Only three seconds? He's already the Lord of All Realms, so it doesn't matter.

Looking for me?

Ye Xuan felt a little strange. He recalled that he had countless romantic encounters during his student days, but he couldn't remember owing Zhang Han any romantic debts.

Could it be a problem with cultivating spiritual power?

Since he began cultivating, he has attributed all the problems he encountered in reality to spiritual energy cultivation, believing that every cause has its effect.

"What do you mean by 'looking for me'?"

Ye Xuan poured Zhang Han a cup of hot tea and asked her to sit down at the martial arts hall.

Zhang Han opened a video on her phone, then flipped it over, revealing the video content to Ye Xuan—

It was a video of the fight between the disciples of the two martial arts schools, which was filmed by a bystander and uploaded to the internet.

Among them were uploads from the official accounts of two martial arts schools. Ye Xuan immediately recalled what had happened before, and there didn't seem to be anything strange about it.

But Zhang Han pointed at the phone screen and said to him:

"I lost last time, and I won't deny it, but..."

Halfway through his sentence, Ye Xuan instantly understood why the girl had come to find him, and he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

It's good that it's not a big deal.

According to what he later learned, the girl in front of him had always been an excellent student and had a smooth and successful life.

Even now, after being admitted to graduate school, I still serve as the president of the school's martial arts club.

Previously, Zhang Han had always placed martial arts in a secondary position because she had almost no rivals in the same environment and age group. She only used martial arts as a way to release the pressure of studying.

But after competing with Ye Xuan last time, Zhang Han's confidence was greatly shaken, and the video even went viral online, which made her even more resentful.

So today, taking advantage of summer vacation, she's here for revenge!

Seeing her aggressive demeanor, Ye Xuan expressed his approval, but he himself was not keen on competing.

The reason is simple: there's no need to compete at all. Unless someone deliberately pretends to be bad, Zhang Han has absolutely no chance of winning.

But whether he deliberately loses or lets Zhang Han suffer again, it will probably be another blow to his confidence.

Ye Xuan could only say, somewhat embarrassed:

"After that last time, I've been busy looking for a job and haven't practiced martial arts anymore."

"How about we just exchange a few blows casually, regardless of who wins or loses?"

He adhered to the principle of not letting the girl go to waste, which was the best solution he could think of at the moment.

But he underestimated Zhang Han's determination. After thinking it over, the girl said to Ye Xuan:

Before I came here, Uncle Ye told me that you hadn't found a job yet, right?

"Then you can practice for a while... I'll come back in a few days!"

Ye Xuan felt somewhat helpless, looking at the persistent girl in front of him, and couldn't bear to just brush her off.

"Okay, let's do it today."

He got up and walked towards the empty fighting arena. Zhang Han immediately followed and said:

"If you drop too much, then this is a draw."

The girl said no more, standing on the opposite side from him, and just like last time, let Ye Xuan choose what to compete in.

"Let's have a staff fight. I'm the best at staff fighting."

He took two black lacquered bamboo sticks, each about three meters long, from the side, threw one to Zhang Han, and then got into a fighting stance.

Zhang Han took the long stick. Compared to the other two skills, she was not very proficient in stick fighting, but now the two of them were on equal footing.

The competition began quickly, with Ye Xuan taking the lead and launching an attack with a sweeping motion using his bamboo stick.

The end of the bamboo stick, like a broom, kept hitting the ground, gradually approaching Zhang Han.

She also used a broomstick to fight Ye Xuan, and the two bamboo sticks became entangled, exchanging blows and countering each other's moves.

Zhang Han suddenly exerted his strength, sweeping the bamboo stick horizontally and using a flicking motion to force Ye Xuan to withdraw his sweeping attack, while he pressed his advantage.

She moved closer and thrust her baton straight at Ye Xuan's cheek.

Faced with the sudden attack of the black staff, Ye Xuan relied on his waist and abdomen strength, leaned back slightly, and drove the two sides of the staff to continuously deflect the staff that Zhang Han was hitting.

The two men separated slightly, stepped onto their horses again, and their long sticks became entangled once more.

A series of crisp cracking sounds erupted across the arena; both fighters, trained by the same master, found it difficult to break each other's moves for a moment...

Ye Xuan used his perception throughout, but not his ability to foresee the future; he detected that Zhang Han was stronger and faster than last time.

After a moment of confusion, he regained his composure and continued to deal with Zhang Han's relentless onslaught.

After carefully observing martial arts masters, battles that transcended the level of ordinary people, and life-or-death duels in ancient times where every strike drew blood, Ye Xuan's intuition about combat techniques continued to improve.

He swept his staff horizontally, suddenly unleashing a burst of power from his wrist, and the long, black staff, carrying immense force, met Zhang Han's slashing staff.

With a "snap," the ends of the two wooden sticks broke off almost simultaneously, each becoming shorter.

The two men tacitly put away their sticks and stood there, staring at the broken wooden sticks on the ground.

"draw."

They all said in unison that Zhang Han's pretty face was slightly flushed, with a few beads of sweat on it, and her breathing was a little disordered.

Compared to last time, Zhang Han could sense that Ye Xuan wasn't giving it his all; perhaps it was true, as he said, that he had been busy looking for a job and had really neglected his martial arts training...

She picked up the wooden stick from the ground and handed it back to Ye Xuan, saying, "Let's compete again next time."

Afterwards, Zhang Han wandered around the martial arts school area. In the afternoon, after saying goodbye to Uncle Ye, he went back.

After seeing his childhood sweetheart off, Ye Xuan stayed at the martial arts school until evening when he finished work, and then went home with his father for dinner.

After a year apart, Ye Xuan chatted with his parents about all sorts of things at the dinner table before returning to his bedroom.

He drew the curtains, locked the door, and sat up in bed.

His keen perception, capable of discerning subtle details, instantly spread outwards from his body.

It pierced through the window sill, soared straight into the sky, climbing higher and higher...

His consciousness was instantly thrown into chaos, and Ye Xuan found himself at that transit station that spanned countless worlds.

He found the two threads connecting the world of martial arts and the world of history, and then explored his perception in a deeper and farther direction.

"Hmm, this one has more spiritual energy."

He struggled to grasp a fuse, the spiritual energy contained within it being utterly incomparable to the world he knew so far.

The only thing that struck him as odd was that, while he was catching the lead, he also had a strange feeling of being watched.

After thinking it over, Ye Xuan no longer hesitated, and his senses followed the lead wire, probing into it—

Under a clear blue sky, nestled among mountains, lies a secluded village with smoke rising from its chimneys.

He saw the emerald green lake, the blazing sun high in the sky, and the scene of farmers rolling up their trousers, dipping their ankles into the paddy fields, bending over to plant seedlings...

Watching the smoke rising from a house, under the eaves, a six or seven-year-old child, naked, was leaning against the window, supported by an older child, about ten years old.

The two, one big and one small, were both gazing longingly at the rice porridge cooking in the pot on the stove. The fresh aroma of rice filled the air, making the child, who had been playing all day and was already starving, drool.

Ye Xuan shifted his gaze again, placing the original point above the village, enough to cover the small mountain village.

He gazed into the distance, intending to use the spiritual energy of heaven and earth to reposition the dot, just as he had done before, but he found that it was not easy.

Compared to the world he had been in before, perhaps the spiritual energy in this world was much more abundant and concentrated, making it extremely difficult for him to control with his current cultivation level.

After wandering around the area, Ye Xuan didn't see any bizarre or fantastical sights; there seemed to be only ordinary farmhouses and landscapes...

"Could it be that this isn't a world of cultivation?"

At least, based on his current observations of this world, he hasn't seen any traces of cultivation in anyone's body; and the strange feeling of being stared at earlier has long since disappeared.