After eating and resting for an entire day.
Ye Yang had finally replenished the energy he'd used up.
Night was falling.
After the two people and one crocodile finished dinner in the courtyard,
they each sprawled out on one of three lounge chairs,
boredly gazing up at the stars.
Ye Yang was scrolling through short videos on his phone, watching cheesy, funny, and suggestive clips.
Suo Dun, meanwhile, was beginning to feel his eyelids grow heavy with sleep.
Liang Bing, on the other hand,
was gazing at the beautiful night sky, lost in thought.
Suddenly,
Ato's message came through the Dark Communication in her mind.
"Queen, the Xiong Bing Lian group has arrived at the human military camp outside the Huang Village Ruins.
They seem to be looking to contact Ye Yang.
Also,
Shi Hao has sent a diplomatic delegation to Earth.
They're waiting aboard Demon One for an audience with you.
What do you think?"
"Got it. Tell them to wait."
Liang Bing replied.
She felt a little relieved.
Shi Hao's group had finally arrived.
If her Demon Civilization wanted to recuperate on Earth
and turn it into a second home for demons,
it had to join forces with the Taotie Civilization.
They could rely on the Taotie to sow bloodshed and panic,
while sharing the pressure from Earth's human armies and the gods who hadn't yet come into their own.
"Shi Hao's here. Keisha should be here soon, too."
Liang Bing muttered to herself.
She stood up from the lounge chair
and said to Ye Yang, who was lounging nearby:
"Ye Yang, I'm going back to my room to rest.
Also,
I've seen a lot of drones flying around outside the courtyard all day.
I figure the military and those people from Super Seminary will come looking for us again to fight aliens."
Ye Yang waved at Liang Bing, telling her not to worry and to get some rest.
Then he said:
"Don't worry. If they really come,
I'll turn them down.
Besides,
isn't the courtyard protected by your superpower shield?
Those people can't get in."
"Mm-hmm~"
Liang Bing gave a faint smile
and headed toward her room.
After locking the door,
Liang Bing deactivated the Wormhole Space shield covering the courtyard.
"Taking down the shield and letting you meet the Xiong Bing Lian is a little test of your character. Don't disappoint me, Ye Yang."
Then,
Liang Bing entered Wormhole Space and returned to Demon One.
At the same time,
about a kilometer southeast of the courtyard,
the Xiong Bing Lian special forces team, led by Captain Di Lena and squad leader Du Qiangwei,
was walking across the basin's charred soil.
In the quiet surroundings,
all they could hear was the soft rustling of their feet against the blackened, soft ground.
Ge Xiaolun, Zhao Xin, Rui Mengmeng, and the others all looked amazed.
"Monkey Brother~ Monkey Brother, that lightning bombardment covered such a huge area. How strong must Ye Yang be? Can you handle him?"
Liu Chuang, wearing Dark Alloy Haki armor and carrying the God Slaying Axe, asked from behind Sun Wukong.
Ever since Sun Wukong had beaten him into submission,
Liu Chuang had become Sun Wukong's top henchman.
"Honestly, I've never seen anyone pull off lightning bombardment on this scale in all my thousands of years."
Sun Wukong's answer was somewhat ambiguous.
Though his tone was calm,
he hadn't said outright that he could handle it. Hearing that even Goku, who called himself the Victorious Fighting Buddha, wouldn't say so,
Ge Xiaolun, Liu Chuang, and the others all felt their hearts skip uneasily.
Just then,
Lena, walking at the front of the group in Dark Alloy skirt armor, rested one hand on her hip.
She spoke with a proud air:
"It was probably that Female Angel called Angel Yan. She's known as the Thunder God of War and has quite a reputation across the universe. But destruction on that scale is nothing special. My solar flare bombardment could do it easily."
At that, Sun Wukong's gaze turned cold.
He didn't like this female alien.
Besides, she was the current princess of the Lieyang Civilization, the same civilization he'd once driven off Earth.
A mere defeated opponent dared to brag about herself now?
Just then,
Ge Xiaolun, holding the Great Sword, asked:
"Lena, why did those angels fight Ye Yang?
Could Ye Yang really have been corrupted by demons,
making him a target for the angels?"
Hearing Ge Xiaolun's question,
the lively Zhao Xin couldn't help asking something of his own.
There was even a hint of complaint in his voice:
Zhao Xin: "I've been hearing you guys talk about this Ye Yang since the first day I joined Super Seminary. What can he even do, that so many aliens care about him?"
As soon as he said that,
the whole team started discussing it.
Qi Lin: "And isn't he one of us, from Earth? He has the same Shenhe Gene as us and is a Super Soldier. Why is he so special?"
Cheng Yaowen: "The word I've heard is that he doesn't want to protect Earth, but he's incredibly powerful."
Rui Mengmeng: "Lena and Qiangwei, didn't you meet Ye Yang before? Can you tell us what kind of person he is? So many of us are going to see him. Isn't that a little inconsiderate?"
Liu Chuang: "Mengmeng, I don't like what you're saying. He's an Earthling with superpowers from Super Seminary, but he won't protect Earth. He's acting like a coward! When we see him, I'm going to use the sense of duty I've learned from Monkey Brother lately to give him a good soul-cleansing!"
Qi Lin: "Oh~ Liu Chuang's sense of duty has really improved lately. He's already left his old street thug image behind."
Liu Chuang muttered, "I-I quit the street life ages ago. Now I'm with Monkey Brother. My goal: protect Earth!!!"
Liu Chuang's words made everyone laugh.
The atmosphere in the team was always so relaxed.
Perhaps it was also because Ye Yang wasn't an enemy,
so no one felt tense.
"Ye Yang's courtyard is just ahead. Everyone, quiet."
Suddenly,
the squad leader, Qiangwei, spoke up.
Only then did everyone spot, a hundred meters ahead and down a slope,
a Farmhouse Courtyard, perfectly intact amid the charred surroundings.
They stopped to look.
Inside the courtyard,
a man kicked a crocodile awake from a lounge chair.
Then,
the crocodile put on an apron
and cleaned up the leftover food on the table.
The man, meanwhile, went back to lounging on a chair in the courtyard, playing with his phone.
"Ye Yang."
When Qiangwei saw Ye Yang,
her heart inexplicably began to pound.
If she hadn't been standing at the front of the group,
everyone would've noticed her cheeks turning red in an instant.
She didn't know why she'd been like this lately.
She was always sleepy,
and every time she fell asleep, she dreamed all sorts of things involving Ye Yang.
The contents of those dreams were outrageous.
They were all scenes of her and Ye Yang passionately playing poker.
Every time she woke from one of those dreams,
she had to shower and change her underwear and bedsheets.
Now, whenever she had a moment to herself,
Ye Yang's face would appear in her mind,
along with dreamlike scenes of them playing cards—sometimes tenderly, sometimes roughly, sometimes impulsively, sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors.
Had she really fallen hopelessly in love with this man, Ye Yang?
"Qiangwei, what's wrong?"
Suddenly,
the simp Ge Xiaolun noticed that something was off with Qiangwei. He moved closer and asked her in a low voice.
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