Chapter 863: No Mutation

At that moment, a steady set of footsteps sounded from behind her.

The hard soles of her leather shoes pressed on the stone slabs, each step neither hurried nor slow, accompanied by the gentle tapping rhythm of her cane on the ground.

Fu Xuan did not turn around, but she already knew who had come.

"Tai Bu."

Walther's voice was low and gentle, carrying Calm.

He walked to Fu Xuan's side, his cane giving a light tap on the stone slab, nudging the black‑rimmed glasses on his nose.

His gaze behind the lenses first swept a glance at the two interlocutors in the center of the Exhaustive Observation Formation who were fervently discussing a trash can; his mouth twitched slightly, but quickly returned to normal, then he turned to Fu Xuan, his eyes bearing a question.

"Did something happen?"

Fu Xuan shook her head.

"Nothing. There was a little accident."

She withdrew her gaze from the Exhaustive Observation Formation.

"It can still be dealt with for now."

Walther looked at her, not replying immediately.

He was silent for a moment, the metal head of his cane turning half a circle lightly on the stone slab.

He wasn't the type to keep asking "Really?" "Are you sure?" As a former Ni Zhang Meng Zhu who had weathered countless storms in Honkai, he was all too familiar with that "a little accident but still manageable" tone.

"Is that so."

Walther switched his cane to his left hand, pushed his glasses with his right hand; the reflection on the lenses obscured his eyes, but the faint concern in his tone remained uncovered.

"The Train Group can provide some assistance here. Xing and I are both in Luofu now; if you need manpower, just ask. No need for formalities."

Fu Xuan fell silent.

Her calm eyes flickered faintly under the glow of the Exhaustive Observation Formation.

She then turned her head to glance at Walther, then turned back, continuing to watch the center of the Exhaustive Observation Formation.

Xing was crouching on the ground at this moment, drawing something with his finger on the tile at the formation's eye, probably demonstrating the structural cross‑section of a trash can to Kafuka.

Kafuka actually crouched down as well, propping his chin and watching intently, nodding occasionally.

"Thank you."

Fu Xuan only said those two words.

But she neither refused nor said "I can handle it myself".

Walther sensed the weight of that, and did not ask further.

He tapped his cane lightly on the ground, stepped back a pace, and stood quietly beside her like a silent old tree.

Perspective shift.

On an unnamed street of Luofu Xianzhou, a faint burnt smell lingered in the air.

The shopfronts on both sides of the street mostly revealed counters and shelves inside that had been turned into chaos.

Scattered on the ground were some goods that had been trampled to ruin.

Qingque walked along the street, each step placed very cautiously.

Her cyan skirt hem was creased as if someone had twisted it and then casually laid it flat like a rag; the two slap marks she had slapped on her own face had faded mostly, yet the evening breeze still made them itch and sting.

She massaged her temples, circles forming in her mind.

All that had occurred earlier in Dan Ding Si—Jing Yuan's clipped voice chasing after her, Bai Lu shouting the word "War" to duel her, Xue Yi breaking through a wall, kicking Jing Yuan away and then trying to stab her with a spike—she slipped through the floor into a side alley; each fragment was like Mahjong tiles shuffled disorderly, tumbling in her mind, never forming a sequence.

"Abundance Offspring."

Her lips moved slightly, silently repeating the four words.

When Xue Yi brandished a demon‑breaking spike at her, those were the words she uttered.

The Judge of the Ten Kings Office, in charge of the "Detention" department, whose duty is to hunt down fugitives, evildoers, and those who violate Xianzhou's laws, when such a person says "Abundance Offspring," it is undoubtedly a nailed‑down fact, verified internally by the Ten Kings Office.

But she, a Xiao Bu Zhe of the Tai Bu Si, whose greatest daily sin is goofing off and sleeping in, occasionally skipping work to spin a couple rounds of Imperial Wall Jade at a teahouse—how did she become a Abundance Offspring?

She looked down at herself.

The black sleeveless high‑collar knit shirt still clung to her body properly, the skin beneath was fair and clean, with no strange scales or feelers growing.

She brushed the sleeve up; the inner side of her arm was also normal, no discoloration, no abnormal markings.

She bent down again, lifted a corner of her skirt to inspect her leg; a small scrape on her knee, from earlier when she dug through the floor, the surrounding skin was pink, a bit of blood had clotted, looking like a normal abrasion, with nothing abnormal emerging.

"No mutation either..."

She muttered, straightened her back, and kept walking forward.

Her mind was still normal—able to think, reason, complain, and feel hunger.

Aside from the earlier inexplicable two‑wall passes using "Boundless Myriad Blossoms," and now being unable to reproduce that ability, she was not the slightest bit different from her usual state.

The more Qingque thought, the heavier her head felt.

She rubbed the back of her head, loosening her ponytail; the black ribbon at the hair tips was about to slip down, and she didn't notice.

"Forget it, forget it. No amount of overthinking helps; finding a place to nest is the right path."

She said, clasping both hands behind her head, her steps slowing a bit.

What she needed most now was to find a safe spot to rest, preferably a place with a shop, where she could sip tea, have a bite of snacks, and then, once her mind cleared, make plans.

But as she kept walking, she suddenly noticed something.

The street was empty.

Not just few people—but no one at all!

From the moment she emerged from that alley to now, she'd walked roughly two streets' distance, yet saw not a single pedestrian.

All the shops kept their doors shut, residential windows were tightly closed, some even with curtains drawn tight, no light leaking out.

The whole street was so quiet that only her footsteps and, from some unknown direction, the creak of wind rattling a metal sign remained.

Qingque stopped in her tracks.

She had been at Tai Bu Si for so many years; although she wasn't a member of the Cloud Cavalry, she still knew the concept of the "street Lock."

Once a region experiences a Abundance Offspring outbreak or a demon Yin body eruption, the Cloud Cavalry will immediately lock the area, evacuate the residents, and then send elite troops in to exterminate.

During the Lock, the street looks like this.

Her gaze swept over the street, and indeed she found several shards of black shells beneath the wall base—remnants of a demon Yin body shattered in combat, the edges tinged with a faint dark red, indicating the breakage happened recently.

Scattered on the ground nearby were several broken arrows, their tips lodged in the cracks of stone slabs, the shafts engraved with the Cloud Cavalry's standard serial numbers.

Looking further ahead, a vendor's wooden stall had toppled by the roadside; the goods on it appeared to be some kind of sun‑dried medicinal herbs, strewn across the ground and crushed underfoot.

The stall owner had clearly left in a hurry, not even having time to pack up the stall.

"Indeed."