Chapter 234: (I): The Mute Village Guide

The idea that the evil organizations had wine chilled and dishes laid out, all waiting to celebrate Yuanshi Tianzun's final journey to the Spirit Realm was a joke to Guan Ya. But the evil organizations really were waiting on that outcome, and they seemed to be pinning a lot of hope on Yuanshi dying in there.

He was a tournament champion, after all. To some degree, Yuanshi had already become the face of the Lawful classes at the Transcendent tier. Let a candidate like that grow, and they might end up with another Fu Qingyang.

Li Dongze's voice dropped low. "Guan Ya, keep trying. If we still can't reach Yuanshi by twelve thirty, I'll notify the centurion right away. We may have to call for a meeting."

The point of that meeting, of course, would be to hash out ideas on how to show that "Yuanshi Tianzun had safely returned" and to "arrange for someone to impersonate Yuanshi Tianzun."

Given the name and standing Yuanshi held, if he really died in the Spirit Realm, one bland announcement would not clear things up. It would be a full blown PR crisis.

Li Dongze had plenty of faith in Yuanshi, but a seasoned leader prepared for every possible bad turn, including such a situation.

That was when Wang Tai spoke up. "This is ridiculous! Demon Lord nearly dying doesn't mean Yuanshi will die. Set aside combat power and items for a second. Demon Lord wasn't good at everything. The one crisis that he couldn't crack could be the exact thing he's bad at, while it might seem like basic common sense for someone else. Your worries are justified, but turning into scared little birds is not. 

"Saying a dungeon Demon Lord felt was a death sentence doesn't mean that Yuanshi Tianzun absolutely can't get through it. That's just ridiculous. Low IQ plebs."

Guan Ya and Li Dongze both blinked. It was rare for Wang Tai to speak these many words.

"Well, sort of, but… Wang Tai, everything you said makes sense," Guan Ya said, dazed, "except we never said that last bit."

"Oh," Wang Tai muttered with his messy hair and glazed eyes. "That was for a few brainless keyboard warriors on the forum. I couldn't beat them in an argument, so I took it out on you two."

Guan Ya and Li Dongze stared at him, faces blank. Who gave you that kind of courage, keyboard warriors? 

***

Zhang Yuanqing was looking around at his familiar bedroom again, the small jade casket still cupped in his hands.

I'm back… Reflexively, his eyes went to his bedroom door. It stood open, though he distinctly remembered shutting it before he went into the Spirit Realm.

Even the deadbolt's been undone. I’ve been gone for twenty-four hours, so the whole house must be losing it.

He considered the situation for a moment, and for once, he couldn't scrape together a decent excuse. He was legally an adult, sure, but he was still a student. What sort of business did a student have staying out for a full day?

Pretty much the only possibility left was getting a room with a girlfriend.

Except I have no girlfriend, Zhang Yuanqing thought morosely as he grabbed his phone, only to find it had died.

He plugged it in to charge, then turned his attention back to the item in his hand. He opened the jade casket, and saw three small jade talismans lying inside. 

Three. Well, that lines up with how long Demon Lord's been dead…

He'd gotten the Character Card this past April, a bit over two months back, so Demon Lord had to have died more than two months ago. The casket produced one jade talisman a month, and there were three inside. The number of talismans matched the time since Demon Lord's fall.

I'll use one of these sometime to check what it does. There’s no need to test it in the real world. I'll try popping back into a Spirit Realm dungeon which I've cleared before Yin Yang Town isn't worth revisiting, so it's either Jinshui Amusement Park or the Temple to the Three Paths Mountain Goddess.

Then again, can this thing really send me back to any place I've already been? If I wanted to go back into the womb, what would it do?

Well that was just idle musing. He had no plan to actually try it out.  He'd been out in the world twenty-one years and was no longer some four pound newborn. If he really did crawl back into the womb, his mom would probably drop dead on the spot.

He put the Jade Casket of Teleportation away, stripped off his filthy, wrecked shirt and pants. He padded through the living room in his boxers and into the bathroom.

Under the rush of running water, his mind began to wander.

Grandma isn't home at this time of day, as she's out buying groceries. At her age, and with her precious grandson missing for a whole day, how is she managing to keep any food down…?

After showering and changing into a clean short-sleeved tee and track pants, Zhang Yuanqing yanked his phone off its charger, crossed the living room, and opened the front security door. His aim was clear. He was headed for the upscale restaurant just outside the complex to enjoy their signature braised chicken.

Twenty-four hours without food… He was going out of his mind with hunger.

He'd just opened the security door when he saw the one across the hall swing open too, and out stepped a middle-aged man in beach shorts and a Hawaiian tee, oozing a certain sleazy flair.

His uncle, meeting the heir to his legacy, opened with a stretch of clumsy rap. "Yo, little Yuanzi, dopey as ever. Look at you, half asleep, dragging around a body that got wrung dry."

Then, he chuckled. "Finally figured it out, huh? You've learned how to grab a room with a girl. Uncle's proud of you."

Zhang Yuanqing looked at his uncle, decked out head-to-toe in floral prints, and said sourly, "Uncle, that outfit… are you off on holiday to some place of exile—hold on. What did you say? Grab a what?"

"With all this cursed weather this summer, one would willingly go to a place of exile just to beat the heat. I figured beach shorts really suits it," his uncle said, explaining his outfit, then he waggled his eyebrows. "Yu'er says you've got a girlfriend now, and spent last night out with her. Your grandma was over the moon, saying Yuanzi's the one who'll really make something of himself."

Auntie? She actually covered for me with Grandpa and Grandma? 

Zhang Yuanqing rolled with it. "When I've got a kid down the line, I'll have him learn rap from his uncle."

His uncle loved hearing that and slipped the heir to his legacy a bright red banknote.

***

In the frigid air of the restaurant, Zhang Yuanqing held his phone, with its battery freshly charged to nine percent, and gaped. That's insane. Thirty missed calls?

Of all those missed calls, five were from Grandma and the rest… were from Guan Ya.

He knew it was standard procedure, but twenty-something calls in one go was a lot… She was probably the reason his phone had died in the first place.

That Mute Village dungeon had truly been dangerous, but to everyone on the outside, Yuanshi Tianzun had walked into an A-rank dungeon, nothing more.

Could it be that Guan Ya's feelings for me have already run this deep? he wondered.

Right as he was thinking this, the phone rang.  The caller was none other than Guan Ya.

The corners of Zhang Yuanqing's mouth curled upwards. He picked up the call, cleared his throat, and needled her.

"Sis Guan Ya, I had no idea you were this worried about me. Tsk tsk. A beauty's affection runs deep, and the only way to repay it is to offer up eighteen centimeters."

He expected her to reply with something like "Eight centimeters or eighteen? I'll verify that with my own hands," or perhaps something more like, "Will your repayment be like one of those clearance sale clothing shops, everything half off?" 

Instead, there was joy, excitement and relief in Guan Ya's voice, as though a heavy weight had finally lifted off her shoulders. 

—Yuanshi, you're out? Thank god. Thank god…

Huh? Zhang Yuanqing paused. "What's wrong?"

Guan Ya didn't answer him but shouted to someone on her end.

—Squad Leader, Yuanshi's out!!

A dozen seconds later, Zhang Yuanqing heard Li Dongze's voice on the other end of the line, sounding decidedly unelegant.

—Oh my god. Yuanshi, when it comes to clearing dungeons, you've never once let anyone down. You're a genius. A top-tier genius.

"Squad Leader, you're too loud. I don't know what's going on. Explain it to me elegantly, please."

Soon enough Zhang Yuanqing wrung the whole thing out of Li Dongze: the rumor Yin Ji's words had kicked off, and the fear it had put into Guan Ya and the others.

Demon Lord had misunderstood the crux of the dungeon, he realized. He must have assumed you had to kill the boss in the village to clear it, and by the time he caught on, he was already half dead…

Me escaping from the commandery princess alive came down entirely to luck. Demon Lord was probably in the same boat back then.