Chapter 378: City - 378
With everything he could think of done, Zhou Fan returned to the Zhou supercluster. He had at least a billion years to waste, and he did not plan to go into seclusion or cultivate.
He had spent the vast majority of his life cultivating, and he wanted to spend an extremely long time actually living.
He began to wander around the Zhou galaxy. Eventually, he found himself at city gates. After waiting in line, he was asked to prove his identity, but he could not.
"I'm a visitor from another kingdom." Zhou Fan said, hoping that kingdom's and empire's were still in fashion.
"Alright then, here's a temporary pass. It will allow you to stay in the city for a week. After that, you can either pay a fee weekly, or buy permanent residence in the city." The guard explained before waving him through.
Zhou Fan walked into the city and saw bustling streets with carriages and humans. The streets were lined with either shops or other streets. Farther away were houses, inn's, apartments, and so on.
Zhou Fan felt that nothing much had changed over the last hundreds of billions of years. This place was almost exactly the same as Lang Yang city from long long ago.
"In that case, I wonder if there is a library." Zhou Fan muttered to himself as he walked along the roads. Soon, he really did find himself a library, though it was much smaller and more humble than the large library he had known before.
The library had three floors, and each floor was only a hundred feet wide and long. While it was still one of the larger buildings, this was the only place where knowledge and books were stored in the entire city.
"Are you looking for a job?" Someone suddenly said behind him.
Zhou Fan turned around and was greeted by a woman holding a stack of papers. One of the papers was being held out towards Zhou Fan.
He nodded, grabbed the paper, and read it. It was a job advertisement. The library needed librarians.
As long as one had the most basic of knowledge, they would get the job. It felt different than before, but still very similar. If he recalled correctly, there seemed to have been some sort of competition for the librarian positions in the Lang Yang library. In this city, it seemed that the library had to hand out papers to even get people to think of having such a job.
"Sure. I'll take the job." Zhou Fan said.
His current appearance was different from his usual one. His hair was shorter and his face seemed rougher. After all, he would easily stand out with his previous long hair and face.
His hair was still gray, which stood out as he was not old, but it was simply a single unusual thing.
In the past, cultivators had not existed. Now, someone who had bright red hair would simply be considered a fire Qi cultivator.
Although cultivation was widespread, few people in the city had cultivation bases at all, and those who did had low cultivation.
Even the current city lord was no doubt below the core formation realm.
"That's great!" The woman said. "Follow me."
She walked quickly into the building and led Zhou Fan to a front desk. An old man with wrinkles and short gray hair was reading a book. He was a librarian, perhaps the head librarian.
"Is this young man applying for the librarian position?" He asked after briefly raising his head.
"Yes!" The woman answered with unnecessary excitement.
"Alright." The old man said before asking a few questions to Zhou Fan.
Luckily, they were all common sense questions.
Soon, Zhou Fan was a librarian. He was in charge of half of the 2nd floor.
He would start working tomorrow. As Zhou Fan wandered out of the library, he began to walk around again.
He saw many food stalls serving unique foods and stores selling things from mortal weapons to low quality healing potions.
As the sun fell down and was replaced by the moon, he wandered across a forested area within the city. He did not have a house, and did not plan on buying one. He went into the forested area and slept on the grass.
It was a surprisingly refreshing sleep. When he woke up, birds had landed on him and a few spiders were crawling across his body.
When he moved, the birds flew away. He smacked the spiders off of him and walked to the library.
He did not know what time it was or when he was supposed to start working, so he could only hope that he was not late.
It seemed he had woken up early, as the streets were nearly empty and a morning fog still covered the surroundings.
Zhou Fan came across the library, but it was not open yet. He sat down and leaned on a wall near a door and closed his eyes.
When he came to, the old man from yesterday was tapping on his head.
"You're early, I like your commitment." The old man said jokingly.
"Come inside. I bought a little extra breakfast when I saw you here." The old man said as he unlocked the door to the library.
Zhou Fan nodded and followed the old man through the door. They entered and sat down at one of the many tables on the first floor. Out of a brown bag, the old man pulled a tray and 4 white buns.
"Hot Buns. Bun outside, meat in the middle. Believe it or not, I've eaten one of these every morning for the last 12 years. And it's only twelve because I woke up late once. Ha!" The old man said.
"Thank You." Zhou Fan said as he grabbed one of the buns and ate it. It seemed familiar, but he couldn't remember if he had eaten one before.
"You don't seem to be from around here. Where did you come from?" The old man asked as Zhou Fan ate.
"I came from Lang Yang city." Zhou Fan answered.
"Never heard of it." The old man commented.
"It's in another kingdom." Zhou Fan said.
"That makes sense then." The old man nodded.
Chapter 379: Mundane Life - 379
After a few minutes of silent eating, the old man spoke again.
"So, why did you leave this Yang Lang city?" The old man asked.
"I'm a wanderer. Even Yang Lang city was nothing but a brief stop." Zhou Fan answered.
"I see." The old man nodded. "In that case, I'll have to bother you and ask about your travels some day."
"That's fine." Zhou Fan answered.
Zhou Fan's first workday went well, though there weren't many people who even entered the library.
"It seems that as time passes, fewer and fewer people read books at all, much less come to a library." The old man said at lunch one day.
"Why?" Zhou Fan asked.
"It's just that nobody cares about in-depth knowledge of the mortal world. I bet you this place would be packed if it held martial arts or techniques, but it merely holds mortal knowledge." The old man sighed.
"Even fewer people come at this time of year, when the blue flower sect begins to recruit people." The old man added.
"The blue flower sect?" Zhou Fan asked.
"It is the sect that oversees the surrounding kingdoms. It takes up a third of the entire empire. When the blue flower sect begins recruitment, thousands of young people, from 5 years old to 20, pour over there, hoping to join." The old man explained.
"It's rumored that the sect master of the blue flower sect recently broke into the soul formation realm, but there is no actual evidence. If it is true, then the blue flower sect will not merely span a third of the empire. In fact, it may even begin to oversee more than a single empire." The old man added.
"The girl you met yesterday will soon set off to participate in the selection exam." The old man remembered.
"Will she enter?" Zhou Fan asked.
"This old man doesn't dare to claim I can accurately guess, but in my opinion, she won't." The old man said.
The old man looked Zhou Fan up and down. "You seem pretty young yourself. Do you plan to try and enter the blue flower sect?" The old man asked.
"I'm a bit older than 20." Zhou Fan said.
"I see. I had guessed so." The old man sighed before standing up.
"Time to get back to work." He said as he left.
Zhou Fan got up and began to do his job. When he had nothing to do, he would sit down and read some of the books. He limited himself to a mortal's ability since he planned on staying in the city for a while.
Even after an entire day passed, he had not finished an entire book. A week passed. Nothing changed around Zhou Fan and within the library.
He had been getting paid, though not much, and had needed to find a bank to put his money in.
He did not plan on buying a house or living anywhere for the time being. He would continue to sleep in the small woods.
A month passed, but nothing seemed to change. Zhou Fan had completely settled into his job.
"Hey. We have a room in the library that's been empty for a while. Since you seem to enjoy your work, I was wondering if you'd want to live there." The old man stopped by and asked one day.
He did not know about Zhou Fan's living situation, but felt that Zhou Fan was worthy of living in the room.
"Sure. How much would it cost?" Zhou Fan asked.
"It's not much. I'll just take it out of your paycheck. It is a completely empty room, so you'll have to bring or buy all the things you want in it." The old man answered.
"Alright, I'll move in tonight." Zhou Fan said.
"Good." The old man smiled before walking back to the first floor.
Zhou Fan left work early in order to purchase items for his room. He bought some carpet, as the floor in the room was concrete, a bed, pillows, blankets, a chair, a desk, and a lamp.
It did not take him long to move in, especially since he paid someone to move his stuff in the room.
The room was on the first floor of the library in the back. It was reachable by going through a storage room, though only people who worked at the library would enter the storage room.
Thus, Zhou Fan spent his first night on a bed in a long time. The next morning, Zhou Fan went to his station early. He had a key to the library now, but he did not plan on opening it early. There was no reason to.
Even at its current opening time, nobody came for nearly 3 hours.
When the old man arrived at work, Zhou Fan was reading a book.
"Up and early I see. Admirable." He chuckled as he walked past the second floor.
The day, the week, and the month went by smoothly and calmly. At some point in that time period, the girl that introduced Zhou Fan to the library returned with dejection.
She had gone to the blue flower sect, but did not pass the examination.
"The blue flower sect mostly consists of girls, with very few boys. Even then, I still failed to get in". She complained to Zhou Fan with her head on the table. Zhou Fan nodded and continued to read.
"Are you even listening? Why are all you nerds like this? Always reading books. Can't you at least comfort me. Offer to take me to dinner or something." She said angrily.
Zhou Fan nodded and continued to read.
"Was that a nod? Do you want to take me to dinner?" She asked excitedly.
Zhou Fan nodded and continued reading.
"Do you have a girlfriend?" She asked.
Zhou Fan nodded and continued reading.
"What? Then why are yo—." She said before pausing.
She got up and smacked the book out of Zhou Fan's hand.
"What was that for?" Zhou Fan asked.
"I've been talking to you." She said.
"Oh. Sorry, I tuned you out." Zhou Fan said before grabbing the book and sitting back down.
The girl angrily went downstairs without even speaking a word.
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