Chapter 435

The vehicle glided smoothly through the city streets, unable to be slowed even during rush hour.

Zhao Lei gripped the steering wheel with one hand, barely paying attention to the road as he tossed dice in the other, looking utterly relaxed; the police car behind had long been left far behind.

"Huowang." Yang Na was frightened; she never would have gotten in the car if not for Li Huowang.

"Don't be afraid, I'll explain later." Li Huowang's thoughts were entirely on Qian Fu; the middle-aged man with thinning hair had two gunshot wounds, only crudely treated.

"Qian Fu! Can you hear me?!"

His breath was faint, alternating between rapid gasps and pauses of several seconds; when he opened his eyelids, his pupils were slightly dilated.

"Qian Fu, if you're going to die, get up first and hand over the Path of Death to Wu Sheng Laomu. Even if you can't, at least die inside Bai Yu Jing—don't let some outsider Confused Siming benefit from it!"

Li Huowang was anxious; he had been perfectly fine when he left at noon yesterday, and now, less than twenty-four hours later, Qian Fu was this badly injured.

"Amen, when did Qing Wanglai strike?" Li Huowang crouched in the back seat, staring at the driver through the rearview mirror.

"I'm Zhao Lei. Let me calculate—it's about time." Zhao Lei pulled out an old flip phone, dialed a number, and placed the call.

After a brief dial tone, he pressed speakerphone and smiled: "Hello, Xiao Qing, could you tell the people behind you to stop chasing?"

There was silence for several seconds, then Qing Wanglai's voice came through the phone. 【Even Ba Nanxu and Ba Chengqing I could tolerate, but I never trusted anyone on Zhao Shuangdian's side—yet you managed to get Qian Fu away? That truly surprised me.】

"What else could I do?" Zhao Lei laughed exaggeratedly, lowering his voice deliberately before suddenly raising it: "You didn't really think you could control me, did you? By the way, my Path was never lost—idiot, you thought you were clever."

"Hahahaha~~~ Li Huowang, here you go."

He tossed the phone directly to Li Huowang, adjusted the monocle on his right eye socket, and his expression instantly shifted to a calm smile.

Li Huowang found this scene deeply eerie, with no time to think—he shouted into the phone: "Qing Wanglai, why did you attack Qian Fu and the others?"

【You, Zhao Lei, everyone—you've all been misled by Su Tianfu's projection. But it doesn't matter. I'll save this world my own way. Brother Li, out of our past friendship, I beg you not to hinder me. This struggle isn't something you can join.】

【You're merely a pawn. You might think I'm heartless, but you know full well how powerful Su Tianfu and Yu Sheng are—even without them deciding a winner, this world will be destroyed first.】

【Under these circumstances, my plan is the optimal solution. Only by doing this do we have a sliver of hope.】

"Su Tianfu was brought here to help! Qing Wanglai, stop doing foolish things!" Li Huowang had barely finished speaking when the phone was hung up.

This madman

Still hasn't abandoned his plan to devour all Confused Siming by destroying the world—this only proves the influence of the Great Fearful Siming still lingers.

"Li Huowang, how about we make a deal?" Zhao Lei slipped the dice he'd been playing with into his pocket, lifted his monocle, and said:

"Let Him allow me to keep the harvest, and I'll handle everything else left in this world."

"Of course, you can also choose to pay a small price."

Li Huowang sneered, bent forward, and slapped the timer on the front seat; as the fare amount popped up on the display, he said: "To Gospel Church!"

"Heh." Zhao Lei chuckled, and suddenly, the scenery around them shattered into countless fragments.

Overlapping roads, tunnel after tunnel, mixed colors, mismatched signs, pedestrians and vehicles speeding forward and retreating in chaotic motion.

He retained his Sequence ability within the modern world?!

Perhaps that's how he escaped from Qing Wanglai and the followers of the Great Fearful Siming.

"We're here. Seventeen yuan and fifty fen. WeChat or Alipay?"

Ten minutes later

【Police Notice: At 6:53 AM today, a violent assault occurred on Juzizhou Street, injuring thirteen people. The suspect, Zhao, male, 25, with a history of mental illness, stole a parked taxi and is currently at large; another suspect, Ba, female, 23,】

"How terrifying," Su Tianfu remarked, watching the news report on TV:

"Since coming to this city, I've seen news like this every other day. Last time, the gas explosion was at a psychiatric hospital—don't you have any Batman-type heroes here? Anyone unfamiliar would think this is Gotham."

"Little Zhao, what should we have for lunch? Let's just go eat Cantonese food next to the police station—I think Doctor Yi's stomach needs something light and nourishing."

Zhao Shuangdian: "."

Seeing Zhao Shuangdian didn't answer, Su Tianfu picked up his phone and walked outside on his own. "It's settled then—I'll call a cab."

"I have a car. Ride with me." Zhao Lei adjusted his monocle and smiled: "Your driver, Zhao Lei, serves you wholeheartedly. If you'd prefer a more luxurious vehicle, I'll prepare one immediately."

His voice was gentle, his entire posture humble as he bowed to Su Tianfu and made the sign of the cross over his chest.

"Could we use a police car? That would make me feel safer." Su Tianfu asked the wanted man: "Have we met before?"

Like in the taxis of Magu City

Impossible to forget—people who wear monocles are rare in this era, let alone fanatics of Amen, who kept asking about the future of Miss Amen and Miss Klein.

Seriously, I told you they got together and you didn't believe me.

Zhao Lei looked astonished. "You remember me? Then—"

Zhao Lei's expression froze. He lowered his head, pulled a die from his pocket, and tossed it—it landed showing six.

"This is for you. Don't be polite—it's a small gift I made myself." Zhao Lei maintained his stiff smile, producing a monocle as if by magic: "Please… do accept it. No, don't accept it. I'm joking."

"Accept it… you're all afraid of him—I don't believe it, heh."

From Su Tianfu's many years of clinical psychiatric experience, this guy likely suffered from cognitive disorder—his uncoordinated hand gestures and shifting expressions suggested OCD or multiple personality disorder; he was probably now caught in a struggle for bodily control.

"Thank you." Su Tianfu smiled warmly and accepted the gift.

All that was needed was to satisfy one personality's demand—the other would calm down soon.

Crack—Crack—

Li Huowang's eye twitched as he watched: the instant Su Tianfu took the monocle, Zhao Lei's right monocle shattered into ice-like cracks, the die slipped from his right hand, fell to the ground, and cracked open, spilling mercury inside.

Splash!

The monocle lay shattered across the floor.

Zhao Lei collapsed to his knees, rolled his eyes back, and fainted.

"What the hell, mugging?" Su Tianfu quickly shifted his body aside, letting the man fall to the ground.

Li Huowang warned: "Brother Su, he's Amen—he's possessed the die and Zhao Lei."

Clearly, Su Tianfu's face filled with question marks. "That… Amen?"

Li Huowang nodded.

"He's one of us too? Didn't you say Kleine was the one who was on our side?" Su Tianfu's expression twisted: "Don't you fear being deceived by working with this thing?! It has no humanity!"

If this were the original, unaltered version of The Master of Demonic Secrets in my own mind, then Amon would absolutely be a being to avoid entirely—contracts mean nothing to him; aren't these people afraid he'll stab them in the back or cause trouble?

"He's yours—you brought him here," Li Huowang answered honestly.

Not me???

"Sorry, Doctor Su, no time for chit-chat—many unknown individuals have arrived outside," Zhao Shuangdian said, pulling out a tablet to display footage from surveillance cameras.

"I think we need to leave here first."

"Aren't they afraid to act against me?"

Su Tianfu looked at Li Huowang—this wasn't what the other had said before.

Zhao Shuangdian nodded slightly: "True, but they don't need to harm you—only to trap you."

Li Huowang stared at Zhao Shuangdian and frowned: "Is your mental state normal?"

"We're all normal," Wu Qi opened the door, now dressed in a full-body tactical suit; she smiled at Li Huowang: "Master Li, thanks to you, we've all awakened—though the process carried some risk."

Li Huowang asked: "What exactly is—"

"I'm Li Sui, the continuation of this timeline," Gu Yuan stuck out her tongue, then melted into a pool of black tentacles:

"Uncle Meng said the Valley God never dies—it's called the Mysterious Female—but even Father, who never read much, could guess 'Valley God' was a placeholder, so we changed it to Gu Yuan. After all, the Heavenly God gives rise to all things; the origin of all things can also be called Gu Yuan."

"Uncle Meng? What even is that?!" Li Huowang, confused, grabbed the tentacle-pool that was Gu Yuan: "What future are you talking about? What were you hiding from me before?"

"Sigh, just look for yourself," Gu Yuan's black tentacles transformed into strands of flesh-chains brimming with secret karmic threads, and before Li Huowang could react, shoved themselves into his mouth.

His body didn't even gag—the secrets exploded like bombs, flooding his mind with images and information.

Chaotic, occasionally interwoven, all secrets and karmic threads hidden within, invisible.

A phantom ancient glazed lamp emitted shifting black-and-white light, illuminating a ruined, frozen world; phantom tributaries stagnated within the river of time.

Like a cage.

A Daoist in blue robes, temples slightly streaked with gray, holding a string of Buddhist prayer beads, sat cross-legged in the chaos; before him floated a bloated, malformed black mass of flesh, his figure equally phantom.

Grand Siming Sanqing.

Grand Siming Sanqing?!

"I get it… I get it—I know what Qingwang wants to do!"

He intends to kill all Siming and devour all Heavenly Dao—true enough—but he won't keep the Heavenly Dao for himself; he'll give it to Meng Qi. He wants Meng Qi to become the new Grand Siming!

The Siming of this world have a unique property—"Neither past nor future."

Past, present, and future occur simultaneously; this is especially true of the Grand Siming. The Siming's womb, from which all arise, is likewise so.

Most exalted, supreme, first among all—no dwelling, no going, no coming—three lifetimes' forms emerge from within.

Originally, Su Lin and Meng Qi did not belong to this world—but they obtained the Heavenly Dao of the Five Wisdom Tathagatas, those two strings of prayer beads. When they made the beads their own, projections of this world's past, present, and future were generated.

It wasn't that they sought the Heavenly Dao and thus "Su Tianfu" and "Meng Zhending" appeared—rather, those two strings of prayer beads were the fuse.

Only a fragment of the Five Wisdom Tathagatas' flesh-and-blood Heavenly Dao could not produce a Siming—but when Su Lin touched this spark, his innate "Omniscience" trait completed the entire world's Heavenly Dao, though only as a shell, lacking the true origin of Grand Siming.

At this moment, searing pain surged—not merely physical, but spiritual agony, flooding Li Huowang's soul like a tide.

Li Huowang's teeth nearly shattered; then, overwhelming despair twisted into self-destructive impulses—these were the side effects accompanying the incoming information.

"Almost… tell me…"

The phantom Daoist opened his eyes, gazing across time and space at Li Huowang.

Boom—

His thoughts grew increasingly sluggish; time stretched infinitely, as if eternal—and in that instant, Li Huowang touched the information behind the fear and despair.

The Grand Siming, the Primordial God, lacking any substantial origin, appeared in Baiyu Jing. All beings once transformed by Li Huowang's corruption—from the Unnameable into gods, buddhas, angels, and celestial beasts—collectively called His name.

Then, above Baiyu Jing, the fissure—beyond its rotting-rainbow liquid—the colossal, suffocating Fusheng Tian also turned its gaze. Its gaze pierced like a spear wrapped in boundless fear and despair toward the "Primordial God."

The Primordial God lifted his head—their gazes met—and only a moment later—

Fusheng Tian tried to flee. It decisively dropped two Heavenly Daos, symbols of unknown laws, transforming them into a giant and an ocean-like liquid. The liquid surged into Su Lin's body, slowly but steadily filling the hollow shell.

The Omniscient, Omnipotent Grand Siming, the Primordial God—was complete.

"."

You're a fucking idiot, aren't you? If you're leaving, just leave! Why throw down two Heavenly Daos?!

The "remaining" Fusheng Tian stirred—it blocked the fissure in Baiyu Jing with the influx, beginning to interfere with Qingwang's efforts to aid Meng Qi in becoming Grand Siming.

Influenced, Qingwang gradually transferred the secret Heavenly Dao of Sanqing to Meng Qi, and began his extreme salvation plan.

Is Fusheng Tian's goal to make Meng Qi the jailer who traps Su Lin, so Su Lin can't chase it???

If all Heavenly Daos are absorbed by Meng Qi, the fissure above Baiyu Jing can close—and this universe will become a solid cage because of the Grand Siming Sanqing.

A cage to imprison the other Grand Siming, the Primordial God.

The cost: all original Siming perish. Only Meng Zhending and Su Tianfu remain, along with Ji Zai, unabsorbed and somewhere unknown.

Today's travel delay cost a few hours—sorry.

(End of Chapter)