SPLAT!
It was as though a water-filled balloon had shattered.
Blood gushed forth.
Yet as the blood touched the blade, it quickly vanished without a trace, thoroughly absorbed by the blade. With the blood's nurturing, the gaps on the blade swiftly expanded and restored, as if ti had reversed. Ultimately, a lavish golden pattern erged on the bronze blade.
From a counterfeit antique on a roadside stall, it had transford into a genuine work of art.
It looked so exquisitely crafted as if it were forged from life itself.
Ai Qing stepped back, ignoring the violent, thirsty howling from the blade, and indifferently pulled the knife from Crying Snake's throat. She flicked the blood off the blade and returned it to Huai Shi.
"It's quite useful for now, though a bit greedy. It's passable against living things with blood—having such a prohibited item circulate in the market will spell trouble, so be careful with it." She glanced at Director Fu, who seed on the verge of speaking. "After all… collecting and storing dangerous items is also within the Astronomical Society's duties."
In such an open manner, she forcibly downgraded the Border Relic, which was undoubtedly above C-level in threat, to D-level, and then claid it for the Astronomical Society under the guise of storage.
In one transaction, the object was now Huai's... wasn't that a bit too much?
Before he had a chance to object, Director Fu heard a noise that sent chills down his spine.
On the gradually lifeless corpse, where the warmth had not yet dissipated, blood no longer sprayed from the wound. Instead, strands of black smoke erged from the body's limbs and bones.
The black fog, like thick liquid, slowly enveloped the Crying Snake Sublimator's corpse, seemingly swallowing it whole.
Then, a bone-chilling chewing sound began.
Every ti the chewing sounded, a massive gash appeared on the body, as if it was being incessantly gnawed by sothing invisible, until in the end, the black mist quietly dissipated.
Within the heavy chains, there remained only a ghastly pale skeleton.
Soul or flesh, even the marrow, had completely vanished without a trace. Even if you were to boil it in a pot for a long ti, you'd probably only get a pot of boiling water.
Not even enough calcium was left for absorption.
A breeze blew, and it quietly disappeared into a cloud of dust.
The brief 'banquet' thus concluded amid everyone's stunned expressions.
"So, I'll leave the site cleanup to you."
Ai Qing calmly nodded at Director Fu. "I'll submit a request for support to the higher-ups, and when the ti cos, I hope the Social Security Bureau and the Special Affairs Departnt will cooperate fully."
Director Fu fell silent for a long ti, then nodded his head dryly.
Clearing up the scene was now a task for the Special Affairs Departnt. Thanks to Ai Qing's thorough style, Huai Shi once again enjoyed the treatnt of being shuttled by a private car.
It was like being a leader on an out-of-town inspection. He'd attend a eting, then return ho with local specialties, sent back just as he had co.
"Oh, by the way, co by tomorrow afternoon."
Before she left, Ai Qing said to him, "You have a package."
A package?
The East Wind?
Huai Shi, eyeing the wheelchair-bound miss who had just leveled the ground with missiles, dared not ask further.
In any case, it felt as though with the DING of a notification, one mission had been completed. Equipnt
1, materials
3, experience
5… It seed to have even laid the groundwork for the main storyline to follow.
Many questions still lingered in his mind, but thankfully, he would soon have a way to address them.
Huai Shi took out his phone and opened his contacts.
So, which lucky friend would get the opportunity to treat him to lunch and answer his questions?
.
.
"What the hell?"
Half an hour later, in Xinhai's most popular Whole Sparrow Banquet Hall, Liu DongLi spat out the tea he'd just sipped and coughed violently.
"The Purified People, huh? What about them?"
Huai Shi looked utterly bewildered.
After catching his breath, Liu DongLi lowered his voice, asking, "Can you confirm they're from Paradise of Bliss, The Purified People?"
Huai Shi had just nodded when he saw Old Liu clasp his hands respectfully, his mouth opening as if to say sothing grave. Huai Shi quickly pushed Old Liu's hands down. "Whoa there, Old Pal, don't give
the 'it's terminal' speech just yet! What in the world are The Purified People?"
"An illegal religious group."
Liu DongLi's explanation was concise and to the point. He was mopping cold sweat off his brow, clearly still shaken. "Friend, how big a can of worms have you opened? They're all a bunch of lunatics."
"Right?" Huai Shi nodded with understanding. "I've seen it..."
Liu DongLi slapped the back of his head in anger. "Can you be serious for once, brother? If we don't handle this properly, not only are you done for, but the entire Xinhai might be gone!"
"But even if you say that, I still have no idea." Huai Shi thought for a long ti, then asked, "Which is more formidable, Green Day or them?"
"..."
Liu DongLi was speechless at Huai Shi's bizarre question, not sure if he was gathering his thoughts or figuring out how to correct this guy's train of thought.
"They're not... in the sa category."
After struggling to explain for a while, he could only spread his hands and say, "Look, Green Day is a bunch of anti-social lunatics, but their main thing is just attacking the Astronomical Society, you get ?"
After thinking for a long ti, Huai Shi slapped his knee. "You an like the heroes of Liangshan, right?"
"...Approximately similar in nature, I guess. Although neither the heroes of Liangshan nor Green Day are exactly good guys, their main goal is still to storm Tokyo and usurp the throne. Then the eldest brother would beco the Great Emperor, the second brother the Second Emperor, and I'd be the Grand General, or sothing like that. So, at the end of the day, it's really all internal strife."
Liu DongLi sighed and set down his teacup. "Let's get back to The Purified People. Their nature is more complex than Green Day's."
"Uh-huh, go on." Huai Shi nodded and quietly took notes.
"Their base is outside the Border, in a place in Hell called Paradise of Bliss. Even the Astronomical Society can't pinpoint their coordinates to wipe them out in one fell swoop. Over the years, they've caused quite a stir and cooked up a lot of trouble. It's said that Manchester fell because of them... But ultimately, their greatest threat isn't themselves; it's what's behind them."
When Huai Shi heard the na Manchester, a place he seed to have heard of sowhere, he paused for a mont but was quickly drawn back in by Liu DongLi's next words:
"What they worship is one of the twenty-four Elents of Destruction calculated by the Astronomical Society based on the prophecy of the forr President. Calling it a God wouldn't be an overstatent—"The Ranch Owner.""
"Elent of Destruction?" Huai Shi was astonished. "Why does sothing that sounds so aweso have to be called the Ranch Owner? Does it raise cattle or what?"
"...Pretty much."
Liu DongLi said numbly, "It's called an Elent of Destruction because, in the Astronomical Society's assessnt, it's sothing that possesses the probability, ability, or potential to destroy the Current Circumstances. It's not sothing gentle like a nuclear bomb, but sothing more twisted and subversive. To put it simply, it has the power to completely transform the Current Circumstances into Hell... You can think of it as The World Destroying Great Demon King. With such stature, there are said to be twenty-three others like it, and currently, only a few have been publicly disclosed. One of its remnants is sothing you've probably seen all the ti."
He pointed towards the sky outside the window.
Huai Shi stretched his head out curiously to look at the pale blue afternoon sky do. It was puffily dotted with white clouds, among which traces of schools of fish could be seen. They swam among the coral in the clouds, casting ripples of watery light towards the ground.
At first, he was puzzled, then confused, and finally, he was struck with astonishnt.
"Wait, Coral Cloud?"
"Correct."
Liu DongLi took a sip of tea, his face expressionless. "To be precise, it should be called The Old Gaia, representing the destroyed old world... Those matters are too remote for you. Just know this: those Coral Clouds currently floating in the sky are its corpse. The Ranch Owner, the Heavenly Kingdom, the Piper, The Old Gaia, the Man in Grey, the Golden Dawn... among the nine publicly known Elents of Destruction, the Ranch Owner ranks first. According to the rumors circulating in the dark, it's even linked to the secret of the mass extinction of the old Gods in the year 1650. The waters behind it run deep, deep enough to drown one hundred thousand of you. So, are you scared now?"
"..."
Huai Shi fell silent for a long while before raising his hand. "Excuse , I think I just heard... Heavenly Kingdom?"
Liu DongLi looked at him, bewildered, for a long ti. "Ah, yes, the Heavenly Kingdom. In the literal sense of the word, as in Heaven. The detailed information isn't within my scope of knowledge. What's with the question?"
"Nothing, just asking, just asking."
Huai Shi smiled awkwardly, feeling like he had heard the term sowhere before but couldn't quite place it, so he just scratched his head, "You haven't explained why the Ranch Owner got such a weird na?"
"Simply put, it's all about the food chain."
Liu DongLi scratched his head, picked up his chopsticks, and drew a circle around everything Huai Shi could see, finally stabbing into the recently served Sparrow Hot Pot and lifting a sparrow leg:
"You see, to those delusional Purified People, this world is a huge food chain, spanning the Current Circumstances, the Border, and Hell. Just like sheep eat grass and people eat sheep. If the clergy regard believers as their flock and themselves as shepherds, then wouldn't the one commanding all these shepherds at the top of this twisted, hellish food chain be the Ranch Owner? With the very essence of the divine twisted by Hell, the Ranch Owner is, without a doubt, a truly evil god. The entire world is nothing more than a giant ranch to it, and all living beings are but its feed. And what The Purified People pursue is to rge with their God during the ultimate contraction and cycle of this food chain, becoming incarnations of the Ranch Owner. In reality, the so-called Paradise of Bliss is rely a dinner plate for the Ranch Owner. They are just tools for cleaning this dinnerware; in fact, these tools themselves are also edible, biodegradable materials... like so."
He paused, then cramd the braised sparrow leg into his mouth, crunching loudly:
"Now, do you understand?"
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