A Dog Barking?

Chen Xingzhou was, after all, an honest man. If there was an order, he took it. That very night, he dispatched the hit through an undercover channel as an exclusive contract, even fronting the money out of his own pocket. Whether that was because Ji Jue's stellar character was worth trusting, or because his viciousness was renowned by all, was anyone's guess. Besides, what was one godson anyway? If he had to be killed, he was killed. If he had to die, he died. What was the point of keeping up appearances? These days, every godson and foster daughter out in the Wild Gathering had an angle, and filial piety turning into patricidal backstabbing was practically standard procedure. It just so happened that Chen Xingzhou's standing had been on the rise lately, and he had already been thinking about clearing out the baggage that had piled up over the years. On a rainy day with nothing else to do, why hesitate? Out with the old, in with the obedient! Die for your old man! *Boom! Boom! Boom!* Beyond the Hefang settlement, a pillar of flame abruptly erupted into the sky. Amid a deafening roar, a shockwave rippled outward, nearly knocking flat the settlement's perimeter walls. The entire motorcade was instantly thrown into chaos. Blazing wreckage soared into the air and rained down, trailing thick, clinging tongues of phlogiston fire. "Holy fuck!" Through a fit of violent vertigo, Yue Miao's eyes went wide, his skin crawling. Disaster—this was aimed at him! Did he even need to ask? The car still cartwheeling through the air was his own! If he hadn't been possessed by some bizarre whim today to ride in the trailing car just to shoot the breeze with his lackeys, he would have been blown straight into the stratosphere along with it! Wait, why was I riding in the trailing car? I shouldn't have— The faint premonition within his heart flared all at once. Through waves of searing heat, he jolted awake from his daze. There was no explosion. There was no shockwave. The car ahead had simply blown a tire! He was still sitting in his armored executive vehicle, surrounded by his lackeys and bodyguards, completely unscathed. Wait... truly unscathed? In that split second, he looked down blankly and saw blades sinking deep into his chest, back, neck, and heart. In the instant the blown tire's loud pop had pulled him into an illusion, every single person in the seats before and behind him had struck in unison. Blood sprayed! Yet he could not even feel pain. There was only a burning sensation pulsing from his wrist, torturing him with unbearable agony. In an instant, he let out a frantic roar, his spiritus erupting. His long hair whipped up like living creatures, spreading out, piercing and tearing apart every attacker around him. But after his razor-sharp locks slashed through them, the blood and flesh that burst forth reeked with waves of putrid rot. Corpses! Every single one was a corpse! His confidants and subordinates—when on earth had they— *Boom!* This time, the explosion was genuine. The corpses detonated. Murky green flames engulfed everything in an instant, surging skyward and tearing the vehicle apart from the inside out. Yet just before that happened, Yue Miao, his body contorting into an impossibly compact shape, had already ejected from the vehicle. He rolled across the ground, blood spurting from his wounds. As it hit the earth, it was no longer bright red, but a foul-smelling, murky green and jet-black. Corpse venom and phantasms— No, a curse too! At this moment, no matter how hard he tried to steady his mind, his consciousness was rapidly dimming and unraveling. It felt like plummeting into an icy abyss. He bellowed, "The Shisheng and Luanhua brothers?!" "Heh, you actually woke up?" A mocking voice crackled from a walkie-talkie lying on the ground. "Tough bastard to kill, aren't you? But the corpse venom has already sunk into your bones; you're beyond saving. Brother, why not just do yourself a favor and end it cleanly? Spare us the extra trouble." "A misunderstanding! There's definitely been a misunderstanding!" Yue Miao's pupils contracted as he shrieked, "I have no grudge against you two! I'm the Dragon Head's godson! If I die—" "Even if you were Chen's daddy, it wouldn't do you any good, heh... hahaha!" Amid the mocking laughter, Yue Miao's body suddenly vanished from the spot. In a flash, he reappeared hundreds of meters away, then launched himself forward again, tearing through the wilderness at breakneck speed. Everyone out here was an old fox. Who did they think they were fooling with ghost stories? Yue Miao bolted without sparing so much as a backward glance at his hideout, which should have been his safest and nearest haven. No matter how secure it seemed, the moment those two brothers set their sights on him, he couldn't stay there for a single second! If there was a traitor waiting, he would be a dead man. At this critical juncture, the safest place was actually this barren expanse of desolate wilderness. He still had two safehouses and a secret outpost. As long as he could break out— *Thud!* Mid-leap, Yue Miao's body suddenly plummeted, slamming into the mire. He couldn't get back up. Pale silhouettes materialized out of thin air, coiling around his body, clawing and raking relentlessly, tearing through his flesh. Vengeful spirits! Amid a clamor of chaotic footsteps, gunfire rang out. Yue Miao looked back, his eyes nearly tearing at the corners. He saw the subordinates he had painstakingly cultivated staggering forward in pursuit, lurching unsteadily as they pulled their triggers in wild disarray. Corpses! Every single one was a corpse! Those two bastards had planted corpse venom in everyone in the motorcade long ago. This was the hallmark of the brothers Shisheng and Luanhua! Commanding living corpses and vengeful spirits, using corpse venom and curses to weaken an opponent, throwing the mind into disorder and dissolving the soul—two ruthless animals who stopped at nothing and had zero bottom line! Mocking laughter still echoed over the radio. Stumbling figure after stumbling figure surged forward, sweeping the area with erratic gunfire like puppets. They forced Yue Miao to crawl through the dirt, scrambling on all fours through thickets of wild grass and muddy pools, struggling desperately, yet his speed only grew slower and slower. His consciousness was rapidly sinking into darkness. The curse of the Abyss took root within his soul, devouring his spiritus while simultaneously igniting his battle lust, winding his nerves tight until he wanted nothing more than to spin around and fight them to the bitter end—only for his heart to go cold as ashes the next instant, driving him toward self-destruction. Meanwhile, the mental control of the Weiyang branch kept churning terror and despair up from the depths of his mind, even as excitement and jubilation flared like wild flame. Wild laughter, weeping shrieks, a contorted face. Yue Miao screamed, twitching beneath the barrage of gunfire, squirming across the ground like a maggot. Every inch of him felt as if it were burning, and he roared in pure agony. For a moment, he fell entirely into madness. But right after, a crisp shattering sound seemed to ring out. In an instant, his sanity and awareness flooded back, rendered razor-sharp by the replenishment of spiritus. He opened his eyes and took in the sky and the earth. He smelled the putrid stench in the air, the metallic tang of blood, the rotting odor of the bog. He heard the wriggling of worms through the mire, the chirping of insects, and even—amid that pack of living corpses—a single, distinct heartbeat. A soundless, manic grin spread across his face, tears streaming down his cheeks. *So, you're right here!* *Boom!* Yue Miao abruptly burst open. The skin all over his body ruptured, a violent surge of vitality erupting forth. In an instant, he sloughed off an entire layer of skin, shedding the bone-deep corpse venom along with his cast-off hide. A silhouette drenched in blood sprang forth. Razor-sharp claws of hair lashed out, ripping through one living corpse after another, before his hand shot forward and clamped onto a figure disguised among the dead. He seized him by the neck and hoisted him off his feet. "Shisheng? Or Luanhua?" "You—" The face beneath the disguise twitched, eyes bulging. He instinctively tried to trigger the corpse venom and detonate the bodies, but froze in shock. *Crack.* Yue Miao clenched his five fingers, snapping the man's spine. As he drained the blood vitality from his prey to replenish his own, he inhaled the scents on the wind like a beast. His bloodshot eyes locked onto the chaotic motorcade, and a manic laugh ripped from his throat. *There's still another one right here!* A shrill shriek seemed to echo through his soul, piercing his ears with agony so intense his vision blacked out, his spirit nearly shattering. Yet his speed remained blistering, weathering the force of the curse and the mental blast head-on. A Heart Pivot whose hiding spot had been uncovered by a White Stag. Die! *Boom!* The vehicle at the rear of the convoy was torn completely open by Yue Miao. The dwarf curled up inside the trunk had his skull pulverized in an instant! Until the final moment, that contorted face held nothing but bewildered, disbelieving shock. *How is that possible...?* Only now did Yue Miao finally shake off his stupor and recover from his severe injuries. He looked down blankly at his wrist. From the battered wristwatch, the last wisp of spiritus glow leaked out like a drop of water and dripped away. Its spirituality was extinguished. In that instant, realization dawned on Yue Miao. Unable to hold back any longer, he threw his head back and laughed. Surviving against impossible odds, he danced with joy! *** At the same time, in front of a scrying mirror, Chen Xingzhou was also laughing, rocking back and forth in his seat. Looking back at the thousands of Upgraded Editions and hundreds of Exclusive Editions he had hoarded out of sentiment, along with the ten Signed Editions Ji Jue had gifted him just yesterday, his grin only widened! "Hey, Uncle Lin." He picked up the phone and gave instructions to the other end. "Have the accountant wire the full payment over to Xinquan. Yeah, and place an order for another two hundred Exclusive Edition Sundials. Full upfront payment again. No need to rush them; deliver whenever they're ready." Ten minutes later, the Security Bureau received the news and began laughing. Half an hour later, seeing the throngs of buyers swarming outside the church, Elder Deng was grinning so broadly his old legs could barely hold him up. An hour after that, having received all the detailed data and field test analyses recorded by the Aether Observers from the Tong family, Ji Jue began laughing as well. From that moment on, across Xinquan, Yacheng, Chaocheng, and the whole of Haizhou, every single person tied to the Sundial sales chain was smiling. Everyone was laughing. Yet every smile seemed slightly different. Life was meant to be lived with a smile, after all! And when Lou Feng submitted his academic paper and investigation report to the Association's Review Board with a broad smile, someone was finally going to stop smiling. "Fuck your whole family!" Hu Jian's eyes bugged out as he roared, slamming the paper onto the table. The composure he had maintained for decades vanished without a trace as he raged, "How can an isolated fluke of an incident be treated as a general result?! These modern artisans are talking bigger and bigger every day. To stir up attention, they don't even have any shame left! They're nothing but clowneries! What is there left to verify?!" "Master Hu, don't be in such a rush." Aignu, an old acquaintance on duty with the Review Board, exchanged a knowing look with the others. They all broke into identical grins. "I know you're eager, but don't rush. To be fair, this paper appears thoroughly reasoned and quite convincing! "Besides, the detailed data has been verified by the Aether branch, and the principles and procedures are all laid out. Whether it's empty talk or not, won't everything become clear once we run a test ourselves?" *On a Novel Application and Potential of the Spirit of Creation: Enhanced Resistance Effects Conferred by High-Fidelity Simulated Souls During Spiritus Interaction with the Bearer* First Author: Lou Feng. Corresponding Author: Ji Jue. *Abstract: In exploring the potential of the Spirit of Creation, an investigation was conducted based on the phenomenon where highly refined Spirits of Creation independently bear the brunt of curses and mental control in place of the host...* *Keywords: Spiritus Alchemy; Spirit of Creation; Curse Resistance; Mental Control Immunity...* A sprawling string of jargon. A layman reading it would get a headache; an insider reading it would be struck dumb, feeling as though dogs were barking in their ears in an unbroken chorus! To put it simply: Lou and Ji, drawing upon numerous precedents where artifacts nurtured over extended periods by their bearers developed spirituality that instinctively protected their masters, had conducted a series of studies. Through a stroke of good fortune, they had achieved low-cost, mass production of such Spirits of Creation. Quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say? Truly coincidental! Far too coincidental! So coincidental it landed right on their doorstep! Before I knew it, I actually pulled it off! *Special thanks to my mentor, to Embers, and to the support of the Association and the Haizhou Security Bureau...* Only the first ten-odd pages of the entire paper contained actual academic content. Everything after was a massive list of acknowledgments, thanking everyone from Federation junk scavengers to the Operations Department of the Tacheng Security Bureau in the Mid-Continent, from the Association's nurturing support to Chairman Gustav's leadership and tireless guidance—the only thing missing was a shout-out to the security guard at the front gate! It even included Aignu, who was currently sitting right there in the review room sipping tea! *Special thanks to him for holding nothing back during our exchange at the Federation garrison base, which granted profound enlightenment and further refined the relevant theory. Truly worthy of a grandmaster of his generation; his grace and poise command the utmost respect!* "..." After reading that part, everyone gave Aignu a very strange, incredulous look. *Hold on, buddy, aren't you from the Life discipline? Since when did you become an expert in spiritus studies?* Aignu smiled faintly, glancing at that line in the acknowledgments and letting out a quiet chuckle. "Ah, we just exchanged a bit of dissection experience. Look at this kid..." He tapped the paper in front of him, sighing with emotion. "Thoughtful!" While it certainly smelled of buttering up the Review Board, there was no rule forbidding acknowledgments! Besides, sucking up only worked if the work held up! Moreover, if the data wasn't faked and the theoretical principles weren't a sham, this paper would easily qualify for an A+ grade. How many achievements could snag an A+ in any given year? Even a Master occasionally needed some emotional validation and bragging rights, didn't they?! Only Master Hu wore a scowl as sour as spoiled milk, his expression growing uglier by the second. He flipped through the paper again and again, searching for flaws, but the content consisted entirely of descriptions, proofs, and experimental data, offering an overview of what the thing was and how it functioned. It boasted about how potent, marvelous, effective, and convenient this Spirit Seed was, singing its praises to the heavens. It was practically a renamed user manual explaining how to deploy it, how to operate it, and how to nurture it. As for how this Spirit Seed was actually manufactured? Sorry, not a single word was mentioned! Even the theories and cultivation methods referenced in its operating principles were patents previously registered within the Association by Ji Jue and Ye Xian! *Ji, you little bastard—* Hu Jian's eyes went wide, his blood boiling until he was red in the face! If this were anywhere else, a paper that completely skirted the core manufacturing process would have been thrown right back in the author's face. Yet within the Association, artisans were explicitly permitted to safeguard their unique crafts and lineages. Furthermore, to facilitate empirical verification and replication by the Review Board, sixty clockwork cores harboring Spirit Seeds had been submitted alongside the paper! Sixty pieces of identical specifications, identical batches, identical performance, and identical conditions—all Sundial cores possessing uniform craftsmanship and uniform effects. Don't even try claiming the artisan faked them; faced with that quantity, even a Tianlu would be left scratching his head! Even without testing them, just looking at this absolute confidence was enough for everyone to start believing: these two fellows had genuinely cracked low-cost mass production. Wait, you're telling me that in just a few hours, you managed to produce master-protecting artifact spirits that usually took others multiple generations of nurturing and catalysis to stumble upon by sheer chance?! And on an assembly line, mass-produced?! Are you out of your mind?! It was simply too outrageous. Even after reading the paper, everyone was caught between belief and doubt, unable to be certain. Even though the paper repeatedly stressed that the product they created was not the same thing as the master-protecting artifact spirits of common understanding, sharing only the same effect. A true master-protecting artifact spirit possessed its own sentience; thus, when danger struck, it would actively unleash its power to shield its master, and its utility was never so singular. What the Sundial relied upon was merely the instinctual reaction of the Spirit Seed. Due to long-term saturation by the bearer's spiritus, the resulting spirituality attained an extraordinarily high degree of compatibility with the user, effectively becoming an extension of them. As a result, through the seamless similarity between the seed and the bearer, it could confuse a curse's targeting mechanism and absorb the damage in their stead. It was purely an expendable consumable. But so what if it was a consumable? Did a consumable eat your rice or drink your tea? Just look at the price difference between a Sundial and other protective spiritual artifacts! If you sold me a one-time-use item for four or five hundred million, I'd curse your ancestors up and down for peddling trash. But if you told me it only cost a few million... *My apologies, Godfather! I failed to recognize you just now; your humble son bows before you!* *+1+1+1+1+1, are you for real?!* "Things have come to this; further talk is pointless." Once another round of debates and bickering among the Review Board wound down, Aignu spoke slowly. "Let's test it first. An empirical trial." He stood up of his own accord and rolled up his sleeves. Flesh squirmed as it engulfed a clockwork core, followed immediately by an infusion of spiritus and spiritual catalysis. He was a Master, after all; there was no need for him to spend prolonged periods slowly nurturing it. Under his personal catalysis, the core swiftly grew as if it were living flesh, while the spirituality within surged at an astonishing pace! "We'll follow the exact procedure laid out in the empirical report." Aignu casually unfurled a corner of his workshop. Tendril after tendril extended and intertwined, latching onto his body to monitor and sense shifts at all times. He looked up at the others. "Who's doing the honors?" The other members fell silent for a moment, exchanging glances before their eyes settled on the sullen Hu Jian. Hu Jian stood up decisively and submitted a request. Soon, a standard test-grade cursed artifact was brought into the office. A bizarre necklace radiating tendrils of black miasma was gripped in Hu Jian's hand. Right under the watchful eyes of multiple Masters, he aimed it at Aignu from a distance. Amid the swirling coils of ink-black radiance, Aignu remained composed. He even deliberately suppressed his own power and resistances, raising his arm. Immediately after, a sharp hissing sound arose. The core abruptly grew scorching hot. "Oho, it's reacting," Aignu grinned. "Old Hu, put some muscle into it." Hu Jian said nothing, and the dark radiance exploded with full force. A crisp cracking sound echoed out. The blazing core completely overloaded, its spirituality scattering like a vortex that instantly devoured all the ink-black radiance, annihilating them together! Right before everyone's eyes, the curse was truly averted! "No, there's still a tiny trace of residue. About..." Aignu narrowed his eyes, sensing it carefully. "About zero point one seven percent." Such a negligible residue posed no threat whatsoever. Even if left alone, it would cause nothing more than occasional drowsiness. And even if one couldn't purge it on their own, finding any Transmuted-rank practitioner to perform a quick spiritus combing would clear it completely. For a moment, the entire office fell dead silent. Everyone felt a collective urge to suck in a breath of cold air. *Holy shit, the youth these days really know how to put on a show!* "Maybe it's just an 'isolated fluke.'" Aignu grinned, entirely nonchalant. "We still need to run a few more tests. Old Hu, come cooperate with me again." Saying so, he scooped up another core and repeated the process. Another test, followed by another. Then they swapped testers, and continued. Over the course of the afternoon, more than half of the sixty cores were consumed. From common curses like the Soul Scattering Curse, Mind Divergence, and the Five Skandhas Torment, to more obscure arts like Tapir Devouring and Spirit Transference—the most prevalent curses and forms of mental control were all detected with immediate warnings. Even if the bearer failed to notice, the core would self-destruct the moment their spiritus was disrupted, buying crucial reaction time. If one insisted on nitpicking, it had slight blind spots against a few specific curses and the prolonged psychological conditioning of a Heart Pivot. But if you were so thoroughly compromised as to be subjected to long-term Heart Pivot conditioning—a curse rarer than winning the lottery jackpot—what else was there to say? Call your brothers! All you had left was your raw temperament anyway; who knew, maybe it would work! "The craftsmanship is quite a medley..." Aignu clicked his tongue in wonder. "The Lou clan's micro-sculpting transmutations, Kong's elemental permeation, Ye Xian's spiritus alchemy... And in the overlap between material properties and spirituality, is that Fluid Alchemy? No, they pushed it past its limits—heh, they didn't even bother hiding it; they're showing off right to our faces. "Old Hu, what do you think?" He cast a half-smiling glance over. "For an improper tendency to 'exaggerate,' 'catch at shadows,' and 'spout nonsense,' shouldn't we award it a C-minus to rectify the Association's internal discipline and warn other artisans? Maybe even issue a public reprimand and announce disciplinary action? "You know I've got your back!" *Like hell you've got my back!* Hu Jian glared, his face as dark as if he had swallowed shit. No, worse: knowing it was shit, he was still forced to open wide and swallow it—while the people around him clapped and cheered at the spectacle! Hand out a C-minus after these test results? Was he out of his mind?! He wasn't afraid of offending Ye Xian, but making a complete laughingstock of himself was a very real danger! What kind of skill did you, Hu, possess? How much face did you have to give a C-minus to a breakthrough achievement in spiritual creation, the likes of which the Association hadn't seen in decades? Who the hell did you think you were—a living Tianlu?! Could you stop making a fool of yourself? From the moment he laid eyes on the paper, his sole hope had been to use his authority to drag out the review process as long as possible, and then frantically seize the window to make his subordinates cancel that damn inquiry hearing. That was all he could manage—Review Board member or not, leader of the Transmutation branch or not, Master or not. Along the way, he could also pray that the bastard Ji Jue was secretly an undercover operative sent by the Profound, who would suddenly be exposed and cut down by a mob of blades. Yet from the moment the results were verified, everything he could do was rendered entirely meaningless. Or rather, the more he did, the more of a clown he became. He remained silent, as if wearing an invisible red nose, his eyes shut tight without a word. And so, with the full participation of the Review Board, the evaluation began. A+, A+, A+, A+... Without a shred of hesitation, everyone awarded the highest score within their authority, stamping their seals upon the form. Only Hu Jian stared silently at the final blank space on the sheet. He refused to set pen to paper. "Master Hu, if you drag your feet any longer, we'll be off the clock," Aignu said with a smirk. "I'm in a rush to pick up my kid from school; could you hurry it up?" "My wife just gave birth; I need to rush over and pay the hospital bill." "Why not just give it a C-minus, Old Hu? We all support you!" "Plus one!" "Perk up, Old Hu!" another reviewer chimed in, grinning broadly from the sidelines. "We all clawed our way out of the workshops; don't lose your nerve now!" *You bunch of absolute bastards!* Hu Jian squeezed his eyes shut, pouring every ounce of strength into writing his evaluation on the final line of the form. **[A+]** Half an hour later, on Hu Jian's direct orders, the twelve workshops that had jointly requested the inquiry hearing submitted letters to the Association at unprecedented speed, petitioning for its withdrawal. An hour later, the withdrawal request was rejected. Because the subject of the inquiry did not consent.