Chapter 284: Ye Jinyuan

Zhang Kai rushed to the spot where the signal flare had just shot into the sky.

"Where is he?"

He looked at a captain waiting there.

"The man we're after ran toward Huang Family Village."

The captain continued, "He Yuan took some men and went after him first. Zhao Su is covering the opposite direction and should still be on his way here."

"We aren't waiting for Zhao Su. We're heading over now."

Zhang Kai flicked his fingers, weird energy surging around him.

"I planted a hook on him. He can't escape."

...

...

Yan Jing couldn't see what the portrait saw. Using it as a medium, he could only roughly sense that at least a dozen pursuers were tailing it.

Splitting his focus, he walked toward the group of players waiting under a large tree in the center of the village.

"Everyone, hide in the spots we agreed on last night. No matter what you hear, do not come out."

"Understood."

The players nodded.

Yan Jing had thoroughly explained the rules the previous night. They didn't know the reasoning behind them, but he had made it clear: they didn't have to follow his instructions, but anyone who broke them would face the consequences alone.

With Stage A of the mission about to end, no one was going to do anything stupid.

They scattered, scurrying back to the cellars behind their respective courtyard houses to smear their bodies with the prepared aura-concealing items.

Yan Jing watched them leave.

He immediately switched to the identity of Luo Sheng, who had been hiding off to the side.

He ran toward the only well in the village.

Unused for eight years, the well had long since run dry. Yan Jing pulled out a small ceramic vial containing a single drop of blood drawn from Fei Yu's fingertip last night. Enveloping the blood in weird energy, he slowly guided it down into the dry shaft.

"With phoenix blood as the guide, open the gates of Shanhai."

Yan Jing chanted softly, weird energy surging around him.

Streaks of ink-drawn runes flew from his sleeves and branded themselves onto the dry well.

Rumble—

Huang Family Village suddenly began to tremble. The segmented corpses hidden inside the houses started to emanate a faint glow. The light grew increasingly intense, piercing through the windows and shooting into the sky, where the beams converged into a single point.

Then, the light plummeted straight into the dry well.

In an instant, a pillar of blood-red light erupted from the well and pierced the sky. The crimson glow blanketed the heavens as dark clouds unfurled, sweeping over the airspace above Huang Family Village.

Anguished screams and wails, sounding as if they were echoing from a bygone era, reverberated endlessly within the clouds with a heavy sense of antiquity.

Yan Jing ran to the courtyard where Old Monkey and Dong An were staying. He switched back to his original body, then walked to the dry well.

Surging weird energy in his hands, he pretended to manipulate the runes.

This was Yan Jing's first time performing such an identity switch.

Activating the formation required an Inner World bloodline, making Luo Sheng's identity a necessity. But if Ye Jinyuan came out and saw an inner world resident like Luo Sheng, he would likely attack him on the spot. Therefore, Yan Jing's original body had to be the one standing by the well.

Beyond that, there was a deeper purpose.

Whoosh— A streak of dark light shot up from the dense forest behind Huang Family Village, speeding rapidly toward the dry well.

The figure wore a cyan Daoist robe and appeared to be in his forties. His face was relatively free of wrinkles; if he were in a television drama, he would perfectly fit the archetype of a universally beloved middle-aged uncle.

Within seconds, the figure appeared beside Yan Jing, looking in pleasant surprise at the dry well bubbling with blood-red light.

"Spatial fluctuations! Did you do this?"

Yan Jing looked at the man with a guarded expression, remaining silent.

Ye Jinyuan coughed lightly and spoke in a gentle voice, "Young man, where are you from?"

"..."

Yan Jing still didn't speak. He simply took a few steps back. Then, under the control of the Painting Spirit ability he had acquired from Luo Sheng, the runes on the dry well began to flicker erratically.

"Don't be afraid!"

Ye Jinyuan panicked slightly and hurriedly tried to placate him.

He had been in Minhu for months. Now that he had finally seen a glimmer of hope, he didn't want any accidents to happen.

He wasn't willing to risk even the slightest mishap.

"You must be from Yueyin, right?"

He spoke softly. "I am the Vice Domain Chief of Yueyin, Ye Jinyuan. You should have heard my name."

"..."

Yan Jing raised his eyes, appearing to scrutinize Ye Jinyuan carefully, before the wariness in his gaze faded slightly.

"I'm Yan Jing. I'm from Yueyin's Fifth Ring Domain."

Seeing that Yan Jing was finally willing to communicate, a flash of joy crossed Ye Jinyuan's eyes.

"What are you doing here?"

"I don't know."

Yan Jing said, "I have a special mission that told me to help open a passage. My Personal Title can increase the mission's difficulty."

With that, Yan Jing displayed the effects of his Personal Title.

"Open a passage!"

Ye Jinyuan murmured. Wild joy surged in his heart. Clenching his fists, he asked excitedly, "Roughly how long will it take?"

"..."

Yan Jing didn't answer. Instead, he gave Ye Jinyuan a questioning look.

"Uh... cough, cough..."

Ye Jinyuan coughed twice.

"You might think I'm overreacting, but the truth is, I happen to need this passage you're opening to travel to another grand Domain."

"...Travel to another grand Domain?"

Yan Jing asked, "Then how did you get in here?"

"Through a Dungeon mission, of course."

"Was your mission location also in Huang Family Village?"

Yan Jing asked.

"Of course not." Ye Jinyuan's tone carried a great deal of pride.

"Actually, I noticed you during your last Dungeon. Your strength is quite good. You should belong to the ranks of a seed in the Fifth Ring Domain, and your ranking probably isn't low, either. Ultimately, however, your Tier is too low, so you don't understand the true way to play Dungeons."

"For us humans, if we're too weak, Inner World Dungeons are a nightmare. You're forcibly summoned at regular intervals and plunged into an endless cycle of life-and-death crises."

"But if you're a bit stronger, they become a mix of opportunity and challenge. Although the danger remains, you can also use the mission rewards to elevate your strength."

"If you grow even stronger, you'll realize that the Inner World is a realm hiding countless treasures."

"Accepting a Dungeon is merely a means to enter this place. Many Dungeon missions don't have time limits, which means I can leave the mission Domain directly and go to other Domains to explore and boost my power."

"Take this time, for example. I've nearly completed my mission; I'm just holding off on the very last step. Later, after I cross into another grand Domain, the system will judge my mission as a failure. But in the few minutes before I'm forced to exit, I'll have enough time to record the coordinates there. Next time, I can enter it again."

"I see."

Yan Jing nodded. He recalled the group of humans he had met in the Mad Amusement Park; they had similarly crossed over from the bus Dungeon into the Amusement Park.

"It will take me a full day to completely open this passage."

Yan Jing said.

He wasn't lying about this.

The crucial point was that the so-called formation didn't require him to maintain it. It only needed the corpses to remain untouched.

"But it seems someone is chasing me. They're at the village entrance right now."

"Are they inner world residents?"

The moment he mentioned inner world residents, Ye Jinyuan's aura suddenly shifted. His murderous intent became almost tangible. His cyan Daoist robe faintly turned red, and the vague outline of a Treasure Vase Dao Seal seemed to manifest around him.

This guy... his mental state might not be right...

Yan Jing thought to himself. The shift in demeanor was far too abrupt, completely unlike how a normal person would act. Even if he wasn't mentally ill, he was highly likely to be somewhat extreme.

"Yes."

He replied.

"Don't worry, I'll handle them."

Ye Jinyuan walked toward the village entrance, his large sleeves swaying.

"Focus on opening the passage."

"..."

Watching Ye Jinyuan's departing back, Yan Jing realized his previous precautions had probably been unnecessary. This Vice Domain Chief treated humans rather mildly; there was no so-called ruthless streak in his behavior.

He went back to pretending to open the passage.

The commotion caused by opening the passage was simply too massive to conceal. This meant that the real crisis hadn't arrived yet.

"I'm counting on you, Domain Chief Ye."

Frankly speaking, Yan Jing didn't feel like he was scamming Ye Jinyuan. His original plan had merely been to use a method that didn't require sacrificing Fei Yu to send Ye Jinyuan away.

Even without his intervention, if Ye Jinyuan had caught Fei Yu and used her as a catalyst, he would have triggered a worldly anomaly and attracted the people from East Lake Prefecture anyway. Yan Jing was just conveniently borrowing Ye Jinyuan's hands to deal with his own pursuers.

At this thought, he remembered the River Department that the man had mentioned yesterday.

"Li Qinghe, it really is you."

He narrowed his eyes. He still remembered Bai Qiu claiming that his backer was the Vice Minister of the River Department.

And Bai Qiu's true backer was precisely Li Qinghe.

...

...

Paima County.

Fei Yu stared at the anomaly in the sky, her eyes wide.

Yan Jing had told her many things last night. She hadn't dared to believe them, but the anomaly before her eyes proved that it was all true.

She immediately ran to the room Tiger was in and started knocking on the door.

"Mr. Huzi, Mr. Huzi, we need to get ready to move. Wake up quickly."

"..."

Inside the room at that moment, a golden fluorescence filled every corner. With Tiger's every breath, countless specks of light seemed to fly from his nose and mouth, blanketing everything around him.

Within each speck of light, a world seemed to manifest.

Tiger was having a dream.

This dream had begun several days ago. In it, he had returned to that golden palace to speak with the priestess-like woman.

No, to be exact, they were arguing.

"How can you not return?!"

The woman glared at Tiger in utter frustration.

"I've already told you. Opening the passage back to our Path of Destiny will draw the gaze of the Source of Mutation in the Domain where you currently reside. But as long as you do as I say and use the Life Substitution Method to find a few scapegoats whom you share a deep connection with—"

"No, that won't work."

Tiger shook his head.

"I don't know anyone in this Domain."

"Impossible! My calculations clearly show that you have at least four or five people over there with whom you share deep connections."

"You said it yourself, they're people I share deep connections with!"

Tiger said, "How about this? You teach me a method, and I'll learn it. Once I've mastered it, I'll withstand the punishment from your so-called Source of Mutation myself."

"That won't work. It's too slow. There's no way you'd make it back before Fate Turning Day."

The woman instantly rejected the idea.

"Fate Turning Day?"

Tiger had heard the woman say this term many times. "Is it something similar to Advent Day, or maybe Heaven Changing Day?"

"Every place has its own name for it. It's just like the Source of Mutation; every grand Domain has its own term for it. For example, in the grand Domains near our Path of Destiny, they call it—wait, that's not the point!"

The woman shot Tiger an exasperated look.

She was starting to doubt whether the guy in front of her was truly the reincarnation of that esteemed figure. She had almost been derailed from the main topic again!