"Huang Tian, the Lord on High?"
Zhou Dongqiang blanked for a moment, then said, rather amused, "The first two characters of this divine name are the same as my roommate's name."
"Yes. I froze for a second when I first saw it too," Liu Qingqing replied. "But the two aren't connected. For one thing, far too many people in our Shenwei Federation are named Huang Tian. There are several hundred at least, so it isn't rare. For another, the Huang Tian here should be read as the homophone for Imperial Heaven, in the sense of Imperial Heaven and Sovereign Earth, and has nothing to do with a personal name."
Zhou Dongqiang nodded, then asked, "By the way, Sister Qing, why did you say just now that if we looked into Huang Tian, the Lord on High, we might not find much?"
"Get in the car first. Once you've seen the files, you'll understand." Liu Qingqing strode out of the special training base and got into the car parked at the entrance. Zhou Dongqiang followed close behind and settled into the passenger seat.
"These are the files on Huang Tian, the Lord on High, and the man-eating oddity. Have a look." Liu Qingqing handed him two folders.
Zhou Dongqiang took them, opened the first, and carefully flipped through it. "—Joy Paradise, instance world, players, Huang Tian, the Lord on High—"
A few minutes later he looked up in surprise. "This Joy Paradise is clearly tied to an oddity as well!"
"That's right." Liu Qingqing started the car. "But all those players who were forcibly dragged in have returned to the real world now, and they can talk freely with people about Joy Paradise. Before, if they did that, they died at once.
They don't now. That means Joy Paradise must have been destroyed, and the oddity connected to it must have been obtained by Huang Tian, the Lord on High."
Zhou Dongqiang's expression turned odd. "Do humanoid oddities also take the initiative to contain other oddities?"
"He isn't necessarily a humanoid oddity. He might be an ordinary person who obtained a godhood and a divine artifact, and styled himself Huang Tian, the Lord on High." Liu Qingqing mused. "In any case, there's no way to determine what He is for now, though headquarters is more inclined to believe He is a humanoid oddity."
Zhou Dongqiang nodded thoughtfully, then frowned and kept sighing. "This Huang Tian, the Lord on High, has only appeared in that Deserted Island instance. There isn't a trace of Him in the real world.
No wonder you said we wouldn't uncover much, Sister Qing. This is a needle in a haystack. The Federation is so vast—how could we possibly find where He is?"
"It's all right. Not finding Him doesn't matter. Just from His saving all those players, we can tell He is fairly just. There's no need to worry He'll stir up anything major in the short term, so a delay is fine." Liu Qingqing said seriously, "Our most urgent task is still to find that man-eating, blood-drinking oddity in Qiju City and contain it."
"Understood!"
Zhou Dongqiang unconsciously rubbed his hands, hot blood surging in his chest. After a month of grueling special training, I'd been infected with the derivative effects of several oddities. Now I can control fire and water, and I've gotten good with a gun. I'm nothing like I was. At last I have a chance to show what I can do!
He watched the trees sliding backward outside the window and sighed to himself. A month ago, I never could have imagined I'd have the abilities I do now. Old Huang, Murong, and the rest probably couldn't imagine it either. Heh. If I flicked out a fireball in front of them, their eyes would pop right out of their heads, wouldn't they?
Alas, too bad they're all ordinary people. I can't show off in front of them—
To gain wealth and not return home is to wear brocade in the dark!
But the Association's rules had to be kept. A member who had only just been confirmed dared not defy them.
Forget it, forget it. I'm an official member of the Oddity Management Association, a keeper of the Federation's order, a defender of human civilization! How can I keep thinking about showing off in front of my friends? This is no good. Really no good!
He coughed once, his expression turning proper, opened the second folder, and carefully read through the materials on Qiju City's man-eating oddity—
In a snap of the fingers, ten days flew by.
Changnan University, the men's dormitory building, Dorm 208. Huang Tian drew in a light breath, then slowly let it out, and the clear qi formed a thin cloud.
"After cultivating so hard these days, I've finally broken through to the Yang Spirit realm! The only pity is that the spiritual medicine I gained before is all used up. Advancing by leaps and bounds like this again will be rather hard—"
He shook his head, walked to the desk, poured himself a cup of warm water, and drank it at his leisure. Suddenly—
"Bzz—bzz~"
His phone vibrated, and the Brain of Light's voice came through. "Master, two people suspected of being oddity holders have been detected!"
"Mm. Two?" Huang Tian said. "Tell me in detail."
"Yes! The first is named Yang Chen, male, twenty-three, just graduated from university, currently living in Qiju City—
The blood in his body seems to have been affected by some oddity and turned into milk tea."
Ding-dong. A video popped up and played on its own. Huang Tian raised his eyes and saw a young man paring an apple with a fruit knife. Carelessly, he nicked his finger, and then sweet-scented milk tea seeped from it. The young man looked blank and shaken, staring dumb as a dog.
"Blood turned into milk tea?" Even Huang Tian couldn't help his eyelid twitching. He was utterly speechless.
Oddities were absurd indeed. They could actually turn a person's blood into milk tea, and yet Yang Chen still hadn't died. He was living perfectly well—
"The second person is named Xie Yuan, male, thirty-two, currently living in Qiju City—he seems able to grow stronger by eating human flesh and blood."
As the words ended, another video popped up. On the outskirts of Qiju City, midnight, an extremely remote alley, the light dim. A vagrant leaned against the wall, curled up asleep.
Then a thin man in a peaked cap walked into the alley with his head lowered. As he passed the vagrant he stopped, slowly bent down, and lunged in a vicious bite!
The vagrant jolted awake from the violent pain. In terror he struggled madly and tried to cry for help, but in only three seconds his body went rigid. The flesh and blood all over him rapidly withered, leaving nothing of his body but a thin layer of skin.
Utterly pale human skin!
A trace of fear still lingered on the face of that skin.
The Brain of Light said, "Xie Yuan has already been targeted by the Oddity Management Association. The arrest is about to begin. The main force responsible for capturing him is Liu Qingqing and Zhou Dongqiang, with personnel from the relevant departments assisting alongside."
"Zhou Dongqiang? Right. His special training has already lasted more than a month. He ought to have become an official member of the Oddity Management Association." Huang Tian was slightly surprised, then understood. He asked, "These two oddity holders, Yang Chen and Xie Yuan, are both in Qiju City?"
"Yes," the Brain of Light replied.
"In that case, I'll make a trip to Qiju City. It isn't far." Huang Tian decided at once. His figure moved, and he flew from the room like a streak of flowing light, heading straight for Qiju City.
Before long he reached Qiju City, came to the third floor of an old apartment building, Room 313, and rang the doorbell.
"Just a moment, I'm coming!" A man's voice came from inside.
A few seconds later the door clicked open. A young man in square-framed glasses appeared. It was Yang Chen. He glanced at Huang Tian and asked in puzzlement, "May I ask who you are?"
Huang Tian smiled. "I'm from the Oddity Recovery Office. You can call me Huang Tian."
"An oddity? What's that?" Yang Chen looked completely lost. "Do I have one here? Bro, have you got the wrong place?"
"I haven't." Huang Tian was brief. "The thing that turned your blood into milk tea is an oddity."
At those words Yang Chen's expression changed sharply, his eyes full of disbelief. "You—you know?!"
Seeing Huang Tian smile and say nothing, he barely pressed down the storm inside him and forced a smile onto his face. "Please come in. Sit for a while."
Huang Tian did not decline. He walked straight in and sat on the soft sofa in the living room.
Utterly distracted, Yang Chen poured him a cup of hot water, then sat opposite. Both hands unconsciously clutched the sofa as he asked with great care, "Mr. Huang, Mr. Huang, you just spoke of oddities—what exactly counts as an oddity? Do they have any particular traits?"
At that, Huang Tian flicked a finger. A streak of flowing light burst from his fingertip and shot into Yang Chen's brow. Yang Chen's body went stiff. In the next instant, he found a great deal of information about oddities had appeared in his mind.
"—oddities, cost of use, traits, the Pen of Reality, the Fishing Rod—"
Only after a good while did Yang Chen finish digesting it all. The look on his face grew wonderfully varied—shock, longing, envy— He coughed, scratched his head, and said, "Mr. Huang, looking at it this way, the box I picked up a few days ago really is an oddity. But this oddity's trait is very, very, uh, useless."
At that he slapped his forehead. "I'll bring it out first."
He got up and went to the bedroom. A dozen seconds later he came out with both arms around a small blue box.
"Thud~"
He set the box on the floor beside the sofa and sighed. "I call it the One-Tenth Exchange Box.
It exchanges things. Put something into the box, give a command, and you can exchange it for another thing you specify. But the two differ tenfold in value!
For example, put ten stones of the same size into the box, give the command, and ask to exchange for a stone. What comes out in the end is one stone.
In short, whatever you get from the exchange is worth only one-tenth of what you put in, so I call it the One-Tenth Exchange Box."
He shook his head again and again. "Too useless. Too useless— And its cost of use is outrageous too! Use it once, and your blood and tears both turn into milk tea! I don't even dare bleed or shed tears outside now, for fear someone will find out I'm made of milk tea and drag me off to be sliced up—"
Looking at Yang Chen's woebegone face, Huang Tian felt rather sorry for him, and also found it funny. He pondered a moment, then suddenly said, "This One-Tenth Exchange Box may not be useless."
He turned his right hand over, and an antique book appeared in it. This was a standing-stake method he had once practiced in the Five Directions Realm: the Spirit Tiger Demon Crane Stance.
"Mind putting it into the box?" Huang Tian handed it over.
"It's nothing." Yang Chen stared in astonishment at the ancient book that had suddenly appeared in Huang Tian's hand, quite curious. He took it, looked it over a few times, and put it into the box. "Mr. Huang, what do you want to exchange for?"
"An elixir for cultivation."
"Cultivation? An elixir?" Yang Chen was briefly stunned, then stretched out his right hand, set it on the box, and recited, "Exchange for me an elixir for cultivation!"
About five seconds later the box gave off a faint glow. Seeing this, Yang Chen opened it. The ancient book was gone, replaced by a porcelain bottle. He took it out and handed it to Huang Tian. "See if it's useful?"
Huang Tian took it and opened the porcelain bottle. A faint clear fragrance entered his nose. It was indeed an elixir that enhanced qi and blood!
Though the elixir's effect was very weak, it was an elixir all the same.
Cultivation methods and secret arts could all be exchanged for all kinds of elixirs. The value would only be one-tenth, but that didn't matter. My mind holds countless divine abilities and wondrous methods. Even exchanging only a tiny portion would be entirely enough for what my cultivation needs!
With the One-Tenth Exchange Box, he would have no need at all to worry about resources for cultivation!
So this oddity need not be absorbed for now. I'll make use of it, and absorb it only when my strength is enough to suppress all things. It won't be too late.
Thinking this, he looked at Yang Chen. "It's of no small value to me. Are you willing to keep it and work for me? I'll give you a generous reward—money, immortal cultivation methods, martial arts manuals—"
Using the One-Tenth Exchange Box would turn one's own blood and tears into milk tea. Huang Tian naturally would not use it himself. For one thing, he found it somewhat revolting. For another, if his blood changed—and into something as outrageous as milk tea—it might cause this body to go awry in cultivation. Recruiting Yang Chen was therefore necessary.
The moment he heard "immortal cultivation methods" and "martial arts manuals," Yang Chen's eyes lit up. He nodded hastily. "I'm willing, I'm willing!"
Huang Tian raised a finger and pointed. Another streak of flowing light slipped into Yang Chen's brow. "This is the Still Sea Profound Weight Method, one of the cultivation methods best suited to your constitution and temperament."
A great mass of information flooded into his mind. Yang Chen felt his brain swell for a moment, and a sentence drifted past his ear. "Pack up, then go to Changnan City. Once you're there, someone will arrange everything for you."
Having ordered the Brain of Light to look after Yang Chen, Huang Tian moved and vanished from the spot. When he appeared again, he was already flying high above Qiju City.
He swept out his divine sense, then looked toward the city's eastern outskirts, his brows lifting slightly. "It seems the Oddity Management Association's arrest of Xie Yuan is not going smoothly—"
The once-quiet eastern outskirts shuddered with a boom, as if in an earthquake. Right after, like a small mountain rising from the earth, a giant nearly fifty meters tall stood upon the ground!
The giant looked as if it had been scorched by fierce fire. Its whole body was red as blood, its muscles knotted and coiling like dragons and snakes. Its shoulders and back were broad, blocking a swath of sunlight and casting an immense shadow.
"Hoo~ haa~"
Even a light breath raised a fierce wind, blowing the grass and trees of the outskirts flat to the ground.
Merely standing there, doing nothing, it gave off a suffocating pressure!
The flesh-and-blood giant lowered its head and looked down at Liu Qingqing and Zhou Dongqiang, whose faces had gone slightly pale, and at the many citizens staring dumbstruck. Its voice was exceptionally cold.
"I am the Master of Flesh and Blood, the God above Gods. You ants dare defy my will—every last one of you must die!!!"
Chapter 238