I Am A Prodigy

A colossal aura converged in Ye Lingchen’s hands. At that moment, his fists looked as though they were gleaming, causing the bottom of the water to begin glowing.The giant python’s body curled up slightly. It was aware of that power and began to wail in distress.

Arhat Fist Force!

Ye Lingchen’s eyes flashed brightly and he delivered a punch with his fist!

Boom!

The force caused the water to explode upward by a good ten meters, as if a bomb had gone off in deep water. The giant python’s head exploded, with flesh and blood ejected in every direction. Although its body was still swinging, its demise was clearly approaching.

Five minutes later, Ye Lingchen lifted the python’s body out of the water and threw it on the shore. Then he looked up at Old Tortoise.

Old Tortoise’s mouth was slightly ajar, and its wrinkled face looked rather humanlike in its disbelief. It was staring blankly at Ye Lingchen.

Then, it shook its head at Ye Lingchen with friendliness in its eyes. It then hummed with its mouth open.

“Old Tortoise, it’s a pity that I don’t understand tortoise language, otherwise I’d like to have a nice chat with you and ask if your ancestor is the Black Warrior.” Ye Lingchen smiled, walked to Old Tortoise’s side, then touched its thick shell.

Old Tortoise was absolutely gigantic. When its claws were spread out near Ye Lingchen’s feet, it was bigger than half of Ye Lingchen’s height.

Ye Lingchen was not afraid of Old Tortoise attacking him at all. He constantly surveyed the area around the animal.

He learned how to train animals before and could easily distinguish an animal’s hostility and kindness. In the same manner, he could also let the animals feel his kindness.

Ye Lingchen found the place where Old Tortoise was stuck and looked at the surrounding rocks. He then said gently, “Stay on your stomach. I’ll help to enlarge the hole and save you.”

“Huhuhu—”

Old Tortoise seemed capable of understanding Ye Lingchen’s words. It nodded repeatedly and thumped its forelimbs on the ground.

“Don’t panic. I’ve put myself out there as a prodigy and I’ve saved countless people by myself!” Ye Lingchen smiled and scanned the trapped areas to get a rough understanding.

He could not rely on brute force alone if he wanted to rescue Old Tortoise. Its power was much more than Ye Lingchen, and if it was unable to free itself, then Ye Lingchen would not be able to do so easily as well. Doing such things required brains, and being the prodigy that he was, the one thing Ye Lingchen did not lack was intelligence.

His Architecture not only progressed satisfactorily but even upgraded to Formation. All he had to do was find out the cave’s weak point and punch a hole in it. That way, the initially unbreakable cave could be loosened, and Old Tortoise could naturally break free and escape.

As the saying went, ‘extra skills would never be a burden’.

Ye Lingchen walked to the side of the cave and delivered one punch toward the stone!

Arhat Fist Force!

The stone shattered immediately after a loud boom. Ye Lingchen did the same thing and struck six punches all around before stopping.

He then beckoned to Old Tortoise. “Old Tortoise, try and see if you can come out.”

Old Tortoise uttered a response before closing its mouth tightly and shaking its body violently.

Crack!

Cracks began to appear on the walls of the karst cave. As Old Tortoise broke free bit-by-bit, the walls finally fell to the ground!

…

Back on the shore of the waterfall lake, the program crew’s faces grew darker and darker.

“Director, it’s been half an hour. We can’t wait any longer!” Zhao Liangying’s eyes were red and her voice was a little hoarse.

“This is an accident happening on a live broadcast. Didn’t your program crew prepare any backup?” Hu Yue’er glared at the program crew. Her pretty face was flush with red and extremely anxious.

The director’s forehead was also sweating coldly. The number of people in the live broadcast had exceeded 50 million, and the incident had turned into a big problem. He immediately said, “It’s too late to be asking for help from a search and rescue team, but we’ve already sent people to look for villagers who can swim. We’ll have them go into the water to rescue him.”

“That’s too slow. Give me an oxygen tank and I’ll head down now!” Hu Yue’er said immediately.

“I want to go down too!” Zhao Liangying was sobbing.

“Calm down, both of you. A man with as much skill as God Ye is also a brave person. He might not necessarily be in trouble, and you’d probably only add to the chaos if you go down,” He Jia persuaded.

“I don’t care. Lingchen saved my life anyway, so I’m okay with doing anything for him.” Zhao Liangying’s tears fell steadily and she looked at the waterfall lake with determination in her eyes.

At that time, the initial liveliness in the live broadcast had been replaced by silence, and the atmosphere felt rather heavy.

[God Ye…should be fine, right?]

[God Ye, come out. As long as you’re alive, I promise that I’ll be your diehard fan for the rest of my life.]

[F*ck, can the program crew’s live broadcast equipment be more reliable? F*ck!]

…

Zhang Yunxi and Xiao Feifei clenched both their hands into fists. They did not believe that something happened to Ye Lingchen.

Ouyang Qing watched the live broadcast with dilated pupils and could not help cursing, “This guy likes to show off. Now he’s paying the price for showing off.”

Whoosh!

At that moment, loud noises were suddenly heard from the originally calm waterfall lake. The water surface rose rapidly as if a certain huge creature would appear.

The water surface soon bulged like a small hill.

[It’s over. It must be that giant python rushing out!]

[The program crew’s people are finished! The giant python will surely swallow them all in one bite.]

[F*ck, a monster is born!]

Everyone at the waterfall lake was frightened. They looked at the huge waves of water with a buzzing in their brain. Their bodies then subconsciously began to retreat.

Hu Yue’er and Zhao Liangying stared at the waves blankly. Fear was absent from their faces and the only emotion they felt was sadness. If the python rushed out, it would only mean that Ye Lingchen was killed.

They felt a stabbing pain in their hearts when they thought of that and completely forgot their fear.

The waves gradually receded and the scene in front of everyone was completely different from what they thought. Instead of a giant python, it was a giant tortoise!

On the back of the giant tortoise was a young man, who sat coolly on top of it and grinned at everyone. The bright sunshine shone past his body and stung everyone’s eyes.

That young man was none other than Ye Lingchen.

“AHHHH!”

Zhao Liangying shouted in excitement. She was crying and laughing as she looked at Ye Lingchen.

Hu Yue’er covered her mouth with her hand and stared at Ye Lingchen with her beautiful eyes.

He jumped off the tortoise’s back, faced the crowd, and said plainly, “Everyone, I—Hu Hansan—am back![1]”

The next moment, Zhao Liangying and Hu Yue’er both rushed toward Ye Lingchen and flew into his arms. Tears flowed madly from their eyes and they were traumatized. “We were scared to death!”

Everyone in the program group breathed a drawn-out sigh of relief and looked at Ye Lingchen with a smile. When they looked at the giant tortoise beside Ye Lingchen however, their eyes were full of horror.

Tortoises had been a symbol of auspiciousness in people’s hearts ever since ancient times. They represented immortality and longevity. The Black Warrior was one of China’s Four Mythological Beasts, with Daoist followers venerating it as Zhenwu the Great[2]—a beast who protected the gods.

Even so, the sight of such a gigantic tortoise right before them would inevitably strike fear into their hearts.

[1] 我胡汉三又回来了 (I—Hu Hansan—am back) is a phrase that originated from a 1974 film called Sparkling Red Star (闪闪的红星). In the movie, Hu Hansan is the antagonist who terrorizes people and always uses that phrase whenever he had been beaten up, as he believed there would always be ways to restore his status. In modern web usage, it is used to describe a person who made a comeback after reaching some dire straits. Though we were tempted to give it a more Western feel by translating it as ‘I—Lazarus—have risen from the dead!’ as a reference to the famous biblical scene, we felt that it would be much better to keep to the original meaning and allow readers a taste of China’s internet terms.

[2] 真武大帝 – translated as Zhenwu the Great or Zhenwu Emperor, is a deity in Chinese religion and one of the higher-ranking deities in Daoism.