Chapter 779: Wind and Clouds Gather

This was Chen Ling's first time seeing a lion dance with his own eyes.

The exquisite headpiece, interwoven with red and gold, swayed gently in the wind. Its incredibly realistic fur rippled, and the lion's body, like a cloak, agilely leaped above the train, drawing the attention of many passersby.

The figure leaped from the sidewalk onto a tall lamppost, then lightly floated down onto the front of a rushing train, before tracing a long arc and steadily flying to the top of a traffic light.

It sat in mid-air like a lion, shook its head, and its ring-filled eyes blinked nimbly twice. Then, with a backflip, it leaped to the other side of the street, pushing off twice like ivy climbing a wall, soaring into the air!

The lifelike lion flew past the window. In that instant, its eyes met those of Chen Ling, who was sitting by the window.

Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly.

The lion dance flashed past, followed immediately by cheers and applause.

"Amazing! Is this some kind of performance?"

"I don't know... I've never seen it before. Is that lion real?"

"Of course it's a person. I just watched him put on the costume and headpiece by the street. Look, there's a sign over there, and an empty bowl too."

"What does it say...? 'Life is hard, lion performs, crowdfunding for lunch, helping dreams...'"

"Seriously, those two moves just now were really impressive. I'll go drop some money in for him..."

"Count me in, I happen to have some change."

While waiting for the traffic light, pedestrians by the street seemed to be in good spirits after watching such an excellent performance. Loose copper coins were dropped into the empty bowl, quickly accumulating.

The lion leaped down from the rooftop, landing beside the handwritten wooden sign and iron bowl.

He removed the headpiece, revealing a smiling young face. With hands pressed together, he continuously thanked the passersby who had given him money. Seeing his handsome appearance, several girls passing by couldn't resist adding a few more copper coins.

"It's a lion dance, surprisingly," Chen Ling murmured thoughtfully.

"Lion dance? What's a lion dance?" Spades 9, seemingly also captivated by the performance, asked curiously upon hearing Chen Ling's words.

"A lion dance is just a lion dance... Haven't you seen it before?"

"No, I've never seen or even heard of it."

It was then that Chen Ling realized that after the Great Cataclysm, many things had been buried beneath the ruins of war. In fact, very few people had seen lion dances even before the Cataclysm, and even fewer still practiced them. In the three centuries following the Cataclysm, many former cultural treasures had completely disappeared.

To witness a lion dance in this era was indeed a very rare and fortunate occurrence.

The light turned green, and the surrounding pedestrians moved forward. The young man hugged the lion headpiece, while with his other hand, he scooped up all the earned copper coins, carefully counted them, and mumbled to himself:

"After deducting the registration fee, I'm left with sixteen copper coins... enough for lunch."

He first looked up in the direction of the high-end restaurant where Chen Ling was, caught sight of its splendidly decorated storefront, and a slight twitch appeared at the corner of his mouth. Then he silently walked into the steamed bun shop behind him.

"Boss, how much are the steamed buns?"

"Vegetable ones are one coin each, meat ones are two coins each."

"I want eight meat buns!"

"How many???" The boss suspected he had misheard.

"Eight!"

The boss gave him a strange look. "Are you going to eat all that by yourself?"

Sun Bumian smiled without answering, simply moving a small stool to sit by the roadside. While caressing the lion headpiece beside him, his stomach rumbled.

Just then, he seemed to sense something, suddenly turning his head to look at the other side of the road.

At the end of the road, a dark, oppressive mass, like a cloud, slowly drifted towards them. It was a group of mysterious figures dressed in black robes, with silver clouds embroidered on their cuffs and hems. Wide hoods concealed their faces.

Their heights varied: some were as tall as two or three stories, others only reached a normal person's knees, and some even walked stiffly and eerily, like zombies crawling out of the ground. The moment this group appeared, the temperature throughout the street seemed to drop sharply.

The instant they appeared, the pedestrians who had been walking on the street froze. Perhaps influenced by their oppressive aura, people unconsciously moved to the sides to avoid them.

Whoosh—

A gentle breeze swept through the street, lifting a corner of one of the black-robed figures' hoods.

A woman nearest to him saw what was beneath the hood and immediately screamed in terror, collapsing onto the ground and frantically scrambling backward!

Seeing this, the slender black-robed figure immediately lowered his head, used his hand to pull the hood back over his face, and quickly walked forward.

"This is..." Chen Ling's brows furrowed increasingly as he watched the approaching group from afar.

Seeing this, Spades 9 also spoke up, surprised, "Why are people from the Xuan Yu Realm here...?"

"What?"

"They are the Esoteric Sect of the Xuan Yu Realm, all of them practitioners of the 'Occasional Divine Path.' You can think of them as the 'Fleeting Life' of the Mortal Realm, or the Enforcers of the Aurora Realm."

"Managers of the Xuan Yu Realm? Why aren't they guarding the Xuan Yu Realm? What are they doing in Tian Shu?"

"I don't know," Spades 9 said, rubbing his chin. "However, these people generally don't have high ranks, and they're not very old... It seems the five great realms are planning something else."

As they spoke, the traffic light blinked and changed, and the group of black-robed figures paused at the intersection.

"Although Tian Shu Realm has convenient transportation and bustling streets, the food doesn't seem to be very good," one of the black-robed figures said, turning his head. "Young Master, I see a Comet Restaurant up ahead. It looks quite decent... How about we go there to eat?"

A dark figure at the center of the group, after a moment of silence, glanced at Sun Bumian by the roadside, who was frantically stuffing steamed buns into his mouth.

The moment he felt the gaze, Sun Bumian, who was eating the bun, paused. He silently took a bite out of the bun, then slowly chewed, seemingly a little embarrassed.

"That person is eating so deliciously... I want a bun too," the Young Master said sullenly.

"...Young Master, before we left, the Sect Master specifically instructed you to get plenty of nutrition while you're away. Otherwise, what if you can't defeat the leaders of the other divine paths? The Sect Master has placed great hopes on you this time..."

"But..."

"Young Master, let's just go to the Comet Restaurant. I think they might have king crab there."

"Alright then..."

With the Young Master's sigh, the group, after the light turned green, moved in a bustling crowd towards the Comet Restaurant across the street.

Sun Bumian by the roadside swallowed the remaining bun in one gulp, slightly pulled down the small round sunglasses on his nose, and with his eyes fixed on the retreating figures, a faint smile played on his lips.

"Xuan Yu Realm, 'Occasional Divine Path,' huh..."