The person who invited Shen Lian only requested Shen Lian’s presence. He or she did not specify any meeting point. Shen Lian understood this person’s intentions all too well. This was to test whether Shen Lian was capable of finding him or her.

　　The lanterns in the surrounding shone bright like day. The truth was that it could be traced to the transformation of the spirit flame. Someone got rid of the wishes of lost souls, and what was left behind was pure spirit flame. This was what made the lantern festival so grand.

　　It could be said that the stars in the sky were the transformation of souls. The lanterns on earth were also transformed from the will of a spirit. The interaction of stars and lanterns made it truly difficult to tell one from the other. This caused quite a bit of interference with Shen Lian.

　　Shen Lian did not bring Xiao Hei with him but rode on Pegasus instead. They buoyantly arrived at Dongcheng and drew the attention of many onlookers. He may have become the State Preceptor of Xia Kingdom, but few really knew him.

　　Meanwhile, Xiao Hei was pitifully guarding the temple. Shen Lian, however, gave Xiao Hei an elixir just before he left. The elixir contained pure spiritual vigor. After all, Xiao Hei could speak, but only superficially.

　　On the other hand, Pegasus did not have high natural qualities but was very hardworking. Tree branches gradually protruded out from the head of Pegasus. It turned out that Pegasus had dragon blood, albeit in extremely thin form. After having been with Shen Lian for some time, Pegasus was tainted with the Qi of Dao. Pegasus would gradually be able to purify its own thin dragon blood and perhaps one day, Pegasus could transform into a dragon.

　　Shen Lian rode in the sky on the white Pegasus, fitted with a silver saddle. People might not know him, but their attention was still drawn to him.

　　They circled the whole of Dongcheng and finally reached the shore. Wherever could the person who invited Shen Lian be? Even the use of divine thoughts did not yield any results. His unseen premonition was even malfunctioning here.

　　As he looked down from the sky above, all the lanterns were assembled to become a picture. Shen Lian was reminded of the Flower of the Other Shore that was given by Lei Jing.

　　Every time Shen Lian observed the flower, he felt the urge to eat it. No one in this world had more self-control than Shen Lian, yet he still could not resist that desire. This just goes to show how much of an impression the Flower of the Other Shore gave to him, to the point where he was at a loss as to why the flower incited such lust within him.

　　It appears that the person who invited him to the lantern festival understood him quite well.

　　All the young men and women around Shen Lian were pointing their fingers at him. Some of the well-informed people already knew that this man was Xia’s State Preceptor.

　　Mixed feelings were stirred in the young men. Shen Lian alone quietly made a living dead person out of Ming Luo, and furthermore broke into the ranks at Xia Palace. Still, he escaped unscathed, and to top it off he became the State Preceptor. Even though it was known that Shen Lian’s doing might bring about harm to Xia Kingdom, people could not help but look to him with respect and admiration.

　　Many young women thought of Shen Lian as a hero. Their hearts skipped a beat after having seen Shen Lian riding his white Pegasus in such a dashing manner. There were a certain freshness and elegance compared to the vigorous heroics of Xia’s young men.

　　Shen Lian was unknowingly surrounded by the young women. Some of them were accompanied by dates, but once Shen Lian was there, none of their dates could pry them away from him.

　　Some of the men were infuriated but were met with retort. “If you could perform the same feats as Shen Lian, we would be willing to do whatever you ask of us,” the ladies explain.

　　For the most part, this was the difference in the disposition between the two genders. Lei Jing was a woman, so she was predisposed to womanly natures.

　　Whether it was envy, grudge, a wish-wash of every emotion, or even the sizing up of him with an infatuated look, Shen Lian did not feel uneasy. He only mulled over that thought that he became a superstar of Diqiu.

　　More and more people gathered around, and the flow of water was obstructed. Shen Lian smiled and fished out a handful of soybeans. These soybeans were harvested from Zhiwei Temple. With Shen Lian’s mana, one night was all that was needed for the beans to sprout, flower, and produce more beans.

　　The beans were fresh. He scattered them all around. Before the onlookers could react, gold light filled their eyes. At that point in time, a group of tall and strong gods clothed in gold blocked Shen Lian from the crowd of onlookers and paved a way for him.

　　The young men of Xia inherited noble blood. Even if they had not put in hard work in cultivation, they were still more skillful than most Qi cultivators and had greater strength.

　　But these soldiers that were created from Shen Lian’s technique possessed the strength of thick earth and they formed an unbroken line. A mere comparison of strength with the noblemen of Xia and one could immediately deduce that the noblemen were no match for the soldiers.

　　The crowd was pushed away.

　　One or two outstanding young men of Xia were sent by the crowd. But since there were many people all around them, they feared that if the strength was not controlled the onlookers might be injured. Eventually, they gave up.

　　Moreover, they knew the story of Shen Lian. They dared not to make an enemy out of him.

　　Because the people were all gathered towards Shen Lian, it meant that some places were relatively empty. Shen Lian deeply absorbed the sight of every lantern in front of him. A riddle was attached on each of them. A blank space was left for the annotation of the answer.

　　Once the correct answer was given, the light would go off.

　　Up until then, no one managed to get even a single answer correct, hence the light was still shining.

　　Shen Lian understood that if all the lantern light were to be extinguished, this formation of interference would be dispelled.

　　With the use of brute force alone, Shen Lian could destroy this formation. However, that action would signal his inability to use delicate means. Therefore, Shen Lian decided to use a less brutal method of breaking the formation.

　　There were eighteen thousand lanterns altogether, and the riddle on each one of them was complex. There were many types of riddles and none of them were easy.

　　Shen Lian quickly picked one. The riddle was, ‘Holes without worms, hives without bees, silk without silkworm, an open umbrella without people’.

　　In a flash, Shen Lian had the answer written down in the blank space, ‘lotus root’. The light was extinguished and Shen Lian left without looking back.

　　Someone was already following Shen Lian from behind, but the person could not chase after him, managing only to see Shen Lian leave in that split second after the answer was written down.

　　The second riddle was, ‘Directly up the floating clouds’.

　　Without so much a half second of thought, Shen Lian wrote, ‘Go’.

　　At this time, everyone felt the ground shake. The formation seemed to be linked to the lanterns. Each lantern was a node of spiritual vigor. As more lanterns were extinguished, the spiritual vigor would be disturbed even more, with the end result being the occurrence of a grave destruction.

　　If Shen Lian could not break the spirit flame of all the lanterns within a short time, he would lose a little in the end and bring disaster to the surrounding people.

　　In an instant, Shen Lian already pondered and understood that, but he still calmly and indifferently analyzed the riddle.

　　However, he sped up the pace. He rode on Pegasus in one straight motion, just like smoke and cloud that gathered. With no time to examine, he left to another place like clouds.

　　Here the light was extinguished like rain, later the light was extinguished into pieces.

　　The people who witnessed Shen Lian solving the riddles trembled and broke into rapture. It was hard to restrain oneself after seeing that there was a person with such nimble thought processes on earth. Even though it could be said that Xia Kingdom advocated military forces, the mere presence of a person with such high intelligence struck terror into people.

　　Shen Lian sincerely felt a sense of carefreeness. His state of mind was so sharp that even the tiniest of things could be sensed, and his touch was very much enhanced. It was a wonderful and touching feeling when of all his strength was calculated and operated in his Primordial Spirit.