“Wait wait wait, what did you say?” An Lin felt like his ears were playing tricks on him.
“I’m going to prepare for my tribulation transcendence to the Return to Void Final Stage.” Ye Ling cocked her head to the side. “Is there a problem?”
An Lin drew a sharp intake of breath. “Of course there is! There is a massive problem! You’ve only just progressed to the Return to Void Intermediate Stage, yet you’re already preparing to transcend your tribulation to the Return to Void Final Stage? Even hacks don’t work like that!”
Xu Xiaolan was also a little anxious. “Little Ling, I know it has been very hard for you to repress your cultivation base this entire time, but you’ve already progressed to the Return to Void Intermediate Stage and allowed yourself to have some fun, so you should knuckle down now and start the rebuild again. Don’t forget what the cow-nose daoist priest told you.”
An Lin’s mouth gaped open again upon hearing Xu Xiaolan’s words.
Was his disciple this bad*ss to the point that she had to repress her cultivation base?
Ye Ling thought about this momentarily before finally nodding with a resigned expression. “Alright.”
Thus, she decided to continue to repress her cultivation base in order to build a solid foundation.
That day, the Four Nine Immortal Sect held another celebration for Ye Ling’s successful breakthrough.
Master An Lin cooked a Golden Dragon Flying Fish dish for his disciple using his frying pan, and Ye Ling was brought to tears as she issued relentless praise.
His title of Heavenly Court Chef God was nothing to be scoffed at.
That night, An Lin received some more good news.
Fanny informed him via voice transmission that her father had already agreed to refine the divine pills and had already commenced the refinement process. He was clearly prioritizing this job.
An Lin also tried to contact the Grandmaster Construction Cultivator via voice transmission talisman to express his gratitude and see how she was going, but no one answered, presumably because she was still fuming.
News of Ye Ling’s breakthrough to the Return to Void Intermediate Stage soon began to spread.
Many living beings on the Tai Chu Continent who had once voiced their malicious opinions had been slapped in the face.
The Celestial Thearch also dialed a voice transmission to express congratulations, as did Emperor Ziwei, Zhu Xuze, and the Battling Buddha.
Even Lan Xiaoni dialed over a voice transmission from the West Sea to express congratulations before chatting excitedly with An Lin for over an entire hour.
The Heavenly Human Tribe United Army had well and truly gone dormant, and as the leader of the West Sea Alliance, she could finally take it easy for a while.
Dongfang Zhuangshi also dialed a voice transmission, but he was not expressing any congratulations.
“An Lin… I have no one else I can turn to. I was wrong, I really was. I’ve now fallen into the turmoil of time, and you are the only miracle-worker I could think of. Please… please come help me…” Dongfang Zhuangshi’s despairing and helpless voice sounded from the other side.
An Lin was given a fright upon hearing this. He had never heard Dongfang Zhuangshi talk like this before, and he had never seen him beg for help like this. Things had probably progressed to an extremely rotten state.
“Xiaolan, I have to leave for a while. Dongfang Zhuangshi needs me.” An Lin stood up with a solemn expression.
“Alright. Make sure to look after yourself.” Xu Xiaolan didn’t try to stop him, but she couldn’t disguise the concern in her eyes.
An Lin gave Xu Xiaolan a kiss before tearing through space and traveling directly toward The United University of Cultivation.
Dongfang Zhuangshi had placed the Vast Land of Blood in a sea of clouds near The United University of Cultivation, and it had been there ever since.
An Lin quickly found that place.
He used his Divine Inspection Technique to break through the restrictions before passing through a spatial gate.
A rush of dizziness ensued.
A peculiar world appeared before An Lin’s eyes; a world that had been frozen in time.
Bright and beautiful sunlight; graceful, flying birds; lush, diverse flora; and lively streets filled with people. Everything was so serene and tranquil.
Unfortunately, everything had been frozen in time.
Regardless of whether these were living beings or inanimate objects, everything was frozen.
This was like an image that An Lin could only step into and admire, but he couldn’t influence it in any way.
The flow of time had already been severed here.
An Lin thought back to the last time he was here in order to find that clinic again.
All of a sudden, the sky turned red.
The people on the streets disappeared. The beautiful image instantly transformed into a ghastly cesspool filled with countless corpses and rivers of blood! The entire city was in ruins and had been transformed into an infernal hell.
An Lin’s expression shifted upon seeing this. Wasn’t this the scene where the Black Hand Tribe had slaughtered the entire city?
Could it be that the seal on the flow of time was no longer effective?
He quickly advanced onward, and at this moment, the world around him suddenly began to transform again.
The corpses around him began to rot and decay, and countless maggots emerged as black energy wafted through the streets.
In the next second, all of the decaying corpses disappeared and were replaced by sets of stark, white skeletons.
An Lin was struck by another rush of indescribable dizziness. This place was a little strange. Could it be that the time divine tool had run out of power?
He finally saw the clinic he was looking for and was just about to enter when the world transformed again.
The bleak and desolate city returned back to its serene and beautiful state as countless people walked the streets while conversing with one another. The shops along the streets had employees advertising their wares outside or welcoming customers with smiles. There was a little girl in a cream-colored dress, licking on a skewer of sugar-coated haws as she stood outside the clinic and looked out onto the streets.
An Lin’s heart stirred. This was the clinic!
He was just about to go in when his footsteps came to an abrupt halt, and a strange feeling welled up in his heart.
He turned toward that little girl standing outside the door, and the more he looked at her, the more familiar she felt.
All of a sudden, a thought exploded in his mind.
Holy f*ck! This little girl looked very similar to Dongfang Mengjie! Could it be that this was Dongfang Mengjie as a child?!
If this was Dongfang Mengjie out here, then inside the clinic…
An Lin felt like things were about to get a little difficult, and he took a deep breath before walking into the clinic.
He was greeted by a familiar sight.
There was an extremely beautiful woman in a cream-colored dress with a warm smile sorting medicinal ingredients. She presented a very enticing sight, but she was completely frozen, as if she were a three-dimensional still image.
A middle-aged man was injecting his energy into a white stone in his hand with all his might. Countless dark lines appeared in the air around Dongfang Mengjie, and they were slowly approaching her, presenting quite a strange sight in this completely motionless world.
“Mr. An Lin, you’re finally here!” Dongfang Zhuangshi spoke in a hoarse voice.
“What happened?” An Lin discovered that Dongfang Zhuangshi was currently in a very bad condition.
To put it more accurately, his body was in a state of complete overexertion and depletion. Even so, he was still pouring forth energy that he didn’t have frantically into the white stone in his hand.
“I used the Essential Time Stone to inject a huge amount of time power into this city in an attempt to kickstart the flow of time in one fell swoop, only to draw backlash from this world…
“The time in this world is now in a complete, non-sequential turmoil, and if it weren’t for the fact that the Chaotic Life Core is protecting Mengjie, she would have already been replaced by that little girl outside…
“Now, the entire world is rejecting Dongfang Mengjie, and I can’t hold on for much longer…”
Dongfang Zhuangshi’s face was extremely pale as he gripped tightly onto the white stone in his hand.
His energy had already been completely depleted, and he was burning his blood essence as an energy source!
An Lin’s expression became extremely grave as he looked at the black lines converging toward Dongfang Mengjie.
He immediately nodded. “What should I do then?”
“How would I know? Help me, An Lin!” Dongfang Zhuangshi wailed with helplessness.
An Lin: “…”