Zhong Bai Yi listened to what his daughter was saying with a complicated gaze. He didn't know whether to laugh or frown.
This little maple leaf man was just way too pompous. How dare he make his daughter eat a flower irrigated by monkey urine!
It was too laughable just thinking about it!
Steam went out of his mouth, but he took a deep breath to suppress his anger. He didn't want to show his daughter an unpleasant sight.
He stood up from the patriarch's seat and walked down the stairs covered by a white carpet with his bare feet.
The hall was silent, and only a few guards were stationed at the end of the hall. The open windows swayed Zhong Bai Yi's coat along with his long dark brown hair that reached his knee.
He reached his sobbing daughter and wiped her tears with his thumb. His daughter had started being a crybaby the moment she became a Book Lord, but he couldn't tolerate someone who tried to take advantage of her.
It was Zhong Xie's fault for walking toward that crook in the first place, but he couldn't help but rebuke, "That maple leaf man has gone too far! He is trash! A weed we need to uproot! Tomorrow I will send my men to look for him and make him pay tenfold for what he has done!"
Zhong Xie felt joy in her heart. That bastard was going to pay for conning her!
She hugged her father as more tears and sobs escaped from her, "Tha-Tha-thank you, Daddy! You are the best! Waah!"
Zhong Bai felt troubled in his heart. 'What should I do about this girl?'
However, that feeling was quickly replaced by the anger he felt for the maple leaf masked man. 'Surely the root of all evil is the lack of money.'
At the southern squatter camp, Gu Mickey wore his maple mask, feeling complex emotions within, although his expression was tranquil like a cool breeze.
He was holding hands with a girl he barely knew. "…"
The two didn't even exchange a single word along the way. Lee Yan was just praying that this man wouldn't do anything to her. She tried to scream, but at that moment, he bit her nape. The people on the streets just took them for a haughty couple who didn't know a thing about privacy.
A tear escaped from her heart-shaped face. 'No man has ever been this passionate with me, just what is wrong with this guy? I can't run away from him either. What does he want to do with me? Somebody, help me!'
Each time she tried running away, Mickey took advantage of her affluent figure. When he caught her, he acted like the two were horse-playing as he smacked her behind.
'He really is a dirty, dirty man!'
Lee Yan was pulled out of her thoughts as a deadly stench assaulted her nose, and her face cringed. "Ew! What the heck is that?"
Instead of getting an answer, Mickey just put a mask on her face and said, "Follow me."
Lee Yan was startled by this kind gesture as she shuddered, "Y-yes!"
It was already nighttime, and Lee Yan didn't get a good view of the things that surrounded her, which made her body tremble even more. She was like a speaker on loud, if you removed the fact that she was silent as a rodent.
'Can I run away now?!' A thought raised in her mind as the man in red started walking in front of her.
Lee Yan looked at her sides, and all she saw was darkness, and a cold breeze sliced through her skin.
"!"
Lee Yan's body trembled the moment she felt something shrouding her, and she looked back to see Mickey giving her his jacket. 'He is such a gentleman, are all kidnappers like this?'
Noticing her gaze that had varying emotions, Mickey addressed, "I am going to send you to the Great Architect."
Lee Yan became more flustered, "The Great Architect?"
Mickey nodded, "Yes, he is the reason for this world existing. The reason why people feel bliss and grief. A background character like you should be happy to see him."
Lee Yan could only nod, her face even more sorrowful. 'Oh-no! He is forcing me into a cult.'
Mickey ignored her feelings and took hold of her hand, guiding her to his place. "Get in. There you shall meet with the Great Architect."
Lee Yan wiped away her tears and made a serious face as she entered the room. 'You can do it, just hold on until help arrives. But…will the orphanage even come for me? They will be happy if I don't go back there.'
Her already crumbling resolve hit rock bottom the moment she heard the sound of Mickey removing his clothes. Lee Yan turned around and saw him taking off his pants before something magical entered her vision, which was between his legs.
"Ah!" She started screaming non-stop, her legs felt numb to the point she couldn't keep standing.
Thud!
Her ass fell cold face to the ground, and she kept screaming, maybe someone would come to her rescue. Her hands covered her face, and her legs were tightly locked as they trembled like seaweed.
She wasn't going to give in to this monster.
As she kept screaming, a peculiar cold liquid started to land on her legs. The liquid moved in a zig-zag line before it went over her skirt and shirt.
When it reached her face, her tongue got a taste of it, and she instantly jerked. "Gasoline!"
However, her realization came too late.
A matchstick landed on her body!
She was burning!
Lee Yan's screams became even louder, but as the scorching heat devoured her, a new realization struck her, 'No one is going to save me!'
This was a tiger-eat-cat world; without any strength, one is basically at the mercy of others.
Even so, Lee Yan wasn't willing to go to the other side alone!
She mustered the will to stand and ran toward the man who caused this.
She had the speed of a tortoise, but she caught Mickey, who didn't seem to even try to run away.
He had wide-open arms, and when the burning girl got to him, he embraced her with all his might.
The stench of burning flesh assaulted his nostrils as his body also started to catch fire, burning his flesh.
Tears came from his eyes, and his face cringed in sorrow. He wasn't new to killing, but not this kind of killing. "I am sorry, so sorry. Blame your fate on the Great Architect. He is the reason we all suffer so much."
As the tears on his face were consumed by the flames, he started laughing madly. His morality was getting tested by his actions!
Gu Mickey had turned into a madman!
His laughter continued until the flames started burning his hair.
His face turned emotionless, and he tightened his grip on the girl who burned him. Lee Yan had stopped screaming. She was feeling hot like never before, and knowing that her killer was going to die with her made her feel a little bit at ease.
Before she closed her eyes, she felt a pair of dry, crispy, rough lips connected to hers.
'At least I got kissed before I die.'
'I hate him so much, yet…I am happy to die by his hand.'
Lee Yan had finally died!
Mickey felt an assaulting pain. 'If I don't act now, the heat will kill me.'
He sat cross-legged, his lips maintained their position as he brought the burning body to his knees.
His eyes closed and started taking in Qi into his Primeval World.
The maple tree in the middle started to shiver. The purple Qi that had been absorbed by it slowly rose to the air. In the midst of the process, dark purple Qi started coming into the Primeval World. The two forms of Qi met in the day region and aggressively collided.
Mickey started to recite:
Take a soul, bring it to the darkness,
A bright light, no stain of the shadows,
Echo in the heart, fade into the nighttime.
With no pain, nothing can be broken,
Life is born, by the ages it's taken,
Nothing is forever, the window gets broken.
Red hue rises, faces the falling hell's rain,
War brings sorrow, connections made in pain,
In the sky, live in new gain.
At the end of Mickey's words, a spiral orb made out of 34 small orbs was hanging in the day zone of his Primeval World. Its size was comparable to the tip of an adult's pinkie, and it was dull yellow.
This was the jindan!
The storage area of Qi before it is used on spells by Book Lords!
Mickey opened his eyes and immediately looked at the condition of his body. 'There are no burns at all! The Burning Soul Jindan Creation Technique is really unique, everything is just like how it was in the anime. It is such a shame that my jindan is only F-grade with 34 units of Qi.'
'Well, at least my Qi recovery speed is the same as that of a C-grade jindan.'
Mickey's eyes moved to look at his chest; there was a skull tattoo, it was faint. If he didn't have the knowledge of its existence, he wouldn't have noticed it.
He coldly gazed at the pile of ashes resting between his legs. "Why did you forgive me at the moment of your death? You shouldn't feel pity for me, it is the path that I chose."
Mickey sighed in helplessness. The darker the tattoo on his chest, the darker his heart becomes. The Burning Soul Technique uses the soul of a virgin girl to create the jindan. When it appeared in the later seasons of Immortal Wizard Warlord, the person who used it was extremely ruthless and merciless to his enemies.
His tattoo radiated darkness that even clothes couldn't hide.
That is what Mickey was aiming for, but to his surprise, Lee Yan was able to gaze into a familiar past and Mickey's future before she lost her breath. She saw how Acoustic City was going to end, and she quickly accepted her fate. Nothing could be done to change it, especially by a mortal like her.
Mickey finally stood up and saw the state of his house. "There is nothing in here. Those greedy squatters…"