Beneath the bright moonlight, the stars flickered.
Waves, tides, the ocean, and the mountains.
A modernist estate villa stood perched atop the cliff, as magnificent as a palace.
Outside the gates stretched lush green grass, majestic swaying trees, and flowers blooming in brilliant splendor, like an earthly paradise.
One could only imagine how breathtaking it would look by day. Even in the dead of night, it remained brightly illuminated, solemn, and profound.
At the main entrance, the flawless marble floor was polished to a mirror shine, effortlessly reflecting a penniless pauper named Ji Jue.
"Don't do this, Brother Ji! Don't you know me by now? I'm the most low-profile guy around! This is all my brother's private property! I've never even been here before!"
Seeing Ji Jue get cold feet, Chen Yubo burst into tears on the spot.
Clutching his cat with one arm, he clung desperately to Ji Jue with the other. "Besides, with things as they are now, what difference is there between mine and yours? What's mine is yours, and what's yours... is still yours! For the sake of our brotherhood, you've got to pull me through this! Otherwise, why would I have come back at all?"
Without a dependable right hand, what difference was there between the most lavish palace or villa and a condemned prisoner's cage?
He might as well have kept hiding in the foul ditch beneath that bridge.
Either way, it was a gruesome death. It would be far cleaner to seek death on his own terms.
At least that would be quick.
Looking at the palatial, resplendent villa before him, Ji Jue's back teeth ached with suppressed irritation. His wealth-hating heart thudded relentlessly.
So much money. So fucking much money.
"If we really get through this hurdle, everything's negotiable!" Chen Yubo had already resigned himself to it. "I can't keep it in my hands anyway, so I'll give you half, bro!"
"Don't. Don't you dare!"
Ji Jue felt as if his conscience were on trial. Like the villa itself, his conscience stood teetering on the edge of a cliff, practically itching to commit a crime.
"Don't bring up money, if only for your own sake. Otherwise, if I take a single wrong step, you're toast, got it?" Ji Jue warned him. "Let's just consider ourselves unlucky. If we survive these few days, the future will be wide open. Deal?"
Cradling his cat, Chen Yubo stayed quiet, his eyes glazed with tears.
Perhaps he was thinking of his brother, whose life still hung by a thread.
Of course, he might also have been mourning that mountain of cash he was destined to lose.
*Fuck me, letting a brother profit off it is way better than letting strangers take it!*
Ji Jue's moral compass began slipping again. He couldn't help feeling that Young Master Chen beside him was even more alluring than Xiao An. Xiao An was merely good-looking, whereas this guy was truly loaded... Money was steadily blinding his judgment.
Especially when tying him up and giving him a light squeeze would make delicious, juicy Federation currency pour right out.
Ji Jue's hand had already twitched toward his gun several times.
The entire villa was empty. Even the original domestic staff had been dismissed. Only a few of Chen Xingzhou's trusted Celestial Chosen remained, along with over a dozen armed bodyguards.
They looked like little more than a flimsy facade on the surface.
If worse came to worst, staying in the city wouldn't have been any different. At least the flies buzzing after the money wouldn't dare use bombs or weapons of mass destruction downtown.
If Ji Jue were the one after the cash, he might well have gotten his hands on hundreds of jin of explosives to build a missile, or at the very least driven a suicide truck into the place, wouldn't he?
Once his mind started slipping down that slope, criminal inspiration flowed like a burst dam.
Bubbling up relentlessly.
*If I were to bribe an insider here, things would get hilarious real fast.*
Yet after meeting Chen Yubo, most of Chen Xingzhou's trusted men appeared lukewarm and indifferent. Even knowing they were supposed to protect their boss's sole surviving kin, they didn't seem particularly invested. At a time like this, not even someone beating their chest and swearing loyalty could be trusted.
With their boss lying in the emergency room and a hostage worth at least four billion lying right beside them, who wouldn't harbor crooked thoughts?
Internal troubles and external threats.
Ji Jue's heart was practically breaking from the stress.
*Dammit, why did I end up doing free labor? I haven't seen a single benefit, yet I've inherited a mountain of trouble...* Ji Jue felt a flare of helpless rage, itching to give this grandson Chen Yubo a couple of good kicks.
Of all the people in the world, why did your brother have to be Chen Xingzhou?
Couldn't you have had a sibling who was less of a headache?
And what was even worse...
Was Ji Jue's coursework.
He checked the time. It was past one in the morning, and he guessed Professor Ye probably hadn't gone to sleep yet. He dialed her number and stammered for a good while. "Teacher, I..."
"Taking leave?" the professor understood immediately.
"Yes."
"Over that mess with Chen Xingzhou?"
Faced with her follow-up question, Ji Jue had no answer. Then, he heard her voice through the receiver: "Fine. Since you're involved, I won't have to bother myself with it... Consider this an official business trip on my behalf."
The corner of Ji Jue's eye twitched uncontrollably.
A disciple served his master in times of need, but did that mean, rounded up, he was doing Professor Ye's dirty work for her? Even if she wanted to wash her hands of it, she didn't have to pass the buck so quickly, did she?
Could she at least lend him the puzzle ball?
Unfortunately, the professor didn't mention it at all. She simply asked, "How long will you need?"
"About a week?" Ji Jue guessed uncertainly.
No matter how big the mess was, it ought to conclude after a week.
An internal feud in your Wild Gathering wouldn't drag on for two or three years, right? Did people still have lives to live or not?
Whether the Wild Gathering fought amongst itself didn't matter, but everyone else's livelihood did. If they couldn't stop themselves, the rest of the world wouldn't mind lending a hand to shut them down.
So according to Ji Jue's estimation, since a week had already passed, another week should roughly do it.
"All right."
After the professor hung up, Ji Jue's phone began chiming continuously. On his messaging app, several megabytes of scanned PDFs bombarded his screen one after another, all of them fucking photocopies of archival materials from the library.
Many were rare, unique manuscripts. Who knew when they had been scanned?
They were all dumped straight into Ji Jue's phone.
Converted into text, it would easily amount to several million words. Regrettably, these weren't mindless filler, but specialized literature where every single character scorched one's brain.
Finally, a notification from Professor Ye arrived:
[Write your reflections after reading through them. I will check them upon your return.]
Ji Jue felt darkness swim before his eyes.
*A perfectly good alchemy course, and you've turned it into distance learning?*
*Can't you even let someone catch their breath when they take leave...*
Yet that had always been Professor Ye's way of assigning homework. Do it or get lost. There was no such thing as scraping by with a barely passing grade on half-finished work, nor was there any room for negotiation.
He could only accept it with tears in his eyes.
Having to study while working as a bodyguard—wasn't this bodyguard gig getting a bit too fulfilling?
He let out a sigh, switched off his phone, and stopped looking at it.
Instead, he turned to gaze out the window toward the bay.
Following Ji Jue's suggestion, Chen Yubo had vacated the finest master bedroom in the entire villa for Ji Jue and gone to sleep in the maid's quarters.
While there was a touch of taking advantage of the situation on his part, at least he didn't have to worry about a massive ship drifting in from the sea and taking Chen Yubo out with a high-caliber sniper round that scattered his brains across the floor.
Ji Jue looked past the floor-to-ceiling window toward the bay and across to Yazhou City on the opposite shore. Brightly illuminated, with countless neon lights flickering on and off, the city showed no outward sign of the mortal combat or blood feuds tearing through it.
Amidst the glittering neon, a burst of fiery light seemed to bloom from an explosion, only to vanish almost instantly, like a firework.
The darkness buried everything with impartial indifference, leaving only the sound of the tide echoing through the silence.
"Quite lively, isn't it?"
Ji Jue murmured softly. No one replied.
On the sofa in the corner, Xiao An had her eyes closed, sleeping soundly.
Yet in this protracted silence, a strange sudden clarity and realization washed over Ji Jue.
In the past, he would undoubtedly have been utterly baffled and unable to understand—these people already had wealth they could never spend in a lifetime, beauty at their beck and call, and everything the destitute Ji Jue had once dreamed of having, yet they remained insatiable.
They would even stake their lives, stepping into a no-return gamble where only one side walked out alive.
Within this vortex whipped up by the Wild Gathering, some, like Chen Yubo, never had a choice, hurled helplessly into the storm against their will.
Yet others jumped into the pit voluntarily, unwilling to hold back even as they sank deeper into the mire.
Just like Ji Jue himself.
Even though he was no longer left with nothing and could live comfortably, he had conceived new ambitions and desires—he wanted to become a craftsman, he wanted to possess a workshop of his own, and he wanted to make a mark.
He even wanted to do as he pleased.
Just like now, wanting to meddle in trouble that was never his to begin with.
Equally overestimating their strength, equally indifferent to death—could one truly claim to be nobler than the other?
Lackeys wanted to get ahead, paupers wanted to strike it rich, big bosses hungered to climb higher, and even regional overlords looked up, coveting the supreme throne towering above the serpent brood... Even those perched high as guild heads waged war and struggled against each other for their own ends.
The chaotic wilderness of the White Stag existed in every person's heart. Once all high-sounding pretexts and disguises were stripped away, what remained was nothing more than blatant ambition and undisguised desire.
The White Stag had not caused any of this. It was merely the wild beasts of the wilderness pursuing the trails left in the White Stag's wake. Yet as the White Stag gazed down from above, would it take delight in the slaughter offered up to it?
Sovereign Virtue held no knowledge, Sovereign Virtue held no perception.
From beginning to end, Sovereign Virtue witnessed all.
For a fleeting instant, within the reflection of the floor-to-ceiling window, amidst the blurred wash of neon and lamplight, he seemed to glimpse that hazy silhouette once more.
The blood-stained White Stag in the wilderness turned its head with cold indifference, casting a glance in this direction.
As though scrutinizing a new entrant to this blood banquet.
Yet very soon, as if disappointed, it withdrew its gaze and vanished. Behind the White Stag, something formless seemed to rise, but Ji Jue could not see it clearly.
Everything dissolved into the drifting reverie rising in his mind before sleep.
Ji Jue sank into a deep slumber.
Only Xiao An rose from the sofa without a sound, looking back at Ji Jue, whose sleeping posture on the bed was steadily deteriorating, her eyes brimming with confusion and curiosity.
That fleeting aura of the wilderness just now...
A Calling from Sovereign Virtue?
Yet it grew all the more incomprehensible.
Why did it come in such haste?
And why leave in such haste?
The next morning, Ji Jue slept in until seven before getting up.
If he were following his schedule at the workshop, he would have been at the Storehouse by now, seizing the time before breakfast to clear a wave of stamina with the Dissociation Art.
Now, however, he took his sweet time washing up and brushing his teeth, yawning as he headed to the kitchen to whip up breakfast for himself and Xiao An. He sat at the dining table, casually scrolling through his phone while eating.
He completely ignored the aggrieved glare from Chen Yubo, who had suffered a sleepless night, exuding a careless charm that showed zero regard for whether his employer lived or died.
That was free service for you. The boss only had to wait for death, but as the bodyguard, Ji Jue had far more to worry about.
Thank heavens last night had been a peaceful night.
No werewolf had suddenly transformed inside the villa to swallow Young Master Chen whole.
The vast majority of people hadn't received word yet, or hadn't managed to confirm Young Master Chen's location and condition. Amidst careful observation and calculation, the night's slaughter and strife had swept past.
The moment Ji Jue opened his chat app, he saw a compiled batch of chat logs forwarded by Ye Chun. Clicking it open revealed a barrage of videos and photos uploaded by various local netizens.
On a devastated long street, sanitation workers drove a water truck, using water cannons to wash away patches of dark red filth from the pavement, turning the clear spray a gory scarlet.
Like a small river, dirty water surged, running along both sides of the street and vanishing into the darkness of the storm drains.
On fishing boats, bloated corpses slid onto the deck from nets of fish; in clamorous night clubs, chaos spread like wildfire; beneath street neon, mortal shootouts flared; and there were even cordoned-off high-rises where cracks surfaced along the outer walls, leaving them on the verge of collapse.
At the very end of the chat history was a photograph.
In Nanlu District, on the elevated bridge at the mouth of the North River, a gruesome corpse hung from the railing down into the arch of the bridge, swaying in the wind.
That twisted face, frozen with eyes wide open in death, belonged to none other than the boss of the largest construction materials company in Yacheng—Old Seven, the one Lei Wuye had favored most before ending up in the ICU!
Overnight, the heavens and earth had shifted. A savage storm had swept through. While most were fast asleep in their beds, death and blood had already flowed into rivers.
On the first floor of the villa, in the dining room as spacious as a hotel hall, everyone who sat down wore a troubled, heavy expression. Yet at the same time, there was a sense of relief, as though the second shoe from upstairs had finally dropped onto the floor.
The fight had broken out. It had finally erupted after all.
If, prior to this, clashes between the factions still aimed at determining a victor to gain leverage at the negotiating table, then now, with the path to a negotiated settlement severed by unseen shears, all that remained was pure survival of the fittest, a fight to the death.
And what sent shivers of terror down people's spines was the sheer resolve displayed by Lei Yaoxing.
In a single night, after dumping internal traitors and allies attempting to jump ship straight into the sewers, he had declared all-out war on every rival.
*Before this, I was willing to speak to you as Lei Wuye's successor, but since you wouldn't take me seriously, don't blame me.*
*Fuck you, the gloves are off, cards on the table!*
*I'm gonna slaughter, slaughter, slaughter, slaughter, slaughter every last one of you!*
Traitors were fed into meat grinders, rivals were tossed into the sewers, and anyone who dared resist was strung up beneath bridge arches one after another, turned into Yacheng's very own sunshine dolls.
Gold Tooth Leopard, who had once overestimated himself and tried to arm-wrestle him, had been found dead in his mistress's bed this morning, his corpse too horrific to look at.
It could be said that relying on the strength of merely a single faction, he had stunned everyone senseless in a single night.
When he cast aside all reservations and laid his cards on the table to reenact Lei Wuye's past deeds, forcefully unifying Yacheng's underbelly, everyone finally felt the terrifying might hidden beneath the surface.
Now, with their big boss gone, the small fry of Nanlu District had dropped to their knees to kowtow with lightning speed, switching allegiances so that only Lei Yaoxing remained as the sun in their hearts.
The map-painting game had begun.
Who was next? Lihua? North Mountain? Or Longhai?
Or would that monster lurking in the mire turn back around to first devour this swarm of ants cowering to the side?
Everyone felt their lives were in jeopardy.
Near noon, Uncle Lin, who had been gone for hours, finally returned.
He had clearly gone without sleep all night, his eyes heavily bloodshot. Even a Celestial Chosen could not conceal the exhaustion brought on by such immense pressure. After inquiring about Chen Yubo's condition, he retrieved a crystal ball from his case.
"An alchemical item?"
Ji Jue rubbed his chin, examining it with curiosity. "Aether?"
Uncle Lin nodded. "Worthy of Master Ye's prized disciple. Mr. Ji's eye is sharp."
"You flatter me. Anyone could see through this at a glance." Ji Jue waved a hand dismissively. After reading its internal structure with his spiritus, his horizon was broadened. "Rigid rules, clear formatting, yet remarkably adaptable. The creator's understanding of the Path of Aether exceeds mine by dozens, if not hundreds of times. Impressive indeed."
After infusing enough spiritus, he placed it into the hands of the still-dazed Chen Yubo. Instantly, one point of light after another surfaced on the crystal ball.
Uncle Lin and Ji Jue's expressions gradually stiffened.
"What is this?"
Chen Yubo cradled the ball in bewilderment, unable to make sense of it. Then, excitement sparked in him. "Could this be an aptitude test for a Celestial Chosen? With so many lights, could I be a once-in-a-million genius from the legends?"
"Sorry, but it's not even close."
Ji Jue couldn't bear to burst his lovely fantasy. "It's a counter."
"Counting what?" Chen Yubo asked blankly.
"It records the disturbances and interference on your body originating from the Path of Aether, displays the data, and determines how many Path of Aether 'radars' are currently trained on you."
Ji Jue reached out, counting the points of light across its surface. "In other words, hmm, from last night until now, there are roughly eleven Aether Celestial Chosen searching for where your pampered butt is parked, who's beside you, and where you plan to go next."
"To put it another way, whether they have bullets or whether they'll pull the trigger aside..."
Ji Jue sighed softly, laying out the brutal reality. "Right now, you're in the crosshairs of 'at least' eleven guns."
In an instant, Chen Yubo's smile collapsed.
His tears finally began to flow.
Chapter 125