Chapter 163-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Ye Zheng took Bai Muqing into an inconspicuous shop to change their disguise again. Bai Muqing let Ye Zheng wrap up her hair and put a pair of glasses on her, concealing her features.
Wearing glasses felt strange; Bai Muqing pushed them up unnaturally. Her [Divine Domain] could perceive abnormal activities and surveillance around them, but it was always good to be cautious.
The flow of people at the Empire Central Station was huge. Borrowing Bai Muqing's ability, the two circled into the station master's office at the rear. There was only one person working at the desk in the office, the very member of the Bai branch family that Bai Muqing had mentioned.
Bai Muqing intended to go in directly and reveal her identity, but Ye Zheng stopped her.
Ye Zheng moved her lips silently. Bai Muqing understood her lip-reading, moved her fingers, and made the person in the office fall unconscious.
That person's ability level was very weak; Bai Muqing used [Divine Domain] to make him fall asleep with ease. Even when he woke up, he would only think he had accidentally fallen asleep due to fatigue.
He was just a member of the Bai family, not Bai Muqing's subordinate. Ye Zheng glanced at Bai Muqing, who revealed a thoughtful expression; she likely understood this point as well.
Ye Zheng couldn't help but sigh to the System in her heart, "What a useful ability."
Fortunately, the holder was someone with a high moral sense like Bai Muqing. An ability that possessed absolute control within a certain range—if it were given to a heretic leader like Sierra, who knew how much trouble it would cause.
[Stream] had too many restrictions, resulting in a high upper limit but a low lower limit. This was why Ye Zheng often avoided direct confrontation.
The System immediately spoke up to comfort her.
[After all, the original plot didn't position you as a combat genius, but just a support. It's already a miracle that you can pull off so many tricks.]
It wasn't just comforting her, but also sighing with sincerity.
Ye Zheng replied silently, "It doesn't matter, I will soon possess a new ability."
The System could see Ye Zheng's determination to win [Mother of All Things]. It didn't doubt that Ye Zheng could obtain this ability, but there was one thing it had to remind her of.
[Wen Jian is one of the villains in the original plot. If you kill him and seize his ability and position, then his storyline might very well... fall upon you.]
Ye Zheng smiled indifferently. She was already the villain of the story. Since she had taken the villain's seat, she might as well sit in the grandest spot.
"Found it."
Bai Muqing stood quietly beside her, her head suddenly turning toward a certain direction in the office.
Ye Zheng ended her chat with the System and dug out a layout map from the corner cabinet Bai Muqing pointed to. It was drawn in complex detail, showing the structure from above ground to underground very clearly.
She scrutinized it for a moment, then walked to the desk where the man was lying prone, groped around skillfully for a while, and swiped his ID card and a bunch of keys.
The ground floor of the Empire Central Station was for ordinary steam trains, while the special express trains were on the first basement level. Judging from the layout map, there existed a second basement level open only to staff.
With the layout map and Bai Muqing's ability, Ye Zheng easily reached the second basement level. There were no staff members, only white corridors extending in all directions. They decided to go to the place marked "Core Forbidden Area" on the map.
They encountered no accidents along the way; only the sound of their light footsteps echoed in the empty underground level.
However, Bai Muqing's expression grew increasingly grave. When they arrived at an iron door, Ye Zheng faintly heard the sound of a train speeding from behind the door. Just as she was about to push the door open, Bai Muqing suddenly spoke:
"Be careful, the energy field here is extremely chaotic; my ability is being interfered with."
Ye Zheng nodded. Without Bai Muqing's omnipotent vision, it meant they had to be even more cautious and vigilant.
The door before them was tall and old, looking like it had been there for some years. Beside it hung an iron sign that read "Forbidden Area, Do Not Enter," which was heavily rusted.
The gate was locked tight. Ye Zheng took out the keys she had temporarily borrowed from the station office and opened it easily.
Click. With a crisp sound of the lock opening, Ye Zheng showed no expression of joy. Although this place was marked as "Core Forbidden Area," judging from the defense facilities, it didn't seem like a particularly important place.
Pushing open the gate, a green fluorescent light instantly illuminated both their faces. Now Ye Zheng's expression changed; she looked at the passage behind the door in astonishment.
Behind the door was a deep, dark corridor, and a fork in the road could be faintly seen at the end. Strangely, the ceiling, the surrounding walls, and even the floor were growing Green Crystals—
Using the word "growing" should be appropriate. They grew all over the corridor in a mess like weeds, emitting fluorescence and lighting up the dark space with a ghostly green.
Ye Zheng reached out and held Bai Muqing. Her ability was interfered with, so she might not notice the weed-like Green Crystals on the floor.
"Left."
"Right."
Bai Muqing's perception ability was interfered with, but she could still sense powerful energy fluctuating in a certain direction.
Ye Zheng hadn't expected the underground of the Empire Central Station to be such a complex maze of tunnels. She held onto Bai Muqing, and at every fork in the road, she took out pen and paper to record their route on a white sheet.
Her intention was to avoid getting lost, but when Ye Zheng was recording at the eighth fork, her hand holding the pen and paper paused, and she suddenly looked up.
The space above was densely covered with irregular Green Crystals, looking like a group of snakes quietly flicking their tongues in the dim and narrow passage. From above, the whistling of a train faintly came through, resembling some kind of crying sound.
The deeper they went, the more it felt like a bottomless cave, inexplicably making one feel chilled. But Ye Zheng didn't look up because of fear; a trace of doubt crossed her face.
She looked down at the route on the paper again. Why did it look more and more like the route from the Empire Central Station to the lower district?
Ye Zheng took Bai Muqing's layout map again, which also had the planned routes for ordinary trains. She compared them; it was the same as the first half of the route for ordinary trains leading to the lower district.
Was it a coincidence? Assuming the route she marked was the one leading to the lower district, then they had already passed two stations, and at least two hours should have passed.
But they had only spent five minutes from the time they entered until now.
Moreover, the sound coming from overhead was wrong. The speed of the train was much faster than them, yet the train's whistle overhead had been accompanying them the whole time, almost as if it were traveling alongside them.
Ye Zheng squeezed Bai Muqing's hand and asked, "Muqing, has there been a train running above our heads the whole time?"
"Yes," Bai Muqing answered.
Suddenly, she frowned, also realizing something was wrong. They were in the underground level of the Empire Central Station; what train hadn't left the station after driving for five minutes?
"Ye Zheng, this isn't right."
Bai Muqing let go of Ye Zheng's hand, her face sinking. Just as she wanted to expand the range of [Divine Domain], she was stopped by Ye Zheng.
"I already understand, Muqing. This is the S-rank Demonic Domain [Spatial Turbulence]."
Ye Zheng looked up at the sharp crystals hanging upside down and slowly said, "I'm afraid what's above us is no longer the Empire Central Station."
"It's the South Wutong District."
South Wutong was the southernmost area of the Royal City District. It took two hours by ordinary car from where they were, and it was also the only way to the lower district.
Bai Muqing murmured, "Is this the wonder of an S-rank spatial Demonic Domain?"
They had walked for five minutes in the narrow passage, equivalent to an ordinary train running for two hours.
Space was infinitely shortened here.
Bai Muqing was slightly distracted. The information transmitted to her by [Divine Domain] became blurred in the chaotic energy. She could only perceive which road led to the core of the energy, but could not see the true face of the core clearly.
Bai Muqing had a premonition that the thing called Green Mirror she and Ye Zheng saw in the Royal Academy exhibition room was just the tip of the iceberg of the real core.
"Ye Zheng, we have to be careful. The closer we get there, the more—Mmph!"
Bai Muqing's white pupils widened in confusion and doubt. Ye Zheng, standing behind her, suddenly covered her mouth, pulled her back, and hid into another corner.
Soon, Bai Muqing's expression changed. She realized something, took Ye Zheng's hand down, closed her eyes, and perceived with effort.
Ye Zheng looked up at a certain crystal on the ceiling. The next moment, a hurried figure flashed across the mirror-like crystal.
The green fragments placed in her inner pocket were trembling faintly, excited as if they sensed the approach of their own kind.
Ye Zheng originally thought these fragments were excited because they were close to the core, but she realized they were a bit too excited.
"Who is it?" Bai Muqing's tone was extremely low, speaking almost in a breathy voice, carrying a trace of imperceptible annoyance.
Even if [Divine Domain] was suppressed, she shouldn't have failed to notice a living person approaching.
"It's not your fault. That person's aura is exactly the same as the crystals around us. How can a human discover a tree stalking them in a forest?"
Bai Muqing's expression was stunned. Ye Zheng meant that person was Wen Xiaoxing!
The monster boy created by the Pope based on Yin Xing and the core of this Demonic Domain, used to deal with Ye Zheng.
"He actually came here too..."
Ye Zheng smiled, "Wen Xiaoxing counts as coming home; we count as illegal intruders."
Bai Muqing's annoyed expression became more obvious. Ye Zheng patted her shoulder and leaned in, saying, "Do you have a way to track him?"
"I can. His aura isn't completely identical to the crystals."
"That's good. Let's follow him."
The closer to the core, the more dangerous it was. If this Demonic Domain could merely shorten space, it wouldn't have been rated S-rank.
The rating of Demonic Domains had always been classified according to the degree of danger to humans.
Bai Muqing pushed her glasses frame unnaturally, her long brows knitting together in conflict and then relaxing. Although this act of stalking others was a bit strange, in special times, she couldn't care so much about propriety.
Upper District Cathedral.
"Ah, Your Holiness, be careful!"
The man in white robes suddenly went weak in the legs. Seeing that he was about to fall on flat ground, the priest behind him hurriedly supported him.
The priest helped the Pope up carefully and inadvertently discovered that there were actually a few obvious white hairs on the Pope's head. He was extremely surprised; the Pope was not yet forty, so how could he have grown so much white hair?
He was a bishop and often attended to the Pope. For the past half month, the Pope had aged particularly fast; he wondered if it was his illusion.
While he was still dazed, the Pope shook him off and strode forward alone.
Wen Jian's face was extremely gloomy. He had to capture Wen Xiaoxing back as soon as possible. This trash had consumed so much of his energy, yet he couldn't even deal with a single Ye Zheng!
Although he had planned early on to end Wen Xiaoxing's annoying life after he completed the mission, now he couldn't wait for Wen Xiaoxing to kill Ye Zheng...
Author's Note: Happy New Year, bosses! Presenting an early update today to celebrate!
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