Chapter 652: Let Me See Why You're So Arrogant (Two-in-One)

"Why did you come to Yueyin?"

Yan Jing looked at the maid.

He didn't ask the usual questions:

Who she was, or what her name was.

Because... there was no point.

He didn't care who she was, nor did he want to know.

He only cared about other things.

"To... to..."

The maid tried to explain, but her voice kept trembling.

She didn't know how to say it.

She had come to take the man before her away, and had even planned to slaughter all of Yueyin.

How could she explain a motive like that? She was terrified he would strike her dead the second she spoke.

"My patience is limited,"

Yan Jing said softly.

He truly had limited patience. If he wanted to know the whole story, he could just pull out his Paintbrush and draw her. He was only making her speak now to save himself the trouble.

Hearing his words, the maid shuddered violently. She immediately opened her mouth, the words spilling out of her:

"The person behind me ordered me to bring you back to the Central Region. You injured him last time, and he wants revenge. His name is Yin Tianhuang, and he used to be one of the Yueyin People too. Besides you, he also ordered me to bring a woman back."

"He is incredibly bloodthirsty. He told me to clean up the loose ends and make sure word didn't spread, so slaughtering the city was my only option. I really had no choice, I swear, everything I'm saying is true!"

The maid played a little trick, pushing the blame for the planned massacre of Yueyin entirely onto Yin Tianhuang.

Yan Jing raised an eyebrow.

Yin Tianhuang.

That name again.

He wasn't surprised by the man's identity. He had simply been so busy lately that he had almost forgotten the guy existed.

"..."

Yan Jing tapped his fingers lightly against his thigh, as if musical notes were flowing and swirling around his fingertips.

A few seconds later, he spoke again:

"Which faction does he belong to?"

"Fengqi Pavilion."

"Where does this faction stand in the Central Region?"

"Aside from the organizations of those six, they are considered part of the First Echelon."

"The organizations of which six?"

"Just... those six."

The maid pointed her finger upward.

Yan Jing understood. He knew she was referring to the six "gods" of the Surface World.

"What are those six organizations?"

"Artificial Land, Great Desolation, Buddhist Origin, Three Immortals Dao, Fengdu, and Sea of Letters."

"Roughly what level of strength does Yin Tianhuang have in the Central Region?"

"First Echelon, just below the Ten Monsters."

"Ten Monsters... which Ten Monsters?"

This piqued Yan Jing's interest.

Compared to those old geezers, the future would obviously be the domain of the young heavenly prodigies.

Unexpectedly, the maid shook her head, fear flashing in her eyes.

"I don't know, I really, really don't know."

"Those ten monsters are the treasured darlings of their respective factions and rarely show themselves. The list is just a result pieced together by the heavenly prodigies based on occasional skirmishes."

So mysterious...

Yan Jing found this even more interesting.

"You don't know a single one?"

Watching Yan Jing's face, the maid sensed a hint of danger and immediately blurted:

"I know one."

"It's someone on the Death Pathway. I don't know if they're a man or a woman, but I once happened to see their 'footprints' during a hunt."

"It was a valley we usually visited before our hunts. The vegetation used to be incredibly lush, with lakes and rivers. But when we went that time, we found that everything had changed."

Even now, recalling the scene still seemed to terrify the maid:

"All the plants had withered, and the ground was littered with animal bones. The streams had dried up, the lakes were depleted, the earth was a sickly yellow, and even the falling sunlight seemed dismal."

"I heard Lord Yin Tianh—I heard Yin Tianhuang talking with someone, saying it was that person's doing. That's just how their footsteps are. Wherever they go, they bring death. They've been wandering continuously just to find a Domain that can withstand their presence."

Yan Jing listened with keen interest. Now this matched his fantasies of what a genius in this world should be like.

A person whose footsteps carried an inescapable death, spreading such misfortune wherever they went, making it difficult to ever communicate with or embrace another soul their entire life.

What a charming existence. Just hearing the description, Yan Jing could already imagine a tragic character.

If such a person could never reach the end of their path in their entire lifetime, the story might be even more tragic.

"You really don't know anyone else?"

Yan Jing looked at the maid.

The maid shook her head vigorously in terror:

"I really don't know, I swear."

Yan Jing sighed, looking somewhat dissatisfied.

Seeing this made the maid's heart clench violently.

"Do you have any other information?"

Yan Jing asked.

The maid wracked her brains and finally thought of something.

"Yes, yes, yes, there is one more thing."

Having grasped this lifeline, her heart settled down significantly.

"Speak," Yan Jing said softly.

The maid tentatively asked:

"Then, could you spare my..."

"If you don't speak, you'll lose that life right now."

Yan Jing's tone was icy.

Left with no choice, the maid spoke up, fully revealing the news that the Central Region was preparing to besiege the number one player on the leaderboard.

"There are no other secrets, really."

After the maid finished speaking, her heart pounded with apprehension.

She didn't know if this secret carried enough weight.

She only prayed it would be enough to keep her alive.

Yan Jing sighed:

"That's not a bad secret."

"I can give you a dignified death."

The maid's face instantly went deathly pale. She never expected that, even after all this, she still couldn't escape her fate.

"Or perhaps... you want to live?"

Yan Jing looked at her with a smile.

Staring at the smile on Yan Jing's face, the maid understood what it meant.

Thinking of what she had just gone through... her heart lurched. In an instant, those briefly forgotten agonizing memories rushed over her like a tidal wave, crushing her final pillar of support and washing away her last shred of spirit.

Even her desire to live vanished without a trace.

"Could you... give me a quick death?"

She looked at Yan Jing, a ghastly pale smile forming on her face.

Yan Jing nodded and raised his hand.

The maid instantly collapsed.

Yan Jing had used Faster Time once.

It served as his repayment for her spilling so much information and helping him test so many things.

One of his three chances.

It was quite extravagant.

Yan Jing ignored the corpse slowly losing its warmth on the ground and began murmuring to himself:

"So many geniuses coming just for me. I sure have a lot of face..."

As he spoke, he started to laugh.

If he didn't have other matters to handle right now, he would have definitely clashed with those guys personally.

"Better handle the urgent matters first."

A wisp of clear spring water materialized in Yan Jing's palm.

The water welled up from the lines on his palm, as if a spring had sprouted out of thin air.

"Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—"

The crystal-clear spring water gushed out. Every drop that hit the air instantly evaporated, diffusing into a milky-white mist.

That mist carried a dense life energy. Just a single breath could leave one feeling utterly refreshed. Lower-tier entities might even turn flush-faced and suffer bodily overload just by taking a few too many sniffs.

Yan Jing had used the woman as a test subject.

She could ingest a maximum of five drops.

If she exceeded that amount, her entire body would enter a near-explosive state, and her weird energy would wildly run out of control.

Source of Life.

This was also the important reward Yan Jing had received this time.

It was the reward granted to the number one player on the leaderboard.

According to Rabbit, all players who ever reached the top of the leaderboard had obtained this unique reward and used it as their own Ritual.

"This is the one."

Weird energy surged in Yan Jing's palm. Several illusory figures flew off into the distance, transforming into massive silhouettes.

If those geniuses could break through the defensive line he had set up, it would be just about time for him to step in.

Immediately after, he closed his eyes, and a great curtain appeared before his vision.

Land Before the Curtain.

He was back again.

According to what the Old Man from Within the Great Curtain had said before, he could now return anytime just by thinking of the great curtain.

A Tenth Tier Ritual didn't require coming to the Land Before the Curtain.

But Yan Jing came anyway.

Yan Jing looked at the slowly parting great curtain.

Even though he was mentally prepared, he still frowned at the sight before him.

Withered. That was Yan Jing's first impression.

The entire great curtain was decaying. The nine gigantic stars in the sky were now tottering, their surfaces covered in cracks, their surrounding starlight dim. The clouds had vanished, replaced by clumps of miasma and planetary fragments.

Beneath the sky, a long-dried river was now strewn with white bones. The surrounding forests had collapsed, trees jutting out at haphazard angles, while the houses below had long since been reduced to ruins.

Oceans, grasslands, wilderness—everything had turned to nothing.

The lighthouse in the sea was extinguished, its tower covered in moss and fissures. The opera house had gone dark, its once-glittering curtains coated in dust, leaving nothing but bones in the audience seats.

The peerless dynasty had marched toward annihilation, its massive armies now transformed into corpse-like terracotta warriors.

The entity on the throne now wore a gray robe that looked like a burial shroud.

Majestic stone statues were densely scattered everywhere—in the forests, in the rivers, and atop the high mountains.

Every single one of them had once been a vibrant, living being Within the Great Curtain.

Entities from a distant bygone era.

Yan Jing stared at the sight, his brow furrowed deeply.

Compared to the scene the woman had just described, this stretch of the great curtain looked like a place where true death had descended.

"You've come..."

The Old Man's voice rang out. Compared to before, it lacked much of its calculation and vitality.

In their place was a lingering sense of twilight.

Yan Jing followed the source of the voice and finally spotted the familiar figure in a corner.

It was still the same Old Man, dressed in his robes, but completely stripped of his immortal qi and life force.

If the Old Man had looked like an eighty- or ninety-year-old elder the last time they met, he now looked like a centenarian who couldn't even walk.

"It's been a while."

Yan Jing bowed slightly.

"I didn't expect you to return," the Old Man said.

"Why not?"

Yan Jing asked softly.

"I like the Land Before the Curtain. I have a lot of memories here."

"Heh heh."

As if hearing the greatest joke in the world, the Old Man began to laugh uproariously:

"How ridiculous... cough, cough, cough..."

The Old Man coughed violently for a spell, then fixed a dark gaze on Yan Jing and spoke slowly:

"If you like this place, why did you take the great curtain's origin from here?"

"Great curtain origin." Hearing this, Yan Jing knew exactly what the Old Man meant.

He smiled.

"I didn't take it. The great curtain gave it to me."

"You shouldn't be asking me. You should ask the great curtain."

"I did ask!!!"

The Old Man suddenly became incredibly agitated:

"But it won't answer! It doesn't have to answer anything!!!"

"I've sacrificed so much here! Yet it won't say a thing!!!"

"Do you know how long I've been here? Millennia!!! Full millennia!!!"

"Back then, I sold my pride, my dignity, just to gain a tiny fraction of power from it. All so I could wait for Advent Day, walk out of the great curtain, and show them the power of us old geezers!!!"

"But what did it do? Huh?!"

"What did it give me?!! The moment it saw you, it acted like a dog spotting shit!!! It threw me aside!! Why?! Tell me! Why?!!"

"Ah?! Speak!!!"

The Old Man lunged toward the great curtain. By some unknown method, his face expanded to occupy a third of the curtain. That face, which already looked no different from a wrinkled chrysanthemum, now appeared countless times uglier than before.

"Ahem..."

Yan Jing cleared his throat:

"First of all, I'd like to correct a certain notion of yours."

"If I'm shit, then you're an existence even worse than shit."

"Secondly, I really don't know why the great curtain came to me. If I had to say, maybe... well, I'm just stronger?"

"..."

The Old Man stared blankly at Yan Jing. He never expected the other party to give such a...

Such a shameless answer!!!

"Get out of here!!"

He snarled coldly:

"I admit, I tried to plot against you before. But now you've taken the origin, and I've borne the cost. I have nothing left to say to you. Piss off!!"

"Cough, cough, cough..." Yan Jing cleared his throat again:

"You're treating me like an outsider by saying that. I think, strictly speaking, we're actually friends."

"Friends?" The Old Man offered a mocking smile.

"You're even more shameless than I thought."

"Spit it out. What exactly is your goal?"

"Well..." Yan Jing blinked, then smiled:

"I actually didn't get all of the great curtain's origin. It seems I only have a portion of it right now..."

Yan Jing smiled bashfully, while the Old Man's cloudy eyes widened like brass bells:

"Damn it... you're even more shameless than the shameless I just thought you were..."

Then, he sneered:

"Do you think just because you took a portion last time, you can take the rest now?!"

"Ridiculous."

"The great curtain origin is with two old friends of mine. Go take it if you have the guts."

Finished speaking, the Old Man sneered. Compared to himself, those two old friends of his had absolutely terrible tempers.

Even if they couldn't beat this arrogant brat who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth, they would definitely give him a run for his money.

"Take it yourself if you can," the Old Man sneered.

"Didn't you say you didn't snatch it last time, that the great curtain was naturally drawn to you? Attract it again if you've got the skills!"

"Come on! Attract it and show me!! Let me see how your talent has been doing lately!"

The more the Old Man spoke, the more fired up he got, ultimately just plopping his butt onto the ground:

"Let me see what else you've managed to get your hands on recently, for you to dare be so arrogant!!!!"