Chapter 16
Huan Zheng did not answer with arrogance or humility.
He simply scratched his stomach that wasn't even itchy, then spoke in a tone that sounded like he was complaining about the price of tofu in the market.
"It's still a long way, Miss Poison. From Thirty-Two to Thirty-Three takes time. And from Thirty-Three to the Bright Sky… ah, that's a different story."
Yet within his lazy eyes, Ling Xu saw something she had never seen before.
Not ambition, because Huan Zheng was too lazy for ambition.
But readiness—the readiness of a man who knew that soon he would have to cast aside his mask, and the world would never be the same after that.
An invitation from the greatest sea city—Pearl Dragon City, the only metropolis at the bottom of the ocean still inhabited by the descendants of ancient sea gods—arrived not in the form of a letter or insignia.
But in the form of a tear frozen into a pearl, sent directly by the guard of the Ocean Queen whose name was only whispered by the waves and never written in any scripture.
"The Ocean Queen wishes to meet the two of you," said the envoy, whose body was half human and half jellyfish, his voice sounding like bubbles bursting at the water's surface.
"Because very few beings in this world have reached the Thirty-Second Level of Star Supernatural without drawing the attention of the Overseer Gods—and because Miss Ling Xu, with her Eighteenth Level of Singular Star, has healed more than twenty thousand patients in the land cities, a record that even human physicians cannot surpass."
The journey toward Pearl Dragon City should have taken only three days by land before diving into the ocean's depths.
But every time Ling Xu and Huan Zheng stopped at rest posts or roadside stalls, the air around them felt different—heavier, more tense, like the stillness before a storm that refused to arrive.
At a teahouse at the crossroads between Tianque City and the eastern harbor, Ling Xu overheard whispers from the neighboring table.
Two pale-faced cloth merchants were whispering about "three wheels beginning to bare their fangs," about "something moving behind the curtain after a long slumber," and when one of them mentioned the name "Wheel Number One," the other immediately covered his companion's mouth with a trembling hand, as if silencing someone about to spit on a grave.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," Ling Xu interjected with the friendly smile she had learned over years as a physician—a smile that made people feel safe even when she was actually digging for information.
"Who are the three Wheels of Cultivation you're talking about?"
But the moment those words left her lips, the atmosphere changed.
The two merchants froze.
Their faces turned from pale to ashen like corpses.
Without saying a single word, they stood, threw a few coins onto the table with movements that were too hurried, then walked—almost ran—out of the teahouse, one of them even losing a sandal from his left foot.
"Wait—"
Ling Xu was about to stand, but Huan Zheng, who sat across from her with a bowl of tea that had gone cold an hour ago, merely raised his hand lazily, signaling her not to chase them.
"It's useless, Miss Poison," he said, his voice sounding like someone explaining why it's pointless to chase a butterfly that has already flown far away.
"They won't answer. And if you force them, they'll fear the shadow of that name more than a blade at their neck."
Along the journey toward the harbor, Ling Xu tried three more times—once with a road inspector checking travel permits, once with an old fisherman repairing his nets by the river, and once with a young priest burning incense at a roadside altar.
The result was the same.
Everyone was afraid.
Everyone avoided her.
Everyone begged her not to continue asking, as if the name "three Wheels of Cultivation" were a spell capable of summoning death from its hiding place.
"It's like a ghost whose name must not be spoken," Ling Xu muttered that night, as they camped on a cliff overlooking the sea, with a campfire flickering against the cold night wind.
"But that only makes me more curious. Huan Zheng—"
She turned toward the man lying on a bamboo mat, his hands behind his head as a pillow, his eyes half-closed like a cat on the verge of sleep.
"You know, don't you? Who they are? Those three Wheels of Cultivation?"
Huan Zheng did not answer immediately.
For a moment, only the sound of crackling branches and waves crashing against the cliff below could be heard, alternating as the backdrop of a silence that lingered too long.
Then Huan Zheng exhaled.
Not an ordinary tired breath.
But the breath of a man opening an old, dust-covered chest containing something he had never told anyone.
"The three Wheels of Cultivation," he finally said, his voice still lazy yet strangely heavy, like a stone dropped into a very deep well, "are monsters, Ling Xu. Not a metaphor. Not a title. They are truly monsters. The peak of power in this universe, worthy even of being considered second only to the Gods who fell in the Harmonic Conflict."
He rolled slightly, staring at the campfire whose orange glow reflected in his eyes.
And for a moment, his usually lazy and indifferent face looked old—old in a strange way, like a stone statue that had stood for thousands of years and witnessed too many kingdoms collapse before it.
"Their fame only emerged after the Harmonic Conflict ended," he continued.
"Before that, they were merely frontline warriors among humanity. Not generals. Not commanders. Not leaders—just warriors. But after the war ended, after the Gods were defeated and the world was divided anew, something happened to the three of them."
"They changed. Or perhaps… they discovered something that had always been hidden within themselves."
Ling Xu, sitting cross-legged across the fire with unblinking eyes, felt her heartbeat quicken.
Not from fear, because she had faced death too many times to fear a story.
But because she felt something strange at the tip of her tongue, like when she tried to recall the name of someone she hadn't seen in a long time, yet the memory kept slipping away before she could grasp it.
"There are two men and one woman," Huan Zheng continued, his voice growing softer, deeper, like someone reciting a mantra in a language he did not understand yet had memorized since childhood.
"Each of them bears a title that makes the entire universe tremble. These titles were not given by others—they took them for themselves, after the war ended, after they realized that nothing remained that could stop them."
The campfire at the cliff's edge had now dwindled into faint embers, flickering weakly like eyes struggling to stay open.
And amidst the darkness creeping in from the sea, Huan Zheng continued his story in a voice that sounded like wind whispering through jagged rocks.
"The third," he said, his lazy eyes suddenly changing—becoming clearer, deeper, like a lake finally revealing its depths after years hidden beneath mist, "is a woman. Her hair burns red like embers that refuse to die, and she is called the Singer. Not because her voice is beautiful—though it is—but because every note from the green flute at her lips can crack the sky, split the sea, or force a thousand cultivators to their knees, unable to raise their swords."
To be continued…