Settlement

The light across the entire world began to distort.

It was not a matter of darkening or brightening, but rather that color lost all meaning, and outlines grew blurred.

Everything in existence seemed to transform into flowing oil paints, shifting into bizarre, ever-changing patterns.

Cen Qing shook her head violently, attempting to dispel this intense sense of discomfort.

The outlines of people and objects in her field of vision began to ripple and blur, as if she were observing the world through a layer of shimmering water.

She could clearly see the Cloud Chariot of the First Emperor, Ying Zheng, not far away, and the figure of Xu Fu to the side, yet the sense of distance between them stretched out madly, as if they were separated by an ever-widening chasm.

In her ears, there were countless noisy, chaotic, and meaningless whispers and shrieks, as if thousands of people were roaring at her simultaneously, or as if echoes from a distant time and space were desperately burrowing into her mind.

Next came the uncontrollable surge of her own memories.

The scenes she could not bear to look back upon flashed and vanished before her eyes in rapid succession, beyond her control:

The desperate gazes of her kin as they were dragged onto ships, the endless lamps burning with the body oil of her people deep within the Mount Li Mausoleum, the coldness and struggle in her heart as she meticulously plotted her schemes... these images twisted and deformed, striking her mind repeatedly with a sharp, mocking intent.

Most bizarre of all, a group of strange little figures with indistinct faces, dressed in multicolored clothes, emerged from nowhere and surrounded her like a tide.

They hopped and spun around her, emitting a chattering sound as piercing as the friction of countless shards of glass:

"Ah, it's a living Shark Person! How rare, truly so rare!"

"She's even a princess! The books say that mermaid princesses all turn into sea foam in the end, don't they?"

"I think turning into foam is quite reasonable! That's how it's written in the stories!"

"No, no! Look at her, she doesn't look very young, she seems to have been married, hasn't she? Only the youngest little mermaid turns into foam!"

"I remember now! The books say the youngest daughter turns into foam, and the other sisters... they turn bald! Their hair all falls out!"

"Yes, yes! Turn bald! Turn bald! Hee hee, haha!"

"Bald princess! Bald princess!"

These absurd, mocking words poured madly into Cen Qing's ears.

She tried to cover her ears, but the voices seemed to resonate directly from the depths of her mind.

She did not understand what was happening, nor did she comprehend what these strange "little figures" were.

"Get away!" she shrieked, brandishing the Ice Blade in her hand, but it only passed uselessly through those illusory figures; they scattered like smoke and then coalesced again, continuing their maddening clamor.

Looking around, her surroundings had completely transformed into a phantasmagorical nightmare:

She saw people trapped in shrinking, transparent boxes, beating against them in despair;

She saw layers upon layers of glass towers, flickering with eerie light, piercing the twisted sky, taller than any mountain...

The intense mental assault, like a monstrous tidal wave, completely submerged her consciousness.

Cen Qing felt the world go black, and then she lost consciousness entirely.

Cold seawater enveloped her, bringing a suffocating sense of pressure.

Cen Qing woke with a start, coughing violently as salty seawater flooded her nose and mouth.

She realized she was in the sea, slowly sinking.

She instinctively flicked her fish tail, swimming with all her might toward the surface.

The moment she broke through the water, she greedily inhaled the air, which was thick with the scent of gunpowder and blood.

An inexplicable sense of emptiness came from the top of her head.

She reached up subconsciously—what she touched was a smooth, cold scalp.

Her hair... that thick, seaweed-like mane of hers... was gone.

A wave of intense humiliation and panic seized her, but there were more important things to confirm at this moment.

She looked up sharply toward the direction of Langya Terrace.

In the sky, the phantom of Jiang Yan, which had once occupied half the firmament and radiated boundless pressure, was crumbling inch by inch, like a sand sculpture weathering away.

And in the final instant before that phantom completely shattered and dissipated, Cen Qing, with the superior vision of a Shark Person, clearly saw that Jiang Yan had withered into a skeleton draped in robes, his eye sockets filled with a dead, absolute darkness.

His skeletal jaw moved with difficulty, emitting one last, faint sound:

"You... are not a Heavenly Human... you are..."

The words ended abruptly there.

Immediately, the phantom collapsed entirely, turning into nothingness as if it had never existed.

As for the Langya Terrace below, which should have been reduced to ruins or vanished entirely in this cataclysmic upheaval...

Cen Qing's pupils constricted; she could hardly believe her eyes.

Langya Terrace was still standing there.

But it had not returned to its original state; rather... it was as if it had endured thousands of years of wind and rain in the blink of an eye.

The once-pristine stone was now covered in signs of weathering, its edges rounded, and stubborn moss and lichen grew within the cracks.

What was even more inconceivable was that the tabletop was densely packed with countless crude wooden plaques.

These wooden plaques were arranged without any discernible pattern, carved with symbols and scripts she could not comprehend at all; they stood there silently, as if marking something.

As for Chen Jin, who had previously been floating in mid-air, he had now completely vanished.

No one knew where he had gone.

When Chen Jin regained consciousness, he did not return to his own empty safe house.

Instead, he was in a gloomy hall.

The bricks beneath his feet remained pitch-black, the space was desolate, and staggered black pillars stood tall in the dim light, stretching endlessly into the distance.

"You have completed this Yanfu event. However, it will not be counted toward your total completion count. Your current total Yanfu event completion count: 15."

"The Walker's state is within certain conditions; no points will be deducted for this restoration."

Settlement begins!

Past scenes flashed back one by one like shattered film.

A lead-gray curtain of rain shrouded the ancient city, and a young Chen Jin sprinted through the empty streets, the slowly rotating Law Eye casting a cold, indifferent gaze.

Chen Jin pulled open that simple wooden door, and standing outside was the little Shark Person, Xi, with her long hair trailing behind her, drenched and looking timid.

But the next second, the images began to distort.

The subsequent records looked as if a child had splattered thick paint over them; dark red and ink-black intertwined to cover every detail. Whether it was the outlines of the scenes or the movements of the characters, everything melted into murky colors, leaving only a few blurred patches of color jumping frantically. Nothing could be identified, and even the timeline became chaotic.

A line of scarlet prompts occupied his entire retina:

"Yanfu event data has encountered massive contamination and corruption from unknown causes; key records are missing..."

"Task settlement terminated..."

"Initiating audit procedure; identity and behavioral verification of the executor is required..."

"Please wait for the arrival of the auditor. Leaving the current area is prohibited during this period..."

"Auditor codename: Rain Mistress."