Chapter 422: What Moved?

A brilliant light suddenly burst over Qiu Luoye's territory, turning the whole place as bright as day.

"It's Heavenly Light! Take cover!" Shui Yongquan shouted. He immediately turned into ghostly fire and darted straight into the nearest wooden house.

The Heavenly Light he was talking about was clearly not the gentle Heavenly Light in the New Land. This was the far more powerful Heavenly Light of Proper Land. No matter what level a cultivator had reached, being exposed to Proper Land's Heavenly Light even once was dangerous.

Qiu Luoye also hurried into a wooden house. Could a wooden house block the Heavenly Light? Not completely. But it was certainly better than standing outside and being exposed to it directly.

Li Banfeng grabbed He Yuxiu with one hand and Ma Wu with the other, then lifted them both into a wooden house.

Lu Chunying hoisted Xiao Yeci over her shoulder and carried her inside.

Juan shouted, "This isn't Heavenly Light!"

Yang Yanzheng brought Miss Chu into a wooden house. Zuo Wugang brought Cao Zhida into another. Tiger picked up the Rock in its arms and carried it inside.

Little Shan shouted with all his might, "It really isn't Heavenly Light!"

However, the shouting did nothing. Everyone had already taken cover wherever they could. Only the three-headed people stayed outside, because no one knew Heavenly Light better than they did. And this really wasn't Heavenly Light. It was the midday sun.

Shui Yongquan couldn't be blamed for the mistake, and neither could Qiu Luoye. It had simply been far too long since either of them had seen sunlight. Besides, sunlight wasn't supposed to appear in New Land in the first place.

The thick, gloomy fog had suddenly vanished, and a huge stretch of the territory had been flooded with sunlight in an instant. That was far stranger than Heavenly Light. Even Master Qi and the others, who normally lived in Proper Land, had been too flustered to tell the difference.

Little Shan chuckled. "Let's hurry and get Master Qi to come out!"

Meng frowned. "What are you laughing at? Are you making fun of Master Qi? Master Qi isn't like us. We see Heavenly Light all the time. When you see him in a moment, you are not allowed to laugh!"

Juan took control of the body and was about to enter the wooden house to call everyone out when the ground suddenly trembled beneath her feet. She stumbled and fell.

Rrrrrumble...

After a bout of violent shaking, the three-headed people toppled over one after another.

They were still better off than the others. Li Banfeng and everyone else were crammed inside the wooden houses, swaying back and forth and tumbling about as the ground shook. Several people smashed their heads against something and ended up bleeding.

Thanks to his foundation as a Wanderlust Cultivator, Li Banfeng managed to keep his footing. The sensation felt strangely familiar. He seemed to have experienced something like this before in the Outer Provinces.

Where did that Heavenly Light just come from? And what is causing this earthquake now? Li Banfeng thought.

Li Banfeng looked around. Everyone was clutching their heads and curling themselves up as they were tossed back and forth inside the wooden house. Quite a few had suffered visible injuries, while many others had already started vomiting.

Creak, creak, creak... Crack!

The main beam of the wooden house was about to break.

The roof was about to come down. Just as everyone was about to be crushed beneath it, He Yuxiu leaped up and used her sheer strength to hold the main beam in place.

The shaking made it hard even for He Yuxiu to keep her footing, so Li Banfeng jumped up behind her and kept her steady

The other wooden houses could no longer hold up. There came one tremendous crash after another, and there was no telling how many had collapsed.

The earthquake lasted for nearly twenty minutes. There was a stretch in the middle when it eased off, with only a little shaking. Then, just as it was about to end, the ground suddenly gave one violent jolt, and even Li Banfeng nearly lost his footing.

That jolt reminded Li Banfeng of what he had experienced in the Outer Provinces. It felt a little like a subway running into trouble and suddenly slamming to a stop.

Everyone had been tossed about badly. He Yuxiu shouted, "Quick, get out! The house is falling apart!"

Get out? The Heavenly Light was still shining outside. Everyone inside the wooden house was a cultivator. If the wooden beams fell on them, the worst they would suffer was an injury. But if the Heavenly Light hit them, they might explode.

Juan called from outside, "Master Qi, everyone! This isn't Heavenly Light. It really isn't! Come on out!"

He Yuxiu looked at Li Banfeng and Li Banfeng gave a small nod. He trusted Juan. Heavenly Light was something she saw all the time.

Li Banfeng was the first to step out of the wooden house, and everyone else followed close behind. After standing outside for a little while, Li Banfeng realized that it really wasn't Heavenly Light.

In the confusion earlier, Li Banfeng had not been able to tell the difference. Now that things had calmed down, he could see it clearly.

He had been exposed to Heavenly Light before, and Heavenly Light was much brighter than this. The light before him was no different from the midday sun in Greenwater City.

The midday sun... Li Banfeng looked over at Shui Yongquan and Qiu Luoye, who had just come out of the wooden house.

Qiu Luoye shot Shui Yongquan an annoyed look. "Old Shui, you nearly scared everyone to death with all that fuss. What Heavenly Light? The sun's just come out! Come to think of it, though, how long has it been since we have seen the sun?"

Shui Yongquan looked up. Sure enough, the sun was hanging right there in the sky.

"Elephant Qiu, the sun's come out on your territory?" Shui Yongquan asked.

Qiu Luoye fell silent for a moment, then turned to Shui Yongquan. "That's right. Why is there a sun?"

One after another, everyone emerged from the wooden houses, bruised and battered.

Xiao Yeci wiped the blood from her face and looked up at the sun. "Benefactor, when the sun rises, Proper Land is attained. That's what the books say. This land has become Proper Land."

It became Proper Land? How? Didn't ten thousand people have to live here permanently? There aren't even ten thousand people here now, not to mention ten thousand permanent residents!

Li Banfeng was still trying to make sense of it when Qiu Luoye suddenly burst into laughter. "The sun rises, and Proper Land is attained! I get it now. My territory has become Proper Land!"

Shui Yongquan was delighted too. "Congratulations, old brother!"

Qiu Luoye quickly returned the courtesy. "It's a happy day for all of us!"

Shui Yongquan laughed. "Come to think of it, that really does apply to both of us. I need to go back and check my own territory. If you have got sunlight here, mine should be benefiting from it too."

"Could be! With a sun this bright, maybe your territory lit up too. Let's go have a look!"

The two old brothers set off happily together. Since the last stretch of wasteland had been given to Qiu Luoye by Shui Yongquan, the border to Shui Yongquan's land was very close by. In the blink of an eye, they reached the boundary and found a quiet little village on the other side.

The villagers had been shaken by the earthquake too. They stood near the boundary, looking over nervously.

Shui Yongquan stared at them for a moment, then asked quietly, "Where's my territory?"

Qiu Luoye stroked the beard on his chin. "That's right... Where did your territory go?"

Now Shui Yongquan started to panic. He had no idea who these villagers were, but one thing was obvious. Whatever lay beyond the boundary was not his territory.

He was about to rush across when Qiu Luoye stopped him.

"No, you can't go over there. That looks like the boundary of Proper Land!"

Shui Yongquan raced along the border, but he couldn't find his own territory anywhere. The only thing he found was a rabbit standing beside the boundary in a daze.

He grabbed the rabbit and demanded, "What did you see just now?"

The rabbit looked terrified. "I saw the other side moving. It was moving really fast. I don't know what happened."

"Moving?" Amidst this moment of panic, Shui Yongquan still couldn't understand what the rabbit was saying. Qiu Luoye's territory had become Proper Land, so why had his home moved?

Then Qiu Luoye figured it out. "Old Shui, maybe your territory didn't move. Maybe mine moved."

That snapped Shui Yongquan out of his confusion. The two hurried north, but when they reached the northern boundary, Qiu Luoye's familiar old neighbors were gone too. All that remained was a stretch of forest.

It was the same along the other borders. None of the neighboring territories Qiu Luoye knew were there anymore, and traces of Proper Land boundary lines surrounded his domain. Only the southeastern corner was still connected to New Land, and even that stretch of New Land was completely unfamiliar to him.

What is going on? Qiu Luoye stared at Li Banfeng. Li Banfeng looked over at Xiao Yeci.

Xiao Yeci shook her head. "This... I really don't know."

This was really beyond anything Xiao Yeci understood. Li Banfeng went around the edge of the territory, but he found the scenery beyond the boundaries unfamiliar as well.

When he found a chance, he went back to the Pocket Dwelling and asked Wifey about it.

Pop... crackle... pop...

Wifey thought for quite a while before answering, "Husband dear, I have only ever heard of shallow lands becoming Proper Land. You turned deep lands into Proper Land. I have never even heard of such a thing. Could it be that the deep lands moved on their own and ended up beside Proper Land?"

The Pocket Dwelling himself should have known best, but Li Banfeng asked him several times and he did not respond.

The Gramophone said to Li Banfeng, "Husband dear, don't disturb our old master. I think he's thinking about something. There are two urgent things we need to deal with. Firstly, we should find out who our new neighbors are. A whole territory suddenly squeezed in beside them, and they might not be friendly toward us.

"Secondly, we need to check the number of aberrant creatures still living in this territory. Some of them are low-level creatures and none of them have seen sunlight before. Creatures like that are bound to wreck havoc."

Li Banfeng left the Pocket Dwelling and was just about to find Qiu Luoye when a series of roars came from the forest.

What is making such a big noise? Li Banfeng hurried over. Trouble anywhere else was one thing, but nothing could be allowed to happen to this forest.

Qiu Luoye rushed over as well. After searching for a while, they found the culprit. It was a stick insect.

The creature was not particularly large, only a little over a meter long. In New Land, it was considered a fairly mild-tempered aberrant creature. But today, it had seen sunlight for the first time in its life and suddenly turned violent, gnawing madly at the old tree beneath it.

Qiu Luoye lost his temper and went to tear the stick insect in half. However, the old tree had been hurt by all that gnawing, and it was angry too. Its roots suddenly shot out and nearly wrapped themselves around Qiu Luoye.

Those roots crowded into the space occupied by the surrounding trees. Several other sentient trees grew agitated as well, and their roots began fighting for room, each growing faster than the next.

With all those roots twisting and tangling underground, the creatures living beneath the soil could no longer stay there. Guinea pigs, snakes, earthworms, and newts came scrambling out in droves.

These creatures had never seen sunlight before. They had been fine while hidden underground, but the moment they were exposed to the sun, they lost all reason and swarmed around Qiu Luoye, biting at him.

The situation was completely out of control, and Qiu Luoye had run out of patience.

Pawoo~! He transformed straight into an elephant, ready to flatten the entire forest!

Li Banfeng hurriedly stopped him. This forest could not be destroyed as his train station was right beneath it.

"Big Bro Qiu, it sounds like there's trouble over there too. Go have a look. Leave this side to me!"

Several dog-headed dragonflies had gone mad and were charging toward the farmland.

Qiu Luoye gritted his teeth. "I should have dealt with all of them long ago. These things are nothing but trouble!"

Qiu Luoye and Li Banfeng could hardly be blamed for this. They had both thought that it would be very hard to get ten thousand people to settle down here and that there would be plenty of time to deal with the aberrant creatures.

If necessary, they could always talk it over with Old Shui and move the mindless aberrant creatures into his territory. Creatures without intelligence would never join Qiu Luoye in a rebellion, nor would they become a threat later on, so Shui Yongquan would probably have been willing to take them in.

Who could have guessed that the moment the last plot of land was activated, New Land would become Proper Land? And now they did not even know where Old Shui's territory had gone.

Food was a matter of survival, so Qiu Luoye had no time to worry about the forest. He hurried to the farmland first.

Back in the forest, aberrant creatures large and small were still running wild. Li Banfeng was wondering how to calm them down when something in his pocket suddenly rubbed against him.

It was an item he rarely used, the Music Box Ling Miaoying had given him. No one had ever been quite sure what the Music Box was. Hong Ying called it a spirit-bound item, while Wifey believed it had a consciousness of its own and should therefore count as an enchanted artifact.

The Music Box could move by itself, which certainly made it seem like an enchanted artifact. The only problem was that it had never spoken.

Li Banfeng took it out and wound it all the way up. The little figure on top began to turn. Li Banfeng did not point it in any particular direction, so the gentle melody spread through the forest in every direction.

Before long, the forest gradually grew quiet. Every living creature had fallen asleep.

Only Li Banfeng remained unaffected. The melody he heard was different from the one everyone else heard.

However, putting the aberrant creatures to sleep did not solve the real problem. Once they woke up, they would only start causing trouble again. If this kept up, the station beneath the forest would eventually be exposed.

Li Banfeng reached out and touched the stick insect that had gone berserk earlier. It was sleeping so deeply that it might as well have been dead.

That gave Li Banfeng a rather bold idea.

He looked at the Music Box. The little figure on top looked up at him with a confident smile.

Author's Note:

PS: What idea did Banfeng come up with?