Chapter 18 (1/2)

Drizzly moonlight coupled with a stream of stars trickled sluggishly in the proximity of Chu Feng. From a distance, it seemed like a dense layer of misty fog enshrouded Chu Feng in a sea of puffing steam.

This gave Chu Feng a rather cozy feeling. As he carried out the special breathing pattern, a smell of delightful fragrance wheezed out of his mouth and lingered about his nostrils.

There had been many historical records depicting the strange phenomenon of immortality that belonged to some old Taoist Priests or Eminent Monks. Their body and their flesh could endure the decomposing air as years went by. They were seemingly dead, but their body could remain intact for thousands of years while giving off a delicate smell of fragrance.

Some said this was due to years of immersion in the process of cinnabar making that made their body immune to the decomposing bacteria in the air. This could also explain the delightful smells of musk emanating from their bodies.

Some scholars believed that everyone should have been born with musk-like smell, but the world was a foul and filthy place, and as such, only a minority of people could exude this true smell of human origin.

Right now, a thin layer of misty smoke was whizzing about his mouth and nose. The air was suffused with a light smell of incense. He could even taste a luscious sweetness in his saliva.

This was a strange way of breathing that followed some specially designated rhythms. Chu Feng could feel the lightness in his body. He felt weightless, as if he was about to depart from earth into the vault of sky above.

This breathing rhythm seemed to have improved his physical sensations. He felt his body full of joy and vitality.

It was not long before Yellow Ox opened its eyes. It pointed one of its fore hooves to the sky and the other to the ground. It made a few bellow then ended the breathing exercise.

Chu Feng also halted the exercise. Although the process had not lasted long, Chu Feng felt that his body was saturated with vigor and vitality. This saturated state meant that any further endeavour in trying to continue the exercise would be fruitless anyway.

”Snap!”

Suddenly, Chu Feng heard a wave of cracking noise rippling around him. It was the cracking of the yard walls. The ground gently quaked. Although the tremor was not of an enormous magnitude, one could easily sense this temblor of the earth.

”Earthquake?”

Then, he heard cries and wails of shock and terror throughout the village.

All of a sudden, all the streetlights went out in perfect unison as the lights from each household also flickered then extinguished in concordance. The power supply had been cut off.

At the same time, Chu Feng discovered that the signal on his communicator had also drastically weakened before it became disconnected.

”Moo!”

Yellow Ox growled as its pupils shone in the darkness. It raised its head and looked up in the direction of the Taihang Mountains. There were blossoms of purple lights as well as some trickling silver luminescence on the mountain.

Vaguely, a rumble rose from the distance.

This marked the beginning of another episode of drastic changes. Although the location seemed distant, he could feel an air of immense pressure clasping around his body.

”Look! More mountains are emerging!”

Chu Feng was shocked. He saw more mountains and hills cropping up out of the void in the distant Taihang Mountains. Some even measured hundreds of thousands of zhang in height, striking an even more imposing pose than the mountains that appeared earlier.

Was this the true colors of Taihang Mountains?

Turmoil rippled across the town. People's outcry of terror could be heard throughout the village.

The ground was also stretching itself in all directions. Some of the streets had become broken and disconnected. Some houses started cracking as fissures of horrific width started crawling up the houses' wall.

Fortunately, these changes did not happen at a lightning speed.

This was doomed to be another restless night.

There were all sorts of screams and exclamations, but all carried an undertone that suggested fear and terror.

Boom!

A building collapsed.

”Mom, I'm scared!”

”Purr! Grandma, what is happening. I'm so scared.”

Children were crying in fear.

Qingyang Town had fallen into chaos in only one evening. This seemed to foreshadow something even meaner, something even more chaotic. It preluded a series of more tumultuous events that no-one could prevent.

Chu Feng ran out into the village. He wanted to save those who had been buried under the debris of collapsed houses. To his relief, there were not many casualties involved. Many had already managed to abandon the houses before they became ruins.

A quarter of the houses from the town had crumpled. Most happened in the northern part of the village. The dilapidated buildings looked as if they had been pulled apart by some mysterious force as there were generally a considerable gap between each crumbled houses.

Most buildings from the east, the south and the west seemed still intact. Some houses were only partly damaged where minor fissures appeared on the wall, but they were far from the state of becoming a dilapidated building.