IWYTBW - Chapter 40

 Chapter 40

Classic Jokes Never Go Out of Style.

“Rong…”

Yi Zhen’s eyes widened. Everything happened too fast. He only managed to spit out that single syllable before a deafening explosion rocked his ears, and then blinding light assaulted his vision again.

Gaia lay slumped by the window. The pure gold astrolabe was shattered, crystalline fragments scattered across the floor like fallen stars. A pure black domain held up the entire dome, thick black mist swirling within, grappling with the pervasive starlight – like two dragons, one black, one white, locked in a mortal combat.

Rong Hongxue stood amidst the chaos, clad entirely in black. Aside from his high-collared combat suit, even his fingers were concealed within black leather gloves. His spotless boots rested squarely on the fifth element—Aether—in the carpet’s intricate totem.

His back was to Yi Zhen, facing the downed Gaia. From behind, Yi Zhen saw a figure tall and imposing, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, a silhouette that seemed to swallow half the light in the room.

“You…” Yi Zhen was genuinely shocked. Three seconds ago, he was still strategizing how to navigate this precarious situation and conceal his identity. Three seconds later, an explosion, Rong Hongxue’s grand entrance, and without a word, the man had laid out an octogenarian, leaving him sprawled on the floor, his life or death uncertain.

Was “This is just like you” the more appropriate response, or “Are you insane, dude!?”? Yi Zhen was momentarily at a loss.

Rong Hongxue turned, lowering his head to look directly into Yi Zhen’s eyes.

Their gazes locked, and Yi Zhen felt a strange jolt.

How much could change in two months?

They both knew. The passing days had transformed Yi Zhen, and Rong Hongxue’s mindset had also subtly shifted. It was unlikely he could bring himself to nearly crush Yi Zhen to a pulp, as he had done two months prior.

When one person develops superfluous feelings for another—be it curiosity, surprise, or intrigued fascination—regardless of whether it’s love or not, killing them becomes exponentially more difficult.

Rong Hongxue’s emerald eyes bore into him, his thoughts unreadable.

There were more pressing matters at hand. Yi Zhen decided to shelve the rest for now. “Did you kill him?”

If it were anyone else, Yi Zhen wouldn’t have asked such a seemingly stupid question. But standing before him was Rong Hongxue, a man Yi Zhen feared might even dare to kill a Grand Miracle Worker.

“Why would you meet him privately?” Rong Hongxue asked quietly. “This old man has been mad for six years. You actually dared to come up here alone?”

Yi Zhen didn’t know how much of Gaia’s previous words Rong Hongxue had overheard. He knew in his heart that Gaia’s sudden outburst was purely coincidental, an unexpected emergency even for Azoth University.

“He’s not mad. I had an invitation.” He said succinctly. “You beat him like this, how are we going to clean this up?”

Rong Hongxue replied, “He’s not dead.”

Yi Zhen: “...”

“Don’t you know anything about respecting the elderly and caring for the young… Ugh, forget it.” Yi Zhen stopped himself. The damage was done; further words were useless. “Half an hour ago, Li Zeyu left the Academic Tower. What if he finds out?”

Rong Hongxue said, “You think I’m afraid of him?”

He looked up, glancing at the battle raging on the ceiling. The corners of his lips curled into a smile Yi Zhen knew all too well—that amiable, gentle smile that simultaneously concealed arrogance and malice. “Besides, respecting the elderly? Xiao Zhen, are you mistaken about something?”

He pointed upwards. “Do you think that’s lighting? Wrong. That’s his Mental Power, out of control and beyond recovery. This loss of control has lasted for six years.”

Yi Zhen was startled. “What?”

As one of the few Grand Miracle Workers in the world and a descendant of Meruha, Gaia rightfully held the privilege of using and residing on the top floor of the Academic Tower. Now, Rong Hongxue was telling him that the immense radiance illuminating the tower’s apex was Gaia’s Mental Body, and that it had been dissipating for six long years.

Then how powerful was Gaia when he was sane?

As if sensing his thoughts, Rong Hongxue said casually, “In his prime, his Mental Body could fight me to a standstill.”

“So what do we do now?” Yi Zhen rubbed his temples, wanting to check on Gaia, but the battle above hadn’t ended, and he couldn’t act rashly. “He’s an old man, after all. You knocked him unconscious… When he wakes up, won’t everything remain unresolved?”

“I can modify his memories,” Rong Hongxue said. “With my strength and his current state, I could do it completely. How about it? Do you want me to do that?”

Yi Zhen remained unmoved. “There’s no such thing as a free lunch. What’s your condition?”

Rong Hongxue chuckled. “So straightforward, Xiao Zhen. I abandoned my fleet and came back from the Crimson Cloak Galaxy to find you. And the moment we meet, I solved this old madman problem for you... Even so, can’t you be a little nicer to me?”

He sighed. “If that’s the case, I’ll just go ahead and make my demands.”

Yi Zhen stared at him with dead fish eyes, thinking, Go ahead and ask. If you dare to ask for anything shameless or indecent, I dare to fight you right here. I don’t care if I can win, I don’t care if this is Azoth University. I’ll risk it all, drag the emperor off his horse. If the commotion’s big enough to attract the whole school’s attention, I’ll dump all the blame on you. Let’s see how thick your skull really is.

“Remove me from your blacklist,” Rong Hongxue said with a grin.

Yi Zhen: “?”

Rong Hongxue scrutinized his face with amusement. “So rare. You seldom show me this expression.”

Without another word, Yi Zhen activated his optical brain and removed Rong Hongxue from his blacklist.

“Don’t hurt him. No matter how strong he was, he’s old now,” Yi Zhen murmured. “Just make him… forget what happened today.”

Rong Hongxue didn’t reply. He looked at Gaia. The Grand Alchemist was slowly regaining consciousness, still stubbornly reaching out a withered hand towards Yi Zhen, struggling to speak. “Tell… tell me…”

“Why be so stubborn?” Rong Hongxue crouched down, meeting the Grand Miracle Worker’s blue eyes. “The truth is a cruel thing. Before you see it, you can decorate your life however you want. After you see it, whether you accept it or not, it’s there, bloody and raw, and it doesn’t care whether you like it or not.”

His finger touched the old man’s forehead. Gaia immediately understood what he was about to do and strained to utter a few words: “Stop! Great Dark Sky... you are... obstructing the world’s secrets... this era... will stagnate for decades because of your... shielding actions...”

“I’m truly sorry about that,” Rong Hongxue lowered his voice to a level Yi Zhen could barely hear. He gazed at the aged Grand Miracle Worker, slowly spreading his lips into a smile. “The world, the era, the well-being of all mankind… Such expensive things. To exchange them for getting myself off a blacklist, I think it’s more than worth it. What do you think?”

“You!”

The light at the top of the tower seemed to distort for a moment. The battle was decided; the white dragon, exhausted, dissipated, scattering starlight across the sky.

Gaia’s eyes bulged. Before he could even spit a mouthful of blood onto Rong Hongxue’s face, he fainted.

After about three minutes, Rong Hongxue stood up and used his Mental Power to levitate Gaia onto a nearby resting couch.

“Done,” he said to Yi Zhen. “There’s no surveillance here, no recording devices were activated. He’ll only remember meeting you today, having a bland and forgettable conversation, so unremarkable that forgetting its contents wouldn’t be a loss. As for that…”

His gaze shifted to the shattered astrolabe. “He blew it up during an experiment. Any other questions?”

“...No more questions. Thank you for this,” Yi Zhen said. Crazy or not, this man was undeniably efficient. “I should go now.”

“You go your way,” Rong Hongxue said. “You return the way you came, and I’ll return the way I came. We’ll talk about the rest when we get home.”

Yi Zhen couldn’t be bothered to argue with him here. He waved his hand and turned to leave through the main door.

Main Quest: Preaching has Failed

Quest Rewards:

None

Remaining Skill Points: 0

[Player, the mission failed.]

“...I know.”

[Since it’s your first time, we won’t deduct any rewards. Please be careful next time.]

Yi Zhen gave a weak laugh. “Your system is really… casual.”

Ji Qing was still waiting below the Academic Tower. As the intermediary who invited Yi Zhen, he was obligated to ensure his safe arrival and departure.

“How was it?” Seeing Yi Zhen emerge with a slightly weary expression, Ji Qing was curious. “Did you meet him? I heard some commotion up in the tower just now, but no alarms went off and the guards didn’t move, so I didn’t go up to check.”

Guards? There were actually guards? Well, yes, such a precious Grand Miracle Worker would naturally have guards…

Yi Zhen glanced around. The vast maple forest was silent. Within his range of perception, both with his internal energy and Mental Power, he detected nothing but Ji Qing.

Rong Hongxue, you’ve got skills.

Yi Zhen rubbed his face, saying tiredly, “It was… a very ordinary Q&A. Professor Gaia seemed rather dissatisfied; it seems I didn’t offer him anything novel or interesting. Then he did an experiment to demonstrate something for me, and ended up blowing up the lab… That’s it.”

“Then about the reward...” Ji Qing was taken aback by his response.

With the first mission a failure, and Rong Hongxue having practically drop kicked the quest target, Yi Zhen was in no mood to loot the university’s private vault. He shook his head listlessly. “Forget it. I was joking about the reward; you don’t have to take it seriously. Being able to visit Azoth University is reward enough.”

It sounded reasonable enough, and Ji Qing felt somewhat embarrassed. In his view, 99.9% of the world would be ecstatic to receive a summons from Gaia Dawn. The remaining 0.1% would be indifferent, their reactions subdued.

Yi Zhen belonged to that 0.1%. He had only come out of obligation to Ji Qing—it could even be considered moral coercion. After all, the arena was a place of life and death. Before participating in the preliminaries, they had all signed waivers. The examiners only guaranteed their safety within the arena. If they were critically injured and died outside of it, it had nothing to do with the officials or their opponents.

Of course, he didn’t know about the “system missions” and “mission rewards,” the primary driving forces behind Yi Zhen’s visit.

A rare look of shame flickered across his handsome, sharply defined, and roguishly arrogant face.

Yi Zhen, oblivious to Ji Qing’s inner turmoil, sighed, gazing at the lingering sunset glow that painted the distant mountains. Birds chirped, and fallen leaves blazed like a golden fire, melting into a thick carpet on the ground. He felt such tranquil beauty was wasted.

This should have been prime study time... If he had stayed in the training room today, he would have learned the Antidote chapter of the Book of Poisons, the Silk Thread Mechanism Technique in Mechanical Arts, and further honed his Laurel Twelve Fingers and Illusory Body of Mo Luo.

The more he thought about it, the less he could stand it. He said to Ji Qing, “I don’t think the professor will want to see me again. I’ll head back now. Time waits for no one… I still have to prepare for the preliminaries.”

Ji Qing quickly asked, “Do you have a ride?”

Yi Zhen was unsure. “I should… have one, right?”

Given Rong Hongxue’s past behavior, he might have already arranged a motorcade to wait for him at the university gate. But this was just speculation. Yi Zhen never liked to guess Rong Hongxue’s next move. Trying to understand a madman with a normal person’s logic? He had better things to do.

Ji Qing said, “I’ll go with you to see.”

They boarded the campus shuttle, passing by Azoth University’s twilight fountain. Mist filled the air, and the windows reflected the rainbow hues of the setting sun. Both inside and outside the campus bustled with activity, students coming and going, traffic flowing. Occasionally, someone would stride across the street piloting a small mecha of varying design. Yi Zhen looked around but found no vehicle that resembled one sent by the Rong family.

“Looks like there isn’t one,” he breathed a sigh of relief. Compared to being chauffeured, he preferred being alone. He could chat freely with Tai’a about things others couldn’t hear, and let his mind wander freely. “Then I’ll just go by myself...”

“What’s that thing?” Ji Qing’s gaze drifted past him. “A… a bus? There’s no bus stop at the university gate.”

Yi Zhen looked up. A bus, its chassis emitting the blue glow of magnetic levitation particles, was heading towards them.

It had no route display, no stop announcements. Its brand-new exterior was painted in a shimmering black. Calling it a bus felt wrong, but he had never seen a private vehicle with such a double-decker rectangular structure.

The vehicle slowed, gently floating closer. A sense of foreboding rose in Yi Zhen’s heart.

Students, always playful and boisterous, gathered around the unusual vehicle, giggling and chattering. Among the crowd, a clear female voice called out, “Driver, going to the Central District?”

Her companions laughed. The bus stopped softly a short distance from Yi Zhen. The door opened, and the driver said seriously, “I’m sorry, miss! This is a private vehicle.”

Yi Zhen turned and ran.

There was a very old joke on Earth. What was a poor person’s dream? To become rich, buy a bus, drive only in the bus lane, stop only at bus stops, and when someone wanted to get on, say: “Sorry, this is a private vehicle.”

A joke was a joke, meant for amusement. But what if it happened in real life?

He had to run. If he didn’t, he would become the joke.

However, the driver’s eyes were sharper than his. He called out loudly, “Mr. Yi, hurry up and get on!”

Surrounded by stares, Yi Zhen froze like a scarecrow riddled with arrows.

Ji Qing remarked thoughtfully, “Wow, that’s… impressive.”

Yi Zhen: “……………”

Impressive my ass!!

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