He was already a corpse. With every word he spoke, his soul dissipated faster. Seeing this, Old Li hesitated. After all, they had been colleagues and friends for several hundred years…
Hearing his voice, Ye Yang walked over on his own initiative. “What do you want to say?” His expression was faint. Whether it was because he hadn’t fully processed everything or because pushing himself to the limit to save Shen Ming had drained him completely, there was no anger or disgust on his face. Fu Ye was actually quite pleased about that.
“I just wanted to tell you—I never considered you a friend.”
Ye Yang raised an eyebrow. “Noted. Anything else?”
Fu Ye confessed everything. He said he had gotten close to Ye Yang for the sake of revenge. He admitted that he was the one who had attacked Little Crow. In short, he painted himself as utterly heinous, supremely evil, and beyond redemption.
His urgent speech hastened the rate of his dissipation. No sooner had he finished than Fu Ye’s body turned completely ashen. His eyes, which he hadn’t had time to close, went utterly dim.
The one-time bane of heretical cultivators, a model for other cultivators—today, a murderous madman, an evil demon who had slain a god. His last wisp of soul vanished entirely. He was truly dead.
Bai Jun looked wary. “Why did he suddenly say all that? You don’t think there’s some other scheme?” He had been on guard ever since Fu Ye started speaking, terrified of any more tricks. Clutching his chest, he dragged his half-paralyzed body over with great effort, wheezing and groaning. It was only a few steps, but by the time he arrived, Fu Ye had already finished speaking.
Old Li waved a hand dismissively. “He’s completely dead. Soul scattered. What schemes could there be? Stop overthinking and go get your injuries treated.”
Only then did Bai Jun relax. “It’s just that he made me paranoid, that’s all—ah!” He had strained himself too hard dragging over, and his wounds hurt even more.
Everyone went back to work. Ye Yang returned to Shen Ming’s side, remaining silent. He wasn’t particularly sad, but he couldn’t help wondering: What if Fu Ye just didn’t want me to grieve over his death?
But that question would never be answered.
Fu Ye was dead. Everything was over. There was no point in dwelling on it anymore. Might as well forget it all.
After standing for a long while, Ye Yang patted his own face. His gaze fell back on Shen Ming. He gently took Shen Ming’s still-chilly hand. Put all that aside. What matters most now is my Shen Laoshi.
—
One day later, Shen Ming, still unconscious, was admitted to the Dongzhou Field Hospital. Ye Yang accompanied him.
After settling Shen Ming in, Ye Yang wandered around the hospital for a long time before finally running into Li Chanyi.
Li Chanyi looked a mess—two big eye bags, disheveled hair, mismatched buttons with no time to fix them. She grabbed Ye Yang and unloaded her grievances: “You guys really caused a huge stir this time. Yesterday, the director suddenly disappeared. We searched for ages and ended up at YCG, only to find half of them gone too. I thought we’d get to slack off for a while, but then the director came back in the middle of the night with a ton of patients! Might as well just work me to death!”
“Wurong Jie was the smart one—she started preparing right away. I should have listened to her—ow! That hurt!”
Wurong lowered her fist with an expressionless face. “Get back to work. No slacking.”
Overtime made everyone resentful, and the resentment radiating off Wurong was almost tangible. Li Chanyi didn’t dare make a peep. She quickly grabbed her medical chart cart and hurried off. Ye Yang didn’t linger either. He said a quick goodbye and immediately rushed to Cangshan.
There was still much troublesome work to be done with the secret realm Fu Ye had created. The bodies inside needed to be identified one by one. Body fragments needed to be pieced back together as much as possible. Once identities were confirmed, families had to be notified.
And they couldn’t notify everyone at once. Each case needed a separately fabricated plausible cause and time of death.
Even with the aid of various magical techniques, these tedious tasks required enormous manpower and resources. Several surrounding cities, including some YCG branches outside the province, had sent personnel to assist.
Basically, almost all heretical cultivators with any real cultivation had been “sacrificed” in the ritual to resurrect the fallen god. The handful who had escaped the slaughter dared not show their faces. They kept their heads down, their tails tucked between their legs. There likely wouldn’t be any heretical cultivators of consequence causing trouble for a long time, so freeing up some manpower was perfectly fine.
Almost everyone from Dongzhou had come. And Ye Yang was no exception—because he had been personally appointed as the lead person in charge by Old Li.
Having survived this ordeal, having gone through multiple cycles of grievous injury, near-death, spiritual depletion, and replenishment, Ye Yang’s rank had risen once again—directly to Level 4, on par with Chilian, though his practical combat ability was even stronger.
Moreover, after repeatedly pushing his innate abilities to their absolute limits, he had achieved a major breakthrough. Ye Yang’s ability could now not only unlock others’ inherent potential but also directly provide healing—true healing magic.
And now, it wasn’t just sunlight he could convert. The spiritual energy from his usual cultivation, as well as the natural spiritual energy of the world, could all be directly transformed into innate ability energy. His conversion efficiency had also greatly improved.
That was why, despite sustaining so many injuries and serving as a relay station to channel so much spiritual energy into Shen Ming, Ye Yang had recovered so quickly—running and jumping around just one day later.
It was precisely because of all this that Old Li, along with Ye Yang’s superiors and colleagues, strongly insisted that Ye Yang take primary responsibility for the cleanup—or so they claimed.
Somehow, Ye Yang had been talked into taking on this troublesome task. And so, right after settling Shen Ming in, he had to rush back.
He spent two full days and nights in the secret realm before finally, together with the others, managing to cleanse the remaining power of the fallen god from the altars.
“Phew… I hope we didn’t miss anything?” Ye Yang asked cautiously, double-checking.
“Don’t worry, we’ve inspected everything several times. Absolutely no problems. Teacher Ye, please go get some rest.” The people temporarily working under Ye Yang were all YCG staff who had originally been at his level or even higher. Many were older and from an earlier generation. After much deliberation, they’d settled on addressing him as “Teacher Ye”—it felt the most appropriate.
“Exactly, Teacher Ye has worked way too hard these past two days. Get some rest,” the others echoed.
Everyone had witnessed the role Ye Yang played in the battle against the fallen god and his desperate, all-out efforts. His strength was unquestionable. Even if some of the senior cultivators had initially been annoyed at taking orders from a young demon, after two days of working together, they were won over.
And they had no choice but to be—while they struggled and strained to cleanse the fallen god’s power, risking backlash with every wrong move, Ye Yang made it look as easy as wiping a table with a rag.
Moreover, when they were injured by the fallen god’s power, Ye Yang would heal them immediately. Despite being the person in charge, he did everything himself, doing the work of three people. At that point, no one could find any fault.
In truth, Ye Yang had no idea any of these thoughts were crossing their minds. He just wanted to finish quickly so he could go check on Shen Ming.
—
Today was a bright, sunny day. Coming up from the secret realm to the surface, the view suddenly opened up, the air felt lighter, and warm sunlight washed over him as a gentle breeze brushed past. Ye Yang walked a few steps forward and suddenly found himself no longer in such a rush to return to Dongzhou.
Come to think of it, it had been a long time since he’d truly taken a good look at the human world.
It was a weekend afternoon, the sunlight just right. There weren’t too many people on the road, nor too few—most were out enjoying themselves. Their expressions were relaxed, their steps leisurely. Occasionally, someone would playfully shove another, and their laughter would carry far into the distance.
These people went about their ordinary days, completely unaware of the terrifying, earth-shattering events that had been unfolding right beneath their feet over the past few days. They had no idea that they had come within a hair’s breadth of having their entire city reduced to rubble, or even of all of China falling under the shadow of a fallen god.
In their post-event analysis, they had concluded that Fu Ye’s body simply couldn’t contain the fallen god’s power. If he had truly succeeded in killing Shen Ming, the fallen god’s power would have soon absorbed both Xuanwu’s divine power and all of Fu Ye’s strength, reaching an unimaginable level—beyond anyone’s control.
Thankfully, through everyone’s efforts, they had managed to save Shen Ming and had dealt with Fu Ye’s corpse in time. Otherwise…
The ordinary people before him knew nothing of the crisis, the terror, the danger.
For the first time, Ye Yang truly understood just how important and meaningful the work he was doing really was.
He couldn’t help but murmur in admiration: “How wonderful.” They had done it. They had prevented something even more terrible from happening. How truly wonderful.
“…Ye Yang?”
A familiar female voice came from behind him. Ye Yang turned around and, for a moment, didn’t quite register who it was.
Standing before him were Ji Yunrou and Ni Tao!
They had been his classmates in university, always sitting right in front of him and Li Chanyi. One with long hair, one with short—they loved gossip. He hadn’t expected that after graduation, they had both ended up in Cangshan, still inseparable best friends. Only, Ni Tao had grown her hair out, while Ji Yunrou had cut hers into a chic, handsome short style—hence Ye Yang’s failure to recognize them immediately.
He blinked and smiled. “What a coincidence. You’re both in Cangshan.”
Everyone had been so busy after graduation that they’d quickly lost touch. Running into them today was a truly delightful surprise.
Ni Tao hissed through her teeth. “Geez, back in university you were just cute, but now that you’ve grown up, you look completely different. You startled me—in a good way!”
Ji Yunrou tugged at Ni Tao a little sheepishly, then looked at Ye Yang and said, “We ended up at the same company after graduation. Last year, the company started new operations in Cangshan, so we moved here together. It works out well—sharing a rent is really affordable.”
Ni Tao added, “Oh yeah, Ye Ye, what are you doing here? I heard you’ve been working in Dongzhou since graduation.”
Ye Yang: “…Uh, I’m here on a business trip.” That was the truth.
Ji Yunrou: “Oh, I see. How many days are you staying? Do you have time to grab a meal together? We could show you around Dongzhou a bit.”
Ye Yang hadn’t prepared for this and didn’t know how to respond. Just then—ding! A local news notification popped up on Ni Tao’s phone.
She opened it and read: “Recently, three citizens wandered into the depths of a greenbelt while walking in Central Park. After their families reported them missing, the police acted with great efficiency and safely returned all three home that very night.”
Ni Tao made a curious sound and drew Ji Yunrou’s attention. “Isn’t this that whole ‘entered another world’ rumor from the other day? Looks like it was just made up for clicks. The debunking came out fast.”
Ni Tao nodded vigorously. “I told you all those marketing accounts were talking nonsense. ‘Another world’—what a load of fiction. Don’t you think so, Ye Ye?”
Ye Yang: “…”
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