Antique Shop Zero: Disfigured School Beauty Becomes a Succubus to Pay Off Debts

The capital city, the Bureau of Abnormalities.

Cao Ye's face was ashen as he strode through the corridor and pushed open the door to the abnormal prison's monitoring room.

The two prison guards quickly stood up:

"Chief!"

Cao Ye did not respond. He went straight to the monitoring station and skillfully typed on the keyboard, bringing up the footage of the room where the imposter Lin Yan was being held.

On the screen, the woman who called herself the Goddess of Light was sitting by the bed.

As if sensing something, she slowly raised her head, her gaze precisely locking onto the camera—

A defiant smile curled at the corner of his lips.

The next second, her appearance began to change.

The skin shrank at a visible rate, as if all the blood in the body had been drained in an instant.

In just a few breaths, she became a skin and bones, her empty eye sockets still fixed on the camera, as if silently mocking something.

The two prison guards were dumbfounded:

"What... what's going on?"

Cao Ye had anticipated this, and his tone was calm to the point of being almost indifferent:

"Send the body to the Institute of Anomalies; I need a full report."

Half an hour later, at the hospital ward, investigators from the Anomaly Management Bureau.

Cui Dajun was handcuffed to the hospital bed, his body wrapped in gauze, like a carefully wrapped mummy.

His eyes were lifeless, staring blankly at the ceiling, looking utterly hopeless.

The investigator on duty saw Cao Ye enter and quickly stood up:

"Chief."

Cao Ye glanced at the person on the bed:

"How is it?"

The investigator sighed:

"They won't say anything."

Cao Ye walked to the bedside, sat down, lit a cigarette, and slowly began to speak:

"Your daughter is still alive."

Cui Dajun's eyes twitched, and a glimmer of life finally appeared in his ashen eyes.

Cao Ye exhaled a puff of smoke, speaking casually as if he were discussing the weather:

"I can kill her too, it's just a matter of a word, really."

Cui Dajun trembled, slowly turned his head, and stared at Cao Ye in disbelief:

"You...you're an official, how could you do such a thing?! We are citizens of Xia Kingdom!"

Cao Ye flicked his cigarette ash and said quietly:

"When you were hanging out with the Taiping Dao, did you never think about the fact that you're a citizen of Xia Kingdom?"

Cui Dajun fell silent.

a long time.

"I'll say it," he said, his voice sounding like it was being squeezed out from deep in his throat.

Cao Ye glanced at the investigator behind him: "Record."

Cui Dajun stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Twenty years ago, the Imperial Advisor found me."

He told me to prepare a meal and welcome the Empress on October 16th, twenty years from now.

I counted down the days, and finally October arrived...

Cao Ye suddenly noticed something, and his pupils contracted sharply:

"You said, 'October 16th, twenty years from now'?"

Cui Dajun nodded:

"yes.

I only met the Imperial Advisor once, twenty years ago, and we haven't been in contact since.

Cao Ye suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, and his brows furrowed into a tight knot.

The Cowherd could actually foresee the future and had set up the scheme twenty years ago?

wrong.

If he had foreseen that he would know that the Goddess of Light had appeared in Baiyun Town, then why would he have gone to all this trouble by creating an imposter to create a mystery?

Or... the Cowherd can predict multiple outcomes and pave the way for those different paths in advance.

Cao Ye smoked two cigarettes in the ward until a nurse couldn't help but come in and remind him, at which point he got up and left.

He knew who could answer his questions.

.....

The Bureau of Abnormalities, the Archives, and the Antique Shop.

Is there some method that can predict multiple possible future outcomes?

Cao Ye asked this question.

Opposite him lay an old cat with a red tail tip.

Upon hearing this, the old cat narrowed its amber eyes, its pupils becoming thin slits.

"A spell that can foresee multiple paths in the future? Yes."

It paused, then slowly uttered three words:

"The Art of Mending the Sky".

. . . . . . .

South China Sea, Zero Antique Shop.

Jin Meiting knelt in the lobby, her head bowed low, almost touching the ground.

Her shoulders trembled slightly, her face filled with self-blame and panic.

Jiang Chaosheng is not here.

He was in the back room, facing the shelf numbered "0," his palm resting on a Dragon Ball, exploring the infinite possibilities of urban novels.

At this moment, he had already entered the world of Dragon Ball.

. . . . .

In a chaotic space, the old dragon king, dressed in black, stood with his back to him, his voice ancient and distant:

"The Great Dao is fifty, Heaven evolves into forty-nine, and man escapes to one."

These words come from the Book of Changes (I Ching).

Legend has it that at the end of the Shang Dynasty, when King Wen of Zhou, Ji Chang, who was proficient in arithmetic, was imprisoned in Youli by King Zhou of Shang, he summarized the ancient sages' lost knowledge, deduced the eight trigrams into sixty-four hexagrams, and wrote the hexagram texts, thus creating the Book of Changes (Zhouyi).

This means that:

A person's lifespan is totaled at fifty, of which forty-nine are determined by the timing of fate, and the human factor is the variable one.

The old Dragon King continued:

"Some people only believe in the first two sentences."

They believed that humans could overcome nature, and that humans were the embodiment of the Way of Heaven.

"The Great Way is fifty, and the Heavenly Way is forty-nine" means that the Way of Heaven is flawed.

If one can observe the Great Dao and fill in the missing "One" according to one's own will, one can bring about any outcome one desires.

This is how the art of mending the sky came about.

He turned around, his cloudy old eyes looking at Jiang Chaosheng:

"According to what you've said, your enemy did indeed use the Heaven-Mending Technique."

Jiang Chaosheng frowned in thought:

"If he could manipulate the will of Heaven to his advantage, wouldn't he be invincible?"

The old Dragon King chuckled, his laughter filled with contempt:

"The art of mending the sky is the most mysterious and precise algorithm in history."

Countless proud sons of heaven have spent their entire lives trying to understand its superficial aspects.

The gentleman's enemy is indeed a great talent, but he has only just begun to understand.

He then continued:

"If one masters the art of mending the heavens, one can indeed manipulate the destiny of heaven."

But if he had achieved great success, how could he have deduced so many endings and gone to great lengths to remedy them one by one?

In my opinion, he has only achieved minor success; he can foresee multiple endings, but he is far from being able to manipulate the destiny of Heaven.

Jiang Chaosheng smiled:

"That's still pretty strong."

This move caught me completely off guard.

If we keep facing opponents like this, we're in for a lot of trouble.

Being able to predict what will happen twenty years from now and to plan ahead twenty years in advance—that's practically cheating.

The old Dragon King shook his head, his eyes filled with disdain:

"Only a scheming person would go to great lengths to learn the art of mending the sky."

Such people are very few and far between, and they can't amount to much.

Throughout history, very few people have been able to achieve even a minor level of success in their cultivation.

After the great war, perhaps only that enemy you mentioned will possess the skill to mend the heavens.

Jiang Chaosheng could hear the deep-seated disdain in the old dragon king's words.

The old Dragon King continued:

"Furthermore, sir, you don't need to worry about the Heaven-Mending Technique at all, because..."

He was halfway through his sentence when his eyes suddenly went blank.

He slowly opened his mouth, and his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Gradually, the air in this space became thick and humid, like the oppressive atmosphere before a storm.

Jiang Chaosheng's lips twitched.

She's had another attack.

The old Dragon King's eyes gradually filled with resentment, almost dripping with tears.

"My son is dead! My son is dead!"

Wei Zheng executed me, but Li Shimin doesn't care about me!

"I want revenge! I want revenge! I want revenge for my son!"

Jiang Chaosheng exhaled a breath of stale air.

Every time the old Dragon King had an attack, he would mutter these same few sentences over and over again; he had long since memorized them.

But this time, something shocking happened.

The old Dragon King uttered new ravings:

"It was... someone who knows the art of mending the sky who tricked me."

Yes, it was someone who knew the art of mending the heavens who plotted against me!

My nine sons are all dead, all dead!!

Jiang Chaosheng narrowed his eyes.

Did someone skilled in mending the heavens outmaneuver the Old Dragon King?

Who is that person who knows the art of mending the sky?

The name "Niu Lang" (cowboy) is almost self-evident.

Jiang Chaosheng patted the old Dragon King on the shoulder, his voice steady:

"I told you I'd help you find your enemy. We're almost there, calm down."

The old Dragon King's hunched body trembled violently, and tears streamed down his face.

He knelt down with a thud, grabbed Jiang Chaosheng's trouser leg, and cried out to the sky:

"My children are all loyal and capable ministers!"

They work diligently to protect peace and tranquility on earth!

Sir—they died unjustly!

"Sir, help me avenge myself! I, Xiaolong, will serve you for all eternity, even if it means dying for you!"