Chapter 227: That’s Just How Craftsmen Are

Ji Jue’s perception stopped at the perimeter, and he remained there, watching in silence for a long while. He didn’t send the spiders farther inward.

With his abilities, there was no way he could slip past Jian Yuan’s senses and reach the engine unnoticed. The spiders would probably be discovered the moment they crawled inside. Not only would he gain nothing, but he could also alert the enemy. He had to take things one step at a time. Even the Heretic Cult hadn’t been built in a day. Getting promoted today was already good enough.

Ji Jue looked away and directed the spiders toward the surrounding area. After choosing three spots around the workshop, they dug holes and buried themselves underground.

Finally, Ji Jue opened his eyes. He took out a sheet of paper and began writing. When he finished, he sealed the letter in an envelope and placed it inside his toolbox.

Then, he looked toward the corner of the office. President, who had been lying there, immediately sprang to his feet, panting with his tongue hanging out and wagging his tail eagerly. Done working? Can I have some pats now? Can we go play together?

“Sorry, but I need you to make another trip.” Ji Jue rubbed President’s head, then placed the toolbox handle in his mouth again. “Put it down when you get there. Wait half an hour, then bring it back.”

President blinked at him, looking pitiful. It let out two soft whines, but soon enough, it obediently picked up the toolbox in its mouth, turned around, and trotted away, disappearing from sight.

Ji Jue let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair. Sometimes he couldn’t help marveling at just how useful President was. Unfortunately, its mouth was still a little too small. Otherwise, it could have simply picked up the engine and dragged it away. That would have saved everyone a lot of trouble. They could have all gone their separate ways, and by now, he could have already been back in Cliff City enjoying morning tea.

Why did everything have to be so complicated?

Ji Jue closed his eyes and listened to the seemingly illusory wails and cries of anguish that continued in the distance, then sighed. Spring City...

He didn’t know how much time passed before he drifted into a deep sleep.

An hour later, the alarm’s spirit intelligence stored within his soul woke him right on time. When he opened his eyes, he saw the toolbox back on the table and President sitting beside it, gazing at him eagerly.

Ji Jue smiled as he rubbed the dog’s head. “You’re back already? Good work. Who’s the best dog in the whole world? You are, President! You’re the greatest...”

Providing emotional support for the boss was, after all, part of a subordinate’s job.

After finally finishing his shameless flattery of President, the sole temporary employee of Skyrail Corporation sighed and opened the toolbox. At the very top was a reply letter.

Your letter has been received. We are all safe.

Please take care of yourself. At 7:30 tonight, I will carry out the plan you proposed.

Enclosed are two Hands of Delusion and one page from the Book of Correction. Big Hose has also included two Radiant Blades[1] as a gift.

Safety comes first. Prioritize your survival.

—Mr. No-Fun

Ji Jue looked down to the toolbox, now packed to the brim. A broad grin spread across his face. He whistled, but no sound came out. Mr. No-Fun really is dependable!

***

Meanwhile, in Lou Feng’s temporary workshop, Tong Shan rubbed the stubble on his chin, utterly baffled. “Don’t you think this is getting a little ridiculous? In less than a day, he somehow climbed into a management position in the Depths, located Lou Feng’s aunt, and even managed to send back this much intelligence. How the hell did he do it?”

Had Tong Shan not known Ji Jue so well and placed absolute trust in him, he would have assumed that the bastard had joined forces with Jian Yuan the moment he arrived and was now using all this as bait to lure them into a trap.

But then again, if Ji Jue could leave a toolbox right in front of him without anyone noticing, why bother with such an elaborate scheme? He could’ve just delivered a bomb, or simply descended from the sky wielding some terrifying weapon from the Depths. Wouldn’t that have been much more efficient?

“Could it be that we’ve misunderstood something all along?” Xu Guan mused after a long silence, genuine curiosity written across his face. “Maybe being an undercover agent is actually easy?”

Tong Shan opened his mouth, then closed it. There was nothing he could say.

Only Tom, who had been quietly eating in the corner the entire time, looked up and raised a hand. “Has anyone considered that he didn’t have to disguise himself to go undercover? Maybe he just finally got to be his true self.”

The room fell quiet. Everyone exchanged looks, but no one said a word. While Ji Jue’s efficiency and progress were outrageous, considering just how freakish he was, perhaps this was perfectly normal for him.

“Well, that’s just how craftsmen are,” Jiang Xuan said with complete conviction.

By now, he’d learned to blame every inexplicably bizarre phenomenon on the Ember Path.

Lou Feng, sitting beside him, looked miserable. He was practically choking with frustration. At this rate, Ji Jue is going to ruin the good name of craftsmen everywhere! Why hasn’t Ember struck him dead with a bolt of lightning yet? But, then again, he found Auntie.

At that thought, Lou Feng’s heart softened. He let out a sigh. Fine. Don’t strike him now. Give him another couple of days. Then you can strike him dead, and I’ll pay for a lavish funeral.

A faint sound echoed through the room. The air shimmered, and a sheet of paper that appeared out of nowhere drifted into Tong Shan’s hand.

Ji Liu leaned closer. “Well? What did they say? Did the outpost send any word?”

Tong Shan glanced at it and laughed coldly before handing over the official directive. “The same old nonsense. They encouraged us to keep the greater good in mind, disregard our own safety, and be ready to sacrifice ourselves for Haizhou.”

“What kind of idiotic bullshit is this?” Ji Liu scanned the document once before tearing it cleanly in half.

To hell with the greater good! They were still sneaking around Spring City like rats because they were risking their lives for Haizhou. They were already working with their lives on the line, yet these people still expected them to march to their deaths and draw fire for whatever half-baked plans they had concocted.

Yeah, they can fuck right off. Who the hell do they think they are? Who the fuck do they think they are, slapping some bogus outpost seal on a piece of paper and calling it an order?

Tong Shan had not been idle during his two days outside. After going through endless trouble, he had finally managed to contact the main force, only to receive a mountain of bullshit in return.

Tong Shan didn’t particularly care. Unless the orders bore the personal seals of Tao Gong or Lü Yingyue, he intended to ignore every last one of them. After all, when a general was in the field, even the ruler’s commands need not always be obeyed.

Besides, these people weren’t even his direct superiors. They could drag him before the Origin court after the battle if they had the guts!

Lü Yingyue’s orders, on the other hand, had not told them to do anything specific. She had only instructed them to stay safe and wait for the right moment to act. What moment they waited for and how they acted were entirely up to them. With a few simple words, she had taken all the responsibility and any blame that could follow onto her shoulders.

Sometimes, it mattered less whether the workload was heavy or the job was difficult. Having a superior who was willing to take responsibility made the work infinitely easier.

With Tong Shan’s help, Tom had also managed to clear his name. He was now officially an informant planted by the Security Bureau within the Heretic Cult, and his previous offenses in Haizhou had been wiped from the record. These days, apart from wondering what his next meal would be, the only thing on his mind was the thirty-odd revival tokens reserved for Fourth Great-Uncle.

“We may be taking action soon,” Tong Shan warned his team solemnly. “Everyone should be prepared. Mr. Tom, don’t look at me like that. You’ve already filled up three latrines. As long as you don’t mind digging more yourself, we’ll keep you well fed. Anyway, all of you should be prepared to move at a moment’s notice.”

Time passed. At last, the flag Lou Feng had carefully repaired and rebuilt was finished and placed in Tong Shan’s hands. Without any further ado, he turned and left their hiding place under the protection of the candlelight.

The restored flag was responsive enough, and the craftsmanship was flawless. There was almost no trace of where it had once broken, but it no longer possessed the effortless smoothness it once had, when it had moved as naturally as an extension of his body.

Tong Shan sighed inwardly. He felt strangely hollow inside. It was the melancholy of losing the one person who had always held a special place in his heart, then searching for traces of her in everyone who came after. Each one seemed like her, yet none of them truly was.

Once the situation in Spring City was settled, perhaps he should commission something from Tidesound Workshop. But if he specifically requested Ji Jue’s involvement, would Master Ye take it as a sign that he didn’t trust her? Could it affect Ji Jue’s standing in the workshop? And if he simply offered Ji Jue money outright, would Ji Jue feel insulted?

Hmm. He would have to give it some careful thought later.

He also needed to have a word with Tong Hua. She and Ji Jue seemed to get along well, so she couldn’t spend every day standing on the sidelines and enjoying the drama like an idiot. Given how hopelessly dense his little sister was, he couldn’t expect their relationship to develop any further, but she was at least good at maintaining friendships. There was nothing wrong with them simply being good friends.

For the moment, Ji Jue’s safety didn’t appear to be an issue. Tom had also become much less of a concern after signing the Origin Covenant. Ji Liu’s injuries, however, were still fairly serious. Unless the curse lingering in his wounds was removed, it could leave lasting damage if too much time passed. They had to deal with it as quickly as possible.

As Tong SHan strolled through the streets, thoughts surfaced in his mind. As always, whenever he was alone, he instinctively thought over every aspect of their current situation, weighing every threat, every possibility, every contingency.

To his teammates and subordinates, he always appeared decisive and unwavering, but he knew himself better than anyone. He knew perfectly well that he could be indecisive, prone to overthinking, and painfully slow to make up his mind.

Tong Hua had a much simpler word for it. “You’re such a worrywart.”

Though he was hailed as one of Origin’s brightest talents, he was different from veterans like Mr. Tao, who had almost completely merged with Origin. The closer Tong Shan drew to Origin, the more vividly he sensed the part of himself that did not belong to it.

Every senior he knew had warned him to be careful. Unless he properly reconciled the self with order and reason with rules, any conflict between them could create the risk of corruption.

But he didn’t care about that. In fact, the thought filled him with a faint sense of joy.

His grandfather had once told him that hardship was like a carving knife. The world would chisel away at a person, and when they finally looked at themselves in the mirror, they would understand the shape they had taken.

It was precisely because his small, fragile sense of self existed in the narrow space between rules and order that it stood out so clearly. It reminded him that he existed, even when that existence brought pain, confusion, and loneliness.

He had chosen rules and order for himself, binding them around his nature like iron braces around a growing tree, all in the hope that one day he would become the person he wished to be. No matter how much pain awaited him, he would never regret that choice, even if he fell before reaching the end.

Tong Shan stood atop the roof of a crumbling high-rise, gazing toward the point marked on the map.

“Are you ready, Ji Jue?” Tong Shan murmured softly as the numbers on his watch ticked down. The moment they reached zero, he drew a deep breath and raised the flag.

A vast surge of spirit matter spread without restraint, soaring into the sky like a tidal wave. Amid the sudden peal of lightning, interwoven totemic marks blazed across the flag’s surface. Its colors shifted from amber to scarlet, then indigo, before finally turning pitch-black.

The raging torrent of spirit matter contracted into a single beam. As Tong Shan swept the flag through the air, it left streaks of black in its wake. He paid no attention whatsoever to the iridescent radiance sweeping across the heavens above, nor to the rapidly approaching waves of spirit matter.

Tong Shan opened his mouth in a silent scream as fresh cracks spread across the flag in his hands. Then, he pointed it toward the distant horizon.

The night sky shuddered as though a blade had torn through it at impossible speed. For a fleeting moment, the entire world dimmed, and beneath the flash of searing light, every color was stripped away and everything shook. A single point of incandescent light streaked across the sky above the phantom-like workshop at the heart of Spring City, shooting toward the distant horizon.

Meanwhile, the three mechanical spiders buried deep beneath the soil around the workshop quivered and shattered, releasing faint ripples of spirit matter as they sent out an alarm.

Suddenly, the blazing light changed course, taking a sharp turn and plunging straight downward. Like divine judgment descending from the heavens, the beam crashed with terrible force into the workshop’s invisible defenses. The destructive force compressed within it erupted on impact, releasing a torrential downpour of lightning.

High overhead, translucent layers of protective barriers flickered into existence before vanishing again, trembling frantically under the assault. The storm swept outward, and ruined buildings groaned before collapsing. The earth shook, rolling like the surface of a storm-tossed sea.

Inside the workshop, everyone stumbled as the shockwave rocked the ground beneath them.

“What’s happening?!”

“An earthquake?”

“No. We’re under attack!”

“The Security Bureau’s here!”

Amid the spreading chaos, a shrill alarm blared. Red warning lights flashed, bathing every bewildered and terrified face in crimson.

Smiling to himself, Ji Jue stepped through the office door. He casually discarded the crutch that had completed its role as part of his disguise. Without it, his stride became light and effortless. “Nicely done, Mr. No-Fun.”

Then, just like that, he slipped into the panicked crowd, like a drop of water disappearing into the sea.

1. Please note that the original raw here is “Blade of Flowing Light” which is quite long and unnatural in English, hence I’ve translated it as “Radiant Blade.” ☜