Zhu Xi Ning, on the other hand, was paying close attention. She clicked her tongue twice. "Old Jiang’s influence is really something. The top five trending posts on the forums are all about our team."
A rising dark horse might not necessarily draw that much attention, but a newly emerging team that could attract a top-tier powerhouse meant the team was absolutely not to be underestimated.
"Get ready."
Nan Yue spoke indistinctly while chewing on boba pearls. "Someone might come to challenge us."
Gu Xiang Kai squeezed his fists. "It’s been a while since I’ve been in a fight."
Zhu Xi Ning burst out laughing, and the slightly tense atmosphere softened a bit.
Nan Yue’s gaze swept over Wen Xiang Yuan’s greyed-out name, and her heart sank slightly.
...
Meanwhile, on the 108th floor of the Sharp Blade building, a man wearing gold-rimmed glasses who looked exceptionally refined and seemingly easy to get along with at first glance raised his coffee cup, raising an eyebrow in surprise.
"Nan Yue?"
"Yes, she’s the newcomer scavenger who recently entered the Top Rankings that you asked us to keep an eye on."
He Jiu Chen recalled her. He also possessed information on Nan Yue, even knowing a bit more than others.
He had known for a long time that the man who had recently joined Nan Yue’s team was Bai Yao.
"She went to see Fu Xi Ming? How long did they talk?"
The man opposite him was tall and sturdy, built like a mountain. "Two hours."
He Jiu Chen set down his coffee cup with a cold expression. "She certainly has nerve."
"I thought no one else was that bold besides Sister Nian and Fu Xi Ming."
The mountain-like man hesitated. "This Nan Yue might not necessarily have gone to Minister Fu to talk about the pollution."
He Jiu Chen smiled. His skin was very pale, but his lip color was deep, and his eyes were a faint grey. By any standard, he was a very handsome young man.
What was even rarer was that despite his beauty, he did not appear effeminate.
"Mang Shan, you still don’t understand Fu Xi Ming. She wouldn’t talk to someone unrelated to this matter for that long."
A flicker of ruthlessness appeared in He Jiu Chen’s pale grey eyes. "I’ve underestimated these newcomers. Their courage is truly quite something."
Mang Shan hesitated for a moment before asking, "Then should we..."
He Jiu Chen raised a hand and lightly tapped his brow. "You don’t need to worry about Fu Xi Ming’s business, but go speak with those in charge. Tell them to have all training schools strengthen their worldview courses for scavengers."
"Let them know that the city state is the final line of defense protecting them. Do not doubt, do not explore. Purifying the world is our only choice."
He Jiu Chen looked out the window at the neon world. Countless flying cars and multicolored light ribbons appeared before his eyes and quickly vanished, like a brilliant display of fireworks.
"They must not question the world we exist in."
"If they want to stay alive."
Nan Yue and the others relaxed for a few days. Gu Xiang Kai’s ability had awakened during the Entertainment to Death mission, and since Wen Xiang Yuan had not yet appeared, the team temporarily stopped going to the training grounds to train.
The four of them lived a very luxurious life of eating, sleeping, and playing.
After their return, Jiang Siyan carefully examined Nan Yue’s body. When Nan Yue had swallowed part of the pollution source in the last mission, she had experienced an overload at the time.
But that should have been a temporary condition. Since returning, there had been no abnormalities, as if that pollution had completely fused into Nan Yue’s body.
It didn't even show any signs of rejection with the pollution that had already existed in her body.
This undoubtedly served as evidence for their hypothesis.
"...You’re like a trash purifier."
Nan Yue gently gave Gu Xiang Kai, who had said those words, a punch that nearly made him throw up his breakfast.
"Then are you going to keep swallowing pollution in every mission from now on?"
Gu Xiang Kai hesitated for a moment, still feeling it wasn't quite safe.
"What if your body really does have a threshold?"
Nan Yue didn't seem to care much. "Then we’ll deal with it when I reach that threshold. If it doesn't work, I’ll just spit it out."
The others were speechless. Could she not talk about it so lightly? It wasn't like a hangover where you could just throw up whenever you wanted.
The three of them were whispering among themselves, mostly Zhu Xi Ning and Gu Xiang Kai worrying about Nan Yue’s health.
But Nan Yue expressed that she was handling it well.
In fact, it was more than just handling it well; she could clearly feel herself becoming stronger.
If she encountered a situation like Antswamp Village again, she should be able to hold out much longer.
This had been her goal all along—to be able to strengthen herself while truly purifying the world.
Actually, ever since she was in school, Nan Yue had been curious about why entering a mission world was considered purifying it.
At the time, the teacher had said this: "Those worlds are already distorted by pollution and require outside intervention. Your presence acts as a disturbance to the magnetic field. Once you leave, the distorted world naturally dissolves, like a soap bubble."
As for their desperate struggle to follow the rules within the mission, that was entirely to increase their own survival rate.
Every mission world they entered would vanish after they left.
In this way, the pollution within the mission world would be purified along with it, preventing it from spreading to their real world and threatening their lives.
But Nan Yue had always felt that they merely appeared like a disturber. This might count as purification for their world.
After all, they protected their own world from being polluted.
But for the mission worlds that were already polluted, they did nothing but run for their lives.
The more purification missions she completed, the more curious Nan Yue became about that world.
Not to mention that because she had been carrying pollution since childhood, her way of thinking was naturally different from other scavengers.
Fundamentally, she never felt discrimination, disdain, or any other negative emotions toward the natives.
She was shocked by the distortion of the mission worlds, but she also sympathized with those natives.
Whether it was the residents of Everpeace Apartments who died tragically due to karma, or the villagers of Antswamp Village who were simple-hearted yet eternally punished for the mistakes of their ancestors.
So Nan Yue also wanted to do something for them.
She knew. She knew their world was beyond saving; they had died long ago.
The mission worlds were like filthy soap bubbles that had already left the sea level, carrying pollution with them.
If they were allowed to touch the sea level of the real world, the filth inside the bubbles would enter the sea.
So, what a scavenger had to do was break the balance and be the one to pop the soap bubble.
As for the natives inside the soap bubble, they had already died the moment their world turned into a bubble and left the sea level.
Scavengers could not save them, nor was there any need to.
But now, Wen Xiang Yuan’s appearance proved that this metaphor was inappropriate. Regardless of whether the mission worlds were filthy soap bubbles or not, it was clear that the natives within them were not just the walking dead.
Rate on N.U.
