Meeting a Living Devil

Teng Xiao felt as stunned as if he had seen a six-foot-six muscleman fail to open a bottle.

To put it more aptly, it was like the Aeon of Destruction, who delighted in destroying everything, suddenly deciding to stop causing trouble.

He was skeptical, but after weighing his options, he decided not to pursue the matter for now.

Teng Xiao thought of the Alchemy Commission.

The Alchemy Commission could treat physical ailments. Surely it could treat psychological ones too?

Then he would have the Alchemy Commission put together a psychological test.

It would avoid disturbing that man while letting them check his mental state through the test. If anything was wrong, they would also have a perfectly reasonable pretext for treatment.

Teng Xiao made a personal visit for this purpose. At the time, the Alchemy Commission was swamped with work. The Marshal had only just left when Teng Xiao arrived.

He did not encounter Imbibitor Lunae, who served as Cauldron Master, so he had to summon a Chief Alchemist who was also a Vidyadhara.

Looking at the Chief Alchemist's exhausted face, Teng Xiao felt a brief pang of guilt, then promptly ordered them to work emergency overtime.

This was for the Luofu!

Under the pretext of looking after the well-being of the Six Commissions and the Cloud Knights, he explained his idea and asked them to prepare the test questions.

Once the test was ready, the Divination Commission would take it first. If it proved useful, they would roll it out across every department.

Teng Xiao swept his sleeves and left, leaving behind the Chief Alchemist frantically calling the High Elder's Jade Abacus and a group of workers forced into emergency overtime.

After explaining everything they needed to watch out for, the general felt a weight lift off his shoulders. He even slept peacefully that night.

When he saw Jing Yuan and Xianyu, he went over to greet them, hoping to observe that man's condition up close.

But Teng Xiao had never expected the Alchemy Commission to come up with over six hundred questions! And why had Xianyu's results indicated such serious problems?!

He was dumbfounded. Bracing himself, he chatted with Xianyu and came to understand what he wanted.

Xianyu liked jobs that paid well, required little work, and were close to home.

A job that satisfied all three conditions without disrupting his life as an ordinary person...

Teng Xiao understood. Everything became clear.

Xianyu wanted a transfer to the Library to serve as Librarian!

Yet after reaching that conclusion, he was utterly baffled. No matter how hard he thought, he could not see what was so good about being a Librarian.

Teng Xiao vaguely sensed that Xianyu had seen through his identity and immediately lost his appetite. He paid for Xianyu and Jing Yuan, then fled the restaurant.

Full of questions, he opened his chat with the Marshal and shared both the test results and everything Xianyu had said.

If Teng Xiao were sent out to war, he certainly would not ask the Marshal for help unless the situation became critical. But since the Marshal had made a rare trip to the Luofu specifically to give him instructions about something else, he naturally had to report every last detail.

Teng Xiao asked the Marshal for guidance, but the chat offered only a cold automated reply.

[Hua: Busy. Out of office. For any matters, make an appointment 180 days in advance.]

Teng Xiao settled for the next best option and contacted the Marshal's Chief Strategist.

When he first took office, this Chief Strategist, who had served two successive Marshals, had used the screen name "My Former Boss Is in Heaven," with the status message: R.I.P.

The first time Teng Xiao saw that screen name, he had been deeply shocked by such audacity. Yet when he checked today, it had changed to "Ashen Heart," and the status message had changed along with it.

-"Why Won't the Coffin Lid Stay Shut?"

Teng Xiao: ...Clearly, another worker tormented by the Former Marshal.

He felt a pang of sympathy, and his own current predicament gave him an even stronger sense that he and the Chief Strategist were fellow sufferers.

[Ashen Heart: The test results aren't normal? What's abnormal about them?]

[Ashen Heart: Doesn't that just prove he took the test himself?]

Teng Xiao was astonished. So there was such an unconventional way to interpret this?

[Ashen Heart: If he wants a transfer to the Library, let him have it.]

[Teng Xiao: Wouldn't the position of Librarian be beneath him?]

[Ashen Heart: No need to worry about that. As long as his requests aren't outrageous, agree to them.]

[Ashen Heart: Ignore the outrageous ones. Like wanting to turn the Swarm into nutritious canned food and have them produce and sell it themselves...]

Teng Xiao: "..."

This was not a case of mental illness. The man was a living devil!

[Ashen Heart: Don't worry. If he really wants to accomplish something, you'll only find out what he has in mind after it's already a done deal.]

Teng Xiao: "..."

Now that you've said that, I'm even more worried!

He tapped away on his Jade Abacus, humbly seeking advice from this extraordinary person who could survive working under the devil himself.

[Ashen Heart: Things to watch out for? Oh, don't use your brain when dealing with him. Don't say anything with an implied meaning. He'll deliberately pretend he doesn't understand.]

[Ashen Heart: Someone the Aeon of Elation considers a dear friend... if you know, you know.]

So this living devil was a thrill-seeker too...

Teng Xiao went numb.

[Ashen Heart: Don't lie to him. A member of the Swarm once claimed they'd lost a spaceship and came looking for trouble with the Yaoqing. He was in a terrible mood to begin with, and when an investigation revealed the Swarm was lying, he declared war on them in a fury, then sealed off their planet.]

Teng Xiao remembered.

The planet-killer weapon recorded in the archives as the "Angel of Mercy" could seal off a planet.

Compared to the "Earth-Blasting Star," which blasted planets straight into mineral deposits, and "Neutron Annihilation," which wiped out all intelligent life, the "Angel of Mercy" could even be called "humane."

As a weapon with "gentle methods," the Angel of Mercy formed a barrier around the planet's surface that could never be crossed.

The planet would not be destroyed, and its life-forms would not die. They would simply remain trapped there until their deaths.

[Ashen Heart: In his words, rather than destroy them outright, it was better to use the simplest, most effective, and most resource-efficient method to make them live in despair and terror for all eternity.]

Teng Xiao's hand trembled slightly around his Jade Abacus.

Everything became clear.

So after sealing off the planet, the Former Marshal had ignored it not because he had forgotten about its inhabitants, but because he did not want to waste any more resources on a doomed world.

Over however much time they had left, long or short, they would wallow in despair and terror, spending every day in agonized dread as they waited for the enemy who might strike at any moment and annihilate them.

In the end, they would meet their doom, their civilization and species extinguished forever.

With Xianyu's abilities, he must have noticed something... he must have guessed my true identity...

Would the Former Marshal blow me up in a fit of anger?

Driven by his will to survive, Teng Xiao told the Chief Strategist the entire story of how he had disguised himself as a Cloud Knight to approach Xianyu and asked how he could salvage the situation.

[Ashen Heart: ...]

[Ashen Heart: You're his subordinate. He won't attack you. In this life, he still has a little humanity left. Even when he was bullied, all he did was fleece every wealthy merchant.]

Teng Xiao knew nothing about this. Hearing it for the first time, he was shocked, but he also felt it was understandable.

It was only fleecing people. Even if he had fleeced every Xianzhou native, it was no more than the Former Marshal deserved.

Over nearly five thousand years, his methods might have been a little brutal, but his treatment of Xianzhou natives had been beyond reproach. A few measly Strales were nothing...

Teng Xiao consoled himself that as long as no one had died, it was fine.

He chatted a little longer with the long-suffering Chief Strategist, then said goodbye and immediately sent Dan Feng a message.