48: Chapter 48 The Lighthouse, Ye Qingxuan's Lover?

United States ——

"Our Chosen Ones is a person from another world? Or is it the Hulk from movies and TV shows? Sir, are you sure?" Donald Trump asked repeatedly.

"Yes, Mr. President. That actor is still filming, and it can be confirmed that the person currently in the National Destiny Space is the Hulk." The aide's tone carried excitement; finally, the United States also had a powerful Chosen Ones.

"That's great! With the Hulk's strength, surviving for thirty days shouldn't be a problem. However, can he beat that Ye from China?"

Donald Trump also grew excited, but he wanted even more for the Hulk to kill Ye Qingxuan.

"I'm sorry, sir. If the Hulk is only at the level seen in the movies, running into that Ye means certain death. But..." The aide's words shattered Donald Trump's sweet dream.

"But what? Speak quickly!"

"According to the information we obtained, that Ye from China has a unique task. All other countries' tasks are just to survive for thirty days, but that Ye is required to resolve some kind of ecology. Perhaps without us needing to make a move, he will die on the task." The aide's words carried uncertainty.

"I know. You can go out for afternoon tea now!" Donald Trump pointed at the door, issuing an eviction order.

————

Zijin Mountain Office

"Daoist Ye's task is the only unique one?" Number One also confirmed repeatedly.

"Chief, we've confirmed it several times. Only Daoist Ye is resolving the mana ecology, while everyone else just needs to survive. Won't there be any danger in this task?" The secretary also wore an anxious expression.

"Alright, be rational. Being anxious is useless; we can only watch. First, go notify the military to enter Level 1 combat readiness." Number One issued the command, needing to prepare for the worst, even if nothing happened in the end.

"Yes, Chief!" The secretary received the order and went down to prepare. Number One let out a sigh, sat down to watch the livestream, and now all he could do was offer a silent blessing.

—— CCTV Livestream

"Three Seniors, what is Daoist Ye doing?" Xiao Sa watched as Ye Qingxuan didn't act immediately, but instead sat cross-legged in place and closed his eyes. Xiaoqiu was still sleeping on Ye Qingxuan's lap, seemingly Cultivating?

"He is calculating!" Master Yuanxin watched Ye Qingxuan's slightly fluctuating fingers.

"Such Major Achievement in the Heavenly Secrets Technique! This talent is truly enviable." Celestial Master Zhang perceived the fluctuations emanating from Ye Qingxuan, full of sighs.

Although they knew he was naturally gifted, every time he brought them different surprises.

"Amitabha, Immortal Master Qingxuan should be calculating the past and future of that world." Master Kongming looked at the bullet comments of the livestream and explained briefly, as no one would understand any more detailed explanation anyway.

"Is this pinching fingers to calculate?" Xiao Sa was incomparably envious; who told him not to have the talent to Cultivate Immortals.

————

"So this is the Heavenly Secrets Technique!"

"I envy those who can Cultivate."

"Stop envying. The Heavenly Secrets Technique also relies heavily on talent; since ancient times, very few people have been able to master it."

"Is the person upstairs a Qi Practitioner?"

"This poor Daoist is Qingyun!"

"Hello Daoist Qingyun!!! (Extremely loud)" After all, Qingyun's recklessness was well-known outside.

"Just keep watching. Junior Brother never lets people down."

"Looking forward to it."

———— National Destiny Space

With the operation of Ye Qingxuan's Heavenly Secrets Technique, he roughly understood the ins and outs of this world.

It was all caused by eternal life technology. In the eyes of Qi Practitioners, this thing was a crooked path, relying on shortcuts to achieve eternal life without enough Heart-Nature to control an Immortal body, thus touching taboos.

Which Immortal existence hasn't gone through countless tribulations to attain this righteous fruit, yet you can get it just by getting an injection.

Furthermore, as for the cause of the cataclysm, humans touched the threshold of eternal life, breaking the life cycle. Therefore, there came the subsequent heavenly punishment of the mana ecology recycling life source essence.

To put it bluntly, it was maturity followed by harvesting, then mana cleaning, and then raising the next batch. Life source essence could be understood as food. A portion of people jumped out of the farm and fled with the food, causing the total number to decrease and failing to sustain the birth of the next batch of species, so biological weapons had to be used for recycling.

"So that's how it is." Ye Qingxuan understood the cause and effect and could begin acting. However, he still had to put Xiaoqiu into the Immortal Artifact ring; anyway, it was sleeping like a dead pig.

His Divine Sense spread outward, comparable to the Divine Sense of the Soul Transformation Stage, enveloping a radius of ten thousand miles. He couldn't see a single living person, only Sustenance-seekers everywhere.

"Since they are already dead, it might as well benefit me!" Hundreds of Qi-suppressing Talismans flew out from around Ye Qingxuan to conceal his aura, and then he offered up the human emperor banner.

With a touch of his magical power, the golden human emperor banner began to expand continuously until it enveloped a radius of ten thousand miles, resembling a huge celestial canopy.

"Clang," chains flew out, carrying the crisp sound of swaying iron chains, piercing through countless Sustenance-seekers. The human emperor banner began to devour. Within just tens of seconds, the ten-thousand-mile radius fell into complete silence, and all Sustenance-seekers were devoured clean.

"Boom boom," violent roaring sounds came from the Void Realm, as if something was angry. The life source essence inside the Sustenance-seekers was the energy needed by the Primeval Mana. Ye Qingxuan's action was no different from seizing food from the tiger's mouth. The human emperor banner's devouring was extremely overbearing, leaving not a single bit behind—the kind where even wanting to resurrect was completely impossible.

Unfortunately, the Qi-suppressing Talismans concealed all auras, and He could only rage incompetently.

——

"Damn, why did Daoist Ye's banner turn golden? Has it really become a human emperor banner?"

"If my memory serves me right, that banner should be black, right?"

"Not only that, its devouring power has become even more overbearing. Is it related to Daoist Ye's Cultivation Breakthrough?"

"What a map-clearing Divine Artifact! It cleared an entire area in one go!"

——

"This..." Xiao Sa was also speechless, because he also wanted to know why the banner turned golden.

"What a Karma Magic Treasure!" Abbot Kongming looked at the human emperor banner, finally feeling less awkward.

"And killing doesn't incur Karma." Master Yuanxin added faintly.

"Did Qingxuan integrate Karma into the human emperor banner? Such a waste! If he absorbed the Karma, he would be at least at the Return-to-Void stage by now, right?" Celestial Master Zhang was also seeing a golden human emperor banner for the first time.

"That's right! He has his own plans." Of course, Master Yuanxin couldn't say that the Ancestral Master had made a move.

—— National Destiny Space

Seeing that the grade of the human emperor banner was faintly rising, Ye Qingxuan simply took the banner and began clearing out the Sustenance-seekers first. Eliminating all Sustenance-seekers could weaken the strength of the Primeval Mana.

Next, Ye Qingxuan incarnated into a clearing master. The Sustenance-seekers on the surface were like being erased from paper by an eraser. Ye Qingxuan killed all the way as he walked, and before long, he arrived at the huge building floating in the sky —— Lighthouse.

—— Livestream

"Such a huge building"

"This should be the technology of a future world"

"It carries a doomsday wasteland style"

"There are still people on it"

————

Ye Qingxuan looked over with his Divine Sense, "What a coincidence! Right on time to encounter the famous ice-shattering scene."

Everyone in the livestream also saw this scene: a beautiful silver-haired woman was confronting a ferocious and terrifying monster, with their foreheads pressed against each other.

In an instant, a dazzling blue light flowed like a snake from the woman's body into the monster's mouth, and fine blue light-patterned cracks began to emerge on the woman's abdomen and arms. As time ticked by, these cracks multiplied until they covered her entire body.

At this moment, a crystal-clear teardrop quietly slid down the woman's snow-white, pale cheek. At the same time, she used her very last bit of strength to softly say, "I love you..." Before her voice faded, her body quickly turned into a stone statue, just like porcelain about to shatter. However, before she completely dissipated, a sentence still clearly reached the ears of everyone in the livestream —— "Live on..."

Right at this moment, "Bang," a faint sound of breaking through the air suddenly rang out. A fatal bullet sped over from a distance like lightning, flying straight toward the woman who had already turned into a stone statue. Watching as that bullet was about to hit the target and shatter her, the hearts of everyone in the livestream leaped into their throats.

Too fast to cover ears! In the blink of an eye, the entire space within a radius of a thousand miles seemed to be frozen, instantly turning grayish-white. Everything around seemed to be fixed in amber, unable to move a single fraction of an inch, and even the whistling bullet was no exception.

Turns out, this astonishing scene was actually the work of Ye Qingxuan! He cast the Divine Ability "Heaven and Earth Lose Color", causing time and space to come to a complete standstill.

Following that, his figure flashed, arriving in front of Ran Bing and Mark like a teleportation.

Ye Qingxuan formed hand seals with both hands, and a steady stream of powerful magical power condensed at his fingertips, then gently tapped and landed on Mark's forehead.

[part:gemini-3.6-flash]

In an instant, a surge of mysterious blue-and-white energy spewed from Mark's mouth, flowing backward along Ye Qingxuan's finger. Meanwhile, Ran Bing, who had originally been petrified, gradually revived under the influence of this strange power, returning to the form of a living person.

However, due to the influence of "Heaven and Earth Lose Color," she was still firmly bound in place at this moment, unable to move in the slightest.

Ye Qingxuan looked at the look in Ran Bing's eyes; it was very familiar. Senior Sister Qingling used to look at him with that exact same expression.

When Ye Qingxuan flicked his finger again and tapped Ran Bing's forehead, Spring Returns to All Things took effect.

Breaking free from her bonds, she was able to move freely. Looking around blankly at Ye Qingxuan's breathtakingly beautiful appearance, his moon-white Daoist robe, and this gray-and-white world that remained in a frozen state, her mind went completely blank as she muttered to herself, "What... what's going on?"

Ye Qingxuan looked at the Lighthouse guard behind her and waved his sleeve, turning him to ash. Then, lifting the Spell, he looked at the frenzied Mark and waved his hand, causing a Talisman to appear behind Mark. It shot out several chains, binding Mark tightly in midair.

Ran Bing watched in dumbfounded shock. Was this figure in a Daoist robe a higher-dimensional being? Or an Immortal from legends?

"You... who are you? A god? Or..." Ran Bing stammered, looking at Ye Qingxuan.

"This poor Daoist is Ye Qingxuan. I am a Daoist priest, and also a cultivator." Looking at Ran Bing's eyes, which resembled Qingling's, Ye Qingxuan answered her.

"A... cultivator? Did you save me? Can you save Mark?!" Looking at Mark, who was immobilized in midair, Ran Bing couldn't help but feel a flicker of hope.

————

"Fellow Daoist, did you see that?" Celestial Master Zhang looked at Master Yuanxin and Master Kongming, his tone somewhat grave.

"That monster can devour one's Qi, vitality, and spirit!" Master Yuanxin was somewhat surprised. He had seen monsters that sucked vitality, but only zombies devoured Essence, Qi, and Spirit all together.

"How bizarre. This monster is neither demon nor fiend, yet half-human and half-beast. It must be a unique trait of that world." Abbot Kongming's tone also carried uncertainty.

"Let's keep watching. In the Major Thousand Worlds, nothing is too strange. Our knowledge about that world is still far too limited." Master Yuanxin decided to keep observing.

"What are the three Seniors talking about?"

"I don't get it at all."

"It sounds super impressive though."

"Seeing how relaxed our Daoist Ye is, and then looking at the Chosen Ones from other countries—they're practically running for their lives!"

"Even that Hulk can't handle it?"

"With that many monsters, it'd take someone like Thanos to handle them."

"Looks like someone is about to break."

"It's Japan's Chosen One. Isn't he called 'Not Wearing Pants'?"

"Those little Japanese are in deep trouble now. Besides losing national destiny, ten times as many monsters will spawn!"

"Serves them right."

"We've been watching Daoist Ye crush everything effortlessly, so taking a break to watch those guys run for their lives isn't bad either."

"Bro above knows how to twist the knife. If foreigners saw this, they'd spit blood."

"Look! Someone tired of living has come to provoke Daoist Ye!"

"I bet fifty cents that Daoist Ye will slap them to death directly."

"I'll raise by one yuan!"

"A bunch of cheapskates, I bid two yuan!!"

—— National Destiny Space

"Shoot and kill this unknown organism! Anyone who disrupts the order of the Lighthouse is an enemy of the Lord of Light and Shadow!"

Ye Qingxuan was originally pondering how to change Mark back when his train of thought was unexpectedly interrupted by a voice.

Ye Qingxuan calmly watched Charles shouting there, as if... no, he was literally looking at a bunch of ants.

This time, Ye Qingxuan didn't even bother using a Spell. With a narrow of his eyes, all the guards turned to ashes, including the clamoring Charles.

"This..." Ran Bing was so shocked she couldn't speak. Killing so many people with just a glance? She had never seen such a powerful existence.

Merely a bunch of ants.

Ye Qingxuan pulled out a monster core—the core of that fire-attribute Lizard Dragon. Cupping his left hand slightly, true fire manifested out of thin air in the Void Realm, into which he threw the core.

A magic core was the essence of a Demonic Beast's entire power, but it contained too many Impurities and its energy was too violent to be absorbed directly. Ye Qingxuan cast hand seals, cleansing everything impure from the magic core and leaving only pure power and Mental Energy.

With a flick of his sword fingers, the magic core transformed into a streak of fiery red energy that drilled into Mark's body.

"Roar, ahhh!" Along with Mark's agonizing howl, a wave of smoke billowed out from his body.

Within the smoke, the monster shed its form and transformed into a heavily muscled humanoid over two meters tall. Red markings flickered on his body, and fine scales emerged on his neck.

Although his appearance was still a bit strange, at least he was in human form now.

Ran Bing called out in pleasant surprise, "Mark, you're awake! You've gotten so tall."

Mark raised his hand and lightly touched the top of her head. "Ran Bing?"

Then he scooped her up in an embrace, their gazes filled with tenderness as they looked at each other.

"Young lady, take note. After all, a magic core originates from a beast. Although he has recovered his vitality, the floodgates of his humanity have also been opened, giving him a bit of bestial nature. Do not let him lose his temper easily in the future."

Ye Qingxuan looked at Mark, pondered for a moment, and raised his hand to send a stream of information straight into Mark's mind.

"This poor Daoist transmits a Heart-Calming Incantation to you. Practice it diligently in the future."

"Before leaving, this poor Daoist has one word of advice for you both: cherish the person in front of you."

Seeing Ye Qingxuan turn to leave, Ran Bing hastily called out, "Daoist Ye, wait!"

Ye Qingxuan turned back with a puzzled look in his eyes.

"Why are you helping us like this?" Ran Bing asked, full of confusion. Her question voiced the sentiment of everyone in the livestream room.

After all, ever since Ye Qingxuan entered the National Destiny Space, he had always displayed an indifferent, uncaring attitude.

His decisive, ruthless, and cold personality struck fear into people's hearts. Although netizens posted all sorts of hilarious jokes and passionate confessions on the internet, when actually facing Ye Qingxuan in person, they probably wouldn't even be able to utter a single complete sentence.

However, just as everyone was astonished, Ye Qingxuan suddenly spoke up, "The look in your eyes is very similar to my beloved's."

These words were like a bolt from the blue, instantly shattering the hearts of countless young girls.

Meanwhile, Sister Qingling, who was watching the livestream, felt sweetness almost overflowing from her heart. Was this blockhead confessing his love in front of the whole world? Was he?!

Beside her, her three Senior Brothers—Qingming, Qingyun, and Qingmo—wore expressions of cringing in embarrassment. 'Love really drops one's IQ.'

"Ah??!!" Ran Bing was flabbergasted, completely unexpected that Ye Qingxuan would give such an answer.

By this time, Ye Qingxuan said no more. With a flash of his body, he transformed into a brilliant beam of sword light and shot away. It turned out he had a more important task to attend to—to continue nourishing the human emperor banner.

At the same time, the livestream chat exploded.

"What did Daoist Ye just say? Quick, tell me, I must be hallucinating!!" someone shouted in disbelief.

"Bro above, stop fooling yourself. Let me help refresh your memory. Daoist Ye clearly said, 'The look in your eyes...'" another person chimed in.

"Shut up!!!!" An angry roar interrupted their conversation; clearly, this netizen couldn't accept the cruel reality.

Immediately after, even more bullet comments flooded out.

"Daoist Ye actually has a lover??!! How is that possible!!"

"Yeah, a transcendent and otherworldly being like Daoist Ye, who is like a banished Immortal—how could any Mortal woman be worthy of him???!!! Absolute impossibility! Absolutely impossible!!"

"Mom, I've had my heart broken before I even fell in love!!"

"Qingling, is it Qingling??!!" Yun Huan blew her top completely.

"Waaaah, I knew it was Sister Qingling! Sister Qingling, you must treat Brother Qingxuan well!" Lin Yao popped up to comment as well.

Meanwhile, Celestial Master Zhang and Abbot Kongming were also staring at Master Yuanxin with gossip-filled faces, their meaning simple: 'Do tell.'

Beside them, Xiao Sa was also brimming with curiosity. Just what kind of woman could be worthy of a banished Immortal like Ye Qingxuan?

Master Yuanxin was about to decline, but then thought of Ye Qingxuan's nature—acting according to his heart in all things, never hiding anything, doing what he did without regret. This was also the most important quality of a cultivator: Sincerity!

"Qingxuan has already confessed his feelings to Qingling, and all of Mount Mao knows about it. As for the details, this poor Daoist will not say more." Master Yuanxin only told half the story, leaving everyone itching with curiosity.

Seeing the frustrated expressions of the people in front of him, along with their eyes full of gossip and curiosity, Master Yuanxin ultimately chose to keep his mouth shut.