Chapter 212

Ji Jue leaned left and right, dodging helplessly as he pressed a hand over the dog’s head. “Stop licking me, buddy. Stop licking—”

President grinned, his tongue hanging out as he stubbornly kept burrowing into Ji Jue’s arms. Each time he was pushed away, he nudged Ji Jue’s hand with his body, his tail wagging wildly. His coat was so smooth and glossy that the moment Ji Jue’s hand touched it, he stroked him from head to tail without thinking.

President’s tongue lolled, thoroughly enjoying the petting. Once he had been thoroughly spoiled, he generously flopped onto the floor and rolled over, exposing his little belly as a clear invitation for Ji Jue to continue.

Ji Jue sighed anxiously, too preoccupied to give the dog his full attention. He had been awake all night, restless and distracted ever since yesterday evening. The upheaval in Spring City was one thing, but the real problem was what was happening to his own body. After all, even if no one else had noticed, how could he not know?

Everything had been going so well. Everyone was happily killing people, setting fires, and looting workshops across Spring City. The whole situation had been steadily improving. So how had he somehow ended up getting hit by the Edge of Revolution out of nowhere?! Hadn’t he uninstalled it completely last time?! How were there still leftover files?

It had even gotten him a little carried away. Sure, it felt pretty good. He hadn’t lost out either, and his understanding of Ember had shot up another level, but the problem was that this was the wrong place and the wrong time for it!

Spring City was crawling with aberrants and was far removed from any sanctuary of Supreme Benevolence. It was practically a demonic realm in the most literal sense.

Last time, before the Putrefaction had even managed to poke its head out, Ji Jue had met it head-on with a slash. He had no idea how many stitches it needed afterward, but it was definitely somewhere beneath the vortex slapping its chest and stomping its feet in fury while screaming, “You bastard, don’t let me catch you! Just you wait. You’d better pray I never get my hands on you!”

And yet, barely any time had passed before Ji Jue came along again, holding a pair of nail clippers and offering the Putrefaction a pedicure.

Fortunately, that small fry Dalton was simply too useless. He was so pathetic that even the Putrefaction had no interest in him and had not cared at all. Ji Jue could only pray that Putrefied Dire Furnace had enough power and resources not to care about such a trivial loss. Should he uncover even the slightest clue, he might fly into a rage, call in several vanloads of men, and have Ji Jue taken care of on the spot.

Ji Jue let out a long sigh and angrily rubbed the dog’s head.

“Tell me, who the hell invented this damned Skyrail system?” he muttered to himself. “I’m just a temporary employee. A temporary employee, do you understand? I haven’t even signed a contract. You have to treat your wage slaves properly, buddy. Fine, you never paid a single day of social insurance for me, and I even had to cover my own work injuries, but how did I suddenly get put on duty and made an inspector as well?”

President grinned and licked his only employee, not minding in the least that said employee could be an idiot.

Ji Jue felt more helpless than ever. Several times, he had been sorely tempted to yank the watch off his wrist, stuff it into President’s vest, and advise it to seek someone more qualified, but he couldn’t bear to abandon the bond he had built with Mr. Watch over all these years. Besides, it was way too late to distance himself from any of this now. Why had he not done so sooner?

Ever since Mr. Watch saved his life beneath that truck, Ji Jue had been tied to this mess. Even if he refused to admit it and was determined to keep freeloading, Pacifier had come to him of its own accord.

The Pacifier matrix came from the sage Mercury. Mercury was once a member of Onyx. The watch came from Skyrail Corporation, which in turn traced its origins to the Central Empire.

On the surface, they derived from completely different sources. They could have even been utterly incompatible, and yet Pacifier and the watch had connected seamlessly. They were even fucking compatible with the Edge of Revolution!

Ji Jue was beginning to suspect that all these things had originally been parts of the same set. God only knew how many bizarre creations those mad Onyx craftsmen had cooked up on a whim, or what other lethal monstrosities they had devised with their terrifying ingenuity. Just thinking about the kinds of nonsense craftsmen had pulled off throughout the history of ancient alchemy was enough to make Ji Jue afraid.

He was trapped in Spring City and struggling to survive. Life was hard enough as it was. The Edge of Revolution had barely finished taking advantage of him and pulled up its pants before President came knocking again.

You cannot treat me like this!

President merely smiled, tongue lolling as it licked Ji Jue’s chin and hands, wagging its tail while nestled in his arms. It was almost as though it were presenting an award to an exemplary employee.

Calm down, Ji Jue. Calm down! Being friendly and approachable is just a capitalist’s disguise! Greedy executives will squeeze every last drop of sweat and blood from their wage slaves, then discard their disposable workers without a second thought.

How could he let himself be fooled by such sugar-coated tactics? He wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest if President suddenly opened its mouth and said, “You. Go eliminate those craftsmen from the Depths.”

But his fur really was so incredibly smooth to the touch. It was so sleek that his hand seemed to glide right over it. Maybe one more pet. Just to soothe his wounded heart and calm his nerves.

“You’d better not string me along, okay? Otherwise, I’m going to the Central Empire to file a complaint for labor arbitration. You hear me? Dogs are man’s best friends, but capitalists are not,” Ji Jue muttered under his breath. His eyes never left the crude temporary furnace before him as he quietly waited for the blessing to rise within the flames and for the miracle to take shape.

What he failed to notice was that, at some point, his teammates had begun moving farther and farther away from him. In the spacious hiding place, nearly all of them had huddled together in the opposite corner, peeking out at Ji Jue. Watching him stroke empty air from time to time while muttering to himself made their hair stand on end.

“Think he’s finally lost it?” Jiang Xuan wondered aloud, looking concerned.

“Something evil might have possessed him!” Ji Xue declared. “When Ji Liu was little, he spent a summer afternoon playing around someone’s grave. When he came back, he was exactly like this. Laughing one moment, crying the next. He tore up all his homework and even started eating shit like a maniac. One beating fixed him right up. When he woke up, he couldn’t remember a thing.”

“I never ate shit!” Ji Liu shouted furiously.

Ji Xue spread her hands, looking pleased with herself. “See? I told you the beating worked.”

“You’re getting way too full of yourself, aren’t you?” Ji Liu lunged to pull her hair. Like this, the siblings started brawling like usual.

After they quieted down a little, Xu Guan sighed, trying to smooth things over. “All right, all right. Let’s not gossip about him behind his back. No one is perfect. Mr. Ji is so honest and friendly, it’s only natural for him to have a few flaws. We should be respectful and understanding. Who knows? Maybe all Ember-types are like this.”

Now it was Lou Feng’s turn to glare. “What’s wrong with us Ember-types? We’re perfectly normal, all right? You can’t judge the whole group based on one person!”

“Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sure, that’s totally how it is.”

“Absolutely. Perfectly normal.”

“We’re all on the same team. We’re one big loving family!”

Lou Feng finally understood just how powerless a person could feel in the face of prejudice and slander. He could only watch helplessly as the tiny bit of good reputation craftsmen had left was completely ruined by Ji Jue.

Meanwhile, Ji Jue’s little episode finally came to an end. He rose respectfully, nodding and bowing to empty air. Then he waved toward the corner, seeing off something that didn’t exist at all.

The sight made Lou Feng feel even more exhausted. “What the hell are you doing? Did you take the wrong medicine or something?”

“That’s the workplace for you.” Ji Jue sighed. “Working for others strips a man of all dignity.”

He had already given up trying to explain that “there was just a dog here, and it was the President of Skyrail Corporation. It came to see me, decided I was an idiot, gave me a couple licks, and then wagged its tail and left.” Neither reality nor common sense would allow such an explanation.

Besides, Ji Jue would have honestly preferred it if the whole thing had merely been a hallucination. For one thing, any connection to the Onyxists was far too dangerous to speak of openly. Things were already chaotic enough; there was no need to create more problems for everyone.

Boom!

Beyond the temporary spirit matter containment field, another distant explosion echoed through the observation window. The noises had not stopped since the previous night. Beneath the seemingly endless night sky, sharp booms rang out from time to time. Remnant spirits howled, monstrous creatures ran rampant, and the whole of Spring City had descended into complete chaos.

The good news was that they no longer needed to send word out because the Heretic Cult had launched its plan ahead of schedule. By now, not only the outpost but probably every available force in Haizhou was converging on Spring City, and even the Federation had turned its attention there.

The bad news was that the Heretic Cult seemed to have gotten carried away. Abandoning its usual habit of fleeing the moment it was exposed, it had assembled an enormous force and was now using the influence it had built throughout Spring City to challenge the Security Bureau head-on.

Amid the endless earth-shaking tremors, the two sides fought without end. This time, the Heretic Cult clearly had nothing left to lose and intended to fight the Security Bureau to the bitter end.

The lockdown within Spring City had also tightened several times over. Every route had been thrown into chaos, tangled together until it became a complicated maze. On top of that, surveillance and detection systems were spread everywhere like stars across the sky, leaving no gaps at all. The place was sealed as tightly as an iron barrel.

Until they had a clearer picture of the situation, they had no choice but to find somewhere to hide as quickly as possible. Otherwise, some powerful member of the Foolish Abominations could pass by and casually take their heads.

This was where Mr. No-Fun proved invaluable. Relying on telekinesis, he shifted an entire mound of rubble aside, then dug out a basement underneath. After Jiang Xuan reinforced the structure, Ji Jue and Lou Feng temporarily converted it into a workshop and isolated the spirit matter inside from the outside world. Xu Guan then erased every record and trace of their movements before laying down additional misdirections.

Finally, they put back the rubble, leaving it exactly as it had been.

That gave them a barely adequate hiding place. It would not withstand someone combing through the area inch by inch, but at least it offered them somewhere to lie low for the time being. Some of them rested while others checked and prepared their equipment.

Ji Jue, ever the relentless workaholic, immediately threw himself into processing their stolen goods, racing to turn them into something useful. This was also where Young Master Lou’s value became apparent. Besides lending a hand at crucial moments and helping process materials, he could even pull luxuries like a compact mobile furnace out of his pocket, and a top-of-the-line model personally tuned by a Master, at that.

Although Lou Feng had warned Ji Jue again and again not to damage his furnace, when it really mattered, he never hesitated to help.

Now, as the flames died down and the remaining heat dispersed, the entire underground space grew even more stifling, yet his teammates did not seem to mind much. They crowded eagerly around the furnace to watch it open, as though they were viewers in a livestream waiting for the host to unveil a fresh batch of teacups from the kiln.

Since Ji Jue himself looked completely unconcerned, Lou Feng, who had been dragged over to help, couldn’t be bothered to explain to everyone how taboo this was. Fine, he’d just let them watch. He wanted to watch, too. After Ji Jue had spent the whole night tinkering like a lunatic, what exactly had he made?

With a faint scrape of metal against metal, a wisp of silver silently flowed out of the furnace and into Ji Jue’s toolbox. There was no dazzling radiance, no auspicious purple mist, not even the slightest flash or dramatic sound effect. At most, the mercury’s shimmering, brilliantly lustrous surface made one want to pull out a phone and post a picture of it online.

But Lou Feng soon noticed something unusual and leaned closer for a better look, staring intently. At rest, mercury should settle into a smooth, mirror-like surface under its own weight. So why was this mercury constantly rippling?

Before he could move any closer, Ji Jue placed a hand on his shoulder and held him firmly in place. “Don’t move—”

Lou Feng instinctively tried to pull away, but his eyes widened. Amid the countless shimmering ripples, there seemed to be a single thread swimming faintly through the air, drifting past right before his eyes. It was as fine as spider silk, so light that even a breath would be enough to disturb it, yet it was impossibly long, soaring above the shelter on the rising current of hot air, twisting and dancing without end.

Under Ji Jue’s careful control and restraint, it contracted and returned before finally vanishing. The very tip of that silver strand brushed lightly past Lou Feng’s eyes one last time.

“That’s it?”

He glanced sideways at Ji Jue. After staying up all night, wasting so many materials, and even putting in a blessing, this was what he had made?

Ji Jue didn’t answer. He only smiled and looked at him.

Lou Feng was shocked. A loose strand of hair hanging over his forehead had been severed cleanly through the middle without a sound. The cut end fluttered to the floor.