Chapter 157: One Hundred Fifty-Six: This Is Just an Accident

One Hundred Fifty-Six: This Is Just an Accident

Eastern Wasteland Star Region

On the streets of Yan Capital

Ye Fan altered his appearance and walked down the street, his gaze sweeping the surroundings, not missing a single detail.

After narrowly escaping from those several Dragon Transformation cultivators, he unexpectedly encountered a group from the Ji Clan and the Yaoguang Holy Land exiting a Mystical Realm entrance.

After numerous trials and tribulations, Ye Fan finally arrived in the Eastern Wasteland Star Region, dusty and disheveled.

'Fortunately, all those customers there are regulars, and every artifact they carry was provided by the Ye Zhetian Trading Association.'

By having Weigong Shilang detonate those weapons, the scene plunged into brief chaos—especially when the Sovereign Weapons in the hands of Dragon Transformation experts exploded, releasing the Dao and principles they contained with considerable force.

Considering they were the family of his future bride, Ye Fan ultimately held back and refrained from launching a sudden massacre in the confusion.

'But now, sigh, the shop at the Purple Mansion Holy Land will have to pack up and flee ahead of schedule.'

There was still a batch of inventory ready for a promotion. Fortunately, all the temporary workers at the shop—except Duan De—had been sent away long ago, so there was no worry about exposure.

As Ye Fan walked, thinking this, his expression suddenly brightened; he quickened his pace and rushed forward, for he had seen the little girl again—Xiao Nannan.

She pitifully begged a plump middle-aged woman for alms, only to be scolded, after which she shrank back timidly; the woman cast her a look of contempt and left, leaving Xiao Nannan staring at her worn little shoes with holes for toes, standing helplessly in place.

After a while, she wiped away tears, head bowed, walking forward, nearly colliding with passersby several times.

Ye Fan strode toward her.

'I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…' Xiao Nannan said softly, head bowed, tears glistening in her eyes, afraid of being scolded.

'Nannan.' Ye Fan felt his heart shatter; he stood before her and gently stroked her head.

'You're that kind big brother?' Xiao Nannan looked up; she recognized this good person who had once given her plenty of delicious food and money.

Ye Fan looked at the little girl with a complex expression and said softly:

'Come with Big Brother; you won't go hungry anymore.'

Ye Fan's Dao is the present, not the past—he believes in changing everything through his own strength in this life, rather than placing faith and hope in past lives or rebirths. Neither similar flowers nor past lives can affect his now.

But at least, he can become this little girl's brother. This is the bond he still chooses.

After breaking through the Dao Palace to reach the Four Extremes, Ye Fan finally gained the means to secure his place in the world—only now could he bring Xiao Nannan to his side.

'From today on, I am your brother.'

————————

Song Shuhang: 'Senior Su Lin, I got the DJ limited edition album you wanted from Zao Hua Fa Wang.'

Su Lin: 'Good, thank you.'

Although he no longer seemed to need it, Su Lin sadly turned his gaze toward Niu Mowang, who was undergoing rehabilitation training on Shuijing Peak.

Su Lin is a man who never shortchanges himself, but unfortunately, the real rap artist's brilliant duet with Zao Hua Fa Wang has someone who cannot enjoy it.

Song Shuhang: 'No need to thank me. Zao Hua Fa Wang heard someone likes his songs and was so moved he cried tears of joy—he even packaged up his entire discography from debut to now and sent it to you.'

Song Shuhang's lips were slightly pale; he paid a price to obtain this set of albums. Senior Su Lin, please, never play this in public!

Miss Kelaien: 'Do you still want the deeper whispers of the True Creator?'

Su Lin: 'Give it to me first—might come in handy someday.'

Xiao Yan: 'Why are you collecting all these strange things?'

Su Lin: 'Appreciating art.'

Lu Mingfei: 'I think one can appreciate unique art, but not art detached from life.'

Zhongli: 'By universal reason, indeed.'

Su Lin felt sorrow that high art could not be understood—perhaps this is precisely what those artists felt so painfully.

Su Lin shook his head and closed the chat group.

He raised his hand, lit incense, calmed his mind, his expression turned serious again, and he refocused on the matter before him.

His clothes fell to the ground; Su Lin stepped into the mist-shrouded bath, letting the scalding spring water immerse his entire body.

Half an hour later

Inside the abandoned Daoist temple on Yùn Mountain, weeds grew wild; moss clung to exposed stone walls.

In the center of the temple's courtyard, Su Lin, dressed in brand-new robes, stood outside the collapsed beams, placing three incense sticks into a bronze tripod rusted with age, then bowed respectfully before the unrecognizable deity statue; his internal energy surged, and instantly, mist swirled throughout the temple, echoing with the voice of the Dao.

Under the blessing of Heaven's Will, golden clouds filled the sky, golden lotuses bloomed in the void, and a halo of seven-colored light encircled him.

'My turn!'

【-】If nothing drops, then he lied to me—I can just repay him with kindness by making him listen to music.

'Draw!'

As points were spent, a gray glow appeared on Su Lin's system draw interface, rippling in the void; then five streaks of gray light pierced through space—three flew into the system inventory, two shot into Su Lin's forehead.

【Merit Wheel (Empty)】: A product forged by a Buddha's accumulated merit-light, but now merely an empty shell, its interior utterly void. — (Today, with my golden body, cultivation, soul, ten-thousand-year merit, and the gods and immortals, we forge the Absolute Barrier Between Heaven and Earth, exchanging for this world's beings a future free from calamity—Miao Yun)

【Special Invitation to the Abyss Game Party】: Burn to form a team and join an Abyss Game; maximum four participants. By assuming roles within the Demon Lord's grazing realm and completing tasks, contestants kill each other; survivors may redeem rewards. This invitation grants certain advantages in one game. — (Foolish mortals who consider themselves strong, do you fear us? Naturally—you are but larger insects. If you wish to advance further, to leap beyond your cage, come and please us! — Meya Naslun)

【Loren the Grand Mage's Dimensional Banishment】: Creates a rift linked to another dimension, banishing marked objects into it; automatically learns basic dimensional magic theory. Loren believed banishing Niu Mowang to another dimension would ensure peace, but Niu Mowang thrived there, and thirty thousand years later, returned with an army from that world to conquer all realms. — Niu Mowang: I thank Loren for life.

【Sprout of the Golden Apple Tree】: Takes six hundred years to seed, six thousand to grow into a tree, sixty thousand to bloom, six hundred thousand to bear fruit for the first time; after fruiting, new fruit grows every six years. — (The Earth Goddess Gaia snapped off a branch while moving the mother tree from the Western Coast; it fell to the ground. Note: Cannot be accelerated by the Laws of Time.)

【Quantum Motorcycle】: Creates a quantum tunnel, ignoring obstacles; speed depends on user output. (Supports spiritual energy, magic power, Wu Haoran Qi, true qi, spiritual force, etc., as fuel.)

'.'

What did I draw before with under ten thousand points? What am I drawing now?

Are you kidding me?!

On Shuijing Peak

'Today's youth are hard to handle, huh~.' Lao Lu took out a bottle of Maotai and two wine cups.

Before him sat a dish of peanuts and a dish of cold-sliced meat.

"Isn't that right?" The future Su Lin picked up a bite of food and said, "Tell me, who are we struggling for in the future?!"

"For ourselves!" Old Lu poured himself another cup of wine and pushed it toward the future Su Lin. "It's all so we can live better."

"That's right!" The future Su Lin took the wine and drained it in one gulp. "Cough! Cough!!"

He rarely smoked and hardly ever drank, just sipping lightly; moreover, now he was restricted to ordinary human limits.

"Even if we did something wrong, it was for his own good, isn't that right?"

"Exactly, exactly."

The two exchanged glances, as if they had met too late.

"Big Brother Su!"

"Little Brother Lu!"

"Down the hatch!"

Crack—

Old Lu slammed his cup down on the table, the sharp clink echoing. He sighed, head bowed. "Ah, you don't know—no! You do know!"

"You know how miserable I used to be, right? Just like those scenes in the book!"

The future Su Lin nodded. "Terrible."

"Exactly!" Old Lu's face twisted in exasperation. "I could've set him up with a harem—he could've just lain back and enjoyed endless nights of revelry. But no! He's stubborn! Was I ever this stubborn when I was young?!"

Mid-sentence, he changed tack.

"Actually, it's not impossible for him to go the single-girl route, but—"

"I want to play~ Hey!"

"Everyone together—that's what a happy ending means, right?"

The future Su Lin pointed at Old Lu and scolded with a laugh, "You little rascal knows how to have fun!"

Clink

The two drained another cup.

"Harem," sighed the future Su Lin. He glanced around, then covered his face with his hand. "I used to want one too."

"Then again," Old Lu pointed toward a direction beyond the sky, "I'm not trying to insult you indirectly, but—you back then… I just don't know how to say it."

"That's just my nature. Forgive me." The future Su Lin refilled his own cup. "It's all in the wine!"

"By the way, what's going on with you guys?"

Old Lu picked up a peanut, chewed it a few times, then asked, "How'd you end up fighting him?"

"Don't mention it. I just wanted some fun, but turns out he's cheating." The future Su Lin brushed it off and changed the subject. "By the way, I've got something I want to ask you."

"Go ahead."

Bang

Cups clinked.

"In your world, does he have someone special? Like a girl with black hair and golden eyes?"

Old Lu frowned, skeptical. "Does he?"

During the time Su Lin was in their world, he was either causing trouble or binge-watching dramas and playing games—purely a brat. Could he have a sweetheart?

"Black hair and golden eyes? We've got plenty of those in our world. What does she look like?"

"She looks…"

Boom—

Boom boom—

A bolt of lightning, like a serpent, slashed down from the sky.

A massive explosion erupted. Stones shattered where the future Su Lin had been, leaving a deep crater.

Old Lu looked at the shattered cup in his hand, then at Su Lin standing in the new crater, gripping the future Su Lin by the neck. Su Lin smiled at him.

A hybrid audio of Zao Hua Fa Wang and a real rap master flooded the future Su Lin's mind.

His eyes rolled back—he fainted, only his body still twitching, now half-phantom, half-solid.

"Want to listen to this song together?" Su Lin invited Old Lu.

Old Lu frantically shook his head, glanced at the pitiful Big Brother Su, then his body faded into a shadow and vanished.

Timing it precisely, Su Lin waited until the song ended, then paused it and shook the man in his hand.

"Wake up," Su Lin called.

"Young man, no honor," groaned the future Su Lin. His head felt like a nest of earthworms tunneling through his skull. It took a long while to recover.

"I'm about to enter the Weird World. I need a way—other than Exchange—to keep my body from being corrupted or observed by Outer Gods."

If you can avoid spending money, do. Frugality is a traditional virtue.

——————————

Deep within the Spirit Realm

Strange, grotesque Spirit Realm creatures passed by near Kleine, but with the help of Young Lady Reniet Tynicole, the oil painting depicting hell was kept away from Kleine's immediate area, forming a vacuum zone.

Kleine was bewildered—not a little, but profoundly so.

Before him was a historical projection: Su Lin's historical projection.

Based on past experience pulling out Zhongli's historical projection, pulling out the Light God Su Lin's should be no problem.

But his spiritual energy might not last long, and the appearance of the Light God version of Su Lin might draw unwanted attention—so he waited until today, fully prepared, to unveil Su Lin's historical projection.

He had prepared thoroughly.

First, he chose a secluded region deep in the Spirit Realm as the experimental site, and used the Source Fortress above the Spirit Realm to interfere and conceal, preventing the Seven Gods from noticing.

Second, he paid Young Lady Reniet Tynicole 100 gold pounds to maintain "order."

Third, the marionette Enuni stood at the center of the ritual, while the marionette Qunas, wearing the Crawling Hunger, stood at a distance, so that if anything went wrong, he could transfer them at the first moment.

Right.

Plenty of preparation.

The messenger Young Lady Reinette Tinekerr, carrying four heads in her hand, glanced at Miss Kelaien, then at the black-haired, black-eyed young man Miss Kelaien had pulled from history, and spoke in turn with each of her four heads:

"Seems. Like. The. Laziness."

"Of an elf."

"On. That. Creature. There's. Something. Strange."

"A. Power."

Miss Kelaien didn't know what to say upon hearing this. He clearly remembered he had meant to pull out Su Lin, who had once been the God of Light—why had what appeared been the ordinary-state cultivation-world Su Lin?

Although both were Su Lin, it was like pulling a gacha and getting it wrong: one was the limited god-tier version of an R, the other was a dime-a-dozen guaranteed card.

Miss Kelaien thought for a moment, then tried to have Su Lin's historical projection go all-out against him in combat—maybe Su Lin's historical projection had a second state, you never knew.

Just as Su Lin's gaze sharpened, Miss Kelaien hurriedly turned to the messenger Young Lady Reinette Tinekerr and said:

"Step back!"

The moment the words fell, Miss Kelaien froze on the spot, and the messenger Young Lady's four heads turned respectively toward Miss Kelaien's and Su Lin's positions.

In that instant just now, Su Lin had pulled out a black-haired, brown-eyed man of slight build, gripping a cane, wearing a vest and a top hat, with a scholarly air about him—Miss Kelaien himself.

And then

Su Lin slipped into the gap in history.

Miss Kelaien opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but after a long silence, finally said to the messenger Young Lady:

"That was just an accident."

End of chapter.