Silence descended upon the room once more. All that remained was Ling Xiaoye's increasingly shrill crying from being thrown down, along with Ling Ye's heavy, bellows-like breathing.
Su Wanqing was still huddled in the corner. Her mind had completely shut down, leaving her to crawl over on instinct, trembling, pick up the wailing Ling Xiaoye, and mechanically pat him to soothe him. Yet her gaze could not move away from the cracked beast-fang pendant around Ling Ye's neck, which radiated an ominous aura.
The big shot... seems to have gotten himself into even bigger trouble again... And this time, even that madam seems wary of whatever it is?
Ling Ye sat limply on the floor, unconsciously rubbing the cold, cracked beast fang between his fingers. The desolate aura coming from his fingertips made even his soul tremble.
Master?
Come back to find me?
Block trouble?
Those words spun wildly through his mind, combining into all sorts of chilling possibilities. He felt as though, without realizing it, he had stepped straight into the center of a vortex even deeper and more terrifying than the Primordial Wasteland Ruins.
What the hell was this pendant?!
Just as his thoughts surged and he was struggling to keep himself composed—
The shabby cloth bundle in his arms once again... at an extremely inappropriate moment... trembled faintly!
It wasn't the pebble in the basin!
It was... the cloth bundle itself?!
As if... it was... reminding him of something?
Ling Ye abruptly came to his senses and warily looked toward the cloth bundle.
He saw that, at some point, the mouth of the cloth bundle had been forced open by another narrow slit.
This time, what slowly drifted out of it was neither a magical treasure nor a pill...
It was a... more crumpled, slightly charred around the edges, seemingly fire-scorched... scrap of paper?
The scrap of paper swayed unsteadily before fluttering down like an autumn leaf onto the floor in front of Ling Ye.
Ling Ye's pupils contracted. He instinctively reached down and picked up the paper.
The writing on it was even more messy and chaotic, as though it had been written in extreme haste, perhaps even panic. The ink varied in darkness, and there were several suspiciously... dark-red stains on it.
[Final Warning! Highest Priority!]
[Handling Guide for "Picked-Up" Objects—A Blood-and-Tears Lesson]
[1. Never get curious! Don't study them! Don't try to establish a master-servant bond! (Crossed out) Especially don't let them touch each other! (The rest was furiously blacked out)]
[2. If you've already picked them up, and there's more than one... run! Immediately! Right now! Run as far as you can! It's best to leave the current universe plane! (The handwriting was distorted)]
[3. If you can't run... try finding a "safe cabinet"? Or... dig a hole and bury them? Remember to mark it! Otherwise, you might stupidly dig them back up later! (The handwriting trembled)]
[4. If you can't do any of the above... then... pretend you know nothing! Treat them as ordinary trash! Yes! Trash! Never show any special interest in them! Especially don't let "them" notice that you care about these things! (The handwriting here nearly tore through the paper, filled with terror)]
[5. Finally... and most importantly... if... if the "original owner" really comes knocking... (The ink had spread into a large blot here, as though the writer's hand had been shaking violently)]
[...just say... a "dog" carried them off! Yes! Blame it all on the dog! Whether it believes you or not! There's no evidence if everyone's dead anyway! (A string of chaotic, meaningless lines followed, as though the writer had already broken down)]
[The final words of an unlucky bastard who was nearly destroyed body and soul by a "Picked-Up" object]
Ling Ye: "..."
After reading the entire note, Ling Ye felt as though the blood in his veins had nearly frozen solid.
This... this was clearly a senior's blood-and-tears accusation and dying testament!!!
The "Picked-Up" objects... were they really that terrifying?!
Did he even need to flee the current universe plane?!
And pretend they were trash?! Blame them on a dog?!
Could this beast-fang pendant... and the pebble inside the cloth bundle... both be sources of disaster on this level?!
Ling Ye suddenly remembered the "sister" and "going home" mentioned when the pebble resonated with the distant fragment, as well as the "master" mentioned by the madam...
An even more terrifying guess surfaced in his mind. Could these "Picked-Up" objects... have all been discarded by the same "original owner"? Or... abandoned waste from the same "failed laboratory"?!
And now... these discarded objects... seemed capable of sensing and attracting one another?! Could they even be drawing that terrifying "original owner" here?!
Ling Ye felt a chill shoot from the soles of his feet straight to the crown of his head! He finally understood what the madam's final words—"block trouble" and "the master will come back to find you"—had meant! This damn thing wasn't a blessing at all! It was a death warrant! She had made him a target for drawing fire and a temporary caretaker!
And that "original owner"... was probably an existence countless times more terrifying than that madam!
I have to get rid of them! I have to get rid of these things immediately!
Ling Ye sprang to his feet, his eyes filled with determination and fear! He grabbed the shabby cloth bundle and was about to dump everything inside out, then bury it in some remote corner where no one could find it! Or simply throw it into a temporal-spatial turbulence!
However, at the moment he was about to act—
The beast-fang pendant around his neck seemed to sense his intention to "abandon" it. The ancient, desolate aura within its cracks became active once more and... conveyed an extremely faint pulse of attachment and reluctance, like a fledgling yearning for its nest?
At the same time, the Chaos Green Lotus Basin inside the cloth bundle trembled faintly. The pebble within transmitted a steady "sleeping" pulse, while the baby garment radiated an anxious thought of don't throw us away and even tried to wrap Ling Ye's wrist in red light...
Ling Ye's movements froze instantly.
He looked at the heavy cloth bundle in his hand, felt the pendant's faint attachment around his neck, and recalled the warning on the note: "Don't let them notice that you care."
He suddenly realized a terrifying fact—
These things... seemed... to have... latched onto him?!
The baby garment in particular, after the "breastfeeding" and "soothing the pebble" incidents, seemed to have genuinely started treating him as "Daddy."
If he forcibly abandoned them now... would they immediately explode, or bring that "original owner" straight here?!
Ling Ye was thrown into the most agonizing dilemma he had ever faced!
Keep them? That would be a slow suicide, with the possibility of the "original owner" showing up at any moment—or these things causing trouble on their own!
Throw them away? He might die even faster! And that madam had explicitly ordered him to "keep" the pendant!
What should he do?! What on earth should he do?!
Just as Ling Ye was as frantic as an ant on a hot pan, caught between advancing and retreating—
"Knock, knock, knock!"
The room's door was knocked on yet again!
This time, the knocking was neither as stern as the police nor as cold as the madam's. Instead, it was... somewhat urgent, familiar, and... crude?
At the same time, the Black-hearted Landlord's lowered voice rang out from beyond the door, full of ingratiation and panic:
"Boss! Big shot! Open up! It's urgent! A matter of life and death!"
Ling Ye was already so vexed that he had no desire to deal with any mortal. He directly threw out a soundproofing restriction, wanting to make the person outside shut up.
However, the landlord seemed exceptionally persistent. He even began kicking the door, his voice breaking into sobs:
"Big shot! Save me! I really need saving! If you don't open the door, I'm done for! It's about your son!!!"
Son?
Ling Xiaoye?
Ling Ye frowned. He instantly removed the soundproofing restriction and yanked open the door!
Outside stood the Black-hearted Landlord, his face deathly pale and his head covered in sweat. He was holding a phone playing a video. On the screen—
There was unmistakably a side-profile screenshot of Ling Ye's earlier "rugged breastfeeding"?! Though somewhat blurry, his distinctive ancient robe, pale complexion, the obvious milk-powder stains on his chest, and the baby nuzzling around were far too distinctive!
"Bo... Boss..." the landlord stammered. With a mournful expression, he shoved the phone screen in front of Ling Ye and said, "A... a guy wearing sunglasses came looking for me just now... He shoved a huge sum of money into my hands... and asked if you were a tenant... He even showed me this... and asked if you and the child lived here... They didn't look like good people, so I didn't dare tell them the truth... But they didn't seem to believe me... They're still keeping watch downstairs... saying... saying they're from some... 'Interstellar Baby' program... and want to take your son to shoot an advertisement?! I... I'm afraid they're child traffickers! Please think of something!"
Interstellar Baby? A production crew? Shooting an advertisement?!
Ling Ye looked at his own idiotic expression on the phone screen, then heard that utterly absurd explanation, and a burst of fury shot straight to the top of his head!
What kind of monsters were these now?! Wasn't everything chaotic enough already?!
He had just been about to explode and throw the landlord out—
But his gaze was suddenly drawn to an extremely blurry little black dot in the sky outside the window, visible in the background of the screenshot as though it had been captured by accident.
That black dot... seemed to be... a black artificial satellite floating in low orbit?!
And on the side of the satellite... there seemed to be an extremely inconspicuous symbol made up of three twisted arcs?!
Ling Ye's pupils contracted sharply!
He had seen that symbol before!!!
Earlier! On the helmet of that "Phantom" assassin! And in the corner of the warning image it had left behind after infiltrating the Su Corporation's network!!!
This wasn't some Interstellar Baby production crew!
People from the "Phantom" organization had come looking for him!!! They had actually locked down his location through such an absurd method?!
Ling Ye instantly broke into a cold sweat!
However, just as this immense sense of danger swept over him—
The beast-fang pendant around his neck seemed to sense Ling Ye's violent emotional fluctuations and the faint, cold, evil aura emanating from the "Phantom" members outside...
The cracks on its surface once again... silently... spread a little farther...
A clearer, ancient and desolate aura seeped out...
And this time...
That aura seemed to carry an extremely faint trace of... as though it had been "offended"...
Displeasure?
And...
A kind of...
Indifference...
As though it...
Rose above all things...
[----]?
Before you continue