet for you; you really didn't need to squeeze onto the high-speed rail..."

Chu Tian felt an indescribable sense of absurdity as he looked at this man who was older than his father and bowed so humbly to him.

Once upon a time, these minor leaders within the system were figures that ordinary students like him wouldn't even dare to look up to.

And now, simply because he carries a sword, the rules make way for him.

"No need," Chu Tian said calmly, his voice cool. "My home is in a county town, there's no airport there. The high-speed rail is fine, I want to see the scenery."

"Yes, yes, please, please." Old Wang waved his hand hurriedly, signaling the security guard to open the gate, and even personally helped Chu Tian block passersby who wanted to take pictures.

……

G1352 train, Business Class.

Chu Tian had originally bought a second-class seat, but at the moment of boarding, the train conductor personally came over and respectfully invited him to the specially reserved business class carriage. The reason given was: "We don't want a mortal like you to disturb the immortal master's peaceful cultivation."

The carriage was quiet, with only the slight hum of the high-speed train speeding by.

Chu Tian watched the scenery rushing past the window. A winter day in Jiangnan, withered vines and old trees, a hazy gray sky. Under the gaze of his spiritual eye, these scenes were no longer mere landscapes, but rather a depiction of the flow of spiritual energy.

"The spiritual energy is too thin."

Chu Tian stretched out a finger and tried to draw a simple "spirit gathering talisman" in the air.

However, the rune collapsed when it was only half-formed.

Leaving the spirit-gathering array of Kunlun Mountain, the outside world is like a spiritual desert. Cultivating here is less than one-tenth as efficient as cultivating on the mountain.

"No wonder the principal said that going down the mountain is entering the world and suffering."

Just then, a slight commotion came from the front row seats.

"Oh, just one bite! This is imported milk powder!"

"Wow--!!!"

The silence of the carriage was shattered by the hysterical cry of a baby. The young mother frantically tried to soothe the child, but the baby seemed uncomfortable and cried heartbreakingly, its face turning purple.

Although the surrounding passengers didn't say anything, they all showed signs of annoyance.

The mother was so anxious that tears were almost in her eyes, and she kept apologizing to those around her: "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, my child has a slight fever..."

Chu Tian opened his eyes, which had been closed.

He heard not only crying, but also... an abnormal sense of unease.

He stood up and walked over to the mother and child.

"What...what do you want to do?" The mother looked at the young man who suddenly walked over, dressed in a strange long robe, and instinctively hugged her child tighter, her eyes wary.

Chu Tian didn't speak, but his gaze swept over the child's brow.

[Spiritual Vision Awakened]

A wisp of grayish-black energy was swirling around the child's crown. That was "frightening aura," commonly known as being so frightened that one's soul has been lost, or being tainted by something unclean.

In the early stages of the Reiki revival, these "minor illnesses" caused by fluctuations in environmental psionic energy cannot be detected by hospitals.

"Has the child been to the place where construction just started?" Chu Tian suddenly asked.

The mother was taken aback: "How did you know? Yesterday, when I took him back to our hometown, we passed a demolition site..."

"When malevolent energy enters the body, the spirit and soul become unstable."

Chu Tian stretched out his slender fingers, and a soft, milky-white halo appeared at the tip of his finger.

The surrounding passengers widened their eyes instantly.

It's glowing!

It really glowed!

Chu Tian didn't care about the gazes of those around him, and gently touched the baby's forehead with his finger.

"quiet."

A barely perceptible stream of spiritual energy was injected. The dark gray aura was instantly dispersed and vanished into nothingness.

The next second, the baby, who had been crying his heart out, seemed to have been silenced. He blinked his big, tear-filled eyes, looked at Chu Tian, ​​and suddenly giggled, reaching out his chubby little hand to grab Chu Tian's finger.

"Amazing...this is a miracle doctor!" someone exclaimed nearby.

The mother stared in disbelief, then, realizing what had happened, stammered excitedly, "Thank... thank you, Master! How much should we pay you? Or..."

She frantically reached for her wallet.

"Need not."

Chu Tian withdrew his hand, and that aloof, superior feeling returned to him. "It was nothing. In the future, try to avoid taking the child to places with heavy yin energy."

After saying that, he turned around and went back to his seat, closing his eyes again as if everything that had just happened had nothing to do with him.

A deathly silence fell over the carriage, followed by suppressed murmurs. Everyone's gaze towards him had changed. It was no longer merely as onlookers, but as if they were looking at a living temple.

The mother, holding her sleeping child, bowed deeply to Chu Tian's retreating figure.

Chu Tian felt a slight flutter in his heart.

A self-deprecating smile curled at the corner of his lips.

"So this is what they call 'manifestation of divine power'."

The feeling of being able to change the fate of ordinary people at will and being regarded as a god is indeed very addictive. No wonder ancient emperors wanted to cultivate immortality, and no wonder the principal said that one's state of mind is more important than cultivation.

If for even a moment he felt "noble" than these mortals, then he had already lost.

……

Three hours later.

The train stopped in that familiar fourth-tier county town.

Chu Tian walked out of the station.

A cold wind swept in, carrying with it the aroma of roasted sweet potatoes and the smell of gunpowder from distant firecrackers.

This is his hometown where he has lived for twenty years, a place he can draw a map of with his eyes closed.

But at this moment, he felt like a stranger in a foreign land.

The procession carrying a huge banner was particularly eye-catching in the station square.

[A warm welcome to Chu Tianrong, an outstanding student of Kunlun University, as he returns to his hometown!]

Standing beneath the banner were several county leaders, and even a reporter from the county television station carrying a camera. At the very edge of the crowd, a middle-aged couple in old down jackets, rubbing their hands nervously, were his parents.

When she saw her son come out, the mother instinctively wanted to rush over and call out "Xiao Tian", but was stopped by the secretary next to her.

"Sister Li, wait a moment, let the leader shake hands first," the secretary said with a serious expression.

Then, Chu Tian witnessed a scene that broke his heart:

The mother, who usually had the loudest voice and could argue for ages over a few cents' worth of vegetables in this county, now looked like a schoolchild who had made a mistake, timidly retreating to the back and watching her son surrounded by the crowd with longing eyes.

At that moment, Chu Tian stopped in his tracks.

He ignored the leader who reached out his hand, and he didn't look at the camera.

His spiritual energy trembled slightly.

"Buzz—"

An invisible aura pushed aside the surrounding crowd of bureaucrats, forcefully clearing a path.

Chu Tian walked straight up to his parents, looking at his father's graying temples and his mother's hands, which were red from the cold.

"Dad, Mom."

Chu Tian revealed his first genuine smile since descending the mountain. He was no longer the aloof Kunlun disciple, but had returned to being the son who had left home to pursue his studies.

"I'm back. Let's go home. I want to eat the sauerkraut dumplings you made."

The mother was stunned for a moment, and then tears streamed down her face.

"Hey! Hey! Let's go home! I'm going home now!"

Although the father didn't say anything, he straightened his back, which had been hunched over, and his face shone with a pride that was even greater than if he had won the lottery.

Chu Tian took the old cloth bag from his father, ignoring the embarrassed leader and the noisy crowd behind him, and accompanied his parents to the dilapidated bread truck parked by the roadside.

Although he can wield a sword, and although he can cleave a river with a single finger.

But at this moment, all he wanted to do was sit in that drafty bread cart and listen to his parents nag about the trivialities of the past year.

Because he knew exactly what the principal's announcement meant.

This is a final farewell before the end of the world.