Chapter 639 - Give me the address
Luo Han, still on his knees, nodded rapidly. "Y-yes, Ancestor. My cultivation has also improved. The qi density is — it’s beyond anything I’ve experienced. We are grateful. Deeply grateful."
The other disciples murmured their agreement. Heads nodded. Voices rose in a chorus of praise and gratitude.
Tianlong listened. His expression didn’t change. His gold-crimson eyes held neither approval nor disapproval. He looked at the spirit pond — at the condensed qi shimmering on its surface — and then at the disciples.
He snapped his fingers.
The sound was small. Almost inaudible. The effect was catastrophic.
The spiritual energy within the training ground’s domain exploded. The qi density — already far above normal, already richer than anything these disciples had experienced — multiplied. A hundredfold. The ribbons of light that had been circulating lazily through the formation arrays became rivers — golden, blazing torrents of condensed spiritual energy that filled the air, the stone, the water, the trees. The spirit pond boiled. Not with heat — with qi. The surface roiled, the golden liquid churning, sending up geysers of pure spiritual energy that rained down on the training ground like a monsoon of power.
The disciples’ cultivation bases screamed. Their meridians widened — forcibly, painfully — as the hundredfold qi density flooded their spiritual pathways. Their dantians spun. Their spiritual seas churned. Their bodies glowed.
"Ancestor —" Chen Wei gasped, his eyes wide, his body trembling — not with fear this time, but with the overwhelming sensation of his cultivation base advancing in real time. "The qi — it’s — I can feel my meridians widening — my dantian is condensing — I’m —"
"Don’t make excuses and start to cultivate," Tianlong said.
His voice cut through the chaos like a blade. The disciples obeyed. Twenty-three men sat. Crossed their legs. Placed their hands on their knees. Closed their eyes. And began cycling the hundredfold qi through their meridians, their bodies glowing, their cultivation bases surging.
The training ground became a beacon. The golden light was visible from the outer sect — from the female disciples’ training ground, where a hundred naked women ran to their dormitories to prepare their bodies. The men didn’t know it, but the same divine qi that was accelerating their cultivation had already transformed the women of their sect into something far beyond what any of them would achieve.
Tianlong watched them cultivate. His expression was unreadable. He stood among them, his dark silk robe immaculate, his hands behind his back, his gold-crimson eyes scanning their faces.
After several minutes, he spoke.
"Is there any personal favor you want?"
The question was simple. Casual. Delivered with the same tone a man might use to ask if anyone wanted tea.
But the effect was volcanic.
Every eye opened. Every head turned. Twenty-three faces — young, hopeful, desperate — stared at the ancestor with the wide-eyed intensity of men who had been offered the world.
Chen Wei was the first to speak. His broad shoulders squared. His jaw tightened. He stood — slowly, respectfully — and bowed.
"Ancestor," he said. His voice was steady, but his hands were trembling. "Is it possible for me to go? To leave the sect temporarily?"
Tianlong looked at him. "Why?"
Chen Wei’s head dropped. His eyes went to the jade platform. His broad frame seemed to shrink, the confidence draining from his body like water from a cracked vessel.
"Ancestor," he said. "My aunt is creating trouble for my mother. Since my father died — qi deviation, three years ago — my mother has been alone. The aunt has been claiming our family’s property, pressuring my mother to remarry — to a man she doesn’t want. My mother is strong, but she is one woman against a family. It is too much for us to handle."
Tianlong’s gold-crimson eyes narrowed. Not in anger. In calculation.
"My dear disciple," he said. "If there is a need, I will help you directly. You should focus on cultivation. Do not worry about the family. It is my duty to care for your mother, your sister, whoever you need. Consider it done."
Chen Wei’s eyes widened. His jaw dropped. He fell to his knees, his forehead touching the jade. "Ancestor — thank you — I — I don’t know how to repay —"
"Cultivate," Tianlong said. "That is how you repay."
The dam broke.
Luo Han stood. "Ancestor — my sister. She is married to a mortal merchant who mistreats her. He beats her. She has qi talent — I’ve seen it — but she’s never had the chance to cultivate. If you could —"
"Consider it done," Tianlong said. "Where does she live?"
Wei Jun was next. He stumbled to his feet, his round face red, his eyes wet. "Please, Ancestor — I beg of your help. My grandmother. She raised me after my parents died. She is old now. Her meridians are failing. Her body is weak. If you could heal her, or give her something — anything —"
Tianlong looked at him. "Grandmother. Where?"
Three disciples. Three requests. Three female relatives in trouble.
Tianlong raised his hand. The three disciples — Chen Wei, Luo Han, and Wei Jun — stood before him, their faces a mixture of hope and terror.
"Give me the addresses," he said.
They did. Names. Locations. Directions. Villages and towns scattered across the region. Details poured out — landmarks, family names, descriptions of the women and their situations.
Tianlong absorbed it all. His divine memory recorded every detail.
He turned. His feet left the jade platform. Golden qi erupted around his body — the dark silk robe whipping in the spiritual wind. He rose into the air, his massive frame silhouetted against the afternoon sun.
"Focus on cultivation," he called down. "I will handle everything."
The three disciples fell to their knees. "Thank you, Ancestor! Thank you!"
The other disciples watched — some envious, some awed, some calculating whether they, too, had a female relative they could ask the ancestor to help.
Tianlong flew.
He tore through the sky, his body a streak of golden light, his divine qi parting the clouds. The mountain shrank behind him. The valleys and rivers and forests of the lower realm spread out below, tiny and insignificant from his altitude.
He had three destinations. Three women to help. Three problems to solve.
But the first one — Chen Wei’s mother — was the closest. A village at the foot of the eastern mountains, three hundred li from the Plum Blossom Sect.
He descended.
The village was poor.
Tianlong had seen poverty before — in the lower realms, in the mortal world, in the cultivation world where the weak were devoured. But this village was a particular kind of poor.
The kind where the houses were made of mud and thatch, where the streets were unpaved dirt, where the wells were shallow and the fields were bare.
He landed at the village’s edge, his dark silk robe drawing stares from the few villagers who were outside. His golden eyes, his towering frame, his otherworldly presence — he was visibly not from this place. Not a mortal. Not a common cultivator.
An immortal.
The villagers who saw him froze. Several dropped to their knees. Others ran. The word spread — ’immortal, immortal, an immortal has come’ — and the village’s already sparse activity ground to a halt.
Tianlong ignored them. His gold-crimson eyes scanned the village, his divine qi extending outward in invisible tendrils, searching for the cultivation signature that matched Chen Wei’s bloodline.
He found it.
A woman. On the eastern edge of the village. Running.