Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2477: Chapter 2472: A Fruitless Effort

”Very brave.”

After an even longer silence, even the praise Fu Qian received now echoed the earlier one.

It was obvious that for Selana, the shock brought by the captive in front of her was still ongoing.

Even though the way this whole thing was developing was clearly in her favor.

What do you do when your tool is too useful? How many people ever get to have that kind of problem?

Still, she was someone who roamed the worldly society; caution was something she could never afford to lose.

”Are you sure, in your current condition, you still have the ability to slip back onto the ship?”

After that cold little compliment, Selana didn’t forget to point out that if Fu Qian had the spare breath to shout slogans, there was some suspicion his actual ability might not measure up.

”I probably don’t.”

Fu Qian admitted quite straightforwardly, and as he spoke he reached back to touch his back again.

Granted, the wound had closed, but the torture had still left its marks.

For a Middle Tier combatant, injuries like this generally weren’t something you could just shrug off.

”So I’ll need your help. When the ship comes closer again, we’ll do what we just did one more time, only in reverse—send me back up there.”

But you can’t just raise a problem and call it a day; you have to bring a targeted solution to the table.

Fu Qian followed up immediately, clearly having thought this through long ago.

”And there’s another benefit to doing it this way. Right now I don’t have the strength to sneak back on board by myself, which means sneaking back off without Sorondir noticing would also be extremely difficult. That place will be a sealed prison, so you don’t need to worry too much that I’m just spinning a story to run away.”

Not only that, he even dug out an extra layer of necessity.

”...If you weren’t so pathetically weak, I’d almost start suspecting your identity.”

Only, sometimes showing too much edge wasn’t a good thing. At that moment, instead of being overjoyed, the interrogator actually grew a bit grim; after staring this way for a while, there was a faint trace of malice in her tone, as though some unpleasant association had been stirred up.

...

To be fair, he really had overdone it a bit in all those prior interactions; looked like he’d left a shadow on her.

Fu Qian actually had a faint realization in that moment about just what kind of association she’d made.

”Pathetically weak” obviously implied there was a comparison being made.

Clearly, this kind of experience where everything was arranged in advance and no matter how you looked at it he came out ahead—Selana had already gone through that more than once recently, all of them focused around a certain bookstore owner.

Not to mention this whole trip already had quite a bit of that person’s guidance woven into it; it was perfectly natural for her to be on high alert...

But that was exactly where the Jade Soul Master’s secret art showed its brilliance. No matter what, the person in front of her was a bona fide Middle Tier.

Cold, hard facts were laid out right here; it simply didn’t line up with the bookstore owner at all.

As for whether this could be that person in disguise?

For someone as proud as Lady Selana, admitting she was not as skilled as someone else was one thing; admitting that a certain vile individual could disguise himself to this degree right under her nose would be too much of a blow to her confidence.

This kind of overwhelming gap was something she would instinctively reject.

Lady Selana’s reaction only served to further verify the identity of the Half-god of the Blood Clan.

”I actually have no way to refute that. Wei really has lived too long...”

Faced with that sharp critique, Fu Qian also let out a light sigh, candidly owning up to his ”limited strength.”

He didn’t blame the Death Overlord behind him, though. Fu Qian preferred to think that the intent from above had been good; it was just that some treacherous scoundrel had meddled in between, causing the Death God’s Favored to progress so slowly.

”So he’s dead now? That sounds a bit hard to believe for a character like that.”

Selana didn’t give a clear opinion on the excuse he’d found, but since the man himself had brought up that mysterious figure, she didn’t mind learning more.

Dead or not?

Her wording inevitably brought back the memories of yesterday; the last form of the Death Angel floated up in Fu Qian’s mind.

”He probably isn’t. Even though he can’t meddle from the shadows anymore, what I felt was more like he’d fallen asleep in the deepest part of the human heart.”

...

”Get yourself together. I’ll send you onto the ship.”

Whether in appearance or in fact, Fu Qian was honest through and through, and the end result was powerful.

After pondering for a moment, Selana didn’t ask anything more and simply gave the order.

And the content of that order was, without question, her agreement to his cooperation plan.

”Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Fu Qian’s thanks were even quite sincere, while his main focus was still on his wounds, checking for missing pieces and ”trying” to stabilize his condition.

”No need to thank me. I don’t trust you that much. It’s just that you were right about one thing—if we don’t do it this way, you’re even more worthless in every other respect.”

Unfortunately, she didn’t accept his gratitude, instead directly laying bare her naked intent to use him...and he couldn’t argue with that.

From Lady Selana’s perspective, once the honored title of Death Overlord had been ”confirmed,” the nature of this incident had long since gone beyond a few troublemakers stirring up chaos in Shangjing.

For all their crafty tricks, they were ultimately just a bunch of pitiable nobodies.

If she wanted to grab them or kill them, she could vent her anger anytime she liked. But the pressing matter now was, if there was a chance to make use of this trash and dig out some gains connected to that honored title, the value of that would be far, far greater.

Only then could they have the best shot at confirming and preventing the potential threat looming over there on Gulad’s side.

”Understood. So if there is a gain—”

”I’ll come find you.”

The next moment Fu Qian’s words were mercilessly cut off; Selana made it clear there was no need to arrange any meeting method.

Before he could say anything else, Fu Qian realized he had once again lost his vision.

...

Still as decisive as ever.

A moment later, sea and sky stretched vast and pale.

Fu Qian once again stood by the small porthole, in exactly the same posture, looking at exactly the same scene.

The only difference was that the harbor slowly receding into the distance now felt even more familiar than before, like a freshly tilled vegetable plot.

And the thickest ”seed” in that patch had just used the exact same method to toss him back onto the ship again.

It was frankly dripping with irony; in theory you could call it the ultimate exercise in busywork.

But exploring the Transcendent was never some rigid business. That little meeting just now could well be called a push on the wheels of history.

He believed that next, Lady Selana would scrutinize the entire Moore with unprecedented caution.

As for himself, out on field duty, he also couldn’t afford even the slightest slack. He needed to fulfill his own share of the responsibility—for example, by cultivating this brand-new patch of ”vegetable field” under his feet.

And how was he going to cultivate it?

Lord Sorondir’s attention clearly seemed focused on certain pressing matters.

He wasn’t paying very close attention to the movements around him.

After he’d hitched a ride on the ship twice in and out, he still hadn’t drawn any particular notice.

When Selana sent him back, this ship had already started yet another return trip, which to some extent confirmed the claim that they were ”searching for something.”

And now, without ever docking, it once again sailed out to sea.

As if the storm would not cease, and would never end—

At a certain moment, Fu Qian drew in a deep breath and activated the Brilliant Tyrant.