Chapter 357: Just Kidding

Guo Zhanghai was taken away by the Astrological Bureau, and Xu Jia sensed it too; he had tied a strand of hair on his hand, one plucked from his own Golden Body, so the connection was naturally profound.

Xu Jia secretly thought: "Dongda is truly deep. There is actually a secret mansion in the Tianchi of Changbai Mountain."

In fact, most of the Cave Heaven Blessed Lands in Dongda have been turned into tourist attractions. Practitioners have their own methods, heading toward places where no one goes, such as the Great Snow Mountain in the Tibetan region, the Kunlun Mountain in XJ, the Hengduan Mountains in the southwest, the Greater Khingan Range in the northeast, and the Changbai Mountain range. As for the Central Plains, only the Qinling Mountains remain as a place where Cave Heaven Blessed Lands still exist, being true places for hidden cultivation where the Dragon Veins and auspicious order are preserved.

It was not that Guo Zhanghai was riding a black Flood Dragon; the Flood Dragon was not large, about seven or eight zhang, which is to say around twenty-some meters, about as thick as a century-old Zhangshu. The black Flood Dragon spat out a bubble, wrapped him inside, and then curled the bubble onto its tail.

Those two men in suits with flying swords nodded immediately, drove their swords through the air, and turned into two faint cloud trails in the sky.

When they arrived at Changbai Mountain, they first entered a military unit. Guo Zhanghai was let down, and the black Flood Dragon rose up and landed in the Tianchi.

An old man wearing an old-style military uniform and liberation shoes wrote down in the register: "Xiao Li Long, serial number 0032, has returned to position."

He then led Guo Zhanghai into a room; the room was simple and clear, with one long table and four chairs.

Guo Zhanghai was on the other side, at a desk with a student chair; there was a disposable paper cup on the table.

The old man asked him to sit down and then spoke as if making small talk: "You are a Daoist from Tiesha Mountain? Didn't that place get occupied by a few recruited demon immortals?"

Guo Zhanghai defended: "That is the Ancestral Court Daochang founded by Guo Shouzhen, the True Person of the Northeast Quanzhen!"

"Same thing, same thing. Actually, it's still you occupying someone else's land. Of these demon immortals remaining in Dongbei, the oldest one has been practicing since the Song Dynasty. Besides, this business of mountain gates isn't about who occupies it first; the whole mountain belongs to them. Otherwise, famous mountains under heaven were originally mostly Taoism, so why are they all monk temples now?"

"Who are you?" Guo Zhanghai inquired.

"I am from Maoshan. I came down the mountain during the War of Resistance and followed to make revolution. After the revolution succeeded, I came here to do research. I've forgotten my Daoist name, and I don't want to mention my name again. Now I just manage some registration stuff; it doesn't have much use."

At this moment, two more people entered, two men and one woman. The men were wearing Zhongshan suits and looked to be forty or fifty years old, while the woman was wearing sportswear, had a ponytail, and looked to be in her thirties, well-maintained.

Guo Zhanghai became a bit nervous.

These three people respectfully called out to the old man: "Old Mao, have you understood the situation?"

"Not yet, just chatted a bit. You'll have to carry out the specific work; I'm just a consultant."

These three then sat down. Seeing Guo Zhanghai's expression shifting, they said: "Don't be nervous. This isn't an interrogation; we're just understanding the situation. You reported some situations upward before that were very special, so we specifically invited you to chat and, by the way, understand the situation of the Daoist altars over in America."

"According to the intelligence we have obtained, America has recently had frequent strange phenomena, and supernatural events occur often. A Chinese team appeared out of thin air in the exorcism world; this seems to be a Dharma lineage team that fled overseas seventy or eighty years ago. The sect leader is named Tongtian Daoren, a representative figure of the internet-cultivation school, a novelist by trade, of the Lushan Dharma Lineage. He was once recruited by the government, but due to certain reasons, he fled to America at the age of eighty and succeeded in forming the Golden Core at one hundred, yet he did not ascend or leave traces."

"The heterodox path he practices has gone astray; he has no fate or fortune."

Xu Jia, on the other side, listened to them stripping away his secrets and felt as if he had no secrets left....

"You lot just chant scriptures and perform rituals, saying you are promoting traditional culture with your mouths, while thinking about how much money you can make in your hearts. I like the word 'traditional' the least. We are here to make revolution. What is revolution? It is to have new things, good things, and to break the old things, the bad things."

"What is the point of this Heavenly Court? Aren't we also building a Heavenly Court?"

"Ah?"

"Haven't you used Beidou Navigation?"

"Don't you know about the Chang'e manned spacecraft?"

"Haven't you heard of the South Heavenly Gate Project?"

"You know about the Flood Dragon, at least?"

"Ah?" Guo Zhanghai was completely bewildered.

"This is the era of technology, an era moving toward the development of productive forces. The power of an individual is far inferior to the power of the collective. Like monks and Daoists, we have a saying called 'world-weary escape to Zen.' Of course, I'm not saying you are useless, just that you have taken the wrong path. Daoism is natural; only by following the trend of the era can you seek development."

The other two men in Zhongshan suits were also helpless and said to Guo Zhanghai: "Old Mao is old and talks a bit too much. Just listen to it like a story."

"It's fine. Even if he said he discovered an alien spaceship on the far side of the moon and then pried open the door to abuse the aliens inside, I would believe it," Guo Zhanghai said.

"There was no abuse," the old man said.

Good heavens, did he really see aliens? Guo Zhanghai was stunned.

"Just kidding!" The old man laughed out loud: "The atmosphere was too serious just now, I was afraid of scaring you. Don't you feel relaxed all of a sudden now?"

Guo Zhanghai did indeed relax. His brain had just crashed, filled with thoughts of aliens—what aliens looked like—after all, he had arrived at an authoritative institution, and what they said was so convincing, as if it were true. As a result... they came out with "just kidding." What kind of occasion is this? Is it appropriate to make such jokes?

In fact, Xu Jia was also played. Just now, Xu Jia, borrowing that strand of hair, was also thinking about aliens and even considering whether to fly in America and go to the moon to take a look.

There was also the thought of whether his Primordial Spirit could fly to the moon to collect data; he felt there was a new line of thinking.

However, what was said before also felt very powerful. Is this Dongda really wanting to directly build a "Heavenly Court"?

"Alright, Zhanghai, tell us about the Dharma Nature Chip in your brain, what you experienced, and how he implanted the Dharma Nature Chip into you. If this technology can have a breakthrough, our espionage work will be more covert, and the intelligence department will be more relaxed."

(End of chapter)