302: Chapter 305: Ex-girlfriend Lin Yao begs on the street; watching the news, she cries bitterly.

At Yunding Villa, the villa's lights were brilliant and dazzling, like stars that had fallen to the mortal realm.

Jiang Chen sat on that priceless Italian leather sofa, with several so-called "strategic supplies" that had just been confiscated from alien civilizations and were still emitting faint radiation tossed onto the coffee table.

He pressed the remote control listlessly, switching the channel to a local Tianhai City livelihood news program.

On screen, the camera was aimed at the most bustling pedestrian street in the city center.

A fine freezing rain was falling from the sky, and the cold wind whipped plastic bags across the road.

The camera captured a woman crouching on the side of the road, wearing a tattered coat.

She held a chipped aluminum lunchbox in her hands, her hair was as messy as a bird's nest, and her face was smeared with dirt; if one didn't look closely, it was impossible to tell that this face had once belonged to the school beauty who had been so haughty, Lin Yao.

"Look! Give me some money! Please, I beg you!"

Lin Yao knelt on the ground, her body trembling uncontrollably, her voice hoarse; that bone-deep humility made it hard to believe that this was once a woman who would be picky even about breakfast at a five-star hotel.

At this moment, she was desperately reaching out to every passerby.

Just before the cameraman turned the lens away, the huge LED screen on the background wall suddenly broadcast an emergency news report.

On screen, there was an awards ceremony that spanned half the Milky Way Galaxy.

The boy she had once kicked aside, whom she had viewed as a "poor delivery boy," was standing at the very top, the emblem on his epaulets shining with breathtaking glory under the lights.

Countless alien envoys knelt at his feet, bowing their heads in submission, every movement revealing a humble fanaticism.

"Jiang Chen..."

Lin Yao looked at that familiar face on the screen, and her already stiff body instantly felt as if all its strength had been drained.

The aluminum lunchbox in her hand hit the ground with a "clatter," making a desolate sound, and a few pathetic coins jumped out, rolling away amidst the mockery of passersby.

It was Jiang Chen. It really was him.

The Jiang Chen who, in order to buy her a two-thousand-yuan bag, had even been willing to work night shifts for a month.

The Jiang Chen to whom she had said in front of the entire school, "If your family hadn't gone bankrupt, perhaps we could still talk, but now you only deserve to stand at the school gate and blow in the cold wind."

At this very moment, he was standing at the pinnacle of the stars, looking down at the firmament that he once felt was too dazzling to even look up at.

He had won. He had won the entire universe.

And she, in this cold winter night, didn't even have the qualification to eat a full meal.

Tears slid down her dirt-covered cheeks, washing out two ugly furrows.

Lin Yao knelt there, letting out a desperate and shrill sob.

Did she regret it? She didn't know.

Now, she didn't even deserve the word "regret." Because in the face of an absolute class chasm, the emotion of regret itself was a luxury.

Inside the villa.

Jiang Chen looked indifferently at the disheveled woman on the screen and casually pressed the channel change button.

"Jiang Chen, isn't that your... from back then?"

Academician Chen Shuyin sat nearby, fiddling with a micro-nuclear reactor that had just been dismantled. She glanced at the screen, her eyes calm, as if looking at a stray dog that had died by the roadside.

"Mm."

Jiang Chen tossed the remote control aside, picked up his glass, and took a sip of red wine. "Yes, Lin Yao."

He paused, his tone devoid of any ripples: "What's wrong?"

"Who is this person?"

"Oh, I remember now, it seems to be that... someone I dated in high school, not close."

"Not close?"

Academician Chen Shuyin chuckled, a trace of mockery flashing in her cold, clear eyes. "The look in your eyes when you were watching her just now didn't look like you weren't close."

"That was just looking at the scenery."

Jiang Chen leaned back in the sofa, his body slightly reclined, his expression revealing a kind of indifference toward the mortal world. "Look, this is the most ridiculous thing about this planet. Some people spend their whole lives pursuing so-called 'superiority,' only to end up not being able to find a decent place to live."

He looked at the flickering prosperity outside the window that belonged to the "Interstellar Village Chief," his eyes calm.

For him, whether it was Lin Yao, Wang Kai, or even Wang Jianguo, who had already jumped to his death due to bankruptcy...

These people he once felt were unattainable, or whom he hated to the bone...

Now, they were truly just insignificant specks of dust in this universe.

Even if they cried miserably, even if they regretted it deeply. So what?

Jiang Chen did not need their apologies. Because he was already standing outside the rules.

"Stop talking about irrelevant people."

Jiang Chen stood up, walked behind Academician Chen Shuyin, gently pressed her shoulders, and turned her around to face him. "Compared to such old history, I am actually more interested in this."

He pointed to the small black box in Academician Chen Shuyin's hand.

That was the last item collected as "spoils of war" from the home of the unlucky richest man, Wang Kai.

"That idiot Wang Kai always used to say his family had some 'ancestral treasure'."

"Turns out, when I looked, good heavens, it was actually this thing."

Jiang Chen's lips curled into a playful, wicked smile. "If that kid knew that his family's so-called treasure was actually this thing..."

"He'd probably be so angry he'd jump out of his grave right there in the desolate mountains of the Northwest, wouldn't he?"

Academician Chen Shuyin put down the reactor in her hand, picked up the black box, and frowned slightly. "What is this? It looks like an antique, but the electronic frequency on it is very strange."

"This is an encryption lock."

Jiang Chen reached out and took it, weighing it in his hand a few times. "The things locked by this gadget are worth much more than billions in deposits. This was something Wang Kai's father obtained back then through an illegal channel... some kind of 'alien civilization waste'."

"Unfortunately, these idiots treated it as a family heirloom and even tried to trade with certain dark web forces using this thing, eventually playing themselves into ruin."

"Open it and see?" Academician Chen Shuyin was a bit curious. "I tried to scan it just now; the material hardness of this box even exceeds the protective armor of the luan bird."

"No need to use violence." Jiang Chen took out the "universal decoder" from his pocket.

"Click." With a crisp sound, the so-called "ancestral treasure" slowly opened before the two of them.

There was no golden light shooting into the sky. Nor were there any world-destroying fluctuations.

Inside, there lay quietly only a thin chip and a long-yellowed letter written in English.

Jiang Chen picked it up and scanned it. At this sight, his brows knit together immediately.

The content of the letter was very simple, written in an arrogant tone:

"To these backward carbon-based monkeys:"

"Since you have excavated this relic, it means you have passed the initial 'screening'."

"Do not attempt to study this chip."

"Because it is not prepared for you."

"It is the monitor for this breeding farm."

"As long as someone touches its core logic, our 'Administrator' will perform an 'optimization process' on the entire galaxy via this frequency."

"In other words..."

"The thing in your hands is a... countdown switch connected to the destruction of your home planet."

Academician Chen Shuyin's face instantly turned as pale as paper.

She looked at the chip, then at the lines of text that were like a curse, and felt all the blood in her body congeal.

"Admin...istrator?"

"In other words, this bunch of so-called 'The Sweepers' have actually been monitoring us the whole time?"

"This thing is a bomb that could explode at any time?!"

Jiang Chen, however, did not show the same panic as Academician Chen Shuyin.

He took the chip out and observed it carefully at his fingertips.

The symbol printed on it was not some terrifying sign, but a simple... eye.

That was the eye of "The Keeper." Staring at him. And staring at this entire human civilization.

"A bit interesting."

Jiang Chen pinched the chip between his fingers and flicked it gently into the air.

This "destruction switch," which was enough to end the entire history of humanity, was like a weightless glass marble in his hands.

"I thought there would be some big commotion."

"Turns out, this is all they sent me?"

He turned his head and looked at the group of alien civilization envoys outside the window, who, because he had cut off their internet, had to return from mining planets and were queuing up to receive hotpot ingredients.

He also looked at the chip, which, although out of power, was clearly still recording something.

He revealed an evil and chilling sneer.

"These guys are really too self-righteous."

Jiang Chen picked up the black box and casually shoved it to Zhao Gang, who was nearby, his tone as flat as if he were throwing away an expired cigarette pack:

"Old Zhao, don't let it sit idle."

"Go."

"Send it to that... that Supervisor Li Guoqiang who is responsible for cleaning in our base."

"Tell him to stuff this thing into that newly repaired, most advanced 'Interstellar Garbage Crusher' for me."

"Since they like to observe so much, let them feel what it's like—the art of being crushed."

"And..."

Jiang Chen walked behind the desk, picked up the channel that had just been recording, and pressed the full-band access button.

Although this chip was a bug, he had plenty of ways to use it in reverse.

"Hey, listeners outside."

Jiang Chen spoke into the void as if chatting with an old friend:

"I know you are listening."

"I received the gift; it's quite unique."

"However..."

"Next time you give a gift, can you put some effort into it?"

"Don't bring out these toys that have been obsolete for seventy thousand years to embarrass yourselves."

"If you really want to play..."

"Next time, remember to bring something... that can pique my interest."

After speaking, Jiang Chen tossed the chip that recorded the truth of the home planet's destruction into the "Interstellar Garbage Decomposition Furnace" behind him.

"Zzz—" A blue arc of electricity flashed. The so-called "Eye of the Arbiter," in that instant, turned completely into waste.

He leaned back on the chair again, looking at the deep universe outside the screen, the smile on his lips gradually becoming somewhat crazy.

"Next. It's time for the prey... to become the hunter."

He turned his head and looked at Hill, who was still throwing a tantrum over being mistaken for an illegitimate daughter, and Academician Chen Shuyin, who was engrossed in studying the chip blueprints.

He felt that all the arrogance of his life was, at this moment, endowed with the most perfect legitimacy.

"As long as I have cheats."

"No matter who you are."

"I will make you—disappear completely."

He strode out of the study. Outside the door, the luan bird's engines once again let out a roar capable of making the galaxy tremble.

War. From here, it headed toward the... deepest part of the Milky Way Galaxy.

(Chapter 289 - End)

"That kid Wang Kai, doesn't he always think I have no upbringing?"

"Perfect."

"Wait for me to come back."

"I will go to the great Northwest myself to teach him... what true 'interstellar etiquette' is."

Jiang Chen's voice faded into the distance, but it echoed in the corridor for a long time, revealing a merciless dominance that made even the gods feel chilled.

Meanwhile, in another part of the starry sky. The civilization mastermind that had always maintained a cold and aloof posture.

Facing the suddenly vanished mothership connection signal and the Law of Causality feedback that had been cut off in an instant, it finally, for the first time... felt a tremor.

That was the extreme fear produced after being bitten back by the "mouse" it had raised itself.

And this hunt. Now. It has only just begun.