In less than three minutes, the creature in the black robe had been burned by the massive fireball until all that remained was a handful of ash.
With a see-through hole in his forehead, and exposed bone and muscle at his neck and on one hand, little Ross took two steps forward, staring at the ashes. "If the remodeling had been completed, I’d look just like this."
Zhang Jiamin understood perfectly. She grabbed her husband's wrist and said, "The remodeled liches in your family are nothing but humanoid weapons. If your family’s liches were even half as powerful as the ones in those Western fantasy novels, why haven’t your dad and your uncle all undergone the transformation themselves long ago?"
With his one good hand, little Ross rubbed his face, then formally faced his father-in-law and thanked him.
Qin Jingzhou nodded, pointing at his cheap daughter, Zhang Jiamin. "Let’s talk."
The truth was, when Qin Jingzhou sliced open the roof of the remodeling chamber, sunlight poured in. The Ross family members and He Jiuping wasted no time in running—being liches and evil god priests that couldn’t see the light of day. Their fighting prowess might vary, but one thing they all had in common was having one or several life-saving techniques capable of surpassing their current cultivation realm.
So Qin Jingzhou pulled his cheap daughter onto the giant door-sized sword he conjured, flew high in the sky, and started “whack-a-mole” from above, taking the chance to have a thorough heart-to-heart with her.
Qin Jingzhou decided to be as honest as possible.
All hope vanished from Zhang Jiamin’s heart. She fell to her knees on the broad sword and broke down in tears, covering her face.
Qin Jingzhou made sure the girl could handle it; otherwise, he wouldn’t have dropped such heavy truths on her.
He steered the flying sword, collecting a number of Ross family liches hiding deep underground, as well as those guarding or participating in the remodeling. Zhang Jiamin gradually started to recover.
Her voice was still a little choked. "Has my father reincarnated now?"
Qin Jingzhou replied, "Yes. He was a good man. Most likely, he’ll have a good life next time."
Zhang Jiamin wiped her tears. "I suppose so." After a pause, she hesitantly asked, "Besides fulfilling my dad’s wish, do you have any other tasks?"
Qin Jingzhou smiled and nodded.
Zhang Jiamin fell silent, just stared blankly as Qin Jingzhou casually released a beam of white light down into the earth... faint howls, wails, and curses could be heard.
She gathered her thoughts. "Is it a task about maintaining order? I get the feeling that with this spiritual energy revival, if there’s no one to stabilize things, sooner or later it’ll be an apocalypse scenario."
Qin Jingzhou laughed. "Your father didn’t dote on you for nothing."
Zhang Jiamin thought of her father and couldn’t help feeling miserable. "Thank you." But in her heart she sensed that her father had departed and willingly let this man take over his body. She forced herself to switch topics. "He Jiuping was, as always, the first to run away."
Qin Jingzhou felt the pests were mostly dealt with, so he turned the “bow” around and headed back. "He’s unusually lucky. He guessed earlier than you that I was a soul transfer."
Zhang Jiamin frowned in thought. "He tried to harm us as a way to test your strength?"
The head of the Ross family was her husband’s biological father, and while he had never cared much for little Ross, he’d never intended to transform him into a lich. If it hadn’t been for He Jiuping meddling, what reason would he have had to suddenly change his mind?
Qin Jingzhou grinned, "I think so."
Zhang Jiamin let out a cold laugh. "So once he realized he couldn't win, he ducked away to wait for his chance? For... the next spiritual energy revival?"
Qin Jingzhou brought his cheap daughter back to the “convertible” remodeling room. By now, little Ross’s injuries had mostly healed thanks to Ling Jing’s talismans—the see-through hole in his forehead nearly mended.
Seeing his wife’s red eyes, little Ross couldn’t bring himself to smile.
Zhang Jiamin jumped down from the door-like flying sword, barely finding her footing before her worried husband pulled her into his arms.
Ling Jing gave Qin Jingzhou a sign. "Should we take them all with us?"
Qin Jingzhou nodded.
Together, Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing brought Zhang Jiamin and little Ross back home to the family’s place in the Capital City of Hua Country. They had been gone for hardly thirty minutes.
Zhang Qingxing, who was busy relearning middle school material with the new home tutor in the study, didn’t even realize his father had gone out. It was only when he took a break to look for food that he saw his big sister and brother-in-law in the small dining area next to the kitchen.
He was surprised. "When did you guys get back?"
Zhang Jiamin looked at her silly little brother. "We hitched a ride on... dad’s flying sword back."
Zhang Qingxing thought about it, then said, "Now that you're back, don't leave again. Things outside aren’t safe at all."
Zhang Jiamin studied her brother for a while. "You’re actually in surprisingly good shape."
Little Ross, cup of tea in hand, praised frankly, "You’ve improved a lot."
Waving it off, Zhang Qingxing lugged his bag of snacks back upstairs.
Watching her once-dull-witted little brother shuffle off, Zhang Jiamin exchanged a glance with her husband, little Ross. Could staying by his side boost intelligence? Or had he given his brother some “evil god larva deluxe package”?
Meanwhile, in the study, Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing were on a video call with Chief Li.
Official authorities were clearly very interested in the battle gloves that could instantly incinerate a Foundation Establishment stage Extraordinary, or rather, they were determined to acquire the technology behind them at any cost. Chief Li was blunt. "The government is willing to pay any price. Whatever your terms are, name them."
The current officials were surprisingly ambitious, planning to establish the rules with the world of the Extraordinaries from the very beginning: equality is the main theme.
Qin Jingzhou leaned back on the sofa, letting Ling Jing take the lead.
Ling Jing was very satisfied with the attitude of the officials. What the two of them feared most was running up against mediocrities.
So she told Chief Li directly, "Battle gloves are not like spiritual stone batteries. You can think of this as a key technology for mechas. With top-tier mecha pilots and top-tier mechas, even just three could directly go head-to-head against a Divine Transformation Stage cultivator."
Chief Li immediately sat up straighter.
Now that he had a grasp of how powerful the Divine Transformation Stage was—said to be able to freely travel the stars and shatter asteroids with a punch—he realized the two before him were likely at that very level. After the Taiyi Sect’s defeat, they had made no further move to save face, and their failure stood as a warning to everyone else in the world of the Extraordinaries, who unanimously decided to stay out of it.
Lately, all the work dealing with the Extraordinaries had become much easier. The cultivators themselves had also become more reasonable.
But once the battle gloves entered the scene... he suspected the cultivators would see just how valuable they really were, and wouldn't remain so passive any longer. After all, with the battle gloves, ordinary people could easily overpower Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Thinking of this, Chief Li’s tone grew solemn. "I need to report to my superiors."
Ling Jing smiled, "Don’t take on more than you can chew. Remember, a battle glove on my boyfriend’s hand is not the same as it is on yours. Besides, not everyone can wield a battle glove, any more than just anyone can pilot a mecha."
Chief Li wore a grave expression. "Thank you."
All along, the entire world of the Extraordinaries had maintained complete silence about the chaos caused by Qin Jingzhou and Ling Jing—and truthfully so.
First, there had been the clean and thorough defeat of the Taiyi Sect elders—sheer power, swiftly and efficiently delivered. In the world of the Extraordinaries, where strength was everything, if you lost you kept quiet and stayed humble. Nothing more to say.
Then came the launch of the spiritual stone-powered mechanical flying swords—ordinary people wielding those would never be a threat to real cultivators, even those at Foundation Establishment level. It was pure fantasy. So the Extraordinaries didn’t take the flying swords seriously.
After that came the “national hunt for evil gods” craze—again, only those involved with evil gods cared, while everyone else stayed calm. For ordinary people, evil god larvae truly had their uses, but for the cultivators, popping spiritual pills or drinking magic potions, or just holding a spiritual stone (or “magic stone” in the West), was much more efficient than munching on evil god larvae.
But once the battle gloves appeared, the Extraordinaries might stop sitting on the sidelines.
Still, as Ling Jing said, when gloves capable of “Blazing Flame Technique” or “Fireball Technique” level attacks ended up on Qin Jingzhou’s hands—both spells able to instantly defeat a Foundation Establishment cultivator—not a peep came out of the cultivators. If ordinary people got such gloves, though, it would be a whole other story.
After all, eliminating threats early was something the cultivators were even better at than ordinary folk.
Which was why Ling Jing had been so up front in reminding Chief Li: the authorities had better be ready for retaliation from the world of the Extraordinaries before contacting her again.
After hanging up, Ling Jing snuggled into Qin Jingzhou’s arms and started checking out the comments from netizens.
There was no shortage of sharp minds among the commenters. Under the viral clip showing off the battle gloves’ power, comments in multiple languages were rolling in, all with roughly the same question: Is this really something we regular folks could own?
Ling Jing had just warned Chief Li to tread carefully, and now, facing the public, she replied, “Yes, you just have to eat more evil god larvae.”
After posting that, she kept scrolling through the flood of silly comments. Barely five minutes later, she could already feel the platform freezing up. A quick check of the trending topics: “CEO Zhang responds, Eat More.” Sure enough, it had shot straight to number one.
This topic... really wasn't a great look.
She tried the site again and found, aside from the lag, all the other social features basically still worked, so she simply decided to post a few more replies.
“I’m not CEO Zhang, I’m his girlfriend.”
Within thirty seconds, the replies were flooded with confessions and pleas to ship out more product... which was fairly common.
So she kindly replied, “The black technology flying swords are manufactured and shipped by a joint-venture factory. We just handle supervision. Even if you get your hands on one, you need to pass a licensing test before you can fly.”
Immediately, the flattery poured in. Netizens everywhere praised Sister-in-law Zhang’s gentleness—so not your typical cultivator type.
Their wit made Ling Jing laugh. Glancing at her boyfriend, whose face was pressed close to hers, she posted again saying she was particularly happy and felt like running a giveaway: three custom black tech flying swords, with the same features as the standard model, but with any appearance the winners liked.
For example, a flying sword with a panda design—who wouldn’t want to ride a panda to work? Folks from Guangdong wanted a flying cockroach as a mount, which she figured was doable too.
The internet exploded.
International users who got word of the giveaway flooded onto Hua Country’s biggest social platform... and crashed the servers.
Staring at the white screen, Ling Jing blinked. "Should we help them research a graphene chip first?"
Qin Jingzhou scanned the situation and chuckled, "No need. They can handle it themselves, because the second wave of spiritual energy revival has begun."
Ling Jing’s first reaction: “Does that mean the output of evil god larvae will double overnight?”
“You’re underestimating the evil gods. At least tenfold, I’d say.”
She was momentarily stunned, then burst out laughing.
A spike in evil god larvae production meant that most ordinary people would have a chance to eat them and boost their physical strength. It wouldn’t be long before the unique stink of cooked evil god larvae was wafting from every neighborhood restaurant, and even people’s kitchen windows...
The more she thought about it, the harder she laughed.
Because the smell of cooked evil god larvae was strongly reminiscent of rotting fish and shrimp... What a uniquely flavored world this was turning into.