The setting sun was like blood, and the evening glow streamed across the sky.
Beneath the expansive floor-to-ceiling window, amid the creeping dusk, Tong Hua sat on the sofa directly facing the elevator. Her face was as still as water, her expression grim and solemn as an oil painting.
Neither the fragrance of tea drifting through the air, nor the video game noises from the television, nor the blare of short videos from an old-fashioned phone, nor even the snack rack in the corner could shake her resolve any longer.
After fasting, bathing, and focusing her spirit, she had achieved a state of unity between heaven and man—free from sorrow, free from joy, her heart steeped in utter serenity.
If pressed, she had only one feeling at this very moment.
*Right now, I am terrifyingly strong!*
Amid the ambient noise, her mind remained as tranquil as still water. Twirling a bougainvillea petal she had plucked downstairs, her gaze grew distant.
She quietly awaited the rising wind.
"What's wrong with her?" Lao Zhang slurped his tea, looking at Xiao An in bewilderment.
The young boy, scars still lingering on his wrist, paused his game. He glanced back, hesitated for a long while, and lowered his voice. "She's been like this since morning. I looked up her symptoms on a search engine... Looks like a terminal illness."
"Don't go trusting search engines for everything!" Lao Zhang sighed helplessly. "Could it be she took the wrong medicine again?"
"Impossible." An Ran shook his head emphatically and corrected him, "Brother Ji Jue told me that the symptom of taking the wrong meds is having bloodshot eyes and screaming someone else's name non-stop. I saw it with my own eyes—it's true!"
"..."
Lao Zhang fell silent, utterly at a loss for words.
Meanwhile, Tong Hua remained completely unmoved on the sofa. As steadfast as the great earth, as meditative as the empty void. Only the corner of her mouth curved into a sneer of disdain.
*Heh. Thinking mere slanderous words could disturb my mind?*
*In your dreams!*
*...Ji Jue?*
*Clay fowl, tile dogs, dried bones in a tomb!*
Ever since her crushing defeat last time, she had honed her skills and trained her body day and night. A thousand-meter run, thirty push-ups, and thirty sit-ups every single day—all for today!
It wasn't to prove how great she was, but to let everyone know: the gossip she had lost, she would seize back with her own two hands!
She drew a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
*Tong Hua, believe in yourself. You can do this!*
*You are no longer the you of before!*
*They're merely trifling illusions—they can't frighten you. Face them bravely and conquer them!*
*The battle has already begun!*
With the vibration humming from the elevator shaft, a sharp glint flashed in her eyes, bright as a candle flame.
*He's here! He's here!*
*He has arrived!*
Cables groaned; the elevator was ascending.
She heard it. It was destiny!
Destiny was knocking at the door!
Tong Hua clenched her fists, feeling the wind thick with killing intent.
*Have the bougainvilleas in my hometown bloomed by now?! In this battle, life and death matter not. If I fall in defeat, please bury me beneath the blooming coconut palms...*
Like a trial ordained by fate, the duel that was destined to come was finally at hand!
*Come, Tong Hua, show your backbone!*
*To that formidable rival about to arrive, say those words! Be the first to strike with the venomous blade of destiny, letting him feel the agony and despair from days gone by! Today, let him witness the power of a dark history!*
*"All my life, I, Ji Jue, have fought desperately to snatch—"*
*Ding!*
The moment the elevator doors parted, the resolved girl sprang from the sofa, "drew her sword," and poured the strength of an entire lifetime into a resounding shout:
"—Good evening! Brother Ji Jue!!!"
The instant the elevator opened, Ji Jue, who had not even found his footing yet, was greeted by a voice-cracking screech rushing straight at his face.
"Thank you for your hard work, Brother Ji Jue!"
The woman suddenly dropped into a crouch on the floor, cradling her head in her hands as she yelled, "Brother Ji Jue, please take a seat!!!"
"Huh? Uh..."
Frightened within an inch of collapsing on his rear, Ji Jue stared with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
There was really... no need to be this polite, was there?
He hesitated, then tentatively asked, "Good... evening?"
"Thank you for your hard work, Brother Ji Jue!!!"
Still retaining the tragic, resolute expression of a heroic martyr despite having surrendered without putting up a shred of resistance, the girl yelled, "Brother Ji Jue, please have a seat!"
*Oh no, this woman has gone completely off her rocker!*
Ji Jue didn't dare move, breaking into a nervous sweat. Why did she always have a new routine ready to put on for him every single time he visited?
And how on earth could she deliver such welcoming words with such an adorably fierce, scowling face?
She was welcoming him, right?
Amid the awkward silence, Xiao An turned off his game and hollered helplessly toward the inner rooms, "Sister Wen, come quick! Sister Huahua is having fits again!"
Why did he have to say "again"?
Was this agency's corporate culture a little too complicated?
"Uh..." Several times, Ji Jue opened his mouth, only to stop himself. "Did I come at a bad time?"
Familiar footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway. The office door was pushed open roughly, and Wen Wen strode out, calling out to Ji Jue:
"No, you came just in time!"
"Wait, what???"
Ji Jue couldn't help but stare.
Was something off about that line?
He suddenly felt terrified that Wen Wen would break into a radiant smile, draw Tong Hua into her embrace, and then beckon to him... Should he hesitate a moment just to maintain his dignity?
Sadly, nothing of the sort happened.
She hadn't even bothered to tidy her appearance.
Her familiar short hair was a tangled mess, her eyes were bloodshot, and cigarette ash dusted her sleeves. Exuding the near-death exhaustion of a corporate drone who had pulled overtime for weeks on end, Wen Wen rolled up her sleeves, casually tossed the wailing Tong Hua onto the sofa, and clamped a hand down on Ji Jue's shoulder.
Her iron grip felt like a bench vise.
Her smile was freezing.
"You finally showed up, Ji Jue."
She lifted the freshly printed document in her other hand and shoved it right into his face. "Come on, explain this to me. What is the deal with this Border Realm exploration report submitted by my subordinate?"
"What the hell? Why are you blaming... m-me..."
Ji Jue blinked in dazed confusion, but the moment his gaze drifted over the page, his vision went black.
*[Brother Ji Jue said these were all scavenged by me... Brother Ji Jue said we didn't land any fatal blows, and that they died on their own, so we can't be blamed.]*
*[Brother Ji Jue said worst comes to worst let's pull off a big damn job, so we made our move.]*
*[Brother Ji Jue also said, why risk your life for a few hundred bucks a month? If anything happens, run first, don't fight to the bitter end.]*
*[Brother Ji Jue can fix air conditioners and refrigerators. He is amazing.]*
*[Brother Ji Jue can drive too, super fast, faster than Sister Wen's motorcycle.]*
*[Brother Ji Jue said that old bastard Quicksilver is really no good...]*
A Border Realm exploration report, written in absolute disarray and devoid of logic. It was impossible to tell what had actually happened; it had effectively turned into a "Ji Jue Observation Report."
And one viewed through an eight-hundred-meter-thick fan filter, at that!
It possessed a certain aesthetic of "Giegie works so hard and is so talented"...
Now, Wen Wen, driven half-bald with frustration, leaned in with a tight, humorless smile. "Mr. Ji Jue, do you have any thoughts on this Book of Holy Sayings about yourself?"
"I didn't, I'm not, don't talk nonsense!" Ji Jue waved his hands frantically, on the verge of tears.
Wen Wen sneered coldly. "Make sure he writes that line down for him later, too!"
The moment he walked through the door, a lunatic woman had put on a show for him, and immediately afterward, a massive pot of blame had been dumped straight onto his head. Ji Jue felt completely numb. Looking at the innocent-faced Xiao An, he had no idea what to say.
He didn't know whether he should lament this silly kid writing literally everything into his diary, or thank him for not recording the comment about Sister Wen being stubborn and pigheaded.
Oh, wait, he hadn't said that out loud—it had just been an internal thought.
Then he was safe!
Ji Jue breathed a sigh of relief.
"Keep this mess of a report for yourself. If I actually submitted this, that old geezer of a director might laugh himself straight into the ICU from the Quancheng ruins." Wen Wen shoved the report into his hands and issued a stern warning. "Xiao An is a lost cause, but don't you dare try to slip away. I don't care if you make things up or write the plain truth, just deliver a report I can actually turn in. Understood?"
"Uh, sure thing." Ji Jue nodded like a pecking chick, readily compliant. Seeing how worn out Wen Wen looked, an uneasy feeling arose in his heart, and he tentatively asked, "Was this Border Realm exploration that much trouble?"
"Not troublesome. Not troublesome at all—because it was trouble to death." Having dumped the problem of Xiao An's report onto Ji Jue, Wen Wen grabbed a bottle from the wine rack, tilted her head back, and chugged it down, looking thoroughly exasperated. "The people inside the Border Realm only had to explore and excavate. At worst, it was a fight to the death. But outside, the troubles were endless... Do you have any idea how massive a mess this was?
"Never mind those pieces of trash from the Dragon Cult; even Nirvana got involved. Right around the time you went into the Border Realm, both White Owl and Formless surfaced, only to mysteriously vanish again.
"Every single Celestial Chosen in the entire Security Bureau turned Haizhou upside down without finding a single trace of them. Then, a few days later, White Owl popped up over in the Empire and assassinated an imperial prince!
"And that bastard Formless still hasn't been found!
"Right now, everyone in the Haizhou Security Bureau is writing self-criticisms, which dragged me into working overtime as well. Some geniuses even asked if those two might have slipped into the Border Realm. I've seriously had it."
As she spoke, she looked over, her gaze probing. "Do you have any leads?"
"No clue, no idea, haven't heard a thing!" Ji Jue shook his head three times with absolute conviction. He blinked with a purely innocent expression, practically radiating the charm of an uneducated illiterate who had no clue what she was talking about.
Such a massive Border Realm had mysteriously detonated, leaving them utterly baffled as well. Surely they didn't think he was the one behind it? No way, right? Nobody would actually believe a level-zero rookie could participate in a Border Realm demolition derby, would they?
What difference was there between that and pointing at a fish head and telling it to go get rid of a monkey?
Who the hell was White Owl? He hadn't seen him once from start to finish.
As for Formless... without a second thought, he was dead as a doornail!
Diving into the Sage's tomb like a pigheaded idiot, he had turned himself into an on-demand blood bag, nearly sucked dry in a single breath by Quicksilver's corrupted remains.
Even if a tiny sliver had escaped, there wasn't the slightest record of it in the workshop's teleportation logs. The Border Realm had blown up entirely; he couldn't very well claim to be an ultimate lifeform drifting through the void outside the material realm and still scraping by, could he?
"Good. Keep that exact look!" Wen Wen nodded in satisfaction and patted his shoulder. "That's how things happened. Things that shouldn't exist, don't exist; things you shouldn't have seen, you didn't see."
She had likely heard plenty of explosive revelations from Xiao An in private, yet she didn't mention a word of them right now. There was enough trouble already without asking for more. In any case, whatever damn Shepherd, she hadn't heard of him, didn't understand him, and had never seen him.
Her agency's silly kid had taken an informant for a dizzying spin through the Border Realm, played wilderness survival for a few days, and then mysteriously popped back out.
That was the long and short of it.
No need to dig to the bottom of things; just patch things together and get on with life.
Besides, Yacheng had been plagued by tense rumors and chaos beneath the surface lately. She could barely manage her own one-third of an acre, so how could she have the spare energy to care about disturbances far across the horizon?
And so, after a wildly spectacular welcoming ceremony and some small talk, Ji Jue finally got down to the real reason for his visit. Gritting his teeth, he lugged two heavy crates and slammed them onto the table.
—Time to split the cash!!!
Chapter 102