"Changan, you were very ill this time. Master was worried about your health and took care of you day and night without rest." Seeing that things were not right, Shen Tu quickly stepped forward to help Dao Nian out of the situation. "Look how happy he is to see you wake up?"
Shen Changan nodded dazedly, rubbing his head. "How come there's a bed on the plane?"
"Oh, this is Master's private plane. It's normal to have a bed." Shen Tu secretly glanced at Dao Nian's expression and, seeing that he had no dissatisfaction with his explanation, continued, "Why don't you rest for a while? You have to report back to the department tomorrow. If your spirits are so low, you'll have to ask for another day off."
Hearing the word sleep, Shen Changan fell into a drowsy sleep. Dao Nian extended his index finger and gently tapped between his eyebrows, slowly injecting spiritual energy into his body.
"Master, now that the Great Dao's remnant thought has been eliminated, why do you still have the restrictions left by the Great Dao on your body?" Seeing that Shen Changan had fallen asleep, the smile on Shen Tu's face disappeared. "Could it be that... there is more than one wisp of the Great Dao's remnant thought?"
Otherwise, how could the remaining thought have easily appeared and been caught by the Master?
"It's fine." Dao Nian put Shen Changan's hand into the quilt, calmly saying, "The Great Dao gave me the best gift. I can tolerate the remnant thought he left behind playing hide-and-seek with me."
"Gift?" Shen Tu's mind couldn't quite process it. "What gift?"
Dao Nian didn't speak. He looked down at Shen Changan on the bed, his eyes filled with tenderness.
Shen Tu seemed to understand something, but didn't want to understand, so he raised his head to the side.
Shen Changan felt as if he was vaguely woken up to eat, and someone held him to brush his teeth, wash his face, and wash his feet, and then stuffed him back into the warm and comfortable quilt.
His body cycled between exhaustion and comfortable sleep, as if only sleep could replenish the lost power in his body.
"Changan has been sleeping for two days and two nights. What exactly did he do to be so exhausted?" Shen Tu squatted on the threshold, cracking sunflower seeds while asking Yu Lei, "Have any other races come to visit while we were away these days?"
"Yes, the elders of the Beast Clan's demon cultivators came to plead guilty every day, and the elders of the Bird Clan wanted to come and see that... little phoenix." Yu Lei frowned. "Also, the Yama King sent a divine tablet a few days ago, saying he had important matters to report."
The Underworld held a special status, it guarded the six realms of reincarnation. Though human literature often paints it as lesser than the Heavenly Realm, in truth, they have equal status.
Now that the Heavenly Realm had perished, the Underworld was still doing well, which shows the Underworld's special nature.
"The cycle of the six realms has its own laws. Lord never interferes in the affairs of the Underworld. The Yama King should also understand this. What could he want from the Lord now?" Shen Tu paused his sunflower seed cracking, stuffing the snack box containing the sunflower seeds and shells into Yu Lei's hands. "Let's go, we'll report this matter to the Lord."
Yu Lei: "..."
Why do you go to see the master and stuff snacks and garbage into my hands?
Using his mortal body and the power of words to try to break the restrictions left on him by the Great Dao, if it were an ordinary human, they would have died from exhaustion as soon as they said those words.
He had only guessed at Changan’s identity before, but it wasn’t until last night that he finally confirmed it.
The Great Dao had long foreseen that the Human Race would prosper, so it bestowed this vitality upon humans. He was the Heavenly Dao, and as humans evolved, their slogan became 'Humans will rise against the heavens'.
Changan was born... to be his nemesis.
He could suppress his power, restrain his abilities, and might even destroy him. When a new order rose in the heavens and on earth, the Great Dao would be reborn with it, while humans would simply believe they had welcomed a new age out of the apocalypse.
As for the possibility that the new order would cause countless creatures in heaven and earth to perish, the joys, sorrows, and emotions of these creatures have no weight in the Great Dao's heart. It never had, and he never needed to consider these things.
The vitality created by the Great Dao was not actually the vitality of all things, it belonged solely to the Great Dao itself. To him, this vitality was only murderous intent.
But thinking of the word-spirit blessing that Changan gave him with all his might, Dao Nian pressed his chest. He originally had no heart in his body.
Until the night two days ago, he put the blessing given by Changan into his chest. This blessing grew in his body and became a golden, pure, and beating heart.
"Changan, will you... kill me?"
The sleeping Shen Changan could not answer Dao Nian's question.
The next morning, Shen Changan, who had been sleeping to replenish his energy, got up from bed. As soon as he finished breakfast, he was stuffed into the car by Shen Tu.
"Changan, you're going to be late."
"Wait, I still have something to say to Dao Nian..."
"Hey, don't wait, you can say whatever you want when you come back tonight." Shen Tu closed the car door. "I've put the gifts you brought for your colleagues in the trunk. We'll carry them up together later."
If he continued, some things would be exposed.
As Shen Changan returned to the office, he was warmly welcomed by his colleagues. Of course, the most popular were the gifts he had prepared.
"You've been gone for so long and haven't come back. We almost thought you were staying in the capital and not coming back." Chen Panpan said, "The other day we went to eat cold pot fish, and even the boss was asking where you went."
"There's no way, after I went to report on my work, the leader thought I was too handsome and drove me back." Shen Changan said with a smile, "So I can only retire with you."
"Tch, I told you not to hang out with Ding Yang all day long, but you didn't believe me. Now, you haven't learned anything, but you've learned his shamelessness." Chen Panpan put a box of biscuits on his desk. "Try them, my friend made them."
Shen Changan reached out and tasted one. The taste was not bad.
“My friend’s family owns half a street thanks to demolition payouts. She's very beautiful, and her family probably has tens of millions, nearly a hundred million in assets. Some time ago, when she came to our department to play with me, she thought you were pretty good and wanted to be friends with you." Chen Panpan said after seeing Shen Changan eat two biscuits in a row, "The boys chasing her can line up from the beginning of the street to the end. Are you interested?"
"Cough cough cough cough!" Shen Changan was choked by the biscuit crumbs and his eyes were filled with tears. He drank several mouthfuls of water to calm down. He repeatedly shook his head and said, "Panpan, next time you say something like this, can you give me a warning shot first?"
"A girl with money, a career, and looks, are you really not considering it?" Chen Panpan said, "You have to know that the girl treated me to a seafood dinner, but in order to protect your privacy, I didn't give her your contact information."
"A woman who is so rich, a man would feel a lot of pressure being with her..."
"Bullshit, men who say that are just sour grapes." Chen Panpan rolled her eyes. "It's not like she'd like just any man."
Ding Yang instantly admitted defeat. "I was wrong, I was wrong."
Shen Changan coughed lightly. "Panpan, please help me apologize to your friend. I have no plans to be with a girl."
"Are you... a celibate?" Chen Panpan suddenly realized. "That's okay too, it's good to get along and be friends."
"Changan, are you really going to give up on this kind of rich and beautiful woman?" Ding Yang was a little regretful. "I've seen Chen Panpan's friend. She's tall and beautiful, and she's not the kind of girl who is arrogant and willful just because she has money. Being with her, you can at least struggle twenty years less. If I could look as good as you, I would have picked up this bowl of soft rice and started eating it."
"There's really no need for that, after all, I'm eating soft rice now." Shen Changan said half seriously and half jokingly, "Eating my friend's soft rice."
Hearing this, Xu Ze, who was sitting next to him, looked up at Shen Changan.
"This is the first time I've seen someone who eats soft rice and says it so openly." Ding Yang thought of the beautiful house where Shen Changan's friend lived. He also wanted to eat this kind of soft rice.
"Since you're not willing, then I can only go back and persuade my friend to give up." Seeing that Shen Changan was not at all moved by his friend's conditions, Chen Panpan sighed. "Some men value her money, but she is unmoved. She values you and wants to impress you with money, but you are unmoved. Alas, people's hearts are so complicated."
"What's complicated? It all comes down to looks." Ding Yang raised his eyebrows. "If Changan looked like me, would she still like him?"
Chen Panpan: "That's definitely not possible."
Shen Changan listened to them arguing and suddenly felt dizzy, almost falling headfirst.
"Shen Changan, are you okay?" Xu Ze reached out and supported Shen Changan's arm. "You look a little pale. Didn't you eat well in the capital?"
"It's okay." Shen Changan held on to the edge of the table and shook his head. "Maybe I've been sleeping too much these past few days, and it's muddled my brain."
Ding Yang made a cup of sugar water for Shen Changan. "Drink some sugar water."
"Thank you." Shen Changan held the cup and drank a few sips, his complexion gradually returning to normal. He heard that a man who had failed to confess his love was threatening to jump into the river, and they needed to go to the scene to take a look.
Shen Changan didn't want to be stuck in the office, so he volunteered to go to the scene. His colleagues saw that his spirits had returned to normal, so they agreed.
When he arrived at the scene, there were already many people gathered around to watch the excitement. The man, with one foot straddling the bridge railing, roared at the police who were trying to dissuade him, "I want to see Lili! Without her, what's the point of me living!"
The onlookers pointed and whispered, some saying that the man was shameless, some saying that the man was infatuated, but more were lamenting, wondering which girl had been unlucky for eight hundred lifetimes to be entangled by this kind of man.
"This kind of man definitely can't bear to die." An old woman watching the excitement put her hands in her sleeves and said to the people around her, "His voice is so loud, and he's holding the railing so tightly. He cherishes his life."
"I really want to kick him down." Another burly man watching the excitement said, "Anyway, this bridge is only a few meters high, it won't kill him."
Passing through the chattering crowd, Shen Changan heard a pleasant girl's voice.
"Whether you jump or not, I will not agree to be your girlfriend."
"I'm not your mother, why should I indulge you?"
"Your mother knelt in front of me and begged me to be your girlfriend. You don't feel sorry for her, you just yell and make a fuss and want me to be your girlfriend. What kind of man do you think you are?"
"Don't worry, even if you jump down and drown, only your parents will be sad for you." The girl wore a mask and glasses and wasn't afraid of others taking pictures of her with their phones. "I don't want a man who is looking for death to be my boyfriend. I'm afraid that after it spreads, my other friends will laugh at my poor taste."
After saying that, she pulled away the woman kneeling in front of her, got into her car, and drove away.
The crowd stared blankly at the departing sports car, then turned their heads to look at the man sitting on the railing. Was he going to jump... or not?
Taking advantage of the man's moment of stunned silence, Shen Changan rushed out quickly and dragged the man down from the railing. The man's head hit the ground, making a muffled sound.
"Son, why are you so stupid? What's so good about that kind of rich and heartless woman?"
Hearing the mother’s words, Changan was speechless.
People of a family always stick together. If he were a member of the girl's family, he might take this opportunity to kick the man a couple of times.
Ending this farce, Shen Changan walked back along the riverside path. After walking for a while, he noticed something was wrong. The environmental pollution in Wuming City was not serious. Why was the river water as dark as ink?
Also, the large red flowers by the river were all handmade products. Why couldn't he see a single leaf?
He stopped and carefully looked at the surface of the water. He didn't know if he was seeing things, but it seemed like something was struggling under the water. Is it... a fish?
On the opposite bank of the river, two people were walking slowly. The person in the lead was...
Dao Nian?!
Author's Note: Changan: My eyes seem to be a little blurry~