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.”
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
