Watching the bustling figures around him, Yang Zicang hesitated for a moment, then asked this celebrity from Earth, “When did you come over?”
“Almost a year and three months now, haha. Seen any of my TV dramas lately?”
“Seen plenty of movies, but TV dramas, only watched a bit with classmates.”
“Oh, still in school? Truly a hero emerges from the young. Your classmates probably watched that TV drama about Li Shimin I filmed right before I left. It was my first and, as it turned out, my last time transitioning into TV dramas.”
So he’d been missing from Earth for a long time.
Yang Zicang scratched the back of his head.
“Actually, I was supposed to start work in the second half of the year,” Yang Zicang said with a chuckle. “Haha, as for TV dramas, they’re too long for me. I prefer watching sports events, and on holidays, I’d go to the cinema to catch a movie. Too bad I won’t be able to anymore.”
The people around carefully carried the two charred bodies out on stretchers, and the fragments were also taken out without leaving a single one behind.
Chen Yu sighed and nodded slightly:
“It feels so good to hear you talk about these things—brings back some memories. But it’s not like they’ll be completely out of reach. On the fifteenth of every month, a phantom of this city reappears. We could go to the cinema together then, though it’ll be dangerous and soundless.”
Realizing that this event indeed happened on the fifteenth of every month, Yang Zicang’s heart abruptly pounded twice.
Did this mean he might still see his family? Even if they couldn’t see him. But he immediately prayed that it wouldn’t happen, because that would mean his family might come over here too.
“Oh, by the way, we’ve prepared a gift for you. Are you free now?”
“The gift doesn’t matter; just give me what we agreed on, and the next time I come, please have Zhang Fei’s armor ready.”
The subway train quickly faded, and Yang Zicang, leaning against the door with one hand holding it open, vanished with the speeding train.
The night’s disaster had almost been turned around single-handedly by this young man, leaving everyone present with mixed feelings.
They looked at each other and shrugged.
“I told you, that guy isn’t so easy to fool.”
……
Inside the candlelit room, on the wooden bed, Mu Xiaoyu lay half-reclining with a weary expression.
Her arms were in casts, with a terrifying sword gash on her abdomen, and she seemed somewhat dazed.
“Don’t fall asleep, Xiaoyu,” said the old man by the bedside.
“I…”
The girl on the bed turned her head in a daze: “But I’m so sleepy.
Liu Ming was growing anxious. It had been half an hour since he last contacted Yao Qiming, and no one else had come into the room. If Ma Chao showed up now, what could he possibly do?
The girl closed her heavy eyelids. Liu Ming shook her by the shoulders and said:
“No, you have to wake up! It will be dawn soon — just hold on a little longer!”
The door burst open with a bang. Zhao Xuemei appeared at the entrance, looking hurried and out of breath. She let out a sigh, then smiled and said: “She can go to sleep now.”
On hearing the words “can go to sleep,” Mu Xiaoyu could no longer hold on; despite the pain throughout her body, she closed her eyes.
Liu Ming turned to look at her: “Didn’t you say Ma Chao might come through the dreams?”
“We won’t have to fear him anymore!” Zhao Xuemei called out cheerfully in a low voice.
Behind her, several excited people came running.
Watching them suddenly appear, Liu Ming vaguely felt that something must have happened.
But he couldn’t figure out what it could be, or how it related to him and this girl in the room.
Suddenly, he seemed to hear the wind whistle of a subway train hurtling through a tunnel.
[Woo—]
The elderly Liu Ming tensed up and turned his body. The wall behind the girl’s bedside seemed to become blurry as the candlelight flickered.
“This — isn’t this exactly what you were talking about!”
The old man trembled as he stood up; his chair was dragged back a couple of inches by his legs, producing a screech against the floor.
“Ma Chao is really here. Run!”
Liu Ming tried to lift the girl, but his hunched-over frame struggled even to move a chair, let alone a person.
A few people at the doorway looked inside the room; Furong Zhao nervously rubbed her hands together in front of her.
“Don’t worry, the one who’s come is your friend.”
“My friend?”
……
When Furong Zhao first heard Chu Qiang contacting her, she thought she was hallucinating.
Yet that man, who had always calmly managed his teammates’ timing, was unusually excited tonight. Chu Qiang repeatedly stressed that Zhao Anlong had returned! Though he had left again, he had left behind a gift; Yang Zicang would deliver it to him!
Liu Ming couldn’t recall having any such friend.
“What friend of mine?”
Could it be a friend who had entered this world before him? But he didn’t recall any acquaintances going missing.
Who could it be?
“Whoosh—sssh~”
Behind the head of the sleeping girl, half of an image slowly materialized on the wall.
It was as if a curtain had risen for the girl’s dream.
A train carriage appeared there.
The door gently opened, revealing a cool, handsome youth with the aura of a seasoned warrior.
Liu Ming’s eyes went wide. He pointed at Yang Zicang in disbelief, as if seeing a ghost:
“Y-You, of all people! Where did you run off to today?”
Though he hadn’t seen the man for just half a day, the person was the same yet his demeanor had completely changed! He had even developed well-proportioned muscles.
Liu Ming waited, but no second person appeared behind the door.
Only him?
“Where’s Ma Chao?” Liu Ming asked, his voice trembling with hesitation.
{I’m on the wall.}
The train’s voice boomed, startling the onlookers and forcing them to step back.
This was the infamous nightmare of the Xiong Ying group, a dreaded presence from which many, unless endowed with exceptionally high Chrono levels, would be consumed and turned into puppets.
“Yang Zicang, it’s so good you’re safe.” Fulrry Zhao stepped forward.
“Thank you for the concern.”
The youth on the wall smiled at her, then swept his gaze across the crowd both in the room and at the door, a sharp line of energy darting toward Liu Ming.
A tiny, ring-sized grayish-white circle, empty within, materialized in front of the old man.
[300N.]
“This is…” Liu Ming sensed that additional years of Chrono, which he could naturally command, had been added to his own.
“It’s for you. An extra three hundred years ‘ worth of lifespan. Honestly, without a model, there’s no way to contact you. Once I’m finished here, I’ll take you to claim your own models.”
Liu Ming gaped in disbelief.
Before his slow-thinking brain could digest the information, murmuring buzzed from those at the doorstep; they had all heard the telepathic message from the model:
[I have discovered a Chrono Weapon.]
“Whoa! You’ve become an expert now!” Liu Ming finally reacted. “You can’t be serious… In just a day, you’ve gotten this strong?”
Everyone was smiling, looking at the old man.
Spotting Fulrry Zhao’s graceful silhouette standing at the door, Yang Zicang unsheathed his long sword from its scabbard, then leapt lightly down from the wall.
His feet touched the ground, he straightened his legs that had bent slightly to absorb the shock, and walked toward the slender, graceful lady before him.
A faint, almost imperceptible fragrance lingered around his nostrils.
“Is this…” Fulrry Zhao looked at this exquisite narrow sword.
“Yeah, it’s a gift Zhao Anlong asked me to bring for you. He said that if anyone dares to take a liking to it, he will hunt them down until they die. And he also said…”
Fulrry Zhao’s face flushed red up to her ears.
“Don’t. Don’t say anything else.”
Now, Fulrry Zhao’s name has spread across the entire city, and everyone has come to know her as the one Zhao Anlong deeply cares for.
Yang Zicang let out a sly grin and handed the weapon over to the beauty.
“You’ll need a hundred years of time sequence to wield it; do you have enough spare time sequence?”
Fulrry Zhao, with her head bowed, nodded gently.
Seeing her like this, Yang Zicang asked no further.
Even if she didn’t have much time sequence, Chu Qiang would surely arrange everything for her. After all, this was a formidable battle weapon that delivered five hundred years of time sequence with every strike—probably unmatched in this city.
Recalling Zhao Anlong’s help and their final outburst, Yang Zicang, now guilt-ridden, added, “There’s one more gift I want to give you.”
“Oh? There’s more?”
Fulrry Zhao raised her lovely face, her delicate eyelashes blinking, gazing at the man before her who had in the blink of an eye acquired the same commanding presence as Anlong once did.
“Yeah, this is from me, as thanks for Zhao Anlong’s help this time. Without him, this city would have already been devastated.”
He raised his hand, and a model materialized on his chest; a flickering quadrilateral shot into his palm.
Only then did Zhao Xuemei realize that this unprecedented gift came from the man before her.
“If you could learn a skill, would you prefer flames, snowflakes, or perhaps fist techniques?”
“A skill?”
The people around stirred slightly.
Xiangmu glanced at the sword in her hand and said, after a moment’s thought, “I naturally like snow better.”
As soon as she finished speaking, the model’s fine lines flickering in the man’s hand wriggled regularly, materializing a translucent, scroll-like ancient sheet of paper.
Gazing at the energy construct shoved into her hands, Zhao Xuemei felt a sudden tremor in her eyes.
Its effect and method of use surged into her mind through streams of information.
{Level-Up Agreement: Frost-Over Snowflake Sword, ninety-seven years of cultivation experience, 100% completion}
Un Believably, the woman looked up, as flashing lines from the model on her chest linked to the man before her.
{This can actually be learned directly?}
Secret techniques were rare enough, but one that could be directly mastered had never even been heard of—and now it appeared here, with nearly a century of cultivation experience behind it!
Yang Zicang nodded with a smile: “Next time you see Zhao Anlong, be sure to thank him on my behalf.”
“This… okay, no! It’s me who should thank you! Hey, no, no, I can’t accept such a valuable gift.”
Suddenly blessed with two treasures, Zhao Xuemei was somewhat flustered.
She had never imagined that Yang Zicang’s so-called gift would be so precious.
Just as she was about to return it, Yang Zicang had already moved to the bedside and gathered the sleeping girl, along with her thin blanket, into his arms. At that moment, his face was filled with exhaustion.
“Zicang, this is three hundred years, you’re really giving it to me? Hey, where are you going?”
Liu Ming felt as if he were dreaming. After all that happened next, it took him a moment to snap out of it until Yang Zicang leaped up onto the train door suspended on the wall.
“Lifespan means nothing to us anymore; what truly matters is surviving the present. Without strength, even ten thousand years of life are but fleeting clouds and smoke.”
Liu Ming fell silent. It seemed like only half a day had passed, but Li Yang was already miles ahead of him—as if they were living in two different worlds.
Zhao Xuemei, rushing over to the bedside, said, “Are you going to heal her? Chu Qiang knows someone with remarkable medical abilities, but he might charge a bit steeply.”
“It’s fine; my friend has already arranged everything for me.”
The door sealed behind him, and the train turned into a blur of shadows, stirring up a hazy mist as it sped into the other side of the wall.
“His friend has arranged everything?”
“That guy has been out for just one day, but it feels like he’s been gone for ages. Just how fast does time move over there?”
The group watched as his figure disappeared into the train, their emotions churning with indescribable complexity.
……
<Soul Polarity Dossier I Stony Stars> Upper part complete.
Leave a Reply