A while later, Shao Qiming woke up.
The first thing he heard upon waking was his friend's voice, tinged with a smile.
"Jeez, you're finally awake."
Shao Qiming could see Su Zhou's silhouette against the moonlight. He held out a phone. "Your parents just called looking for you," he said. "When they couldn't get through, they called me."
"I told them you were fine, but now you should call and let them know you're safe yourself."
"I'll call them in a bit... Are you okay?"
Shao Qiming's mind worked quickly. The moment he woke up, he understood where he was and had a good grasp of the situation. Su Zhou must have recovered, then carried him out of that corpse-filled cavern while he was unconscious. Now, they were back in the tourist town they had departed from at noon.
"You're okay... good."
Looking straight at Su Zhou's left ear and hand, Shao Qiming breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were both unharmed. He pushed himself up from the table and stood, a little unsteady on his feet. He was sharp enough to know this wasn't the time for too many questions, so he just smiled and said, "You'll have to give me the full story later."
"Don't worry. Why would I ever hide it from you?"
Su Zhou laughed and started to clap his friend on the shoulder, but stopped halfway. 'My strength has grown,' he thought, 'and Shao Qiming is clearly not in good shape. A single pat might just break him.' He pulled his hand back. "I'll tell you everything once we're back in Zhengguo. For now, let's get you some dinner. You can barely even walk straight."
The Snake Spirit had told Su Zhou how he'd survived. Just as he had ignored the danger from the Continuous Prayer Meeting to save Shao Qiming, Shao Qiming, in turn, had unhesitatingly ignored the danger from the mysterious entity to recite the Holy Words and save him.
The truth was, if either of them had stopped to think, or shown the slightest hesitation or doubt, they both would have died. After all, now that Su Zhou knew what the Continuous Prayer Meeting called the "Secret Serpent," he was certain he never could have escaped the search of those imp-like Secret Technique Snake Souls on his own.
In going to the cavern to save another, he had also saved himself.
It's rare in life to find a friend with whom you can frankly share every secret and hobby, someone who will genuinely support you. For him to have met Shao Qiming, and for Shao Qiming to have met him, was a stroke of luck for them both.
After letting his parents know he was safe, Shao Qiming went with Su Zhou to the restaurant. There wasn't much to say about the meal itself. Perhaps because arrangements had already been made, the restaurant was still open and had plenty of food ready.
The food in Shan Country was very similar in style to that of Southern Zhengguo. Various meat and noodle dishes were paired with fresh and dried chili peppers, plus sour seasonings. Whether one was used to it or not, it was at least not bland.
This was especially true since Su Zhou and Shao Qiming were both from Hongzhou and fond of spicy food. Su Zhou had clearly eaten dinner earlier, but he downed another meal anyway, a true eating machine. Shao Qiming, on the other hand, was full after just a few bites.
After that, the two didn't say much. After all, most of the other kidnapped tourists were still asleep. The search was still ongoing in the distant forest, but that had nothing to do with ordinary people. So, they each took out their phones to pass the time.
"Damn it, I got nothing again!"
Su Zhou looked disgusted. He didn't play many mobile games, mainly because his gacha luck was terrible. He usually stuck to games like *Jadebow Fantasy* and *Ancient Ark*. He'd just done a ten-pull in each, hoping to celebrate surviving the crisis, but got nothing. The results were thoroughly blue and completely white—all low-rarity junk.
As for Shao Qiming, he was a model student and never played mobile games. He would occasionally play puzzle games on the Steam platform, but right now he was reviewing his study notes.
Just as Su Zhou was debating whether he should bite the bullet and whale—hadn't one of his hands just been chopped off for real, after all?—he suddenly heard someone with a southern accent shouting in Mandarin from the center of the small tourist town.
"All tourists from Zhengguo, gather up!"
Realizing this incident was far more than just some petty trouble caused by a Mysterious Organization, the Zhengguo embassy had arranged a full-scale evacuation process to get all tourists out of northern Shan Country. The official reason, of course, was that armed opposition forces within Shan Country were making moves, and there were even rumors they planned to take tourists hostage to negotiate with the government. In short, the situation was dangerous, and the priority was to leave immediately.
Faced with such a reason, none of the tourists were about to complain. Even if they did, they just grumbled under their breath. Everyone, roused from their sleep, was just muttering to hurry up. Su Zhou and Shao Qiming blended into the crowd, boarded a bus, and after a bumpy ride, arrived at the nearest airport. Several large Zhengguo Airlines passenger jets were waiting there.
Passport checks, luggage inspection, seat assignments, and finally, boarding.
"Crap, I still have my summer homework!"
Su Zhou sat in a window seat, while Shao Qiming had already pulled out a pen, paper, and a clipboard to start on his summer assignments. This immediately gave Su Zhou, who had completely forgotten about his own homework, a splitting headache. But he instantly felt much better when he realized that this time, Qiming probably wouldn't refuse to let him copy.
'Homework's not a big deal as long as you can copy it,' he thought.
HUMMM—
Before long, after several headcounts, the plane began to accelerate and take off.
"We are now... in the High Heaven."
Su Zhou felt the small snake on his left ear rustle as it slithered out from his hair. It stared out the window with him, watching as the plane steadily ascended, its wings passing over cities and mountain peaks to enter the sea of clouds above.
Every time he boarded a plane, Su Zhou felt anxious and afraid. This was a man who didn't even fear Ghosts or Monsters, yet he was terrified of heights—and terrified of flying.
The reason was simple. He never knew if the plane might crash, and if it did, he had no idea how he would even begin to handle it.
Knowing you might be in mortal danger but having absolutely no means to fight back... it was a situation that was impossible not to be nervous and scared about. Ghosts and Monsters, on the other hand, were things he usually sought out himself, with all preparations already made. Both were unknown anomalies with an equally small chance of being encountered, but that one small difference in his approach completely changed how he felt about them.
But now, he was at peace. He was no longer afraid.
Even now, above this sea of clouds, within the High Heaven, Su Zhou knew that he would not die even if he were thrown from the plane. The perfect body the Snake Spirit had molded for him could even harness the power of the wind to slow his descent. This profound sense of security, this strange and fearless state of mind, was perhaps the confidence that came with being Extraordinary.
"Hey, Yara." Gazing at the mountain ranges and rivers flashing past beneath the wing, Su Zhou couldn't help but ask in his mind, "You said that in the future, the Extraordinary will be widespread. Will there really be that many of them?"
"'Once the New Era arrives, it will indeed become very common and widespread.'"
The Snake Spirit was also gazing out the window at the sky and earth below. Its voice, tinged with a nostalgic sigh, calmly answered Su Zhou's question. "'A time of True Law. The Opening of the Heavens and Earth. The rise of the Demon Tide. Or, to use the most common name across the Eras, the Spiritual Energy Revival—that is the age you are about to face.'"
"'But Su Zhou, do you truly look forward to an age like that?'"
Yara turned its neck, its blood-red body translucent and crystalline. Its voice carried a deeper meaning. "'Everything in this world will be changed. Thunder Tribulations might appear high in the sky, and great gales will stir above the Nine Heavens. Blazing Holy Light will illuminate the world in all directions, and the very colors of heaven and earth will shift.'"
"'This plane we are riding in may no longer be safe and would require modifications to fly at all. Everything that you mortals are accustomed to using will be altered.'"
"'Everything will be changed—every aspect, inside and out. Su Zhou, do you still look forward to an age like that? Don't you feel any fear?'"
To this, Su Zhou had only one answer.
"Isn't that a good thing? Compared to this stubborn and boring reality we have now."
Gazing out the window from ten thousand meters up, a violet-green light flickered in the young man's eyes. For a fleeting moment, the phantom of a serpentine pupil—like a Dragon Eye—appeared and vanished, but his spirit remained firm and strong. "In the future, everything will change. We'll be swimming in a turbulent, fast-flowing river, heading in whatever direction we desire."
"Extraordinary Awakening is the scalpel the world uses to change us, and Extraordinary Power and Cultivation are the hammer we use to change the world."
"Why shouldn't I look forward to it? Why should I be afraid? The normal world is a fishbowl, and people are the fish trapped inside. The Extraordinary is the ocean outside that bowl. I'm a sea fish by nature. I want to shatter the bowl and enter the ocean—and the world has just handed me a hammer."
With that, Su Zhou closed his eyes. He stated calmly in his mind, "Without a doubt... this is the world I've always wanted."
To Su Zhou, the world he had known was a place so monotonous and dull it could put you to sleep. There were no transformable Super Robots, no Cultivators who could fly on swords, no sword and Magic, no bizarre alien life, no Godzilla-sized monsters dozens of stories tall, and no Superpower Users—let alone the ruins of some super-ancient civilization hidden in the world's dark corners. The only thing that truly existed was the mundane desires of ordinary people.
Su Zhou didn't want to watch the world burn, but he yearned for it to become a more exciting place.
Yara remained coiled on Su Zhou's ear. It could clearly hear these were his truest, innermost thoughts.
After a moment of silence, Yara laughed.
"'What an interesting human. An interesting life form.'"
Its voice was cheerful, yet tinged with nostalgia. "'It is precisely because of this that for millennia upon millennia, I have always acted on your behalf, and never grown tired of doing so.'"