Little Pink Starfish

Even though they had been frightened, Shen Yu and the others did not give up. On the contrary, they erupted with their original, formidable strength… He truly felt fear now. Looking at his companion writhing on the ground, Shen Yu couldn’timagine ending up in the same state—unable even to die when he wanted to.

At this point, his survival instincts had completely taken over, compelling him to fight. He was desperate to escape this place, to flee from that terrifying, godlike being.

“So troublesome,” Pei Sen muttered. The young master’s methods did nothing but bolster his opponents’ fighting spirit, which wasn’t exactly helpful. Even Lady Jing, his ally, had been frightened. Fortunately, no matter how strong these people were, they couldn’t cause any real trouble.

All the exits of the garden villa had been thoroughly sealed. The soldiers outside couldn’t get in. Now that Shen Yu and the Southern Government’s extraordinary beings had focused all their hostility on Pei Sen and Eagle, Jing Hui took the chance to order the wounded Scythe members to retreat underground, while leading those still in decent condition into a counterattack.

Originally, the Southern Government hadn’t sent too many people. Although they’d committed significant forces, they didn’t mobilize everything. That’s the only reason they’d been able to maintain the upper hand up to this point. However, Pei Sen had already noticed that the number of personnel in the Society seemed unusually low.

Shen Yu had now abandoned his original plan. All he wanted was to break out and get away as quickly as possible. Whether Jing Hui lived or died, or what happened to the Qinghun Affairs Management Society, no longer mattered to him. In the first place, he wasn’t truly loyal to the Southern Government—it was just a relationship of mutual benefit. Now that it had come to this, his only concern was saving his own skin.

“Forget the rest of them. Everyone break out in one direction!” he shouted.

The Southern Government’s extraordinary personnel who had come with him were just like him. If they’d had any true loyalty, they wouldn’t have betrayed the Society and defected to the Southern Government in the first place. And so, without exception, they rallied to Shen Yu’s side.

Driven by desperation, their attacks grew even more ferocious.

If not for Pei Sen’s ice magic turning the villa into a sealed fortress, the building would likely have been reduced to rubble under the sheer force of the extraordinary battle.

Before Pei Sen and Eagle had arrived, both sides had somewhat held back. This street was part of bustling Mengnan City, and the surrounding villa owners were people of some standing. From the Southern Government’s perspective, they didn’t want to stir up too much trouble with those people. Similarly, the Society had never enjoyed causing public chaos. Both sides had scruples, and neither had gone all out. That’s why the villa had survived this long.

But now, nobody was holding back anymore.

While reinforcing the ice layers, Pei Sen muttered, “What a waste… this house was expensive.”
At this point, he was probably the only one still worried about the building.

Then he turned to Eagle and said, “Young master, let’s finish this quickly and go help Vice President Jing’s people.”

Eagle, having noticed several of Shen Yu’s people now attacking Pei Sen directly, was already annoyed. Hearing Pei Sen’s words, he nodded and raised his hand. Several beams of warm light landed on the injured Scythe members around Jing Hui, and their wounds visibly healed.

Among them were a few players, who, upon feeling the soothing warmth, instinctively opened their status panels and couldn’t help but gape.

“My HP bar just filled instantly! I thought I was a goner…”

“Duke Eagle is insane, totally busted! (shouting)”

“One skill and full HP? I’m so jealous… seriously, why doesn’t this game have healers?”

“Even if there were healers, could they be this strong? This is just absurd.”

“Definitely a walking buff machine. Let’s go, brothers! With this kind of mega-healer, what are we afraid of?!”

“Charge! Heal me!”

“I used to think Pei Sen was the lucky one, with the little duke acting like a personal support, always glowing with holy light. That’s what I call true exclusive heals.”

“Let’s go! Smash them!”

“……”

It wasn’t just the players who were fired up. The Qinghun Scythe members also quickly realized that the person Pei Sen brought with him had unmatched healing power. Instantly, the pressure on their side dropped significantly.

Jing Hui made a decisive call. “Abandon defense—full offense!”

Shen Yu’s people were getting more and more injured, while Jing Hui’s forces healed instantly when hurt. Combined with Pei Sen’s constant magical interference, the balance shifted. Victory tilted rapidly toward the Society.

This frozen villa had truly become an impenetrable cage. Shen Yu and his men tried everything, but they couldn’t break out. Despair started creeping in.

Pei Sen’s expression shifted slightly, and he smiled.
“You hear that?”
“Outside.”

He didn’t need to say it. Everyone had noticed—the gunfire outside had stopped. Even if the ice was thick, it would still transmit sound when struck. But now, there was no noise at all.

Shen Yu and the others understood instantly—his words had only confirmed what they feared.

Shen Yu gritted his teeth. He’d always known this was a transactional relationship, but to be discarded like this still filled him with rage.

Suddenly, he turned and shouted, “Junior sister! I hold many secrets about the Southern Government! I can help the Society avoid future sieges… I didn’t kill any of your people just now! You know I’ve always had a soft spot for the past. I can help you round up the ones who did attack—”

At this critical moment, having been abandoned by the Southern Government, Shen Yu decided to sell out his own subordinates.

“Captain!” a young man behind him stared at him in disbelief, as if seeing this powerful leader for the first time.

Jing Hui also looked stunned. It was the first time she realized someone could be so shameless.

“I’m sorry. That will be the last time I call you ‘senior brother’… You must die here today.”
Jing Hui, though a woman, had even more resolve than Chen Qingxu.

Shen Yu’s face twisted. “Junior sister, are you really going to be this heartless?”

As if she were the one in the wrong.

Pei Sen looked up at the ice-covered ceiling. This guy isn’t just shameless—he might actually be mentally unstable.

Jing Hui was speechless too. Back in the day, this so-called senior brother had been promising—his talent had earned him a place as a disciple of the then-president, Jing Hui’s own mother, even before Jing Hui had joined.

Had he not revealed his dark nature and committed so many crimes, eventually defecting to the Southern Government and being seriously wounded by Jing Hui’s mother in a failed assassination, his strength would have far surpassed what it was now.

But Jing Hui couldn’t understand—he knew that his former master, her mother, had died because of him. She had a vendetta the size of heaven against him, yet he could still say such things… What was he even thinking?

If Shen Yu hadn’t done what he did back then—hadn’t caused the death of her mother—perhaps he would have become president of the Society instead of Chen Qingxu.

“Please allow me to kill him myself,” Jing Hui said to Pei Sen.

Pei Sen nodded. He didn’t know the full story between them, but it was obvious Jing Hui hated Shen Yu deeply.

At that point, thanks to Shen Yu’s earlier betrayal, none of his subordinates were willing to fight for him anymore. The remaining Southern Government extraordinary beings broke down mentally and were quickly subdued and captured by the Society.

As for Shen Yu, he ultimately died by Jing Hui’s hand.

Eagle, however, glanced at the corpse. “That guy was pretty clever.”

“What?” Pei Sen turned to him.

Eagle didn’t understand the local language, but he was a master of reading people. From their expressions alone, he could usually guess what was going on.

“He probably said something to provoke that lady.”

Pei Sen blinked. “I wouldn’t call it provoking—more like rambling nonsense. He and that woman had deep enmity, but just now he suddenly said—”
Then Pei Sen paused.

Shen Yu had survived in the Southern Government for so long, commanding powerful individuals. Could he really be nothing more than a shameless lunatic?

Impossible.

He was cunning and calculating. Only through such careful maneuvering had he avoided death all these years under Jing Hui and Chen Qingxu’s pursuit.

“You mean… he did it on purpose?”

“Probably. I could sense the will to die in him,” Eagle scoffed. “He was likely terrified—of me.”

Terrified of falling into Eagle’s hands, where life and death would be out of his control.

People like Shen Yu, the smarter they were, the more they feared. Just moments ago, that man Eagle had revived lay writhing on the floor like a dying bug. Even death had become a luxury.

Shen Yu understood in that moment: he had to die. Die completely. Preferably by the hands of someone who hated him enough to ensure he stayed dead.

He had succeeded.

Pei Sen looked at Shen Yu’s corpse, then at the stunned Jing Hui standing beside it. He thought for a moment and sighed. “At least she got her revenge. No need to let hatred consume her life.”

Jing Hui was usually gentle and composed—the true housekeeper of the Society. Her role was no less important than Chen Qingxu’s. In fact, the Society could survive without Chen Qingxu, but not without Jing Hui.

Now she could finally live a peaceful life, without the shadow of vengeance.

The government soldiers had retreated. Every extraordinary being the Southern Government sent was either captured or killed. Pei Sen raised his staff, and the ice began to melt away.

He glanced at the ruined furniture and shattered staircase in the hall and sighed. “Guess I’ll have to spend money on refurnishing again…”

At that moment, Chen Tian finally emerged from hiding and asked in surprise, “After all that, we’re not moving? Is it really okay to stay here?”

“What’s wrong with staying?” Pei Sen snapped. “You think moving will stop the Southern Government from tracking you? When has this HQ not been exposed? I guarantee, if you relocate now, they’ll know your new location immediately. So what’s the point?”

True. There really wasn’t much point.

Jing Hui approached and said, “He’s right. We’re not moving. At least here, the Southern Government has to lock down the streets before a siege, which gives us some warning time.”

It was precisely the lockdown that alerted their influential neighbors and allowed non-combatants like Chen Tian to evacuate to safety.

“By the way, where is the president?” Pei Sen finally asked. “And aren’t there too few Scythes stationed here?”

Jing Hui’s expression turned grim. “We got word that a Qinghun demon outbreak happened in a northern town. Rumor was that one might have reached advanced rank. The president personally led a team to investigate. Now it seems likely the Southern Government intentionally lured him away.”

Pei Sen exhaled in relief. “As long as he’s okay.”

Because of Pei Sen’s actions, many things in the Society had already changed. He sincerely hoped his butterfly-effect meddling hadn’t caused something awful to happen to the gruff old man, Chen Qingxu, who had lived well for so many years in the original timeline.

“In that case, it’s time we discussed my real reason for coming back to the Qinghun Era—about that clansman of mine, ‘Kong.’”

This had been Pei Sen’s true objective all along.

He just hadn’t expected to arrive right in the middle of a deadly siege.

Then again, this siege was partially Kong’s fault.

Tsk, tsk… This guy really is a legendary figure among players.

Just deleting his account like that… would be far too much of a waste.