“I remember you. So you’re still alive.” The naked corpse descended the steps, blood slowly winding down the side of his leg.
Looking at Song Zang, he spoke gently once more. “Will you bury me?”
He still seemed rational and capable of communication.
Song Zang’s voice trembled slightly as he tried his best to soothe him. “I will.”
Hearing that, Long Shao You stepped barefoot onto the cold, specially made floor tiles and slowly took one step forward.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Really?”
“…Really.”
Something’s wrong. The mechanical repetition made it obvious that Long Shao You’s current state was far from normal.
Yin Chen expressionlessly stepped in front of Song Zang and silently drew his long blade.
The razor-sharp edge lifted slightly, pointing directly at Long Shao You’s face.
Apparently sensing Yin Chen’s undisguised killing intent, Long Shao You tilted his head toward him. His smile remained unchanged. “You’re very special. Unfortunately, my horizons are limited. I can’t tell exactly what makes you special.”
“At least you know.” Yin Chen’s voice was icy. His palm slowly rubbed against the hilt as he had already begun considering how best to kill him.
Long Shao You paid no attention to his attitude. He abruptly turned his head again and stared at Song Zang. “But you—you’re special too.”
“You’re a liar. You must be lying to me. You’re very good at lying, aren’t you? Are you really willing to bury me?”
“I don’t believe you. What secret are you hiding? Hm? What are you planning to do to me?”
Song Zang’s heart tightened, but he could not get a word in. The more Long Shao You spoke, the more excited he became. His previously mild, gentle eyes gradually twisted with madness, and the refined, fair face convulsed beneath an increasingly ferocious smile. “You think you can bluff your way through this? My body is protesting! My left leg isn’t even my left leg! Where did you hide it?!”
Thump-thump-thump!
Thump-thump-thump!
As Long Shao You’s questioning grew increasingly frantic, Song Zang heard a strange disturbance.
—It was the Director’s Seal that had burrowed into Long Shao You’s skull. A faint connection still remained between the Seal and Song Zang, and it was jumping and rolling around wildly inside the man’s head.
Lan Yu Heng tightened her grip on her white cane. “Calm down. We mean you no harm. We’ll help you find your missing left leg as soon as possible.”
The moment she finished speaking, Long Shao You whipped around and glared viciously at her. “You’re with him too? You want to steal my body too? You want to make me lose consciousness again and turn me completely into a laboratory rat for you to toy with?”
Then he turned and pointed at Song Zang again, his voice verging on collapse. “I’ve already been awakened so many times! Why won’t you let me sleep? Go die! Die!”
Song Zang stepped backward, his face turning deathly pale, and in the next instant, Yin Chen raised his blade without hesitation. He moved too quickly for anyone to stop him.
With one slash, the arm they had only just reattached crashed to the floor.
Thump-thump-thump! Thump-thump-thump!
The severed arm rolled across the tiles while the Director’s Seal banged even more violently inside Long Shao You’s brain.
Long Shao You lost his balance and collapsed onto the floor, only for Yin Chen to immediately cut off the left leg that did not belong to him either.
Long Shao You let out a mocking laugh, as though he had expected exactly this. His expression became even more distorted and crazed, the skin of his face twitching violently until he resembled a savage beast that had lost all reason and was about to tear someone apart. Yet despite how vicious he was, Song Zang still thought he was pitiful.
As a once-glorious hero, Long Shao You had suffered the humiliation of having his corpse imprisoned and experimented upon, dissected and cloned, while watching his own descendants descend into madness, committing atrocities without the slightest moral boundary for the sake of profit, abusing their benefactor and even colluding with anomalies…
Song Zang could not help thinking that he himself was extraordinarily lucky. He had to treasure everything he possessed and learn to be satisfied.
While Song Zang drifted away in thought, Yin Chen was extraordinarily focused and exhilarated.
With obvious satisfaction, he kept Song Zang securely behind him and raised his blood-soaked long blade once more. The violent killing intent he had been suppressing throughout the entire instance had finally found a perfectly reasonable outlet.
“Boss, control yourself! If you chop him back into the condition we found him in, we won’t be able to contain him. We’ll have to stitch everything back on again!”
Lan Yu Heng had already given up trying to persuade Long Shao You with words. Taking advantage of his temporary inability to move, she quickly contacted Ning Yan outside and told him to hurry up and find Long Shao You’s original left leg.
“Mm.”
Yin Chen responded carelessly.
He said that, but he looked nothing like someone exercising restraint. With another casual slash, he cut off Long Shao You’s remaining right leg as well.
As Yin Chen swung the blade, his face gradually turned pale as paper. It did not look like illness; instead, he increasingly resembled some exquisite, gorgeous nonhuman creature, the faint upward curve of his lips radiating a chilling cruelty and violence.
Song Zang’s eyes widened. At last, he understood the real reason Yin Chen’s condition always deteriorated. Every time it happens, he’s been using that blade that can cut through anything! “Yin Chen, wait—”
Yin Chen did not even turn around to look at him. His smile was cold. “But Teacher, he wanted to hurt you.”
Then came a sharp crack! Long Shao You’s head fell cleanly from his shoulders, severed at the base of the neck.
It was an extremely risky move.
The Guangming Consortium had experimented on Long Shao You’s body for so long, yet despite years without any major success, they had never separated his head from his torso for cloning. In fact, they had even gone to the trouble of sewing his head back on.
Looking closely at the severed neck revealed layer upon layer of tightly stitched steel wire, as though the former researchers had been terrified that the head might ever separate from the body again.
That meant there was almost certainly some taboo involved.
If Long Shao You had already become a Legendary-rank anomaly, then aside from contamination that could be blocked with protective equipment… there had to be something genuinely dangerous about him.
Song Zang bit his lip and stared at Yin Chen, inexplicably uneasy. He was not worried about whether Long Shao You would go mad again, but about what the maddened Long Shao You might do to Yin Chen in retaliation.
Long Shao You’s round head rolled across the floor, yet he did not lose consciousness. Instead, he began laughing eerily. “Heh-heh…”
The little Director’s Seal continued tormenting Song Zang’s hearing from inside Long Shao You’s skull, banging even more violently than before.
“I knew it. You lied to me. Don’t even think about fooling me a second time!”
The torso lying beside the ice coffin suddenly convulsed violently. Several streams of foul-smelling black miasma erupted from the severed neck. “FOG BARRIER!!!”
Lan Yu Heng’s sensitive sense of smell immediately caught something wrong. She shouted and grabbed Zhang Ming Shen, rapidly retreating as the alarms installed in all four protective suits began shrieking with piercing beep-beep-beeps.
This is a Fog Barrier?!
Fog Barrier mist is actually pouring out of Long Shao You’s body?!
No wonder when they had been slaughtering anomalies throughout Dragon Nation, the Fog Barriers had not diminished. Instead, they had begun mutating and becoming increasingly contaminating. Could all of those strange changes have been connected to Long Shao You too?
Lan Yu Heng suddenly understood. “So that’s it! The Guangming Consortium and the Long family caused this. That’s why massive Fog Barriers still exist all over the world!”
Yin Chen showed no fear whatsoever toward the strange miasma spreading around him. He watched the mist coldly and walked toward Long Shao You with his blade, preparing to cut him again… when Long Shao You’s eyeball suddenly dropped out of its socket.
The instant the eye fell free, it seemed to trigger the real mechanism. Black gas several times darker and filthier than the Fog Barrier erupted from the empty socket and completely swallowed Yin Chen’s body.
On Long Shao You’s bald head, his brows and eyes lifted. He smiled viciously, his lips opening and closing.
“I curse you.”
Thump-thump-thump!
The buzzing inside Song Zang’s head grew even more violent. He could see his Director’s Seal trembling in terror, desperately struggling inside Long Shao You’s brain.
“I curse you! I curse you to eternal loneliness, eternal suffering, eternal madness. Enjoy endless torment and solitude…”
Halfway through the curse, Yin Chen—who had been standing quietly inside the darkness—suddenly laughed.
His increasingly pale lips curved into an exaggerated smile. His amused voice overflowed with ridicule and contempt. “You think that’s enough to scare me? What is this supposed to be?”
Inside the thick black mist where no sunlight could penetrate, Yin Chen remained completely unaffected. He lifted his long blade and brought it down hard, splitting the noisy head cleanly in two.
Hooked on the wet, blood-soaked tip of the blade was Song Zang’s tiny Director’s Seal.
The Seal was smeared with pink-white brain matter. Its surface had cracked all over, and it seemed to be trembling in fear, eagerly trying to return to Song Zang.
Yin Chen’s tall figure slowly emerged from the black fog one step at a time, his handsome, deathly pale face filled with satisfaction.
“Teacher, do you want it back?” He lightly shook the blade and smiled.
But no mission-completion notification appeared, no new message came, and Long Shao You had not died at all.
The two halves of his head were slowly healing themselves, accompanied by strange, wet squelch-squelch sounds.
Song Zang did not even look at the mutilated anomaly. He stared straight at Yin Chen for a moment, then snapped angrily, “Put the blade down!”
Yin Chen froze. After a brief silence, he obediently lowered the blade, removed the Director’s Seal from its tip, and carefully wiped away every trace of filth from its surface.
“Teacher…” Song Zang pulled the iron wok from his inventory and slammed it heavily onto the floor. His tone was fiercer than Yin Chen had ever heard from him before. “Come here. Eat something right now and replenish your energy.”
Yin Chen remained stunned. He had clearly never expected Song Zang to react this way.
“Hurry up, or I’ll cry!”
“…All right.” Yin Chen could only lower his eyes and obey.
Song Zang had not become deranged enough to cook Long Shao You’s body in the wok. He simply wanted to test the iron wok’s true capabilities.
The instant he lifted the lid and willed it to activate, something miraculous happened.
The foul Fog Barrier mist filling the room, together with the filthy black gas that seemed to carry Long Shao You’s curse, was completely sucked into the iron wok.
In the blink of an eye, the air became clean and transparent again. Even the alarms on their protective suits fell silent.
“You?! What did you do?!” Long Shao You’s slowly regenerating head roared in shock.
Song Zang did not even look at him. He immediately slammed the lid shut.
Operating at full power, the iron wok began shining brightly. Soon, waves of delicious fragrance escaped from beneath the lid.
When Song Zang opened it again, a gigantic twelve-inch chocolate lava cake made its grand appearance.
The flavor was slightly bitter. Cutting into it released a molten center, and the entire cake was saturated with a rich, intense chocolate aroma.
Its stat bonus was rather good too: a single small bite granted +10 Resistance. As expected of poisonous gas produced by a Legendary-rank anomaly, it was impressively potent. Song Zang cut the cake into five large pieces, ate the first bite himself to make sure it was safe, then gave one piece to Yin Chen and one each to Lan Yu Heng and Zhang Ming Shen. The final piece was reserved for poor Ning Yan, who was still outside desperately searching for a severed leg.
Song Zhao Yang was not close enough to Song Zang, so he did not get any.
The four of them sat cross-legged around the iron wok. The scene was indescribably strange, as though a bloody action film had abruptly transformed into a food show.
Lan Yu Heng’s expression had long since gone numb, while Zhang Ming Shen gave an honest, simple smile and immediately started stuffing cake into his mouth, utterly delighted by this “treasure” that could increase his stats.
Yin Chen handed the Director’s Seal back to Song Zang and promptly received another angry glare.
“Eat!”
“All right.” Yin Chen lowered his eyes, then suddenly laughed very softly. “Teacher, there are many times when I can’t understand what you’re thinking.”
“You’re the one nobody can understand! You don’t pay any attention to your own health at all.”
Truthfully, Song Zang did not know what exactly he was angry about either. Only after watching Yin Chen obediently eat some of the cake did the restless anxiety in his chest finally subside.
The strange feeling made Song Zang uncomfortable.
He could not resist poking Yin Chen’s arm. “What exactly is your personal role-playing mission?”
After all, Song Zang had always cared about that phrase in his own role description—the part saying that his “student had begun developing thoughts of his own.” What exactly did it mean?
Yin Chen curved his lips. “I’m madly and openly in love with you, and I have Stockholm syndrome—the loyal, devoted type who’s perfectly willing to help the villain commit evil. What do you think?”
“But even someone with Stockholm syndrome could eventually turn dark, couldn’t they?” Song Zang frowned. “Turn dark” was another expression Song Zang had learned from Ning Yan.
“Teacher, I haven’t lied to you once from beginning to end. My mission in this instance is very simple—kill every man who dares approach you and harbors improper intentions toward you.” Yin Chen lifted his eyes toward Song Zang, deliberately wrapping his voice in a faint trace of intimacy. “Except me, of course.”
Song Zang listened blankly as Yin Chen continued with a quiet laugh. “A lot of men in this instance should be grateful they changed sides quickly enough. Otherwise, I would have killed every last one of them.”
“Then… are you going to kill Wang Shu?” Song Zang asked quietly.
That unfortunate man was still lying unconscious in intensive care.
At the sound of Wang Shu’s name, the amusement in Yin Chen’s eyes turned cold. “Do you know how many innocent children he killed in the previous instance?”
“…How would I know?”
More importantly… how would Yin Chen know?
Yin Chen did not explain. He merely said coldly, “That isn’t all. The first thing Wang Shu did after returning to the real world was murder his entire family and sacrifice them to the Earth Mother Goddess. He used special methods. The police in the real world couldn’t find any evidence.”
Song Zang froze. “Then he really deserves to die!”
“Right. He’s a bad person. May I kill him?”
“Not with that blade.”
Yin Chen’s lips curved. “All right. I’ll listen to you.”
…
After everyone had eaten and finished discussing their private matters, Lan Yu Heng finally lost patience and slapped the floor.
“Two bosses, can we start discussing the containment problem now?”
“Exactly. What are you two still wasting time for?” Long Shao You’s bald head rolled twice across the floor, glaring angrily as he joined Lan Yu Heng’s complaint.
Song Zang pressed down on Yin Chen’s hand before he could draw his blade again, carefully avoiding direct eye contact with Long Shao You.
He merely asked softly, “Mr. Long, have you regained your senses now? Do you still think I’m a liar?”
“…Hmph.”
Long Shao You gave a vague response that barely counted as confirmation. By now, he had thoroughly learned what Yin Chen was capable of. There was no point in losing control again; he would only be chopped into pieces over and over. Fighting a lunatic like this was meaningless.
“Then let me ask again. Is the Director’s Seal a part of your body?”
“It’s an inferior clone. Useless trash.” Long Shao You closed his eyes in disgust. “My real brain rotted away during the experiments long ago.”
He can think and remain alive without a brain… Song Zang asked seriously, “Can you simply not be killed at all?”
“Of course not. Cursed resentment is eternal and cannot be extinguished. All that remains of my existence now is this pathetic resentment.” Long Shao You glanced at Yin Chen. “Young man, even if you chop me into minced meat, I still won’t die.”
At most, it would simply take him longer to regenerate.
“So you really do want to be properly buried.” Song Zang became thoughtful. “As long as we recover all of your missing body parts and give you a proper burial, that will satisfy your containment condition, right?”
“There’s one more thing.”
“Tell me.”
“Take my head outside for a while. Before I’m buried… I want to see Dragon Nation’s mountains and rivers one last time.” Song Zang froze, pity appearing in his eyes. “As long as you don’t actively attack anyone, that’s completely fine.”
＊
Once they reached a verbal agreement, Yin Chen expressionlessly picked up Long Shao You’s head and placed it inside a specially made glass container before handing it to Song Zang.
As for the limbs Yin Chen had cut off earlier, they were individually locked inside the experimental building for the time being, waiting to be reattached before burial.
The four of them left the experimental building carrying Long Shao You’s head.
The garden was filled with the faint scent of fresh grass. Afternoon sunlight fell across them, creating the strange feeling that they had stepped into another lifetime.
Song Zang still looked as pitiful as ever, his face pale, exquisite and beautiful, without the slightest trace of aggression.
But in his arms… he was carrying the head of a legendary historical figure.
Song Zhao Yang stood far away with a camera, not daring to approach, and took a photograph of Song Zang.
“What are you doing?”
Yin Chen frowned toward him, frightening Song Zhao Yang into shrinking back another step.
“Someone bought trending topics to smear the Director. It’s gotten really big, so I wanted to take a photo to fight back…” he answered obediently.
“Someone paid to smear me?” Song Zang was baffled.
“Exactly!”
According to Song Zhao Yang, while the four of them had been inside the experimental building dealing with Long Shao You, an entire series of shocking scandals targeting Song Zang suddenly erupted online and rapidly climbed to the top of the trending rankings.
First was the sentence Long Jian Feng had once said to Zhang Ming Shen inside the Dragon Nation Police Bureau.
—“He’s just a fraud who slept his way to the top!”
The two-second clip had already been replayed millions of times. Beyond that, there had also been a major exposé about the relationship between Song Zhao Yang and Song Zang.
The person behind the leak claimed that the Guangming Consortium had only been aggressively targeted by the Anomaly Containment Agency—and that such a vast commercial empire had collapsed overnight—because Director Song Zang had abused his authority… According to the accusations, everything stemmed from revenge against his father, Song Ting, along with a fight over company shares between an illegitimate son and a legitimate son.
Song Zhao Yang had already rushed forward to deny the rumors, but the public did not believe him. People increasingly called Song Zang a fraud who had built his reputation on deception and insisted that he had no ability whatsoever to serve as Director. Some even suspected that his supposed ability might be fabricated too.
That guess, unfortunately, was actually correct.
But Song Zhao Yang was terrified that Yin Chen would hold him responsible, so he and Ning Yan frantically searched for ways to expose the true face of that so-called father of his.
They turned every property under the Song family’s name upside down and, unexpectedly, really did find something.
Since Song Ting had an illegitimate son, naturally he also had a steady stream of mistresses.
Inside a small villa where he kept one of them, Ning Yan and Song Zhao Yang found Long Shao You’s real left leg.
The leg had already been turned into an anomaly and was hidden inside the villa together with Song Ting’s mistress.
The woman herself knew nothing about it, but after living in close proximity to the severed leg for so long, her mental state had deteriorated into madness. When Ning Yan and Song Zhao Yang detected anomaly activity and led a combat team into the villa, the pitiful woman was using her own hair to sew swaddling clothes for a baby…
The “baby” was a realistic rubber doll, and it was not even her child with Song Ting. Her actual child had disappeared several years earlier during a school outing to an amusement park, abducted by the Long family and, through a cruel twist of fate, turned into one of the victims sacrificed to suppress the old dragon.
After losing his young son, Song Ting had wanted revenge. He did not dare strike at the Long family, so instead, he forcibly severed Long Shao You’s left leg and brutally turned it into a B-rank anomaly.
After Song Zhao Yang finished recounting everything between gasping breaths, everyone fell into a long silence.
The chain of cause and effect had become so tangled that it had long since evolved into a form of madness ordinary people could barely comprehend.
“Where’s the left leg?”
Song Zhao Yang answered obediently, “Ning Yan is handling it right now. Its containment condition is to destroy all of the remaining cloned left legs. They’ve… basically finished destroying them.”
“Good. Get that photograph out there immediately and clear up the rumors.” Yin Chen paused, then unexpectedly offered Song Zhao Yang a rare word of praise. “Good work.”
“It was nothing! Nothing at all!” Song Zhao Yang instantly perked up and hurried away to buy trending placements of his own.
That left one final question: who had bought the original trending topics? Who else wanted to tarnish Song Zang’s reputation?
Yin Chen seemed to have already formed an idea. He said unhurriedly, “I’ll handle it. Teacher doesn’t need to worry.”
That made sense. Dealing with something like this also seemed to fall within Yin Chen’s personal role-playing mission, so Song Zang did not think too deeply about it and hurriedly reminded him, “You are not allowed to use that blade!”
“All right. I’ll listen to Teacher.”
Yin Chen clearly enjoyed this fierce concern, then looked toward Lan Yu Heng. “Take this head out for a tour. Use a helicopter and maintain proper contamination protection.”
“Understood.”
Lan Yu Heng accepted the glass container from Song Zang and nodded toward Zhang Ming Shen. The two turned and left with practiced ease.
“Then what am I supposed to do now?” Song Zang asked blankly.
“Rest. You’re injured.” Yin Chen narrowed his eyes, a faint threat hidden in his words. “Go lie down and rest.”
Song Zang: …
Fine. There truly was nothing left for him to do.
After undergoing full-body decontamination, Song Zang climbed back into his soft bed and opened his phone to look at the trending topics.
Song Zhao Yang really was exceptionally skilled at manipulating the media. Within only a few minutes, public opinion had completely reversed.
A photograph of Song Zang looking pale yet “resolute” while holding Long Shao You’s head swept across every major trending page and headline in Dragon Nation like a hurricane.
—Another triumph! The Anomaly Containment Agency achieves a new victory as Director Song Zang claims the head of another Legendary-rank anomaly!
—Shocking! Long family betrays its benefactors and ancestors! Historical hero Long Shao You suffers disgrace after death!
—The Guangming Consortium’s criminal empire exposed! Counting major shareholder Song Ting’s Ten Great Crimes!
—Defying powerful interests and severing ties with his own father! Placing justice above family! We all owe Director Song an apology!
—A hero of the new era! The man who exposed the brutal truth! Watch Director Song slay a dragon from every angle!
…
Even Song Zang himself, comfortably lying in bed and accepting the praise without guilt, felt slightly embarrassed by how over-the-top the marketing was. Song Zhao Yang really was an unusually niche kind of talent.
＊
Meanwhile, inside the helicopter, Long Shao You was getting along extraordinarily well with Lan Yu Heng.
Because in only ten seconds, he had already experienced countless beautiful dreams.
That was right. To cheer Long Shao You up and keep him from losing his mind again, Lan Yu Heng had tried whacking his head hard with her white cane… and somehow, it worked perfectly.
When he closed his eyes, he could happily wander through beautiful dreams; when he opened them, he could look down upon the magnificent mountains and rivers of modern Dragon Nation. Long Shao You had not been this happy in centuries.
“Little girl, you’re a good person. And you’re good too, young man. Much better than those two lunatics.” Long Shao You rolled his head around inside the glass container, his voice constantly shifting between gentle refinement and madness. “They actually sat beside my head eating cake! Tell me, does that sound remotely reasonable?!”
Lan Yu Heng cooperatively gave him a gentle smile. “Completely unreasonable. You were a remarkable hero. We all respect you very much.”
“Little girl, are you unable to see?”
“…Mm. My companion is deaf and mute, and I’m blind.” Lan Yu Heng paused, then immediately dragged Zhang Ming Shen over so the two of them could play up their misery together.
Long Shao You closed his eyes. “Losing an important part of your body makes life difficult, doesn’t it?”
“It’s very difficult. Living can be exhausting.” Lan Yu Heng lowered her voice.
“If only you had been a woman of my Long family…”
Long Shao You released a long sigh. His melancholy head rolled once around the glass container before he continued in a distant voice. “You people are risking your lives searching for Legendary-rank anomalies. You must have some greater objective. Forget it. Since I find you agreeable, I’ll tell you a secret.”
Lan Yu Heng’s heart jumped. “Please.”
“In the era when I lived, there was once an anomaly that caused me to suffer terribly. It could not actively attack humans, but if someone deliberately triggered its activation condition, everything would restart.”
“…Everything would restart?”
“Yes. Time would flow backward. Nothing in the world could resist its power. Everything would completely restart from a point in time designated by the anomaly’s master.”
Long Shao You closed his eyes again and released another long sigh. “Do you think merely having my corpse dishonored by my descendants was enough to fill me with resentment and drive me insane? No. My short life had already been restarted far too many times!”
“In the Dragon Nation of my era, there were once two suns in the sky, leaving tens of thousands of people in misery. Back then, I was young, arrogant, and full of ambition. I wanted to imitate Hou Yi and shoot down the sun… I succeeded. I truly succeeded. I hit the extra sun! But right then, some bastard used an anomaly and forcibly restarted everything!”
Elio’s Notes: Hou Yi is a legendary archer in Chinese mythology. In the best-known version of the tale, ten suns appeared in the sky at once and scorched the earth, so Hou Yi shot down nine of them and left one remaining.
“My God!” Lan Yu Heng covered her mouth in shock. “When I returned to the point in time where I was supposed to kill the sun, someone had already burned the bow and arrows I needed, reducing them to ashes! Another time, I fought the Huzhou fish monster for three days and three nights. The moment I was about to win, every bit of effort vanished and I was forced to start all over again!”
“Little girl, can you understand my suffering? I succeeded countless times throughout my life, yet after every success, I was forcibly reset. Sometimes they even deliberately destroyed the route I had originally used to succeed… Can you imagine how that broke me?”
“Who would dare do something like that to you?” Lan Yu Heng could not understand. “Weren’t they afraid that if you failed to subdue those anomalies, all of Dragon Nation would suffer because of them?”
“No, no. I only became famous because I was born into a powerful clan. Heroes appear endlessly in this world. Plenty of people were stronger than me.” Long Shao You shook his head inside the container. “Just look at that lunatic surnamed Yin. Hah. He chopped me into pieces, and I couldn’t resist at all.”
According to Long Shao You, only after countless resets drove him almost completely mad did he finally understand what all the suffering had been for.
Someone had targeted him long ago. They had targeted his physical potential and extraordinary ability, using an anomaly capable of resetting time to observe his different combat methods and mental states, repeatedly crush him, and try to cultivate a truly invincible monster.
Very few people in that era could defeat Long Shao You directly, so instead, they attacked his mind from the shadows. They wanted Long Shao You to suffer endless setbacks and wasted talent, forcing him into crushing loneliness and despair, only to struggle back to his feet from adversity.
Finally, at the glorious moment when Long Shao You successfully rose again and became famous throughout Dragon Nation, they repeatedly reset the timeline until the young hero… died humiliatingly from a poisoned cup of tea.
That was right. Long Shao You had not died from injury, contamination, or physical exhaustion. He had been poisoned to death with an enormous dose of arsenic.
And even death had not ended it. In the modern era, he was dissected and cloned again and again, forced to watch his once-powerful body transformed into countless anomalies that harmed the world. Anyone would have gone insane.
Lan Yu Heng’s expression turned serious. “Do you have any idea who currently possesses that anomaly?”
Long Shao You numbingly shook his head. “The person who harmed me back then died of old age long ago. As for the present… I can only guess that whoever has it must understand anomalies extremely well, possess extraordinary cunning, and have the trust and inheritance of an ancient clan.”
The implication was extremely obvious, because Dragon Nation had only one truly ancient clan: the Long family.
But now the Long family had already been completely destroyed. So who had secretly hidden this anomaly away, and had both the ability and the motive to reset everything again?
Lan Yu Heng thought for a moment, then abruptly smacked Zhang Ming Shen. “Fuck, turn around! Go back! Hurry up and divine again!”
“Mmph!” Zhang Ming Shen’s face twisted in pain.
＊
Because this concerned the Clear Requirement, every player except Yin Chen gathered together and watched Zhang Ming Shen’s movements with absolute seriousness.
He wrote four locations on pieces of yellow paper—Anomaly Containment Agency, Police Bureau, Carp Nation, and Prison.
He arranged the papers in different directions and tossed the Divination Coin.
Great Fortune. Great Fortune. Great Fortune. Great Misfortune!
“Great Misfortune at the prison! Who is it?!” Song Zhao Yang exclaimed.
Ning Yan slapped the table and immediately ran toward the door.
“Fuck, fuck! It has to be that bastard Long Jian Feng! I’m going over there right now and shooting him myself!”
But after only a couple of steps, his aggression abruptly vanished and he stopped.
—Because Long Jian Feng was already dead. Yin Chen walked leisurely into the Agency, carrying Long Jian Feng’s severed head in one hand and dragging his stiff corpse with the other.
“Why is everyone here?” Yin Chen raised an eyebrow.
He was drenched in blood, the corner of his lips still slightly raised, clearly still immersed in some strange state of pleasure.
Everyone fell silent together in shock.
Song Zang bit his lip and backed away several steps. “Be careful. Long Jian Feng might have been hiding an anomaly.”
Hearing that, Yin Chen tossed aside the severed head and pulled a blood-red agate bead from his pocket.
“This? It was embedded in Long Jian Feng’s spine.”
“Boss, do not mess with that thing!” Lan Yu Heng shouted.
Yin Chen tilted his head. “What do you mean?”
Song Zang’s voice trembled. “That’s the button that can reset the entire world. If its activation condition is triggered, we’ll have to do everything all over again!”
“All right, Teacher. Then I’ll leave it to you.”
Completely unconcerned, Yin Chen walked over and placed the blood-red agate bead into Song Zang’s hand.
So this was the tiny object that had tormented Long Shao You for so many lifetimes.
Resting quietly in Song Zang’s pale palm, it looked utterly ordinary, like a piece of cheap jewelry coated in blood-red paint. If it fell onto the street, hardly anyone would bother bending down to pick it up.
“Mr. Long, do you know how to destroy it?” Song Zang turned toward him, once again carefully avoiding Long Shao You’s gaze.
Long Shao You’s face twisted ferociously, his bald head bouncing wildly inside the glass container. “Let me eat it! Let me eat the bastard thing! Bury it with me and make sure it never sees the light of another life!” “…All right. We’ll do it your way.”
＊
Soon, Long Shao You’s funeral officially began.
The guests in attendance included every player—including Wang Shu, who was currently on oxygen—along with the severed heads of Long Jian Feng and Song Ting, and the old dragon, who had secretly cried twice.
The players stood ready and worked together to reattach all four of Long Shao You’s limbs properly to his torso.
Song Zhao Yang picked up a makeup kit and hugged Long Shao You’s head, instantly entering professional mode. Not only did he apply exquisitely natural funeral makeup, he also fitted Long Shao You with a perfectly matched ancient-style long-haired wig.
Once his head had been reattached, Long Shao You looked at his properly dressed reflection in the mirror and caught the uniquely familiar scent of Dragon-Tongue Incense lingering around his collar. For a long time, he said nothing, then two trails of tears slipped silently down his face.
“Don’t cry your makeup off! I spent forever on that—aaaaah!”
Song Zhao Yang suddenly screamed in anxiety, only for Zhang Ming Shen to frown and punch him unconscious.
The atmosphere immediately returned to solemn silence.
Long Shao You did not lose control. He merely shook his head, both amused and exasperated, and said no more.
As everyone carefully lifted him and placed him inside a golden-thread nanmu coffin, the face that had twisted with madness so many times gradually became peaceful.
Elio’s Notes: Golden-thread nanmu is a historically prized Chinese timber known for its subtle golden sheen, durability, and distinctive grain. It was traditionally associated with high-status architecture, furnishings, and coffins.
Long Shao You closed his eyes with a faint smile on his lips. For the first time, one could glimpse the carefree, high-spirited young hero he must once have been.
It was an extremely rushed and simple funeral, yet for Long Shao You, it fulfilled the only wish and obsession that had remained throughout the long second half of his existence. The coffin, inscribed with the deeds of Long Shao You’s life, slowly closed, while high above, the old dragon circled through the sky, bloody tears streaming from its eyes as it raised its head and released a long roar, playing the final funeral song of Long Shao You’s life.
A voice came from inside the coffin. “That lunatic surnamed Song, thank you. But you’re absolutely a liar! My judgment has never been wrong!”
Song Zang: ??
No one knew that when Long Shao You had first regained a tiny fragment of consciousness, he had immediately poured every last trace of power into an attempt to curse Song Zang to death on the spot.
Yet Song Zang had not only survived. He had appeared alive and energetic once again, then proceeded to turn Long Shao You’s own curse into a cake and eat it right in front of him…
I can’t understand it. I just can’t understand it. You really can’t have everything in this world.
Long Shao You sighed inwardly, let out a carefree laugh, and firmly closed his eyes, eagerly surrendering himself to permanent sleep at last.
【Congratulations, players. You have cleared the instance “Anomaly Containment Agency.” Calculating rewards…】
【Completion Rating: A.】
【Main Mission Completion Reward: 8,000 points.】
【Optional Mission Reward: 1,000 points.】
At that moment, Yin Chen suddenly drew a sharp dagger in front of everyone.
Under Song Zang’s stunned gaze, his lips curved slightly. “Teacher, sometimes you have to learn how to exploit a bug. A player who dies after the rewards have finished calculating no longer counts as a player.”
As he spoke, he narrowed his eyes, aimed at Wang Shu, and slashed his throat.
Perfect. Yin Chen smiled in satisfaction and lowered his gaze to carefully wipe the blade clean. Until the moment he died, Wang Shu could not believe what had happened. He died pathetically and helplessly on the temporary hospital bed, blood gurgling from his torn throat.
Unlike Ning Yan and the others, who were staring in shock, Lan Yu Heng and Zhang Ming Shen had long since become accustomed to this sort of thing.
A scourge could live for a thousand years. Enemies had to be dealt with cleanly at the first possible opportunity. That was the survival rule of top players.
【Transfer commencing. Countdown: 3, 2, 1…】
Song Zang stared blankly at Yin Chen. He wanted to say something but had no idea where to begin.
The transfer was about to begin. Just as Song Zang’s vision sank completely into darkness, sudden warmth brushed against the side of his face.
Yin Chen’s beautiful, thin lips pressed gently against his cheek, followed by his sinister warning. “Remember. In the next instance, you’re only allowed to accept my invitation.”
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