This Batch of Mortals Can't Handle It

The rain poured down, chillingly lashing the Ancient Orchid in the courtyard, which had instantly revived and was now blooming with flowers. Its jade-white blossoms stubbornly unfurled in the downpour, their rich fragrance mingling with the potent aroma of Chaos Tea, spreading and colliding in the damp, cold air to create an atmosphere that felt almost miraculous.

Su Wanqing leaned against the cold doorframe, her fingertips digging so deeply into the oak grain from excessive force that they turned a bloodless white. Half of the expensive mask on her face had fallen off, revealing a face as pale as paper. Her delicate features were contorted in extreme shock, her lips trembling violently, yet she couldn't utter a single complete syllable. In her ink-black eyes, only pure, boundless terror and confusion remained, born from a complete shattering of her understanding.

Absurd! The scent of a pot of tea could revive a century-dead Ancient Orchid and make it bloom? This was pure myth!

The enormous question and the primal sense of danger rising within her made her want to scream, slam the door shut, and call the police!

However...

With every breath, the potent, life-affirming tea fragrance flooded her lungs, instantly dispelling the damp chill and calming the stormy terror in her heart. An ineffable warmth and fullness spread from her limbs to her core, banishing fatigue and leaving her mind clearer than ever before. Every cell in her body was cheering wildly, leaping with joy, greedily absorbing the primordial life force contained within the aroma, a power far beyond her comprehension. It was a deep-seated yearning from the very core of life, an irresistible, instinctive pull.

The urge to close the door was forcefully suppressed by this intense craving from the depths of her being. The heavy oak door seemed to be fixed by an unseen force, leaving only a crack.

"You... you just said you were staying for the night?" Su Wanqing's voice was incredibly dry, laced with cautious probing. Her gaze flickered between my strange, wet robe and the cloth bundle, her fear not yet faded, but the icy distance she had maintained was completely gone.

The rain continued its downpour. I stood at the boundary between the curtain of rain and the light, my burlap robe still dripping. Facing her gaze, a mixture of immense doubt and wavering conviction, I merely lifted my chin slightly, my movement carrying the casual detachment cultivated over eons.

"Mm," my voice cut through the rain, as plain as a discussion about the weather. My gaze drifted past her stiff shoulders, settling on the blooming Ancient Orchid, its radiance flowing in the rain, "And, when the rain lets up a bit, I need to water my flowers." My tone was matter-of-fact, as if it were a common houseplant I'd just bought.

"Water... water?" Su Wanqing instinctively repeated, her voice filled with incomprehensible absurdity. Her eyes involuntarily returned to the miraculous Ancient Orchid—it needed watering? It had just revived from complete death and was now covered in blossoms! Every word this man spoke challenged the limits of her reason!

Just as her mind began to reel again from his ridiculous statement, the hand holding the worn cloth bundle moved with extreme naturalness. It was as if the strap was uncomfortable, and she was casually adjusting her grip.

The opening of the cloth bundle widened, just a tiny bit more than when the Zisha teapot had been inadvertently revealed earlier.

This time, what was revealed was no longer a Zisha teapot.

Within the gap of the opened bundle, the light seemed to be momentarily swallowed by something.

That something lay quietly at the bottom of the bundle, pressing down on a few drab pieces of clothing.

It was only about a foot long, its entire body exuding an extreme, heavy, profound blackness, as if it had condensed the deepest darkness from the dawn of the universe. Its surface was covered in countless fine, naturally formed, strange, twisted patterns, profound and unfathomable. Just a sliver of its aura leaked out, making the surrounding air feel instantly viscous and stagnant! It was as if even time and space were being crushed by its weight!

Like a... an extremely ancient and heavy stone rod?

Beside it, in a corner of the bundle, lay a small piece of something.

It looked like a... basin? Its edge was an extremely irregular circle, made of neither metal nor jade, presenting a chaotic state that seemed to contain all colors of the world yet possess no color at all. The edge curled naturally like a newly sprouted lotus leaf, and its surface flowed with an extremely faint, yet profound, chaotic light that contained the ultimate principles of cosmic creation and destruction. This light caused the surrounding light to distort strangely, as if space itself were slightly collapsing at the rim of the small basin.

The moment Su Wanqing's gaze fell upon the two items in the bundle—

"Ugh!"

A short, almost imperceptible gasp was forcefully squeezed from the depths of her throat! Her voice was filled with extreme terror and a primal shudder of fear!

Her pupils contracted to the size of pinpricks! As if she had seen the deepest nightmare of the universe made manifest!

That pitch-black short rod, with just an accidental glance, unleashed an indescribable, heavy pressure that pierced her retina and slammed into the depths of her soul! Her heart was gripped by an icy hand, her blood froze, her limbs became as stiff as stone, and her breathing completely ceased! It was the primal fear and awe of a minuscule life facing the vast cosmos, an eternal, sky-supporting giant pillar! She had no doubt that the rod, if it leaked even a sliver of its true power, could crush her, this villa, and even the entire mountain range into cosmic dust!

And the chaotic-colored little basin next to it... its aura was even more bizarre! Was it a void that encompassed everything? The primordial chaos that was the origin of all things and would eventually return to stillness? With just an unconscious glance, Su Wanqing felt her thoughts, her consciousness, being drawn into that faint light, completely decomposed and dissolved, returning to the original "nothingness"! It was a sense of annihilation more profound than death!

The aura of these two items was billions of times more terrifying than the Zisha teapot! It was an absolute, qualitative crushing!

"Hh... hh..."

Su Wanqing's body trembled violently, like the most fragile withered leaf in an autumn wind. Her hand, which had been supporting her on the doorframe, could no longer hold on. She stumbled uncontrollably backward, her back hitting the cold wall of the entryway with a dull thud.

Beneath the fallen half-mask, her pale face was contorted in extreme fear. Her lips trembled violently, yet she couldn't utter a single complete syllable. In her beautiful eyes, only pure, boundless terror and confusion remained, born from a complete shattering of her understanding, staring blankly at my worn cloth bundle as if it contained a beast that would devour the world.

Just then, my brow furrowed, almost imperceptibly.

It wasn't because of Su Wanqing's near-collapse, nor because of the Fragment of Buzhou Mountain in my bundle, which I had been using as a fire poker for hundreds of epochs, or the corner of the Chaos Green Lotus basin that worked quite well for soaking my feet.

My gaze pierced through the rain, passing over the blooming Ancient Orchid and the terrified Su Wanqing, and directed towards the depths of the city below, its lights hazy in the downpour.

A faint, almost illusory cold energy fluctuation flashed and disappeared in a corner of the city. The fluctuation carried a familiar yet utterly alien sense of distortion, like a dying wail, or perhaps... a greedy "sniff"?

Simultaneously, on the other side of the city, deep within an inconspicuous old building, in a dimly lit room filled with complex instruments.

On an electronic screen, a curve representing energy fluctuations suddenly spiked violently! It instantly broke through all preset warning thresholds! The piercing alarm was about to sound when a pale hand quickly silenced it.

A disheveled, middle-aged man in a white lab coat lunged at the screen, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the terrifying peak that had appeared and vanished in an instant, his face a mask of extreme shock and a hint of fanatical excitement.

"What... what level of energy is this?!! Instant annihilation and then instant disappearance... Coordinates... Quick! Lock onto the source of the fluctuation! The error must be within a hundred meters!" His voice was hoarse and trembling with excitement as his fingers flew across the keyboard, "Impossible... This can't be a natural phenomenon! Could it be... one of the 'Sources' has awakened early?! Or... has an 'Anomaly' descended?!"

He suddenly looked up, gazing out at the rain-drenched city, his eyes sharp as a falcon's, filled with an indescribable urgency and a barely perceptible fear.

"Find it! Find it at all costs!"