Facing an Ancient God for a Year

Chapter 2428: Chapter 2423: The Prophet Is Dead (34)

”The drinks here are so-so, but the environment’s not bad.”

Akasha’s silence was deafening, yet Fu Qian still did what he said he would do, getting off the carriage with pinpoint precision right in front of the bar.

Not only that, he even started casually introducing the local customs here as an outsider.

He wasn’t doing a soft ad as some bar shill; he really had been to this place before.

That’s right, this was exactly where he’d had that ”friendly meeting” with the Night Watchman Squad—and had the honor of being sneak-attacked and surrounded by two Divine Envoys plus a Demigod.

Honestly, ending up here again was a bit of a pleasant surprise.

Sitting in a carriage just to see where it would randomly take you did, admittedly, lean a bit too far into leaving things up to fate.

Otherwise it wouldn’t have been enough to make a seasoned worldly veteran like Lady Akasha wear that ”questioning her life choices” expression.

So Fu Qian wasn’t actually insisting the carriage had to bring him to somewhere like the banks of Wise Lake or some other key point in Unseen Hillock.

If he spotted any place that looked the least bit worth poking at, he didn’t mind hopping off to take a look around.

And in Fu Qian’s eyes, this bar that had some story attached to it was very much worth letting his imagination run wild.

Granted, that little bout of crossing blades in the past hadn’t made it into reality because the mission failed.

Akasha’s confusion about all this was probably mainly because of that.

Unlike the restaurant from just now, the natives’ intel here clearly didn’t show the outsider Andiel having had any contact with this place in front of them.

Yet what Fu Qian found fascinating was precisely this point.

If he ended up here and there really was some of Ji Feng’s will mixed in, that would mean that ”false history” wasn’t completely outside his perception?

That level of Transcendence— even among those Superior Beings, there didn’t seem to be many who could pull it off so far. Maybe it had something to do with his possible former-Administrator identity.

Anyway, just that one suspicion alone made it worth coming down for a look.

Not to mention this place actually counted as one of the relatively lively businesses in all of Unseen Hillock.

Maybe after drinking enough, people naturally seek out freedom, so their resistance to the Gate of Freedom is a bit higher?

”Honestly, I don’t see it.”

Seeing that Fu Qian had made up his mind, Akasha finally seemed to have her emotions tuned back to normal and followed him straight up to the door.

Unfortunately, the only ”drink” she fancied seemed to be blood; faced with the smell of alcohol fermenting together with human bodies, she was already frowning before they’d even gone in.

Once inside, she looked around and immediately questioned Fu Qian’s comment that ”the environment’s not bad.”

...

You don’t get it. Feng shui isn’t something you judge by appearances.

”You have to feel it on a deeper level.”

Fu Qian only sighed inwardly and offered his earnest ”guidance.”

In a chaotic place like Unseen Hillock, how much aesthetic design could you really expect from somewhere people came to get drunk?

When he said the environment was good, he’d meant that last time he was here he’d run into a bunch of interesting characters—and that this time he might be able to expect a similar run of good Momentum.

It was a bit of a pity that the table he’d sat at back then seemed to be taken.

The place wasn’t exactly quiet but not too noisy either; under the garish, borderline tacky lights, it was easy to see the bar’s layout hadn’t changed much.

The spot he’d sat at last time was clearly already occupied.

Luckily, Fu Qian had never been big on formalities, so he wasn’t about to insist on sitting in that exact same place—

”Get out.”

Unfortunately, the Spider Queen was still a queen, and she drew eyes just by appearing in a place like this.

The two guys sitting opposite each other at that table watched Akasha saunter over, practically not daring to blink in the middle.

But before they could even think of what to say, Akasha casually told them to scram.

”We’re sitting here?”

Not only that, the next second she didn’t even bother to check their reaction, just turned to look at Fu Qian, confirming she hadn’t ”misread the deeper vibe.”

...

So she wasn’t content to be on the receiving end of the torment; Lady Akasha clearly wanted to seize a bit of initiative herself.

”Sure.”

Fu Qian didn’t stand on ceremony either.

Akasha’s gaze had unmistakably been locked onto him a bit; he’d merely glanced this way a moment longer, and she’d already quietly deduced his thoughts.

Of course, that didn’t mean there was much goodwill in the gesture. Essentially, it was his earlier underhanded move that had left her baffled and a little crazed, so she was stirring things up to introduce a bit of chaos.

As for whether Akasha was worried about wrecking the atmosphere and making him unhappy?

Easy—she always knew exactly where the line was. She really was only ”stirring things up a bit.”

Mm...

The two tough-looking guys who seemed like they weren’t easy to mess with were happily drinking when they suddenly got hit with a ”get lost” out of nowhere. Naturally, they weren’t thrilled.

But from the moment their gazes darkened and they started sizing her up, to the moment they got up and left without a word, not even five seconds passed. The idea of spitting some tough-guy lines didn’t even get off the ground.

On one hand, the dazzling Akasha with those bone wings not fully retracted behind her had an extremely strong visual impact.

On the other hand, there were no Night Watchmen in a place like Unseen Hillock. No matter how polite she might sound when speaking to you, when it came to killing, Lady Akasha probably did see people as no different from ants.

Her tone just now also reflected that very clearly—putting emotional color into words spoken to ants was inherently a waste.

What the two ”ants” didn’t know was that this time was a bit special. Even if they refused to leave, Akasha probably wouldn’t kill them on the spot, just ”invite” them out in a more gentle way.

...

”So why did you kill that guy? With him around, you could’ve gone through that door again without worrying about not making it back.”

They sat down without incident; the two guys’ leftover drinks were still sitting on the table.

It was a shame that despite coming to a bar, the two of them completely ignored this core attraction and just talked.

And the same Akasha who’d been threatening to kill people a moment ago was now, first thing, curious about Fu Qian’s violent choice.

As for ”that guy” in her mouth, that was naturally the Black Doctor who’d been swallowed by the Calamity.

And her reason for questioning him sounded quite logical.

After getting the ”antidote” earlier, finishing the Black Doctor off did look neat and tidy, but it also meant that a freshly discovered method—a way to come back out from behind the door—had almost no chance of being reproduced.

Whatever his goal was, it did objectively cut down on a lot of flexibility for later actions.

”If I could go back and forth between the two sides without worrying about not making it back, would you come in that situation?”

But when faced with her confusion, Fu Qian seemed to have already thought this through. He just smiled and threw the question back at her.

Uh...

Akasha didn’t answer right away. She seemed to realize how sincere that invitation had been back during that little reunion with his old acquaintance.

”From my point of view, if I did that, you’d probably feel the situation was more controllable... Someone over there has been watching us this whole time.”

Without looking at her, Fu Qian’s gaze fell on the crowd of dancers, and he calmly confirmed it.