You've only been cultivating for a few years, and you're already talking about cultivating

"Then... are we friends?" Zhongli Xingyao suddenly asked.

The sound was faint, so faint it seemed as if it would dissipate with a sea breeze.

"Of course," Qi Fei replied without hesitation.

Zhongli Xingyao's lips curved slightly. "Okay! I'm here..."

She swallowed her words, as if she felt it was pointless to say them, or as if she felt there was no need to say them.

She looked at Qi Fei, her eyes reflecting the sunlight, the sea, and Qi Fei's small, blurry reflection.

"Big guy," she said, "until we meet again."

Until we meet again.

A bolt of lightning exploded from her body, blue and white, crackling as it enveloped her and propelled her into the sky.

The lightning was so fast that Qi Fei only had time to blink before it transformed into a thin, silvery-white line, disappearing straight into the clouds.

A slit was split in the clouds, revealing the blue sky behind it. Then the slit slowly closed, fading away like ripples on water until nothing could be seen at all.

she left.

Qi Fei had no regrets.

He turned around, his gaze sweeping across the beach, over the rocks, over the smooth, rounded pebbles washed by the waves, and finally settling on a palm tree in the distance.

A person was lying under the tree.

The man, dressed in a grey-blue robe, lay in the shade of a palm tree, one leg crossed over the other.

He looked at Qi Fei with a strange expression on his face, his tone suggesting he was someone who had been through it all and was enjoying the spectacle:

Logically speaking, you should have chased after him and kissed him.

Qi Fei looked at him and said, "I'm a cultivator, not someone obsessed with love. Besides, I usually follow conventional logic."

The man paused for a moment, then laughed.

"Ha~ Interesting."

"I didn't mean to watch your mischief," he said, "but your thunder startled my insects."

"Insects?" Qi Fei asked.

The man raised his hand and pointed to a branch of the palm tree.

Qi Fei looked in the direction he was pointing and saw that the tree branches were bare, with nothing on them.

"There was a bug there," the man said, pointing his finger in the air.

"I've been watching it for a long time; it's been drinking the sap of this palm tree since it was born."

"Eat, sleep, sleep, eat, sleep, eat again, sleep, eat again. And so it goes, day after day, month after month."

"After a year, it will emerge from its cocoon and become a moth."

"Insects and moths are completely different in terms of what they eat, their behavior, and their way of life."

At this moment, Qi Fei saw a caterpillar crawl out at some point and was lying on the back of a palm leaf.

It was shorter than an adult's little finger, bluish-white in color, and covered with fine downy hairs. It lay motionless, its mouthparts embedded in the leaf veins, single-mindedly sucking up the sap.

The man looked at the caterpillar and said, "How interesting! How wonderful!"

Qi Fei also found this person interesting. He cupped his hands in greeting and said, "I am Fu Ye, a loyalist of the Himalayas."

The man leaned against the palm tree trunk, looking at Qi Fei with a strange expression.

"Both 'father' and 'grandfather'," he said, his tone carrying a teasing tone that implied, "You really know how to take advantage of people with your pseudonym. You've gotten a lot of people off this."

"Ahem..." Qi Fei was suddenly exposed, and his face showed slight embarrassment, but he quickly adjusted. "When you're traveling, sometimes you have no choice but to use a pseudonym."

He glanced at the distant sea and said, "Actually, my real name is... Luffy."

The man looked at him, his eyes filled with disbelief: "Luffy? That's a real name?"

Qi Fei remained expressionless and said, "Of course it's true."

"really?"

"More real than real gold," Qi Fei said confidently.

The man stared into Qi Fei's eyes for two breaths, and Qi Fei stared back at him for two breaths.

No one blinked, and no one looked away.

Finally, the person looked away, whether because they believed him or were too lazy to ask any more questions, it's unclear.

He sat up straight and introduced himself: "I take a detached view of the mortal and immortal realms as mere illusions, and laugh as the sun and moon come and go as they please. This body is not bound by the chains of fame and fortune, and I gather up the myriad miles of mist and clouds in a single sleeve."

"We met because of insects, so you can call me Insect Taoist."

Qi Fei looked at the person wearing a gray-blue robe who had a lazy air about him.

"The name 'Fellow Daoist'," he said, his tone implying "you're not much better than me," adding, "it's a bit perfunctory."

"A name is just a symbol," the Insect Taoist leaned against the tree trunk, a faint smile playing on his lips. "What do you think—Luffy?"

"That's true!" Qi Fei didn't say anything more.

He knew that the Insect Daoist knew that "Luffy" was an alias, but since the other party didn't expose him, he didn't explain it either.

Who told him to introduce himself as "Fu Ye" right away, trying to take advantage of others?

Qi Fei looked at the large green caterpillar on the tree and said, "The insect you are observing is actually different from most living things."

"What's different?" the Insect Daoist asked.

Qi Fei slowly said, "When insects are young, their body structure is relatively simple, and their thinking is also relatively simple. They are only used for eating; they are just machines for eating."

"When the insect develops to a certain stage, it begins to spin a cocoon. It doesn't simply sleep; instead, it dissolves most of its tissues into a nutrient solution, leaving only a few clumps of 'adult discs' behind."

"These 'adult discs' have regrown and reassembled new bodies with the help of the previously dissolved nutrient solution."

"I call this kind of behavior 'completely perverted'."

After hearing this, the Insect Daoist did not show any surprise on his face.

He knew all of what Qi Fei was saying, but his summary was not as concise as Qi Fei's.

He has been observing insects for many years, not just for a day or two.

He observed the changes that occurred inside the pupa, the dissolving, reorganizing, and reassembling of the insects, over and over again, seeing them in much greater detail than Qi Fei had described.

He simply hadn't expected to hear such accurate words from a young man he'd just met, who was using a fake name to fool him.

"Fellow Daoist, you also have expertise in insects?" the Insect Daoist asked, his tone filled with curiosity and enthusiasm.

People who have never observed insects cannot say these things.

Besides him, has anyone else in this world observed insects?

Qi Fei said, "I only know a little bit about it; I read about it in a book."

"What book? Where is it?" the Insect Taoist pressed.

"Biology..." Qi Fei almost blurted out "biology textbook".

"Biographies?" The Insect Daoist nodded. "To give life to things with form, to give life to things with transformation—what a fine name! Where can I find a book like this?"

Damn it, where am I supposed to find you a copy of "Biology"?

Qi Fei could only say, "It's just a few fragments of pages, with only a few words on them."