Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

The formation lines on the stone wall were still glowing—thousands upon thousands of them, densely packed, like a lit spiderweb covering every inch of the wall’s surface. The light of those formation lines had dimmed somewhat compared to earlier, slowly fading, one after another extinguishing.

Lin Yu’s right hand pulled free from the stone wall.

Su Ming had no idea how long his master had been inside the stone wall. To him, from the moment Lin Yu’s hand had merged into the stone wall until now, maybe only the time it took to drink a cup of tea had passed. But Shadow had curled up into a tight ball on his shoulder, all her feathers pressed flat against her body, her golden eyes fixed dead on the stone wall.

Lin Yu floated before the stone wall, completely motionless.

His soul body was… different from before.

Su Ming couldn’t say what exactly was different. The form hadn’t changed—still the same gaunt, elderly figure, gray Daoist robe, hair tied up, peaceful expression. His solidity was about the same as before, too. But something had undeniably shifted.

Su Ming opened his mouth, about to speak.

Suddenly, a heat flared in his chest.

Su Ming looked down.

The Border Defense True Seal was glowing.That square seal resting in his Dantian emerged from beneath the skin of his chest. First, a blurry outline. Then, the patterns on it grew clear, bit by bit. Finally—

It flew out.

Su Ming’s pupils contracted sharply.

The Border Defense True Seal floated out from his chest.

It hung suspended before Su Ming, about a foot away.

Slowly rotating.

The True Seal wasn’t big—it was still the same size as when he’d received it at Iron Wall Pass. But hovering there in the air now, it looked… heavier than ever before. A visual weightiness, as if this tiny square seal contained the mass of an entire mountain range within it.

The patterns on its surface began to flicker on and off.

Su Ming reached out a hand, trying to touch the True Seal.

His fingers passed right through it.

”Don’t move.”

Lin Yu’s voice came from behind him.

Su Ming withdrew his hand.

He stood frozen in place, staring at the True Seal.

And then—

The entire secret realm suddenly fell silent.

The wind stopped.

Only at this moment did Su Ming realize that there had always been wind in the Ancient Path. Extremely light wind, so faint he’d never even noticed it before. But now that it had stopped, that sense of ”absence” was particularly striking.

The mist stopped.

Those thin wisps of fog that had been slowly drifting through the forest froze midair. Not dispersing—truly stopping. Every wisp of fog was frozen in place, like a painting.

The formation lines beneath the stone slabs also stopped.

Su Ming could feel it—those spiritual energy fluctuations that had been running nonstop beneath his feet since the first day he entered the secret realm, that low ”humming” background noise he’d grown so used to he’d almost forgotten it—all of it stopped.

It was unnaturally quiet.

So quiet that Su Ming could hear the sound of blood flowing through his own veins. Could hear the faint whisper of each feather cutting through the air as Shadow fluttered her wings to maintain her hover.

The True Seal’s light changed.

From flickering—to radiating.

The first ripple of light pulsed outward, like a pebble dropped into a pool of still water, sending out an extremely gentle ring.

That first ripple swept across the stone wall in front of it.

Those fading formation lines on the stone wall, the moment the ripple passed over them, flared up violently. Extremely brief—just a flash—then dimmed again. But Su Ming clearly saw that, in that flash, the formation lines on the stone wall seemed to… quiver.

A second light ripple pulsed outward.

This one was larger than the first. It passed over the stone wall, swept across the stone path behind, and brushed past the nearest ancient tree.

Those formation lines on the tree bark, which had slumbered for who knew how many years, also flared up when the light ripple passed over them.

Then they dimmed.

But this time, Su Ming saw something more subtle—as the formation lines on the bark faded, something was being ”drawn” out from within the patterns. Extremely thin, extremely faint threads of light, as fine as silk spun by a spider, rising from the tips of the bark formation lines and drifting along the trajectory of the light ripple toward the True Seal.

One thread.

Two threads.

Three threads.

Very few. So few that Su Ming almost thought he was seeing things.

A third light ripple pulsed outward.

A fourth.

A fifth.

The light ripples grew larger and larger with each pulse, reaching farther and farther. Every time one swept past an ancient tree, the formation lines on that tree would flare up, dim down, then spit out a few extremely fine threads of light. Every time one swept past a stone slab, the patterns beneath it would tremble, and threads of light would be drawn out as well.

Those light threads floated back along the ripples’ trajectory, thread by thread, like streams flowing into a river, until they all ultimately drifted toward the True Seal suspended before Su Ming’s chest.

The True Seal’s light was growing brighter.

Not an eye-piercing brightness. It was that kind of… substantial brightness. Like a lamp whose oil had been fully replenished—the wick didn’t grow bigger, but the flame became steadier, deeper.

Su Ming stood there.

He couldn’t speak.

Not that he didn’t want to—it was as if his vocal cords had been gripped by something. Not literally gripped, but his body instinctively made the judgment that ”no sound should be made right now.” Like standing before a massive pendulum in the moment before it was about to strike, when everyone instinctively holds their breath.

Shadow slowly descended from midair.

She didn’t return to Su Ming’s shoulder. Instead, she burrowed into the hollow of his neck, her body curled into the smallest possible ball, wings tightly tucked in, head buried beneath the collar of his robe.

Completely motionless.

The light ripples were still spreading outward.

Su Ming had no idea how far they’d already spread. All he knew was that, as the ripples pulsed outward ring after ring, the ancient trees around him were growing dim.

Not dimmer in color.

Dimmer in luster.

Those formation lines on the tree bark, deposited over hundreds, thousands of years, were losing their sheen as the light ripples swept over them again and again.

The True Seal drifted toward the stone wall even as it continued spreading ripples.

It moved very slowly.

The True Seal floated to the stone wall.

It stopped.

And then, the entire stone wall began to glow.

That light was exactly the same as the True Seal’s light—the same hue, the same rhythm, the same breathing-like flicker. The two beams of light flowed between the stone wall and the True Seal, gradually merging into one.

Su Ming felt like he was watching a silent conversation.

As if—they were two parts of the same whole all along.

Su Ming stood there watching it all. The light on the stone wall and the light on the True Seal intertwined before him, forming a scene he couldn’t understand at all, yet found extraordinarily beautiful. Those lights weren’t chaotic—they flowed, converged, separated, and reunited in an orderly fashion, like two rivers that had been apart for a very long time finally joining again.

He didn’t know how long the process lasted.

Maybe the time it took to drink a cup of tea. Maybe an hour.

The last light ripple spread outward.

Su Ming couldn’t tell how far it had spread. But he could feel it—after this ripple swept through, the entire secret realm dimmed by a fraction.

Su Ming felt as if the whole secret realm had lost something, but he couldn’t tell what was missing.