The hand hanging at Ye Tianxie’s side rose quietly and came to rest on Su Feifei’s back, holding her gently. In that moment, what moved inside him moved for Su Feifei alone.
His heart plainly had no room in it for anyone but Xian’er, and never could have — so why was it that after nothing more than a first meeting he had felt an inexplicable urge to protect her… When she threw one of her little tantrums he was never angry in the slightest; he found himself enjoying the look on her face at those moments, and seeing her laugh lifted his mood for no reason he could name… Why should hearing that grieving tremor in her voice make his heart hurt all of a sudden?
In some unseen way, was there really such a thing as that strange “affinity” between people…
In this moment I’m certain of it… I don’t want to make her sad. Not ever. Not once. But…
Xian’er, what am I supposed to do…
The two of them held each other tightly, feeling in silence for the other’s warmth and heartbeat. From that moment on, the relationship between them shifted subtly once again.
Some ties, once formed, can never be severed — not by any length of time, not by any distance.
A hundred years…
A thousand years…
Ten thousand years…
Even if the waiting had to be measured out in eternity, even if following you cost me a life and a soul…
I would still want to see you one more time…
He switched on his computer and went into the World of Fate‘s world forum, and found himself laughing in embarrassment… because at a glance, almost every thread on the board was about him. About Xietian.
And yet the focus of the discussion, unexpectedly, was not his solo completion of the Huaxia battle region’s Mercenary System quest that day. It was the thirty-odd Battle Soul Hall members he had wiped out in the City of Stars earlier, for Shattered Star-Heart’s sake. A good many of the people present had recorded the fight, and the footage had gone up on the world forum and set off an uproar. His startling movement technique, his positioning and his agility were beside the point; it was his utterly terrifying attack power that left players across the world slack-jawed.
Put that together with everything else rumored about him… clearing the Abyss trial alone; shooting from outside the top thousand to first place within a few short hours of the Level Ranking’s first publication; a Renown value on the rankings that had reached a frankly appalling 1,800…
The same World of Fate, the same starting line as everyone else — so how could he possibly have reached a level like that?!
One idea took root in the mind of nearly everyone following the matter: that Xietian of the Huaxia battle region had gotten hold of certain bugs in the World of Fate, and had used them to push his own strength far past that of an ordinary player.
Once that idea surfaced, the chain reaction it set off grew stronger and stronger. The strongest reactions came, naturally, from the countries that had never much liked the look of Huaxia. Xietian’s strength had already thrown them into extreme shock and left them badly unbalanced, and today’s Battle Region Honor Ranking, with Huaxia alone on it, had stung them viciously… and so countless people set about finding some way to snap off this cold blade Huaxia had thrust out ahead of everyone.
They lodged a formal complaint with Skyward Group. When what had begun as one country’s complaint became a joint complaint from more than twenty, the outcome became something the whole world was watching.
And less than twenty minutes after it was filed, Skyward Group answered. No — the answer did not come from Skyward Group. It came from the man who had developed Fate alongside the late Prometheus — its principal developer, now rumored to have returned to his own star system: Alpha.
“The World of Fate is an independent and complete world. This world possesses a life of its own, and therefore it does not contain what you call bugs, in the way the virtual games that existed previously on your Earth did; nor will we permit any such thing to exist. Xietian of the Huaxia battle region walks a road of fate that belongs to him and to no one else. Everything he has, he has won by his own strength and his own luck, without a single shortcut taken anywhere along the way. Rather than envying him, you would do better to use your own hands, your own minds and your own hearts to strive, to search, and to seek out a more wonderful road of fate for yourselves.”
And Alpha’s closing line was delivered with no politeness whatsoever: “I will not explain a second time. Fate looks kindly on those who believe in it… Those who do not believe are free to leave.”
After that response of Alpha’s appeared, no one raised the matter of an appeal again. As for that last line of his… had the operator of any previous virtual game issued a statement like it, the players would inevitably have been enraged, and would have banded together to boycott the game in question — because to a virtual game, the players are its god. But when Fate‘s peak concurrent player count had broken the terrifying figure of four billion in under two weeks, it had already stopped being a simple virtual online game. If anyone now genuinely tried to rally a boycott of Fate over the “Xietian Bug” theory in order to put pressure on Skyward Group, the act would be equivalent in kind to asking every person on earth to stop using their phone.
And because the affair was put to rest that quickly, the pressure Xietian brought to bear on other battle regions and their players grew heavier by several degrees. The talk about him swelled louder and louder, and the assorted rumors and back-channel gossip grew more and more fantastical.
Having finished the milk tea Su Feifei had blended specially for him, Ye Tianxie kicked the computer’s power cable loose with a casual foot, tipped his head back and closed his eyes, and lay back at an angle in the chair, thinking over everything he had run into since entering the World of Fate. The Hour of Fate and Guoguo had given him a real sense of how strange that world was, and for some time now he had in fact been deliberately searching along that line — and one after another, things that ought not to have appeared had appeared around him. From the Rebel-Boned Evil Dragon class, to the Seven-Colored Bracelet, to the Heaven-Severing scroll he had only just obtained, Divine Gift. The appearance of these things had plainly shattered the balance of a normal virtual game world outright.
And if a virtual game lost that most basic balance, what was the most immediate consequence? Beyond question, a virtual game like that would have little prospect of lasting. But Fate was another matter entirely — and what weighed on Ye Tianxie most was this: if he could run into things that should not exist, then what about everyone else?
Other players in the same country, and the peak powers of the other countries?
There would certainly be others who had run into them too. Of that he was certain.
He spent the whole of that afternoon quietly turning over the things he had no choice but to think about.
Noon the next day, after lunch.
North of the City of Stars: Wuhua Temple.
Exactly as on his first visit — and again to his surprise — there were no other players about, and only one monk inside the building. But it was not the Monk Wuhua who had teleported him to the Heaven Soul Graveyard the day before — it was a different old monk, one who looked benevolent and kindly.
The old monk looked to be eighty at the very least. He had gone bald naturally, and the wrinkles on his face could stand comparison with thousand-year-old tree bark. Seeing Ye Tianxie come in, his expression did not change; he pressed his palms together and intoned calmly, “Benefactor, have you come to undertake a trial?”
“Yes. If you would be so good as to teleport me to the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins.” Ye Tianxie answered politely enough, letting his eyes travel around the room a couple of times as he did… The place was empty. There was indeed no sign of yesterday’s Monk Wuhua.
Yesterday, standing outside the temple grounds, when that chanting had reached his ears — a sutra drawn out syllable by syllable that had turned out to be, word for word, the chorus of a popular breakup ballad about a lover who had been the one to want to leave — he had very nearly lost the nerve to go in at all.
“The Ten Thousand Bone Ruins… Amitabha. That is a terrible place, and a holy one. Terrible, because bones beyond counting lie heaped there. Holy, because those buried there are the bones of heroes. The illustrious War God, Zhan Wugui, was laid to rest in that very place… Only, though the heroes died, their departed spirits did not fall. They guard that ground still. And so, for all the years that have passed since, the War God’s bones have never been brought home to the land of his birth… Brave young man from another world, I hope this journey of yours may fulfill the long-cherished wish of countless children of the Lost Continent.” The old monk spoke in detail, and in earnest.
“Right.” Ye Tianxie fought down the impatience threatening to show on his face and answered with great sincerity.
“Then — are you alone?” The old monk pressed his palms together.
“Yes. If you would send me there.” Ye Tianxie said.
“Amitabha. This old monk has today already sent three hundred and seventy-two valiant parties to that place, and you are the first willing to go there alone… This old monk may disclose to you that the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins have opened seven times so far, and that today holds one last opportunity for them to open. And the valiant parties waiting there number three hundred and forty-three still. Knowing this, do you still wish to go?” the old monk cautioned. Of the three System Quest maps, each could be opened a maximum of eight times a day; past eight it closed for the remainder of the day.
“Yes. Send me across. And thank you for telling me… I haven’t yet asked how I should address you, Master?” Ye Tianxie answered offhandedly — while inside him, a cloud of doubt was rising all at once.
It was already close to two in the afternoon, which meant fourteen hours of the day had gone by… and in fourteen hours fewer than seven parties had finished. Which was to say that from entering the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins to leaving them, a party was averaging something like two hours.
Two hours?!
Set against the difficulty of the Heaven Soul Graveyard quest, at the levels players had reached so far, holding out for two hours was flatly impossible.
Was the “Bones of the War God” quest simply easier? Or was there some other trick to it? Completing “Relic of the Mercenary King” had been worth 100 Battle Region Honor Value, and “Bones of the War God” was worth 150 — and by that measure, “Bones of the War God” ought to be the harder of the two.
“Amitabha. The benefactor is too courteous. This old monk’s dharma name is… Whoremonger.” The old monk pressed his palms together and said it mildly.
Ye Tianxie: “！@#￥%……&×”
“Then — Master Whore… Master Whoremonger, if you would be so good as to send me to the Ten Thousand Bone Ruins now.”
“Very well. Benefactor, please stand steady.”
As the old monk finished speaking, two shafts of white light came down out of the sky exactly as they had the day before, covered Ye Tianxie’s body, and carried him away from the City of Stars.
The old monk’s expression did not change. He sat down quietly, his manner settled and still, with a touch of the stiffly old-fashioned inside all that solemnity; anyone who looked at him would have thought of four words — an eminent enlightened monk. His aged eyes closed, he tapped lightly at the wooden fish, murmuring under his breath, and to the rhythm of its beat he intoned a scripture of great profundity, drawing each syllable out at length: the refrain of a chart pop hit in which the singer insists she is not a certain celebrated heroine of martial-arts fiction, and knows no martial arts at all.
(End of Chapter 182)