Azure sea and blue sky, under a blazing, scorching sun.
Stung by the glare of the relentless sunlight, Lu Feng squinted and subconsciously looked around. Feeling a wave of vertigo, he gripped the railing. Looking back, he saw the coastline in the far distance, dotted with tiny, speck-like buildings.
The ruins of Quancheng, and even farther away, the iconic wind turbine towers of Xinquan Town—a single step forward had actually crossed such a vast distance.
He was already out at sea.
After taking a few steps, Ji Jue had already pushed open a second door and was waving at him. When Lu Feng subconsciously followed behind and took another step forward, he found himself standing right outside the basement door.
It was as if they had just walked out of the basement a moment ago.
Climbing the steps, the view outside the window was familiar. The living room was quiet, with only faint birdsong drifting in through the trees that cast dappled rings of light.
This was Ji Jue's workshop.
Yacheng.
By merely opening two doors, they had traveled from the office of Haian Industries to the Prosperity, used it as a transit hub, and reappeared in Ji Jue's workshop.
Lu Feng had seen plenty of tricks from Celestial Chosen during his time in the Mid-Continent, and he had even experienced the Star Core Association's teleportation before. But witnessing the miracle Ji Jue had created with his own eyes still made him draw a sharp breath.
Bypassing the Star Core Association's monopoly and secretly carving out such a passage right under the nose of Yacheng—the implications and possibilities behind it were enough to make his skin crawl.
"Hey, you're playing with fire this big?" He subconsciously lowered his voice. "What if word gets out—"
"If you don't say anything, who's going to know?"
Ji Jue gave a nonchalant wave of his hand, completely unbothered. Quite apart from the fact that Lu Feng would never slip up on something this critical, even if some Heart Pivot Celestial Chosen targeted him, one look at the lock on his forehead would make them think twice about whether their fortune was sturdy enough to pry into his thoughts. Besides, this was barely scratching the surface.
It didn't even touch upon the Celestial Rail's true form or its tracks; the Doomsday Express hadn't officially fired up at all. At most, it was merely a single operation of the Myriad Phenomena Engine.
Ever since the Unquenched Fuel had strengthened the connection between his flesh and soul, Ji Jue's load-bearing capacity for blessed artifacts had multiplied even further. He could now sustain brief runs of the Myriad Phenomena Engine.
Thanks to nature's bounty and the generous contributions of 'friends,' the White Harness matrix and blessing he had scavenged from Kunwu had been promptly fed into the Doomsday Express for recycling.
Granted, the Gao family's White Harness was undeniably impressive and quite something. But unfortunately, when pitted against the Celestial Rail, all one could say was that it still had a long way to go. Both belonged to the Eternal Gate lineage, but one was the Celestial Rail, long since stitched into the mortal world and transformed into the Wedge of Sovereign Virtue, while the other... well, the other was decently shaped, to put it politely. The suppression between members of the same lineage crushed the White Harness in an instant without a single splash of resistance, leaving it to obediently wait in the material repository for Ji Jue to dismantle, process, and repurpose.
Rare materials truly lived up to their name; the drop rate for gold was absurdly high.
Thanks to the Doomsday Express's outrageously broad compatibility—practically plug-and-play—Ji Jue relied on this windfall to patch together the targeting module that had been decommissioned for over two centuries, half-guessing, half-fumbling, and pulling off a bit of a deus ex machina. Though its completion rate remained below forty percent and it was incapable of locking onto Border Realms or other distant targets across the void, at the very least, it could be fired up.
Combined with the beacons Ji Jue had erected, the consumption had also dropped to a range he could stomach. After all, the Leviathan fuel Lyu Yingyue regularly sent over had never stopped flowing. While the quantity wasn't immense, it was more than enough to support such an absurd method of daily commuting.
If he couldn't hook into the Celestial Rail, what was stopping him from setting up a local area network of his own?
He had directly shifted the Doomsday Express's binding to the workshop aboard the Prosperity. Using it as a transit relay, he linked the beacons in Quancheng and Yacheng, achieving unrestricted teleportation between the three points through the Myriad Phenomena Engine's warping, gravitation, and targeted projection.
Having grown accustomed to such convenience, Ji Jue could hardly bear going back to normal travel.
His palms itched even more.
Who on earth had invented such a fine treasure for the Gao family? He really needed to find an opportunity to pull off another heist and haul back some more materials.
Unfortunately, Midtown was too far away and the water ran too deep. Who knew how many bears, wolves, tigers, and leopards lay dormant in that quagmire? One wrong move and he could easily burn himself.
He still had to wait...
Bide his time for the right opportunity.
Turning the thought over in his mind, Ji Jue fished an ordinary-looking keychain from his pocket and tossed it to Lu Feng.
"What's this?" Lu Feng held it in his hand, inspecting it closely.
"Consider it a train ticket," Ji Jue told him. "Keep it on you and don't lose it. Same goes for the necklace around Mother Lu's neck. If anything happens that you can't handle, run here. Just push open that door we just came through. Use whatever you need on the ship. Just be careful not to leave any witnesses behind."
Lu Feng chuckled. Accepting the kind gesture without hesitation, he clipped it directly onto his phone, shoved it into his pocket, and joked, "With an expression that solemn, don't tell me you've actually got a suit of power armor on board?"
Ji Jue said nothing, only smiling.
Lu Feng froze for a moment, and his smile vanished. "Fuck, wait... You really have one?"
Ji Jue remained silent, still smiling.
Now Lu Feng couldn't sit still.
"Ji Jue, Brother Ji, I'm begging you! Say something! I've been retired for so many years, my hands are itching like crazy! Just let me touch it, please—" Scratching his head and ears, Lu Feng reached out with those fidgety hands that usually picked at his toes, grabbing at Ji Jue, completely unable to contain himself.
Ji Jue killed the conversation with a single sentence: "Did you buy the gift?"
After a long silence, Lu Feng's expression cycled through shock, realization, panic, and desperate wishful thinking—looking like someone who had spotted two antennae peeking out of a cup and was desperately consoling himself that it might just be the pigtails of an anime girl, not what he feared...
"Uh, well, cough, cough... Filial piety is the best gift of all, right? Coming home safe and sound—Mom doesn't care about material things!"
"Is that so?" Ji Jue grinned.
"R-Right?" Lu Feng wasn't so sure anymore.
Ji Jue asked again, "What about Xiao Ling?"
In the dead silence, Ji Jue twisted the knife. "She reminded you to make sure to buy a gift before coming back, didn't she?"
Then, observing Lu Feng sweating through his shirt, Ji Jue added another jab: "Reminded you several times, if I recall?"
With a dry swallow, Lu Feng grabbed Ji Jue, eyes brimming with tears. "Second Brother, save a brother out here, I'm begging you!"
Otherwise, he could already envision the misery of his home life over the next few months.
Ji Jue sighed helplessly and pointed toward the living room, indicating the massage chair inside a large cardboard box that had arrived long ago.
"The car's at the door. Carry your own gift yourself."
"You got it!"
Lu Feng complied eagerly without a shred of hesitation.
Ji Jue shook his head and followed behind him.
With light steps.
Heading home.
"Mom, I'm back!"
After surviving a brush with death, Lu Feng hadn't even stayed quiet for a few minutes on the road before reverting to his old habits the moment he stepped through the door. Kicking off his slippers to the side, he flopped onto the sofa—only to be poked and prodded like a cockroach by Lu Ling, who was sweeping the floor, and chased all the way into the bathroom.
"You're so annoying! The second you come home, you make a mess everywhere! You haven't even washed your feet, they stink!"
Right after chasing Lu Feng off, she turned around to see Ji Jue and instantly switched faces. A radiant smile broke out across her youthful, vibrant cheeks, brimming with delight.
"Second Brother, you're back! Come sit down and rest! You must be boiling, let me get you some sweet soup from the fridge."
"Second Brother, Second Brother, have some fruit!" The third sister came running over carrying a plate of sliced fruit, her eyes blinking brightly beneath the little braids in her hair.
"Alright, alright." Ji Jue beamed, scooping up the third sister into his arms and feeding her a piece of fruit with a fork.
"Xiao Ji's here! Sit down for a moment, the hotpot will be ready soon. Ah, why did you buy so much stuff? The house can't even fit it all." Mother Lu stepped out of the kitchen, putting on the reading glasses Ji Jue had gotten her, grinning ear to ear.
Glancing at Lu Feng, who was squatting beside the massive massage chair box with an eager expression waiting for praise, she seemed to just casually sweep her gaze past: "Oh, the pup is back too."
*Crack!*
Something seemed to shatter softly.
Lu Feng trembled with suppressed grief and indignation, tears practically welling up in his eyes.
This double standard was way too damn much!
He suddenly felt the cruel sting of reality: So what if you called the shots out in the world? So what if you were a former elite soldier in the Mid-Continent? It still didn't change the fact that you were the most useless thing in this household!
Life was simply unlivable!
But it was fine. At least Lao Yao was still here to keep him company.
Squatting on a small stool, Lu Feng kindly patted Lao Yao on the head, signaling: *Don't be afraid, Big Brother's on your side.*
Instead, Lao Yao cast a puzzled look back at him, then stood up without hesitation and sat beside Ji Jue, eagerly presenting his achievements: "Second Brother, Second Brother, I got a hundred on both my exams!"
"Whoa, really?" Ji Jue took the test papers, inspecting the handwriting and the scores, and nodded. All those practice workbooks and learning app memberships hadn't gone to waste. He beamed, "Not bad, not bad! Keep studying hard and do your best, okay?"
"Okay!" Lao Yao nodded excitedly.
"Alright then, in a bit your second brother and second sister will take you and your third sister out to buy toys!"
"Yay!"
Everyone cheered. Only in the corner did a certain someone, forgotten by the entire family, shatter softly once again.
Silent and unnoticed.
"Happy Birthday!"
Amid the cheers and shouts, Mother Lu, wearing a small paper crown, blew out the candles. Her face was flushed, eyes crinkling as she lowered her head to rub at the corners of her eyes, full of embarrassment: "I haven't celebrated this in so many years, look at you all... Sigh..."
A fiftieth birthday, yet she hardly looked aged; the once-graying roots of her hair had regained their glossy black sheen. After toiling alone through early mornings and late nights for so many years, she had finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Sitting at the table surrounded by so many children, her eyes instantly reddened with tears.
She truly couldn't hold it back.
And so, she pointedly turned her head to look at the pup beside her.
Mm, held it back.
Right here was a grown man of his age, unmarried, with no girlfriend, who spent all day picking his toes and being an eyesore at home. The house was already bursting at the seams, yet he wasted so much money hauling back a massage chair—as if money just blew in on the wind. Such a grown adult, without the slightest sense of how to manage a home.
The old lady's fists suddenly tightened.
Lu Feng instinctively ducked his head.
"Mom, you've lost so much weight lately." Lu Ling leaned against her mother, taking several selfies, beaming as she looked at Mother Lu in the photos.
The obesity caused by years of steroid abuse had receded significantly, her double chin had shrunk, her jawline was much clearer, and her lower back pain had barely flared up recently.
"Make sure you take the medicine Dr. Xie prescribed on time," Ji Jue urged. "A steady regimen is never a bad thing. See, your health is so much better now, isn't it?"
Not long ago, he had taken Mother Lu and the kids to the Xinxiang Sanatorium for a full checkup and consulted Xie Lan. To that, Xie Lan had declared it a piece of cake.
Still, the issues stemming from steroid abuse in past years had become deep-seated over time. Though Mother Lu had a robust constitution, she was an ordinary person after all, incapable of enduring the aggressive reshaping of drastic medicines. The recommendation was to nourish her foundational vitality slowly, adjusting step by step; returning to normal wouldn't be an issue.
Regardless, the prescriptions were all set. Lu Feng would go pick them up at regular intervals, and with Lu Ling keeping watch at home, there was no need to fear Mother Lu finding it too troublesome or fretting over the cost.
"Alright, alright, hurry up and eat, everything is steamed."
Mother Lu urged with a smile, lifting the steamer lids to serve the food. Lu Ling had specially bought a generous spread of fish, shrimp, and crab, cooking a pot of seafood congee. The shrimp steamed over the congee was firm, plump, and sweet; paired with the dipping sauce, each bite was impossible to resist.
With Lu Feng's ravenous appetite, plus the third sister and Lao Yao—two growing children—no amount was ever enough. Batch after batch was steamed, the juices dripping down through the perforated tiers into the congee, imparting a savory sweetness to the once-plain base.
At the end of the meal, everyone received a bowl sprinkled with cilantro and local white pepper, smelling so fragrant it was utterly intoxicating.
For the first time in a while, Ji Jue ate until his belly was round.
Slumped on the sofa digesting his meal, he soaked in the sunlight streaming through the balcony.
Once Lu Ling finished helping Mother Lu tidy up, he asked, "Summer vacation is coming up. Any plans?"
"Um..." Lu Ling paused, having clearly not thought about it. Caught off guard by Ji Jue's question, she instinctively answered, "Help out at home, I guess. The shop's been really busy lately."
"Mother Lu can just hire a few more hands. With current profits, we don't need to skimp on labor costs," Ji Jue said, shaking his head and offering a serious reminder. "For your major, a resume matters most. Getting an internship or gaining more work experience early on will only benefit you in the future."
"Xiao Ji is right," Mother Lu agreed decisively. "What can you do staying here besides keeping the books? Help me change tires?"
"Then... how about I go to Quancheng?!" Lu Ling's eyes instantly lit up. "Work is work anywhere, so why not go help you out? What do you think? Don't worry, Second Brother, I can take hardships!"
Ji Jue paused for a second and coughed twice. Not far away, Lu Feng, who was pretending to watch television, suddenly stiffened as well.
Lu Ling had been the most sensible child since she was little, so there was no worry of her throwing her weight around under his name. The problem was that Haian Industries' current business, while perhaps not strictly criminal, was undeniably unfit to see the light of day.
If she really got dragged into that, it would probably deliver quite a shock to an innocent young girl's sheltered heart. If she ever discovered that her most respected second brother was secretly running an underground factory with 'daily inductions,' churning out all sorts of illicit goods banned by the Federation, while her reformed eldest brother was hauling guns through the wasteland every day setting fires and collecting debts, how could life ever go back to normal?!
He instinctively looked over at Lu Feng, who glared right back.
*Now you remember me? Huh? Too late!*
*You started this, you fix it!*
"Listen, cough, cough... Quancheng is far too desolate, it's not suitable. It's full of rough, crude brutes, and the water and power get cut every day. You can't take a bath for days on end."
With a wave of his hand, before the excited Lu Ling could speak, he preempted her: "I'll check with Silly—cough, Tong Hua later. They have a company over in Beishan District that's been bored to tears recently. Their cash flow is pretty heavy and operations are fairly complex; it'd be perfect for you to go learn.
"Besides, it's close to home. You can drive yourself to and from work every day, which saves Mother Lu from worrying, right?"
"Fine..." Lu Ling nodded, faintly disappointed. After all, for a kid like her, heading out of the city to work in the wasteland was still a bit premature.
Soon, however, her spirits lifted again as she showed off her school achievements to Ji Jue.
Multiple championships in sprints, distance running, and swimming at the university sports meet!
She had brought back a whole pile of trophies.
To be fair, Lu Ling's college life was far more colorful than Ji Jue's had ever been. Back then, he hadn't cared at all about sports meets or clubs; his life had revolved around a single word: grinding. Outcompeting classmates, outcompeting upperclassmen, grinding non-stop from start to finish until he became an obnoxious nuisance everyone avoided. How could he have ever been this popular?
"Second Brother, you seem to be really famous now! A lot of snooty upperclasswomen who used to look down on everyone now give me smiles that are honestly a little creepy.
"A few days ago during the awards ceremony, an important-looking school leader even asked me specifically when you might be able to come back and give a speech. I told him I didn't know your schedule."
"Whenever there's free time, I suppose," Ji Jue nodded. "Have him set a time with my assistant to confirm the schedule. You have her number, right?"
"Contact Miss Yi?"
"Just call her Isis. Her surname isn't Yi."
As for giving a speech, Ji Jue didn't mind so much these days.
After all, Haian was actually short on personnel at the moment. It was a good chance to pull in some fresh workhorses straight out of the Tianmen pens for a spin.
In the past, he hadn't cared to associate with those folks. But a few days ago, Ye Chun had sent him a message, and only then did he learn that his portrait had been hung on the distinguished alumni wall in the branch academy's corridor.
It wasn't placed near the very front; after all, as one of the Federation's Big Five, Tianmen had produced countless prodigies and luminaries each year. Over so many years, who knew how many alumni had soared to greatness? In terms of true status, Ji Jue still had to step aside.
Yet it wasn't placed near the back either.
It was situated right behind his mother's, immediately adjacent.
It looked rather nice.
Ji Jue smiled. Holding the two drowsy little ones in his arms, he felt a wave of sleepiness washing over him as well.
The third sister leaned against his arm, still half-asleep from a nap, her eyes hazy. "Second Brother, Second Brother, let's go play at the beach later..."
"Sure, sure," Ji Jue nodded.
"Buy ice cream... Want, want the little shark one."
"Your teeth might hurt, though."
"I'm not scared of pain." The third sister thought for a moment, hesitating. "I can share some with you. A little extra is okay too."
"Can I have a little more than that?"
"No." The third sister shook her head. "I have to save some for Mom."
"Then ice cream it is. The little shark one."
Ji Jue stroked her hair, gently and carefully, watching her drift back to sleep.
He closed his eyes as well.
In the afternoon sunlight, quiet snores soon arose.
It felt as though someone had gently draped a light summer quilt over him, then quietly stepped away.
During that brief afternoon nap, he seemed to have a very, very long dream.
Just like all his dreams over recent days—intermittent, drifting between dreaming and waking—all he saw in the dream was an expanse of pitch-black darkness. From within that darkness came faint, fragmented, muffled sounds.
They seemed so distant, yet warped and distorted, as if he were sinking into a deep sea.
Descending endlessly, downward, downward, and further downward.
Until he plunged to the very end of the sea and the dream.
He woke.
The afternoon sunlight remained warm and gentle, illuminating his eyes, yet the imagery from the dream lingered on, vivid and clear.
Before waking, he had caught sight of a faint, ethereal wisp of light in the deepest depths of the darkness.
A solitary speck of crimson, silently leaping within the seemingly eternal abyss.
Like a flame.
Deep within the ocean, the dead ashes drifted, rekindling once more.
Chapter 392