Yin Chen's Family Background

"It doesn't matter." Long Ao didn't even look at the monster core, his tone extremely casual. "As long as it covers up the fact that we were out of contact for three days, it's fine. Compared to letting people endlessly investigate us, this stone is being put to good use."

"At worst, we'll just say that we were in an alternate dimension and happened to encounter this tenth-tier Void Beast when it was heavily injured and near death. Then, Wolf made a move. We waited for it to die, casually picked up the monster core, and escaped."

Besides, Long Ao figured the Council wouldn't dare embezzle the monster core, because he was Long Ao.

Since it would still be his, why should he care?

It was just that... Long Ao couldn't help but think of the destiny those people spoke of.

Was everything that happened today also so-called destiny?

If so, was destiny truly that difficult to defy?

If not, how did White Tiger know everything about today?

Destiny...

Is there really such a thing as fate?

If there is, then what exactly is my fate?

Yin Chen took a deep breath and shifted his gaze away from the monster core.

"You really scare people right off the bat. A tenth-tier Void Beast's monster core... even if it were placed in my family's vault, locked behind over a dozen layers of arrays, it would still be enshrined as a family heirloom."

He wasn't making a fuss over nothing. Among the people present, this item would only surprise him if it appeared in Hong Yuan's hands.

"I said, I picked it up."

Long Ao turned his face toward the window, crossing his arms over his chest. "Since it works, just report it with this excuse. As long as it solves the problem, it's fine."

An Changqing didn't speak. The last time he saw a tenth-tier Void Beast monster core was not long ago at the First Academy. It was eventually taken away by Instructor Jing, as it was the academy's wealth.

It should be a coincidence.

After all, they were just rare, not extinct.

Su Yuehe looked at the monster core on the table, the worry in her eyes gradually fading, replaced by a sense of grounded relief.

She picked up her terminal again, her fair fingers dancing lightly across the screen as she revised the report she was about to send to her mother.

"With this, all the logic forms a closed loop."

An Changqing nodded in satisfaction. He took out a specially made containment box from his storage space, carefully placed the monster core inside, and then pushed it back to Long Ao.

"Keep this safe for now. Once we get off the spaceship, I will submit this report to the higher-ups in the name of our squad."

An Changqing planned to handle it himself; he had experience with this sort of thing.

"Whatever." Long Ao casually stuffed the box into his pocket without even giving it a second glance.

Chen Guan leaned back in his chair, quietly watching his companions perfect the entire excuse word by word.

The longer he spent in this alternate world, the more he felt a certain sensation.

It was as if the world was always drifting away from him in an instant, but after slowly waking up, everything remained the same.

Chen Guan didn't know when it started, but this illusion grew increasingly strong, making it harder and harder for him to live in this world with the mindset of an ordinary person.

The more he wanted to get closer, the further away it felt.

Familiar live comments rolled rapidly across the translucent screen, constantly reminding him that he was not a person of this world.

[Good heavens, casually bringing out a tenth-tier monster core. Brother Ao is truly righteous.]

[Brother Coffin is always so calm. While others are making up stories, he's just watching the show on the side, as if they aren't talking about him.]

[Little An's daily overthinking. It's just that at this moment, Yin Chen probably doesn't know that his destiny has arrived too.]

[What does the person upstairs mean?]

[Yin Chen already appeared in Little An's high school arc. For details, you can check the forum; the big shots are having a blast discussing it.]

Watching these lively comments, Chen Guan slightly adjusted into a more comfortable sitting posture.

Yin Chen... has some juicy gossip?

Chen Guan cast aside his distracting thoughts and quickly blitzed into the forum. If there was gossip, it had to be consumed immediately.

To be honest, he didn't quite understand the specific situation of Yin Chen's family; he only knew they were old money.

Now, the live comments were about to hand him a god's-eye view. How could he miss it?

[Query: Yin Chen.]

The system responded quickly. The page refreshed, and all sorts of dense discussion threads cascaded down like a waterfall.

He roughly scanned a few titles and quickly locked onto a thread marked in red.

"A Summary of Young Master Yin's Tragic Scenes in the High School Arc and a Major Background Reveal: The Untold Stories of Yin Chen and Chen Guan"

Seeing the long, convoluted title, Chen Guan clicked into it with a smack.

Opening this thread, a strong scent of gossip rushed at his face.

[As early as the prequel, Yin Chen actually appeared as an extra. That's right, he was that painfully ugly random passerby in the Magic City.]

[At the time, his entrance was absolutely gorgeous. Snow and ice filled the sky, fierce winds howled, and his prestige was maxed out. But the result? Who did he meet in the solo tournament? That's right, it was our God An.]

[God An didn't even fully draw his sword at the time. With a casual flick while still in the scabbard, he smashed Young Master Yin's carefully prepared ice shield into pieces. Young Master Yin fell straight out of the air on the spot, landing in a highly undignified posture.]

Seeing this, Chen Guan raised his eyes and looked at the seat diagonally in front of him.

Yin Chen was leaning against the back of his chair, his long legs crossed, his posture so poised that one couldn't pick out a single flaw.

It was completely unimaginable...

Chen Guan silently shifted his gaze.

[You thought that was it? After being taught a lesson by God An in the team tournament, Young Master Yin felt he had lost face, so he ran off to provoke another dark horse team at the time. As luck would have it, he ran into our Brother Ao.]

[Young Master Yin set up a massive pile of ice spikes in front of Brother Ao. Before he could even finish speaking, Brother Ao directly threw a punch, sending the ice spikes and Young Master Yin himself flying. The narrator said Yin Chen was stuck on the wall and took half a day to pry himself off. A true captive Yin.]

Seeing this section, Chen Guan turned his head to look at Long Ao sitting in the corner.

This classmate was currently resting with his eyes closed, his arms crossed over his chest, his breathing steady and even.

Chen Guan's gaze fell back onto the screen. In the latter half of this thread, the original poster's topic began to shift, no longer teasing Yin Chen's battle record, but turning to the background of the Yin family.

[But then again, as a prominent family in the Magic City, the Yin family's foundation truly cannot be underestimated. Everyone, look closely at this picture: the scene where Yin Chen lost the match and went home to be lectured by his dad.]

[The focus isn't on Yin Chen being scolded, but on the place where they were standing: the Yin family's ancestral hall.]

[In a normal ancestral hall, the memorial tablets of the ancestors should be enshrined right in the middle, right? The Yin family is no exception, but I noticed something.]

Below the text, the poster attached a high-definition restored screenshot.

Chen Guan's eyes fell on the image.

The background lighting of the screenshot was rather dim. Father Yin stood on the bluestone steps with his hands behind his back. Right in the center of the altar table at the very top of the steps, aside from the rows of wooden spirit tablets, stood a solitary dark gray stone stele.

That stone stele had no names carved into it. Its surface was covered with the weathering and peeling marks of time, and there were even strange cracks.

Chen Guan's breathing slowed slightly.

No, those weren't cracks; they were words.

His mind naturally recalled the glance he took back when they had just walked out of that snow-covered underground ruin not long ago.

That weather-beaten boundary stone standing tall at the entrance of the ruins.