Chapter 654

Lu Mingfei felt his head ringing as if a firecracker had just exploded; golden spots danced before his eyes, and when he came to, the dream-city styled like a chaotic web novel or manga had vanished.

Sunlight streamed in from the balcony outside the corridor, warm and golden upon his skin.

Clear voices reading aloud echoed in his ears; the glossy green ginkgo leaves swayed, rustling softly, though their fruit carried a foul odor like dog feces come autumn.

“What’s this new trick?” Lu Mingfei scratched his head. “I was planning to take my brother home and dig out the principal.”

Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Lu Mingze, that brat, stayed a sister forever—after all, both were equally good at making people angry.

He walked down the corridor; the classrooms were filled with flickering phantoms, but only at the end remained the Literature Club.

Wait, did you manifest Chen Wenwen?

Lu Mingfei smirked dismissively; he’d half-expected this, yet the atmosphere truly stirred in him a long-forgotten sense of youthful campus life.

The sliding door hissed open, revealing a room crammed with books, the thick scent of ink and mildewed paper rushing out.

A desk, a chair, bookshelves lining both sides; the last rays of sunset bathed everything in a golden glow.

A girl with a slender face, brown eyes, and long, straight, soft hair sat in the chair, the book in her hands likewise gilded with a thin sheen.

She radiated scholarly charm, dressed in a black dress, reading a book titled *The Enemy*.

Lu Mingfei froze; for a moment, he felt a delusion—as if he’d returned to an era of tranquil peace, watching the sunset and evening breeze from some unnoticed corner.

“Are you mentally ill or have you developed some weird fetish?”

Chen Wenwen was reading *The Lover*; this bastard had somehow dug up a copy of *The Enemy* from some street stall just to creep people out—Lu Mingfei, finally catching on, broke out in goosebumps.

“In the previous dream, the Celestial Zun severed my identity and turned me into the Witch of Sequence Seven. When I reclaimed the identity of Kelaien , I hadn’t yet regained my male form.”

Ke Lan turned the pages of his book slowly, explaining to Lu Mingfei.

“So what does that have to do with your current perversion?” Lu Mingfei said, utterly oblivious.

“Because this is a dream,” Ke Lan glanced at him with an expression of *Are you an idiot?* “For mythic beings—especially the Fortune Teller—appearance can change at will.”

Lu Mingfei shuddered and rubbed his arms. “Just send me out already.”

But suddenly, he felt this didn’t match his memories.

“Wait, I remember your dream wasn’t like this before.”

“Something seems to have happened, but I can’t recall.”

Ke Lan rubbed his temple, also sensing something off: “Why am I appearing here in this form, reading?”

He and Lu Mingfei exchanged glances; in that brief moment, both understood something.

The surroundings swelled and contracted like a hazy, confused dream.

Within seconds, everything reassembled in Ke Lan’s hands, and he reverted to his short-haired, brown-eyed youth form.

Before them stood three wheelchairs, with Ye Fan, Su Lin, and Shi Hao seated in order.

Where the hell did these three wheelchair generals come from?

“Feeling moved?” Su Lin asked, his face hollow and withered, voice hoarse. “I endured the agony of ultimate transcendence just to set this up for you two.”

“His room has your idol’s poster, and you like literary girls.”

“Maybe you two could meet halfway.”

If I’d known that skin hid Lu Mingfei, that messy-haired shut-in, I never would’ve touched a single thing in the fandom.

“If you two stay any longer, my version of Heaven might just crack apart,” Su Lin’s body showed cracks like porcelain.

Ke Lan scanned the surroundings. “Just stop maintaining it.”

“How to put it?” Su Lin forced a grotesque smile. “If I could see you two loving and killing each other, even dying once would be worth it.”

Ke Lan rolled his eyes, and the scene once again filled with gray-white mist.

Still a dream?

Faint and blurred, after the dream-within-a-dream vanished entirely, he opened his eyes in a private booth of a bar.

He tossed a coin, used divination to confirm this was real reality.

Nightingale Bar, B1.

A property Su Lin once purchased in the Ruoen Kingdom’s capital, Beckland, corresponding to the real-world private bar of “Huang Tao,” now covered by the dream.

But only a few people remained; some members had already left.

The dream-within-a-dream was Su Lin’s recorded image—but how did he know in advance what he and Lu Mingfei would say?

Huai Shi, who was scavenging fine liquor to take a couple bottles home as souvenirs, spotted Claire and Lu Mingfei waking up and greeted them warmly: “Chief Claire! Senior Sakura!”

“Miss Huai Shi,” Ke Lan smiled warmly. “Thank you for looking after my dream-body in New York.”

Huai Shi’s smile froze on his face; he glanced at his reflection in the bottle, confirming he was only slightly longer-haired.

“Just a joke,” Ke Lan chuckled, removing his hat with a slight bow. “First time meeting you in reality—hello, Mr. Huai Shi.”

Huai Shi exhaled in relief, pulling out a physical book and offering it to Ke Lan. “Can you sign this? I’m a fan of your work in the Present Realm literature.”

“Of course,” Ke Lan nodded.

When those bastards fed him super-spicy chicken wings and hell-chili chips to shut him up, only Huai Shi ever handed him a glass of milk.

Deep culinary skill, exceptional musical talent, outstanding gaming ability—and above all, deeply empathetic.

What a wonderful young man.

Ke Lan felt deeply moved, but after signing, he remembered something: “Huai Shi, you didn’t mention that joke to them, did you?”

He casually handed the book back.

“Joke?” Huai Shi looked confused.

“Yes,” Ke Lan glanced around, lowered his voice. “About when you tore off the tape over my mouth, and I ate—”

Huai Shi suddenly understood, praising: “Incredible! No wonder you’re the great detective—the Primordial Heaven God is actually—”

Before he finished, Ke Lan raised a hand to stop him, smiling faintly.

“I never said anything.”

Several gazes converged on Ke Lan.

Tony Stark, still present, lifted his whiskey and downed it in one gulp. “First Heaven.”

Otto, Otto, Otto

Su Lin didn’t know how many times he’d sat in a wheelchair now.

The two guys beside him, hooked up to IV drips of Immortal Ginseng Spirit Liquid, were truly legendary for their endurance—despite their injuries, they were absorbing and cultivating the residual power of the Dark Heaven Sect.

In Ye Fan’s words, their entire fortune had been wiped out; they had to find something to recover.

“Wang! I told you to stay out of the affairs of the mighty—now look what happened?” Heihuang lay on Ye Fan’s bed, legs crossed, laughing.

“My seals have loosened further. Next time there’s a reward, bring me along—I’ll guarantee your safety.”

Duan De, plucking sacred fruits from Ye Fan’s basket, glanced toward Shi Hao. “Leader, if you’d told us you faced a strong enemy, we could’ve used the Universal Communication Token and torn the place apart!”

He flicked his fingers; the sacred fruit zipped across the room into the hands of the white-haired, red-eyed, gluttonous Moon Rabbit.

Cao Yusheng glared at Duan De, his eyes brimming with murderous intent.

If Ye Fan ever contacted this depraved dog for help against a strong foe, he suspected his entire fortune would be stolen and run off with.

Cao Yusheng turned his gaze away. “Huang, aren’t you planning to return to Shi Village to recuperate?”

Shi Hao lowered the Universal Communication Token, bit into a Dragon Essence Fruit, and asked, “What?”

Nothing.

He felt Huang was getting along quite well here.

After the Battle of the Imperial Pass, Shi Hao, a hero of the Nine Heavens and Ten Lands, received no hero’s treatment—instead, he was cursed by a residual immortal and assassinated by the Supreme Ones.

The residual immortal of the Immortal Temple had recovered. Though rumors claimed he’d repented his past sins and even reformed the other residual immortals, who knew what was truly going on?

“Doctor, can I get out of bed tomorrow?” Su Lin asked the experts before him.

Yao Lao sucked air through his teeth.

Honestly, he didn’t know why a corpse was speaking to him.

No—not a corpse. A shell.

“Essence, spirit, soul, blood—all dried up. This injury cannot be resolved by any human effort or existing rare treasures.” Yao Lao’s expression grew grim, then he shook his head.

“No—on the path of medicine and alchemy across all realms, I am still a student.”

“Perhaps a better healer could resolve this.”

“I’m afraid I cannot help.”

Not only could he not walk—he could barely speak. He couldn’t imagine what brutal battle this young man had endured.

Su Lin sighed. “Then let it be this way.”

Vast heavenly will surged into his body; he stood, stretched.

Yao Chen: “?”

“Impressive…” Xiao Yan’s lip twitched.

“I’d planned to resurrect myself under my Heaven’s Dao and slowly recover—but circumstances have changed.” Behind Su Lin, the manifestation of the First Heaven appeared.

Only now did he understand what Stan Lee’s gift truly was.

He’d assumed he was the only one without a legendary comic story, that even the Heavenlight Transformation Device was broken, and he’d only obtained a conceptual proxy formed from spiritual power.

“I hate Digimon,” Su Lin muttered, glancing at the Heaven Proxy.

No wonder he’d asked if Su Lin liked Digimon.

Digimon: First Heaven · World

Badge: Reversed Tree of Life

Under intense fluctuations of spiritual will and emotion, the badge triggered the Heaven Proxy’s Ultimate Evolution—First Heaven · World would surpass Heaven and once again reach the Throne of the Abyssal God.

But there was one problem—the throne of the Abyssal God was empty.

The ultimate transcendence is still burning!

It’s! Still! Burning!

Leaving aside the Xukong ’s restrictions on the Deep God’s powers, leaving aside the limited abilities granted after ultimate evolution, and leaving aside the various instruction manuals he hadn’t even finished reading.

The point is, as soon as you sit on it, your entire body burns— you won’t last long before falling from the divine throne again!

Even the Ice Throne is easier to sit on than this one.

“Why not just burn Tony?” Su Lin pulled out a cross and a scythe from nowhere, donned a black robe, and staggered toward the exit: “This fucking hetero with a harem.”

He simply couldn’t understand why, after entrusting Luo Xiao Ying and Fa La to deliver his message, he’d received not a single reply.

Is he avoiding me?

I said I’d return the Heaven River Robe to you, and give you the Azure Jade Void Sword and all those practical little tools— and you’re still avoiding me?

Come on, we’re bros— this is way too formal.

“Is everything fine?” Irene asked.

The thought vanished after only a brief moment.

Su Lin put away the cross and scythe; the issue wasn’t that he, as a socially active person, had left the group— it was that he couldn’t find the damn future person at all.

“It’s fine.”

He could feel that if he chose to revive once, the badge on his hand and the Azure Sky Manifestation would both vanish— but his avatar stored with his own Dao still remained, usable as a backup revival option as long as he didn’t recall and merge it.

Yet this body, bound to the Azure Sky Manifestation, couldn’t be casually reset with ‘/Remake’ until it was fully repaired and the nature of this power understood.

“Since you’re temporarily unharmed, I won’t worry about you,” Meng Qi patted the green ox beneath him and waved to the others: “I’ll return first— we’ll gather again another day.”

Do something useful, you Supreme One who still can’t refine the Ninefold Golden Core after all this time!

Su Lin simply couldn’t fathom why, with a Supreme One right before him, the Heavenly Court’s medicine stock remained scarce— and many high-end products still had no inventory.

Humming

The chat group interface popped up in his vision; Su Lin focused intently on the messages.

Feng Xiaoxiao: “@Su Lin, Emperor, are you taking this Supreme Old Man?”

Feng Xiaoxiao: [Image]

It was a sex shop; near a pile of aphrodisiacs and remedies for premature ejaculation, impotence, and physical weakness, a white-haired, ruddy-faced old man stood surrounded by police, pointing his finger at the products.

He looked like he was identifying the scene.

“.”

Against heaven.

Su Lin choked on his reply; Shi Hao coughed from over there, and even Meng Qi ahead swayed unsteadily, nearly toppling off his ox.

Zhang Chulan: “May I ask… Lady Nüwa, is the Supreme One you mentioned that heroic police officer?”

Song Shu: “+”

Feng Xiaoxiao: “Of course it’s that old man— he refused to show himself, so I had no choice but to transfer money and call the police to find him…”

Wait a moment— his little workshop’s pills have been seized. Strange… why is he being taken to a small room for blood draws, photos, and fingerprinting?”

They all knew exactly what was happening— they just couldn’t believe it.

Song Shu: “Looking up at the sky.”

Li Changshou: “He’s probably finished his statement and moved to the next stage…”

Su Lin: “Before he’s transferred to detention, I hope you can get him out.”

Su Lin closed the chat group.

He took a deep breath and turned toward Irene, who had been waiting for a long time.

“The time flow has slowed.”

“Good— otherwise, if we left for several days in the middle, Dad and Mom…”

Irene pressed her forehead.

“They… that phrasing?” Meng Qi, now seated firmly again, turned back and asked: “Have you met their parents?”

Xing, who had completed his Kamen Rider transformation; Ye Fan, who had stolen several of Shi Hao’s hospital meals with Duan De; Hiyari, engrossed in her game; and Xiao Yan, preparing to light the furnace for alchemy— all turned their gazes sharply toward the two.