He finished speaking and looked at Chen Guan intently.
Chen Guan's reaction was rather calm, clearly dismissive. "Is that so? It should be fine."
"The mission I took is only a B-rank one. It's in the forest on the outskirts of Tianze City, I'll be back soon."
This explanation was perfectly reasonable, with no flaws to pick at.
"That's good," An Changqing nodded with a smile, seeming truly relieved. "Just be extra careful. If you need any help, contact me anytime."
"Alright." Chen Guan nodded back.
The two passed each other.
Chen Guan's figure quickly vanished around the corner of the dormitory building.
An Changqing stood where he was, the smile on his face fading little by little.
He turned back, looking at the direction Chen Guan had disappeared, his gaze steady.
Everything seemed normal.
But An Changqing just felt that something was off.
He couldn't put his finger on why, it was just a faint hunch.
Ah, well.
Maybe he was just overthinking it.
Chen Guan left the academy.
He didn't alert anyone, only bringing his Baobao along.
Stepping into the teleportation array, Chen Guan's figure disappeared.
On the outskirts of Yunlan City, at an abandoned freight dock.
Chen Guan's figure emerged silently behind a cluster of shipping containers.
He had made a detour through Tianze City to get here, taking every possible measure to leave no trace.
With that thought in mind, Chen Guan lifted his eyes and looked not far away, where two people were standing.
One of them had a familiar outline, wearing a crisp white suit that stood out like a wisp of ghostly fire in the night, and a flashy white smiling mask on his face, just like the first time they met.
White Tiger.
Standing beside him was another figure, dressed all in black with a black mask, the exact opposite of White Tiger. Her presence was so faint she almost blended into the night.
Sensing Chen Guan's arrival, the face hidden behind White Tiger's mask turned toward him.
"You're here."
Chen Guan nodded, his gaze falling on the woman beside him. There was no doubt that this was Santai.
White Tiger didn't mind the silence. He pulled a pure white mask out of his coat and tossed it over casually.
The mask traced a white arc through the air. Chen Guan reached out and caught it. It looked almost identical to the one White Tiger was wearing, probably bought in bulk.
He took out a completely different white mask from his storage space, then tossed White Tiger's back to him.
He trusted the system's products more!
"Looks like you already have one ready."
White Tiger didn't take offense, and put his "bulk-bought" mask away.
"You're paired up with Santai."
He turned toward the city center of Yunlan, where the lights glowed bright, like a sea of false, prosperous starlight.
"I'll say this one more time. Our target is the Eternal Square in the city center. Create enough chaos to draw all the Great Wall operatives, and every meddlesome person, over there."
"I want the city center to turn into a mire, trapping all of them, to buy us the time we need."
...
The night breeze blew. Chen Guan stood at the edge of the office building's rooftop, propping his hands on the guardrail as he overlooked the city woven with lights beneath his feet.
In the distance, the giant LED screen on Eternal Square was flickering with garish advertisements, and crowds of people moved about the square.
A street vendor pushing a cart selling grilled skewers was yelling at his last few customers at the top of his voice.
A schoolgirl in uniform was holding a cup of milk tea, leaning against a streetlamp, her fingertips swiping quickly across her phone screen.
A middle-aged man was walking his golden retriever slowly, the dog leash stretching into a long shadow under the lamplight.
The golden retriever squatted docilely at his feet, its tail sweeping across the ground in a steady rhythm.
A young mother was holding a sleeping child, tiptoeing to check the timetable at the bus stop, exhaustion evident on her face.
The child's little head bobbed with her movements, and the mother immediately reached out to gently cradle the back of the child's head.
"Black Tortoise."
Santai's voice came from beside him. She was leaning against the wall on the other side, both hands tucked into the pockets of her trench coat. Her gaze from behind the black mask was also fixed on the distance.
"Hm?"
Chen Guan responded without turning his head.
Santai waited a few seconds, then asked, "What are you looking at?"
"People."
"What people?"
"Ordinary people."
A hint of surprise crept into Santai's tone. "I thought you'd say the scenery."
Chen Guan didn't take the bait, and pulled his gaze back.
"We start in three minutes."
White Tiger's voice came through the earpiece.
Chen Guan pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Received."
Santai put on her black mask. She tilted her head, her sight landing on Chen Guan. "Your hands are clenched too tight."
"You talk too much."
A muffled, slightly distorted laugh came from behind Santai's mask. "I just wanted to ask if you were nervous. You look like the kind of person who's a straight-A student, after all."
Chen Guan didn't reply. He took one last glance at the everyday, warm scene unfolding below him.
The middle-aged man walking the golden retriever was annoyed by his dog's uneasy low growls. He looked up at the night sky in confusion, but saw nothing.
The schoolgirl under the streetlamp was amused by a message from her friend, her shoulders shaking softly.
They had no idea what was about to happen.
"You really do care about them, don't you?" Santai's voice rang out from behind him. She didn't take it personally that Chen Guan ignored her.
Chen Guan still didn't answer that question. He lifted his hand and pulled the pure white mask over his face.
His coffin weapon was set down by his feet, and he let Baobao hide it in a separate dimension. He also exchanged for a distance buff, to keep it from dissipating if he got separated mid-fight.
"It's starting." His voice came through the mask, dull and distorted.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Chen Guan pushed off the guardrail with his toes. His figure silently merged into the night, cutting through the wind.
Santai's mask turned toward the direction he had vanished in, but she didn't move. Her task was to hold the line, not steal the show.
Yunlan wasn't a large city, its guard forces wouldn't be that strong. Asking Chen Guan to cut down every single one of them by himself would be far-fetched, but just letting him tear through the area would be manageable.
Still, to pin down the authorities, they had to force them to divert manpower to protect these ordinary people.
She was curious what this new recruit, who was highly praised by both Beidou and White Tiger, would do.
It was obvious even to Santai that Chen Guan cared about the ordinary civilians who might get caught up in the chaos, even if he wouldn't admit it.
In the night sky, Chen Guan's figure moved as fast as a phantom.
He didn't summon his scythe. Instead, he curled his right hand around the hilt of a ferocious giant hammer that was comically out of proportion to his frame.
He quickly exchanged for a system-issued red paint job, turning the entire hammer bright red.
The office building ahead was long empty after work, and it became Chen Guan's target.
He hovered right above the top of the building, raising the giant hammer high. His figure looked tiny as a moth against the glow of the city lights.
Then, he brought the hammer crashing down.
Cracks spiderwebbed wildly across the glass facade, and only a split second later, a deafening roar swallowed every other sound.
Boom!
The entire building's steel structure let out a strained, groaning cry. The top floor caved in instantly.
A shockwave carrying shards of glass and chunks of concrete spread out in all directions like a surging gray tidal wave.
Everyone on Eternal Square was stunned senseless by the massive crash.
The street vendor selling grilled skewers dropped his meat skewers onto the ground.
The schoolgirl using her phone let it slip, and it clattered to the pavement, the screen shattering.
The middle-aged man's golden retriever broke into panicked, frantic barks.
Every single person craned their neck to stare up at the collapsing building, and the exact same look crossed every face—first stunned blankness, then raw, unmasked terror.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
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...
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.
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!
