Amid the frenzy of the barrage of comments, Chen Guan raised the trophy that belonged to the champion.
Flashes went off wildly, capturing the moment.
Yet there was no joy on Chen Guan’s face, as one would expect from a victor.
He was still pondering what Su Jin’s words meant.
…
Half an hour later, in the Huaqing Academy lounge.
“Uh, well… Champion, we’re champions!”
Qin Wu tried to break the strange atmosphere. He slapped Chen Guan on the shoulder and forced a dry grin.
“Brother Guan, that last move of yours was way too brutal. You just… did that to Yuehe and she—she’s all right, isn’t she?”
“I went to check on her.”
An Changqing walked in from outside. “The doctor said Yuehe only used up too much mental power and suffered a severe mental shock. She fell into a protective sleep and will be fine after resting for a few days.”
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when they heard that.
“That’s good. That’s good.”
Qin Wu nodded repeatedly, then leaned over to Chen Guan and asked in a low voice, his face alight with curiosity,
“Come on, Old Guan, tell us honestly. What exactly did you do at the end? How did she just collapse like that? Was it some incredibly advanced illusion technique?”
Everyone’s ears perked up, ready to hear Chen Guan explain the Burning Art.
They all wanted to know what had really happened during that silent confrontation.
“Yeah. It was a very complicated illusion.”
Chen Guan answered briefly, offering no further explanation.
An Changqing did not press him. He merely sighed. “The chairwoman has already taken Yuehe back.”
He walked up to Chen Guan, his expression more solemn than it had ever been. “However, she asked me to pass on a message.”
“What message?”
“She said she doesn’t want to see you standing on humanity’s opposing side on the battlefields of the future.”
An Changqing repeated the words one by one.
As soon as he finished, the smile on Qin Wu’s face visibly collapsed, while Long Ao’s brows drew tightly together.
Everyone present understood the weight of those words.
“W-what does that mean?”
Qin Wu was utterly confused. Why was she suddenly making threats out of nowhere?
It couldn’t possibly be because of what happened to Su Yuehe. The chairwoman wouldn’t abuse her authority over a single match.
An Changqing shook his head, his expression grave as well.
“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything else. She only told me to pass on the message.”
He looked at Chen Guan, unable to hide the concern in his eyes. “Chen Guan, it may not be my place to say this, but I still want to remind you: the chairwoman never says things without meaning.”
“Your power may have already touched upon some kind of taboo.”
Chen Guan said nothing. He simply lowered his head and stared at the championship medal hanging around his neck, his fingers gently rubbing the cold metal surface.
A taboo.
Of course he knew that he himself was a taboo.
That Su Jin had sensed it was beyond his expectations. What puzzled him was that she had merely issued a warning instead of killing him on the spot.
“What are you afraid of?” Chen Guan finally stopped mulling it over and spoke. “I’m not planning to destroy the world, and I don’t have the ability to do that anyway.”
He raised his head and glanced over the various expressions in the lounge. Then the corner of his mouth twitched as he deliberately put on a relaxed air.
“I’m the champion. What are all of you so nervous about?”
“I…”
Qin Wu opened and closed his mouth, unable to say a word.
That was true. Chen Guan was the one being watched by the chairwoman, yet he looked more relaxed than anyone else.
That carefree calm only made everyone around him feel even more uneasy.
“All right, the competition’s over. Pack up. We’re getting ready to head back. The school should have a reward waiting for us, and that’s what I’m really interested in.”
His greedy, money-minded attitude finally eased some of the tension in the room.
An Changqing shook his head with a bitter smile and stopped trying to persuade him.
He knew that when Chen Guan made up his mind, no one could change it.
They could only wait until they returned to the school and deal with things one step at a time.
There had originally been a third round, but too many people had been injured this time. With every faction short-handed, An Changsong had made the final decision to cancel it and use the results of the first two rounds as the final standings.
The outcome was naturally without suspense: Huaqing took first place, North City came in second as it had for countless years, Zero placed third, and Divine Valley finished at the bottom.
That night, in the Huaqing Academy dormitory.
Chen Guan returned to his single room and casually tossed the championship medal onto the table.
Qin Wu and the others were still downstairs, arguing about going out for a second-round victory banquet. An Changqing had declined, saying that he wanted to be alone for a while. Chen Guan knew that he was probably worried about Su Yuehe.
He walked to the window, looked down at the figures below, and activated the White Tiger summoner.
Before long, White Tiger’s unmistakably lazy voice came through.
“Well, well, Champion. What brings you to call me? I figured you’d be too busy drowning in flowers and applause to bother with coworkers like us who have to stay out of sight.”
Chen Guan ignored the teasing. “I won the championship.”
“I know, I know.” White Tiger yawned. He sounded completely indifferent to the result. “I watched the whole thing, too. Just as expected. Nothing special.”
After that brief exchange, Chen Guan got straight to the point.
“Chairwoman Su Jin came to see me afterward.”
White Tiger clearly paused on the other end. Most of the laziness drained from his voice.
“Oh? What did she say? Threaten you? Or did she say she was acting in the name of humanity’s justice and would eliminate you on the spot?”
“Nothing like that.” Chen Guan recalled Su Jin’s eyes, which had revealed no emotion. “She asked An Changqing to pass on a message.”
“She said she doesn’t want to see me standing on humanity’s opposing side on the battlefields of the future.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the relaxed, teasing atmosphere vanished without a trace. Chen Guan could not even hear White Tiger breathing.
A full half-minute passed before White Tiger spoke again. His laziness had disappeared completely, replaced by a seriousness Chen Guan had never heard from him before.
“Now, tell me everything you used in the finals. Every method. Especially the move that knocked Su Yuehe unconscious at the end. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
Chen Guan raised an eyebrow but did as he was told.
He briefly described the process: summoning the resentment of the defeated, then borrowing Baal’s power to overwhelm Su Yuehe’s mental defenses with a torrent of memories.
“…That’s more or less what happened. I used an illusion to make her lose herself in an enormous amount of information. Her mind couldn’t bear the load, so she passed out.”
“Heh.”
White Tiger let out a dry laugh. “Kid, you’re pretty bold.”
“Forget An Changsong. The others don’t matter either. But you absolutely have to watch out for Su Jin.”
“That woman is extraordinarily sensitive to demons—sensitive to a terrifying degree.”
“She isn’t making a move against you right now for three reasons. First, you’re still Chen Guan, Huaqing’s prodigy and humanity’s future. She has no reason to act against you. Second, she isn’t confident that she could eliminate Baal completely. And third, your relationships are far too complicated. That would make things troublesome.”
“So she gave you a warning—and a choice.”
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...
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
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.
