On Monday, he left at 5:30 AM and returned ho at midnight. On Tuesday, he left at 6:00 AM and returned at 11:40 PM. On Wednesday, after going ho to take a shower and use the bathroom, this bastard was already outside the factory at 4:30 AM, banging on the door and urging Ye Chun to wake up.
Then ca Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. This guy had no idea what “taking a day off” even ant. He was completely trampling all over labor laws.
The middle-aged man on surveillance duty stared with bloodshot eyes through his binoculars, looking at the quiet factory in the distance as his mind raced with thoughts of how to report the young student to the authorities.
Are you even human?!
At first, he thought young people just had high energy and liked to push themselves. Once they got used to working, they would realize how tough life as a wage slave was and naturally start slacking off.
But this bastard just lugged his bedding straight into the workshop and moved in by the second week. He wasn’t even leaving the place anymore! Qi Qin hadn’t gotten a glimpse of Ji Jue’s face since then.
Wait, bro, what’s in there? A mountain of gold and silver? Or beautiful won and androgynous beauties? Why do you love working so much?!
If the owner of this entire industrial zone weren’t Ye Xian, a grandmaster no one in Cliff City dared to provoke, the middle-aged man would have already rushed in and slapped Ji Jue twice across the face and yelled, Wake up, idiot! Go the hell outside and touch grass! Even if you don't flirt with Wen Wen, at least let see if the Fate Summoning really chose you, damn it!
It wasn’t just the surveillance man; even Ye Chun was about to cry. Actually, she had already started crying. After discovering she had developed dark circles from several consecutive nights of staying up, Ye Chun couldn’t stop her tears.
“Bro, Ji Jue, I’ll treat you like you’re the boss instead, alright? Please have rcy on . Here’s the key. If you want to go anywhere or take anything, just do it yourself, okay? Don’t drag into your grind. I can’t compete with a monster like you! If you can, just go out, date soone! If you can’t find anyone, I can introduce so junior girls to you...”
“Excuse ?!” Ji Jue exploded in anger. “We should be working and improving together! How can you be so lazy? Have you forgotten the earnest instructions Professor Ye left us with? Do you really want Professor Ye to co back and find that the only thing you’ve gained is weight, while your thesis hasn’t progressed at all?”
Ye Chun was itching to punch him.
Could you tone it down a bit?!
She finally understood why her aunt had assigned no howork before leaving this ti. The mont she allowed this workaholic into Ye Chun’s den, she was dood to be dragged into his grind.
“Exactly how many days have you gone without showering, bro?” She stared at Ji Jue, whose beard was unkempt, eyes bloodshot, hair clumped together, body weak and listless, and imdiately felt like calling the police. “If you’re going to work yourself to death, can you at the very least not die in my workshop?”
“Shower? Sleep? Dating?” Ji Jue widened his eyes. His face was pale, but his grin only grew more excited. “I love studying, alright? I love alchemy! The workshop is my ho!”
Boom!
Inside the furnace, the broken blade let out a resonant, ringing sound, like the roar of a thousand soldiers rising from blood and fire. Within it, a towering throne woven in crimson and pale white erged from the spirit matter.
Thus, amid Ji Jue’s sinister, cackling laughter, the fourth totem after Ascension, Entropy, and Ruins, governing calamity, conflict, disharmony, and slaughter, was complete. It was the Supre Benevolence, Swarm!
“Hahaha, hahaha...” Looking at his wristwatch, now one-third complete, Ji Jue laughed boisterously with his hands on his hips while throwing his head back. “This is the value of a professional workaholic, do you understand?!
Had heaven not let be,
The workaholic’s grind would never cease.
Endless nights stretch far and wide,
An eternal toil, with no reprieve.
Let’s grind!”
Amid his insane laughter, his vision gradually darkened, and his voice grew weaker and weaker before he eventually collapsed on his back.
After crunching on a few more potato chips, Ye Chun sighed.
“I knew it. A workaholic like you was bound to grind yourself to death one day. It's hopeless, you’re cooked. Ti to call for cremation. I’ll arrange the grandest funeral and have five people cry at your grave, then scatter your ashes into Tiann Lake, and tell every new junior that this is what happens when you’re a workaholic.”
Muttering to herself, Ye Chun took out a sealed bottle from the cabinet, used a dropper to carefully extract one milliliter, diluted it with three hundred milliliters of clean water, and then poured the orange-red liquid into Ji Jue’s mouth.
His pale face regained a hint of color, and his eyelids twitched.
Ji Jue slowly opened his eyes and looked at Ye Chun’s helpless expression. His mory was still stuck a few minutes earlier, and he had no idea what had just happened.
“This is a side effect of long-term spirit matter depletion. Occasional loss of consciousness and energy collapse are just early symptoms. If you don’t rest soon, in the future I’ll be able to take the juniors to the ntal hospital to visit you and see what you look like acting like a monkey.” Ye Chun pinched his face without rcy, kneading it at will. “Go. To. Sleep. Got it?”
Ji Jue actually wanted to say he could still grind a bit more, but when he saw Ye Chun’s sharp gaze, which was identical to Professor Ye’s, he swallowed and nodded vigorously.
“Fine, fine. I love resting the most!”
He felt anxious, as if he had thorns stuck in his back. He hadn’t learned anything good from Professor Ye, and instead only picked up bad habits!
Reluctant to leave, Ji Jue kept looking back every few steps as he hoisted his bag, grumbling to himself. After five days, he finally left the workshop and went ho to wash up and sleep.
In a place far, far away, a man keeping watch lay inside the car. With a faint breath, he looked up briefly before turning his gaze away again.
Damn it... I’m tired. I give up on everything.
The elderly voice on the phone was cold and emotionless. “After all this ti, you still haven’t found a single clue? What the hell are you doing? Do you even realize how urgently they’re pushing us? It’s been so long, and you haven’t achieved anything. You can’t even keep an eye on a single boy. Maybe you should consider switching employers.”
The middle-aged man was sweating profusely. “Wait, wait, boss, I’ve already got sothing. I’ve made contact with Nightmare. Once that kid shows himself, I’ll even dig up how many tis he looked at that Wen girl by tomorrow the latest!”
“That’s more like it! Otherwise, you’ll have to explain things to them yourself!” Impatient, Jiang Jin ended the call.
Left alone in the van, the middle-aged man, sweating and unable to even turn on the air conditioning to save fuel, hesitated for a long while before finally dialing another number.
“The boss doesn’t want to wait anymore,” he said. “You need to co in.”
“Should’ve said that earlier. Why drag this out for so long?” the voice on the other end mocked. “He’s just so stupid kid. You’ve been so cautious watching him all this ti that you didn’t even dare to plant a bug. What could you possibly achieve?”
“He might be a Chosen One. What if he is? Better to be careful.” The middle-aged man looked up at the distant silhouette that had just disappeared, and for so reason, a chill ran through him. “You should be careful, too. That kid is definitely not normal. There’s sothing... wrong about him.”
Nightmare sneered. “Alright, alright. Just send the money first. I can dig out what you want. But if he ends up with a ntal disability after my intervention, don’t bla . You know my style. It’s a bit... rough.”
“Don’t leave any traces or loose ends. Got it?” The middle-aged man gave one last warning. “The boss doesn’t tolerate mistakes. If anything goes wrong—”
“Relax. It won’t co back to bite you. I’m heading to the Empire tomorrow. No matter how capable the Security Bureau is, can they grow wings and chase all the way to Rhine Harbor?” A strange smile crept onto Nightmare’s face. “Didn’t expect I’d get to have so fun before leaving.”
After the call ended, the middle-aged man sat in silence while smoking, saying nothing more. He suddenly began to consider retirent.
But after all these years, working under that Jiang guy and doing so many shady things... Would he even have the luck to make it to retirent? Without Jiang’s protection, his corpse could already be floating out at sea by this ti tomorrow. Retirent was a fleeting dream.
In the afternoon sunlight, he looked at his own scruffy, half-alive reflection in the rearview mirror and suddenly found himself envying the figure riding off on the scooter while humming a tune. No matter how ignorant or foolish that person seed, at least he was still untainted by corruption...
***
On the other end of the hung-up call, lodious music and announcents played through the broadcast system.
At the customs entrance, the man known as Nightmare hung up the phone and walked forward at an unhurried pace, passing through security and verification before entering the first-class lounge.
“Sir, please enjoy so tea.” A service attendant served the tea with a bright smile, inexplicably feeling a sense of goodwill toward this unfamiliar passenger.
“Thank you.” Nightmare set down his briefcase. He looked like an ordinary business traveler, leaning back on the sofa in the private lounge with a faint air of fatigue. “I’ll rest for a bit. Please don’t let anyone disturb , alright?”
“Yes, sir.” The attendant stepped back and gently closed the door for him.
Thus, in the silence, only the man remained, along with the curling steam rising from the teacup. Outside the massive floor-to-ceiling window was the busy scene of the airport apron. Airships, towering like buildings, took off and landed, traversing the skies in all directions.
He wasn’t leaving for the Empire tomorrow. He was leaving tonight. And not to the Empire, but to the island clusters beyond Central Lands. Just as his employer’s subordinate had told him, safety first. No one knew whether those people might try to silence him with this final job, since he knew too much. One had to always have a backup plan.
After so many years in Haizhou, he had already saved a substantial amount in a bank account under a naless identity. It was enough for him to buy a mountain and a fishery, hire a few workers, and live comfortably fishing and surfing until old age.
This temporary job he had taken was rely to upgrade the equipnt of his future yacht. Should he add a karaoke system? He wasn’t that fond of singing, but the girls of the islands were said to have very enchanting voices...
Lost in scattered thoughts, he held his teacup and took out the docunts that had already been handed to him earlier. Looking at the photos and records inside, he couldn’t help but sigh in regret.
He had originally thought he would catch a big fish, a Chosen One, and sell him for a hefty sum. But in the end, it was just so clueless brat, a cursed individual with a probability of corruption several dozen tis higher than normal. That old man Jiang Jin was either senile or just desperate and grasping at straws.
But that had nothing to do with Nightmare. At the very least, he could still enjoy himself thanks to this job.
As a long-lost sense of thirst creeped in, he leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and his breathing gradually steadied. Soon, he drifted into a deep sleep.
Before his eyes fully closed, the strange, sinister light within his pupils had already faded away. Only an empty shell remained. The Dream-Eating Tapirus departed from the dream and headed toward a new playground.
anwhile, Ji Jue, who had just returned ho and taken a shower, couldn’t help but yawn. The drowsiness that had still been within its limits surged like a rising tide, so much so that he didn’t even have ti to fully dry himself before crashing.
“Wait, sothing feels... off—”
He staggered forward a couple of steps, half his body falling onto the bed. Before he could even climb up properly, he fell into a deep sleep.
Snoring followed. Due to long-term spirit matter depletion and weakness, his ability didn’t even have ti to react. Before he realized what was happening, he had already fallen into the dream woven by the Dream-Eating Tapirus. He was completely defenseless.
And then, within the void, an endless nightmare surged forth, enveloping him whole.
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