Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Su Ming looked at Lin Yu, ”So what should I do?”

”Try letting them go.”

Lin Yu’s soul body stepped back half a foot.

”Release the runes you already know into your Consciousness Sea. Let them fly away.”

Su Ming’s fingers clenched hard against his knee.

Let them go?

Those runes he had spent a year on, rehearsing, memorizing, inscribing, the runes he had only just mastered—he was supposed to let them go?

He looked up at Lin Yu.

Lin Yu’s expression did not change. He simply hovered there, quietly waiting.

Su Ming closed his eyes.He began to mobilize the first rune in his Consciousness Sea.

”Lead.”

He watched the rune light up in his Consciousness Sea, then severed his spiritual-energy maintenance of it.

The rune flickered.

Then it dispersed into the depths of his Consciousness Sea.

Su Ming’s heart clenched.

He continued.

”Gather.”

Dispersed.

”Suppress.”

Dispersed.

He ”released” the six hundred and fifty runes he already knew, one after another. Each time he let one go, the rune flared, then utterly dissolved into nothingness.

The process was slow.

Each breath felt like cutting flesh.

When the last rune dispersed, Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea was empty.

Completely clean.

Nothing left at all.

At that moment, the lingering shadows in the true imprint suddenly erupted.

They no longer circled Su Ming’s divine sense. Like a violent storm, they charged straight into his now-empty Consciousness Sea.

The rune fragments that had dispersed, under the onslaught of those shadows, began to re-congeal.

Not into their original forms.

The previously rigid, square lines acquired curves under the fusion with the shadows. Isolated nodes became connected by an invisible momentum.

They fused with the principles inside the true imprint.

They formed new shapes.

Six hundred and sixty.

Seven hundred.

Seven hundred and thirty.

Seven hundred and fifty.

Seven hundred and fifty brand-new runes slowly rotated in Su Ming’s Consciousness Sea. They were no longer dead things he had to forcefully memorize; they became part of his instinct.

Su Ming opened his eyes.

He exhaled a long, foul breath.

His gaze was clearer than ever.

Lin Yu looked into his eyes.

The glow of the soul body brightened slightly.

”Not bad.”

Lin Yu only said those two words.

Then he turned and drifted back above the lake surface.

Su Ming did not speak. He looked toward the lake shore.

Two months had changed Ying as well.

It crouched on the pebbles, having grown from the size of a fist to about two fists. Its jet-black feathers shimmered with a metallic luster, and along the wing edges several golden stiff feathers had clearly grown.

Ying turned its head and noticed Su Ming had opened his eyes.

It opened its beak.

”Hoo—”

A fist-sized ball of black flame shot from its mouth, landing on the lake and hissing.

Ying lifted its head in pride.

Su Ming smiled.

”Come here.”

Ying flapped its wings and flew over, perching on Su Ming’s shoulder.

”Conceal.” Su Ming murmured a single word.

The rune at the center of Ying’s brow flared sharply.

In the next instant, it vanished.

Su Ming reached out and touched the spot on his right shoulder where Ying had been crouching.

There was nothing.

No feather feel, no warmth, not even weight.

One breath. Five breaths. Ten breaths.

Until the twentieth breath.

Su Ming’s shoulder sank slightly.

The black fluff reappeared.

”Chirp!”

Ying proudly let out a call and rubbed its head against Su Ming’s chin.

Twenty breaths—complete sensory shielding.

Su Ming touched its stiff feather. This was the deadliest assassination distance below the Foundation Establishment stage.

At that moment, a burning warmth came from beneath his chest, under his garment.

Not the true imprint.

It was the access token to the Formation Peak Secret Realm.

The half-year term had expired.

Su Ming rose from the stone, turned, and cast one last glance at the Spirit Lake that had accompanied him for half a year.

The lake water was darker than two months ago. The formation lines at the lakebed left only a faint shadow, their rotation slowed to an extreme crawl.

Su Ming stared at the water that had kept him company for half a year for three breaths.

Then he turned away.

Ying gave a sharp chirp.

Lin Yu condensed into a streak of light and drifted back into the Xuantian ring.

Su Ming crushed the token.

A blinding white light poured from the shattered token, instantly enveloping Su Ming.

He did not resist the pulling force.

His body began to rise.

Everything in his sight receded rapidly. The deep-blue Spirit Lake shrank to a tiny dot, the towering ancient trees became blurred green patches, the unfathomable stone path and the wordless stone wall that had once blocked his way dissolved and vanished in the white light.

Su Ming closed his eyes.

There was no wind to be heard. The teleportation process was eerily silent. Only a faint instinctive resistance from his internal spiritual energy remained, which he suppressed with great effort.

The white light gradually dimmed.

A long-missed, warm light penetrated his eyelids.

Su Ming opened his eyes.

The piercing sunlight struck like a blade. He instinctively squinted and raised a hand to shield his forehead.

He stood before the stone gate on the rear mountain of Formation Peak.

This was where he had entered the secret realm half a year ago.

The mountain wind rolled up from the cliff below, carrying strong pine-resin scent and the damp, earthy tang of soil. Such a smell could not be perceived in the stale ancient air of the secret realm. It was too vivid, so alive it almost felt noisy.

”Achoo!”

Ying inhaled sharply on Su Ming’s shoulder, then unleashed a loud sneeze.

The little one shook its head hard, golden eyes scanning the familiar yet foreign world. The outdoor sunlight made its glossy black feathers shimmer with a fine golden sheen.

Su Ming lowered his hand and took a deep breath.

The spiritual-energy density was far lower than inside the secret realm. Yet this slightly mixed air made him feel truly grounded.

Half a year.

He glanced at the surrounding familiar rocks and plants.

Everything seemed unchanged.

Su Ming set off, walking down the mountain path.

Fresh pine needles lay on the stone steps. Apparently a brief morning rain had just passed; dewdrops still clung to the tips of the roadside grass.

At that moment, the pine branch ahead suddenly shook.

A grey squirrel with a long tail darted across the trunk, moving extremely fast.

”Chirp!”

Ying’s eyes instantly lit up.

Its feathers bristled, wings half-spread, little claws gripping Su Ming’s shoulder fabric tightly. It leaned forward, about to launch like a black arrow.

A hand pressed firmly on its back.

”Don’t chase.” Su Ming’s voice was flat, carrying an undisputed authority.

He did not look at the squirrel, only kept walking.

”This is the sect.”

Not the secret realm. Not the wilds.

Here, even the most ordinary-seeming wild animal might be connected to a senior brother’s alchemy furnace or an elder’s medicinal plot. One of the core tenets of the Way of Survival: never introduce uncontrollable variables in safe zones.

Ying struggled against being held, thrashing twice.

”Chirp—”

It let out a long, extremely unwilling cry, but ultimately folded its wings and sulked, retracting its head.