Chapter 149: Lonely Ye Mu

"Do you feel like the world is changing? Why has the main city become so unsettled these past few years?"

"What's wrong? Do you have some new gossip again? Out with it, let me hear." A man dressed in a blue-gray robe and with his hair slicked into a shine held a fan in his hand, lying on a chair and fanning himself while mentally calculating how to please his wife tonight.

Lying next to the man was another pot-bellied, big-eared middle-aged man. He glanced at the people on the street, then at the desolate shop, and amidst the groans of the chair, he scooted a little closer to the fanning man and said, "As it happens, nobody is around right now. Let me fill you in."

"Spit it out already, don't keep me in suspense! If your news is actually interesting, tomorrow we can play another round." The man with the fan kept winking with a knowing look.

The middle-aged man smiled, causing the chair beneath him to creak again. "Don't be impatient. I heard this from someone who withdrew from the borderlands between the two major campuses. Don't go spreading it to others."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," the fanning man replied perfunctorily, though in his heart he was thinking that nobody was faster or louder than him at blabbing first.

"Word has it that a brand-new space appeared deep within the secret realm, and it seems three teams went in to explore it."

"How could there be three teams? Aren't only people from the two major academies qualified to go?" Before the middle-aged man could finish, the fanning man interrupted.

The middle-aged man snatched the fan and smacked the fanning man on the head with it. "How would I know? Do you want to listen or not? Stop interrupting me."

The fanning man snatched the fan back from the middle-aged man and urged, "I want to listen, I want to listen."

"Supposedly, out of the dozen or so members across the three teams, only five made it out alive; everyone else died inside. People from Tianmu King and Purple Star Academy went in to search, but they couldn't even find the bodies. Later, though, I heard that Tianmu King sealed off that space and suppressed all news of it." After finishing, the middle-aged man looked up at the sky and just happened to see someone walking into the shop.

Instantly dropping his fierce demeanor from when he had hit the fanning man with the fan, his face broke into a full smile as he followed the customer inside. "Hello, how may I help you?"

***

Purple Star Academy, at the road junction.

"I just saw Department Head Bai return looking rather unwell. I heard she was out on a mission, and judging by her expression, it must have failed."

"Sister Bai?" Yao Ling, who happened to be passing by on her way to get some food, paused in her tracks, her face lighting up. "Does that mean Ye Bai is back too?"

Yao Ling quickened her pace, intending to grab some food at the cafeteria, bring it over to Cao Xiaoseng's dorm to eat together, and then show Ye Bai the progress they had made over the past month or more.

"However, I heard that only Department Head Bai came back alone. Because of this, Gu Zhi flew into a rage and temporarily relieved Department Head Bai of her duties as the sophomore department head. It seems the situation was quite grim all around; Tianmu Academy is in a similar state. Word is that another team didn't fare well either. Both the King and the Border Guardians went in to search, but found nothing at all. Who knows what they ran into in there."

Yao Ling's hurried footsteps suddenly stopped. She wheeled around and bolted back toward the male dormitory.

"What's wrong with that girl? Running this way one second, and that way the next?" Could it be she spent too much time with boys and he could no longer understand a girl's mind? Shaking his head, he headed toward the cafeteria with his companion.

*Bang.* Cao Xiaoseng, who was still asleep, suddenly heard a tremendous crash at his dorm door, but he didn't get up. In this academy, only Yao Ling was allowed to enter his room without warning.

"Xiaoseng! Xiaoseng!"

Yao Ling's voice was urgent and laced with tears, instantly banishing the last dregs of sleep from Cao Xiaoseng. With lightning speed, he threw on his clothes and appeared before Yao Ling.

***

"What's the matter?" In Cao Xiaoseng's impression, Yao Ling was always easygoing. Could someone have bullied her? Instantly, Cao Xiaoseng's expression darkened.

"Did you hear if Ye Bai came back yesterday?" Yao Ling grabbed Cao Xiaoseng's hand and asked frantically.

"Ye Bai?" Cao Xiaoseng thought for a moment and shook his head. "Didn't Ye Bai go to that spatial realm? Weren't we getting ready to give Ye Bai a surprise?"

"What? Ye Bai is back?" Suddenly, Cao Xiaoseng's expression turned exceedingly strange, and he dashed toward his bedroom.

"No, he didn't come back." Yao Ling pulled Cao Xiaoseng back, then quickly added, "He did come back, except..."

"Wait, what on earth are you trying to say? Did he come back or not?" Watching Yao Ling speak incoherently, Cao Xiaoseng's voice grew fainter as a sense of impending doom washed over him.

Yao Ling dragged Cao Xiaoseng directly over to Ye Bai's dorm next door, tapped the optical console by the door, and her face instantly collapsed as tears gushed down her cheeks.

"Hey, why are you crying? What on earth is wrong? Isn't it normal for someone to be away from their dorm for over a month?" Seeing Yao Ling cry, Cao Xiaoseng panicked, having no idea what to say.

"Sister Bai is back," Yao Ling said through her sobs.

"What? Bai Wan'er? Was she with Ye Bai?" Cao Xiaoseng's heart finally went into turmoil, but seeing Yao Ling, he forced himself to comfort her. "Don't panic, maybe Ye Bai is still on the way back."

Even as he said the words, Cao Xiaoseng didn't believe them himself. The new spatial realm was located right at the border between Purple Star Academy and Tianmu Academy—how could they possibly get separated on the return trip?

Suddenly, Yao Ling's eyes lit up, and she bolted outside again.

"Where are you going now?" Cao Xiaoseng trailed after her.

"I'm going to ask Sister Bai. She must know where Ye Bai is." Before Yao Ling's foot even crossed the threshold of the male dormitory, her smart-brain chimed.

"How is this possible? I don't believe it, I don't believe it!" Yao Ling crumpled and collapsed onto the ground.

Cao Xiaoseng received the smart-brain notification at the same time. Struck with a profound shock, he picked Yao Ling up and carried her back to his room.

*“Notice: Due to an external mission, First Team Leader Ye Bai has been confirmed dead. Next week, the first class consolidation will take place, at which point new teams will be formed.”* The message was signed by Zhang Jian, and those two prominent names were blindingly harsh.

***

Amidst the pitch-black night, a sliver of light suddenly appeared. A man covered in blood crawled endlessly toward the glow, while inside the light, a girl dressed in beige clothing crouched on the ground.

"Who are you? Don't come any closer!" The girl slowly retreated toward the edge of the light, but the man did not stop. Every time he dragged himself forward, a long smear of blood was left in his wake, yet he kept approaching the girl with what seemed like a stubborn obsession.

The girl found the man's figure somewhat familiar, but covered in blood as he was, she felt deeply terrified. "Don't come over! My brother is very strong, you can't beat him. He is a student at Purple Star Academy."

Finally, the man seemed to exhaust his last ounce of strength, collapsing flat onto the ground without moving a muscle. If not for the faint rise and fall of his chest, the girl would have thought he was dead.

"Are you alright? Should I go call a doctor? You're bleeding so much." The girl seemed to feel a pang of pity.

Suddenly, the man lifted his face. At that moment, the girl inside the light seemed to witness something incredible; she frantically struck the barrier of light, tears streaming endlessly down her face as she muttered something.

"Mu'er..." The man suddenly uttered a single word. The young woman inside the light shuddered, finally giving up as she slid down the barrier and knelt on the ground.

"Brother, how did you end up like this? Where is this place? I miss you, Brother!" Kneeling on the ground, the girl still desperately tried to break through the confinement of the light.

The man lying on the ground kept coughing up fresh blood, seeming to require a tremendous effort just to speak.

"Mu'er, don't cry. Brother is fine. It's just that I might not be able to come back for a while. You must take good care of yourself." No sooner had the man finished speaking than his body dissolved into a red glow and vanished.

"Brother, don't go! Mu'er misses you. Here, it's just Mu'er all by herself every day." Ye Mu began frantically pounding against the light barrier again, until suddenly a ringing tone echoed in her ears.

"Is this... a dream? How could it feel so real?" Her pillow was already soaked with tears. Ye Mu turned off her alarm clock, pulled her knees to her chest and sat on the bed, her face half-hidden beneath her cascading hair as tears continued to roll down.

"Brother, are you alright?" Ye Mu murmured to herself. She refused to believe that everything in the dream was real; she refused to believe her brother would end up like that.

Dawn had not yet broken, and there was still about an hour left before school. The entire house remained pitch-black, but Ye Mu was already awake—the sole master of this mansion that could house over a hundred people, and the only one of them out of bed.

With every step she took, the sound of her footsteps echoed in her ears, infusing the surroundings with a trace of life. The dim yellow lights switched on one by one in the wake of her footsteps.

Along the entire long corridor, not a soul was in sight, save for a single girl walking slowly from the far end toward the front. Although early morning had arrived, the surroundings remained abnormally dark, as if the darkness outside refused to yield to the slowly breaking day and crowded frantically against the corridor windows.

"Ah." Ye Mu suddenly dropped to her knees. When she pushed herself back up and caught sight of the scars on her legs, the girl finally lost control and burst into heavy sobs.

No one knew how much psychological pressure the girl in this grand estate had to overcome just to live here day after day; no one knew what an underage girl relied on to fend off her longing. At this moment, however, the girl finally cried, weeping uninhibitedly and alone in the vast mansion.

When morning came, the bedroom door was pushed open once again. Ye Mu emerged from her bedroom, her face radiating confidence and vitality. She wore a light red short-sleeved shirt, black trousers, and pure white shoes that slowly took on a reddish hue under the sunlight.

"Good morning, Uncle Butler." Ye Mu bowed slightly, smiling as she greeted the elderly butler of the Li residence.

"Haha, morning. Up so early again today? Couldn't sleep a little longer?" The old butler looked at Ye Mu with doting eyes as he fished the breakfast out of a basket.

"I'm used to it, Uncle Butler. You don't need to bring Mu'er breakfast every day, Mu'er can make it herself." Ye Mu sat down and looked at the wrinkled old butler, a wave of warmth washing over her heart.

"It's different. Young Master Fei instructed me to take care of you before he left." The old butler seemed truly aged as he pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Ye Mu.

"Uncle Butler, do you know how to contact the main city?" Ye Mu suddenly asked a question the old butler would never have expected.