Chapter 111: Clues

Scam artists are among the most detestable people alive.

Looking at that deliberately extortionate face, any normal person would want to lash the bastard with a copper-headed belt until he spun like a giant top. Those who wrong you know exactly how wronged you are—so what chance does anyone have against psychic cultivators, with all their varied tricks? To try such a scam on that sort of group was truly a case of an old immortal growing tired of life.

Psychic cultivators had principles.

But those principles were usually directed at civilization, not at individuals.

When someone possessed enough force to annihilate a nation, how could they still be restrained?

When Lan Yi and the others finally tracked them down and found Li Yang at the police station, they had all been wondering what extraordinarily capable noblewoman could have held this psychic cultivator at bay for so long. Then they became even more bewildered.

Was this the extraordinarily capable noblewoman in question?

An old woman with hair as white as snow, dressed in rags.

Her combat strength was probably not even one.

Forget holding back a psychic cultivator—even if every burly man in the police station were summoned, they might still be unable to stop the surging power Li Yang could unleash.

“Li Yang, what are you playing at?” Wang Aojia asked, unable to make sense of it.

“There… is a reason.” Li Yang spoke slowly, dragging out every word. Not only that, his movements also seemed to lag half a beat behind everyone else.

He was not doing it deliberately. Before activating his abilities, his Life Formation Diagram came with this particular side effect. And he still had a long road ahead before he could eliminate it completely.

Clearly, waiting for Li Yang to explain would take quite some time.

Several psychic cultivators, each with an imposing presence and their own peculiar methods, turned their eyes toward the old woman in unspoken agreement. They had no habit of respecting the elderly or cherishing the young. Lin Cheng in particular was already preparing to erase her memories and extract the truth directly.

“My son was taken by ghosts. No one believes me.”

“This young man said that you would certainly believe me.”

“He also said that only you could find my son. I truly had no other choice. As long as you can bring him back—even if he is already dead, as long as he can be laid to rest properly—you may do whatever you want to me, beat me or kill me.”

The old woman trembled as she rose, intending to kneel before Lan Yi and the others.

Lan Yi merely lifted a hand from a distance, and the old woman found herself utterly unable to kneel.

“I see. You found a trigger. No wonder you managed to hold him at bay for so long—and even brought us here,” Juno said, having more or less understood what had happened.

By a twist of fate, Li Yang—

perhaps because of his unusual presence, or because he had revealed some of his abilities—

had been discovered by the old woman. Her son had already been missing for some time, and she had tried every method available without success. In the end, the desperate mother could only stake everything on one final gamble.

“Ghosts?”

Only then did Lan Yi slowly speak.

Was this Artificial Divine Realm a supernatural one?

Whether ghosts or other anomalies, in the eyes of psychic cultivators they were all life-forms that were neither mysterious enough nor powerful enough.

Within an Artificial Divine Realm, if psychic energy was excessively abundant while humanity had been locked out of absorbing it, then the macroscopic quantum effects produced when human beings died could indeed draw upon that energy, giving rise to various kinds of ghosts. Some appeared to be manifestations of rules; others resembled traditional ghosts; some were spirit entities like haunting circuits; and the most common were beings formed from lingering obsessions.

The systems of the obsessed—the Possessed, True Demons, and Demon Kings—had once launched a powerful assault against the two great orthodox traditions of the primary world, only to be mercilessly suppressed.

The reason was very simple.

Whether confronted by the martial arts of the Robust World or the arts of the Cognitive World, the ghost-cultivation system was insufficiently pure. Put plainly, it was neither mysterious enough nor scientific enough. At the same time, it was beaten down by both science and the mysterious. Even with certain innate advantages, once the orthodox Great Paths brought their power to bear, ghost cultivators—even those wielding divine artifacts—would be beaten until their souls scattered and vanished.

Artificial Divine Realm 2055 did not resemble a world where ghost cultivators existed.

Artificial Divine Realms inhabited by ghosts had one distinctive feature: ghosts that could not be seen with the naked eye, yet could be instantly captured by psychic vision, would be darting everywhere. This was especially true in crowded places. Spirit entities reduced to nothing but obsession would invariably do something to living beings, and whatever they did was generally grotesque and insane.

Over the past few days, Lan Yi and the others had searched not only the Azure Dragon Federation—

but also several nearby countries.

Using their unique combination of high mobility and concealment, they had swept the entire region again and again with psychic vision. They had found no ghosts, not even a ghostly trace.

Otherwise, they would have thought of it much sooner.

Excessively dense free psychic energy would most likely stimulate supernatural phenomena.

And through the old woman’s account, Lan Yi and the others had taken another step toward the truth concealed within the fog.

The old woman’s surname was Ma, and her given name was Mei.

Her husband had been a soldier who died in the great war of self-defense several decades earlier.

He had given his life to the nation, and she had devoted hers to raising the family.

Never remarrying, she had endured hardship and brought up her only son, Xu Tianze. Xu Tianze had not disappointed his mother’s hopes. He had become an honorable firefighter.

But four months ago—

Xu Tianze suddenly became troubled and withdrawn.

No one knew a son better than his mother. Ma Mei noticed his constant anxiety, his taut nerves, and his sleepless nights. Yet whenever she asked him about it, Xu Tianze—who clearly wanted to speak—would fall silent again.

On his face, she saw the same expression of terror that had appeared only when he was a child left alone at home.

Back then, Xu Tianze had been terrified of ghosts.

Terrified beyond words.

Before long, Xu Tianze resigned from his job, and his whereabouts began to grow erratic.

Being absent all night became commonplace.

At the longest stretch, he disappeared for an entire month, and his phone could not be reached.

Ma Mei knew that her son had encountered terrible trouble—and that he had no way to seek help from anyone else. She reported the matter to the police and even appealed to his superiors, but none of it did any good. Everyone’s eyes were turned upward, fixed on the moon and the heavens. No one would take an old woman’s rambling words seriously.

“Missing, is he?”

“All right. The Federal Police will handle it. Go home and wait for word.”

Until one day, Ma Mei dreamed of her son.

To be precise, it might not have been a dream at all. Perhaps Xu Tianze had used some method to return home temporarily.

In that dream, Xu Tianze kowtowed to his elderly mother and said that he had been an unfilial son, that he would be unable to care for her in her old age or see her to the grave. Like his father, he had something more important to do.

Ma Mei asked him what that important thing was.

Xu Tianze answered that they were saving all of humanity.

Ma Mei then asked whether he could still return.

Xu Tianze said nothing.

At last, Ma Mei sighed. Her son had chosen a path similar to his father’s. At her age, with half her body already in the grave, what more could she say? She could only shed her tears and wait for death.

Before leaving, Xu Tianze urged his elderly mother never to take her own life. If she lived long enough, she would certainly see him again. Their efforts would not be in vain. Sooner or later, the truth would be revealed to the entire world.