Volume 4: Hidden Struggles, Chapter 83: The Day of Skipping Class

“Hey, is it Lao San? Damn, where were you last night? Not even a call—worrying me is one thing, but you made Classmate Li stare at you all night with a worried expression. It broke my heart. It also ruined our mood for fun. What a shame, really… you…”
As soon as Chu Tianyu dialed Bai Lei’s number, he was bombarded with complaints and reproaches!
“Stop, stop, stop! Let me speak first! I don’t have much time!” Chu Tianyu quickly interrupted him.
“Listen, I need to take some time off and temporarily stop attending school…” Before he could finish, Bai Lei shouted, “What!? You want to skip class? How can you do that?”
Chu Tianyu felt embarrassed, as he was still the class leader. Just as he was about to explain, Bai Lei said something that almost made him lose his temper.
“Damn, where are you going to skip class to? Why not take me with you? Lao San, you’re really unfair! You know, our relationship is…”
At that moment, Chu Tianyu felt the dark dragon energy within him stirring again. He couldn’t afford to argue further with Bai Lei, so he ignored his nagging and cut him off, saying, “I don’t have time to talk more. Take care of the leave and roll call at school for me. Got it? Alright, I’m hanging up!”
With that, Chu Tianyu hung up the phone.
Facing the “dut-dut~” sound of the hanging phone, Bai Lei muttered in frustration, “Damn, skipping class is such fun, yet you don’t even take me. I still have to clean up your mess. What bad luck! And why ask me for leave? I’m not the principal…”
Then, Bai Lei quickly dialed another number and said, “Hey, is this the principal? It’s Bai Lei. Heh, no need to thank me for your only son’s success—it’s his own merit. By the way, principal, I need to inform you that Chu Tianyu from our dorm has some minor issues and can’t come to school for now. He plans to take a few days off!”
……
“What do you want to know about the reason for the leave? Didn’t I just tell you? The reason is ‘minor issues’! Got it? Alright, I’m hanging up!”
……
After finishing the call with Bai Lei and dealing with school matters, Chu Tianyu called Ouyang Ziyi and Li Rou before the dragon energy flared up again.

To avoid worrying them, he didn’t mention what was going on. He just let them know he was fine, saying he had some urgent matters to attend to and would be away for a few days, returning later. He promised to call when he could and explained that the situation was urgent, adding that he usually turned off his phone, asking them not to call him.
It was useless anyway. When the Black Dragon Energy flared up, he was already too busy fighting it off to answer calls.
After dealing with these matters, the damned Dragon Energy in Chu Tianyu’s body flared up again, pushing him westward at high speed.
Fortunately, the Dragon Energy seemed to naturally avoid cities and human settlements, leading Chu Tianyu to fly over remote or uninhabited areas. To his amusement, whenever it stopped moving in its dormant state, he would end up either perched on an old tree or stranded in a stagnant pool, catching him off guard and leaving him in a predicament.
Still, thanks to his earlier experiences traveling with his second master, enduring hardships like sleeping in the open and roasting meat over a fire was nothing to him.
If anyone saw Chu Tianyu now, they would likely shout, “A barbarian!” His outer clothes were barely recognizable—some torn by wind during high-speed movement, others ripped by tree branches while falling. In short, they looked like strips of barbarian attire!
Chu Tianyu estimated that there was less than a week left until the Awakening of Insects season. As the date approached, the Dragon Energy flared up more frequently, just as his senior brother had predicted.
He still kept in touch with his senior brother Wu Jing from time to time, thanks to Zhiyu’s new phone, which had an extremely long battery life and was very durable. Otherwise, with his old phone, it would have run out of power long ago!
Of course, along the way, many cultivators sensed Chu Tianyu’s powerful Dragon Energy and began tracking him. Chu Tianyu tried to avoid conflicts with them. To be honest, those who could sense the Dragon Energy had all reached a certain level of cultivation and were mostly reclusive cultivators living in the mountains. Cultivating was extremely difficult; a single mistake could not only ruin their efforts but also cost them their lives!

There were also those who were truly reckless or extremely greedy, trying to block Chu Tianyu’s path. All of them perished under the overwhelming force of the black dragon’s onslaught. Yet this also cleared a path for Chu Tianyu, allowing him to occasionally pick up treasures they carried, such as martial arts manuals, unique pills, or magical weapons. Inside, Chu Tianyu even found a soft iron sword that could be worn around the waist; its scabbard was made of python skin and felt warm to the touch, likely a treasure that kept one warm in winter and cool in summer. The hilt was in the shape of a dragon’s mouth and could be adjusted in length, fitting perfectly around the waist and fastening with a clasp. Chu Tianyu tried it—it fit just right, like having an additional python-patterned belt; it was hardly recognizable as a sword.

What frustrated Chu Tianyu greatly was that the damned dragon always killed its victims without mercy, leaving them in bloody messes. He wanted to pick up some clothes to exchange, but never succeeded! What hurt him even more was that many treasures were lost as well. To be honest, these past two days, Chu Tianyu had actually been hoping for more reckless villains to cause trouble, as he had become addicted to collecting things! Now he had made a backpack out of vines, which was already quite full…

As his journey accelerated, Chu Tianyu gradually figured out his direction over the past two days. It seemed the evil dragon had taken him into Sichuan. It felt like they had already passed Chencai. That made sense—since ancient times, Sichuan has been filled with strange stories and legends, many of which are related to the region of Bashu through its long and intricate connections.

Here, with towering mountains and converging rivers, the dragon’s energy had brought Chu Tianyu to the Hengduan Mountains. To the west of the mountains lay the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, to the north the Loess Plateau, and to the southwest the countries of Southeast and South Asia.

Chu Tianyu had once traveled here with his second master. Among the treacherous mountains and rivers of the Hengduan Mountains, in the forests of the Yunnan-Tibet-Sichuan “triangle” region, stretched a mysterious ancient road. From ancient times to the present, it has existed like a mystery.

Its name is: “The Tea-Horse Road!”