Chapter 909: The Long-Awaited Person (2/2, Requesting Moon Tickets)

After all, Mu Yinyi had seen You Sisi's corpse; now that the "corpse" was not only alive but standing right beside him, lively and vivid, if he weren't certain You Sisi was normal, he would have sworn she was possessed.

This meeting lasted about half an hour, only ending when Jing Yan returned from outside.

There was no way around it—the death of the Fourth Prince had too great an impact.

The fall of a prince meant the long-simmering struggle for the throne, that bloody war of succession, was about to erupt!

Caught in this whirlpool, even the You Family—one of the Four Great Families—had to tread with extreme caution, or risk falling into irreversible ruin.

When You Sisi and the others finished the meeting and stepped out of the hall, a subordinate who had been waiting outside immediately came forward to report.

"Report! Latest news from the front: after the Heiqing Shanmai was destroyed, the calamity there has spread everywhere."

It has now reached the Chaoyang Avenue region; the entire area is ravaged by calamity, civilians suffer, cities lie in ruins, people dead, and vast numbers of refugees are fleeing toward Jingcheng."

Upon hearing the news, masses of civilians and officials from other regions are also relocating toward Jingcheng. Multiple branches of the Qing Si have sent messages and requests, begging Jingcheng to issue evacuation orders for their cities so they can escape."

The news was so shocking that You Sisi and the others froze the moment they stepped out, and Lin Ling, who had just finished training and passed by, also froze solid, his mind going blank with a deafening buzz.

Heiqing Shanmai… calamity…

Flashing through Lin Ling's mind were rapid, whirlwind images—everything about Gu Yue Cun, every memory tied to Heiqing Shanmai—those things stored in his mind now seemed destined to become nothing but memories forever.

He felt hollow, as if his soul had been ripped away, leaving him rootless.

With the destruction of Heiqing Shanmai, he had lost his footing entirely.

If one day, a hundred years from now, someone looked back, they might not even know where Heiqing Shanmai had been—everything in his memory would vanish like windblown dust.

"L-Lin Captain?"

Only then did You Sisi spot Lin Ling passing by among the many Qing Wei outside the door, and she froze.

"You and your friend leave first—I'll handle this."

You Xingchen also snapped back to awareness; the tension of the situation darkened his face.

Seeing this, You Sisi took Lin Ling and left first.

The Chaoyang Avenue region… if he remembered correctly, both Chunuan City and Han Jiang were part of it.

But Han Jiang was a natural barrier—for both humans and calamities alike.

Aside from the peculiar calamities within Han Jiang, all others were powerless against it, unwilling to cross lightly.

With such a natural barrier, even calamity could only spread by land, never by water.

In that case, even if the calamity spread, it would still have a long buffer before reaching Jingcheng.

Han Jiang's water route was a straight line; the land route, by contrast, twisted through mountains and valleys, taking several times longer—so it wouldn't feel so urgent.

"I hope the calamity is merely heading toward Jingcheng by chance, not actually spreading toward it—if it is, things will get messy. Jingcheng is already in chaos; add calamity, and who knows what will happen? And Grandpa and His Majesty aren't even in Jingcheng… No, if it comes to that, even if I have to say something that hurts him, I'll make Ye Se leave Jingcheng!"

You Sisi, thinking of the news, felt her heart tangled in knots.

On the way back, she saw Jing Yan, who had already returned.

"Jing Yan, how is it? Did you find Qing Chen?"

"No… sigh." Jing Yan shook his head. "Found nothing at all—no trace of Qing Chen. And there weren't many calamities nearby; most had already been cleared by Qing Si. The few stragglers? Ye Ge took care of them effortlessly."

Though he'd benefited from the assist and gained a significant boost in stats, that was all. Staying by Ye Ge's side brought advantages, but when real danger struck, Ye Ge couldn't guarantee his safety—and if something happened, he'd be dead.

He valued his life too much, so he obediently returned to You Fu and waited for orders.

"So only Ye Se is searching for the Heiyue Organization?"

"Mm."

"…"

You Sisi fell silent, silently praying: May Ye Se return safely.

…

Qing Chen saw threads.

Many threads.

Interwoven, ethereal, intertwining to form simple, sketch-like patterns of ancient ruined buildings.

These patterns were mostly different, varying in height, and flashed by too quickly to grasp much detail.

Throughout this process, he barely felt his own body.

He felt himself floating, flying.

And flying fast—ridiculously fast.

And his lucid moments were extremely brief.

At first, he had no concept of waking—he'd slip into awareness for less than half a second, then lose consciousness again.

But the next time, for some reason, he woke again.

His lucid time gradually lengthened.

Yet simultaneously, the once-simple sketch-like lines of ruined buildings grew fuller, clearer with each awakening.

As if he were gradually transforming from an existence in one world into an existence in another.

Then, he sensed a companion.

It was an extremely ethereal sensation—even during high-speed movement—he clearly felt, just about ten centimeters beside him, in a space where nothing was visible, a companion! He sensed a humanoid presence, motionless, moving at the same speed, equally ethereal.

"What… is this? What state am I in?"

Qing Chen felt utterly lost. He tried sending messages to his friend list—each one returned "distance too far," and he couldn't send messages unless he was awake.

But today was different.

Whether his body had reached a critical stage of transformation, or for some other reason—

He finally… saw the ethereal companion. And at the same moment, he saw a tree.

An ethereal tree.

He was a person hanging from a branch of the ethereal tree—a humanoid fruit.

Like fruit bearing flowers, it hung swaying from the branches.

Following the branches, following the roots downward, he saw a person—a person Ye Ge had searched for a long, long time.

"An… Dong'er?"

(End of Chapter)