Chapter 144: I Am An Evil Pen (I)

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Chapter 144: I Am An Evil Pen (I)

Guided by the Sacred Tree, the Water of Life suspended in the air began converging toward a single point. In only moments, it condensed into one droplet. The droplet slowly descended and gently fell onto the earth beside the Sacred Tree. In an instant, a clear spring burst from the ground, ripples spreading across its surface as an immense aura of nature rapidly swept outward.

“Ah!” The Forge Wraiths screamed in agony. Their bodies mottled with patches of rust, they fled the forest in panic.

The combined power erupting from the Sacred Tree and the Fountain of Life left them in unbearable pain. Their powerful bodies seemed almost as though they had been exposed to radiation, their vitality rapidly draining away.

Even after the Forge Wraiths fled, the various races of the Alliance still had not recovered from their shock. Their attention had originally been focused entirely on Ivan; no one had expected Shang Ke, who stood beside him, to be the Sacred Tree Elf. No wonder he had been able to break the Wraith Jade’s seal by himself. No wonder he and Ivan were together! One carried the sealed Fountain of Life within his body, while the other was the incarnation of the Sacred Tree.

In a single night, the Fountain of Life and Sacred Tree they had desperately searched for over the course of centuries had appeared before their very eyes.

Such happiness had come so suddenly that everyone felt as though they were dreaming.

The only person present who was probably suffering was Ivan.

He stood beneath the tree and stared blankly at the vibrant Sacred Tree, his heart throbbing with pain.

He was supposed to have been the one sacrificed, yet in the end, Shang Ke was the one who disappeared.

Ivan raised his hand and gently touched the trunk. As he sensed Shang Ke’s presence, he silently called his name in his heart: Keke…

【Congratulations, Host, on completing Additional Mission 1—Revive the Sacred Tree.】

Shang Ke stared at the eternally unchanging System Space without the slightest desire to speak, his entire being listless.

The System probably felt that looking this dejected was far too much of a waste of the Perfect Expression Pack’s beauty bonus, because it said, 【Host need only complete one Main Mission and one Additional Mission in the next world to receive two Return Keys.】

Shang Ke’s eyes lit up, and he immediately came back to life.

【Please select two skills to learn, Host.】

Nearly all the skills offered by the System had already been unlocked, so he could choose freely.

Shang Ke browsed for a while before finally closing his eyes and picking two at random. As long as he had enough time, he would eventually master every skill anyway; the only difference was which ones he chose to focus on.

As his various attributes improved, the time required to learn skills had shortened considerably. He could also adjust how deeply he studied them according to his needs and preferences. Some skills only needed to reach a basic level, while more important ones required true specialization.

After leaving the Hundred Training Space, Shang Ke entered the next world brimming with fighting spirit.

Although Shang Ke had long since prepared himself mentally, reality still managed to violently redefine his worldview every single time.

This time, he had transmigrated into a pen—and not just any pen, but an “evil pen,” a name that sounded ridiculous all by itself! More precisely, he was a pen spirit that fed on baleful energy.

His origins were already impossible to trace. Ever since gaining consciousness, he had survived by absorbing baleful energy from humans. Jealousy, anger, malicious thoughts, lust, murderous intent, and every other negative impulse were all food for the pen spirit. The pen spirit itself could also influence a person’s temperament. Anyone lacking sufficient willpower might make the wrong choices under the influence of its baleful energy, stray onto the wrong path, and consequently produce even more of that energy.

The evil pen could freely alter its form to suit the era and its environment, changing from its earliest incarnations as a quill or writing brush into fountain pens, ballpoint pens, gel pens, and even chalk, crayons, markers, and more.

Now, the evil pen had become a smartpen, the most commonly used type of pen on Planet Tahm. Smartpens could write both on physical paper and digital surfaces and came in all sorts of forms: brooches, cufflinks, lipstick tubes, earrings, wristwatches, and more.

The evil pen had survived for thousands of years and had never once needed to worry about running out of food. The complexity of human nature always produced all kinds of strange and varied baleful energy. Then one day, he fell into the hands of a “peerlessly good man,” and his apocalypse finally arrived. No matter how the pen tried to tempt him, the man steadfastly adhered to his principles and maintained his naturally optimistic, benevolent disposition. Even when he had nothing, he never blamed heaven or other people for his misfortune. He was practically the model of a saint.

Before the evil pen could absorb baleful energy, it first had to form a contract. Only once that contract was established could it feed on the energy produced by its contract holder and the people around them. Unfortunately, the evil pen had contracted with this peerlessly good man. From that day onward, it never ate its fill again and grew weaker by the day. Fortunately, the baleful energy it had accumulated beforehand was enough to keep it alive.

It endured and endured and endured until the old do-gooder finally passed away. On the day the man breathed his last, the evil pen nearly burst into tears of joy and wanted to throw back its head and howl at the heavens: I’m finally free!

But it had never imagined that even more miserable days were waiting for it.

As one of the old man’s possessions, the evil pen was passed down to his son, a man named Wen Jingrong. To the pen’s overwhelming delight, this man was nothing like his kind and honest father. On the contrary, he was decisive and ruthless, enormously ambitious, and virtually unstoppable in the business world. Many of his competitors regarded him as a ravenous predator.

The evil pen thought, Someone like this must have so much baleful energy that I’ll eat until I burst.

The result?

It could not eat a damn thing!

This man truly was no saint, but he possessed heavenly fortune so overwhelming that it plunged the evil pen into despair. Every good deed and benevolent connection his father had accumulated during his lifetime had transformed into blessings protecting his son! A person blessed with fortune like this was destined to be immune to evil spirits and turn danger into good fortune. If he entered government, his career would rise effortlessly; if he went into business, wealth would pour in endlessly. His path through life was destined to be smooth and successful.

The evil pen itself was not particularly intelligent and rarely bothered choosing contract holders deliberately. As far as it was concerned, everyone possessed baleful energy; the only difference was how much. It never dreamed it would encounter its natural nemesis twice in succession—one innately pure and kind, the other wrapped in overwhelming good fortune.

Following the old do-gooder had merely meant going hungry. Following Wen Jingrong meant not only starving but also spending every day bathed in the radiance of his good fortune. Even absorbing baleful energy from the people around him became almost impossibly difficult.

The evil pen struggled on for decades before finally giving up and dying of depression beneath the dazzling radiance of Wen Jingrong’s blessings.

More precisely, its consciousness dissipated—and then Shang Ke arrived to take its place as the new evil pen.

【Main Mission—Solve the employment problems of 1,000 unemployed people, laid-off workers, veterans, or formerly incarcerated people.】

Shang Ke: “…”

As an evil pen whose entire purpose was to corrupt minds and harm society, Shang Ke felt that this mission had absolutely nothing to do with him!

While he was thinking this, a large hand suddenly removed him from a sleeve and twisted him several times. Shang Ke immediately transformed from a cufflink into a smartpen and was used to flourish a signature across a tablet:

Wen Jingrong.

“Notify Aisai. Have him leave for Ferring City tomorrow,” Wen Jingrong instructed his secretary.

“Yes, President Wen.” The secretary put away the tablet and replied respectfully.

Wen Jingrong toyed with the smartpen in his hand. After a moment of thought, he added, “Cancel tonight’s reception. I have another appointment.”

“Certainly. Would you like me to arrange a driver?”

“No.” With that, Wen Jingrong folded the smartpen back into a cufflink and fastened it onto his sleeve.

During the process, Shang Ke had the honor of coming face-to-face with the mole in Wen Jingrong’s palm.

Excellent. Wen Jingrong was not only his man in this world, but also literally the one keeping him fed and clothed!

Unfortunately, Shang Ke could look, but he could not eat.

The radiant aura of fortune surrounding the man was practically a weapon of mass destruction. Shang Ke could now understand why the previous evil pen had died of depression. Bathed in light like this every day, it would have been difficult not to become depressed.

After leaving the company, Wen Jingrong drove home. He tossed aside his car keys, strode inside, showered, changed clothes, checked the time, and headed back out.

Before leaving, he did not forget to fasten the Shang-Ke-brand evil-pen cufflink onto his sleeve.

It was around dinnertime, so Shang Ke guessed that Wen Jingrong had arranged to eat with someone.

Sure enough, Wen Jingrong arrived at an upscale Western restaurant. A waiter led him to a table beside the window, where a young woman in her early twenties was already seated.

“Sorry I’m late.” Wen Jingrong apologized like a gentleman. In reality, there was still half an hour before the appointed time; the woman had simply arrived even earlier.

“It’s fine. I arrived too early.” The woman smiled shyly.

The two apparently had not known each other for long. Their conversation revolved around hobbies and personal interests, making the whole thing look suspiciously like…

A blind date!

Shang Ke grumbled sourly to himself. Don’t tell me my man is straight in this lifetime?

The woman clearly seemed to like Wen Jingrong, her eyes carrying a restrained, bashful affection.

Wen Jingrong’s attitude, however, was rather strange. He was reasonably pleasant at first, but after only a few exchanges, his expression became noticeably indifferent and every trace of emotion vanished from his eyes. After dinner, he drove the woman home, then left without even offering the polite fiction of meeting again sometime.

Shang Ke found this baffling. If he doesn’t like her, why invite her to dinner at all? He even canceled a business reception for this.

Wen Jingrong returned home with a grim expression. Catching the scent of perfume on himself, he frowned in disgust, stripped off his clothes, and walked naked into the bathroom.

Shang Ke had to admit that his man had an excellent body in every world: tall and powerful, perfectly proportioned, with a muscular physique comparable to a professional basketball player. As for his face, he had the standard dangerously handsome domineering-CEO look. After seeing his own face so often, Shang Ke had become somewhat numb to the concepts of beauty and ugliness.

Shang Ke rolled out from beneath the discarded sleeve and lay gleaming by himself atop the dark-colored bed.

Wen Jingrong treasured this “keepsake” from his father. Before going to sleep, he did not forget to place Shang Ke on the bedside table.

After the lights went out, the room fell into darkness, illuminated only by a few faint traces of light filtering in through the windows.

Shang Ke quietly remained on the bedside table, thinking about how he was supposed to complete his mission. If he remained a smartpen forever, there was obviously no way he could do it. The evil pen had cultivated for so many years—could it perhaps assume human form?

Shang Ke tried.

Unfortunately, he failed.

He could condense himself into a spirit form, but he could not become physically corporeal.

What use was a spirit form? He could influence other people on a subconscious level, but they could not sense his presence at all.

It was bad enough that Shang Ke had transmigrated into an evil pen.

The mission itself was fucking stupid too!

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