They were breaking down the door!
What should he do?
Xu Yuan suddenly lifted the dried corpse and silently asked in his heart:
“Shop, will you take this thing?”
A line of glowing small characters quietly surfaced in the void:
“Objects of no value cannot be bought or sold.”
No value!
Dispirited, Xu Yuan turned around and looked toward the door.
They were about to get in!
The first thing they would see upon entering would be him holding a dried corpse covered in blood-red incantations.
At a glance, he’d look like an evil cultivator!
What human society could least tolerate were evil cultivators who had fallen to the demonic path!
So he was dead for sure?
Xu Yuan fell silent, his mind spinning rapidly.
The scene from not long ago surfaced before his eyes once more.
“There isn’t much time… you need to master… this… quickly…”
“…Only by learning it… can you live…”
That was what the black shadow had said.
—It had indeed said that.
Xu Yuan sank into silence.
There was no mystery at all to that bronze man’s art.
Its hand seals, and the way the windlike flow passed through the meridians and luminous points, were presented before his eyes with incomparable clarity and completeness.
—Deeply engraved into his memory.
The situation had already reached this point.
A high school student who had only just entered the Qi Refining stage had no way to deal with it.
But—
If he used that art—
What would happen?
The voices outside the door rang out again:
“Who’s doing it? The formation on this door is rather complicated. The owner of this home probably studied ancient formations.”
“I’ll do it. My formation arts are decent,” someone responded.
“On three, two, one. Break the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
Xu Yuan held the dried corpse in his hand, his expression gradually calming.
The timing was too perfect.
He had only just returned.
And the inspection immediately began.
Police cars blocked the downstairs, leaving him no chance to escape.
A chance.
“…This is your only chance.”
The black shadow’s voice echoed once more in Xu Yuan’s memory.
Xu Yuan lowered his head and looked at his hands.
Somewhere in the unseen.
He could sense that a secret the original body had been unable to perceive was about to reveal itself.
As long as—
As long as————
Xu Yuan took a deep breath, gently put down the dried corpse, raised both hands, and silently formed a spell seal.
In an instant.
The spiritual power within his body began to flow, swiftly passing through twenty-seven bright and hidden gates throughout the meridians of his body, just like wind shuttling through holes.
One breath.
Two breaths.
The art was complete—
The smell of vegetation reduced to ash spread through the air.
A foul stench swept over him.
It seemed as if fire was burning, yet there was no warmth at all.
The location of the fire was—
Xu Yuan sensed something in his heart and slowly raised his head, looking toward his room.
At some unknown moment.
His bedroom had filled with dim, icy mist.
That was another world!
Outside, the police began their countdown:
“Three,”
“Two,”
“One!”
Bang—
The door was smashed open.
The police and investigators could not help but freeze.
In the living room.
A young man wearing headphones was lying over the coffee table, doing his homework.
He stared blankly at the door that had been knocked open, and at the people filling the hallway.
“Who are you people!”
In a panic, the young man pressed the array disk on the table.
Buzz.
With a soft sound.
A burst of spiritual light appeared on the array disk.
The recording formation activated.
—It had begun recording everything that happened in the room.
The young man then took off his headphones, ran to the kitchen, pulled out a kitchen knife, and nervously held it in front of himself.
The headphones lay on the coffee table, blasting a loud, vibrating pop song.
It could be heard even from the doorway.
—The volume was too high.
So this kid hadn’t heard anything just now?
“Hello. This is a routine inspection regarding illegal array disks. Please cooperate.”
The police chief at the front spoke.
“Then—please come in—” Xu Yuan stammered.
“You broke my door.”
He said with a miserable expression.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be compensated,” the police chief said.
“Why didn’t you call? If you called and asked us to open the door, wouldn’t that have been fine? The array disk on this door was made by my father himself back then,” Xu Yuan asked in confusion.
The police chief said nothing more, only made a gesture.
The police filed in and began inspecting the room.
Receiving no reply, Xu Yuan could not help but shrug and glance over the few of them.
Five police officers.
Two investigators.
Four of them carried guns.
—Which meant they were ordinary people.
One investigator carried an array disk on his back.
Another police officer had a bundle of talismans tied at his waist.
The police chief wore a sword.
—These three were the truly formidable ones, at least at the Foundation Establishment realm.
Xu Yuan put his headphones back on, sat on the floor with his back against the sofa, picked up a copy of An Outline of Artifact Refining (Senior Year, Volume One), and began reading seriously.
The police and investigators made a round through the room.
“Inspection complete.”
“No signs of illegal use.”
—Originally, this kind of inspection only required a look in the kitchen.
This time, they had even checked the bedroom.
Three police officers walked straight out of the apartment and stood in the corridor outside.
The two investigators and the police chief still stood in the living room.
“There’s still somewhere we haven’t checked.”
One investigator said.
Xu Yuan did not even raise his head and continued reading.
—He was wearing headphones, so he had heard nothing.
That investigator slowly stepped forward and reached out to lift the sofa.
A big furry teddy bear plushie was curled up on the floor beneath the sofa, holding a sign in both hands.
On the sign was written:
“Am I cute?”
It was a toy!
The room fell silent for a while.
At last, the police chief’s voice rang out:
“We’re very sorry. Any losses caused during the execution of our duties will be compensated at double the amount.”
“Let’s go.”
The police left Xu Yuan’s home.
Only Xu Yuan remained, sitting in front of the sofa.
He stared blankly for a while, then lowered his head and continued working on problems.
—This was more in line with the persona of a senior-year high school student.
Suddenly.
Lines of faintly glowing small characters refreshed madly, appearing on his retina:
“The Road to Survival, Also Known as the Revival Match That Had to Be Held Because You Got Stuck by a Sword While Transmigrating and Couldn’t Come Back to Life (First Half).”
“You have obtained victory in the first half of the match.”
“Difficulty: Hard.”
“Match evaluation:”
“During these three days, something must have happened that the original Xu Yuan overlooked, and it determined Xu Yuan’s fate.”
“Congratulations.”
“You discovered the truth that the original body had been framed and planted with evidence, and borrowed the other party’s actions to clear your own name, making the other party unable to act recklessly again in the short term.”
“You have won the first half.”
“You have obtained rewards:”
“1. Blank Historical Branch;”
“Please write down the event you hope had happened. This branch will immediately be established.”
“2. Rare-grade Goods Exchange Voucher;”
“Use it to randomly refresh rare-grade goods in the shop and exchange for them!”
“—The rewards for Hard Mode are naturally better than those for Easy Mode.”
“Halftime break begins.”
“In twelve hours, the second half of the match will begin (Nightmare Level)!”
“Success will grant another reward.”
“Failure means death!”
Xu Yuan’s pupils abruptly contracted.
The second half was actually Nightmare Level!
In the last Nightmare Level match, he had faced a monster with six arms hanging upside down from the ceiling of the gymnasium.
He had only escaped death by selecting a match.
And now Nightmare Level had appeared again!
Yes—
From Easy Level to Hard Level, he had leapt back three days and gained a chance to survive.
But now, the difficulty of the match had risen again to Nightmare!
There was no chance to leap through time again.
—It would begin immediately in twelve hours!
Xu Yuan closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down.
Think quickly.
What method could possibly deal with this situation?
What other means did he have?
With a thought, Xu Yuan directly took a blank strip of paper from the void.
“Blank Historical Branch”!
What could it do?
A wish divorced from reality would not be realized.
What should he write?
After several breaths of silence.
Xu Yuan wrote a line on the strip of paper:
“Grant my three wishes.”
The words immediately vanished.
Another prompt quietly appeared before his eyes:
“Please write a realistic wish within 30 seconds, or the strip of paper will disappear.”
No way!
Are you angry again?
He had reduced a hundred wishes down to three, and it still wouldn’t do?
Xu Yuan sighed.
He suddenly looked toward his bedroom.
—That dried corpse had been thrown into another world by him using the bronze man’s art.
The bronze man’s art.
“…Only by learning it… can you live…”
“There’s almost no time…”
The black shadow’s voice seemed to echo by his ears once more.
This art.
—Just what origins did this art have?
He had to know everything about it!
If it was reliable enough, perhaps he could rely on its power to seek fortune and avoid disaster!
Xu Yuan was silent for a breath, then once more wrote a line on the blank strip of paper:
“At some point in the past, I once came into contact with and learned everything about the bronze man’s art.”
This time.
The small characters he had written did not disappear.
On the strip of paper, lines of new small characters swiftly appeared:
“The historical branch has been established.”
“This historical branch was born from your will and did not affect anything that happened in the past era.”
“Congratulations.”
“You have obtained a little-known personal history.”