"Meow, meow, meow." That was the cat meowing.
"Caw, caw, caw!" That was the crow cawing.
"How much?" That was Miss Crow calling out.
The hem of her trench coat fluttered in the wind outside the window. Suspended in midair like a god or demon, the girl's pupils constricted slightly. Beneath her seemingly impassive countenance, her flat chest rose and fell faintly, her mood clearly as turbulent as her coat.
"Five feet... nine inches?" Through the translation of the crow on her shoulder, Crow learned of Bai Zhou's talent height, her pupils contracting once more.
"It seems your feat of slaying a demon carries substantial weight in the eyes of 'history.'"
After a moment of silence, she suddenly spoke, her voice tinged with the faintest wisp of regretful longing. "If only you could slay another demon."
Bai Zhou: "?"
*Miss Crow, are you out of your mind?*
Demons weren't goblins that respawned outside the village entrance every day, dying to a single slash from a wooden sword.
What he meant was, the village entrance wouldn't have elite mobs like goblins to begin with, and even the best wooden sword in the village wouldn't kill them—so there wouldn't be a second demon either.
This was a Demon Lord residing in the Demon Lord's castle! Managing to survive encountering one once was already a miracle worthy of his ancestors' graves billowing smoke, and she wanted him to do it a second time?
"Because if you were recorded into history once more, through the mystical sublimation brought about by climbing legendary renown... the talent height of your Fate Principle would definitely break past six feet."
Crow said, "From what I understand, once it reaches six feet, your Fate Principle can undergo a fundamental metamorphosis."
*There's a qualitative change too?*
Bai Zhou blinked a couple of times, then slowly shook his head.
One couldn't get fat off a single mouthful; he was satisfied enough with how things stood.
There would always be someone with more talent than oneself. Only when you brought all of your current talent into full play, striving continuously until you found that talent had begun to limit you, did you earn the right to complain about not having enough.
Bai Zhou had always felt this way—at least for now, he didn't feel that the effort and sweat he had invested had reached the point where he needed to rely on raw talent.
Besides... how could Bai Zhou not know what kind of effect such a sudden surge in talent would have on him?
When he tried gathering his spirits and recalling the doubts and difficulties he had faced while learning secret techniques, his brain spun into action like a well-greased spinning top.
*Rumble!*
Surrounded by thunder, [Chen] dispersed the haze in Bai Zhou's mind. Each reverberating rumble of thunder was accompanied by flashes of inspiration, causing many questions he had previously pondered to suddenly become clear and granting him faint new insights into Nine Basic Slashes.
In the final analysis, from absorbing knowledge in the gray mist at the very beginning to imprinting the mastery of secret technique knowledge onto the Fate Principle later on—the advancement and learning along the Destined pathway was essentially a problem-solving process.
Every Destined was an exceptional test-taker, and nearly every outstanding Extraordinary on the surface world doubled as a renowned scholar.
Upon first becoming an Extraordinary, absorbing knowledge in the gray mist was laying the foundation. Each subsequent secret technique learned was an exceptionally intricate puzzle and conjecture. Solving these problems required not only the problem-solver's accumulated knowledge, but also tested their talent, effort, and practical experience.
An increase in talent allowed a Destined to achieve twice the result with half the effort when comprehending and solving these problems.
Nine Basic Slashes was an especially complex problem—thus, the boost in talent had an almost instantaneous effect on Nine Basic Slashes!
The most direct manifestation was that—
The eighty-one diagrams of the fifth form of Nine Basic Slashes were rapidly playing out in vivid, lifelike detail deep within Bai Zhou's mind.
*Buzz—*
His brain seemed to hum and tremble. The sensation of "digesting" knowledge was intoxicating, even causing the cat's eyes to narrow comfortably.
Originally, Bai Zhou's grasp of the eighty-one diagrams of the fifth form had been like viewing flowers through fog, utterly baffled. His progress had been painfully slow, having comprehended and learned only the first two diagrams.
Now, however, as if suddenly enlightened, he understood the essence of the first five diagrams all at once, steadily advancing toward the rest.
Although the earlier portions were more fundamental and the difficulty multiplied exponentially the further one progressed—
Bai Zhou had a feeling that even with ordinary study, simply making time to deduce it each day, it would take no more than a week for him to completely decipher and master all eighty-one diagrams of the fifth form, fusing them into a single strike!
When that time came, even if the fifth form of Nine Basic Slashes could not help Bai Zhou cross the threshold of a Rank 5 Destined, it should infinitely narrow the gap.
By then, just how large would the multiplicative amplification provided by Nine Basic Slashes become?
"Still, it's quite impressive even as it is," Crow's voice snapped Bai Zhou back to reality.
"Even in the Genius Training Camp in Tianjing, where winds and clouds gather, novices with such a talent height are exceedingly rare. Geniuses exceeding the threshold of five feet can usually bypass the preliminary screening and be recommended directly to Tianjing."
Crow's eyes held a touch of reminiscence. Her voice paused slightly before she added with emphasis, "Don't underestimate what that signifies. Across the vast territory of nearly three hundred million square kilometers of the Eastern Federation, the Genius Training Camp in Tianjing gathers the most outstanding elite talents recommended from across the federation once every three years, and only the absolute cream of the crop among them is chosen to enter.
"—They only want the best.
"There, most of the so-called favored darlings of heaven and prominent figures of Tinghai City—those whom people here place on pedestals—fade into mediocrity. They are eliminated in the very first screening, reduced to mere backdrops and stepping stones for the truly gifted."
Crow's eyes lowered slightly, her eyelashes trembling faintly. "After all, while Tinghai City is considerable in scale, boasting a population of tens of millions and a long historical heritage, with an even more deep-seated mystical world beneath its surface where societies both large and small and hidden cults stand thick as trees, and once had an extraordinarily glorious and prominent past...
"...yet looking across the Eastern Federation, which spans half of Blue Star, Tinghai City's Tinghai Metropolitan Area ranks merely at the very bottom of the planned sequence of two hundred and eighty major metropolitan areas.
"—Of course, even so, being selected into the sequence of two hundred and eighty major metropolitan areas across the Eastern Federation and ranking among the world's top five hundred cities is already the glorious fruit of our predecessors' arduous struggles and best efforts."
With that, Crow shook her head again. "Countless metropolitan areas dream of this. Across the vast surrounding lands, Tinghai City has always been the undisputed hegemon, possessing a staggering economic siphon effect.
"That's why it can afford—and truly needs—so many official departments, allowing agencies like the Special Control Bureau to perform their duties in an orderly manner, governing the mystical world beneath the city with rigorous order and preventing it from intruding upon the daily lives of ordinary people."
*The Genius Training Camp!*
Bai Zhou's heart tightened.
Through the window and the hazy hues of the night, Bai Zhou keenly caught a trace of regret in Crow's half-closed eyes; even her consistently icy tone seemed to carry an undertone of subdued nostalgia.
Why did Crow understand this so-called "Genius Training Camp" so well?
She must have experienced something there and left her own mark.
Though Bai Zhou did not think Crow was a mediocrity who had been eliminated in the preliminary screening, still...
*Regret?*
Bai Zhou blinked a couple of times without making a sound.
For a moment, deep within the heart of this expressionless black cat, the name "Genius Training Camp" was quietly committed to memory.
Who knew when this "Genius Training Camp" would open again...
If given the opportunity, he would go!
It was merely a training camp, nothing more than a venomous-jar-style competitive crucible—and that sort of thing was the last thing Bai Zhou's life lacked.
At an age when Blue Star children had barely entered kindergarten, Bai Zhou was already practicing rolls in the Black Robe Youth Training Corps, starving, enduring punishment, and bearing the lash alongside falling-behind companions.
However, since it required a "recommendation," Bai Zhou would first have to resolve the issue of his identity.
It would likely require going through Tinghai's official channels.
"What is the... Tinghai Metropolitan Area?" Hearing this term for the first time, Bai Zhou meowed twice to ask.
The crow then cawed twice, translating simultaneously.
"I told you not to speak..." Miss Crow said faintly to Bai Zhou. "What if you arouse that girl's suspicion?"
That being said, Crow still answered Bai Zhou's question. "Unfortunate as it is that Branch 36 of the Special Control Bureau suffered such a massive catastrophe, for you, arriving straight in the central city of Tinghai upon emerging was a silver lining amidst misfortune."
Crow explained, "I believe you have already seen the bustle and prosperity belonging to this city—but outside this central city, there are many satellite cities, subordinate towns, and villages.
"Only when summed together do they constitute a complete Tinghai.
"Yet in those regions, the less economically developed and modernized they are, the more they preserve ancient sites like ancestral halls and old battlefields. Many villages even retain bizarre, mystical local customs to this day.
"Consequently, those places often become weak points in the connection between the Reflected Ruin Realm and reality, breeding urban legends, fostering active spirituality, and serving as the primary stomping grounds for hidden cults like the Blood Worship Cult. Many wild Extraordinaries on the wanted list flee there to hide.
"Therefore, the authorities deploy their primary forces to ensure the stability of the central city while sending core personnel to suppress those areas.
"—Headquarters of the Statute Hall and the first twelve core bases of the Special Control Bureau are all stationed out there, serving as pillars of stability."
This was why Crow said that Bai Zhou ending up in the central city of the Tinghai Metropolitan Area right out of the Reflected Ruin Realm was a stroke of fortune amidst misfortune—
"If you had been wanted in those regions, the mystical world presented before you would have shown an entirely different face of cruelty," Crow stated with certainty. "Your enemies would include far more monsters and demons, and the Blood Worship Cult would most likely latch onto you like rabid dogs."
"The Blood Worship Cult?" A shiver ran through Bai Zhou.
That was his number one enemy, the chief culprit behind his current predicament—yet at the same time, Bai Zhou was secretly carrying the Blood Worship Cult's forbidden tome, the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls.
A fight to the death was inevitable between them. It was just that the Blood Worship Cult was likely still searching for the Dead Sea Secret Scrolls and locked in a bitter struggle with the authorities, lacking the time to deal with a fish that had slipped through the net like Bai Zhou, unaware that he was quietly making a fortune with their forbidden tome.
—Even if they did notice, the authorities would never permit the madmen of these hidden cults to cause chaos in this modern metropolis.
*So in this crowded city packed with surveillance cameras everywhere, as long as I solve minor problems like surveillance, I'm actually at my safest...* Bai Zhou murmured to himself, letting out a slow sigh.
There was no killing them all—simply no end to them!
Even if all the enemies were herded together and he went to town with the Bauhinia Saber, chopping through them like melons and vegetables all the way from east to west along the widest central thoroughfare, Tinghai Avenue, he still wouldn't be able to kill them all.
A line from Eight Thousand Questions of Naughty Black Cat described it perfectly: "Just captured a few demons, subdued a few devils, yet why are there still so many monsters and fiends?"
Yet no matter how terrible life was, it had to be faced. No matter how dark the night, daylight would always arrive; one simply needed to wait patiently and endure through the deepest gloom—
*Click!*
Just as Bai Zhou was thinking this, "daylight" truly came.
The lights snapped back on.
"All right, all right, the power's back!"
"Don't be scared, don't be scared, Big Sister Xiaofang is here, nothing to fear!"
Her oversized Hello Kitty slippers went *patter-patter* across the floor as Student Xiaofang, clad in her pajamas and trailing a pleasant, milky fragrance, came bounding over, a rustling armful of colorful snack packages clutched to her chest.
Setting these rustling packages neatly along the edge of the bed beneath the windowsill, the girl pulled Bai Zhou tightly against her chest once more.
And so, at this moment, the bitter aroma of coffee drifting from outside the window mingled with the milky fragrance right before Bai Zhou's nose.
What did milk plus coffee smell like?
—Surprisingly pleasant.
"Oh right, kitty, last time I saw you, you had a black ribbon on your head. Why is it gone this time?"
Holding the black cat—who was resisting with stiff uncooperativeness and wearing a thoroughly disgusted expression—Fang Xiaoxia murmured softly, "Did that belong to your previous owner? Did she completely abandon you?
"Don't be sad. Stay here with me from now on, okay? I'll give you lots and lots of delicious food and raise you until you're chubby and round, so you never get hurt again."
*Black ribbon?*
*Wasn't that Crow?*
Bai Zhou blinked a couple of times, his emerald eyes rolling to the side.
"..." Crow remained silent outside the window, turning her head aside expressionlessly, not deigning to watch Bai Zhou and Xiaofang's antics.
Yet the wind blowing in from the half-open window was bitingly chilly, sending an inexplicable shiver down Bai Zhou's spine.
"Kitty, what do you want to eat? It's fine if you don't want KFC. How about snacks? Barbecue Copico, cucumber Lay's, original Oishi rustic potato chips—I have everything!"
Carrying the cat over, the enthusiastic girl showed him the dazzling array of fried chicken and egg tarts arrayed on the windowsill, while the bed was covered in unopened bags of snacks.
"You can eat them all if you want, they're all yours! You choose first, and I'll eat whatever you don't want—hehe, we can eat together, and then watch anime together!
"Because we're best friends, right?"
These were all Fang Xiaoxia's treasured hoard, like melon seeds stored away by a hamster for winter; yet this hamster-like girl actually had moments where she enthusiastically shared her treasures.
Looking at her bubbling joy, one could tell that even if Bai Zhou truly devoured every last bite and left Fang Xiaoxia with an empty stomach, she would only clap her hands and marvel, "Wow, you can eat so much, that's amazing!"
Perhaps it was simply because in the past, Fang Xiaoxia had no one with whom she could share anything at all.
Thus, Bai Zhou sometimes genuinely felt that being a cat wasn't bad. As man's friend, one had clothes brought and food fed without lifting a finger.
Though both were a form of captivity, compared to the Wancheng Black Robes who sent people to the pyre at the drop of a hat, the girl raising a cat was clearly vastly superior.
Look at this girl gazing eagerly at him. She had dug out all her stored provisions to offer them up with wholehearted devotion, letting the cat pick first before eating anything herself, willing to starve so long as the kitty ate well—
Was this still a cat? Could you even call this a pet?
—It was practically the treatment accorded to a god.
He was so happy he had forgotten all about home.
This was one of the rare moments when Bai Zhou felt entirely devoid of nostalgia for the honest simplicity of Wancheng.
At any rate, cats and dogs in Wancheng were never treated like this. Families that kept cats or dogs might mix a few leftovers together and dump them into an iron basin if they were lucky; most hungry dogs and cats had to scavenge for food on their own.
Back when the young Bai Zhou had no scholarship, he had grown up eating food begged from door to door. Begging for scraps meant encroaching on the rations of the local cats and dogs, so he had earned no small share of their resentment. As a child, he frequently broke into brawls with them, which in turn conditioned him to be remarkably tough-skinned and hardy.
Thinking back on it now, however, Bai Zhou couldn't help but wonder—in an environment like the Reflected Ruin Realm, where did those ordinary cats and dogs come from?
—Perhaps that, too, was a ritual requirement to "simulate the real-world environment."
*Wait—*
Bai Zhou soon snapped out of it, refusing to remain submerged in this gentle haven of milky sweetness—because he remembered something far more important.
Struggling with great effort to poke his little head out from the crook of Fang Xiaoxia's embrace, Bai Zhou scanned his surroundings.
His sharp gaze quickly swept across the nearby desk, which was covered in sparkling knickknacks.
A graduation photo stood in an inconspicuous corner, placed alongside other photographs.
Just as inconspicuous as the photo itself was the "passerby-pretty girl" Fang Xiaoxia pictured in it, wearing her junior high school uniform, head drooping, bangs down, standing on the edge.
*It's still here!*
Bai Zhou narrowed his eyes, his gaze locked firmly onto the spot beside Fang Xiaoxia.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with Fang Xiaoxia was that serene, gentle girl, and the blood-red last words etched deeply into Bai Zhou's memory were still floating right there—
[Spiders, red spiders! That person's hands are crawling with red spiders!]
[...They're all dead, only I am left...]
[I have to escape this demon's den!]
As he stared at them, Bai Zhou slowly furrowed his brows.
*Isn't something not quite right?*
The demon was dead, and the girl had plummeted from the school—yet the last words were still firmly suspended here, showing not the slightest reaction as Bai Zhou approached.
—Why was there still no sign that these last words had been fulfilled?
Chapter 156