Free Web NovelChapter 346: Chapter 345: Clearing the Northern Sandstorm, Straight to Their Capital
"All done!"
Gu Zhao casually tossed the porcelain bottle in his hand. Despite the immense amount of sand, it had only filled a tiny corner of the bottle.
Xiao Ya and Jiang Shishi both stared at him... and the porcelain bottle in his hand.
"The Mutton Fat Jade Purification Bottle?" Xiao Ya said, stunned.
"A Storage Magical Treasure?" Jiang Shishi’s eyes lit up.
Gu Zhao raised an eyebrow and smiled. "So? What do you think of my little trick?"
"That wasn’t a trick, that was practically an Immortal Technique!" Jiang Shishi’s eyes were filled with adoration, lavishing him with praise.
Xiao Ya nodded repeatedly. Even though the sky to the north was still a hazy yellow, she said, "But at least we won’t have to worry about the sandstorm on New Year’s Eve tomorrow."
"It’s more than that," Gu Zhao said, shaking his head.
"More?" Xiao Ya was curious.
"You two head home first. I’m going to take care of this." Gu Zhao also looked to the north. "Just having a good New Year’s Eve isn’t enough. We should at least get to enjoy the whole Spring Festival holiday!"
As soon as he finished speaking, Gu Zhao put away the porcelain bottle, dropped Xiao Ya and Jiang Shishi off at their respective apartment complexes, and then shot back into the sky, heading straight for the Northwest.
He lived in Yangcheng and had never personally experienced a sandstorm, but he had seen photos and news reports about them. He could only imagine how tormenting such an environment must be. Since he had run into one, he might as well deal with it.
Even if he couldn’t solve the problem for good, he could at least send this current sandstorm back to where it came from!
Next, Gu Zhao flew from east to west and south to north, passing over Jinggang, Ji Province, Jin Province, Qin Province, Qing Province, and the Mongolian Steppe. He used his Wind Technique to suck all the blowing sand into the porcelain bottle.
Across the thousands of miles of sky over the Northern Lands, it was as if a Divine Dragon was passing through. Everywhere it went, it swept up the endless sand and dust, forming a bottom-up whirlwind that was then sucked into the dragon’s mouth.
The vast yellow sands were swept clean in an instant. In all the cities and villages shrouded by the dust, all the people living within the storm felt the sand in the sky suddenly thicken for a moment, only to abruptly clear up.
By the time they realized what had happened and looked up at the sky, they discovered that the sandstorm that had just been raging was suddenly gone. Only on the distant horizon was there still roiling dust, but even that seemed to be clearing up rapidly.
"What’s going on?"
"Where’d the sandstorm go?"
"Did it just blow over?"
"That was way too fast!"
The people on the streets didn’t notice anything amiss. They just felt that as the strong winds blew, the sand simply disappeared. They assumed the sandstorm had passed over their location, taking the dust with it.
Those standing in slightly higher places could see a clear sky on one side and a wall of sand and dust rapidly retreating on the other.
Because Gu Zhao was flying so high and so fast, and the sandstorm was so widespread, people could only see the dust dissipating. They didn’t notice it was being devoured by an invisible, giant mouth.
Only the satellites, higher still, could see the true picture. At that moment, the north of Celestial Xia looked like a dirty floor, and an unseen, giant vacuum cleaner was moving back and forth, sucking up all the dusty stains in its path.
Gu Zhao flew faster and faster, sucking up more and more. Although he wasn’t aiming for perfection, after a few passes over the northern region, he had collected all the sand carried by the wind belt formed by the recent high-pressure system.
Looking at the meteorological satellite images, in just a few short hours, the skies over the northern regions of Celestial Xia had become clear and bright. The stains on this section of the floor had been completely vacuumed clean!
Meanwhile, because of the strange weather phenomenon in Yandu, the personnel at the Taoist Office had gathered for a meeting. They had connected to the meteorological headquarters’ system to display the satellite cloud images and were exchanging information with various local weather bureaus.
Watching the large screen switch between satellite images from the past few hours and live feeds of the clear skies over various northern cities, everyone in the office fell silent.
Chen Yao smacked his lips. "Was that Taoist Qingyuan’s doing?"
Taoist Qingyuan was the one currently stationed at the Taoist Research Institute; he was the one who had intervened in the passenger plane incident a few days ago.
"It wasn’t Taoist Qingyuan," the presenter said, shaking their head. "We just received word that Xiao Ya and Jiang Shishi have arrived in Yandu, but there’s no record of them taking a high-speed train or a plane."
"It’s Gu Zhao!"
Everyone immediately understood. It had to be Gu Zhao who had flown the two women over. He must have run into the sandstorm and decided to do some "housekeeping" after dropping them off at home.
"Where did he put all that sand? Did he send it all to the Otherworld?" someone asked, confused. "Can he open a portal between the Two Realms at will, not just physically cross over?"
"Probably not," someone else said, shaking their head. "Don’t forget the Storage Gourd that Taoist Yi Hong once demonstrated. Gu Zhao carries one too. It was probably sucked into his Magical Treasure."
Someone blinked. "Won’t that get sand all over everything else inside the gourd?"
A group of people turned to look at him, and he immediately caught on. "The Daoists can retrieve items from the gourd with precision, so of course they can control the position of everything inside."
Zheng Hongsheng shook his head and looked at the large screen. "Man, he cleaned that up fast!"
Next to him, Chen Yao looked at the photos of the clear blue skies over the major cities and the spotless satellite cloud image, clicking his tongue in amazement. "And it’s only been a few hours, right?"
"Less than two hours. He’s made three passes from east to west, and his position has already pushed to the national border," the presenter said. "The sandstorm in the north has been completely cleared."
The room fell silent.
"Well, we’ll be able to have a good New Year now," someone quipped.
"It’s a good thing he did this on his own. We would have been too embarrassed to ask him to handle something like this," someone else said with a wry laugh.
Then, the presenter received an update. "He’s crossed the national border and is continuing north."
Everyone was startled and turned their attention back to the satellite image on the large screen. Sure enough, they saw the edge of the sandstorm continuing to move northward.
"Actually, the sand and dust from the northern part of this high-pressure system wouldn’t have reached us."
"Gu Zhao’s undergraduate degree was in computer science. You can’t expect him to be an expert in meteorology, too."
"It’s better that he’s cleaning up more anyway. If he can get rid of some of the dust from the Northern Mongolia region, our March through May will be more pleasant."
An older man with glasses chuckled. "It’s just that Mr. Gu happened to run into it this time. We can’t very well bother them every time there’s a sandstorm."
Everyone burst into laughter, but their amusement gradually faded.
On the satellite image, after clearing some of the dust in Northern Mongolia near the Celestial Xia border, Gu Zhao turned into a sharp arrow, continuing to clean up the sandstorm as he flew toward the capital of Northern Mongolia.
He didn’t fly far before he stopped clearing the dust, and naturally, the satellite lost track of him.
Chen Yao asked, alarmed, "Where is he going?"
Zheng Hongsheng, however, looked at the presenter. "What’s the delay on this satellite feed?"
The presenter immediately replied, "Ten minutes!"
