Chapter 885: Zhu Xingshu's Thirteenth Fate

Wasteland, the third day.

Zhou Shangqing's third novice platform.

Though he lacked the items, train armaments, and modules from his past.

With his own abilities and experience alone, he could still utterly dominate in these first ten novice platforms.

Over these four days, he had spent every day imagining what he would do once he returned to the city.

First, he would go eat at the most delicious Starry Sky Restaurant in the Hanging Gardens, then head to the City of a Thousand Stars to change his identity and join the Heavenly Organization.

Suoluo City was out of the question. He remembered that in his era, Suoluo City had still been in a stage of warlord infighting, and that homeward-bound soul Grace had been quite the crazy woman back then.

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And there were many other places too.

Zhou Shangqing wanted to go everywhere.

His train slowly came to a stop. Just as he was about to, like the previous three stations, use his ability to sweep through the entire station world for treasures and quickly raise his train to Level 3.

At the mountain peak of this station.

Inside a small bandit fortress.

Zhu Xingshu, dressed up like a bandit, hummed an unknown little tune.

Her feet, clad in black knee-high leather boots, skipped and hopped over the corpses bleeding onto the ground.

From the way they died, it was not hard to tell that these bandits had died from infighting.

And on the main seat of the last bandit chief, a madwoman in tattered clothes was the sole survivor.

"Oh my~ Miss, isn't the fate I gave you pretty good? An ordinary person's fate only needs a little adjusting to produce wondrous reactions. Just like now, you've become the chief you most wanted to be, haven't you?"

"Monster, monster! Demon! I'll kill you!"

The madwoman screamed and charged at Zhu Xingshu, her gun firing continuously, but it was utterly impossible for her to break through her defense.

"Sigh~ Really now, I was helping you fulfill your wish, you know. Well then, in that case..."

Zhu Xingshu raised a finger with a smile.

A drop of starlight descended.

One of the bandits beside the madwoman slowly opened his eyes, and with his last breath, pulled the trigger.

"It's all, because of you... Go die!"

The bullet tore through her.

The madwoman and the last male bandit closed their eyes at the same time.

Zhu Xingshu stepped over the field of corpses and sat down on the clean seat. And at this perfect moment, Zhou Shangqing also arrived here.

"Here?"

"Hi~ Zhou Shangqing, it's really been a long time, hasn't it."

The instant Zhou Shangqing heard that voice, his body went rigid. He turned to look in the direction it came from.

When he saw clearly the woman sitting amid the field of corpses, ice-cold terror swept through his entire body.

"Y-you, you're!"

"I helped you take care of this station~ Fate told me, you, appeared. So... Come, tell me. Who~ saved you?"

Behind Zhu Xingshu, twelve Fate Cards materialized in an instant.

And at the foot of the mountain, inside Zhou Shangqing's train.

The final Fate Card trembled slightly, and actually shot right through the train window, flying toward her direction.

Zhou Shangqing didn't dare resist, because he knew very well that even if he did resist, it would be meaningless.

He gritted his teeth, knelt down on the ground dejectedly, and let out a sigh.

"It wasn't salvation, it was a transaction... The person who restored my memories was Altos. You, you should know him, right?"

When he laid everything out in full.

Zhu Xingshu's beautiful eyes shifted.

She toyed with that final Fate Card, then casually tossed it into the ring behind her.

The circle formed by thirteen Fate Cards glimmered faintly.

This Level 2 station world actually began to collapse because of it.

"Ara, so that means it was my dear Demon gentleman who helped you recover your memories, and incidentally, helped you get rid of that talent you didn't like. And you... Zhou Shangqing, turns out you're a liar~"

"I, I!"

"Alright, alright, it doesn't matter."

Zhu Xingshu yawned, peeled off the little fake mustache stuck to her face and tossed it aside.

"The transaction is complete. I helped you take care of this station, everything in it is yours~ So it's only reasonable that I took this card, right?"

"...Yes."

"Then goodbye~"

"You, you're not going to kill me?"

Zhu Xingshu waved her hand in disgust.

"He chose to let you live, so of course I have to properly respect his choice~"

"He? Altos?"

"Mm-hm."

"You... you seem to have changed?"

Zhu Xingshu blinked and pulled out a mirror to look at herself.

"Do I?"

"You used to... be far more terrifying than you are now... Weaving fate, manipulating war, sacrificing worlds, toying with people's hearts..."

"Still better than a liar who used the so-called world fuel to deceive many people, isn't it?"

Zhu Xingshu didn't even glance at Zhou Shangqing, and left directly.

Zhou Shangqing's expression turned even uglier.

He kept his head down, not daring to look at Zhu Xingshu, and only after she finally left did he begin gasping for air heavily, as if he'd just been dragged out of water.

"Haah, haah..."

He felt terror. Looking at the corpses on the ground that died from infighting, even though he could have obtained many materials, he immediately ran back into his train and hid.

"Scheme... This was all, a scheme... That Altos, sure enough, is in league with her... Monsters, they're all monsters... Whatever. No matter what they want to do with that talent, it has nothing to do with me anymore. Right... nothing to do with me... In fact, this is actually wonderful.

Now that they have that talent, they probably won't scheme against me anymore, right? Probably..."

This time, Zhou Shangqing was truly overthinking things.

Zhu Xingshu left this place aboard her own train.

Her goal was merely to find out the story about Ye Qiyan, and to take back this Fate Card.

As for Zhou Shangqing?

Many years ago, she had already heard through Fate that this fellow was a thorough coward and liar.

Zhu Xingshu had not the slightest interest in him.

"Hehe~ I've collected a story about Bro Ye."

"How wonderful."

————

Level 10 Station World — Day of Escape

The battle in the city lasted two days.

The City Lord who controlled buildings ultimately used all his power to make the entire city rise from the ground, wanting to make a final struggle.

But it was still meaningless.

He wasn't strong enough.

Or rather.

Even Ye Qiyan, using only mechanical power, was still too strong to be compared to the most ordinary Level 10 Station World Overlord.

The reason he could hold out for two days was simply that Ye Qiyan wanted to help Armed Fear find more confidence. Essentially, all the battles, big and small, were carried out by that single machine.

The other machines were merely support.

There were differences even among Level 10s.

The battle Armed Fear displayed against the City-State Lord of the same level was a complete curb-stomp.

Even though Armed Fear's energy consumption was extremely massive, reaching a point where it couldn't sustain itself after three hours of normal combat, don't forget that Ye Qiyan's Void Electric Furnace could supply power through the Void.

Finally, on this afternoon after the rain cleared.

The city.

Fell.