Chapter 14: I Went to the Bathroom and Came Back to Find My Roommate Had Become Immortal?

“Teacher, I concealed this matter. I hope you can forgive me,” Lu Ge hurriedly admitted his fault.

Old Dan waved his hand. “What fault? What forgiveness?”

“You did nothing wrong,” he said. “Speaking only a fraction of the truth to others is a means of self-preservation.”

“Who doesn’t have their own secrets?”

“If you were to meet me and reveal all your secrets, all your cards, I would actually look down on you.”

“After all, someone so foolish is bound to perish sooner or later.”

Hearing Old Dan’s words, Lu Ge felt reassured.

As they talked, dusk gradually settled.

Old Dan looked deeply at Lu Ge, then waved his hand. “Alright, it’s getting late. You should go now.”

Lu Ge nodded, stood up, and took his leave to return to his room.

Watching Lu Ge’s departing figure, Old Dan remained silent.

After a long while, he suddenly recalled a faint voice.

“Little Lu, this is our farewell.”

Old Dan lightly beckoned, and an ancient mirror whirled into view before him.

Had Lu Ge still been present, he would have surely jumped in shock.

This mirror was unmistakably the very same one he had received as a delivery long ago, the one that had transported him to this world.

“You rashly barged into this realm and happened to encounter me.”

“If it had been anyone else, they would have extracted you to refine you long ago.”

“Do you think I’m just some old man with a good temper, easy to bully?”

Old Dan’s voice was soft and subtle, yet the mirror quivered slightly on the ground.

Indeed, it was precisely because of this that the mirror dared to send Lu Ge here.

“Little Lu is not bad.”

“If he hadn’t pleased my eyes, you’d have been used as a stepping stone for the Eight Trigrams Furnace by now.”

Old Dan snorted, then looked up at the night sky outside the door.

“Now that Little Lu has entered my school, you must assist him well from now on.”

Bang, bang, bang.

The mirror seemed to kowtow, striking the ground repeatedly.

Old Dan pondered, then swept his fingers through the void, gathering points of light that coalesced into a bamboo scroll.

“He has joined my school; I should have sent a gift for his apprenticeship.”

“I forgot earlier.”

“You take this and deliver it to him for me.”

With that, the bamboo scroll transformed into a stream of light and vanished into the mirror.

“Alright, go now.”

With a gentle wave of his sleeve, the mirror was pushed into the void.

...

Splashing sounds stirred Lu Ge from his sleep.

He blinked groggily.

Huh?

Where is this?

Looking around, his mind slowly cleared.

Eh???

The familiar bunk bed, the computer on the desk still powered on, and the stench of Li Fei’s unwashed socks lingering for three days.

“I... I’m back?”

Lu Ge stared blankly at everything before him.

“No, how come so suddenly?”

“I haven’t even said goodbye to my teacher.”

His heart contracted sharply.

Suddenly, the last words Old Dan had spoken came to mind.

“It’s getting late; you should go now.”

Lu Ge murmured to himself, “So when he said ‘go,’ he didn’t mean rest, but that I was to return.”

Just then, he sensed a faint pulse within his spiritual sea.

Introspecting, he saw two divine talisman symbols hanging high within it.

They were the Big Dipper’s Death Sword Qi and the Immortality Divine Art.

He was already familiar with these.

Besides these two, the ancient mirror that had sent him across finally appeared as well.

[Instance: Westward Beyond Hangu Pass.]

[Difficulty: F-SSS.]

[Task: Gain the Sage’s approval and journey westward beyond Hangu Pass with the Sage.]

[Reward: Tao Te Ching.]

[Task Status: Completed.]

Lu Ge gently touched the mirror, and a glimmer of light shot out, hovering above his spiritual sea.

Vast divine radiance spread, enveloping the entire spiritual sea.

Heavenly sounds echoed in his mind.

“The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.”

“The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

“...”

Lu Ge immediately recognized the voice of Old Dan.

“Teacher...”

A pang of loss filled his heart.

Sixteen years together, now suddenly parted—a natural feeling of melancholy.

Opening his eyes, Lu Ge instantly sensed something amiss.

He glanced at the computer on the desk, where streams of information materialized from thin air and merged into his memory.

He felt as if he had suddenly learned how to build a computer.

Every component, provided he had the tools, he could now craft by hand.

Looking at the desks and chairs, the same was true.

He felt like an old carpenter, able to make tables, chairs, and stools at will.

“Is this... divine art?”

“No, it’s not.”

Lu Ge pondered deeply and began to discern the truth.

“This is the effect of the Tao Te Ching.”

“It has directly maximized my comprehension.”

“Whatever I encounter, just observing it allows me to grasp analogies and master various methods.”

“This first instance, supposedly rewarding the Tao Te Ching, is actually rewarding transcendent insight.”

Lu Ge sat on the bed, contemplating carefully.

“At first, the rewards inscribed on the mirror were all garbled.”

“Apparently, the mirror itself didn’t know what to give.”

“Perhaps it judged based on my performance before deciding.”

“But now it has turned into the Tao Te Ching.”

“If I’m not mistaken, the teacher must have given the Tao Te Ching to the mirror.”

“And since the mirror didn’t know what else to give, it simply offered the Tao Te Ching as the reward.”

“Tch...”

“Thinking like this, it seems I’ve been shortchanged.”

“The mirror’s a bit sly.”

“Oh well, it doesn’t matter.”

“The fact that it could bring me here to meet my teacher is already a tremendous fate.”

Lu Ge cast aside his distractions and scrutinized the dorm room he had left sixteen years ago.

Memories began to return gradually.

Click.

The bathroom door opened.

Li Fei emerged with a satisfied expression.

“Old Lu, was that package yours?”

“If not, we can go to the delivery station and ask.”

Li Fei openly held up a holy grail and asked Lu Ge.

Lu Ge nodded with a smile. “Yes, it’s mine.”

“I just confirmed—it was sent by my friend, but he hadn’t told me beforehand.”

Li Fei put away the holy grail. “As long as it’s yours.”

“I just worry about mix-ups and trouble later.”

Lu Ge observed Li Fei silently, calculating in his mind.

He had traversed sixteen years, but only three minutes had passed in reality.

Hmm, that was Li Fei’s full capability.

Lu Ge introspected again; the words on the ancient mirror had changed.

[Next instance countdown: thirty days.]

“The next crossing is in a month?”

“I wonder which world I’ll go to.”

Lu Ge lay on the bed, lost in thought.

“Oh, right...”

Suddenly remembering something, he quickly got up and approached the computer.

He opened the browser and searched for Laozi.

Old Dan’s life story appeared in full.

After reading through it, Lu Ge frowned.

Then he searched for Hangu Pass, Confucius, and Yan Hui.

Without exception, none of the records contained any trace of Lu Ge.

“Looks like I didn’t travel to the past, but to some kind of parallel world.”

Lu Ge settled back down.

“I wonder if there are any supernatural powers in this world.”

“If not, then I alone wield the Way and stand as the sole immortal.”

“Hmm, even if that’s true, I must stay steady for now.”

“After all, I have gained immortality, but I can still die if killed.”

“The Big Dipper’s Death Sword Qi can only kill; it can’t defend.”

“It won’t help me withstand a nuclear explosion.”