Chapter 31: Heartbeat

This man was the faith of every noncommissioned officer in the Eastern Nether Military Region. Yan Fenghua finally came to his senses and instantly became Li Ye’s devoted admirer, gazing at the man with open worship.

“How much strength did you use?” Chen Xianyun asked, shaking his arm as he looked toward Li Ye in the distance.

Li Ye thought for a moment before answering uncertainly, “I didn’t use any?”

Chen Xianyun’s face darkened at once. With a cold snort, he walked toward the newly enlisted Chosen Ones.

“Commander, don’t forget, all right? Otherwise, when the time comes, you’ll only be able to come and collect my corpse.”

The old man’s thin figure gradually disappeared into the red mist, entirely ignoring Li Ye.

As soon as the old man left, Yan Fenghua hurried over. With a bright smile and his fists clasped, he asked, “I still don’t know your name, brother. Which lineage did you inherit? Are you a Northern Grandmaster?”

In his previous life, because he had merely been an ordinary man at the beginning, Li Ye had known Yan Fenghua only through rumors. He had heard that Yan Fenghua was a cold and elegant beauty of a man.

But now that he had seen him in person, the rumors were clearly not entirely accurate.

“Li Ye. I have no lineage. I’m just a wandering practitioner. I played around with martial arts on my own when I was young.”

As he spoke, the corners of Li Ye’s mouth lifted slightly, and he smiled at the direct heir of the Yan family before him.

“...What?”

Yan Fenghua’s smile froze.

What did he mean? This level of martial mastery, enough to exchange punches with the commander without suffering any disadvantage, had all been self-taught?

Wasn’t that nonsense?

Everyone said that the first step in learning martial arts was to acknowledge a master, and that only reverence could earn one the true transmission. Why did none of that apply to this man?

Li Ye held back his laughter and shook his head inwardly. Naturally, he had only been teasing Yan Fenghua. As for the origins of his martial skills, they could be traced back to the moment in his previous life when he had cast off his mortal body...

“How is Yan Jianbang’s research progressing?” Li Ye suddenly asked, pulling Yan Fenghua directly out of his crisis of faith.

Yan Fenghua said nothing. Instead, he regarded Li Ye with sudden wariness.

“Are you from Haicheng?”

“What are you imagining? I’m a native of Jiangning. Answer me.”

Yan Fenghua gave him a long, searching look before replying, “According to my uncle, the experiment has reached a critical stage. They’re only short of a few young Grandmasters.”

“Your mad father... Is he planning to use even you as an experimental subject?”

Yan Fenghua fell silent for a while, then nodded with difficulty.

“Heh. It’s nothing. He’s merely a little impatient. Judging only by what he’s doing, it may even benefit all of Huaxia.”

Yan Fenghua did not respond to that. Instead, he said eagerly, “Brother Ye, how about we have a martial exchange?”

Hearing this, Li Ye shook his head and turned away, leaving behind only a single sentence.

“When you can truly exchange a few blows with that old man, I’ll accept your challenge.”

Yan Fenghua let down the ponytail he had tied up, draping it over his shoulder. With a flirtatious pout, he looked toward the direction in which Li Ye had departed.

Li Ye walked toward the military district’s main gate, his brows furrowed.

“It’s only the sixth day since the apocalypse began. There are still more than twenty days before the red-mist period ends. That means I have to raise Candlelight Lure to at least the third tier during this time... perhaps even the fourth, if I want to exchange a few blows with that monster.”

He calculated anxiously. “The immortal fruit on Spirit Elegance Mountain in the western city hasn’t ripened yet. For now, I can only clear out the aberrant species in the southern district...”

Although he had long since planned out how to grow stronger during the red-mist period, the hunt for a Fallen God had now been added to the end of his schedule.

It was like studying diligently at first simply to improve oneself, only to discover that a final examination had been added at the very end. Naturally, the sense of urgency was entirely different.

Still, Li Ye had indeed considered killing the Xiangliu. After all, the value of a Fallen God’s corpse in the early days of the apocalypse was immeasurable.

...

Yan Fenghua went over to Shen Zhihong. His cool, beautiful appearance and striking aura elicited startled cries from quite a few female Chosen Ones.

Even Suo Hao, standing in the distance, felt his heart stir at the sight of the long-haired man.

Once Yan Fenghua took his place in line, the final count came to exactly ninety-three—the number Shen Zhihong had mentioned.

Clearly, even Yan Fenghua’s joining the Seventh Legion that day had been within his expectations.

Chen Xianyun still wore a dark expression. The oppressive aura radiating from him left the new recruits trembling in silence.

Shen Zhihong glanced at the commander in puzzlement, lowered the megaphone from his mouth, and asked quietly, “Judging by your expression, you didn’t exactly win against the Yan family’s heir. Why are you still scowling?”

After hearing this, Chen Xianyun sighed and showed him the bruising on his right arm.

The usually unflappable Staff Officer Shen finally looked shocked and uncertain. “That boy’s Chosen ability is really that powerful?”

“Bullshit! It was that brat Li Ye! I have no idea what kind of martial path he follows, but for someone so young, his punches and kicks are viciously precise. Even his grappling techniques are sharp enough to be called formidable.”

As he spoke, Chen Xianyun sighed again.

“Zhihong, am I really getting old?”

“You old bastard. You’re not getting old. You should have died a long time ago.”

Shen Zhihong showed no mercy at all, making no attempt to spare the feelings of his old comrade.

Chen Xianyun was so enraged that he blew out his mustache and glared at him. “What, then? Do you want to come to the drill ground and fight me?”

“You’d put on a better show fighting yourself with both hands.”

After teasing him, Shen Zhihong looked at the group of new recruits who had been standing at attention for quite some time. Only then did he remember that he ought to let them rest.

But Chen Xianyun’s next words caused the arm he was about to raise to droop once more. Dozens of resentful gazes instantly converged on him.

“Do you know that boy plans to butcher that nine-headed beast before the red-mist period ends?”

“Hm? I thought he was bluffing me. He’s actually serious?”

The commander nodded solemnly. “It doesn’t look like a bluff.”

Shen Zhihong fell silent. He remembered the grand vision Li Ye had painted for him not long before and murmured to himself,

“A free fortress... Could the apocalypse truly be an opportunity?”

...

...

April 1, 2029—the ninth day of the apocalypse.

In Jiangning’s southern district, hordes of zombies surged toward a single destination like a tidal wave. The pounding of their feet resounded throughout the streets.

Watching the ever-growing mass of zombies before him, Li Ye suddenly rose into the air. Beyond the red mist, the sun hung directly above his head, spilling down countless halos of light.

Candlelight Lure was activated.

The nearly one hundred zombies gathered beneath Li Ye were dragged into what seemed like a daylight purgatory.

Omnipresent rays of light began to leap like orange-red arcs of electricity, piercing their arms, thighs, and even their skulls.

Li Ye descended. With a casual motion, he drew a zombie that was not quite dead into his grasp. Though it possessed a body of flesh and blood, he crushed its skull with ease, leaving five small holes where his fingers had pressed.

The light transformed into a blade and pried the blood-crystal marrow from the back of its head, placing it against the golden, tattoo-like mark on his left arm.

A flash of golden radiance passed, and the blood-crystal marrow vanished into thin air.

Under the urging of Candlelight Lure, more than twenty pieces of blood-crystal marrow were pulled over as if by invisible threads, all disappearing in a rush into the mark on Li Ye’s left arm.

This was an ability Li Ye had only developed a few days earlier. Advancement materials such as blood-crystal marrow and milky jade bone could all be absorbed into the space within the Divine Treasury.

Moreover, when blood-crystal marrow was taken out again, the violent energy contained within it would become docile, making it much easier for Li Ye to absorb.