Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

“Is that so?”

Li Yao waved his hands randomly. “It doesn’t matter now. Let’s just march out of here. My bloodthirsty saber has been starved for a long time!”

Against the aftermath of the barrage, he rushed to the back cabin.

The carrier was not in a complicated structure. After leaving the bridge and passing a long pathway, Li Yao reached the large warehouse, which was supposed to store goods.

But at this moment, it was the stink of fear that flowed out of the warehouse when Li Yao pushed the thick alloy gate. The warehouse was fully loaded with the civilians who were in bloody, ragged clothes, with horror and sorrow on their faces. It was like an iron can crammed with rotten meat.

Xiaoming and Wenwen were trying to comfort the people who had luckily survived death, but the two of them were only kids no more than ten on the surface. How could they be persuasive with their cute cheeks and their young voices?

The moment they saw Li Yao, everybody was like someone being drowned who saw a lifebuoy. Their eyes gleaming with hope, they extended their hands at Li Yao.

“Master Li, the fire outside is so fierce. What happened? Did the pursuers catch up?”

“Please help us, Master Li. We really don’t want to fight. We haven’t received any military training and do not know how to fight at all!”

“Master Li, a lot of our families are still imprisoned in the starships of the Flying Rainbow Fleet. Are they still fine? They…”

The adults, the seniors, the children, the women, the sick, and the tortured were all weeping in misery and devastation.

“Dad…”

Xiaoming and Wenwen were somewhat at a loss too. Looking back at Li Yao, they frowned, as if they did not understand why the war in the human world had to be fought in such an absurd and shameless way.

Li Yao took a deep, deep breath to hold back his fury, particularly when he saw that some children who were no more than ten years old had been captured by the Immortal Cultivators to be sent to the battlefield.

Every time he saw such a scene, he felt that all the tranquilization skills that he had practiced in the past hundred years were all useless, and he seemed to be back to the young man who did whatever he wanted to do in the past, blowing the scum into real “scum” without caring about anything!

“As I said yesterday, I am not a master. I am absolutely different from those ‘masters’ of the Imperium.”

Li Yao said slowly, “You may call me ‘Ah Yao’ or ‘Brother Yao’. The only master of anyone can only be themselves.

“The barrages in the next second may be a bit fierce. While our carrier probably won’t be hit, the spiritual waves may affect our power units and make the carrier shake violently. So, I’m here to remind you to enshroud yourselves and fix yourselves to the wall with the protective gels. Remember, do not expose any body part to the air, particularly not the head. It will be bad if you hit your head and bleed!

“As for the rest, I’m going to take care of it!

“I assure you as a Cultivator that you will all be fine. Your families that have been captured by the Immortal Cultivators will be fine too. I will rescue all of them and make the animals who have tarnished the dignity of the strong, the honor of soldiers, and the boundaries of mankind pay a price a hundred times greater!”

For a moment, golden and bloody lights were flying out of Li Yao’s eyes at the same time!

“Brother Li Yao…”

Astounded by Li Yao’s daunting vibe, everybody fell silent.

But a little girl with a headful of messy hair and a pale face stepped forward and said, biting her lips, “Grandma said that you are the most, most, most awesome hero, so you can certainly drive the bad guys away and save my mom. Is that so? I miss my mom. I want my mom…”

The little girl began to sob.

A lot of other children widened their eyes and looked at Li Yao in expectation. Just like the little girl, they were forced to be separated from their parents.

It was in such a way that the Flying Rainbow Fleet coerced the civilians to become moths that would dart at the fire “willingly”. The Immortal Cultivators had captured the underage children and locked them on an independent starship, threatening their parents that if they did not charge in the front, the starship that was loaded with their children would.

In such a way, the troop of cannon fodder would have “high morale”. The civilians whose children had been held hostages would go to die obediently without a gun pointed to their heads.

Before finding Boss Bai, Li Yao was too outnumbered to rescue everyone. Naturally, he got the carrier where the children were locked away first. So, there were particularly plenty of children on board.

It was rather weird that, although Li Yao had never been fond of children in the beginning, especially not the mischievous and unpredictable ones, after he discovered that he became a father and had two super mischievous and super unpredictable children that were Xiaoming and Wenwen, he somehow found the other children much more agreeable than before, and he often felt the urge of sacrificing everything to protect and fight for them.

“Little Lingdang…”

Li Yao fell on one of his knees and tried to hold back his killing intent and put on a kindly expression while raising his lips that were still cramping because of fury.

Because the girl had the same name as Ding Lingdang, she left a particularly deep impression on Li Yao. Last night, he had chatted with the girl and comforted her for a long time before she finally fell asleep.

It was also the reason why “Little Lingdang” had the courage to speak to him when he looked all aggressive and murderous.

“Didn’t Brother Li Yao tell you a lot of stories about the heroes in the universe yesterday?”

Li Yao held Little Lingdang’s shoulders and delivered a stream of tranquilizing spiritual energy, warming up Little Lingdang’s body like a warm flow. “About the most, most, most awesome hero, I’m certainly not one. Even if I am a hero, I’m just the most, most, most small and insignificant one. Here, just as small as this finger.”

Li Yao shook his little finger with a rather comical look on his face, making the worried little girl giggle. A lot of other children behind her laughed too.

Li Yao laughed at himself. Coughing for a moment, he said, “Let me tell you, there are a lot of superheroes who are way more awesome than me, like Boss Bai or the Fist King. They are also good guys with a strong sense of justice and integrity, and they like to help the people in need best!

“Naturally, it is not enough to save your parents or to terminate this war with only my strength, but together with the strengths of those superheroes and good guys, it will be more or less enough.

“Listen. Can you hear the thunderous noises when the spiritual waves are blowing at the shell of our starship? That’s the heroes like Boss Bai and the Fist King who have received Brother Yao’s cry for help, learned what happened here, and therefore come to save you and your parents without caring about anything!”

“So…”

Little Lingdang was moved. In a trance, she mumbled, “Brother Yao didn’t lie to us. There are real heroes. There are so many of them!”

“That’s right.”

Li Yao nodded his head heavily and glanced around at all the little kids. “Trust Brother Li Yao. No matter how dark the world is in your eyes, there is light, there is justice, there are heroes, and there will forever be in the future!

“There are as many stars in the sky as there are heroes in the universe. Sometimes, the light of the stars is shadowed by the dark clouds, but in the end…

“The dark clouds will be ripped apart by us!”

“Ah…”

Li Yao’s words made all the little kids forget the dread of the bombardment and the pain of being separated from their families for a moment. In their trance, they seemed to have entered a new world, one where the clouds were torn into pieces, the darkness faded away, and the heroes shined as brilliantly as stars!

“So, Little Lingdang, stop thinking, and just go to the jelly gel with your friends for a nice sleep.”

Li Yao smiled. “When you wake up, your parents will be right before you.”

“Okay!”

Little Lingdang nodded her head heavily. “I believe in Brother Li Yao. Thank you, Brother Li Yao. Brother Li Yao is the best!”

“Hehe, you don’t need to thank me. It’s mainly Boss Bai that you need to thank.”

Scratching his messy hair, Li Yao said, “Right, you haven’t forgotten what I taught you yesterday, about what you should do after we meet Boss Bai, have you?”

“Of course not, Brother Li Yao said that Boss Bai is a kind and lovely grandpa who loves children best.”

Little Lingdang said innocently, “So, after the bad guys are kicked away, Brother Li Yao will bring us to meet Boss Bai. The moment we see him, we will run to him and cling to his thigh and call him ‘Grandpa Bai’ in the sweetest voice. Then, he will be greatly touched. When he is touched, he will offer a lot of resources to us, or even give us some starships for us to live in with our mom, dad, grandfather, and grandmother temporarily. We will be able to hide somewhere unknown and rebuild our home after the war is over!”

“Exactly, Brother Li Yao has entrusted the matter to you, Little Lingdang. Remember to practice more with your friends.”

Rubbing the little girl’s head, Li Yao said, “Remember, you must cling to his thigh tightly and do not let him go. Also, you must learn the rhetoric that I taught you by your heart, well, namely the things about how he is a superhero and how he is a man of integrity and compassion, so that you can speak them aloud in public occasions when there are a lot of people. Trust me. Brother Yao is such a good man. How can I possibly deceive you? Boss Bai will certainly be moved to tears by what you do, and then he will satisfy all your wishes whatever they are!”

“Okay!”

All the children nodded their heads solemnly, eager to carry out their task.

Some of them were already practicing how to cling to Boss Bai’s thigh and how to adulate him as the greatest man in the entire universe.

“Let’s go!”

The daunting vibe was back to Li Yao. He waved his hands in excitement at Xiaoming and Wenwen, who had been dumbfounded by what he did. “It’s time to blow up the Flying Rainbow Fleet and reunite with Boss Bai!”