“Shopkeeper, this isn’t wise,” Sun Zhang protested, his voice tight with reluctance. “We spent a fortune acquiring that compound, intending it as a bribe for Manager Qian. How can we just hand it over to this guy so cheaply?
“If we are to give it to him, shouldn’t we at least wait until he’s actually helped us secure a spot in the fleet?”
The woman in yellow shot Sun Zhang a glance. “Just do as you’re told. If we wait until then, I fear a mere compound won’t be nearly enough to satisfy him.”
Sun Zhang muttered a few complaints under his breath, but in the end, he didn’t dare disobey the Shopkeeper’s order. He obediently delivered the deed to Li Fan.
Li Fan didn’t refuse it. He packed his few possessions and moved into the small East Street compound that very day.
Compared to the slums outside the city, the surroundings here were immeasurably better.
Official personnel from the Liuli Administration were stationed at the mouth of the alley, responsible for keeping order and providing security.
The compound itself was far more spacious than his previous dwelling, with three main rooms and two side rooms on each flank. While not enormous, it was more than sufficient for Li Fan alone.
He declined the maidservants that Tianbao Pavilion later tried to send over. With that, Li Fan settled in, quietly waiting for the fleet’s next voyage.
Li Fan assumed it wouldn’t take long, but an unforeseen event pushed the departure date into the distant, uncertain future—a stormflood!
He had heard the people of Liuli Island mention the stormfloods many times in their conversations before, but he’d never paid it much mind.
He assumed it was, at worst, like the typhoons and hurricanes he’d witnessed before his transmigration; just a larger, more violent storm.
But when a stormflood truly arrived, Li Fan realized he had been gravely mistaken.
That day, Li Fan was at home practicing the Xuanhuang Heart Clarification Sutra as usual when a series of sharp, urgent sounds suddenly erupted from outside.
Piercing noises circled overhead, swiftly spreading across the entirety of Liuli Island.
“Get home quickly! A stormflood is coming!”
“Immortal Master, protect us! Immortal Master, have mercy!”
“Mother! Where are you? Come home now!”
Instantly, the island descended into chaos. Panicked, fearful cries rose from all directions.
For a moment, Li Fan was utterly bewildered.
Then, he saw a blue curtain of light appear in the sky above Liuli Island.
The light curtain resembled a massive, upturned bowl spanning the entire landmass, enveloping everything on the island within it.
“The island protection array has been activated! There is no need to panic! Stay inside your homes! Do not venture out!” A clear, crisp woman’s voice rang out alongside the appearance of the light curtain. It was instantly audible across the entire island.
“The Immortal Master is merciful!”
Listening to the cries of relief rising around him, Li Fan lifted his head, studying the protective array intently.
Swirling blue radiance isolated the island from the world outside.
Unfamiliar characters, both profound and mysterious, danced across the surface of the luminous barrier from time to time.
Not long after, he began to hear howling screams, like the wailing of ghosts, which gradually grew in volume.
The wind had arrived!
Layers of ripples shimmered across the light screen, blocking the ferocious gale completely. Not a single breath of wind penetrated the barrier. Inside, it was perfectly calm.
Then, the sky began to release a torrential downpour. Dense sheets of rain, nearly solid lines of water, hammered against the light screen.
Concentric rings of ripples spread across the barrier, holding the deluge utterly at bay. Outside was a maelstrom of violent wind and lashing rain; inside the dome of light, all was serene and still.
So this is the power of immortals?
Though he had already witnessed the city-destroying capabilities of Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi, seeing this island protection array now still made his heart itch with a fierce, almost unbearable yearning.
The howling wind and heavy rain persisted for the better part of an hour.
Gradually, the rain began to slacken, and the sound of the wind slowly died down.
Just as Li Fan thought the stormflood was about to pass, he suddenly sensed that something was wrong.
The sky did not clear; instead, it grew darker and more oppressive. Countless layers of storm clouds appeared from nowhere, piling upon one another without end and pressing down from above.
In moments, the world was plunged into utter darkness.
The thick clouds felt so close he could almost touch them. They seemed to be brewing something, and Liuli Island fell into a brief, uneasy silence.
The silence was soon shattered.
Boom!
A thunderous explosion detonated beside Li Fan’s ear.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Deafening, thunderous roars erupted simultaneously from all directions in a relentless, endless cacophony. It was like a symphony without end, reverberating between heaven and earth.
Caught within this overwhelming noise, Li Fan felt dizzy, his vision spotting with stars. A great weight seemed to press on his chest, making it difficult to breathe. When he touched his nose, his hand came away wet with blood.
A spike of fear shot through him. He thought to flee back inside for shelter, but the ground beneath his feet began to tremble violently.
The world spun; he quickly lost his balance and fell. The earth shook as if struck by some colossal force, trembling without end.
Li Fan looked up and saw a sight that stole the breath from his lungs: a wall of water, so high it blotted out his entire field of vision, was being driven by the furious gale toward Liuli Island. In moments, it descended with an overwhelming, crushing force!
Li Fan couldn’t help but raise his hands in a futile attempt to shield himself from the colossal wave that was about to fall, burying every living thing below.
Crash!
The massive wave slammed against the blue light barrier.
The barrier twisted and distorted, seemingly on the verge of shattering. But after a pulse of blue light rippled across its surface, it stabilized once more. It stood firm against the impact, unyielding as a seaside cliff.
Enraged at its failure to swallow Liuli Island, the sea hurled wave after massive wave in a relentless assault.
The island truly seemed like a sapling swaying in a storm, about to be torn apart at any moment.
There were many terrifying instances when the island was completely submerged beneath the seawater, and Li Fan nearly believed his current lifetime was about to end.
Fortunately, the island protection array proved far more reliable than he had imagined. It held firm without breaking, even as colossal waves battered it without end.
The scene resembled an apocalyptic cataclysm, and Li Fan felt his mind growing numb, his senses overwhelmed.
He lost all sense of time in this dazed state.
Eventually, the waves gradually began to subside. But “subside” was a relative term; they merely lessened from world-ending to terrifying.
The stormflood had arrived with savage speed, but it departed with agonizing slowness.
Within the wind and rain, it was impossible to distinguish night from day. Li Fan felt that a full two or three days must have passed before the stormflood finally receded.
“We thank the Immortal Master!” The surviving islanders knelt on the ground, weeping and crying.
Amid the islanders’ clamorous discussions, Li Fan learned something that made his heart clench with fresh dread: the stormflood that Liuli Island had just experienced... was considered a relatively mild one.
The stormflood fifteen years ago had been several times more powerful. Back then, the protection array could barely be maintained, and the Immortal Master was forced to shrink its protection range.
Thus, after the stormflood passed, the areas that had not received the barrier’s protection were completely sheared away by the disaster. Liuli Island itself was reduced to only a third of its former size.
It took more than a decade of effort from survivors and new influxes of refugees before its vitality slowly recovered.
So this is a stormflood...
Li Fan was shaken to his core.
The wrath of the heavens and the earth... to think it could be so terrifying!