Chapter 61: Matters Here Concluded, Reborn and Remade

If anyone in the room was worried that Yan Jing might refuse Yan Lei's challenge, it was Yan Mu.

Once Yan Lei defeated him on camera, Yan Jing's standing with the Master Household would plummet.

At that point, the Master Household would naturally abandon any thought of forcing his return.

Coupled with his earlier refusal to come home, they might even make an example out of him.

Once the Master Household ordered disciplinary measures, Yan Mu would be free of any misgivings and could pull this cowardly son back under his absolute control.

All of this, of course, hinged on the fact that he had no idea Yan Yang had already lost to Yan Jing.

So, exactly as he hoped, Yan Jing smiled and nodded.

"I accept."

Excellent.

Yan Mu's spirits soared.

He prided himself on knowing his children. The gap between Yan Jing and Yan Lei was simply too vast to bridge in such a short time, not even with a Yellow Date-Selection Gift.

The match was set for the garden outside the mansion.

Lin Xiaoran and another reporter Yan Mu had brought in were tasked with recording the entire fight.

Having stripped off her tracksuit jacket to reveal a sports bra, Yan Lei glared coldly at her younger brother.

In her eyes, this little brother of hers had been useless at everything since childhood.

By her logic, he was an absolute waste of space.

Compared to their youngest brother, the difference was night and day.

But as Yan Jing looked back at her, his mind ran through her dossier and the targeted training he had done the previous afternoon.

"Begin!"

The moment Lin Xiaoran shouted, both of them moved.

A massive hammer materialized in Yan Lei's hands as she charged straight at him.

Yellowish-green light flared around her, conjuring the phantom of a severed black snake that slowly slithered into her right eye.

The instant the phantom vanished, countless tiny black snakes writhed across her eye.

This was her Day Selection Ritual, the Eye-Eating Snake. It was an Inner World Resident of the Gluttony Pathway, a reward she had earned from a head chef while working in the kitchen of a small shop within a Gluttony Domain.

Its ability: Eye-Eating, the temporary deprivation of the target's right-eye vision.

As Weird Energy surged through her, Yan Jing immediately felt his vision skew slightly.

Having already studied her file, Yan Jing didn't panic in the slightest.

Losing sight in one eye wasn't actually a major issue; the main difficulty lay in judging distance.

And the moment Yan Lei had activated her Day Selection Ritual, he had already consumed a Fear Fruit.

Thick fog billowed around him, rendering his figure into a stark silhouette. Violent Weird Energy surged like a tidal wave, drastically amplifying his speed and strength. Dark, creeping lines etched themselves across his skin as a crimson light ignited in his eyes.

Then he locked his gaze on Yan Lei as she closed the distance.

With just one glance, Yan Lei's resolve was shaken.

Mental suppression.

This effect rarely stood out in the Amusement Park, heavily populated as it was by Inner World Residents of the Path of Fear, but for a player from the Surface World, it was a significant ordeal.

The true weight of a purple-tier Day Selection Ritual made itself known. Her swinging hammer stalled for a fraction of a second, and Yan Jing took a large stride forward.

Thanks to the targeted practice he had put in the previous afternoon, the distortion in distance caused by his right eye's vision loss basically didn't affect him at all.

Closing the gap with a single step, he clenched his right fist and drove a heavy punch straight at her abdomen.

Snapping out of the mental suppression, Yan Lei's eyes narrowed. She immediately swung her massive hammer, attempting to leverage the weapon's length to seize the upper hand.

Yan Jing remained perfectly calm. Her reaction was exactly as he had predicted.

When larger Lesser Wandering Ghosts faced smaller ones, their favorite tactic was to use their longer reach to land the first painful blow.

The one who felt the pain first would suffer a momentary loss of strength, and that was the split second that dictated the victor.

So...

He naturally just needed to be the one with the longer reach.

The dark Thorn Spear suddenly unfurled from his palm. His incoming fist gained abrupt new reach, and the spear instantly punctured Yan Lei's abdomen in a spray of blood.

Yan Lei's eyes bulged. The phantom agony of vengeful ghosts tearing at her flesh nearly forced her to drop the hammer handle as spit and tears streamed down her face.

Yan Jing followed up with a brutal kick to her waist, then drove a fist straight into her face.

Neither the kick nor the punch held back in the slightest.

Coupled with the strength enhancement of the Fear Fruit.

Yan Lei instantly crumpled to the ground, out cold.

The match was over.

It had been even faster than his fight with Yan Yang.

Ignoring the sheer shock paralyzing Yan Mu and the others, Yan Jing smiled at Lin Xiaoran and asked,

"Did you get all that, Reporter Lin?"

"Every second!"

Lin Xiaoran flashed an OK sign, nodding happily.

"Reporter Lin! I want to buy out the broadcasting rights for this video!"

Without sparing a single glance at Yan Lei on the ground, Yan Mu marched forward and stated his demand.

This footage absolutely could not be leaked. If the Master Household saw it, everything they had just discussed would go up in smoke.

Lin Xiaoran looked hesitant.

"But I've already uploaded it..."

"Name your price! Buying out broadcasting rights absolutely doesn't violate any rules at the Rainbow Newspaper, and I trust your agency's integrity!"

"The price will ultimately count toward your performance metrics—I know how this all works."

Yan Mu urged rapidly.

He had never been this panicked in his entire life.

...

Yan Jing tuned them out.

Driving up the price was something he and Lin Xiaoran had agreed on in advance. Yan Lei's appearance was just a happy accident.

Originally, the video meant for extortion had been Yan Yang's.

Now, they managed to save that one.

He strolled over to his shell-shocked older brother and smiled.

"Second Brother, if Eldest Sister keeps bleeding like this, she might be in real danger."

Before Yan Yang could answer, the woman beside him—whose face was so dark it looked ready to thunder—let out a shrill shriek.

"Who the hell do you think you are to pretend to care about our family?! You little brat, you've already left the Yan Family! You're not one of us anymore!"

"Auntie."

Facing the woman's tirade, Yan Jing smiled.

"You seem terrified."

"If I hadn't obtained a Yellow Date-Selection Gift, you wouldn't care if I came back or not, would you?"

"It seems you don't have much faith in your youngest son."

The words seemed to strike her to the core. Her phoenix eyes twitched along with the bulging veins on her forehead before she spat a curse she would normally never utter:

"Bullshit!"

She hurriedly stormed into the house.

Yan Jing turned back to survey the scene in the courtyard.

The terrified servants too scared to step forward. His "father" haggling over the price. His "older brother" frozen in shock. His furious "stepmother." And...

His "eldest sister" bleeding heavily.

This was the original owner's family.

What a wonderful place.

But starting today, he would be completely divorced from it.

According to his and Shen Youran's projections, Yan Mu would now most likely report to the Master Household that Yan Jing had left the Yan Family of his own accord and refused to return. At the same time, to divert their attention and completely smooth the matter over, he would reveal the good news about his youngest son that he had been hiding for the past few years.

"You seem to be in high spirits,"

Shen Youran's voice drifted into his ear.

"I am. It feels like the shackles on my body have been stripped away."

"The next time I come back here," Yan Jing murmured, "I probably won't need a reporter anymore."

This visit had been far too constrained.

"I've found the house out in the countryside. You can move in for now. The location is hidden enough, and we have people providing network and communications protection,"

Shen Youran said.

"More money spent?"

Yan Jing asked with a laugh.

"Feeling the pinch?"

Shen Youran asked back with a laugh.

"Money earned is meant to be spent."

Yan Jing smiled. "The only things that truly belong to you are the ones that can't be taken away."

...

...

Shielded by the banner of the Rainbow Newspaper, Yan Jing and Lin Xiaoran departed, retreating completely unscathed.

They left behind only a devastated Yan Family courtyard.

Yan Mu looked at the unconscious Yan Lei on the ground, then turned to Yan Yang, who was still in a daze. Unable to hold back, he lunged forward and viciously kicked Yan Yang to the dirt.

"A bunch of useless trash!"

After having people take Yan Lei away for treatment, he turned and went into the house. Sitting at the wooden desk to think, his fury only grew the more he dwelled on it.

Yan Jing's visit home this time had directly gutted a horrifying amount of his liquid funds.

A number large enough to make him physically ache.

Honestly, he was starting to regret it.

He regretted letting Yan Jing leave the house.

Especially after seeing Yan Jing completely crush Yan Lei to win.

That had been his son!

At the thought, the veins on his forehead unconsciously bulged. He blamed this entire turn of events on the phoenix-eyed woman.

"Dammit! Women just ruin everything!"

...

...

Yan Jing surveyed the small standalone house in front of him. Per his instructions, he would be the only one living there.

Shen Youran, meanwhile, would stay in another standalone house a short distance away.

Originally, Shen Youran had wanted to just stay in a nearby rental room.

"Every bit saved counts."

Shen Youran, who was so generous when spending money on Yan Jing, was unexpectedly stingy with herself.

But Yan Jing was resolute, eventually forcing her to move into the nearby standalone house.

The two of them stepped into the standalone house to find it fully furnished.

Sitting on the sofa, Shen Youran began to tally up their gains from this trip.

"The initial offer was 1.2 million Inner World currency, but Xiao Ran closed the deal at 2.4 million. 800,000 goes to the Rainbow Newspaper, 800,000 to her, and we take 800,000."

"A total of 2 million Inner World currency."

"After deducting total expenses, we should have about 1.8 million Inner World currency left. Plus the 4 million Surface World currency advance from the auction house, it's barely enough to cover the costs for your physical conditioning and Weird Energy control upgrades."

Barely enough?

Over the next few days, Yan Jing thoroughly learned what it meant to spend money like water.

Shen Youran used all sorts of rare and precious Inner World materials to enhance his physical constitution and Weird Energy control.

For example, there was a Body-Forging Water that Shen Youran claimed was a Shen Family secret recipe.

A single cauldron cost 600,000 Surface World currency in materials alone, and one batch could only be used for a single bath.

There was also an exclusive potion to stimulate Weird Energy utilization; a single dose cost 500,000 Surface World currency to mix.

On top of that, there was combat coaching, survival coaching...

And all of this was solely to increase Yan Jing's odds of surviving the next Dungeon, even if only by a fraction.

This routine lasted right up until three days before the Dungeon began.

It didn't stop because Yan Jing took a break before entering the Inner World, but because their funds had finally dried up.

Of the ten million Surface World currency, only a fifth remained. His items at the auction house had successfully sold for roughly three to four times the deposit, but Shen Youran had already exchanged the surplus money for something else.

A tactical combat suit.

It was a black undersuit of Yellow-tier quality, requiring a First Tier rating to equip.

Although its value as a Ritual couldn't compare to Yan Jing's other two items, its utility in combat was a different story.

Its effect was to enhance bodily coordination and strength, along with providing additional structural reinforcement.

After putting the suit on, Yan Jing threw a punch at the force-testing machine in front of him.

A sharp shriek tore through the air, exploding like muffled thunder.

Watching the skyrocketing numbers on the machine, Shen Youran nodded in satisfaction.

"The foundation laid by a Yellow-Purple Day Selection Ritual is nothing a Yellow Date-Selection Gift can compare to. A normal person using this training regimen would likely have to stop a third of the way through, or else their Weird Energy would go berserk and their body wouldn't be able to handle such a rapid enhancement. But looking at you now, you still have plenty left in the tank."

In truth, she was far more shocked internally than she let on. She had discovered that Yan Jing's body was practically a bottomless pit. All she had to do was keep pouring money into it to see his strength grow, far exceeding what she had assumed was the ceiling for a Yellow-Purple Day Selection Ritual.

Take the Body-Forging Water, for instance. An ordinary person could probably only soak in it once, while someone with a Yellow-Purple Day Selection Ritual would hit their absolute limit at five or six times. But Yan Jing looked like he could still handle another five or six sessions.

It made her wonder if he was actually a true Heavenly Prodigy with an innate physical edge, and the Yan Family had simply failed to detect his potential.

"Even if you still can't match the Heavenly Prodigies of the inner three Domains—the ones meticulously selected from the embryo and raised in vats of gold—as you are now, the so-called geniuses of Ling'an City shouldn't even be able to compare to you."

Yan Jing looked at his reflection in the mirror.

His originally handsome features had gained a sharp edge. He was still lean, but noticeably much denser than he had been six days ago. Even wearing the tight combat suit, the fluid lines of his muscles were visible, and he could feel the explosive force packed into every fiber. The difference was night and day.

"It sure is good to have money."

Yan Jing sighed in appreciation. Now, there was only one final thing left to do before the Dungeon began.

Take an early trip to check out the Tower.