I risked my life, using the butterfly effect to shatter the immortal realm.

The swill smelled rancid and smelled of blood.

Yu Liang, like a stray dog ​​with its spine broken, slowly crawled out of the sewage outlet of the prison kitchen.

The rain poured down, and every drop of rain felt like it was tearing his flesh away.

He's about to disappear.

This is not a rhetorical device.

Raising his left hand, in the ghastly white light of the lightning, it was no longer flesh and blood, but rather like a translucent ice crystal, and one could even see the ghastly white shattered bones beneath his palm.

The backlash from "cause-and-effect fraud" has arrived.

The world is forcibly erasing him from this time and space, as if wiping away a stain.

My vision began to blur, and the world turned into a series of gray silhouettes.

Yu Liang gritted his teeth and, relying on his last instinct, plunged headfirst into an abandoned mountain god temple by the roadside.

"Thump."

He fell at the feet of the idol, his body flickering in and out of light, like a candle burning in the wind.

……

Footsteps.

Very light, with a hint of panic.

To escape the damned downpour, Su Xiu, carrying her soaked bundle, stumbled into the dilapidated temple.

"Is anyone there?"

She was startled and instinctively tried to back out.

Click—!

Thunder tore through the night sky, illuminating the dilapidated temple as bright as day.

Su Xiu froze in place, her pupils shrinking sharply.

She saw the man lying in the mud.

No, was that really a person?

His left side... is transparent!

The stark white bones and twisted tendons floated within the transparent flesh, like a demon crawling out of hell!

"ah--!!"

A scream caught in her throat, and Su Xiu was terrified. She turned and ran.

The more he rushed, the more confused he became. He slipped and fell awkwardly into a mud pit.

She kicked her legs back desperately, trying to get as far away from the monster as possible.

But as her terrified gaze swept around haphazardly, she inadvertently caught sight of the man's intact right hand.

A hideous, long-healed scar.

It runs from the back of his hand all the way down to his wrist.

This scar, like a key, instantly unlocked the icy river sealed deep within her memory.

The icy river water, the overwhelming despair, and a pair of thin, bony hands covered in frostbite, yet desperately lifting the young girl to the surface.

On that hand, there was also an identical scar.

……

Yu Liang awoke from the feeling of endless falling, and the first thing he saw was a face ashen with fear and turmoil.

Everything was within his calculations.

Everything was beyond his expectations.

Su Xiu's lips trembled as she pointed to the scars on his hand, her voice filled with uncontrollable sobs and fear.

"It's you... isn't it? The glacier in Qingzhou many years ago..."

In an instant, Yu Liang felt as if his heart was being gripped tightly by an invisible hand.

excruciating pain.

That was the kind of empathy he hated most, yet could never shake off.

But his face instantly filled with the slickness and sarcasm unique to street swindlers.

"Girl, your eyesight isn't very good. Trying to claim kinship with a dying person in the middle of the night—aren't you afraid of bringing bad luck?"

He deliberately shook his translucent arm, watching the color drain from her face, his tone so flippant it was nauseating.

"Besides, look at my hand. Does it look like the hand of a hero who can save lives? Look carefully, am I a human or a ghost? Stay away from an ominous person like me, or you'll have eight lifetimes of bad luck."

He must deny it.

He had to push her away.

He couldn't let this monstrous disaster be directed at the only person in the world who still remembered that he had ever "existed."

Su Xiu staggered backward, stung by his frivolous attitude and the inhuman arm that pierced her, her last glimmer of hope extinguished by fear.

Confusion, resentment, and anger all eventually transformed into immense fear of the "monster" before them.

She was right. He wasn't human; he was just a monster that looked like one!

She shrank into a corner of the temple, clutching her bundle tightly, trembling all over, and dared not look at him again.

The rain didn't stop.

In the darkness, the man's heavy breathing and suppressed groans hammered at her nerves like a hammer.

She told herself that she would leave as soon as it was light and never look back.

but……

That man is about to disappear.

Completely disappeared, as if it had never existed.

Su Xiu could deeply empathize with the feeling of loneliness that threatened to be forgotten by the world.

Suddenly, she stood up abruptly and pulled a hard, dry black flatbread from her bundle.

"I don't owe debts to the dead!"

With her eyes closed, Su Xiu threw the pancake with all her might, shouting, "Eat it! Then we're even! Don't even think about trying to extort me!"

pat.

The dough rolled to Yu Liang's side.

Yu Liang silently picked up the flatbread and wolfed it down.

He could clearly feel that, under the girl's gaze, which was a mixture of fear, anger, and struggle, his own sense of existence, which was constantly dissipating and about to return to zero, was miraculously stabilized by a trace.

This was the first time he had realized it so clearly.

A living person, a genuine and untainted "memory," is perhaps a more effective anchor than any "residual light of cause and effect" left after the fall of any deity.

That night, Yu Liang fell into a high fever again.

His consciousness sank into that desolate "Ruins of Cause and Effect Dust".

Countless gray dust particles are frantically assimilating and erasing his soul.

Just as he was about to completely dissipate, a faint yet incredibly warm golden light shone from the deepest part of the ruins.

In the light, there is a picture of a little beggar struggling to lift a little girl who is about to freeze in an icy river.

Those were memories in Su Xiu's mind.

This memory, like an unbreakable anchor, held fast to his soul, which was about to be erased from the world.

After daybreak, Yu Liang's body miraculously stabilized.

He looked at the girl who had fallen asleep from exhaustion after taking care of him, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

……

On the other side, the Suspended Mirror Bureau.

"Sir, we've searched the entire city, dug every inch of the ground, but there's still no trace of Yu Liang. It's like... like he's vanished into thin air." A captain reported, his voice filled with frustration.

Ling Qingxuan sat upright behind the desk, his expression cold, staring intently at the dossier.

"If we can't find him using the methods of cultivators, then we'll use the methods of mortals. Treat him as a most cunning swindler, not a ghost that can vanish into thin air."

Her gaze finally locked onto the most absurd and inconspicuous entry in the file.

"The Grand Secretary died suddenly, the Military Command was deceived, the Imperial Prison was broken... every step was flawless, except for this last wish, a bowl of wontons with pepper... too superfluous, too specific, too much like the obsession of an ordinary person."

She ordered the captain in front of her, "Investigate that wonton stall. I need to know who handled this bowl of wontons? Is it related to Yu Liang, the prophecy, the imperial prison, or Qingzhou?"

Soon, new intelligence was presented.

"Sir, we've found it. It's our buddy, Xiao Liu."

His fiancée, Su Xiu, a woman from the Su family of Qingzhou, has run away from home and her whereabouts are unknown after the engagement fell through.

Ling Qingxuan's fingertip paused on the two characters "Su Xiu".

Qingzhou.

It's Qingzhou again.

"Who was the first to report Yu Liang for spreading rumors and misleading the public?" Ling Qingxuan suddenly looked up.

"A minor official in the Ministry of Revenue."

"How could a minor official in the Ministry of Revenue know about a prophecy like 'The Dragon Raises Its Head in Qingzhou,' which is enough to alarm the Prince's Palace? What is the background of that official? His relatives, and who has he been in contact with recently?"

The captain swallowed hard, his voice trailing off: "We've investigated. He's a distant cousin of Sun Bin, the steward of the Qingzhou Prince's mansion. Sun Bin confessed everything. It all started... that day he ran into Yu Liang at a fortune-telling stall on the street, and Yu Liang casually remarked that he had 'a green aura above his head, which might bring misfortune to his household'..."

Snapped.

The brush in Ling Qingxuan's hand broke in two.

The whole city was in turmoil.

The imperial prison collapsed.

Countless heads rolled, and even the Grand Secretary of the court lost his life.

The order she upheld, the law she protected, everything she considered her faith...

The cause was actually just a steward of the Prince's mansion who couldn't control his crotch, and a harmless joke with a blind fortune teller on the roadside?

To cover up this scandal, the powerful and wealthy can crush an ant with a flick of their fingers.

The ants didn't die; instead, they overturned the entire table.

"Oh……"

Ling Qingxuan suddenly laughed.

Laughter echoed in the empty hall, carrying an indescribable absurdity and desolation.

She stood up and opened the window.

Outside the window, the capital city remained as prosperous as ever, but the pus and blood flowing beneath this prosperity were revealed to her so clearly for the first time.

Is this the "reason" she's protecting?

Is this what is called "the Way of Heaven"?

"Sir, shall we continue the pursuit?" the captain asked cautiously.

Ling Qingxuan turned around, the icy demeanor in his eyes shattering completely, revealing a chilling madness.

"Grasp."

"Bring him back."

"I want to see with my own eyes how many more surprises this ant that has poked a hole in the sky can bring me."