Chapter 1625: Willow Town
Chapter 1625: Willow Town
Wu Yu felt like all his senses had been dulled.
He finally managed to crack open his eyes with difficulty, and saw a young couple before him. He did not recognize them.
He was sure that he had never seen them in his life before.
Yet they were looking excitedly at him, and he was picked up into the woman’s arms......
"I’m a baby?" Wu Yu very quickly realized. This might well be an illusion, a test by the Graveguarding Palace.
And yet everything felt so real. He could not detect a single flaw to prove this was not reality.
He opened his eyes and looked around him. The young couple had taken him into an ordinary looking courtyard. They looked ecstatic that he had been born, and seemed intent on inviting friends and family over to celebrate.
Wu Yu opened his mouth to speak, but could only manage a gusty wail. This made them even more pleased, and they looked at him like he was a precious treasure.
"This is real?"
Wu Yu was reeling from it. He wanted to get out of this illusion, but he was now in an infant’s body. He could not even get out of the woman’s arms, let alone the illusion as a whole.
"The last test was to overcome oneself. That was a test of will and endurance!"
"What is this test? Am I supposed to do something within this illusion?"
Wu Yu continued to think hard. Since he could not get free for now, then he would wait and see.
The situation was dangerous, but he already knew that this room would not be any walk in the park either, so he was not too surprised.
Although he was in an infant’s body, but his thoughts were still his own. Therefore, he understood the couple’s words. In a few days, he understood the situation well.
He was in a place called Willow Town. It was a little hamlet in the Dong Yue Wu Kingdom in the mortal domain, and far away from Capital Wu.
Of course, "far away" was in the context of mortals. Wu Yu himself could cover the distance hundreds of times over with just one somersault.
His "father" was called Yang Fan, and his mother Liu Yue. There were many born with the family name Liu and Yang in the town, and neither Yang Fan nor Liu Yue were well-to-do by any means.
[TN: Yang Liu is Willow Town, and usually the powerful would have the same name as the place.]
Yang Fan operated a shop in the city, hawking some textiles as an ordinary businessman. He was not considered much even in this sleepy town, let alone the entirety of the Dong Yue Wu Kingdom.
"I wonder what year it is in this dream?"
Wu Yu wondered. However, he was but an infant, and there were too many things that he could not find out.
In the following days of celebration, he listened intently to the conversations. Willow Town barely mentioned Capital Wu at all.
Let alone immortals, or cultivation!
It had been four or five days since Wu Yu was born. He had yet to hear anyone even mention martial artists, which did not bode well for his future in Willow Town.
"Could it be that the this dream is trying to get me to start low, to test if I can still persevere onto the path of dao?" Wu Yu thought. Nothing was known for now.
Another guess was that he had actually died, and was now reincarnated......
Of course, this fancy only flitted through his mind, but did not linger.
His thoughts were still the same as in the Graveguarding Palace, as though he were borrowing an outsider’s view to see this world.
He continued in his infant body, bathed in care and comfort that Liu Yue showered on him. Wu Yu felt like time was barely crawling by, which made him uncomfortable.
Back when he had his revelation about chronowarp heavenly rule, Wu Yu realized that his lifespan determined his perception of time’s speed.
As a mortal, time felt incredibly slow. After all, 100 years was a life, and every year passed in colorful fashion.
But as he became a real immortal, and inherited a lifespan of hundreds of thousands of years, then 100 years was a blink of the eye. Each time he secluded himself to breakthrough, he took thousands of years.
Therefore, through his perception of time inherited from the chronowarp heavenly rule, Wu Yu could determine his rough level.
As an infant, time barely moved. This was not a simple illusion......
The first month passed in excruciatingly slow fashion.
He was thinking of going to Capital Wu to see what was going on when he grew a bit bigger.
But even after a long, long time had passed, it was only a mere month!
For his 1-month celebration, Yang Fan and Liu Yue held a feast, inviting friends, family, and Yang Fan’s business partners.
This was the first time that Wu Yu saw such a grand scene.
"This is Yang Chen? Haha, bright eyes on this one. You’ve a good son there, second brother! Hawhaw!"
Yang Fan’s big brother guffawed and slapped him on the back in congratulations.
Yang Chen. This was Wu Yu’s name in the new world, a name that Yang Fan and Liu Yue had thought hard over.
"Not bad at all. This kid is going to grow up into something. You’ll live a good life from now on, Yang Fan!" Another distant relative also said cheerily.
This was Wu Yu’s 1-month party. After a month, parents would typically invite friends and family over, a sort of announcement that one had a new child.
There were many guests who came to offer congratulations, but Wu Yu appeared strange to them.
In their eyes, Wu Yu was Yang Chen - a 1-month old baby. Being confronted with so many people at once usually incited loud bawling.
Wu Yu was completely silent, his eyes constantly roving around the guests. No detail seemed to escape him, and he looked to be searching for something.
Of course, Wu Yu was looking for any flaw in the scene, which would allow him to undo the illusion.
But no matter how hard he looked, the setting was seamless. Yang Fan and Liu Yue entertained their guests, who provided good cheer and spoke about interesting matters of late.
Every last detail was clear, and Wu Yu was still uncertain if this was illusion or reality.
A voice in his head told him that this was definitely an illusion, a test by Graveguarding Palace. Everything was simply so realistic that he could not escape it.
He did not cry at all, sitting quietly in Liu Yue’s arms.
This marked him as very unique indeed, especially among the other children of Willow Town. Many of the guests were puzzled, and noted his eyes, which were full of an uncommon intelligence.
Both Yang Fan and Liu Yue were of course pleased. Everyone hoped that their child could become someone important in the future.
"I heard that a while ago, a mountain came to Longhu Mountain. He accosted many merchants, and plundered their wares and killed them too. Terrible!"
"Tis so. But I heard the old martial teacher in Willow Town, Master Yang Bai, has already set off to deal with the bandit. We’ll probably hear good news in a day or two."
"Master Yang Bai is a martial artist. He’s not like us ordinary folk. I heard that he killed a tiger with one punch in his youth. That’s awesome."
Hearing them talk about fighting made Wu Yu feel an inexplicable wrenching within him.
This level was way too low for him. Even a martial artist at his peak would have pitiful strength. His lifespan was no different from a mortal’s. To Wu Yu, martial arts were merely part of the mortal realm.
But in Willow Town, even a martial artist was rare, let alone a dao cultivator.
As for immortals, that was beyond imagination.
To the people of Willow Town, any martial cultivator who passed by was probably as good as a god. For example, if Heavenly Immortal Hao Tian came to Willow Town, they would probably all worship him reverently.
It was said that a real immortal had come to Willow Town before, but that was a few hundred years ago. It was a tale passed down through the generations, and even that had faded away.
Such was the situation of Willow Town.
Wu Yu felt a prickle of anxiety. He wanted to grow up quickly, to go to Capital Wu and take a look. That was the only thing he wanted.
Evidently, sticking around Willow Town was going to do nothing to break the illusion.
Therefore, he had to go far. But that was predicated on him growing a little bigger. How could an infant go to a faraway place like Capital Wu?
The feast was over. Before long, news came that Master Yang Bai of Willow Town had decimated all of the mountain bandits, and even caught a few of their leaders back to Willow Town.
Yang Fan went to take a look, but Wu Yu was held by Liu Yue, and did not bring him. After all, he was still too small, and not able to leave the house yet. An accident could easily kill him at such a tender age.
"As expected of Master Yang Bai! He is said to be skillful enough to kill a tiger. Anything is possible! What a man! If I were 20 years younger, I too would definitely practice martial arts, and become a martial artist!" After Yang Fan returned, he was full of praise for Master Yang Bai. He lamented that he had lost the chance to become a martial artist.
Liu Yue laughingly scolded him: "Martial arts requires talent as well, you know. The number of martially talented people in Willow Town can be counted on one hand. You? Forget it. But maybe if our little Yang Chen is interested."
"This kid, honestly his bones are quite weak. Martial arts are out of the question for him. It would be a blessing if he could just live well. Martial arts are really dangerous, you know?" Yang Fan doted on Wu Yu/Yang Chen. However, he could see that his son had a delicate physique, and martial arts were not suited for him.