Chapter 56: Fellow Daoists, Quick, Join Me in "Cultivating Immortality"

"The novel trope of characters randomly adopting apprentices actually exists..."

When someone becomes overly enthusiastic for no apparent reason, it naturally breeds unease.

Lu Xun once said:
If a superior suddenly promotes you,
it is definitely not because they recognize your talent, but because they want you to take the blame.
If the neighbor next door constantly offers to come over and help fix your water pipes,
it is definitely not because he has nothing better to do, but because he has far too much time on his hands.

Being inexplicably nice to someone is deeply suspicious.
Compared to someone smiling warmly and trying to cozy up to him, Su Yi would much rather face a few cyberpsychos from the wasteland.
No nonsense required, no need to worry about collateral consequences—just wipe them out completely.
No choice is more efficient than a direct kill.

However, this trip was not without its rewards; Li Chengyuan raised no objections whatsoever to Lorilxi's presence, which was genuinely a stroke of good luck.
Had the old man discovered anything unusual, he could easily have used it as leverage, yet he chose not to do so, showing neither significant reaction nor telling micro-expressions. That meant the casually fabricated excuse had indeed served its purpose.

"Officer, I left in such a hurry just now that I forgot to put this down."

Lorilxi reached out and gently tugged at the hem of his shirt, opening her palm to reveal the dark plum Li Chengyuan had handed her upon entering. The powdered sugar dusting its surface had already begun to melt, sticking tightly to her skin.

"Didn't you put it down while you were welding the broken sword?"

"No..." The girl shook her head, holding the plum up inquiringly. "Lorilxi didn't know what this was, so she didn't dare let go of it."

She had witnessed many strange things since crossing over, but after all, it had been less than a week. Fruit, a luxury completely extinct in the wasteland, remained a total blind spot in her knowledge.

"Run a detailed compositional scan on it. If it's not poisonous, just eat it. This is called a dark plum; it tastes sweet and sour. Other than being a bit sticky on the teeth, it has no flaws."

Su Yi smiled faintly, walked over to the dining table, picked up a cup of water, and took a few gulps. He had already learned how to handle the girl's basic inquiries.
Giving direct, explicit instructions made things much easier for Lorilxi to understand.

He still hadn't fully mastered the script of Blue Star yet. Once some time passed, Su Yi planned to let her try accessing the internet so many tasks could be resolved online.
Moreover, with the enhancement of her neural chip, Lorilxi could easily accomplish things that he could not.
In the sci-fi movies Su Yi had watched before, any random AI could perform high-speed calculations, predictive reasoning, hack into international bank accounts with a simple swipe to siphon tens of millions, and breach various organizational security systems at will.

By then, he wouldn't even need to worry about making money. Of course, the wasteland tech might not necessarily hold up against Blue Star's network systems, and doing something like that would undoubtedly invite a rigorous investigation with entirely predictable consequences.

"Officer, this tastes really good. Even though it looks a lot like the dark coal stones of the wasteland, the flavor is amazing."

Lorilxi chewed thoughtfully as she exclaimed in wonder.

"Don't forget to spit out the pit; that's the proper way to eat it." Drawing on the experience from when she ate the chicken drumstick earlier, Su Yi reminded her in advance.

"Officer, Lorilxi didn't swallow it."

Lorilxi used her slender little tongue to push the fruit pit out from between her lips, pinching it in her fingers to wave it at him. It glistened under the sheen of saliva.

She was capable of progress, too.
She would never make the same mistake twice; she had to put on a good performance.

"Nailed it!" Su Yi gave Lorilxi a thumbs-up.

He turned around, picked up his schoolbag, and prepared to tackle his study area. During evening self-study, his head had been entirely occupied with how he was going to face the school principal, and he hadn't written a single word. He had just used the excuse of studying to slip away, so naturally, he had to put on a show of doing homework.

Unfortunately, the dining table was too low. The moment Su Yi placed his books on it, he realized he would have to hunch over sharply to write properly. With no other choice, he dragged his dust-covered folding table out from the corner of the bathroom.

*Tap, tap—*

Su Yi grabbed the folding table and brushed off the accumulated dust with his hand.
He took a small cleaning rag and rubbed it across the surface, leaving a long black streak behind—it was almost thick enough to serve as a protective coating.
He turned on the tap, dampened the rag with cold water, and scrubbed vigorously—though not too hard, otherwise the tabletop might have shattered instantly.
Then he dried it off with paper towels. Once prepared, Su Yi carried the table legs and returned to the living room.

"Huh? What are you doing?"

As soon as he stepped out, he caught sight of Lorilxi extending her tiny tongue to lick her own palm, looking thoroughly pleased with herself.

"Officer! My palm is sweet. It's lickable."

"Sweet?" Su Yi blinked in brief astonishment.

As if wanting to verify her claim, Lorilxi naturally lifted her head, stretched her neck out, and without the slightest bit of shyness, held up a palm as soft as infant skin right toward his mouth.

"Mhm! Does the officer want a lick? It really is sweet."

The girl's gaze was burning, her clear, sky-like eyes blinking as she looked at him with a hint of eager anticipation.

"Ahem—"

Faced with this voluntarily delivered "sustenance" and her earnest invitation, Su Yi gave a light cough and set the folding table on the floor.

"I'll pass. It's probably just the sugar from the dark plum you ate melting onto your skin."

As the saying goes, whether someone licks the yogurt lid or sucks on their fingers after eating potato chips are the ultimate standards for distinguishing the poor from the rich.
Yet, being covered in powdered sugar and insisting on licking one's hands was a trait exclusive to someone straight out of the wasteland.
Besides, he wasn't about to casually eat things offered by others.

"Don't forget to take a shower tonight. That ghost town of a substation is filthy. Staying there all day long, you've even picked up an odor."

Su Yi reminded her.

After receiving Lorilxi's acknowledgment, he stretched lazily, pulled over a small stool, sat down in front of the folding table, grabbed his math assignment, and began hammering out the equations at top speed.

Nourished by the Heart Flame, his physical condition was vastly superior to when he had first crossed over, and even his cognitive speed had accelerated. Problems that previously required a bit of mental stumbling were now effortless.

In mere dozens of minutes, he knocked out all of his math homework.

"At this rate, getting into Qinghua or Peking University should be a breeze..." Su Yi grew increasingly confident. He could simply use that as an excuse to dodge joining the Special Operations Team.
He just wondered what those people would plan to do if he refused.

*Bzz, bzz—*

Just as Su Yi was about to move on to his English assignment, his smartphone—usually used exclusively for checking news and scrolling through videos—suddenly vibrated, popping up a white message bubble.

"You have joined the Luocheng Taoist Practitioners Cultivation Group. Come and say hello to the new members!"
"Reminder: Many members in this group are not your friends. Please be aware of the risks."

*Damn it,* how did he get roped into another bizarre group chat? He should have disabled the automatic group-joining feature ages ago.
The last time he spoke a single sentence, the class group chat ended up disbanding, giving Su Yi a mild case of PTSD. The minds of Blue Star high school students were truly unfathomable; you never knew which sentence would cause someone to hold a grudge against you.
Teenagers were practically interchangeable with cyberpsychos.

He tapped on the group member list and inspected it closely. Indeed, he didn't recognize a single person there—except for Mu Xiaowei... and that guy was using a little brown bear avatar. Wait, He Cheng was in here too. Even though that kid wasn't blessed in the looks department, he had heavily photoshopped his own portrait for his social media avatar.

Soon, a message popped up in the group. The group owner, He Cheng—whose screen name was [First Infatuation of Luocheng]—tagged all members and declared in an utterly official tone:

"Fellow Taoist practitioners, from here on out we embark upon the path of cultivation. The Great Dao is rugged and the road ahead is arduous; within, there are malicious individuals watching us in the shadows, and without, evil villains stirring up trouble. We must look out for one another in the days to come."

Following that, he sent an animated sticker of someone flying on a flying sword, depicted as a crude stick figure hurtling at high speed across the sky.

"This world shall be guarded by us. I am already prepared."
"Peace be upon you, fellow Taoist."
"Peace be upon you, fellow Taoist."
"+1"
"My Dao is not lonely. Brother, should you encounter peril, even if separated by a thousand miles, I shall certainly come to your rescue."

The other members chimed in one after another, sounding as though they had rehearsed it in advance.

Why was everyone suddenly cultivating immortality?

Su Yi held his phone, hesitated for a moment, and quickly figured it out. Bound by non-disclosure agreements, nobody dared to casually discuss the fact that he possessed supernatural abilities.
However, nobody said they couldn't talk about cultivating immortality.

These teenagers, whose futures now brimmed with boundless anticipation following their conversations with the Western Representative, were hardly going to keep a low profile. Naturally, they had concocted this brilliant roundabout method.

"These guys actually pulled it off..."

Su Yi couldn't help marveling. He had half-expected someone to disregard the non-disclosure agreement and do something utterly foolish, but they turned out to be quite clever after all.

As expected, when teenage boys gathered together, their collective IQ rivaled Zhuge Liang's.