Chapter 296: This Time It's a Cat

Fei Yu's eyes were slightly red as she looked at Yan Jing.

That head of curly hair and long gown had turned into choppy bangs and short sleeves, and his face had transformed into Advisor Yan's.

Although she had vaguely figured it out when she followed Yan Jing back to Huang Family Village, seeing it with her own eyes still shocked her. It even left her a little bewildered.

She could feel that this person standing before her—both familiar and foreign—was her young master.

So...

Her young master was human?

When did he become human? Or was he human from the very beginning? Advisor Yan was the young master, and the young master was Advisor Yan... Her mind was a complete mess. She had ten thousand things she wanted to say.

But in the end, she opened her mouth with red eyes and said the one thing she wanted to say the most:

"You were planning to bear it all by yourself back then?"

"..."

"Huh?" Yan Jing blinked, not reacting immediately. Then he remembered Fei Yu was talking about how he had locked her inside his body when facing the Heavenly Punishment.

"I couldn't exactly let you bear it, Xiao Yu."

He smiled.

"If you died, what would I have done going to the New Domain all by myself?"

Fei Yu bit her lower lip, her voice already carrying a hint of a sob.

"But what if you died, Xiao Yu? What then?"

Yan Jing chuckled. "Besides, didn't I promise you, Xiao Yu, that I wouldn't leave you alone?"

"If you died, then I'd be the only one left—"

Fei Yu stopped talking. There was no point in saying these things.

The man in front of her had rescued her from a cage, and then rescued her again from an even bigger cage.

She actually wanted to throw herself into his arms and cry her eyes out, but she still hadn't gotten used to this face.

"The original face looked better..."

She muttered, then wiped her tears away. Looking at the smile on Yan Jing's face opposite her, she felt a mix of embarrassment and annoyance.

Finally, she glared at him.

"You didn't tell me that you were Advisor Yan, and you didn't tell Master Liu either. Did you not trust us?!"

Every word of her interrogation hit the mark.

A certain divine bird felt she had lost a lot of face, so she decided to reclaim her dignity.

"No wonder I barely ever saw you and Advisor Yan appear at the same time."

"When you turned into Advisor Yan, you were definitely watching us talk to you and secretly laughing behind our backs!"

The divine bird pressed forward step by step, preparing for the finishing blow.

"When you talked about having three wives and four concubines back then, did you mean three wives for one identity and four concubines for the other?"

The divine bird had unleashed her ultimate attack.

Facing a certain divine bird's ultimate attack, Yan Jing smiled slightly.

"I wouldn't know. I only found out not too long ago that my maid was a bird."

...

The divine bird had been counter-killed.

She was left looking like a drenched chicken.

"That's... that's..."

Fei Yu's eyes darted around. She stammered for a long time but couldn't find an excuse.

"Actually, your young master understands you, Xiao Yu. After all, when I saw that notification back then, I also thought my maid had never truly seen me as one of her own."

Yan Jing sighed.

"I know, it's just that your young master didn't do a good enough job."

"That's not it!"

Fei Yu hurriedly denied it.

When she saw the smile on Yan Jing's face, she realized she had been tricked again. She glared fiercely at her young master, turned into a cluster of red light motes, and instantly dove right into his chest.

"I'm not talking to you anymore, Young Master."

From the bottom of her heart, a certain divine bird threw down the harshest threat she could muster.

Watching this scene left the other bird seething with frustration over her incompetence:

"Useless! Absolutely useless!"

"Bite him!"

"Peck him!"

"Weren't you supposed to be the best at talking back?!"

"You held it in for so long and this is all you came up with?!!"

"Didn't you see the way that human woman who just left looked at him?! Oh, for fuck's sake, a bunch of idiots!!!"

Faced with the Fear Bird's barrage of curses, Yan Jing just smiled and said nothing.

Then, he used a Dungeon Selection Voucher, choosing his dungeon as [Peace Heavenly Kingdom - Wastewater Street].

The mission was roughly the same as what he had seen last time.

Only slightly harder.

Previously, after assassinating the internal council member of the Reconciliation Faction, he would have needed to remain in the Inner World for six hours. This time, the requirement had been changed to ten hours.

However, a few hours made no difference to him.

"Select Chaos Mode."

His Personal Title, [Chaos Missionary], activated, altering the mission contents once again.

Originally, apart from him, there would have been another team tasked with killing a different internal election council member from the same Reconciliation Faction.

Once one of the teams completed their assassination, the difficulty of the assassination for the other team would sharply escalate.

Now, the mission for both teams had been changed to require the assassination of two council members.

If a team failed to assassinate a council member, or only managed to assassinate one, the system would forcibly expose the location of everyone on that team.

"Well then, now things are hard for everyone."

Yan Jing chuckled.

Following that, the Power of the White Stone surged within him, shrouding both the Fear Bird and Fei Yu at the same time.

He was going to draw a role. Anything else could be explained, but this alone could not be seen by Fei Yu.

It saved him the trouble of explaining later when more questions popped into that girl's head—was her young master drawn from a lottery?

To guard against the Fear Bird leaking the secret, he even went out of his way to forcibly seal its beak shut.

Looking at the interface before him, he quickly pressed the long-unseen [Draw Role] button.

He confirmed the location as [Peace Heavenly Kingdom - Wastewater Street].

Countless orbs of light materialized before his eyes, trembling constantly amidst the radiance. Finally, an orb emitting a purple glow came to a stop in front of him.

It slowly cracked open.

It was a black cat.

Its black fur was slick and glossy, and its two large eyes were like lightbulbs, emitting an eerie glow.

What was rather bizarre was its posture—it stood fully upright on two legs, wearing a suit and a top hat, with a pair of leather shoes on its feet.

"An animal species."

Yan Jing made the judgment based on the knowledge he had just acquired.

[Role Name: Bacon]

[Role Quality: Purple]

[Role Level: Based on the Surface World's tier classification, it is Fourth Tier]

[Role Abilities Introduction:]

[Nuochen Biological Potion Type A: Strength and speed are vastly enhanced, but it comes with certain side effects, namely becoming easily emotional and leaning toward solving problems with violence.]

[Nuochen Biological Potion Type B - Blink: A rare, non-commercial potion crafted by extracting the genes of a certain ancient creature. It allows for genuine spatial teleportation over a distance of ten meters.]

[Homemade Biological Potion - King Transformation: A potion crafted by extracting the genes of a certain large rodent. It enables a King Transformation, but comes with certain side effects, causing the user to feel pain in daily life.]

[Nuochen Biological Potion Type B - Insight: Drastically improves intuition, but comes with certain side effects. Mental resistance will drop, leading to decreased judgment in certain aspects.]

[Role Profile: Ignorant of the ways of the world, you once ran amok and committed all sorts of misdeeds. You also had thoughts of turning over a new leaf, but at the time, you still hadn't found your true self.]

[It wasn't until you began to re-examine this city and every person in it that you learned what you truly wanted. But it was already too late; someone had long since marked you as a thorn in their side.]

[This role retains all of its memories, but please note that this role's long-cherished wish is absolutely not something that can be easily achieved.]

Yan Jing looked at the role profile. Before he could even finish reading it completely, another system prompt appeared in front of him.

[Because you now possess four roles including yourself, the new Role Autopilot function has been unlocked.]

[Now, you can place all roles aside from your original body on autopilot. They will think, converse, and interact in a normal manner that is difficult for those around them to notice. At the same time, they will retain all memories from the autopilot period until you switch back to check on them.]

Good news.

Yan Jing's gaze lit up with joy.

Finally, he wouldn't have to keep switching back and forth out of fear of exposing a flaw.

[Enter Inner World]

Even though it was already quite late, Yan Jing still decided to go in and take a look.

If this role didn't work out, he still had two more chances to draw a role before twelve o'clock today, and he couldn't let them go to waste.

The familiar sense of vertigo instantly washed over him.

[The Inner World journey is about to begin. The reward mechanics for this journey are as follows:]

[1. Find the murderer who killed the assumed role. Reward: The ability to switch between assumed role identities upon officially entering the dungeon.]

[2. Fulfill the long-cherished wish of the assumed role: Changing the current situation at the bottom of the Peace Heavenly Kingdom. Reward: Fully unlocks the role; the host may choose to acquire one of the role's abilities.]

[3. Due to the role being of good quality, the "Safety Officer" option has been unlocked. The Safety Officer starts with an initial level of Favorability toward you and is worthy of your trust; please utilize this well. When the "Safety Officer" Favorability reaches its maximum value, the host may choose to acquire one of the "Safety Officer" abilities.]

[We wish you a pleasant journey.]

[Loading role...]

Yan Jing opened his eyes. Before he even had time to confirm his current state, a massive influx of memories flooded directly into his mind. It took him tens of minutes to fully digest them.

This role was different from the previous ones in two ways. The first was that it retained all of the role's memories for him.

This also made him thoroughly experience the agony of memory infusion firsthand.

Even after fully digesting them, his head still ached dully. The veins in his temples throbbed wildly, feeling as if they had sustained some kind of heavy blow.

"So I guess the previous method had its benefits too."

Yan Jing stood up and looked around.

Various pieces of lumber and construction tools were scattered across the bare, unfinished concrete floor. There were no walls on any of the four sides, and fierce winds howled as they poured into the space. It looked like an abandoned, unfinished building.

Right now, he was standing on some unknown floor, perfectly positioned to overlook a portion of this nation's landscape.

"It's like a sandwich cookie."

This was his first impression of this nation.

The broad streets and magnificent high-rises were the decorated outer layers of the cookie, while nestled in the crevices between these back-to-back streets was a shit-yellow filling.

After watching for a while, he pulled his gaze back and looked at an abandoned table placed nearby.

The table, which would normally reach his thighs, now appeared massive in his field of vision, towering several heads above him.

The sensation was actually quite peculiar, as if he had accidentally stumbled into the land of giants.

Looking at the pink paw pads in the center of his two "cat paws," he promptly released the Power of the White Stone inside his body.

Fei Yu, who had followed him here, stared at the sight before her. Once she processed it, she was so shocked she couldn't speak.

She remembered the phrase Yan Jing kept saying—"I won't leave you alone"—and suddenly understood.

"A new journey has begun, Xiao Yu. Follow your young master and see the worlds you've never seen before."

Yan Jing spoke, though his voice didn't sound very pleasant.

It sounded like a squawking drake.