Chapter 22 – Fellow Stowaways

Chapter 22 – Fellow Stowaways

Unlike the continuous mountain ranges he had seen in his previous life, Li Fan now found himself above a vast, boundless ocean!

It stretched endlessly in every direction, with no end in sight.

“What’s going on? Why is the exit point different this time?” Li Fan was somewhat dazed.

He pulled out the map he had drawn from memory and tried to locate the ocean on it.

But no matter how many times he cross-referenced, he couldn’t find it anywhere.

“Forget it. I’ll just have to take things one step at a time.” Not knowing where things had gone wrong, Li Fan put away the map and sighed. “At least I have the Taiyan Vessel to travel on. Otherwise, I’d probably be stranded here until I die. The question is whether I can find an inhabited area before the spirit stones inside run out.”

Li Fan was not one to wallow in self-pity. He sprang into action quickly.

Choosing a direction, he piloted the Taiyan Vessel forward, flying while scanning in every direction for signs of a city.

The ocean was truly vast beyond measure. Li Fan flew for seven days and seven nights without seeing a single trace of human habitation.

Fortunately, the Taiyan Vessel had been stocked with plenty of provisions, so survival wasn’t a concern.

Another dozen or so days passed, and the Taiyan Vessel grew slower and slower, clearly on the verge of exhausting its power.

Just when it seemed all hope was lost, Li Fan finally spotted the faint shadow of a ship on the sea ahead in the distance.

Overjoyed, Li Fan lowered the Taiyan Vessel’s altitude and slowly approached.

But when he got closer, he was left speechless.

It was indeed a ship—but one on the verge of sinking.

It appeared to have suffered some kind of attack. A gaping hole had been torn in its hull, and two-thirds of it had already submerged beneath the water.

Dozens of people were struggling in the surrounding waters, clearly the ship’s passengers.

Most of them couldn’t swim and were barely managing to cling to broken planks, floating on the surface just enough to keep from going under.

Li Fan was hesitating over whether to open up the Taiyan Vessel and rescue these people when he heard one of the surviving men shout with great effort: “Everyone, don’t be afraid! I’ve already sent a signal to the immortal master! He’ll be here to save us soon! Just hold on a little longer!”

Li Fan’s heart stirred at these words.

He stowed the Taiyan Vessel and jumped into the sea, quietly swimming toward the group.

Slipping into the crowd without a sound, Li Fan put on the appearance of someone on the brink of death, barely clinging to life.

After a while, a streak of light flew in from the distance and stopped above them.

“Immortal Master, save me!”

“Immortal Master, please help!”

…

Seeing hope, the people cried out for rescue one after another.

“Silence!”

It sounded like a man’s voice, but his clothing and features seemed veiled behind a layer of gauze, impossible to make out clearly.

The man let out a cold snort, and without knowing what spell he had cast, Li Fan suddenly found himself unable to make a sound.

Everyone fell silent in an instant.

The immortal master then flew to the sunken ship’s side, gently placed one hand beneath it, and lifted the mostly submerged vessel out of the water.

Another flash of light shot out, and the gaping hole in the hull was repaired in the blink of an eye.

Then he looked at the people floating in the sea, let out another cold snort, and made a grasping motion in the air before pulling upward.

Li Fan and the others felt themselves seized by an invisible hand and lifted into the air, flying toward the repaired ship.

“Thud! Thud! Thud!”

One by one, the rescued people were dumped onto the deck like dumplings being tossed into a pot, thrown there roughly by the immortal master.

Unable to speak, they could only let out muffled grunts.

Yet every face showed a mixture of awe and the joy of being saved. None dared voice the slightest complaint.

Once everyone had been rescued, the immortal master flew above them and spoke in an unfriendly tone: “Who sent me that signal?”

The man who had earlier called out to reassure everyone quickly dropped to his knees.

The immortal master waved his hand, lifting the spell from him.

The man kowtowed as he spoke: “This humble one is Su Changyu…”

But the immortal master cut him off directly: “You all know the rules, yes? Once you arrive at your destination, everything is no longer my concern. I’ve never seen any of you, and I don’t know who you are. Understood?”

Su Changyu kowtowed again and again: “This humble one understands. Before we departed, the elders in our family had already made it clear…”

Halfway through his sentence, his voice vanished again.

The immortal master had nodded in satisfaction and casually silenced Su Changyu once more.

Paying no further attention to these mortals, the immortal master went to the bow of the ship. With some unknown spell, the ship began racing swiftly in a particular direction.

Watching this scene, most of the mortals’ eyes were filled with shock.

Some others still hadn’t recovered from the earlier disaster. They simply sat slumped on the deck, bodies trembling and curled up, seemingly crying in silence.

An eerie silence settled over the ship.

Half a day passed like this. It wasn’t until after nightfall that they finally spotted faintly flickering lights in the distance.

It was an island that appeared quite prosperous. Even from a considerable distance, one could already faintly hear the sounds of human activity.

Over a hundred large ships were moored at the island’s docks—a spectacular sight.

But the ship carrying Li Fan did not head toward the docks. Instead, it circled halfway around the island to a more sparsely populated area on the far side.

The ship quietly followed a waterway into a natural cave.

After navigating through the narrow cave for some time, it finally came to a stop.

Once the ship was securely docked, several burly men in black clothing came aboard to receive them.

The men in black acted as though they couldn’t see the immortal master at all, simply herding the people off the ship at weapon-point.

From start to finish, they didn’t utter a single word.

After leading everyone into a spacious hall, one of the men in black finally spoke.

“You will rest here tonight. The hall has been stocked with sufficient provisions—help yourselves. Tomorrow, someone will come to take you to get your identities registered. Additionally, no unnecessary noise is permitted.” He swept his threatening gaze across the room before turning and leaving.

The hall fell into silence.

It was a long time before the immortal master’s silencing spell wore off. After that, people in the hall began chatting in small groups of two or three.

“What terrible luck this time. We actually ran into a sea monster attack. There were nearly a hundred of us when we set out, but now less than half survived.”

“Seeking the Dao, pursuing immortality—bah. I don’t know what my father was thinking, insisting on sending me to this great world to cultivate. If you ask me, cultivation is nowhere near as enjoyable as listening to music.”

“Exactly! Back where I’m from, I’m at least the son of the Prince of Zhennan. What kind of glory and wealth can’t I enjoy? What’s so great about this godforsaken place? That…” Halfway through, his words turned to muffled sounds, as a quick-thinking companion beside him had clamped a hand over his mouth.

At this point, the man called Su Changyu spoke up: “What’s done is done. What good does saying all this do? Every one of our families paid an enormous price to send us here. Rather than complaining, we’d be better off cultivating with patience from this point on. If we can truly become Immortal Masters, not only will we have a chance at eternal life, but we might even be able to return to our homeland and bring our clansmen out as well.”

Li Fan hid in the shadows, listening to their conversation, and gradually began to understand who these people were.

These people were most likely the same as Li Fan—mortals exiled from an immortal-barren land.

The only difference was that in the immortal-barren land where they came from, the existence of the cultivation world didn’t seem to be any kind of secret.

Moreover, it appeared that a well-established smuggling route had already been developed.

Li Fan rubbed his chin and fell deep into thought.