Leaving the space station, Gu Zhao continued to accelerate.
His actions weren’t a secret. Several satellites in nearby orbits had already adjusted their angles, locking their radar and high-definition cameras onto him.
Gu Zhao paid them no mind. He first put some distance between himself and the Celestial Palace Space Station to avoid disturbing its stability.
Then, he accelerated!
There were still atmospheric particles at this altitude, but they were extremely sparse. Gu Zhao cast aside all restraint. With a single push, he transformed into a streak of light, shooting straight toward the Moon.
"Mach thirty... Mach forty... Mach fifty..."
"He’s already surpassed the third cosmic velocity! That’s a speed Voyager 1 could only achieve using a planetary gravity assist, and he’s still accelerating!"
"Huh? The data cut out for a moment. His position suddenly jumped forward by a hundred kilometers. Is that..."
"A spatial leap? Teleportation?"
"Mr. Gu is truly full of surprises. I thought that no matter how high one’s cultivation was, they could only operate within a planet’s atmosphere. I never expected they could not only survive in space but also reach such speeds!"
"And this is with the pull of Blue Star’s gravity. If he were in deep space, he could probably go even faster."
"And then there’s that teleportation-like divine technique. Isn’t that the legendary Shrinking Inches?"
"Tsk tsk, that’s not even human anymore, is it?"
On Celestial Xia’s side, the Taoist Office and the space center watched the data feedback from the detection satellites, filled with both excitement and awe.
Meanwhile, in other countries, any nation with detection satellites and the required technology fell into a mixture of silence, panic, and of course, anxiety.
"What is he trying to do?"
Across the ocean, secret departments, establishment politicians, and scientific experts were urgently assembled to analyze why this Extraordinary Being from Celestial Xia had suddenly bolted from Blue Star.
"The analysis is in—his target is the Moon!"
"The Moon? Why is he going to the Moon?"
At this point, everyone had already brushed past the fact that Gu Zhao could survive in space and reach the third cosmic velocity. There was no point discussing things that had already happened.
The key question was why he had suddenly decided to go to the Moon.
"What’s on the Moon?"
"Are there really aliens?"
"Or the secret to their Extraordinary power?"
"We can’t fall behind! We have to land on the Moon too!"
"Ask NASA what the status of the Artemis Plan is! How much longer are they going to delay?"
"Fifty years ago, we had the ability to send astronauts to the Moon. How is it that after fifty years of rapid technological development, we can’t do it now?"
"Thank God he’s flying to the Moon. The general public doesn’t know a thing. Otherwise, how would I explain this to the people?"
...
And while the people of Blue Star were awestruck and emotional, or angry and panicked, Gu Zhao had already arrived on the Moon.
Desolate, silent, cold, and gray.
Enormous craters and impact basins, boundless lunar plains, rille canyons stretching for hundreds of kilometers, and highlands and lowlands of starkly different elevations.
Gu Zhao stomped his foot, kicking up a cloud of fine soil. Beneath the Moon Soil was dense Moon Rock.
Of course, Gu Zhao couldn’t tell if it was igneous rock, breccia, or perhaps anorthosite.
"Chang’e must regret stealing the spirit medicine, facing the blue sea and azure sky, lonely night after night."
Gu Zhao looked around. Blue Star’s Moon had no Chang’e and no Guanghan Palace, but it was certainly just as lonely.
But...
Gu Zhao felt the Five Thunders Order in his Sea of Consciousness and the vast Taoist True Qi within his body.
’Whether Chang’e actually exists in this world... that’s not so certain.’
Thinking this, Gu Zhao felt he ought to do something.
So he slapped his gourd and retrieved an Alloy Seven Stars Sword.
He leaped into the air, swung his sword at the ground, and cut out a large chunk of Moon Rock.
Thanks to having supervised most of the construction of Daluo Palace, he was familiar with the process. It’s like the old saying: even if you can’t write poetry, if you read enough of it, you’ll be able to recite it. Thus, he was now quite confident in his ability to construct a classical building, and even had a few ideas of his own.
He flew to a flat area on a mountain highland, first dug out a foundation, then cut the Moon Rock he’d brought into identically sized bricks and tiles, setting them aside for later use.
He then took out the Purple Sandalwood from his gourd—originally intended for his own factory—and carved it into the beams, pillars, and brackets needed for the palace.
Then, construction began!
He set the corridor pillars, laid the floor tiles, built up the steps, and raised the roof beams.
Then came the doors, windows, walls, and roofing tiles.
In just over an hour, a simple yet majestic palace was complete.
Gu Zhao then took a nearby rock as tall as two men. With a flick of his longsword, Sword Light flashed. Rock fragments fell away like dust, revealing a statue of Chang’e, Cloud Stepping as she flew to the Moon, a Jade Rabbit in her arms.
Her face was beautiful, her jade sashes fluttering in an unseen wind.
He placed the statue upon the Divine Altar in the main hall. Then, he exited the hall, fashioned a plaque from the remaining Purple Sandalwood, and took out a brush and golden ink. With a flourish, he wrote two large words: "Guanghan Palace."
With a wave of his hand, he mounted the plaque beneath the eaves of the palace’s main entrance. Gu Zhao took out his phone, snapped a picture, and said, "Done!"
’Regardless of whether Chang’e, the Lunar Star Monarch, the Jade Rabbit, or Guanghan Palace actually exist, since I’m already on the Moon, building a palace can’t be a bad idea.’
’It never hurts to be polite!’
Gu Zhao switched his phone back to the Moon Soil list. "Time to get down to business."
His main objective for coming up here was, after all, to collect some Moon Soil and Moon Rock to create a lunar geological exhibit back in the country.
Without further ado, Gu Zhao followed the list of requirements, traveling to various locations on the Moon to collect Moon Soil and Moon Rock. In addition to surface samples, he also dug a hundred meters down at each spot, taking a bit from there and sorting them by category.
’In the future, even if they manage to get up here, digging down a hundred meters should be about their limit, right?’
Gu Zhao circled the Moon, going from the near side to the far side, from the North Pole to the South Pole. Luckily, he was fast enough. Otherwise, with over a hundred locations on the collection list, he might not have been able to gather all the Moon Rock samples in a single day.
...
After sticking a sticky note on the last piece of Moon Rock—one as tall as two men—Gu Zhao’s mission to the Moon was complete.
He took out his phone and checked the time.
"Not bad. I can still make it back for dinner."
Gu Zhao stored the last piece of Moon Rock in his gourd, and with a single push, he flew out of the Moon’s atmosphere, heading straight for Blue Star.
Before long, the Celestial Palace Space Station—which had already been informed of Gu Zhao’s objective and had its detection radar aimed at the Moon—was the first to spot Gu Zhao on his return flight.
"He’s back?"
"He’s back!"
Ye Yunfu was watching the radar, while Jing Chengpeng and Wang Qingping were pressed against the porthole window. In the distance, they saw a streak of light take off from the lunar surface, flying toward Blue Star at a speed so extreme it was visible to the naked eye.
The closer he got to Blue Star, the more Gu Zhao slowed down. As he passed the Celestial Palace Space Station, he even waved a greeting at them, causing the two men to wave back excitedly.
The next moment, Gu Zhao entered Blue Star’s atmosphere, leaving a long trail behind him as he headed straight for Yandu.