The tiny trail of strawberry scent vanished, washed away by the damp, chilling vapors of the clouds.
The Golden Loong stared at the empty sea of mist, Its nostrils twitching with disdain. As a supreme Divine Beast, It truly could not fathom why these "juniors" were so obsessed with the cloyingly sweet, spiritually void morsels of the mortal realm.
To the Loong, crackers filled with saccharine and additives were far inferior to a single breath of pure, nourishing moonlight.
"Beyond saving," It grumbled, flicking Its tail and spinning a vortex of golden light. It dived into the void, heading to deliver Its "materials" to the Wealth Devourer.
Southwest Frontier Town, Long Nation.
At a mobile street stall, the owner was busy flipping egg-filled pancakes. Since the "physical constant collapse" alerts had been partially lifted, people—though still living in fear—still had stomachs to fill.
"Boss, give me one... no, three."
A crisp, soft voice rang out at the stall. The owner looked up and froze. Standing before him was a girl who appeared no older than thirteen or fourteen, wearing an oversized black trench coat with sleeves rolled up several times. Her skin was transparently pale, and her beauty was like something out of an anime, but her eyes...
The owner rubbed his eyes, doubting his sight. One of the girl's eyes was gold, like the sun; the other was a ghostly green, like a deep pool.
"Sure... coming right up. Want ham?" the owner stammered.
"Yes. Add lots of sugar," the girl—Fengxi—replied expressionlessly.
She didn't quite understand the logic of "adding sugar", but Sato's memories told her that glucose triggered a chemical reaction in humans called "pleasure".
Her mind was currently very noisy; Sato's decades of foul memories were like piles of unprocessed refuse, occasionally belching out a sickening stench. She needed fresh, sweet flavors to suppress them.
Taking the steaming pancake, Fengxi took a large bite, heedless of the heat. The sweetness and oil exploded in her mouth. In that instant, the golden light in her left eye flickered.
As she ate, she listened to the chatter of the locals nearby.
"Pah! What's with these Live Rooms lately? It's total chaos. The punished are coming in one batch after another, it's endless!"
"Exactly! It's like Live Room A and B are competing. Suddenly this side grows, then the other adds more people. I haven't had a good night's sleep in days!"
"Arrgh! Another batch just entered Live Room B. God, are you trying to kill us? I'm damn well innocent!!!"
Fengxi glanced at a screen. It was LinXiaotian and his group. When she spotted the Sika deer among them—the one who hadn't wanted to swap bodies—she offered a relieved smile.
"Being able to forget the past is a good thing."
She turned back to her pancake. "The next site is right here."
She looked up toward a brightly lit private sanatorium in the distance. To the world, it was a charity base funded by the philanthropist Lin Xiaotian. But Fengxi remembered the Golden Loong's words: "Beneath the foundation of that house, a black mist as thick as ink is seeping out. Within that mist are the desperate cries of animals, and... the screams of the elderly and orphans."
In the Academy of Sciences' Supreme Secrecy Room, Dean Hao Xue stared at the dynamic curves on the screen, holding his breath.
"It decreased?" a young researcher shouted, rubbing bloodshot eyes. "Dean, after that 'tumor' in the Ribi Mountains was excised, the spatial stability coefficient in this zone increased by 0.03 percent!"
In a world where the laws of physics were collapsing, 0.03 percent was a miracle. It meant the "Cleaner's" actions weren't just killing—they were "mending the heavens".
The Chief entered, ignoring the burn on his hand from the cigarette ash. He looked at the three vials of pale gold liquid—the LoongSaliva Diluent. Dean Hao Xue hesitated, asking if they should truly give such a resource to a "variable" like Fengxi.
"We have no choice," the Chief replied, taking the climate-controlled box. "We investigated Lin Xiaotian for five years and found no evidence. To him, the law was scrap paper. But he took him out in three minutes. If he can stabilize our physical foundation, the price of these medicines is one we can afford."
City First Hospital, Special Intensive Care Ward.
Tian Shuangxin sat by the bed, staring blankly at a half-eaten strawberry cookie. Zhizhi had been gone for days. The scent of cookies she brought in daily felt like a fading hope.
A knock at the door startled her. Two men in dark grey uniforms entered, followed by doctors in white coats carrying precision medical cases.
"Ms. Tian," the lead man saluted. "We're from the National Special Service Group. Entrusted by 'relevant parties', we're here to administer the first stage of the curative drug to your mother."
Tian Shuangxin froze. "Drug? I didn't hear..."
"It was secured for you by Mr. Zhizhi," the man said simply.
Hearing that name, her eyes reddened. As the doctors injected the shimmering fluid into her mother, a flame of hope ignited in her heart. At that moment, the curtains fluttered without a breeze. A tiny gust of wind circled Tian Shuangxin and rested in her palm for a second.
When it vanished, a small Golden Scale remained, radiating a gentle warmth.
"Zhizhi... is that you?" she whispered to the empty air. There was no verbal answer, but the breeze brushed away a tear from her eye and flew out into the night.
At the Fukang Sanatorium, the air was thick with the scent of cigars and hidden malice.
Inside the top-floor office, the co-conspirators of the late Lin Xiaotian were dismissing the news of the Ribi base's collapse. They remained arrogant, believing their "gene-splicing" technology and the exploitation of the elderly and orphans would allow them to transcend humanity and become gods in this new, chaotic world.
Their hubris was cut short by a sweet-smelling breeze. Fengxi appeared, perched on the desk and finishing an egg-filled pancake. Her heterochromatic eyes—one sun-gold, the other abyss-green—locked onto them with the cold precision of divine judgment.
"The wind says... the air here stinks worse than a sewer," she remarked.
As the men panicked and fired weapons, the bullets were repelled by her rotating air currents. Fengxi revealed their karmic debt: "42.7 billion earned from the 'consumption' of experimental subjects."
When they tried to buy her off, she simply smiled. "Money is managed by Qinghong. I manage karma."
With a flick of her hand, Fengxi rewrote the atmospheric logic of the building.
The air was vacuumed out of the lungs of the abusers, while the elderly, children, and animals were enveloped in warm, life-sustaining cocoons of oxygen and floated gently to safety on the lawn outside.
The Golden Loong, hidden from mortal sight, swept the gasping men into a void with its tail. In the Divine Realm, the Wealth Devourer jumped with joy as a new batch of "snacks" arrived for Live Room B. "Another treat for me! Fantastic!" it cheered.