I Studied Abroad in the Modern Times-Chapter 120Book 2: : Planting the Sun

Vol 2 Chapter 120: Planting the Sun

The guesthouse owner drove along the winding mountain road, already regretting his decision.

These roads were difficult to navigate even in good weather—one misstep could send them plummeting into the abyss. And now, with the heavy rain and mist shrouding the mountains, visibility was worse than ever.

Even though the windshield wipers were working furiously, he was still drenched in cold sweat the entire way.

"Grandma, if I hadn’t grown up in these mountains, that last turn could’ve killed us!"

Gripping the steering wheel tightly, he spoke to his grandmother in the back seat.

"And yet, we didn’t crash. Isn't that proof the Goddess is protecting us?"

His grandmother, sensing the hint of blame in his tone, retorted with firm conviction.

The owner shook his head, not wanting to argue with her. Instead, he slowed the car even further.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally arrived at the Temple of the Goddess.

The temple was newly built, with ample parking, so he followed his grandmother inside.

The deity’s statue was draped in gold and red, with a gentle and kind expression gazing down at the worshippers. His grandmother knelt devoutly on a prayer mat, murmuring under her breath.

The owner, however, stood at the entrance, staring at the increasingly heavy rain. At this point, business was the last thing on his mind—he was more worried about how they were going to get back down the mountain.

Beside him, his grandmother's prayers drifted to his ears:

"Goddess, you see how heavy this rain is, yet we are the only ones here to visit you. We are the only ones thinking of you."

"I don’t ask for much."

"My grandson, he still doesn’t have a wife. Goddess, please, have mercy and grant him a good match."

"Grandma!"

"Quiet! If you're too loud, the Goddess might get angry." She hushed him before continuing, "His business is tough too. I don’t understand all that livestreaming stuff, but I don’t ask for riches—just that he can live a little easier, not so exhausted all the time."

The guesthouse owner pressed his lips together.

"He’s never had it easy in this life. He’s a filial child, but his parents both fell ill one after another, so he had to come back and take care of them, putting his job and marriage on hold…"

"And now, he even has to take care of an old woman like me…"

"Grandma, why are you saying all this?" The owner felt a little embarrassed. "The Goddess doesn’t care about all that."

"Oh, and one more thing," she ignored him and continued, "If my time is up, Goddess, please let me go quickly and cleanly, without being a burden to this child."

"Grandma!"

"You—come here!" She stood up and motioned for him. "You should pray too. Ask for a good job and a good marriage—say it a few times so the Goddess remembers!"

The owner was silent for a moment.

Then, without a word, he knelt on the prayer mat.

He didn’t pray for a job.

He didn’t pray for a wife.

He simply said in his heart:

"Please bless my grandma with a long and healthy life."

Then, he stood up.

"That was fast! Did you even take it seriously?" His grandmother muttered. "What did you ask for?"

"I don’t have anything to ask for." The owner smiled. "I don’t believe in this stuff anyway."

"You ungrateful brat!"

"Come on, let’s get back down the mountain! The rain’s getting worse!"

The owner pulled his grandmother toward the car.

The rain grew heavier. The mountain roads became darker and slicker, making the drive even more treacherous.

They had been driving for half an hour, yet they were still stuck somewhere in the mountains.

Suddenly—

A blinding bolt of lightning struck the mountain peak directly ahead. It was thick and incredibly long, illuminating the entire area.

The owner flinched at the sudden flash, his hands instinctively slamming the brakes. His eyes were drawn to the mountain peak, his heart pounding.

"What happened?" His grandmother asked from the back seat.

"Grandma… the rain stopped."

"It stopped?"

Both of them looked up at the sky.

The thick clouds that had been as heavy as a blanket now had a massive hole in the center.

Sunlight poured through the opening, shining directly onto Hong Mountain.

Beyond the mountain, the storm still raged, winds still howled.

But Hong Mountain itself—the rain had stopped, and the winds had ceased.

"The Goddess… she has manifested!"

His grandmother's voice trembled as she spoke.

The guesthouse owner stood there, mouth slightly open, staring at the scene before him.

For the first time, he actually found himself agreeing with his superstitious grandmother.

"See? I told you to pray more!"

His grandmother nudged him.

"I did."

The owner stepped on the gas, taking advantage of the break in the rain to head down the mountain.

"I already said everything that needed to be said."

……

"That actually worked…"

Old Bai tilted his head back, looking at the sky, clicking his tongue in amazement.

"This Cloud Rain Thunder system really is difficult to master," Tang Lingwu remarked as she continued recording. "So far, we’ve identified three critical trajectories."

"Cloud Movement, Rain Distribution, and just now—the Rain-Stopping Thunder. Of these, Rain Distribution requires more precise thunder control, while Rain-Stopping Thunder requires less precision but significantly more spiritual power."

Zheng Fa nodded.

After multiple rounds of testing, their current Cloud Rain Thunder techniques were entirely based on laser physics.

For example—

Cloud Movement and Rain Distribution both produced rain, differing only in energy intensity and duration.

Rain-Stopping Thunder, however, was far more straightforward—it used the heat generated by a high-energy laser to re-evaporate and disperse water droplets in the clouds.

Just now, Zheng Fa had used nearly a tenth of his spiritual power just to clear the rain over a single mountain peak.

Now, Zheng Fa faced two major challenges:

His precision in controlling rainfall was still not at a micro-level accuracy.

Rain-Stopping Thunder required far more power than he could currently handle, meaning he couldn’t scale up its usage. The same was true for large-scale rainmaking.

At the end of the day, his ability to control both spiritual power and thunder techniques was still not sufficient.

……

Xuanyi Realm.

Jiushan Sect was now within sight.

After explaining the difference between the new and old methods, Han Lao had taken a dazed Yan Wushuang and left.

Senior Sister Zhang hadn’t spoken much to Zheng Fa either, seemingly still digesting the shocking truth.

Even Senior Sister Yuan, who was carrying them, had been unusually quiet.

It wasn’t until they saw the familiar nine mountain peaks that Senior Sister Zhang finally broke the silence.

"Now, what do you think of the Qingyang Dao Body?"

She didn’t even ask which path he would choose—as if she was already certain of his decision.

"We shouldn’t discard it just because of potential risks. I still don’t know the exact logic behind the Tianhe Venerable’s new method," Zheng Fa pondered aloud. "But if we want to create a new path, even the current immortal methods must be studied as references—after all, spiritual energy itself is external."

This had always been the part that Zheng Fa couldn’t wrap his head around—

Any discussion of immortal cultivation methods all had one underlying premise—

Spiritual energy was foreign to this world.

Zheng Fa now even suspected that the fluctuations in spiritual energy were directly related to this fact.

So what exactly had the Tianhe Venerable discovered or created, that made cultivators of the old method completely unable to tolerate it?

At that moment, a thought struck Zheng Fa—

Could it be that the Tianhe Venerable had been trying to fully localize spiritual energy?

It was just like how, in the modern world, one country might invest in another, expecting to extract profits before eventually pulling out.

But then the host country suddenly declares: No, you can’t take your profits, and in fact, you have to leave your entire investment here too…

The more Zheng Fa thought about it, the more bizarre his expression became.

Could the Tianhe Venerable also have traveled to the modern world?

Just… a little further south than where he had ended up?

……

Jiushan Sect.

Jiushan Patriarch was still the same as ever—which meant he still looked exactly like Senior Sister Zhang.

Now, watching "herself" squatting on the ground, idly poking at ants with a dried twig, Senior Sister Zhang’s face darkened.

"Oh? You two came together?" Jiushan Patriarch turned and saw them, his expression lighting up with delight. "Do you have another good idea?"

"Disciple has something to ask of Patriarch."

"Ask away."

Jiushan Patriarch flicked the twig aside, clapped his hands, and said, "What is it?"

"Previously, I was fortunate to receive the Qingyang Qi bestowed by Patriarch. I have now successfully cultivated the Qingyang Dao Body."

Jiushan Patriarch nodded, motioning for him to continue.

"But now, I am also cultivating the Divine Thunder of Shenxiao, and this technique… has encountered a problem."

"You mean your master’s technique? Of course, I know about it."

"It seems something unusual has happened…"

Zheng Fa then explained how his Thunder Seed had been replaced by that strange sprout.

Jiushan Patriarch’s expression grew slightly perplexed.

After thinking for a moment, he said, "That, I’m not too sure about. The Qingyang Qi… was actually something the original self prepared for himself."

"The original Patriarch?"

Zheng Fa still remembered that Jiushan Patriarch had once told him—he was merely a soul fragment of the original Jiushan Patriarch, while the original had long since merged with the True Form Talisman of Mountains and Rivers.

"Yes. Back then, he had planned to abandon Jiushan’s Spiritual Vein and reconstruct his foundation elsewhere. He made many preparations for this." Jiushan Patriarch explained, "One such method was converting Qingyang Qi into the Qingyang Dao Body."

"So this confirms that the Qingyang Dao Body is truly extraordinary…"

Senior Sister Zhang muttered under her breath.

Zheng Fa also nodded slightly in agreement.

He didn’t know exactly how powerful the original Jiushan Patriarch had been—but he had to be stronger than a Nascent Soul cultivator.

Granted, Jiushan Patriarch was a unique case—being a transformed entity rather than a typical cultivator, making it difficult to gauge his true strength.

But one thing was clear—the spiritual vein he had abandoned had sustained Jiushan Sect for tens of thousands of years, nurturing more than a few Nascent Soul cultivators in the process.

For someone of that caliber to treasure the Qingyang Qi—even considering it a potential new foundation—proved just how extraordinary the Qingyang Dao Body truly was.

"As for the Qingyang Dao Body itself… the original self only knew of a certain passage—some ancient text from antiquity. He simply believed it to be something valuable…"

Jiushan Patriarch furrowed his brows, deep in thought, and slowly recited:

"Within the Purple Mansion’s Celestial Grotto, Qingyang transforms into pure Qi.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

Holding the registers of all immortals, opening the foundation of the Dao…"

He stopped mid-verse, looking frustrated, scratching his head as if he had forgotten the rest.

If this were any other day, Zheng Fa would have taken the opportunity to enjoy watching "Senior Sister Zhang" struggle like this.

But right now, he had no such mood.

Instead, he absentmindedly completed the passage:

"The Purple Qi connects the city,

Vast compassion and boundless vows,

The great sage, the merciful one,

Qingyang rises, the Purple Mansion’s Donghua Emperor…"

"Huh? You know this too?"

Jiushan Patriarch looked at him in surprise.

Zheng Fa was deep in thought. "I’ve seen it before…"

In the modern world.

This passage was from the "Treasure Invocation of the Donghua Emperor".

Before coming to Xuanyi Realm, he had specifically looked up information on "Qingyang" online, and this passage had been among the results.

The Donghua Emperor.

Also known as the Eastern King Duke.

The legendary highest-ranking male immortal of ancient times.

Another title—The Fusang Emperor.

Zheng Fa glanced at the sprout within his body.

This thing… is it a Fusang Tree?

Am I… trying to plant a sun?

"Junior Brother, what are you thinking about?"

Zheng Fa shook his head.

Even though Senior Sister Zhang was the person he trusted the most, he didn’t even know how to put this into words.

He had long suspected that the modern world and Xuanyi Realm were deeply connected—the laws of physics and biological structures were nearly identical.

When he obtained the Reversed Five Elements Divine Light, he had felt an eerie familiarity.

He had even looked up old texts and surviving modern talisman diagrams.

But those findings were always vague—they resembled the concepts in Xuanyi Realm but didn’t actually help with cultivation. So he had just kept his doubts to himself.

But now…

Jiushan Patriarch had just recited a passage almost identical to what was written in the Treasure Invocation of the Donghua Emperor.

That was too much of a coincidence.