Chapter 597: The Reason For Traveling Ten Thousand Li

Luoyan Province.

Strange. It should be right around here. I can't be mistaken.

Han Yi's frown deepened. He had been circling the area for half a day, yet he still couldn't pinpoint the exact location of what he was sensing.

It definitely points here, but I can only narrow it down to a general area. The moment I actually enter it, the feeling vanishes without explanation. Something is deliberately interfering.

He felt both excited and uneasy.

This had never happened to him before. According to the records in the Heavenly Providence Scripture, such a situation meant one of two things: the opportunity was too great and exceeded what he could currently bear, making it a potential disaster rather than a blessing; or the heavenly mechanisms surrounding the encounter were concealed to prevent outsiders from discovering it.

I'll have to go down and search on foot. I'll read the situation as I go, and if it proves impossible, I'll walk away. Staying alive comes first, no matter what.

His mind was made up.

Over the long journey from the Congyun Sea, he had gradually calmed down. Looking back, he suspected he had been acting too impulsively of late, likely the backlash of his providence affecting his judgment.

But taking stock of what he had: the Heavenly Providence Scripture, the Xuan Bird Feather, and his knowledge of an undeveloped minor world where a Heaven's Will Xuan Bird had fallen... as long as he didn't die prematurely, he could make progress step by step. Spirit Transformation was all but assured. Dao Unity was within reach. Even the eternal life realm was not entirely out of the question.

The Void-Calamity Primordial Chaos Tome was excellent, but it was only ever the icing on the cake.

With that, Han Yi's mind steadied.

Freed from the need to hunt down the opportunity, he simply wandered with the attitude of “what is meant for you will come, and what is not cannot be forced.”

The town was small, populated entirely by mortals, with no cultivator guardian to speak of.

Han Yi concealed his cultivation and dressed himself down, hoping to blend in.

But a cultivator's bearing was not so easily hidden. Among ordinary mortals, Han Yi stood out like a crane among chickens. No one could say with certainty whether he was a true Immortal Master, yet his distinct demeanor made it clear he was either a man of great wealth or high standing. The mortals instinctively kept their distance.

Try as he might, he couldn't truly dissolve into the fabric of daily life. His plan to search for the opportunity in secret had to be quietly abandoned.

I've heard that cultivators in ancient times refined their hearts and nurtured their temperament. Even with world-shaking cultivation, they could live among mortals without drawing a second glance. I truly don't know how they managed it.

As it stood, the townspeople trembled before he even opened his mouth. They answered every question he asked, down to the smallest detail, and none of it was the slightest bit useful. Finding the true location of the opportunity from their words was a fool's errand.

Han Yi couldn't help but feel helpless.

Such is the nature of opportunity. Pursue it too deliberately, and your schemes come to nothing.

Unwilling to give up, he pretended to leave, changed his appearance, slipped back in, and wandered the town for a few more days.

He gained nothing.

He had originally planned to search the surrounding areas, but his senses told him the range had suddenly narrowed—the opportunity was somewhere inside the town itself.

To sense it so clearly yet be unable to grasp it... the frustration was almost enough to make Han Yi vomit blood.

The calm he had so painstakingly built shattered. Composure gave way to impatience, and the more anxious he became, the more elusive his goal seemed.

He had lost track of how long he had lingered here, having walked nearly every inch of the town's streets.

He came away with nothing.

But the mortals had noticed. They lacked the ability to cultivate, but that didn't make them fools. A cultivator had been prowling their town for months, stubbornly refusing to leave. Clearly, he was searching for something.

The rumor that the town held a treasure spread like wildfire.

None of them, Han Yi included, knew what this treasure actually was. That did nothing to stop the townspeople from growing suspicious and jumpy. Whether they kept it for themselves, tucked away for some future moment when it might let them defy fate and change their destiny, or handed it over to an Immortal Master in exchange for a reward, such a thing represented a chance to transform their lives entirely. They rummaged through their chests and cabinets, digging out every old or suspicious-looking object they owned, examining each one with great care.

Han Yi's divine sense caught all of it.

He paid it no mind.

What could mere mortals possibly know of my methods? As long as the opportunity hasn't been missed, it's still here. I just need to watch the entire town. Once I detect any anomaly, any moment when the sensation shifts, I can pinpoint it.

So Han Yi took up residence in a dwelling within the town mayor's manor and stayed there day and night, his divine sense spread over every corner of the town.

Several more months passed. Still nothing. Han Yi finally decided to give up.

It seems it was never meant for me after all. He sighed inwardly and began to leave.

Then it happened. The providence he had sensed, unchanged for so long, shifted.

Han Yi's heart lurched.

Who is it?

His divine sense swept the town in an instant. He found an old man in a straw raincoat with a fish basket on his back, preparing to leave town.

Him?

Han Yi didn't know the man's name. Everyone simply called him Old Yu—an ordinary fisherman who worked a stretch of river east of the town and brought his catch back to sell in town each day. He was taciturn, poor at hawking his wares, and his business was mediocre at best. Only his low prices let him scrape by.

Han Yi had seen this man more than once. Aside from the raincoat, he owned nothing of note. His home was bare, without a hint of anything remarkable.

Could he have fished something up from the river recently?

The thought struck Han Yi. Connecting it to the fish basket on the man's back, he grew increasingly certain of his guess.

He couldn't hold himself back any longer. He shot to his feet and went after the fisherman.

But just as he was closing in, intending to seize the old man and question him... The elderly man suddenly lifted his wrinkled face and cast a seemingly casual glance in Han Yi’s direction.

That single look was like a bucket of ice water poured directly over his head.

Every hair on Han Yi's body stood on end. Terror ran through him.

Something's wrong!

His spiritual sense screamed frantic warnings. The auspicious providence he had been tracking transformed in an instant into an unimaginable portent of calamity.

In that moment, he understood everything. The opportunity here was not some object. And this fisherman was no mortal. He was a true powerhouse, hidden in the mortal world for reasons unknown.

The opportunity was the man himself!

He had remained in the town all this time, so the thread of providence had hovered here with him. Han Yi had failed to recognize a true dragon, passing by it again and again. Now that the old man had chosen to depart, the thread had shifted with him.

If Han Yi had acted on impulse just now and given offense to such a powerhouse...

Cold sweat broke across his skin.

He slowed at once. He would not take the risk. He would let it go.

"You." The fisherman spoke then, his question sudden and direct. "What brings you here?"`

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