Yang Xi spent the entire night adapting to the changes happening within his body.
He had initially thought the twenty minutes underwater were merely a hallucination, but now, looking at his strength as he effortlessly bent an iron bar, he was forced to believe it was all real.
He had truly encountered a dragon—not just one, but a whole nest of them.
That seductive voice seemed to have taken a fancy to him, and he wondered if it would take him along the next time they met.
How wonderful it would be to be taken away. Living as he did now, Yang Xi felt life was truly devoid of meaning.
"Beep, beep." WeChat notification sounded. "Brother Xi, you seemed a bit absent-minded today. Are you alright?" It was Li Wan'er.
"I'm fine, I'm doing great, don't worry. Why aren't you asleep yet when it's two in the morning?" Yang Xi replied.
"I miss you. I miss you so much I can't sleep," Li Wan'er replied.
"Wan'er, you need to listen to me. I am an ill-omened person, destined to be alone for the rest of my life. There are still good boys waiting for you! Stop thinking about me. Besides, I don't like you, and I won't ever like any other woman again." Yang Xi did not like to drag things out; his rejection was clean and decisive.
Because messages like this from Wan'er never stopped; she sent them almost every night.
"I promised Xiaoli that I would help her take care of you. Those were her very last words before she left. Besides, I liked you even before you two got married. Back when Xiali was here, I could only silently offer you my blessings. Now that she's been gone for nearly three years, Brother Xi, are you still unable to move on? Or am I just not good enough?" Wan'er's voice message carried a hint of crying.
"I'm doing this for your own good. You're a good girl, and I don't want to ruin your life. If you marry me, you'll die just like her. Do you know what the word 'death' means? I'm not exaggerating; it's the absolute truth!" As Yang Xi replied, he began to feel annoyed and restless.
"I'm not afraid of death. I want to be with you."
Looking at this message from Wan'er, Yang Xi made up his mind to leave this place where he had lived for twenty-three years and go wander the world.
Because he believed what the dragon had said: he was naturally fated for solitude, and he should not harm a girl as good as Wan'er just for a moment of self-indulgence.
And the same went for the other four girls he had hung out with today; his WeChat had been buzzing nonstop all night. Yang Xi thought to himself that he must be having quite a streak of romantic luck. Five such lovely, flower-like girls—if they were put out there for people to fight over, they could easily form several squads, yet they had to go and set their sights on someone like him, cursed with a lonely fate.
"Wan'er. I'm leaving here tomorrow. Let's make a pact: if I find a way to resolve my fate, I'll come back and marry you; if I can't find a way, I won't return, and you shouldn't wait for me either. Let's set the time limit at three years!"
After sending the reply, Yang Xi packed his personal belongings.
He only took his usual changes of clothes, and his savings of 1.2 million were all linked to WeChat Pay.
There wasn't much to pack. The shop and the house in the back were places he and Xiali had bought when they got married.
Shutting off the main circuit breaker, Yang Xi took one last look at his once cozy little home and lonely set off on the road.
He drove aimlessly for a long way. "Where am I even going? I just came out without any plan at all!" Yang Xi patted his head in speechlessness and muttered to himself.
"What a pig brain! The purpose of going out is to solve the problem of my fate, so I should just go wherever there are mysterious cultivators!" His first stop would be Huayao Mountain, the closest place to him, where there was a Daoist temple.
Yang Xi drove through the night, turning on his navigation. The total distance was three hundred and sixty-five li.
He was not in a hurry, because his body had somehow been fed something by that dragon; he was brimming with strength and felt as though he wouldn't feel tired even if he went without sleep for ten days or half a month.
As for the martial arts stored in his mind, Yang Xi recalled them and began to practice.
Every single move and stance, merely recalled, seemed deeply etched into his mind, and after practicing them a few times, he could execute them with ease. The martial arts mainly consisted of two disciplines: Baguazhang and Wudang Fist.
Yang Xi drove while recalling the techniques, stopping the car to practice whenever anything was unclear. The footwork transformations and walking turns—first walking, second observing, third sitting, fourth turning—the "muddy steps" training, twisting and turning, utilizing the transformations of the palms down to combat methods, combining the internal and external, training both body and mind.
After stopping to practice for half an hour, a subtle sensation of Qi emerged in his lower abdomen. Channeling this abdominal Qi up to his palms, Yang Xi struck a large tree with a single palm. The tree shook violently, and leaves showered down all over the ground.
"Damn, I've become a god. Such a big tree actually bears a palm print—am I going to mutate into Spider-Man?" Yang Xi thought uneasily.
Yang Xi did not know that this level of cultivation he had achieved had already reached the Qi-strength stage of combining internal and external cultivation, which was considered the Qi Condensation stage following the Ninth Stage of Body Tempering in traditional martial arts. Beyond that lay Qi Transformation, Qi Shaping, and finally the commonly spoken of Xiantian Realm. Those in the Xiantian Realm could achieve invulnerability to blades and bullets, and lightness like a swallow. Legend had it that Swallow Li San from the Republican era had cultivated to this stage.
As for the martial arts beyond that, no one had yet been able to reach them—all of this was completely unknown to Yang Xi at the present moment.