Chapter 587: Not buddies, and it

By the end of the explanation, Mu Xiting had lost the shyness and stammering of the beginning, but tears again welled up at the corners of his eyes.

Because that divorce notice seemed cold and heartless, yet it was actually conveying one message throughout—run, don't come back!

And after hearing the analysis of those two family letters, the Huiguang ruler and his ministers fell into a prolonged silence.

No wonder Mu Xiting's usual conduct is quite restrained; even after contracting the lewdness plague, he only vents his everyday grievances instead of gleefully harassing others.

So all this is driven by pure love, 100%, and in this greasy aristocratic crowd, such purity is indeed rare and precious.

But…

Lord Hu was not an emotional person; he was not swayed by Mu Xiting's feelings and remained absolutely calm.

After pondering carefully, he raised an extremely sharp doubt.

"My spy captured clear intel with a magical crystal: Her Highness the Crown Princess publicly paid homage to the new king. How do you explain that?"

"Um…"

That sentence seemed to touch on something; Mu Xiting's already reckless expression, caused by emotional collapse, suddenly reined in, looking as unsightly as if he'd drunk three bottles of herbal tonic.

He kept his face taut and tangled for a long while, then finally let out a long sigh as if a weight had been lifted, saying bitterly:

"What I'm about to say could be considered a betrayal of Deep Forest… but it doesn't matter; for her, what does it matter if I become a traitor?"

Yet when Mu Xiting wiped his tears, gathered his thoughts, and spoke again, he didn't explain directly but first posed a question.

—"Do you know that over here we have been secretly conducting experiments related to flesh and life?"

No one answered, but upon hearing those two keywords, everyone sat up straight in solemn respect.

Only Lord Hu still furrowed his brow.

"I've heard some rumors here, thought they were about your previous… no, the one before that, the old king wanting to extend his lifespan a few more years. So, are you still conducting it now?"

"No, not now, but continuously!"

Mu Xiting shook his head, gesturing with both hands spread.

"In fact, since several hundred years ago, we've been continuously pushing forward many… projects that, if spoken of, would certainly not be considered respectable scientific research."

Having made up his mind, he didn't hesitate further, spilling all the crucial intel he knew as if dumping beans.

"My goodness, even the empire's double‑senior special agents could never unearth such world‑shattering material; the exaggeration is truly shocking!"

Let's say, if these words weren't seriously and completely disclosed from Mu Xiting, Deep Forest's first son‑in‑law.

Even the anti‑Deep Forest vanguard, Lord Xi, the hawk‑faction leader of the Kingdom, would probably think this is just gossip tabloids going crazy—damn journalism!

After all, if he were an ordinary person, he could blindly believe whatever he liked, but now he's the second officer of the Huiguang vessel, so he must stay objectively clear‑headed.

It is precisely this clarity that let him keenly seize several clues in Mu Xiting's words and pre‑emptively infer the answer the other side intends to reveal at the end.

"You mean that on that day in Chang'an City… under the canopy, what actually happened was a massive mind‑control incident!?"

Mu Xiting inhaled deeply, and gave a hard nod to the enemy nation's high‑ranking officials before him, each wearing a different expression.

"Exactly!"

Meanwhile, the Huiguang ruler and his ministers were hurriedly debating how to deal with the Deep Forest forces about to sweep in and declare formal war on them.

As the Yangyue World's savior and initiator of the Fourth Calamity Plan, Ji Ming was… sleeping in a count's fief in the southern Kingdom.

Because a holy maiden was an inside agent, he learned of Deep Forest's plan to wage war on Huiguang earlier than Fiya and the others, and naturally felt some anxiety.

Yet after careful thought, he arrived at a conclusion that sounded rather odd—none of his business.

He's already done enough for Huiguang; even a part‑time teaching job that should have ended in March he dragged out until the semester's end before packing up and leaving.

Moreover, it's obvious that the Player, Beimosi, and Ling Xi will definitely side with Huiguang; they're not lone, pitiable figures at all.

Especially the Player, who has been laboriously hustling since the closed beta to advance the game's progress; now they should bravely share the savior's burdens!

Besides, since they could handle several level‑70 assaults last autumn, after a year of farming they should have no trouble with a few level‑80 foes now, right?

So it's not my concern as the savior; the next generation will take care of themselves.

Unfortunately, if he could truly relax and slack off, this wouldn't have been brought up.

So, as he left the inn, riding his celestial horse toward Black Water Territory, planning to visit relatives during the long holiday.

It was as if something locked onto him; his ominous aura suddenly roared and crackled, warning louder than ever before!

"???"

Though puzzled, Ji Ming didn't hesitate at all; regardless of who it was, he didn't even glance, swung open a portal and slipped into the dungeon.

It was precisely his decisiveness that, when the unknown enemy arrived, left this forest with nothing… perhaps?

The answer is no; he kept moving, and Ji Ming couldn't run blindly with his eyes closed, so at the last moment before entering, he tossed a seed onto the ground.

As the deity most closely linked to the Player, the God of Crops Geurisen, whose path has broadened, naturally followed the Player's steps worldwide.

Thus the seed, once dropped, instantly rooted and sprouted into a potato‑like plant, joining its massive information transmission network.

Even across nearly ten thousand miles, after a brief delay it allowed Ji Ming to see what happened after his disappearance.

Yet since the opponent could scare him away, it certainly wasn't some careless fool prone to slip‑ups.

So the little potato had just matured, hadn't even captured useful intel, when that mysterious entity discovered it.

But as everyone knows, even an eye scanned by a lens can always glean some intel before being eliminated by the enemy's jungle team.

Therefore, at the moment the potato was uprooted, as an extension of Geurisen's will it still strained to send a fragment of image back to its main body.

Though only a fleeting instant, it was enough for Geurisen, now advancing toward quasi‑god status, to analyze some useful information.

"So, what is that thing?"

The God of Crops, seated calmly on the underground lake island, pondered briefly and gave a rather odd answer.

"It's not a living person, nor a dead one; at least from ten thousand years ago to today, I've never seen a similar existence—strange, like when I first saw the Player?"

"Strange… the Player…"

The Player's greatest peculiarity is that although their bodies belong to the Yangyue World, their spirits are projections summoned by Ji Ming from a higher‑dimensional universe; strictly speaking, they are merely travelers of the Yangyue Star.

So this suddenly appearing existence reminded Geurisen of the Player, which perhaps indicates…

!!!

Not a buddy, and we're already going into a BOSS battle?

Ji Ming, who had figured out the answer to the problem and was about to speak, felt the canopy above his head, like a dome of treetops, suddenly tremble.

"Bad! Lord Thus we will have Cultivation: Zhen Shen, that guy used some unknown method; I think I've been reverse‑tracked!"

As a plant‑type deity, Ge Rui Sen, after studying Earth's Internet, also developed his own internal network.

In short, it centers on itself, planting a weakest copy of itself at regular intervals, then each region plants a higher‑level version of itself, and so on.

The potato earlier was the lowest unit in this system, and what has now been discovered is a higher‑rank information relay unit.

Moreover, feedback from nearby minor nodes indicates that the entity has already located a higher‑level regional relay station and is rushing toward it.

If it keeps following the trail like that… damn, my little box would be exposed to light!

If this had happened earlier, facing such a ruthless person who treats offline reality as offline reality, Ji Ming would surely have blurted out a shocked "Wocao".

After all, to win in this electronic‑war‑like domain against the strongest quasi‑deity in Yangyue World, even if the opponent isn't Thus we will have Cultivation: Zhen Shen, they must be near‑max‑level ultimate beings.

But after guessing the possible answer, Ji Ming, feeling that everything seemed to fall into place, did not panic.

He waved his hand, signaling to the nearby Ge Rui Sen to stay calm.

He then gave a wry smile.

"Sigh, since he insists on talking to me, let him come. Whether foe or friend, a brief chat won't hurt."

Having said that, he teleported back to his original spot, quietly awaiting the arrival of another foreign guest.

The facts proved his guess correct; although the opponent's speed could have allowed it, they slowed down when still thousands of meters away.

It took over ten seconds for them to descend, bare‑handed and unarmed, into the forest that had vanished along with Ji Ming and Pegasus, a decidedly sincere gesture.

And this being, which could scare Ji Ming back into the dungeon merely by appearing, was a robot that clashed with Yangyue World, gleaming and polished like a sci‑fi prop.

Moreover, it wasn't an Iron Man‑style human exoskeleton, but a T‑800, or rather a pure silicon‑based lifeform like a Cybertronian.

Because it was none other than the extraterrestrial who, together with the Little Boss, used a Earth‑Moon system as a board and battled for over a hundred thousand years—Xie Yue.

Strictly speaking, this is the hive‑mind Xie Yue dispatched to Yangyue Star as a consciousness carrier to directly contact Ji Ming.

If it were Ji Ming a year ago, seeing this hydraulically gleaming, love‑inducing mechanical creation would have been perfect.

However, his many experiences in Yangyue World have dulled his thirst for the unknown, and the machine's chest even bears the awkward two characters—'Friend'.

Uh…

But since it appears friendly and calls itself a friend, Ji Ming shows no aggression.

He simply stands still, watching Xie Yue land nearby, waiting for it to speak, to conduct this third‑party negotiation.

……

Uh, I can only say that smart people really share many traits.

After a brief, slightly awkward silence, Ji Ming was the first to break the stalemate.

"When did you first discover me?"

Probably to match the 'Friend' label, the light in Xie Yue's eyes isn't the classic red but a gentler, typically heroic blue.

The blue light flickered, giving Ji Ming a somewhat hard‑to‑grasp answer.

"A long time ago, when you first left Sunlight City, I roughly guessed it was you."

Don't get excited yet; that's not the hardest part—the second sentence he follows with is the toughest.

"But you can't blame yourself; blame the planet's foolish will. It thinks its small moves are well hidden, yet it's as ridiculous as stealing a bell shop with its eyes covered."

"For example, now, within the view of my ultra‑high‑precision anomalous energy tracking radar, your body constantly emits a golden aura, signifying a blessing from the world's will."

"It's just that at the time I wasn't clear on your attitude and didn't dare to guess, fearing rash action might bring bad results, so I simply didn't respond."

In short, the Little Boss's hidden savior plan has long been known to me!

It's just that I have no duty to correct the enemy's mistake, so I've been pretending to be blind, quietly watching the Little Boss amuse himself for over a hundred rounds.

Ha, it's like a gluttonous child who secretly takes cookies from the jar on the top shelf, confidently thinking the adults don't know—how clever I am.

—Come on, if your mom really didn't know, that jar would have been empty long ago; how could there still be cookies after two months for you, Little Fool, to keep reaching in!

Little Fool: 【……】

"It's okay, dear, fools have fool's luck; after a non‑lucky player's hundred‑plus pulls, you finally hit me, you've worked hard."

"And you're already so… pure, yet he can battle you for over a hundred thousand years; that just shows he's also stupid, win!"

【You're a horse! (quickly deleted)】

【Haha, truly thank you for your comfort.】

Standing opposite, Xie Yue kept observing Ji Ming; seeing him idle for several seconds without speaking, it suddenly asked.

"May I ask if you are communicating with the Yangyue Will?"

"... Yes."

Although a silicon‑based lifeform, its facial mechanism is exquisitely designed to negotiate with carbon‑based life.

So Xie Yue immediately adopted a vivid, completely natural 'regret' expression.

"That's truly sad; I don't know what you two exchanged, but whatever you and I exchange, it knows everything. That's unfair!"