A phantom door appeared out of thin air on the path between the Black Forest and Fairy Tale Town, the door opened, and several figures erged from it.
First ca Yu Sheng, Luna, and Erin, who had made a "transit" from the real world, followed by Yun Qingzi, who arrived in the valley directly from the Soul Wilderness in spiritual body form.
Yun Qingzi’s figure flickered briefly after entering the valley, first turning illusory, then quickly solidifying, and almost in the blink of an eye, it no longer appeared to be a "spiritual body."
Erin was very surprised at this sight, even taking a black spider silk thread intending to poke the old man to see if he was real (of course, this rude act was stopped by Yu Sheng): "Hey, old man, your body looks solid to ?"
"Gathering the energy of heaven and earth to simulate a temporary shell, it’s not as good as my original body, but it suffices when my physical form is destroyed, just a trivial skill," Yun Qingzi chuckled, "Cultivators who have reached the realm of spiritual body detachnt have studied these skills to so extent, it’s akin to the magic of external incarnation."
Erin listened with wide eyes, and after a mont of understanding suddenly blurted out: "Made from compressed air? Will it explode if poked?"
Yun Qingzi’s cheerful expression froze for a mont: "Uh, gathering the energy of heaven and earth doesn’t an that, it has nothing to do with compressed air..."
Erin nodded repeatedly: "Oh, oh."
Completely not understanding.
Yu Sheng curiously glanced at Yun Qingzi: "Then can you later reconstruct a normal body?"
"If I have leisure, I could find a quiet place to set up a workshop for artifact refining, and reconstructing my body is not a difficult task," Yun Qingzi said, gazing at the distant mountain scenery with astonishnt, "This place is indeed remarkable, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed this was a ’cave mansion’ established through an Exotic Realm, truly miraculous..."
As he spoke, he paused, then as if rembering sothing, asked: "If I reconstruct my body, does that an I can’t casually return to the ’Soul Wilderness’? Or can I only go back in the form of a spiritual body detachnt?"
Yu Sheng raised his eyebrows: "You still want to go back?"
"...Not for anything else, just clinging to that seed," Yun Qingzi said, sowhat awkwardly, "And that space does indeed hold so mysterious qualities, it’s just... a hard-to-resist desire for seeking Dao."
Yu Sheng understood his aning and smiled: "Oh, that’s not a problem. Normally, to go to that place, you can only enter in a spiritual body form, and only under the condition of encountering danger and ergency ’refuge’, but I can also open a door to send you in—this way, it won’t be limited to just the spiritual body."
After thinking for a mont, he added: "I was planning to open another fixed door in the valley directly leading to the Soul Wilderness, when it’s ready I’ll give you access."
Yun Qingzi nodded repeatedly: "That would be great."
"Co, I’ll take you to Fairy Tale Town first," Yu Sheng said with a smile, pointing into the distance, "Let’s walk over, you can enjoy the scenery along the way, let know where you’d like to stay later."
So the group walked along the path outside the Black Forest toward the center of the valley. Along the way, Yu Sheng explained the general situation of "Fairy Tales" to Yun Qingzi.
For Yun Qingzi, who lived in the Feiyu Star Domain and had been trapped inside his Inference Star Body for the last thousand years, the happenings in the Boundary Land seed as distant as another world, but upon learning that it was also an "Angel Disaster" and that the children in the valley were survivors of it, he instantly understood everything.
Naturally, his attention imdiately turned to the Dark Angel.
"Where is the Dark Angel nad ’Anka Aela’ now?"
"Already dead," Yu Sheng sighed, "Fallen above Boundary City."
Yun Qingzi blinked.
Next to him, Erin quickly added: "It was Yu Sheng who said died!"
Yun Qingzi: "...?"
The old man was stunned for half a minute before he suddenly realized, looking at Yu Sheng as if he had seen a ghost: "...So the Inference Star Body was actually the second one!?"
"That works," Yu Sheng thought for a mont and realized that it was rather tiring to explain all the details, so he simply nodded. "Honestly, the Inference Star Body is much tougher to deal with than Anka Aela. It seems even Dark Angels have their nuances..."
Yun Qingzi widened his eyes, suddenly looking like he had a lot to say, but just as he was about to speak, a crisp voice from not far away interrupted everyone: "Hey, bro?"
Yu Sheng looked up to see a beautiful figure with flowing black hair standing at the entrance to the town, carrying a net, followed by a group of children who looked like they had just had a wild play in the wilderness, all dirty from head to toe.
Erin stared at the figure across the way for a while and still didn’t recognize her: "Who’s that?"
The girl with black hair grinned widely upon hearing this, then with a toss of her head, her black hair instantly turned into a cascade of golden hair: "It’s ! Long Hair!"
"Ah! Golden Locks!" Erin finally recognized her, waving her hand excitedly, "You changed your hair color and I almost didn’t recognize you..."
Yu Sheng’s gaze involuntarily fell on the net in the Long-Haired Princess’s hand, and upon noticing, she proudly ran over, shaking the plastic bucket in her other hand: "We went to the stream to catch fish! Look, bro, I caught two, though they’re a bit small... but there are also shrimp! By the way, since when were there fish and shrimp in the valley?"
"Nonsense! I specifically brought fish and shrimp from outside to put into the river!" Yu Sheng’s eyes widened, "They just started breeding and you’ve already gone and caught them?!"
The Long-Haired Princess imdiately hid the bucket behind her back and giggled at Yu Sheng: "Hehe..."
Yu Sheng was left in a mix of laughter and tears by this unflappable girl, and before he could say another word of reprimand, the group of children who had co back with Long Hair from catching fish began to converge, and soon enough, the noise escalated: "Brother Yu! When can we go play in the mountains outside?" "Brother, brother, there are so many pretty stones in the river!" "Xiao Xiao got mud all over my pants..." "Luna, let tell you a story, have you heard of..." "Ah, Erin!"
Erin quickly hopped onto Yu Sheng’s shoulder, shivering as the group of kids chattered around, while Luna stood helplessly behind Yu Sheng, as if afraid of accidentally hurting these rambunctious kids. anwhile, a couple of the braver children noticed the unfamiliar old man standing next to Yu Sheng and, with bright, curious eyes, started to scrutinize Yun Qingzi.
While carrying Erin and evading those mischievous kids, Yu Sheng turned his head helplessly towards Yun Qingzi: "Get a feel for the atmosphere first—let put it this way, there really are forests and valleys over here, and the errands I run are truly leisurely, but ’tranquility’ isn’t guaranteed... these kids can get quite rowdy."
"Bro, who’s this old grandpa?" The Long-Haired Princess shooed a few kids away and curiously approached Yu Sheng.
"This is Yun Qingzi," Yu Sheng quickly raised his hand to introduce but didn’t dive into details in front of the kids. "He’s from the Taixu Spirit Hub, retired now, and ca to the valley to spend his twilight years. Didn’t Little Red Riding Hood ntion that there are nurous Teleportation Gates in the valley, and it’s not safe as kids might wander off? He’ll help keep the doors safe in future."
Of course, the kids wouldn’t know what Yun Qingzi’s na ant, nor did they understand what the Taixu Spirit Hub was all about (they only knew that recently No. 66 Wutong Road moved to a pretty place with many mountains), but they still cheered up imdiately. Then soone took the lead, crowding around Yun Qingzi and enthusiastically greeting him with a jumbled ss.
So were simply calling him "grandpa," so went with "Mr. Yun," and so even shouted "Grandpa Yun"—and whoever started that last one, it seed to imdiately gain acceptance by all the kids, who quickly began shouting "Grandpa Yun."
Yu Sheng broke into a cold sweat seeing this chaotic situation, worried that Yun Qingzi, a grand elder of the Daoist order, might find it hard to handle the boisterous and unruly atmosphere. However, when he looked up, he saw—the old man had an unprecedentedly joyful smile on his face.
Clad in a simple Daoist robe, with white hair and beard, the old man was surrounded by a group of kids. The wrinkles on his face seed about to burst into flowers as he cheerfully responded to every child’s greeting: "Oh yes, hello, hello, kids... oh and you too, hello, everyone..."
The Long-Haired Princess, usually mischievous herself but the eldest among them, hurried to maintain order seeing the little ones getting too rowdy: "Don’t crowd around, grandpa’s getting on in years, you kids are being too rough... step down! No asking for hugs!"
"No worries, no worries," Yun Qingzi was utterly delighted among the kids and waved a hand to reassure the Long-Haired Princess, "This old body is still quite sturdy."
Yu Sheng also went over, pulling Long Hair aside: "Don’t worry, this old man is tougher than you—he may not be in his pri right now, but when he’s in form, even seven Thunderbolt Titans would struggle against him."
The Long-Haired Princess was stunned by this, turning to Yu Sheng with a puzzled look: "...Bro, where did you find such a formidable grandpa?"
Yu Sheng glanced around, lowered his voice, and whispered to Long Hair: "He’s the one who fought the Inference Star Body for a thousand years—he was supposed to die, but I intercepted."
Long Hair was dumbfounded for a good ten seconds, almost gasping, before quickly lowering her voice: "Whoa... Bro! You got this deity to guard our orphanage as the security grandpa?!"
"He’s willing," Yu Sheng continued to whisper, "Don’t worry, now he’s all about taking life easy and looking for retirent. Watching over the Teleportation Gates in the valley is definitely more reliable than the Sleeping Beauty who used to nod off at the security booth every day."
"Really?"
"Rest assured, Bro and this grandpa are life-and-death friends..."
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