Techniques and Dao

Chapter 213 Touring Performance
The Battle of the Dragon Vein.

Master Ruokong set up the True Dharma Bright Tathagata Dharma Gate Formation at Jiming Temple
The young monk Buxu, the immortal master Jueguang, the immortal master Yuran, and Xuanwen were responsible for guarding Jiming Temple, where the Dharma Gate Formation was located, and also for evacuating the people to reduce casualties.

To facilitate the deployment of the limited defensive forces within Jinling City, Zhang Jia, nicknamed "Little Strawberry," developed a tactical system and, through Tai Shang Xiao Jun, provided each of Ruo Kong and his team with earpieces. The tactical advice was provided by the BRAVE team members, led by Jin Fan.

Although the Chaodu Xuancheng is a defensive shield, all the materials inside that did not exist in the previous dynasty will be shattered and a vacuum will be formed.

With power equivalent to a boundless level immortal technique, Chaodu Xuan City could be breached. This means that if the ultimate six-pointed star magic array set up by Klin Magic Academy could match the power of a boundless level technique...
However, judging from the "Western Front" where Hua Sheng and Mie Ying are located, and based on the information obtained by the female mage Jane, Klin Magic Academy is backed by global computing power. Once computing power intervenes, the power of Klin Magic Academy's ultimate hexagram magic circle will be multiplied.

To avoid the devastating impact of increased computing power on the eastern front, reducing computing power became the primary objective on the western front.

The western route consists of Hua Sheng and Mie Ying from the Magic Academy, Tai Shang Xiao Jun who has just arrived in Paris, and Jane, a magician girl from the Klin Magic Academy.

Since the entire world first converged on a certain magical barrier within the Klin Magic Academy in Paris, the Western Frontier team needed to use the credit card made by Zhang Jia (nicknamed "Little Strawberry") brought by Tai Shang Xiao Jun to inject a currency virus into the local network in Paris to cripple its computing power.

Every time you swipe your card, it's like injecting a computer virus. Little Strawberry believes that the more times you do it, the more significant the effect.

Meanwhile, Hua Sheng and his group also need to go to the Klin Magic School, hoping to stop the school from continuing its attack on the Jinling Dragon Vein under Jane's guidance.

However, even if Jian can prove that Hua Sheng's aura patterns are not in the Demon School's treasury, as long as the Jupiter Thread lost by the Klin Demon School cannot be found, Hua Sheng, whose Taoist robe thread ended up in the Demon School's treasury, will never be able to prove his innocence.

These people are just a part of the characters caught up in the Dragon Vein Defense War.

It happened in the early morning of the day the battle to defend the Dragon Vein began.

Sun Xiaoming, the leader of the HOPE girl group, dragged her tired body into the hotel room. She had been rehearsing since noon yesterday until dawn.

She closed the door, sat down and began applying makeup remover, then washed her face with facial cleanser.

After washing my face, I quickly took a shower, and while applying a whitening face mask, I thought back to the lyrics of my new single, how to quickly put on my stage outfit, and my stage positioning during the performance.

She then returned to her vanity and began applying moisturizing lotion, eye cream, serum, and night cream.

Finally, Sun Xiaoming applied a mask to his under-eye area to reduce eye bags and dark circles.

She then realized it was already broad daylight, so she quickly drew the curtains and collapsed onto the comfortable hotel bed, falling into a deep sleep.

Sun Xiaoming was so exhausted that she almost lost consciousness and didn't even have the energy to dream. She slept until her phone alarm rang.

Jingle Bell!Jingle Bell!
She rolled over, reached for her phone, and turned it on to find it was past noon. She wanted to sleep again, but couldn't.

Sun Xiaoming tossed and turned in bed. She had been under a lot of pressure lately, especially with the preparations for this tour. Tonight was the first show of the tour, and since she had to stay in a hotel for her business trip, she couldn't bring the old electric fan left by her grandmother from her dormitory.

She likes to shout "Ah~~" into the electric fan to relieve stress.

But hotel rooms are naturally equipped with air conditioning, so even shouting into the air vent wouldn't solve the problem. After all, if she shouted into the air conditioner, she wouldn't be able to hear the comfortable rhythm of the fan blades cutting through the air and her voice.

Therefore, Sun Xiaoming has been feeling somewhat depressed these past two days.

She is the leader of the HOPE idol girl group. Because of this position, she doesn't have to share a room with the other members when staying at hotels. Instead, she has a room to herself.

Thanks to this, she has more privacy and is not disturbed when she rests.

She has too many things to take care of. Thinking about this tour, it was actually brought about by the "Battle of Heaven and Earth" in the stratosphere that she participated in.

Being caught up in that life-or-death battle of the gods made HOPE famous, quickly propelling them into the ranks of top-tier artists. Performance and endorsement contracts and invitations came one after another, almost making their already slender legs break from running.

Mr. Chen, the boss of their management company, no longer has to worry about concert attendance, brand endorsements, merchandise sales, record sales, live stream donations, Weibo popularity, trending topics, and so on.
However, compared to the meteoric rise of the HOPE girl group, the once-popular BRAVE boy group can only be described as suffering a "catastrophic" fate.

Sun Xiaoming is also familiar with many of BRAVE's members.

When BRAVE rushed towards the blazing sun and golden flames to protect them, her mind went blank, and she had no time to stop them or think about anything.

As a result, some died and others were injured.

Most of the surviving BRAVE members have faded out of the entertainment industry. Perhaps the company will audition and train a new batch of BRAVEs in the future, maybe fourth or fifth generation members.

Perhaps there will never be another BRAVE.

After their companions left, the entire HOPE group struggled to recover for a long time.

Sun Xiaoming was the first among them to "return to work." She felt that the world needed HOPE even more during difficult times, and this need included the members themselves.

As the team leader, Sun Xiaoming must be strong and lead everyone back to normal life.

She told herself that as long as she was alive, life had to go on.

The members have countless reasons to hide at home and cry, to cry every day. But the employees of the agency still have to make a living. They are all employees, each with their own families, elderly parents and young children to support.

As long as you're alive, you have to look both "forward" and "for money"!

Therefore, Sun Xiaoming must work to make money for himself and the company.

After drafting the work schedule for the resumption of work, she sent several messages to Jin Fanyin, but received no reply.

She knew that the two people who were once close and even considered more than friends by the HOPE members were now separated by a cold wall.

What's sad about being an idol or celebrity is that the private matters that should make you feel sad and in need of comfort are things you only learn about from trending topics on Weibo or other online news headlines.

Of course, when you're busy with work, you can temporarily forget about being sad.

For Sun Xiaoming, once he returns to the stage, there are many things to do to fill those 24 hours of the day.

Rehearsing dances, recording new songs, giving interviews, attending events, posting on Weibo, making headlines, and debunking gossip – her schedule was packed by her manager. All of this allowed Sun Xiaoming to temporarily forget the deep memories she had previously held. The pressure of this tour was immense, so she often suffered from insomnia.

The news of the agency's decision to start a tour was announced on stage at a large-scale performance, and all the members of HOPE and the fans in the audience learned about it at the same time.

The entire HOPE group screamed, and everyone cried.

The tour was on par with any top star, covering a number of cities that no one had ever dared to imagine.

This is precisely what Sun Xiaoming had been waiting for and striving for; it was her childhood dream. Step by step, she has come to this point, and the crystal boat, forged from her hard work and sweat, is ready to carry her to distant places.

Tonight is the first stop, and the performance is very important; there can be no mistakes.

Sun Xiaoming turned over and stared blankly at the hotel's off-white ceiling.

Has her popularity declined recently? This is the most worrying thing. As the leader, she is also the "popularity queen" of the group. This is extremely rare in similar groups.

But after maintaining this balance for a long time, some subtle changes have recently occurred. In more than one online poll, her popularity has slipped to second place.

The girl who came in first place is Zhou Caixin. It's unbelievable that a completely unknown newcomer from six months ago would soar to the top spot like a catapult launch. Even before that fierce competition, Zhou Caixin's popularity was below fifteenth place.

How could that be? That doesn't make any sense!
If she were alone in the room when she received this news, she would definitely overturn the table in front of her.

Why did Zhou Caixin's ranking rise so sharply after the Battle of Qiankun? After understanding the ranking situation, Sun Xiaoming carefully recalled the battle in the stratosphere. Zhou Caixin did participate at the time, but she was no different from an invisible person.

She couldn't even recall where Zhou Caixin had stood when the defensive Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Formation was in place.

After that violent stratospheric explosion, apart from Sun Xiaoming bravely singing "The Battle Song of the Universe," most of the other members must have fainted on the ground, including Zhou Caixin.

But why exactly?
Later, while browsing Zhou Caixin's Weibo, I found a post that had been forwarded over 100 million times. It was a selfie Zhou Caixin took after they returned to Earth following the Battle of Qiankun.

In that photo, Zhou Caixin's face was covered in blood, and her T-shirt and plaid skirt were tattered as if she had just escaped from the front lines of war.

Of course, everyone in HOPE was risking their lives that day, and everyone narrowly escaped death. Many members were much more seriously injured, with ruptured internal organs and internal bleeding, and more than a dozen suffered concussions. Even Sun Xiaoming looked much more disheveled than her!
Despite the excruciating pain, he still sang battle songs.

But only Zhou Caixin still has the energy to take selfies and post them on Weibo!
Where does the cell phone signal come from in the stratosphere? It must be some kind of magic trick using the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams formation to smuggle something for personal gain!
I worked so hard, and she's just stealing the fruits of our revolution!

And that photo, that photo was taken perfectly! It perfectly captured the protagonist's sexiness and vulnerability, with her disheveled long hair, her neck covered in blood and sweat, her tattered sleeves, and the wounds on her wild, pink skin.

She's clearly trying to tempt netizens to commit crimes in their minds!
But seeing this photo made Sun Xiaoming want to rush up and protect her!

Thinking of this, Sun Xiaoming felt a surge of anger welling up inside her. Unable to fall back asleep, she huffed, pouted, and sat up.

But ultimately, she lost to a younger generation. As a result, Zhou Caixin was placed in the center position for several songs during this tour.

At this moment, the face of that carefree young master reappeared in Sun Xiaoming's mind, the Supreme Lord with a sword earring in his left ear.

That encounter at the Wuhou Temple changed her life. It even changed the world, including Sun Xiaoming's world.

They frantically threw themselves into the so-called battle to protect the universe, but when everything calmed down, the Supreme Lord Xiaojun was nowhere to be found.

She found herself missing him a little.

For a while after realizing this, Sun Xiaoming often felt guilty, blaming herself for letting distracting thoughts disrupt her work. But as time went on, since they wouldn't run into each other anyway, she gradually began to let it go.

With so many things rushing through his mind at once, Sun Xiaoming felt the air in the room was a bit stuffy, perhaps due to his depressed mood.

The curtains were tightly closed, with only a very thin slit between the two sides, through which the bright sunlight from outside slipped into the room.

Today's premiere is crucial; we've been practicing many of the dances and songs for over a month.

After the tour announcement, HOPE was interviewed dozens of times by major media outlets. These interviews included not only Chinese media but also media from various countries, to the point that Sun Xiaoming could even say "Hello!" in twenty different languages.

Sun Xiaoming ran to the shower room, quickly washed up, changed his clothes, and looked at his watch; it was already one o'clock in the afternoon.

It's time to head out to the performance venue for one last run-through of tonight's tour.

It's best to arrive at the performance venue early tonight, at least not later than Zhou Caixin. As the eldest sister, I should act like one and work diligently!
Sun Xiaoming drew back the curtains, and the bright, dazzling midday sun shone into the room.

"It has to be a good day today!"

She opened the window latch and pushed the glass window open. Fresh, sweet-smelling air rushed in, sweeping away the fatigue caused by jet lag.

Several small white doves that were basking in the sun outside the window were startled and took flight at the same time.

The white doves flew over the eaves, spread their wings and soared into the blue sky, and the golden-brown Eiffel Tower came into view in the distance.

Sun Xiaoming raised her head, took a deep breath, grabbed a red ribbon from the dressing table, tied her long hair back, and made her signature ponytail.

"Bonjour! My Paris! My Eiffel Tower, let's be full of energy today! Let me prove that the world belongs to me, Sun Xiaoming!"

She shouted to the sky, "HOPE's world tour kicks off tonight in Paris, France!"

Just then, a figure flew past Sun Xiaoming, blocking out the sunlight. She wasn't mistaken; someone had indeed flown past her.

Upon closer inspection, she could hardly believe her eyes. Sun Xiaoming instantly snapped awake and blurted out:
"Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!"

It was 1 p.m. Paris time, which was 8 p.m. Nanjing time.

Using the Light-Traveling Mantra taught by Master Ruokong, Taishang Xiaojun arrived in Paris via an undersea fiber optic cable. Meanwhile, Huasheng, Mieying, and Jian had just landed in Paris.
(End of this chapter)