His daily working hours amounted to less than half an hour. It was pretty easygoing.
That way, if those people from the Interastral Peace Corporation came to cause trouble, he wouldn't get caught up in it.
Ye Yan wasn't worried about the milk tea shop getting demolished. He did have some connections, after all.
If it got demolished, he could only go to Jing Yuanyuan.
If Jing Yuan couldn't handle it, he would go demand an explanation from the marshal.
If even the marshal couldn't handle it, he would have to seek justice from Lan of [The Hunt].
If even Lan couldn't handle it... well, that was getting a little far ahead.
Getting the Aeon of [The Hunt] involved over a milk tea shop was impossible, no matter how he looked at it.
Ye Yan considered his relationship with Lan fairly good. As for the reason...
[The Hunt]'s pursuit of [Abundance] was endless. Wasn't that a form of [Eternity]? Ye Yan simply had to get in on something like that.
In for a penny, in for a pound. Ye Yan promptly tied a red thread between [The Hunt] and [Abundance].
This wasn't that kind of red thread. With Ye Yan's red thread, Lan could sense Yaoshi's location in real time.
As long as the red thread remained, Lan could find Yaoshi.
And indeed, this grand ceremony had actually taken place with [Elation] and [Remembrance] as witnesses.
Aha thought it sounded entertaining, so they came to watch.
They even wanted to tie one between themself and Ye Yan, but Ye Yan refused.
Although he had a bit of [Elation] in him too, his concentration was still far too low compared to Aha, that god of amusement.
Fuli of [Remembrance] found the scene fascinating and simply had to record it.
To ensure everything was fair, Ye Yan had also specially installed a protective program on Yaoshi.
Yes, he installed a black hole capable of absorbing an astronomical number of attacks.
What could he do? He was [Eternity], after all.
Without an absolute guarantee, it would be meaningless.
The situation now was:
[The Hunt] could always find [Abundance], but they could never kill [Abundance].
Aha's verdict was: what fun!
"All that I do is [Eternity]," Ye Yan said calmly, considering that line rather cool.
Repeating that line over and over was [Eternity] too!
As the saying went, an Aeon couldn't let his identity slip.
To that end, Ye Yan had specially given himself a name that looked very Aeon-like.
Names like IX, the Aeon of [Nihility], and HooH, the Aeon of [Equilibrium], had such a ring to them. Being the only one with a human name made him stick out too much.
It was like surfing the internet. Everyone else used a screen name, while he alone used his real name.
And so, Yite of [Eternity] was born.
Now that sounded like an Aeon's name, and it rolled off the tongue too.
At present, only a handful knew his identity: those geniuses at Herta Space Station, and the marshal and generals of the Xianzhou Alliance.
And...
Pom-Pom, the Conductor.
Ye Yan had a different identity in every region. On the Luofu, he was merely an unremarkable milk tea shop owner.
Elsewhere, the identity he gave himself was a Pathstrider of [Eternity].
The identity of an Emanator was too lofty. It didn't suit him.
Being an Emanator actually made it easier to get exposed, and having his identity revealed would be bad. Just look at Aha: that god of amusement kept their identity very well hidden.
He had yet to see Aha's true form. For all he knew, Aha behind the mask might be a cute girl with twin tails.
Hmm...
Why would he have that thought?
Ye Yan began reflecting on himself again.
Beep-beep, beep-beep!
Ye Yan took out his phone. Who was texting him this early in the morning?
[Bad but loves to play (contact nickname): You there?]
Looking at the ID he had assigned, Ye Yan knew who it was.
Silver Wolf.
A member of the Stellaron Hunters and a genius hacker.
Years ago, he had gone to Punklorde to spread [Eternity]. While passing a fast-food restaurant, he happened to meet Silver Wolf, who was still young at the time.
The girl had been playing games in the basement. Out of friendliness, Ye Yan worried she might be bored and played games with her for several months.
Those months of gaming left Silver Wolf with an impression she still couldn't forget.
Using an [Aether Cartridge] he had casually picked up back then, Ye Yan pulled a little trick and changed his game score to an astronomical number.
It gave the little Silver Wolf of the time a tremendous shock.
Later, after Silver Wolf grew up and encountered Aether Editing technology, she simply couldn't let it go. Somehow, she hacked her way to his contact information and demanded another match.
Since she sincerely wanted to compete with him, Ye Yan couldn't refuse.
But back then, Ye Yan had actually been hoping to hoodwink Silver Wolf into joining the Path of [Eternity].
So he let the girl witness the methods of [Eternity] once again.
This time, she had to concede, whether she liked it or not.
It was the kind of thing she couldn't beat even with cheats.
Comparing cheats would drive anyone mad. Ye Yan's cheats were a level above Silver Wolf's.
In Silver Wolf's eyes, the universe was nothing more than one giant game, and Ye Yan was now as hard to deal with as a final boss.
Ye Yan had cultivated a good relationship with Silver Wolf mainly so she could better fabricate identities for him in the future.
He dressed it up as playing games. Every game had a protagonist with a different identity, so the girl would surely be willing to invent identities for him too.
A genius hacker was no joke.
[Ye Yan: No.]
[Silver Wolf: We're going to Herta Space Station in a few days. Want to come?]
[Ye Yan: What do the Stellaron Hunters' affairs have to do with me?]
[Silver Wolf: With [Eternity]'s help, we'd get twice the results for half the effort.]
Those who walked the Path of [Eternity] were all among the strongest, and Ye Yan was in the strongest tier even among its Pathstriders.
Silver Wolf even suspected Ye Yan was an Emanator of [Eternity], given how powerful he was.
Most importantly, this Emanator was really good at gaming too!
[Silver Wolf: Did you know a string of garbled characters appeared in Elio's [script]?]
[Ye Yan: How unusual.]
[Silver Wolf: Anyway, enough of that. Want to game?]
[The other party has gone offline...]
[Silver Wolf: ?]
"Tch."
Silver Wolf rolled her eyes in irritation. What meaning did life even have for someone who didn't play games these days?
Not playing games could only mean you would live a failed life.
"Honey, why do you look a little unhappy?"
An elegant woman wearing a leather coat, with purplish-red hair and an air of mystery about her, came over to Silver Wolf.
"I asked a friend to play games. He won't come."
"Don't you usually... play alone?" Kafka was a little surprised.
"Sometimes someone plays with me." Silver Wolf chewed her bubble gum.
Whatever else she might say, she had been pretty happy during the time Ye Yan played games with her. At least she'd had company.
"Hiss... he hasn't secretly found someone else to team up with behind my back, has he?"
Silver Wolf frowned, realizing things weren't so simple.
"Possibly?"
Kafka didn't play games, after all, and had little experience with this sort of thing.
"Hmm..."
The two fell silent for a while, then a notification sounded from Silver Wolf's phone.
"A message!"
Silver Wolf thought Ye Yan had changed his mind and was just about to type a reply.
[Ye Yan: Make sure you protect those 76 game accounts of yours.]
[Silver Wolf: ...]
[Silver Wolf: Oh.]
Game accounts?
Silver Wolf chuckled. Why was he worrying about her game accounts?
Could all 76 of her game accounts possibly get banned?
That was impossible, no matter how she looked at it.
Kafka looked at Silver Wolf and Ye Yan's chat history, deep in thought.
"[Eternity], huh..."
She hadn't expected Silver Wolf to have connections with someone from [Eternity]. Kafka herself hadn't had much contact with Pathstriders of [Eternity].
But Kafka knew the stories about their Aeon.
Funnily enough, those stories seemed to have been written by two Masked Fools.
People from the Elation faction couldn't be taken entirely at their word. Half of what they said was true, and half was false.
According to their accounts, this Aeon of [Eternity] had once gnawed on Oroboros of [Voracity] while being gnawed on in return, and had joined Aha of [Elation] in pouring all their energy into a feeble insect.
As for the final outcome...
Naturally, it had failed.
There was even a claim that the Interastral Peace Corporation regarded the [Eternity] faction as mortal enemies, simply because their Aeon had shown no respect for its Amber Lord and dismantled the crystalline wall that had taken so much effort to build.
A mere [Eternity] had absolutely no idea whom he had offended: the oldest Aeon, with the longest known lifespan.
But... was that really the truth?
Kafka, for one, didn't quite believe it. If [Eternity]'s reputation really was that bad, then the Swarm Disaster should have been renamed.
It should have been called the [Aeon War] that shook the universe.