The primary objective of this journey was to retrieve the Black Gold Ancient Saber and the jade seal. Now that the saber was nowhere to be found, and with no clue where to look in this vast world, Zhang Qiling had no choice but to start his journey home empty-handed.
He happened upon a group of masked men—the very same ones who had previously hunted him and Mo Shanshan. Only this time, the targets were not them, but a man dressed in black leather, wearing dark sunglasses.
The man’s combat skills were impressive, but the masked assailants were well-trained, coordinated, and numerous, making it a difficult fight for him. Instead of following Zhang Qiling’s old tactic—luring them away and picking them off one by one—the man chose to engage them in an all-out brawl.
It was hardly a wise move. Just as Zhang Qiling assumed he was waiting for reinforcements and had chosen a head-on battle to wipe the group out, the man in sunglasses pulled a grenade from his jacket and blew everyone up, himself included.
Zhang Qiling: "..."
A long while later, the man shook the dirt from his hair, crawled up from the ground, and muttered, "You little punks, just wait until Black Glasses finishes you off!"
But no sooner had he stood up than he vomited a mouthful of blood. He stumbled over to the tree where Zhang Qiling was hiding, looked up, gave a goofy grin that revealed blood-stained teeth, and collapsed.
Zhang Qiling was once again rendered speechless by the man’s antics; he had to admit that there was a genuine generation gap between people.
Zhang Qiling jumped down from the tree and poked the man with a branch. No movement. He poked him again. Still nothing.
In the end, he took the man with him. However, the man clearly did not receive the same treatment as Mo Shanshan. Zhang Qiling grabbed him by the collar, dragging his long legs across the ground. A heavy rain had begun to fall, so there was no need to worry about leaving tracks.
The man woke up once midway, grumbling that this method of transporting the wounded was murder on his legs, before passing out again.
Zhang Qiling switched from dragging him by the collar to dragging him by his trouser legs. He could have carried him, but then he noticed a dagger on the man’s person—the very one he had placed inside the Zhang Family Ancient Building.
Because of this, the man’s treatment for the rest of the trip was considerably worse. It made sense: catching a thief who had tried to raid his home while he was away—not joining the masked men to beat him up was already an act of mercy, let alone saving his life.
Under Zhang Qiling’s "meticulous" care, by the time they arrived home, Black Glasses, who had initially only suffered internal injuries with no broken bones, had lost an arm and had his head wrapped in thick layers of gauze.
That day, Mo Shanshan was waiting by the door for her husband, as she always did. Finally, her patience was rewarded. Just as she was about to rush forward to give him a loving hug, she realized he had dragged another person home. She froze in place.
She watched as he pulled the man by his trousers. The man’s arms were bound across his chest, and his gauze-wrapped head bounced on the ground like a rubber ball. She couldn't help but marvel at the man's tenacity—he hadn't died despite his head bouncing on the ground for the entire journey.
Mo Shanshan eventually gave Zhang Qiling a big hug, but just as she leaned in for a kiss, she smelled the scent of green peppers on him. She didn’t like green peppers, and neither did Zhang Qiling.
Zhang Qiling waited for the kiss that never came, looking at her with resentment. After a long while, he murmured, "There was only green pepper fried rice on the road."
Mo Shanshan looked at his miserable expression, stroked his handsome face, and smiled like a sunflower. "You poor thing," she said, laughing. Still, she gave him the kiss he had been waiting for.
...
In the end, Black Glasses was kept in the house. Judging by his injuries, he should have woken up long ago; the reason for his coma was the mass of black Qi behind his neck.
Generally, a spirit appears black due to yin energy, but the spirit of Black Glasses was white. It only looked black because it was wrapped in a layer of black Qi. That black, root-like Qi had spread to his upper Dantian, affecting his optic nerves and rooting itself deep within his soul, gradually eroding it until it could claim him entirely. Unless one killed both the man and the entity, no amount of cultivation could solve the problem.
Zhang Qiling had examined it earlier. The black Qi, the man’s Innate Qi, and his white spirit were entangled in a delicate balance. It was precisely because of this balance that, despite being around thirty years old, the man’s Innate Qi remained perfectly full. In a sense, he was still an infant; if he were willing to endure the constant agony of resisting the black Qi’s erosion, he could potentially live forever.
This clearly provided a new perspective for "It's" immortality project. Likely, this was the reason he was being hunted.
Spirits usually seek out hosts voluntarily; they can exist for long periods in special environments, and when someone stumbles into those places, the spirits become parasitic. Such parasitism is never benevolent, but the spirit of Black Glasses was clearly an exception. When the three forces fell out of balance, it had even sacrificed itself to fill the void. Had it not been for this spirit, the man would have long since been killed by the black Qi.
Zhang Qiling had tried to expel it with the Positive Five Thunders, but once the power dissipated, the entity returned to its original position. To destroy it, one would have to kill both the man and the black Qi simultaneously, or continuously shock him with the Positive Five Thunders. Neither was a realistic option.
Since it couldn't be completely removed, the only choice was to help suppress it. There were many ways to do this—for instance, using the Positive Five Thunders to carve a restriction onto his soul to help him resist the erosion and briefly suppress the black Qi when he lost consciousness.
But Zhang Qiling lacked total confidence. The soul is incredibly fragile, and carving a complete set of restrictions onto it is extremely difficult. Doing so required a level of precision in the Thunder Technique that he hadn't yet mastered; a single mistake could scatter the man's soul, or at best, leave him an imbecile. Even if it succeeded, it would do little for his eyes.
Thus, the task fell to Zhang Xilin, who did not refuse. As he worked, he used Black Glasses as a teaching aid and took the opportunity to explain the Thunder Technique to Zhang Qiling: "First, to improve your cultivation, you must tether your monkey-mind..."
Zhang Qiling crouched nearby, listening intently, guiding his Positive Five Thunders according to Zhang Xilin’s instructions. The palm-thunder, initially restless, gradually calmed until it turned into a thin, blue-white line.
About an hour later, Zhang Xilin withdrew his hand. He sighed inwardly, marveling at how strange the world could be—this was already the third "immortal" he had encountered. Yet, none of the three had a happy fate. This was the immortality that the world so desperately craved.