Chapter 6: Heaven is Great, Earth is Great, Dao Heart is Greatest!

"Liang, are you okay? It's me."

A somewhat breathless male voice came through the crack of the door.

The original owner of this body, Mu Liang, also had friends... even if there was only one.

Wang Jixuan's residual soul had regained some perceptive abilities after his earlier meditation, and he could now clearly sense that there was only one person standing outside the door.

—— Once his cultivation progressed beyond the Qi Refining Realm and stepped into the Gathering Spirit Realm, he would be able to condense his Spiritual Sense again. With Spiritual Sense, he could vaguely perceive objects through walls.

Wang Jixuan waited for a while, then put his modified simple mace back behind the door, unlocked the inner lock, and opened the door a crack.

A thin, small young man appeared before him.

This guy, named Lou Zhuang, was usually called 'Ma Lou,' a poor sod just like Mu Liang, who had to give up two food portions each day to buy emergency food and hand it over to the local thugs of the area.

These thugs would take the emergency food to Lower City, trade it as merchandise, and obtain various rare items.

By the way, even these thugs had to fulfill their own duties in Middle City.

Thus, many times, victims like Mu Liang and Lou Zhuang had to contribute their own food portions and engage in extra labor not part of their actual jobs.

'All are people with hard lives, I will surely find a way to avenge Mu Liang later,' thought Wang Jixuan with a silent sigh, then showed a slight smile and opened the door wider.

"Come in."

"Liang... Are you all right?"

Lou Zhuang stared intently at Wang Jixuan's neck, where there were still some bruises.

"I heard they said you seemed to go to the medical room, that you were even carried there by the emergency team."

Wang Jixuan quickly reviewed the past interactions between Mu Liang and Lou Zhuang, shrugged his shoulders with a touch of helplessness and decadence in his voice, and said, "I tried before, I just couldn't do it... At the last moment, I still ended up tearing the bedsheet apart."

"It's difficult, all that matters is you're fine, I mean... um... want to eat something? It's almost breakfast time, if you're okay, how about we go eat something together?"

Lou Zhuang's smile was a bit unnatural.

With his hands in the pockets of his faded jeans, his gaze slightly averted, he continued:

"I'm not very good at comforting others, how about I treat you to a starch stick?"

Wang Jixuan thought to himself 'troublesome,' but smiled amiably: "Then I'll be taking half of your food portion."

"No big deal, I don't eat much anyway."

As Lou Zhuang turned around, he saw the cardboard box at the corner of the single bed and the clothes inside it, along with the silver-white ring-shaped holographic music player.

"Liang, what are you packing up for?"

Wang Jixuan gave a simple explanation: "I'm thinking of moving the bed to a different spot."

"I thought you were moving out, changing areas is a good idea, a way to avoid... how about we go eat in another section..."

Lou Zhuang stuttered a bit.

Wang Jixuan watched him with a smile, Lou Zhuang pursed his lips and swallowed, his smile slightly forced.

"Hmm?"

"What I mean is... your music player is great, could I borrow it for a day afterward?"

"Sure, but that'll be three starch sticks."

"You really have the potential to be a capitalist vampire!"

Lou Zhuang complained as if frustrated, then lowered his head and quickly exited through the alloy door.

Wang Jixuan's eyes flickered slightly, and before stepping out he casually took the new and old room cards, and stuck a fine metal tube, refined repeatedly by Mu Liang, into the sleeve of his coat.

Ma Lou was acting very strangely today.

...

In the territorial division of No. 76 Fortress's Middle City, each floor housed between six thousand and twenty thousand people, depending on the scale of industrial and agricultural land use.

The Thirteenth Floor housed thirteen thousand people, with relatively more residential areas.

Although the Fortress had been running beyond its limits for more than one hundred and twenty years, and all facilities were outdated, except for a few such as the [Compartment Medical Rooms] and [Emergency Food Vending Machines] on each 'capillary' street which still maintained a high operation rate, most equipment was barely functioning and in constant need of repair.

For instance, the surveillance cameras meant to cover every corner of Middle City, now only one third were in working order.

Areas with denser surveillance camera coverage naturally enjoyed peace;

The darkness and disarray of Middle City punctuated these tranquil spaces.

Wang Jixuan compared the route in his memory and found that they indeed seemed to be heading towards the section's cafeteria.

Looking for conversation, Lou Zhuang said, "Liang, I remember you can have genetic matching next year, right?"

Genetic matching entailed that Level 3, 4, and 5 Citizens of the Fortress, at the age of twenty-five, would receive a gene pairing suggestion from the Fortress's intelligent control center. A Fertility Officer would then visit and deliver a confidential letter, detailing the state-recommended 'most likely to produce quality offspring' partner of the opposite sex.

The Fertility Officer would offer counseling, lectures on breeding postures, knowledge on physiological hygiene, and some dating tips.

Couples who got married through successful genetic matching could enjoy some privileges, such as a +1 to each person's class 3 quota, some credits for citizen upgrades, and so on.

This was an important measure to prevent inbreeding, and it was a way of marriage approved by over seventy percent of the Fortress's population.

—— Although, according to a survey, amongst the young unmarried citizens of the Fortress, fifty-five percent were labeled as part of the sexually liberal demographic.

"Yes," Wang Jixuan nodded, "What about you?"

"I still have two years," said Lou Zhuang with a grimace, "I really hope it comes soon, after getting married we can apply for a sixteen square meter double room, and most of the double rooms are in areas with good security."

Wang Jixuan nodded again, then suddenly asked, "The Black Fire Gang, did they look for you?"

Lou Zhuang immediately glanced aside: "No, they didn't come for me."

"You don't actually have to be too afraid," Wang Jixuan consoled. "They've drained you almost dry, but as the saying goes, evil cannot overcome righteousness. As long as we find more people bullied by them to join forces, we can surely settle old scores with them."

Lou Zhuang looked at Wang Jixuan with full of curiosity.

He asked quietly, "Didn't you say before, according to the psychology books you've read, that once a victim of bullying chooses to step back once, they never get another chance to resist...?"

"People's views can change."

Wang Jixuan squinted and smiled, his gaze sweeping past the 'Capillary' street entrance they had just passed.

Two young men appeared behind them, both dressed in tight leather pants and jackets, adorned with studded elements, their hairstyles more flamboyant than the other.

Wang Jixuan suddenly stopped in his tracks.

But the two young men behind him came straight up, one of them reaching out to push Wang Jixuan's head.

"You motherfucker, move it! There's a camera here!"

Wang Jixuan simply tilted his head and sidestepped, his movements casual and smooth, but the other man forcefully pushed at air.

Bang!

The muffled sound of an elbow strike reverberated through Lou Zhuang's eardrums.

The gang member's face turned red with anger as he glared with bulging eyes. He was almost out of breath from fury, and the pain from his ribs made veins on his forehead bulge.

Lou Zhuang and the other thug were clearly stunned.

What... is happening...?

Daoist Master Wang's elbow throbbed in pain.

Wang Jixuan didn't give the other a chance to retaliate. He twisted his body and chopped down, a karate chop striking the other thug's face. The latter was baffled, stumbling back two steps before clutching his nose and starting to wail after a delay of two seconds.

"Holy shit! Ah! My nose! My nose! I'll fucking kill you!"

Wang Jixuan looked at Lou Zhuang with a smile and kicked him.

Lou Zhuang had no time to dodge; his skinny body staggered backward and fell, his back slamming hard against a row of rusted pipes in the hallway. His pained and contorted face showed different shades in the dim light.

"Liang, don't hit me. They forced me... They said they wanted to talk to you..."

"From now on, you and I have nothing to do with each other."

Wang Jixuan said with a cold face, feeling a sense of relief deep inside.

The so-called human affection is indeed fragile.

He was about to turn away when the grating noise of a metal pipe dragging across the concrete floor reached his ears.

Shadows emerged in the corridor ahead, at least sixteen or seventeen of them.

In the fortress with many old pipelines, those alloy metal pipes that were dismantled before the officials could reclaim them had become the most common weapon.

Wang Jixuan cursed in his mind, sensing trouble.

His strength now was only slightly above that of an ordinary human. Even if he took down a few with the Warrior Spell quickly, he would fall into unconsciousness from expending too much soul power.

But he wasn't the sort to beg for mercy when faced with the strong.

In the path of cultivation, what matters is an unharmed Dao Heart and a clear mind. If he were to kneel and beg for mercy in this situation, he might develop a psychological barrier that would impede his own cultivation in the future.

That would be even more agonizing than being killed outright!

He quickly contemplated his next move. Several spells were already on the tip of his tongue, ready to be recited.

The two thugs that had been hit were now emboldened, cursing and clenching their fists, eager to try again.

The young man leading the group slung a baseball bat over his shoulder, casually circling his arms behind him to rest on the bat, in a carefree stance, and called out:

"Mu Liang? What the fuck did you do to get the big shots of the Black Fire Gang to personally send a message to break your legs and take you away?

"You're quite bold, eh? How come I never noticed that before?

"Tell us, you pus-filled trash, how did you get into their hands?"

A smirk appeared in Wang Jixuan's eyes.

It wasn't that he remembered this leading guy's name was something like 'Rotten Fish and Shrimp'; it was just that his posture was a bit... too convenient for capture.

"I haven't done anything."

Wang Jixuan made his legs quiver, showing an unconscious tendency to retreat.

The thugs, confident in their numbers and bolstered by the cowardly impression Mu Liang had left them with, didn't pay any mind to the two who had been beaten earlier.

The group approached languidly.

Wang Jixuan suddenly said, "Maybe it's because I know a Security Captain. I think his name is Zhou Zhengde."

The leader of the thugs paused, frowning, and asked, "What? Who?"

"I'm saying, Zhou..."

Whoosh!

"In the Five Mountains and Eight Seas Cave, Taixuan is supreme! I roam freely in Dao Heng Ziran!"

With a turn, Wang Jixuan dashed forward like a leopard, his mouth quickly whispering spells!

In almost the blink of an eye, his soul power was used to bolster himself, and in a flash, he became a lightning bolt shooting out seven or eight meters along the way he came, sprinting with full speed!

In that moment, he even shattered the pre-cataclysm human athletes' record for burst speed!

The thugs were collectively dumbfounded.

Wasn't this guy just in front of them a moment ago...?

The leader 'Rotten Fish' quivered his lips a few times, cursing loudly: "Chase him! What are you dazed for? Fucking kill him!"