Chapter 167


    <h4>The Running Man</h4>


    Day 2


    "Hey!!! Young man!!! Do you need a lift or what?!"


    Li Yundong lowered the water bottle from his lips and looked to his left . A car had deliberately slowed down to match his pace . Through the car’s lowered window, Li Yundong could make out the concerned face of a middle-aged man .


    Li Yundong capped the bottle and waved at the driver . "Nah! I’m good!"


    "You sure?" The middle-aged man looked at him skeptically . "


    "Yep, I’m sure!" Li Yundong increased his pace . "Thanks for offering though!"


    "You training for a marathon or something?"


    Li Yundong met the driver’s curious gaze . "Nope!" he said . I’m just running to frigging Tibet, he added silently .


    "Alright then! See you around kid! I hope you reach wherever you’re going . "


    Li Yundong gave the man a wave as the car gained speed and pulled away from him .


    Well . That was the third time today something like this happened . Yesterday, he had had around twenty such encounters . If the passing drivers thought he was crazy, Li Yundong couldn’t really me them . He himself thought he was nuts for doing this . But if this training could help him pass the Zhuji phase and survive the Heavenly Thunder afterwards, then he’d be damned well sure he’d ace it .


    What surprised him, though, was the fact that he didn’t feel tired at all despite having run God knows how many kilometers without sleep, food, and rest . Even when he was rehydrating himself, he hadn’t stopped running . Instead, he merely slowed his pace to a slow jog and then sipped on his water .


    Zi Yuan had insisted that he never stop for a breather once he started running, that he should keep running until his legs gave out entirely . So far, he’d been doing exactly that . The way he saw it, his entire journey to Tibet would consist of: all out bout of running; copse due to exhaustion; eat, sleep, and rest to replenish his strength; repeat .


    Basically, the whole journey would consist of cycles . Hmm . He would call it the Running Man cycle . Yep . That definitely had a nice ring to it .


    Right now, he was still in his first Running Man cycle—he had yet to stop running since he left New Hongsheng district . He wondered when his body would finally reach its limit because at this rate, he felt like he could keep running for days without problems . Well, he did experience a minor difort yesterday, where his skin began itching like crazy minutes after he started running . However, the itching disappeared as soon as he started sweating . Other than that, there weren’t any major diforts . His heart rate was slightly elevated but consistent . His legs didn’t feel sore at all . His body felt hot all over, but he supposed that was normal for anyone who was running . The heat inside his body never became ufortable, most probably because he was sweating heavily, which helped cool him down .


    One other thing did strike him as odd . Somehow, the Qis of his five Zangs got drawn out on their own and started circting through his meridians after he’d been running for a while . That had never happened before . Usually, he had to consciously draw out the Qis of his five Zangs with his Yuanyang, but this time the Qis seemed to have a will of their own . He wondered why . He made a mental note to ask Zi Yuan about itter .


    Su Chan was constantly on his mind . Whenever he ran past something interesting, he’d start wondering about the kind of funny remarks that Su Chan would make if she were there beside him .


    Ooh, Yundong! Look! That thing has so many wheels!


    Hey, Yundong! Colorful lights! Hehehe!


    Oh, Yundong... Look! Octopus food! Dagoyakee balls! Yummy! Can we have some? Cue puppy dog eyes . Blink . Blink . Blink . Secondster: Yay!!! You are so nice, Yundong! Muacks! Muacks! Muacks!


    Yundong! Squids! Fried squids on sticks!


    Yundong this . Yundong that .


    Who was he kidding . Those were all memories . She’d actually said those things to him .


    Arge archway appeared ahead . Above the archway was a huge sign with a bunch of words printed on it . He squinted and tried to read the words from afar . He couldn’t .


    His vision was too blurry from the tears that had welled up in his eyes .


    Day 3


    Li Yundong’s knees hit the pavement . Well . What do you know? His first Running Man cycle just ended . So this was what it felt like to run till you drop . Surprisingly, it had taken over 600 kilometers to reach his limit .


    Good God . Am I dead? He took several long gulps of air, and then rolled onto his back . The stars blinked down at him from the clear, night sky .


    Where was he anyway?


    He sifted through his memory for any signboards orndmarks that he’d passed by before his knees gave out .


    He came up with nothing .


    Great, now he didn’t even have a clue where he was . All he knew was that he was lying half-dead in a middle of some highway . Highway to hell, he thought, chuckling to himself .


    God . What the heck am I doing . . . ?


    Seriously, what the f*ck was he doing?


    He shut his eyes and kept breathing and filling his lungs with much-needed oxygen .


    The first signs of fatigue came when he was about to leave the previous city—the first city he’d arrived at after he left Tiannan City . His breathing started to be rapid . His heart rate increased . Eventually he started to feel the burn in his lungs .


    But still, he kept pushing forward . He left the city quickly and entered the highway . He’d been running on this highway for an hour or two before his muscles finally gave out .


    He tried to remember thest time he ate . It was actually during the afternoon before he left for this crazy trip . He had lunch with Zi Yuan and Ruan Hongling before Zi Yuan told him about this trip . So it was three days since Ist ate, huh? Wasn’t too bad, he supposed . Even though it felt like ages ago . And yes, he was hungry as f*ck . But that wasn’t even his primary concern . Right now he had bigger problems to worry about (aside from feeling like he’d just turned into a cripple, of course): he had run out of drinking water .


    Li Yundong groaned at the thought . Stupid, stupid, stupid! He was a f*cking idiot . Why did he choose to leave the city? He should’ve just run around the city in circles until his legs gave out . At least he’d still be inside a city when he exhausted all his strength . Right now he was in the middle of a highway . Where was he supposed to find water in the middle of a highway? What should he even do? Pray for the rain?


    Yeah . That was pretty dumb .


    Regardless . What’s done is done . He would just have to walk back into the city tomorrow, buy some water and some food, and then be on his way again .


    His breathing had begun to even out, and he felt like he was drifting in and out of consciousness . He knew because he kept seeing Su Chan’s face floating before his eyes, kept hearing her sweet voice beside his ear .


    Maybe she was here? Idiot . Why would she be here?


    Maybe he should just sleep . . . Wait, no . Li Yundong shook his head a few times and blinked his eyes open . He pushed himself into a sitting position, then removed his backpack from his back . After that, he leaned his back against some kind of concrete surface and got into a meditative posture . Performing Da Zhoutian and Xiao Zhoutian would help him recover faster . He closed his eyes and let his breathing take over .


    I miss you, Chan’er . . .


    Day 10


    Guess what? He’d just crossed the borders into another province . Another province! On foot! Woohoo! Great stuff to tell his—hopefully foxy—grandkids .


    Now he was on his way towards Zhangfang, the first town he would pass after crossing the borders into Hunan province . He’d passed by a lot of towns and counties over the past few days when he was traveling towards the borders of Jiangxi province (Zhaoxian, Shibi, Huangzhou, Luoshi, Shangfu, Ganfang, and etc . ), during which he realized the importance of nning and strategizing in order to achieve a goal .


    He’d learned to avoid big cities and pick routes that would lead him through smaller towns and counties instead . Generosity was abundant in small towns unlike inrge cities . In a few towns that he’d stopped by, the townsfolk had actually opened their homes to him, letting him use their bathroom and giving him food . And it certainly helped that prices for food and water were much in small towns .


    It wasn’t just about picking the right routes as well; it was also about timing and the ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances . He had to make creative adjustments to his pace—heck, even the length of his strides—so that he would end up somewhere inside a town when his legs finally gave out . It had taken him several tries to get the hang of making these adjustments . For example, he could still keep running after entering Zhaoxian’s town area, so he couldn’t stop (Zi Yuan said he had to keep running until he dropped) . But at the same time, he wasn’t sure he had enough steam to reach the next town before copsing . In the end, he ended up running around Zhaoxian in circles—he didn’t want to end up in the middle of some highway again when he reached his limits .


    There were also noticeable improvements in his stamina . Every time after he reached his limits and recovered, he was able to push himself further (in terms of speed and distance) in the subsequent Running Man cycles . In other words, the training was working . It was really working . He could feel the Qis of his five Zangs growing stronger and bing more concentrated . Which reminds me... He should start collecting concrete bricks and test out the results of his training . Hopefully he could achieve the same thing Zi Yuan did with the marble block soon . He needed a name for that effect . Yeah . He definitely needed a name for it . How about . . . the Palm Print effect? Yep . That would do .


    So . His goal was to reproduce the Palm Print effect before he arrived at Tibet . Operation Palm Print . How about that?


    Day 15 . Near the borders of Hunan Province .


    Finally, this day came, the day he was forced to throw his shoes away because they were no longer serviceable—the base waspletely torn off due to all that wear and tear . At the moment, he had three choices: buy a cheap pair of shoes; continue his journey barefoot and hope that some kind Samaritan would give him a pair of shoes for free; find his own shoes, either by rummaging through the trash can or by making his own shoes .


    Li Yundong dismissed the first option almost instantly . A new pair of shoes wouldn’t be worth the investment at all . What would be the point in buying a cheap pair of shoes only to ruin them after a few days of running? He would be better off saving his money for food and water . Making his own shoes seemed to much of a hassle . Rummaging through dumpsters for a pair of shoes seemed like a terrible idea too, especially when he had no ready ess to a shower . He’d much rather go barefoot than facing the possibilities of having maggots crawling up his legs .


    Barefoot it is, then . Li Yundong shoved his old shoes into the trash can and looked up at sky . For once, Li Yundong was grateful for the summer weather—even though it could be stifling at times .


    So far, he only had one encounter with the rain, which happened four days ago, where he was caught in a thunderstorm . Since he wasn’t allowed to stop, he had to run through the whole storm .


    It wasn’t that bad . He kinda saw it as a free shower .


    Silver lining, right?


    Yeah . After everything that happened, he’d learned to look for silver linings everywhere .


    "Ugh, this is no good," he muttered, lowered his gaze from the sky . He had to get to higher ground . He couldn’t see very far from down here .


    He sighed and surveyed his surroundings . He wasn’t on a highway yet, so there were still some trees nearby . He just had to pick one that was tall enough .


    Even though he got a free shower during the thunderstorm four days ago, he didn’t want to run into another storm . The slippery ground would slow him down . It might even be dangerous now that he was going barefoot .


    He couldn’t check the weather forecast because he’d sold his phone for more cash . So here he was, standing on top of arge Gingko tree, gazing out into the afternoon sky . Might as well put the Ningshen phase to good use . . . He activated his telescopic vision and gazed out as far as he could . The sky was pretty clear with little to no clouds, which meant he could probably make another run today . . .


    Li Yundong lowered his gaze from the sky, then unstrapped his backpack from his shoulders . He took out a map and unfolded it . Okay . . . . Let’s see . . . Where’s the nearest town . . . Huayuan County . Roughly 200 kilometers from his current location . During hisst Running Man cycle, he ran at 25% of his top speed and covered roughly 600 kilometers of distance . The whole runsted for two days before his legs gave out, which would put his average jogging speed at around 12 . 5 kilometers per hour . If he jogged at the same pace, he would reach Huayuan County in 16 hours .


    Less than two days . . .


    Which meant he might have to pass that town and head to the next one without stopping to rest . Li Yundong unfolded the map . The town after Huayuan County was . . . Lixi . Approximately 80 kilometers away, which would add 6 more hours to the total time . 22 hours .


    He couldst longer than that .


    Li Yundong sighed and checked the map again .


    In the end, he realized that he had to pass five more towns after Lixi before he reached his limits .


    Li Yundong folded the map and slipped it into his backpack . The Fan of the Seven Treasures felt weightless now . Guess that’s what training does to you . . . Li Yundong leaped down from the tree top andnded on the ground . He nced at the road ahead .


    Time to be the Running Man again .


    Day 20 . Outskirts of Chengdu City, Sichuan


    "Yess!!!!" Li Yundong eximed and pumped his fist a few times . Operation Palm Print was a sess! Finally! After dozens of failed attempts, he’d finally done it! Wait . . . no . There were still tiny cracks around the thumb and middle finger . Damn it . Not a sess then . But it wasn’t a total failure, he supposed .


    Li Yundong tossed the brick aside andy down on his back . The sun was setting soon, and he’d just finished a hearty meal that consisted of Kung Pao Chicken, Ma Po Tofu and Dandan Noodles . A group of kind vige folks practically dragged him back to their vige when they saw him copse in the middle of the road a couple of hours ago . They bathed him, fed him, and even offered him a ce to stay overnight . Li Yundong had dly epted their generous offer except for thest one . He didn’t want to impose or overstay his wee . More importantly, he didn’t want his presence to be a threat to those kind folks . Call him paranoid or whatever, but he kept having this feeling that he was being watched . He did activate his Xianjue to check things out, but he didn’t find any threat . It did ur to him that it might be Zi Yuan watching him, but he didn’t want to take the risk .


    So he left the vige after the wonderful meal and took a long hike from the vige to the nearest town, where he bought more food and water supplies . In the town, he came across a demolition site and spent some time there sifting through piles of smashed rubbles for more concrete bricks; he needed those to test the progress of his training .


    Speaking of progress . . .


    He’d picked up a bunch of new skills too . First, he learned how to multitask with his Qi . For instance, when he was running, his Qi would usually circte around his body and interact with the Qis of his five Zangs . But at one point his feet had begun to hurt because he’d been running around barefoot, so he isted a small portion of his Qi and then channeled it to the base of his feet .


    It worked like a charm .


    He managed to produce a thin film of Qi under his feet while the rest of his Qi circted around his body . The effect was simr to wearing shoes, only that this was much, much better . Guess he might call it, what, the Qi shoes? Anyway, that discovery was the only reason his feet weren’t covered in blisters and calluses right now . So yeah . Cultivation . Awesome stuff .


    Another thing he had gotten quite good at was making weather predictions based on cloud patterns . Well, it wasn’t thatplicated actually . In fact, he could sum up his observations with just two tips: clouds with darker bottoms are more likely to produce rain; if the clouds start to grow vertically, be prepared for heavy rain or a storm . Brilliant stuff . Worked every time .


    Oh, wait . There was something else . He actually made another interesting discovery during his foray into meteorology . He learned that he could actually bridge his Three Gates using the Qis of his five Zangs . The effect was essentially simr to bridging his Three Gates the normal way: he could generate shockwaves by punching the air . The only difference was that the new shockwaves were more powerful and had far greater range . He’de across that discovery when he was—color him nuts—trying to move a cloud in the sky .


    A week ago, he was checking the weather as usual to decide whether it was feasible for him to make another run . Unfortunately, he saw a dense cloud several miles away . That damned cloud was probably going to bring heavy rain, so he wanted it out of the way .


    Anyway, the genius idea he came up with was to blow the cloud away with a shockwave . However, he found that the shockwaves he produced couldn’t reach the clouds if bridged his Three Gates the normal way . The shockwaves simply didn’t have enough range, so he had to improvise .


    Another idea hit him when he remembered something Su Chan told him a long time ago: the Qis of his five Zangs were much more powerful . So he did it . He bridged his Three Gates with the Qis of his five Zangs, generated a mega shockwave and . . . ended up disintegrating the whole cloud instead of blowing it away .


    He ended up producing rain instead of preventing it .


    Stupid .


    He left the town after getting enough food and water tost another marathon . He could’ve spent the night inside the town, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself . Hah . Trust him, it’s pretty hard to remain inconspicuous when you have a bulky magical weapon half-sticking out of your backpack . And running a marathon to frigging Tibet . Barefoot .


    Anyway, after a one-hour walk from the town, he spotted this cozy little spot—under a flyover—from afar using his telescopic vision . The ce provided enough shelter and privacy, so he decided to spend the night here . God bless the Ningshen phase . Otherwise he would have to sleep on the roadside like during the few—unfortunate—times when he had mistimed his runs . One time, he actually woke up with an ambnce beside him because some well-meaning Samaritan had called the hospital thinking that he was dying . Then he overheard the paramedic telling the ambnce driver where they were taking him—a mental institute . He gave them the slip after that and picked a new route to continue his journey . Zi Yuan would probably lose her marbles if he ended up in a frigging asylum .


    Li Yundong sat up and removed a dirty towel from his backpack . He rolled up the towel and ced it on the hard concrete . Then, hey back down, using the rolled towel as a pillow . An orange tinge spread across the sky as the sun set . Wisps of clouds drifted in the sky . Huh . Wait . . . There it was again, that same, spherical cloud . He’d seen a simr cloud thest time he stopped to rest . Were spherical cloudsmon in the sky? Maybe they were .


    Li Yundong shut his eyes and released a long sigh . Times like this were double-edged swords . On the one hand, it gave him some reprieve, at least when he was asleep . But at the same time, it also made it impossible not to think about Su Chan . His beautiful princess . The woman he hade to love so dearly despite the short amount of time they spent together . He wondered how she was doing . Was she eating well? Was she sleeping well? Was she staring up at the night sky, wondering where he was? He wished there was a way for him to speak to her . She hadn’t called him again after the day Zi Yuan told him about the trip . He’d called her a few times during the end of his first run, but her phone was turned off . That was part of the reason he sold his phone for cash . He would probably drive himself mad if he hadn’t done it .


    It was easier to me theirck of contact on theck of means than to ept that Su Chan was ignoring him on purpose .


    She didn’t even have to speak to him though . He just wanted to know if she was safe and sound . . .


    Who was he even kidding .


    Of course she was safe . With a powerful Cultivator like Ao Wushuang protecting her, Su Chan was much safer than when she was with him .


    He had to get stronger . Yes . He must . For Su Chan . . .


    Day 33 . Baiyu County, Western Part of Sichuan Province


    Li Yundong’s shoulder-length hair fluttered in the gentle breeze as he stood on arge cliff overlooking Baiyu County . Below, Bailonggou River flowed freely from his left to his right, carrying boats and dinghies filled with people dressed in maroon robes . Themas . Which meant that he was close to the Tibetan borders . The Running Man’s journey was reaching its end . At longst .


    He was a changed man, reformed by 33 days of running, meditating, problem-solving, improvising, and good old surviving .


    Li Yundong breathed in the fresh air from the mountains, then exhaled loudly . He ran a hand through his hair, which felt sticky and goopy with sweat, grime, and things that he didn’t even want to know . He grimaced and lowered his hand . He really, really needed a haircut . And a shower . Preferably with shampoo . God, he missed shampoo .


    A dark tan spread over the once fair skin of his arms . His shirts were pretty much ruined . They had turned crusty due to the salt crystals from his sweat, which were impossible to wash off . Not that he had a lot of opportunities to wash his shirts . Actually, he did wash his shirt often—with his sweat .


    He had grown a beard too, which probably looked as unkempt as a bird’s nest after a hundred fledglings had tumbled in it . In other words, he looked like shit . Correction: he looked like a Neanderthal who smelled like shit .


    The bright side? He no longer had to struggle with the overwhelming urge to see Su Chan . He’d rather die than allow Su Chan to see him in his current state .


    Li Yundong jumped off the edge of the cliff andnded in front of Baiyu town with a loud thud . Themas, townsfolk, and a couple of tourists nced over at him . Ignoring the whispers and strange looks, Li Yundong took out his map and checked the direction of Mount Duonian . About . . . 45 degrees west of north . . . Li Yundong folded the map and took out hispass, using it to reorient himself .


    Aha . There it is . . .


    Arge group ofmas and monks in maroon and saffron robes were crawling on all fours up a winding path . Those must be the pilgrims Zi Yuan mentioned . Zooming in with his telescopic vision, Li Yundong noticed that the pilgrims were wearing gloves . Some tourists, who were probably on their way towards Mount Duonian, stood beside the crawling pilgrims, snapping photos with their phones .


    Li Yundong zoomed out, then put thepass away . After that, he adjusted the straps of his backpack and marched towards the pilgrims .


    Even though the town area was pretty crowded, Li Yundong didn’t have to worry about congestion at all . So far, the tourists and townspeople he’d passed had given him the wide berth . Was it the smell or his general appearance? Probably both .


    Li Yundong hid a smirk behind his hand . These folks probably thought he was just some beggar . Good . This was exactly what he needed—hiding in in sight . Nobody would associate a beggar with a Cultivator after all .


    Li Yundong trudged forward, keeping his head low . The Fan of the Seven Treasures was safely concealed inside his backpack with its top part—the part jutting out of the backpack—covered with a towel . Li Yundong closed his eyes and sealed every single pore on his skin . Now that he was closer to his destination where he would make his attempt to pass the Zhuji phase, he should avoid sweating so much .


    He had acquired this new skill—sealing the pores on his skin—about the same time he had perfected Operation Palm Print . He now had much better control of his Qi . Not only can he move his Qi wherever he desired, he could now also condense his Qi at a particr body part to boost its strength . Using Zi Yuan’s lingo, he now had total control over the concentration of his Qi—the amount of his Qi per unit volume of space inside his meridians .


    The walk towards the winding path took about fifteen minutes . When he arrived, he stood at the bottom of the winding path and looked up towards the mountain . Zi Yuan said that the height of the mountain didn’t matter, and that he should just pick any mountain in Tibet to climb . Apparently, the effects would be simr as long as the mountain had the same terrain as most mountains in Tibet . So he figured he would try to climb Mount Duonian first before he attempted to conquer Mount Everest .


    Truth be told, he was hoping—no, pleading—that it wouldn’te to that . Maybe his opportunity to pass the Zhuji phase woulde when he was in the middle of climbing Mount Duonian?


    Speaking of which . . .


    Zi Yuan had told him that his body would tell him when it was the right time to make an attempt to pass the Zhuji phase . She said that when the right time came, he would start feeling something, whatever this something was .


    Li Yundong took a deep breath, then exhaled . He only had once chance left . One chance to pass the Zhuji phase . One chance to survive the divine punishment . One chance to reunite with Su Chan .


    Li Yundong stepped onto the winding path and began his climb .


    One chance . Just one .


    Zhuji phase, here Ie . . .