Guan Jinyue walked to the other end of the platform and stood at the very edge, her toes hanging over the void hundreds of meters above the ground.
The two of them, one standing and one sitting, were barely a dozen meters apart, but neither spoke another word.
Time ticked away, second by second.
Twenty-eight minutes remained until the one-hour deadline.
Yin Chen lifted his head, looking toward the western outskirts of the city, his gaze piercing through the flames and smoke.
He was waiting for someone.
He knew that person would come.
Even if that person said he wouldn't, even if he had blocked his calls.
That person would come.
Because it was his grandfather.
Guan Jinyue was also staring in the same direction. Her hands hung at her sides, her fingertips slightly curled—the only sign of her tension.
Three years.
She had waited three years.
The answer was coming soon.
...
Yin Tianzheng did not reply.
In the courtyard, the shredded paper scraps of broken lanterns were lifted by the night wind, skimming the ground in a few spirals before settling back where they lay.
An Changqing looked at the coffin, then back at Yin Tianzheng, his grip tightening unconsciously on his sword.
Long Ao was the first to speak.
“Wait a minute. You’re saying you carry a shard of that thing’s divine spark?”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t that supposed to belong to a god?”
Chen Guan did not answer. Long Ao had clearly missed too many updates on the situation. He turned to look at Yin Tianzheng.
“Old Master, you said earlier that the remnant has no consciousness, only instinct.”
Yin Tianzheng nodded, his eyes fixed on the coffin strapped to Chen Guan’s back, as if he were reevaluating this young man.
“Instinct drives it to awaken. Awakening requires complete power, and the missing part of that power is the divine spark.”
Chen Guan took another step forward. “When you break the seal, I’ll stand at the edge of the formation and pour out the full force of the divine spark’s presence.”
“When the remnant senses the fragment of the divine spark, its instinct will drive it toward me first. To it, devouring a divine spark is far more valuable than devouring a human soul.”
“The moment that soul is released, that will be our window to pull the person out.”
Hong Yuan heard his words and seemed to grasp the idea.
“You mean you’re going to take the hit for that girl?”
Chen Guan shook his head to correct her. “I’m going to steal its attention away from her.”
“And after you do that?” An Changqing’s voice grew heavy. “A mindless remnant of a demon god, all its instinct focused on you—how do you get out?”
“I don’t need to get out.”
The way Chen Guan said this carried an extraordinary confidence.
“The remnant and the divine spark share the same origin. When it closes in on me, I can try to use the divine spark fragments to absorb its power in reverse.”
“If I succeed, I’ll gradually refine the remnant, and the sealing problem will be solved once and for all.”
“That’s what I meant when I said I’d take the remnant as my reward.”
Long Ao’s voice shot up another notch.
“And if you don’t succeed?”
Chen Guan glanced at him.
“Then you’d better run fast.”
Long Ao’s face flushed red, but he couldn’t manage a single word.
Because he couldn’t come up with a better plan.
Su Yuehe stepped out from behind An Changqing, still clutching her tablet. “Chen Guan, the margin for error in this plan is too small. How long is the window?”
“At most five seconds.”
“Can you pull a soul that’s been trapped for three years out of the formation in five seconds?”
Chen Guan didn’t answer her. Instead, his gaze shifted to Yin Tianzheng.
“That’s a question for the Old Master to answer.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to the old man once more.
Yin Tianzheng’s hands were behind his back. His fingers no longer trembled. The confidence of a younger man had returned to his face. “Five seconds. It’s enough.”
His voice regained its steadiness.
“The connection point of the formation is rooted in the soul. If the remnant’s suppression disappears for even an instant, I can peel that child’s soul out.”
“I was the one who set up this formation three years ago. I can dismantle it faster than anyone.”
An Changqing raised his head, meeting Yin Tianzheng’s eyes directly.
“So you agree?”
Yin Tianzheng walked toward Chen Guan, step by step, across the cracked flagstones. Tiny bits of gravel ground beneath his feet with faint sounds.
When he reached Chen Guan, the old man stopped.
They stood less than an arm’s length apart.
Yin Tianzheng’s eyes were clouded with age, but now there burned in them something else—the desperate final roll of the dice for an old man who valued his grandson more than his own life but had no choice but to weigh his options on a scale.
“Your name is Chen Guan.”
“Yes.”
“Li Ce told me about you. Said you have guts, a sharp mind, and don’t play by the rules.”
Yin Tianzheng’s gaze moved from Chen Guan’s face to the coffin on his back, then back again.
“Now I see. He was being modest.”
Chen Guan didn’t pick up on that. He had no intention of discussing Li Ce’s opinion of him with the old man right now.
So Li Ce liked to gossip behind people’s backs, did he? He hadn’t noticed before.
“Elder Yin, now is not the time for reminiscing.”
“I know.”
Yin Tianzheng reached into his robes and took out a jade pendant.
The pendant was small, about two fingers wide, a deep bluish-green. Its surface was covered with fine, natural patterns, glowing with a warm luster under the light.
“A serenity jade. It’s been passed down through the Yin family for seven generations.”
Yin Tianzheng held the pendant out to Chen Guan.
“It can shield you from one mental attack when you suffer spiritual shock. Just one.”
“Though the remnant has no consciousness, its very power corrodes the mind. The first wave of impact as you approach it will be the deadliest.”
“This jade will get you through that moment.”
Chen Guan glanced down at the pendant, didn’t hesitate, and took it.
It was cool to the touch but not chilling, and a stabilizing energy seeped into his skin through his palm.
An Changqing spoke up.
“Elder Yin, about that divine spark on Chen Guan…”
“Don’t say it.”
Yin Tianzheng cut him off, a note of finality in his voice that brooked no argument.
“After this is over, I won’t breathe a word about the divine spark to the Association, or say a thing to the Council.”
His gaze moved from An Changqing to every person present.
“I, Yin Tianzheng, have lived most of my life. I know what to say and what not to say.”
“This boy is risking his life to save my grandson. If I turned around and sold it to save my own hide, I’d be less than an animal.”
Long Ao muttered under his breath from the side.
“That’s more like it.”
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
villain is the number one simp for the book's leading female protagonist, Shen Wan'er. As expected, he later becomes a tool for the main character to show off and slap faces, ultimately meeting a tragic end with his family ruined and his life in shambles. Fortunately, he awakens the [Universal Pure Love System], which allows him to earn points by performing acts of pure love. To change his fate, Gu Yan makes a decisive choice to seek warmth and companionship with the book's biggest villain—Cold Qingqiu. ........... My name is Leng Qingqiu. To find the murderer who killed my parents years ago, I deliberately blinded myself so that everyone would lower their guard around me. Just as I was secretly accumulating power and capital according to my initial plan, a man walked into my world. "Lengleng, Qingqing, Qiuqiu, which nickname do you prefer?" I don't like any of them. You'd better leave quickly! "Why aren't you saying anything? How about I call you my baby wife?" Leng Qingqiu thinks to herself, this man is truly annoying! (Stubborn pure love warrior + single female lead + true pure love + 1v1)
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
