“A master, a master, a supreme master? Heh, back in the day, I’d have thought you hadn’t woken up yet, but now…” Yin Mengfan smiled and shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. Perhaps there truly are people in this world beyond our ability to imagine or measure.”
“Do you know? I even asked him if he knew accounting, if he understood finance, if he was good at sales? Turns out he knew absolutely none of it! I thought he was just some useless freeloader!” As Yin Mengfan said this, she burst into laughter.
Cao Kefei’s eyes widened. “No way! What kind of brilliant-looking freeloader is that? Are you blind?”
“Alas, yes. I, Yin Mengfan, have been grappling in the marketplace since I was eighteen, for over a decade now. I usually pride myself on having a pair of fiery golden eyes, never misjudging a person. But today, this eighty-year-old mother has been tricked by a child! I misjudged him!” Yin Mengfan let out a bitter smile and a long, slow sigh. “I thought I had someone handsome but useless—all flash, no substance. Who knew I got a fierce dragon capable of overturning rivers and seas! Zhou Qin, oh Zhou Qin, you really know how to deliver people to me! What am I supposed to do with such a powerhouse?”
Cao Kefei looked at Yin Mengfan in disbelief. “What? You have such a powerhouse and you don’t know how to use him? Give him to me! I’ll hire him at a premium!”
Yin Mengfan shot her a look. “Dream on! Someone this formidable? It’s good enough just keeping him as a guardian deity in my company. We have plenty of beauties here, and plenty of monsters too. Heh, let’s see who dares cause trouble at our company now!”
Cao Kefei’s eyes darted around, and she plastered a fawning smile on her face. “Oh, President Yin, you know I’ve been having a lot of trouble lately. Can I borrow him for a few days?”
Yin Mengfan and Cao Kefei had a very close private relationship. She glanced at Cao Kefei, seeming to weigh something, then suddenly mused aloud, “Oh, I think I mentioned that one of our advertising campaign proposals in the planning department ran into some issues during deployment last time…”
Cao Kefei laughed and scolded, “Aha! You’re taking advantage of my trouble, aren’t you? Fine, fine. It’s just an advertising proposal, right? I’ll fix it for you. Problem solved now?”
Yin Mengfan snapped her fingers with a crisp sound. “President Cao truly gets the message. Fine, Li Yundong is loaned to you for two days! But…”
Seeing Yin Mengfan pivot, Cao Kefei couldn’t help but scold petulantly, “Hey, that’s going too far! Don’t push it!”
Yin Mengfan leaned close to Cao Kefei with a suggestive smile and whispered, “Hey, what exactly did you feel just now?”
Cao Kefei’s face flushed crimson instantly. She angrily pounced on Yin Mengfan, pinching and hitting her. “You wretched girl, you’re tired of living!”
Yin Mengfan laughed heartily, blocking and resisting. “You screamed so loud! I was just curious!”
Cao Kefei laughed, cursing back, “If you’re curious, go try it yourself! What good is asking me?”
The two beautiful, mature women tumbled about playfully inside the office. Outside, the staff buzzed with excited conversation about what had just happened, as the vast majority of them would never witness such an extraordinary event in their lifetimes.
After returning to the nineteenth floor, Li Yundong sat down at his newly assigned desk. The employees on that floor who had witnessed his miraculous deeds exchanged whispers while stealthily glancing at him. Those who missed the event crowded around to listen to the low-voiced accounts of what transpired.
After giving his statement to the police, by noon, Li Yundong noticed white-collar workers finding excuses to walk past his desk, their gazes treating him like an alien visitor from another world.
Although Qi Condensation could improve one’s composure and calmness, being stared at like this all day long would be unbearable even for a true Immortal!
By the afternoon, the situation escalated. A pretty, slender female white-collar worker, clearly confident in her looks, paused by Li Yundong’s desk while passing and quietly slipped a small note onto it.
Li Yundong had been sitting at his desk resting with his eyes closed, doing nothing in particular. When he noticed movement in front of him, he opened his eyes just in time to see a beauty glide past. As she left, she shot him a sultry look and left a note on his desk.
Li Yundong picked up the note and glanced at it. It read: Handsome, my name is Xia Yu. Here is my cell number. How about dinner tonight?
Below the text was a very artistically rendered heart shape, inside which was written a string of phone numbers.
What made Li Yundong smile wryly was that while the beauty’s script was flowing and elegant, she had rendered the string of Arabic numerals with such artistic flair that Li Yundong stared at it for a long time, unable to decipher what the numbers actually were!
Li Yundong stared at the note in a daze, a look that secretly irritated the other beauties who were constantly sneaking glances at him: That Xia Yu is truly shameless!
Immediately after, these other beauties also took action, slipping slips of paper onto his desk as they passed.
The male employees in the office were turning red with jealousy, unable to focus on their work at all. Even those whose looks were relatively average sighed wistfully, filled with self-pity.
Yin Mengfan, passing by the large office door by chance, felt a headache coming on when she saw the scene: Have these people all gone lovesick? How is the company supposed to function like this?
Yin Mengfan tapped on the door of the large office and cleared her throat. “Li Yundong, come with me for a moment.”
Li Yundong acted as if he had been granted amnesty and quickly followed Yin Mengfan into her office.
The beauties in the office who hadn't managed to pass a note yet crumpled them into balls with frustrated expressions and tossed them into the trash bin. Those who had been wary of each other exchanged glances, suddenly united by a common grievance: “That stone-cold woman is making a move too? Alas, these days, even the most handsome guys can’t escape being kept by rich women!”
“Save it, sisters. These days, the poor cultivate themselves, and the rich sponsor the world!” one beautiful woman declared loudly with pointed sarcasm.
A burst of roaring laughter filled the office.
Although Yin Mengfan’s office was soundproofed, the laughter could still be faintly heard. She shook her head inwardly, rubbed her temples with frustration, and said to Li Yundong, “Sit down.”
Li Yundong, feeling numb after the day’s commotion, sat down, fixing his gaze on his nose, his nose on his heart—adopting an attitude of non-violent non-cooperation against all the strange looks.
Yin Mengfan watched Li Yundong sit there as if in deep meditation, completely unaffected by the presence of a vibrant, fragrant beauty like herself standing beside him. This even made her, a woman who usually had little interest in men, feel a flicker of irritation: Is this guy pretending I don’t exist?
“Fine, let’s see how long you can sit there!” Yin Mengfan snapped, and after making him sit, she stopped speaking to him or even looking at him.
Li Yundong was perfectly happy with the quiet. He no longer had to worry about being gawked at like an animal in the office, nor about being suddenly interrupted. Thus, he sat cross-legged by himself, his eyelids slightly lowered, beginning his Qi practice with his eyes closed.
Li Yundong had already completed the third stage of 'Concentrating Spirit.' Practicing Qi no longer required him to be in a fixed place at a fixed time for the best results, as it had before.
In the reign of Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty, Xue Daoguang, who abandoned monasticism for Daoism, wrote in his Chapter on Returning the Elixir to Fulfill the Mandate: Cultivating the elixir does not require seeking the Winter Solstice; a single spark of Yang energy arises within the body!
Li Yundong was in that exact state now. No matter when or where, the energy within his body was like a perpetually burning furnace with an unquenchable flame. In the center of that furnace, a small wisp of pure Yang energy was constantly burning and leaping, ready to ignite into a prairie fire with the slightest provocation!
Although Li Yundong was continuously cultivating Qi, he was unaware that when he practiced, spectral manifestations known as the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown and the Five Breaths Returning to the Origin would appear above his head. Therefore, he didn't hide his practice from Yin Mengfan, contentedly entertaining himself.
Before long, faintly visible white mist began to rise from the Baihui acupoint atop Li Yundong's head, resembling a stick of incense, condensed and unscattered, only diffusing outwards toward the ceiling.
Yin Mengfan didn't notice at first, but when she casually glanced at Li Yundong, she was stunned, and a thought flashed through her mind: Good heavens, is this guy a living immortal? This… this is too exaggerated!
Yin Mengfan stared at the dazed Li Yundong until a call rang on her desk. She snapped out of her stupor, took a sharp breath, and answered. It was Zhou Qin.
“Mengfan, it’s me. Are you free right now?” Zhou Qin asked from the other end.
Yin Mengfan, while still observing Li Yundong, replied in a low voice, “Mm-hmm, I’m free.”
Hearing the oddness in Yin Mengfan’s voice, Zhou Qin couldn't help but ask, “What’s wrong? Are you in a meeting?”
“Not in a meeting,” Yin Mengfan said.
“Then why do you sound like you’re sneaking around?” Zhou Qin asked, puzzled.
Yin Mengfan gave a wry smile toward the unmoving, entranced Li Yundong. “It’s all because of this powerhouse you sent me!”
Zhou Qin had called specifically to inquire about Li Yundong. Hearing this, she instantly brightened. “How is Li Yundong? Is he doing alright there?” Then, remembering Li Yundong’s tendency towards being impulsive and quick to anger, she added, “Oh, by the way, he has a bit of a temper, so you’ll have to be patient with him.”
Yin Mengfan sighed bitterly. “His temper is indeed a bit rough. On his very first day, he lectured me. And if lecturing me was all he did, he even lectured Shen Hui!”
Zhou Qin paused. “Shen Hui? Your cousin? Shen Conghai’s daughter? The young lady of the Shen family?”
Yin Mengfan sighed bitterly. “Yes, he scolded her so badly she burst into tears and ran off!”
Zhou Qin let out a peal of laughter. “Well, that fits his style perfectly. But I heard Shen Hui is quite a beauty; he could bring himself to yell at her?”
Yin Mengfan said softly, “Isn’t that true? It’s practically destroying delicate flowers with harsh words! Tell me, who exactly is this friend of yours? He doesn’t seem entirely human to me!”
Sensing the shift in her tone, Zhou Qin’s heart tightened. She couldn't help but ask, “Did something happen to him?”
Yin Mengfan briefly recounted the day’s events, then glanced at Li Yundong. “I’m telling you, Zhou Qin, where did you find such a powerhouse? It’s too much! He barely seems human! I don’t even know how to use him!”
Zhou Qin held her phone, listening as Yin Mengfan recounted Li Yundong’s deeds, a slight smile playing on her lips, a smile brimming with satisfaction and joy—happier than if someone had praised her a hundred times over. “So you see he’s a powerhouse now? I wasn't wrong, was I?”
Yin Mengfan nodded her head like a chick pecking at grain. “Too strong, too monstrous…” Then, she covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her voice. “He’s in my office right now, sitting cross-legged like a Daoist priest or a monk, practicing cultivation! And there’s white mist coming out of his head, for Christ’s sake! He really looks like a living immortal! This is the first time in my life I’ve seen someone like this!”
Zhou Qin was stunned. Her expression shifted, and remembering all the incredible things Li Yundong had done, a thought—one she scarcely dared to believe herself—flashed through her mind: Could Li Yundong really be some kind of immortal? Do immortals truly exist in this world?
【Ti: Dear reader, the current chapter has reached the final page of this book】