Ye Zichen was sitting on a park bench. He didn’t know how long he’d been there. He didn’t chat with Yang Jian. He just sat there in a daze.
He looked around at this familiar scenery, watching the people and cars rush by.
“Want a cig?” Yang Jian was already puffing away at a cigarette. He passed another to Ye Zichen.
Ye Zichen rubbed his head and accepted it. An ember lit at the tip of his finger, lighting the cigarette.
He did this on purpose. He wanted to see how the people around would react to him summoning flames.
However, to his disappointment, none of the passerby seemed even the slightest bit surprised.
It was then that Ye Zichen finally started to accept the situation.
This wasn’t the Modern Realm, or even if it was, it wasn’t the place he’d once known.
He let out a melancholy puff of smoke and sighed. “This is the Outside?”
Yang Jian nodded. “When I first arrived here, I was surprised too. I thought to myself… isn’t this where my bro used to live? Especially that street just now. Back then, that was where we used to spend all day squatting and watching pretty girls go by. But would you believe me if I said that, if you grab any random person off the streets here, they’ll at least be a supreme?”
“Even that old man practicing Tai Chi?” Ye Zichen arched his brows.
“No, he isn’t….”
“Didn’t you say that any random person was….”
“He’s a ruler.”
Ye Zichen’s eyes widened.
The elderly man seemed to sense their gaze. He stopped practicing for a moment and flashed Yang Jian and Ye Zichen a benevolent smile.
“Bro, this is the Outside. Do you know why the people of the Upper Three Realms are so afraid of Outsiders? It’s because the locals are born supremes. They are exempt from the Laws, transcendent. They’ve surpassed everything.” Yang Jian spelled it all out in detail, as if afraid Ye Zichen didn’t fully understand.
“No, I still can’t quite believe it. Can you give me a few days to make sure of things?” asked Ye Zichen.
Yang Jian hesitated. His superiors wanted to see Ye Zichen as soon as possible.
But when he considered that his friend was undoubtedly on the verge of a mental breakdown, he nodded. “Alright. I’ll ask my boss about it.”
Two weeks went by.
Ye Zichen spent this time on one simple task: comparing this place to the Modern Realm.
His conclusion only pushed him closer to the brink of collapse.
It was exactly the same!
His former university was here, as was the street behind the school lined with restaurants and snack shops, a place he used to frequent. Not even the shop keepers had changed.
His former college roommates were here too. The only difference was that….
He didn’t exist in this world!
It wasn’t just him. Su Yan, Xia Keke, Sun Yige, everyone who’d lived in Bing Cheng before ascending, none of them existed. But everyone who hadn’t been expelled from the Modern World when it froze over was here.
It was like looking at the Modern Realm’s reflection. Everything was so, so similar.
It was like a parallel universe.
“It’s really… really hard to believe.” Ye Zichen flew through the air and, despite himself, shook his head and laughed bitterly. He just couldn’t believe that a place so similar to the Modern Realm existed in a place like this.
The more he thought about it, the more it freaked him out!
Why was the Outside so similar to Ye Zichen’s former home? Was his former home actually just a copy of the Outside? Or the other way around?
“You’re certain now, aren’t you?” Yang Jian couldn’t help but ask. He’d asked his boss for a little more time. His superiors hadn’t directly agreed, but they didn’t rush him, either. All they asked was that he accompany Ye Zichen and protect him.
Ye Zichen didn’t want to believe this was real.
But at this point, he had no choice.
“I’m sure, I’m sure. This is the Outside! I’m just down in the dumps about it. But you know, when we were on our way here, I thought the Outside must be some terrifying place. Isn’t it rather nice here? There’s lots of good-looking men and women around, and they’re all gentle and kind. Why are people so scared of the Outside?”
“Because this is the Outside’s Safe Zone. If you try and enter the Outside uninvited, you’ll wind up in the Quarantine Zone.”
The Safe Zone?
The Quarantine Zone?
Ye Zichen didn’t quite understand what Yang Jian was saying.
“I don’t know how to explain to you either, so how about we go talk to my boss?” asked Yang Jian.
“Alright!” Ye Zichen nodded.
He’d assumed that since Yang Jian was taking him to see the boss of a transcendent faction, he’d lead him deep into some secluded forest or other out-of-the-way location. However, reality left Ye Zichen speechless: Yang Jian led him directly to a government office.
There was even a line of military police guarding the place. Ye Zichen glanced at them, then looked away. He’d already engraved the fact that the locals were born supremes deep into his heart.
If ordinary people were supremes, he feared that military police were diviners, or possibly even rulers.
In the God Realm, being a sky supreme was pretty good but here…. He was nothing.
Inside, the tiled hallway was empty. Ye Zichen tried stomping a little harder than usual out of curiosity, and found that his sky supreme strength wasn’t enough to damage the floors.
Yang Jian walked to the end of the hall and pushed open a door. “Boss, Ye Zichen is here.”
The room inside wasn’t large. There was a desk against the window, and two bookshelves, one on each side of the room. There was an office chair, and a sofa facing it at an angle.
It was obviously someone’s office.
The one Yang Jian called “Boss” was facing away from them, breathing out a cloud of smoke. When he heard that Ye Zichen had arrived, he turned around and extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray on his desk.
“Come in! Sit down!” Han Nan pointed to the seat in front of him.
Ye Zichen hesitated, then walked over and sat down. “Hello, sir.”
He was still struggling to think of this place as the Outside, the place that had transcended the Laws.
Take this mayor, for instance. He wore a suit and leather shoes. He was very official looking. Looking at him made Ye Zichen feel as if he were talking to a government official from the Modern Realm.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Han Nan, the mayor of Bing Cheng.”
“Greetings, Mayor Han.”
“I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time, but I never got the chance. Fortunately, I ran into Yang Jian, and got to meet you through him. Just looking at you, it’s obvious that you’re a top talent, a dragon among men!”
“….”
What was this?
All this polite nonsense?
Wasn’t there some mistake? This was the Modern Realm. Could they just stop being so similar to the Modern Realm? Why bother with all that drivel? Also, from the look of things, it seemed he had something to ask of Ye Zichen.
“Then…. Might I ask why you brought me here?” asked Ye Zichen.
“I brought you here, in truth, because I have something to ask of you,” said Han Nan.
“You must be joking. This is the Outside. You have something to ask of me? What could I possibly give you?”
“Little Friend, you’re one of heaven’s two chosen emperors, aren’t you?”
“…..” Ye Zichen instantly tensed up.
