It wasn’t that Jiang Li deliberately went looking for the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, but rather that the thing was simply too conspicuous. A seal was flying across the skies above the continent, crying and wailing as it went. The cries were so loud that even hundreds of miles away one could hear them echoing in the air.
It flew slowly, almost as if it were searching for something. As soon as it came within the range of Jiang Li’s Divine Sense, he could clearly hear the Heavenly Seal shouting, “Master, I miss you so much! Someone’s bullying me!
Junior Brother Changcun is just watching by the side! I want to tell Master! Master, where are you?” and so on.
Judging from its tone, it had probably been crying like this without stopping ever since it escaped from the Nine Provinces. Jiang Li roughly calculated: if the flow of time in this world was the same as in the Nine Provinces, then this seal had been crying for about five days now.
He flew up beside the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, face stern, and said, “Stop crying!” The Heavenly Seal caught sight of Jiang Li, and immediately its courage vanished. It turned tail the next moment and tried to escape.
But it was not like the Brahma Tower—it couldn’t travel through space. Jiang Li caught up easily, reaching out to grab it in his hand.
“Evil ghost! Bastard! Let me go!”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal cursed furiously, but no matter how it turned the words around, those were the same three phrases every time. Now that he’d found it, Jiang Li decided to take it back to the Nine Provinces at once. As for this strange world—he could slowly investigate it later.
The Heavenly Seal might be able to flee, but the world itself couldn’t run away. Sensing his intention, the Heavenly Seal shouted threateningly, “Just wait till I find Master here! He’ll avenge me for sure!”
Jiang Li frowned. There was something wrong with those words. He asked, “What do you mean—your master is in this world?”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal said proudly, “Hehe, did you think I let the little tower pick a world at random? I used the Power of Karma long ago to track down Master’s traces—he’s here, in this very world!”
“Scared now, aren’t you? If you’re scared, let me go, and I won’t speak ill of you when I see Master later!”
“You don’t understand how much Master adored me. After he refined me, he always held me in his hand every day—he couldn’t bear to part with me.”
Jiang Li thought silently, I’m holding you in my hand right now too, and I can’t say I’m any less affectionate. He mercilessly shattered its pride.
“You’ve been crying for five days straight, yet the Dao Ancestor hasn’t come looking for you.”
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal drooped like a defeated soldier, muttering, “Maybe… maybe Master is in secluded cultivation.”
“You said you could sense the Dao Ancestor’s karma—can’t you pinpoint his exact location?”
The Heavenly Seal looked troubled.
“Maybe because I left the Nine Provinces, my grasp on karma has become unstable. I sense traces of Master everywhere now.”
“Could it be that one of the Dao Ancestor’s belongings is here, and you’ve mistaken it for him?”
“Impossible! Absolutely Master himself! This is the one thing I cannot mistake!” the Heavenly Seal said with complete conviction.
“Then where exactly do you sense the Dao Ancestor’s presence?”
“The entire continent,” the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal said, and then burst into tears again.
“Originally, I planned to fly across the whole continent crying until I found him, but before I got halfway, you stopped me.”
Jiang Li shook his head.
“That method won’t work. The Dao Ancestor’s cultivation is boundless—if he wanted to see you, he would have appeared a long time ago. Clearly, he has no wish to meet you.”
“What should I do then?”
The Heavenly Seal knew that what Jiang Li said made sense but didn’t want to admit it.
“Fortunately, my cultivation is deep enough. I’ll help you search for the Dao Ancestor.”
Even if the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal hadn’t insisted, Jiang Li would have sought out the Dao Ancestor anyway. The Dao Ancestor should have ascended to the Immortal Realm long ago—how could he possibly be here? Even if he, like Immortal Elder Changcun, had chosen to retire somewhere, he should have gone back to the Nine Provinces.
The Dao Ancestor was born and raised there. Could it be… that this world’s spiritual energy was similar to that of the Nine Provinces, and the old man’s eyes had grown blurry, mistaking this place for home? But Jiang Li’s intuition told him otherwise.
The Dao Ancestor must know where the Immortal Realm was, and surely he knew what had happened to it. According to Immortal Elder Changcun, the Extraterrestrial Heavenly Demons were originally kept sealed off by the Immortal Realm. Now that they had manifested in the mortal world, something must have gone wrong in the Immortal Realm.
The Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal, though not believing Jiang Li could match its Master, still knew how powerful he was. Having him help search was far better than wandering blindly on its own.
“If we manage to find the Dao Ancestor,” Jiang Li said, “you’ll come back to the Nine Provinces with me.”
The Heavenly Seal agreed at once, though inwardly it sneered—Once I find Master, will Jiang Li dare take me away right under Master’s nose? … Jiang Li and the Heavenly Seal didn’t bother concealing themselves. They descended boldly into a bustling city.
For some reason—perhaps such sights were common here, or perhaps for some other reason—no one paid any attention to a man descending from the sky or a weeping seal flying beside him. When Jiang Li extended his Divine Sense over the city, he found that the people here were strange. They had almost no emotions.
Everyone went about performing their duties with utmost seriousness, ignoring the world around them. Their conversations only revolved around improving work efficiency—no gossip, no news, no national affairs. Even their rest time existed only so they could work better afterward.
They had no hobbies, no interest in immersive games, movies, novels, or comics. Doctors focused entirely on surgery, unconcerned with the outcome. Whether the patient lived or died, it stirred no emotion in them—they were simply fulfilling a doctor’s duty.
Actors might show vivid emotions while filming, but once the cameras stopped, their faces became blank and expressionless, as if the lively person in the show had never existed. Nurses would take newborn babies from nutrient chambers with no joy at new life, no annoyance at the baby’s crying. People walking the streets were the same.
Their only thought was reaching their destination. Whether someone was flying above their heads or a murder took place nearby—they did not care. Because of this, the clothing of this world’s people was extremely uniform—silver-white bodysuits.
With Divine Sense, Jiang Li could see that inside each suit ran a complex network of circuitry, assisting in lifting heavy weights, regulating temperature, and reducing fatigue. Their food consisted of tasteless nutritional meals, each enough to sustain a person for an entire day—one meal per day, no more. A world of technology—cold, emotionless.
That was Jiang Li’s first impression. Was it possible for living beings to be truly without emotion? Jiang Li didn’t believe it.
He focused his Divine Sense on several people, and observed the process of infants being born from the nutrient chambers, finally discovering the cause. People here provided their reproductive cells to hospitals. The hospitals then edited those cells’ genes, suppressing the “emotion genes,” and matched donors for optimal combinations.
The embryos were nurtured in nutrient fluid, and babies born this way had no emotions at all. Their first cry was simply to open their airways. Jiang Li couldn’t understand why humanity in this world would intentionally strip themselves of feeling.
There had to be some hidden reason behind it.
“How could Master possibly be in such a world?” the Yin-Yang Heavenly Seal murmured in disbelief.
Before it had gained sentience, it still vaguely sensed the outside world; otherwise, it wouldn’t remember Immortal Elder Changcun. In its impression, its Master was someone of pure nature—laughing when pleased, scolding when angry, never hiding his emotions. The people of this world were the complete opposite of his philosophy!
“Let’s go to the library,” Jiang Li said.
He knew that if he could find a library and sweep it once with his Divine Sense, he would understand everything about this world. He extended his Divine Sense across the entire city—but found not a single place that contained books. … Thanks to the reader Big Orange Cat alias Pippi Shrimp Dividing Cat for the monthly vote.
(End of Chapter)