Chapter 48: A Thirteen-Year-Old Brat

Chapter 48: A Thirteen-Year-Old Brat

We followed the sound. At last, in a dark corner ahead, we found an old woman — upside down, suspended in midair, sealed inside what looked like a fractured mass of glass.

I knew her the moment I saw her.

Grandma.

I rushed forward. “Grandma, it’s Beichen! We’ve finally found you!”

She did not seem to hear me. She was still speaking to someone, but the direction of her voice pointed toward another pocket of empty space.

Uncle pulled me back.

“Wait. There’s someone else here.”

The tension in his face brought me up short. He was right — I had not seen Grandma for so long that the sudden sight of her had overwhelmed me, and I had run to her without checking our surroundings first.

I quickly compensated, sweeping the area with same-frequency sensing and penetrating vision. Sure enough, in another dark corner, I found a second person, also frozen inside a shard of spacetime.

“These two are probably all that remain,” Uncle said. “They can’t see you yet. The spacetime here has fragmented — the few of us aren’t in the same spacetime zone. Give me a moment to repair it.”

He drew a device from his backpack and set it on the ground, then pulled out two objects that resembled anti-tank mines and had me place one beside each of the two floating, fractured masses.

Uncle activated the device.

A wave of white light spread outward, and the two mine-like objects began to spin — faster and faster — until they lifted into the air and began weaving through the fractured masses around us.

The shattered pieces, along with the debris scattered across the ground, slowly stirred and began drifting toward the center.

After about fifteen minutes, the broken fragments had all drawn together. Only then could Grandma and the other person see each other.

I waved at Grandma, but she still did not respond. The other figure, who turned out to be a little girl, had now been connected with her. The two of them began to talk.

“Don’t rush,” Uncle said. “That only brought the broken spacetime pieces back together. They still need to be linked to our section of spacetime.”

The device’s white light continued to sweep. The two spinning objects arced and dove through the air. Another fifteen minutes passed. Then, with a soft pop, the spacetime fragments clicked into place and merged with the spacetime where we stood, fusing into a single whole.

“Rongliang! Beichen! You’re here!”

Grandma finally saw me.

From Liutan Town to Pingdu City, from the Sweeper base to the Du Group — a year and a half that had felt endless. Searching for Grandma had been the thing that kept me moving. And now, at last, I was looking at her, and everything I had been holding back came rushing up at once.

The tears came before I could stop them.

They carried too much — too much worry, too much hurt, too much confusion. Today, all of it finally found its way out.

Grandma walked over and, out of old habit, laid her hand gently on my head.

“Look at you. My little Beichen has finally grown up — and matured, too. You’re just not steady enough yet. What are you crying for, you silly boy? Is this any way for a Great Dharma Master to carry on, hm?”

That made me laugh through the tears.

I took her hand. “Grandma, why wouldn’t you let me look for you? I was out there on my own, with no word from you at all. I never stopped worrying.”

“Silly child,” Grandma said. “If you had always been at Grandma’s side, could you have become a Great Dharma Master? Could you have become a vice president with extraordinary skills? No one grows up by being steadied at every step. A towering tree cannot be raised in a greenhouse. Do you understand? Only by losing Grandma’s shelter could you learn to stand on your own — to face people and situations and make your own decisions. That is the price of growing up. In truth, I was watching every step you took, every part of your story. You did not disappoint us. Good child. But the road ahead is still long, and there is still a great deal waiting for you. A towering tree needs time, and it needs wind and rain. Do you understand?”

“But I was always afraid for your safety,” I said. “Having no news of you — I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat.”

Grandma smiled. “Nonsense. Don’t you still have a fiancée? And a few close female confidantes, beauties at your side. Bring them all to see me one day soon — Grandma would very much like a look.”

From beside us, Uncle spoke up. “Come on, sis, drop the act. Just tell this boy you’re his mother. If you keep having him call you Grandma, then what exactly does that make me?”

The little girl we had rescued spoke up as well.

“And what about me? You’re all so busy catching up that you’ve completely forgotten your Senior.”

Grandma and Uncle said it at the same time.

“Senior?”

I looked up. “So you’re the little elite girl who hit me twice at Tansong Temple. I’ve finally tracked you down. Come here — let me return the favor.”

The little girl darted behind Grandma at once. “You’re the one who called me Senior! Show some respect for your elders. Hee hee hee!”

By now Grandma and Uncle had pieced it together. They smiled. “So the two of you already knew each other.”

“You’re Ou Xiaoli,” I said. “But isn’t your mother Lu Qingyue? You’re a Soul Hunter’s daughter. How did you end up here with my Grandma?”

Grandma answered for her. “When this base came under a joint attack by the Sweepers and the Soul Hunters, it was Xiaoli who got most of our people out safely. She deliberately redirected the gravitational-collapse bomb so it would strike the wrong location, and she built a temporary escape passage inside the boundary — that is what allowed everyone to get out. I was trapped because I was caught in the collapse’s aftershock while saving people. The space became unstable, and I fell into a spacetime fragment. Xiaoli, in order to protect me, sealed herself inside a broken spacetime fragment deliberately — making it difficult for the Soul Hunters to target and destroy it during their sweep. To get Xiaoli out, Lu Qingyue had no choice but to ask you to come.”

“Then thank you, Little Sister Xiaoli — you saved lives here,” I said. “But why would you do this? Your parents are Soul Hunters.”

“Precisely because I am a descendant of Soul Hunters,” Ou Xiaoli said, “I have seen too much distortion and unfairness. That is why we came together — to resist, and to build a world that is more just and harmonious.”

“Came together?” I said. “You mean there are quite a few of you?”

“Of course. We are members of the World Harmony Organization.”

Grandma took up the thread. “Ou Xiaoli is a member of the Harmony Organization that emerged from within the Elite World. Their unified name is the Harmony Vanguard Camp. In truth, they are an emerging force among elite people — formed from long observation of the injustices that elite people inflict on ordinary people. Most of their members are elite youths. They have existed inside the Elite World for some time and have had very little contact with the Mundane World, which is why you would not know much about them.”

I could not help asking, “But you’re only thirteen. You’re still a little brat.”

“You’re the little brat!” Ou Xiaoli shot back. “Xuanhong is three years younger than me. Do you dare say he is inferior to you?”

That was fair.

I did not dare claim I was better than Xuanhong. Even though he had merged with me, I still felt grateful to him. When he was fighting his way through storm after storm, I was back in Liutan Town playing cultivation games with Ye Ziping. In the end, I had become the sole beneficiary of everything he had built — beautiful women included.

I had nothing to say to that.

Grandma added, “The world of elite people cannot be compared to that of ordinary people. A single day for them can equal over a hundred years of cultivation for an ordinary person. You truly cannot measure elite people by ordinary human standards of age.”

That was true enough.

My own professional knowledge and extraordinary abilities had also come through instillation in a matter of moments. With sufficient resources, it really did not take long. Perhaps that was exactly why Grandma had never pushed me to pour myself into classroom study back then. It truly had not been necessary.

The new world under AI rule was no longer the traditional one. Many things could no longer be measured by the standards of the old social order.

Uncle cut in. “I suggest we get out first and talk later. The longer we stay, the more I worry about the spacetime structure here becoming unstable and causing trouble.”

“All right,” Grandma said. “Then let’s go.”

We moved quickly through the passage. Just as all four of us stepped out through the red wall at Buer Gate, a great black net dropped over us from above.

I startled and was already moving to intercept it when Ou Xiaoli stopped me.

She gave a small, easy laugh and flicked out a wisp of smoke. The net halted in midair — and then drew itself back in, contracting like an intelligent object that had recognized its master.

The person who had thrown it was visibly taken aback.

“Hm? How does a little girl like you have the key to a Soul Hunter Vajra Net?”

“What nonsense,” Ou Xiaoli said, smiling. “I am a Soul Hunter. Now get out of my way.”

The man stepped closer. “Little girl, you can’t fool me. We Soul Hunters have consciousness interconnection. I want to know where you got that key. Now I understand — I’ve been wondering why the gravitational-collapse bomb failed to do its work. It was you. The trap we spent years carefully laying was ruined by your hand. But where did you get the collapse bomb’s key?”

Ou Xiaoli snapped a Soul Hunter Whip straight at him.

“Servant, who are you to ask?”

He dodged and, while appearing to call for backup, lashed out with a Soul Hunter Whip of his own, trying to cut off our escape.

I took one look at his face and the words came out before I could stop them.

“Dharma Master Cangji? You’ve gone over to the Soul Hunters?”

Grandma’s voice was flat with contempt. “He didn’t go over to them. He has been parasitized by a Soul Hunter.”

“Lu Qingyue and I had an agreement,” I said. “During the rescue, she promised she would not move against us.”

Dharma Master Cangji roared with laughter.

“Ha ha ha ha! You actually believed a Soul Hunter’s word? How adorably naive.”

Uncle said, “You think you’ve got us cornered? If you’ve got the guts, follow us.”

He threw out a cloud of white smoke, then drew a special invisibility blanket over all four of us.

We slipped to one side beneath it.

Cangji was left floundering in the smoke like a fly without a head, direction gone in an instant.

Under the invisibility blanket, the four of us flew hard toward the boundary passageway through which Uncle and I had entered.

As the white smoke thinned and cleared, I could faintly sense Cangji ranging in every direction, trying to find us. Whatever abilities the Soul Hunter parasitizing him possessed, they were no match for Uncle’s special invisibility blanket.

We passed through the boundary passage and came out above the great bell at Big Bell Temple — and at that moment, the Yongle Great Bell let out a low, resonant hum.

Uncle seized Mother’s arm and pulled her through.

“Not good. The quantum resonance system is going unstable. Someone is damaging the physical field of the spacetime-boundary generator.”

I looked around sharply and spotted Dharma Master Zisheng clinging to a ladder, a small hammer in his hand.

When he saw us emerge, his face was a mixture of panic and bewilderment.

“Dharma Master Zisheng,” I said, “what are you doing?”

He explained at once. “Master Xuan, you’re out! Just now the monk at the door came to find me in a great hurry — he said he had watched Dharma Master Xuanhong walk into the bell tower with his own eyes, but after a long while there had been no sound at all. He was afraid something had happened, so he went in to look, and found the tower completely empty. After he reported it, I was worried there had been an accident, so I came over with him. We searched the entire Great Bell Tower and couldn’t find any trace of you. I had the young monk fetch a ladder so I could examine the beam — and that is when I found this device. I remembered that last time, those intruders had placed some kind of boundary generator in this very spot. I thought this thing might have taken Master Xuanhong away, and that if I destroyed it, perhaps you could be freed. I had only struck it twice when all of you came out from inside.”

So that was it.

I had probed Dharma Master Zisheng carefully, more than once, and never found a thing out of place.

What he had just done had frightened me into thinking I had missed something.

It turned out he had only been trying to save someone.

I could only laugh, speechless.