Chapter 225-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

At the sight of the three people below, Ye Zheng's expression grew even darker. She stopped hesitating and ran back toward the attic, her steps urgent.

But when she pushed the door open, the attic was empty. The two windows hung open, swaying and creaking in the wind.

The Emperor — Vincent Aston — was gone.

"I should have acted without hesitation…"

Ye Zheng raised a hand and swept the loose strands of hair back from her forehead. Her dark eyes, rarely so, showed a flicker of regret.

That man had released far too many confusing signals. The jumbled fragments of truth and lies had made her thinking increasingly tangled. From the very first moment she laid eyes on him, she should have pinned him against the window and used more efficient means to extract what she needed.

He was gone now. Ye Zheng stepped back out of the room, and the three came toward her. The middle-aged man tensed the moment he saw her.

"Your Eminence, His Majesty — is he still inside…"

"He's already gone."

Ye Zheng walked past the three without looking at them, her voice low. "Your mission today is complete, General Bai."

Bai Yi had been the Emperor's contingency plan — just as he had blocked Wen De and the others from coming to her aid at the coming-of-age ceremony, his arrival today was meant to prevent her from making a move against the Emperor. Inside the attic, the Emperor had likely kept other means of self-preservation at the ready as well. For a man who had gone to such lengths to survive this long, no one was more desperate to stay alive than he was.

Still, one thing was now certain: Aston XIV's strength lay in concealment and escape. He was not suited for direct confrontation.

Ye Zheng left behind a quiet remark that only she and Bai Yi could understand, then walked away, the hem of her black coat drifting lightly with each step.

Sensing Ye Zheng's departure, Bai Muqing — who had been standing in silence, staring straight ahead — spoke up. "Father, you didn't bring me here today because of Knight Order business."

"Was it the Emperor's orders?"

"What orders?"

The usually taciturn Bai Muqing pressed on.

Bai Yi, weighed down by a heavy heart, heard his daughter's words and his expression grew even more somber. He fixed her with a piercing gaze. "Bai Muqing — knowing it was an order is enough. As a member of the Royal Knight Order, as a child of the Bai family, as a citizen of the Empire, you need only fulfill your duty."

Bai Muqing asked, "What kind of duty? The kind that requires abandoning innocent people — including your own daughter — in the face of disaster?"

"No — not just abandoning them. You even stopped those who tried to help."

Bai Yi lurched forward, his hand shooting up, palm raised. Bai Muqing sensed the motion and still didn't retreat, her cold face tilted up without yielding an inch.

Bai Mulin quickly grabbed his father's arm, pulling the two apart, and looked at Bai Muqing with a pleading expression. "Muqing, Father has his own difficulties…"

"I don't believe it. There is no righteous difficulty that requires a person to become cruel and cold-blooded."

"…It was to lure me here to use against Ye Zheng."

Her white eyes seemed to find a focal point, refracting a cold, sharp light. Bai Muqing "looked" at her father and brother, her disappointment plain for all to see.

"Bai Muqing — even if Ye Zheng were to kill the Emperor right in front of you, kill your own father, you would still be this unmoved?"

Bai Yi stared at his daughter's impassive face with equal disappointment.

"Ye Zheng doesn't kill the innocent. You hurt the people close to her, and she never came after you."

Bai Yi opened his mouth as though to speak, then seemed to give up entirely on trying to reason with his stubborn, idealistic daughter. He rubbed his face and turned to leave.

"I came today to ask the Emperor to approve my withdrawal from the Royal Knight Order."

"He's not here, so I'm not leaving."

"His Majesty is already gone! Your Pope friend just told us!"

Bai Muqing stood motionless where she was. "I can sense him — he's somewhere in this castle."

Bai Yi stared at her in disbelief, a tremor passing through his gaze. "Bai Muqing — stop your probing at once! That is not something you should be—"

A slow, heavy set of footsteps echoed from below. Bai Yi followed the sound and looked down the staircase — the Emperor was standing on the steps below, looking up at them with a smile.

*

Ye Zheng descended the stairs to find her two Knights rushing up toward her, breathless. One of them spotted her walking down unharmed and pressed a hand to her chest in relief. "Thank goodness you're all right."

"Cheng Cheng, Cheng Che — what happened?"

Cheng Che, the steadier of the two sisters, explained: "We saw the attendants letting unauthorized people in and had a small altercation with them. If we caused you any trouble, we're truly sorry…"

Ye Zheng glanced over their bloodstained clothing and immediately determined the blood wasn't theirs. Cheng Cheng was standing there with a sulky, indignant look — the "small altercation" had almost certainly been started by her.

"You weren't hurt, so you haven't caused me any trouble at all."

"Let's go."

She left the castle with her Knights in tow. Ye Zheng didn't leave immediately, however — she stood beneath a tall oak tree not far from the castle. From here, she would sense Bai Muqing the moment she stepped outside.

After the coming-of-age ceremony, Bai Muqing had not reached out to her again. Ye Zheng knew she was feeling guilty, even though her father's actions had nothing to do with her.

Ye Zheng stood quietly beneath the canopy and waited for a while, but Bai Muqing didn't appear. Ye Zheng glanced at her wrist watch and stepped out from under the shade.

She wanted to see Bai Muqing right now — not only to reassure her that she had nothing to feel guilty about, but also to invite her to do one more thing together.

But it seemed Bai Muqing couldn't get away for the moment. Ye Zheng had no choice but to go on ahead.

Ye Zheng took a wide-brimmed black hat from one of her Knights and put it on, pulling the brim low. Moving through the steady flow of people, she looked like a dashing young noble. This kind of outfit was unremarkable in the upper district — lately, the upper district had been taken with elaborate spring fashions, and nobles were even adorning their hats with the beautiful feathers of rare birds. By comparison, Ye Zheng's attire inside and outside the Papal Palace was quite understated. Passersby at most glanced back once at her striking bearing.

"Empire Central Station? Your Eminence, you didn't mention going anywhere else today."

"Mm — I'm not going to the lower district. This station is my destination."

Ye Zheng looked up at the words "Empire Central Station" set into the grand facade of the building and followed the flow of people inside.

One of her two Knights, Cheng Cheng, had the ability to move freely through shadows; the other, Cheng Che, could use light to create illusions. With their powers combined, Ye Zheng slipped into a deep, narrow corridor where Green Crystals had overrun every surface like rampant weeds.

The green luminescence cast a faint, ethereal glow across Ye Zheng's face as she led her two puzzled Knights deeper into the passage.

She had come here once before with Bai Muqing.

To unravel the secret behind Wen Xiaoxing, Ye Zheng had traced the source material Wen Jian had used to create him — the S-rank Demonic Domain [Spatial Turbulence] beneath Empire Central Station. The Green Crystals at the domain's core had granted Wen Xiaoxing the ability to manipulate timelines.

Wen Xiaoxing had had the misfortune of running into both her and Bai Muqing, and the two of them had dealt with him on the spot — sealing him inside the core crystal. The crystal slowly absorbed Wen Xiaoxing's life force, and the drain was passed along to Wen Jian, causing him to age rapidly. By now, Wen Jian had long since died, and Wen Xiaoxing should have been fully consumed as well.

But for the first time, Ye Zheng found herself thinking it might not have been so bad if Wen Xiaoxing were still alive.

The ability to jump between timelines was, at its core, a higher-dimensional mastery of time and space. In Ye Zheng's estimation, it was even more extraordinary than the protagonist Percy's ability — it touched on something fundamental to the nature of the world itself.

"System." Ye Zheng called out softly in her mind. "Wen Xiaoxing's creation was the company's doing — correct?"

The System didn't answer immediately. Ye Zheng couldn't tell whether it was delayed because it was busy, or because it was uncertain how to tell her. Lately the System had been slow to respond.

[Sorry — I'm currently undergoing an upgrade.]

[Wen Xiaoxing? He and his master have long since been discarded by the company.]

"His master — the one who pushed for his creation and inserted him into the manga's main plot?"

"A foolish person. You can tell just from the Wen Xiaoxing he created. No wonder the company abandoned him."

[Mm — even if the company had wanted to keep him, he's in no condition to get back up.]

Ye Zheng sensed something off and asked, "In no condition to get back up… what does that mean?"

The System decided to be straightforward.

[You killed him.]

"Ah — me?"

Ye Zheng asked with a hint of innocence. She thought about it and had absolutely no memory of doing so.

"Did I frighten him to death? Surely the people of the higher-dimensional world aren't that fragile."

[…]

Ye Zheng slowly broke into a smile. "Or — did my power reach your world?"

The System didn't answer. Ye Zheng heard a faint mechanical hum, like a unique kind of breathing — silent and rapid.

Ye Zheng changed the subject. "System — we've known each other for a while now. Do you have a name or a designation?"

[We don't have specific names.]

[But if you'd like something more personal to call me —]

[You can call me "Hope," or Hopu.]

Ye Zheng noted the "we" the System had used — it seemed there was a whole family of Systems like this one. She wondered whether Systems had something like an alpha, the way animal groups did.

"Hopu — look, I now have [Mother of All Things], and I have the Green Crystals with their power over time and space…"

Without realizing it, Ye Zheng had reached the end of the tunnel — a vast chamber overgrown with irregular Green Crystals in every direction. At its center sat an enormous crystal figure, its surface pitted here and there from deliberate excavation, but otherwise polished to a mirror sheen, as though crafted by the finest human sculptor.

Ye Zheng knew that the colossal figure was no human artist's creation. It was the core of this S-rank Demonic Domain — a living entity from another dimension.

Around it, the turbulent time and space had been ground so fine that not even impurities remained. Only the green luminescence pulsed, utterly pure.

"I have [Mother of All Things], I have the Green Crystals — and I have you, System. Hopu."

"Tell me — is there any possibility we could recreate something like Wen Xiaoxing? No — I only need an ability like his [Fate Singularity]."

"I want to go back to the past."

With the other witnesses dead and Aston XIV untrustworthy, Ye Zheng had no one left to rely on but herself.

She would go and see for herself — what exactly had happened five hundred years ago? Why had the demon dragon and the Demonic Domains descended upon a flourishing new era without any warning?

If she couldn't unravel these mysteries, Ye Zheng had a feeling the disaster about to befall the Empire would be very difficult to handle.

[Ye Zheng — are you playing the emotional card with a System?]

The System's flat mechanical voice took on a distinctly human note of disbelief.

"Hopu, I've always thought of you as a friend."

Ye Zheng's voice softened.

"If you don't like the emotional card, I can play something more in my wheelhouse — my power has already begun to reach your world. You're welcome to think of me as…"

"A trading partner with considerable potential. Who knows — you might need my help someday."

The System had always shown a very human quality. Where there was humanity, there were weaknesses — and where there were weaknesses, there was leverage.

Ye Zheng stood at the end of the tunnel, smiling as she waited for the System's reply in her mind.

[…Fine, give it a try. I can't promise I'll be of any use.]

Satisfied with the System's answer, Ye Zheng bent slightly at the waist, her gaze fixed directly on the enormous green crystal figure at the center of the chamber not far away.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, tossing it forward. In the light refracted by the Green Crystals, it crumbled and vanished piece by piece.

Last time, Bai Muqing had told her that every Green Crystal in this space was part of the core — the moment anything touched the light they refracted, it would be torn apart by the turbulent time and space until nothing remained.

With Bai Muqing's [Divine Domain] to shield them, the two had used brute force to shove Wen Xiaoxing inside the green figure. This time, Bai Muqing wasn't here — but the two subordinates she had brought possessed abilities that could get her a fragment of the core.

"Cheng Cheng, Cheng Che — retrieve a piece of that figure for me."

Ye Zheng's eyes were lit by the green luminescence, like a wolf locked onto its prey at the moment of the hunt, watching her two Knights intently.

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