Chapter 653: A Leaf Boat Enters the Star Sea

"When the sun rises, I climb the firmament; reaching the zenith, I want to sing..."

Inside Earth's folded space, on a star-path leading to the outer domains, there was no sign of human habitation, nor fierce birds or beasts. Chu Feng was singing loudly, in a good mood.

"This is it; it must be an ancient path leading to my destination."

Chu Feng confirmed his target path. He had consulted various documents, especially numerous ancient anecdotes retrieved from his optical computer, to make his deductions. Ultimately, he determined that this road, deep within Huangshan, must be the way to his destination.

In ancient times, Earth was incredibly glorious. Ten thousand races came to pilgrimage, and famous mountains held paths leading to different star systems, flourishing to an extreme degree. After the ancient great war, Earth's evolutionaries suffered a devastating defeat, almost wiped out. The star-paths were naturally severed or fell into disuse. If not for the evolutionaries from outer domains actively using these ancient paths in the current era, their existence would still be unknown.

Chu Feng was certain that this desolate path was empty. Currently, many evolutionaries could enter Earth, except for exceptionally powerful beings who were still unable to.

"Goodbye, Earth, my parents, relatives, and friends!"

Chu Feng quieted down, standing in the folded space, taking one last look back. With this farewell, he didn't know when he could return. His smile vanished, replaced by a hint of sadness. In the starry sky, no one could predict what might happen or what the future held. He hoped everything would go smoothly, so he could soon see those on Earth he couldn't bear to leave behind.

According to his plan, he needed to acquire a legitimate identity in the outer domains, one without flaws, capable of withstanding investigations by the top ten powers. Then, he would rise and return within a short period, so as not to miss the great opportunities arising on the recovering Earth. However, once he stepped into the starry sky, who could truly say what would happen? Even if he couldn't return quickly, Chu Feng felt he wouldn't have missed out on Earth's fortunes, as he had already obtained what he most desired. Breathing techniques and the elixir of eternal youth were among the absolute best!

"Whoosh!"

After confirming no one was present, he summoned his green bamboo boat, jumped onto it, and piloted the small craft deep into the folded space, entering the void. He sped away, completely disappearing. Finally, Chu Feng followed this path to the end of the folded space and leaped into the starry sky. At the end of the folded space, there was a teleportation field capable of spatial leaps, connecting to the outer domains. He flew into the dark cosmos.

When Chu Feng reappeared, he was transported to a desolate planet. It still had a spatial field that could help him continue his journey.

"No way, do I have to traverse planet after planet like this to reach my target star system? How long will that take?" He finally understood why many divine sons and saintesses spent months to a year traveling. Without special methods, the starry sky was too vast, and the journey endless. At that moment, he really wanted to call the Sky-Reaching Wormhole Company and just have himself packaged and mailed directly. But he worried that even as a platinum VIP client, they might not truly keep his secret completely. If it leaked, he would surely die! Earth was his home, and entering the starry sky meant truly losing his last sanctuary.

"According to the interstellar routes I found on my optical computer, there's a super life planet ahead. Maybe I can find a shortcut to my destination from there." At that moment, he stood on a dead planet, cold and lifeless. It wasn't large, just a very small asteroid. From there, looking out, everything was silent and still. Gazing up, the expanse was dim and profound. Some stars appeared close but were terribly cold. There wasn't a single sound in the entire world. Having left Earth only recently, Chu Feng sighed. Alone in the starry sky, unable to see family or old friends, he already missed them. If he could never turn back, never see those people again, he... dared not imagine.

Soon, Chu Feng departed from this planet. Using the spatial teleportation field, he vanished with a whoosh, entering the vast sea of stars to begin his journey. The universe was too immense. Without these star-paths, without the routes left by ancient predecessors, Chu Feng couldn't have traversed the cosmos, even with his green bamboo boat. After all, his cultivation level was still low. If he were a Saint, piloting this small boat, he could go to many places without needing to teleport between specific planets.

The journey was incredibly monotonous and dull. Chu Feng's only pleasure was logging onto his optical computer to learn about external affairs, though often there was no signal.

"Yang energy boiling, erupting from chaos, melting some planets?!" When Chu Feng saw this news, he was dumbfounded. The meteor shower he saw when he left, was that actually a burst of Yang energy? "Suspected creatures from the Yang Realm have entered this universe?" Chu Feng was surprised to discover that the concept of the Yang Realm had been publicly discussed recently. Then, startling news continued to be revealed. "Warning: Be extremely careful, as beings with excessive Yang energy may appear!" "Once discovered, immediately report to Saints, Golden-bodied Bodhisattvas, and others. Do not act rashly; powerful evolutionaries will handle it!"

From these news reports, Chu Feng keenly perceived that the high-ranking members of certain powerful races in this universe clearly had some understanding of the Yang Realm and wanted to capture its creatures. Next, he saw many comments, including on the Original Beast platform, where many were heatedly discussing and expressing slight fear and concern about creatures from the Yang Realm.

"Damn it, if there really is a Yang Realm, and they are humans while we are ghosts, what's there to be afraid of?!" Chu Feng muttered to himself, finding them too weak. "It's always humans who fear ghosts; when has it ever been ghosts fearing humans?" Chu Feng grumbled, quite dissatisfied. However, the high-ranking figures and strong individuals of various races in this universe had not revealed that this starry sky was the Underworld, nor had they told the world this "truth." Therefore, people in this universe certainly wouldn't consider themselves ghosts. In fact, every time he thought about it deeply, Chu Feng couldn't accept it. He was a flesh-and-blood human; how had he inexplicably become a ghost? He believed this might be relative, a classification based on the abundance of Yang energy. But, thinking of the sigh of the Other Shore Flower, his scalp tingled again. According to that being, this universe truly consisted of dead entities and had once been annihilated.

"Whether I'm human or ghost, I feel that I'm alive and I exist, and I don't need anyone else's validation. Sooner or later, I will go to that Yang Realm to take a look and see what's truly going on." The journey was truly boring. There was no one else to talk to. Even talking to himself, Chu Feng eventually grew tired of it and simply fell silent. During this time, he greatly missed the people on Earth. Traveling alone in the vast universe felt incredibly lonely. The celestial bodies were so magnificent, yet he was so small. Wanting to travel from one galaxy to another without the teleportation paths left by ancient people was truly too difficult, practically impossible.

Half a month later, Chu Feng calmed down and no longer felt homesick. A month later, Chu Feng felt a slight numbness. With no one to confide in or communicate with, he felt he would become reclusive if things continued this way. Along the way, he absorbed the special energy factors from his cosmic travels, visualized the vast sea of stars, and practiced cultivation.

A month and a half later, his monotonous journey was broken. As he emerged from a spatial teleportation field and sat resting on a desolate planet, he noticed a glimmer of light flickering in the distance, flying towards this part of the starry sky. At Chu Feng's level, as long as there was energy, he could survive for long periods, even without air or water. He stood on the lifeless planet, gazing at the glimmer, then watched as it grew brighter and larger, eventually diving towards his location.

"Oh!"

Chu Feng cried out in surprise, jumping up and fleeing. He boarded his green bamboo boat, which shot skyward with a whoosh. Because it was a metallic sphere, a cosmic craft, erupting dazzling light and enveloped in an unbearable amount of Yang energy, plummeting directly towards him. With a whoosh, the green bamboo boat soared upwards, instantly carrying Chu Feng across the void. As long as energy was infused, the magic boat could perform spatial leaps within a certain range. In an instant, Chu Feng left the planet and moved to an outer region, looking down.

Upon contact with the desolate planet below, the metallic sphere created a massive abyss. Then, flames surged sky-high, and Yang energy billowed, incinerating the planet's surface until it melted, then vanished, continuously annihilating. "What's going on?!" Chu Feng was astonished. That blazing Yang energy, the surging light, was evaporating all energy and destroying the planet. Chu Feng, high in the sky, simply stared. This sudden change was too abrupt.

"Clang!"

The metallic sphere's hatch opened, and a young girl emerged. As she absorbed the aura of this starry sky, she immediately began to cough, her body trembling as if feeling intensely cold. "Cough, cough... Why is it so cold? Have I really appeared in the Underworld, in the realm of ghosts? It's terrifying. How did I get here? Will I encounter ghosts?" Evidently, the girl was very powerful. Chu Feng didn't fully understand her words, but he felt her strong mental fluctuations and could clearly grasp her meaning. "Ah, there really is a ghost! There's a little ghost in the sky!" The girl spotted Chu Feng in the air. Even though he was sitting on his green bamboo boat, he couldn't avoid being revealed by a precious mirror in her hand, his true form exposed. Yet, she screamed, utterly terrified. "Waaah, I want my mom! How did I enter the Underworld? Does such a place truly exist in this world? There are really ghosts! Aren't humans supposed to be nothing after death? But I'm not dead yet! How did I end up in such a cold world? I'm homesick, I want to go back, waaah... Little ghost, go away! Don't come near me!" The girl wore a strange space suit, wrapped in the fur of a powerful sub-divine beast. Symbols shimmered all over her body, and her Yang energy was incredibly potent, astonishingly so. However, she was so timid, afraid of Chu Feng approaching. Chu Feng was completely speechless. He really wanted to say, "This lord is human, you little girl are the ghost, a coward!" He wanted to observe more closely, but the girl was too incandescent, like a burning sun. Her entire body was dazzling, resembling an eternal divine furnace with flames soaring into the sky and Yang energy surging. Chu Feng was surprised to find that this heat, this aura, did not belong to the energy of this universe. It was different from the light of stars he usually felt; it was very unique. "I encountered a ghost! I want to go home!" the girl cried, slamming the hatch shut with a bang.