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Having already taken the afternoon off from school, Qi Bai Cha returned home and took out the two glowing orbs.
The white glow morphed into a small humanoid soul. The man was rather plain-looking, lacking the true handsomeness of Wei Song Nan. At the moment, he sat terrified in the palm of Qi Bai Cha, still unclear about the situation he found himself in.
The system trembled, remaining silent.
Qi Bai Cha inquired, "What are you?"
The glowing pink orb stuttered, "A strategy system..."
"Who created you?"
"My master is... Aimo."
Aimo? No such creature exists in this world.
It must be a native species from another realm.
Qi Bai Cha observed the strategy system impassively.
Frightened, the strategy system promptly divulged, "I come from World #520, a realm filled with love. Its natural law promotes universal love and peace; there are no wars, no evil. However, a considerable number of Aimoes exist—mankind's natural predators. They feed on stolen love. When they acquire love, they grow stronger, while their victims turn evil."
"I was engineered by a particularly powerful Aimo. Dissatisfied with monopolizing the love of just one world, it created systems like me to help hosts seduce individuals with good fortune in other worlds, to obtain their 'love values.' Once the strategy is successful, the good fortune of the targeted individual will belong to the Aimo. The power that these children of fortune offer far surpasses that which comes from the love of an ordinary person."
Those who lose their good fortune become mediocre at best, and unluckier than most at worst.
Knowing this made Qi Bai Cha even more icy in demeanor.
"Who is the god of your world?"
"Our world is relatively young; we only have one guardian deity: the God of Love. She hunts Aimoes every day, but their numbers are too great, and she hasn't discovered what my master is up to." The strategy system had no intention of betraying its master, but it lacked the courage to lie before a deity.
"She knows now," Qi Bai Cha stated.
He had just communicated telepathically through divine language.
The gods of each world usually manage their own affairs and cannot travel to other dimensions. However, that doesn't mean they can't make contact. When a creature from one realm wreaks havoc in another, it's the duty of the original realm's god to inform the god of the other realm, allowing them to prepare and handle the outsider.
This is akin to one police department alerting another to coordinate on catching a criminal gang operating across provinces.
Every world is given a unique, non-repetitive random number by the Main God at its birth. Gods can locate worlds by these numbers to communicate with deities in those realms and convey their intentions.
Of course, they only make contact when necessary. Casual chatter is frowned upon.
Just a moment ago, Qi Bai Cha had officially communicated to the God of Love in the name of the Snow God: "Esteemed God of Love, a certain Aimo in your world has been producing numerous strategy systems that steal good fortune across dimensions. One has been captured by me. Be advised."
A response came swiftly.
A sultry, mature female voice resonated in his mind: "Dear Snow God, thank you for your notice. It is my failing that I wasn't aware of the Aimo's activities. I will definitely investigate. Love you, xoxo."
"..." Qi Bai Cha severed the connection, stating, "Now she knows."
The strategy system was instantly filled with despair.
The God of Love was now aware; her intervention would be swift, and once the master perished, all systems born of that entity would be rendered worthless.
The quick-traveler's soul listened, lost in a fog for a while, but eventually began to comprehend the origins of the system.
He used to think of the system as a grand and enigmatic entity. Each time he had tried to probe into its background, he was curtly rebuffed with "Insufficient host privileges."
How did this young man manage to make the system spill its secrets so completely? What kind of power did he possess?
As the quick-traveler was pondering in amazement, he caught the young man's casual glance and felt an icy chill envelop him as if submerged in a frigid abyss.
The quick-traveler hastily disassociated himself: "I'm just a soul that this system randomly selected—nothing more than a pawn to woo the designated targets! I have been merely following its orders. I have no control over any of this—it's not my fault!"
"Do you realize that each time you 'travel,' you occupy a living person's body?" Qi Bai Cha asked, "Do you know that when you commit suicide to exit a world, you are actually committing murder?"
This wasn't the first time he had come across such systems. Quick-travelers would always use death to disengage, never considering the mess they left behind.
The quick-traveler was stunned.
He responded, "I—I didn't know."
Qi Bai Cha nodded, "Indeed, ignorance is no crime."
Hope flickered across the quick-traveler's face.
But swiftly, his soul was enveloped in a luminous white light. The light gently spread upward, immersing, devouring, and eventually dissipating his soul bit by bit.
The quick-traveler watched, horrified, as his soul dissolved from legs to waist to chest. Only his head remained as he screamed in desperation, "What is happening! My body—why is it gone—" His words were cut short as his mouth disappeared, eyes widening in disbelief, fixated on Qi Bai Cha until they too were swallowed by the light, leaving not even a hair behind.
His soul shattered.
Qi Bai Cha's voice remained unfazed, "But killing is an original sin."
He had merely returned the resentment, despair, unwillingness, and suffering experienced by the souls who had died because of the quick-traveler back to their original owner.
The strategy system: "..." It was truly terrified.
Having dealt with the quick-traveler, Qi Bai Cha again turned to the system, "Through which temporal rift did you enter?"
The strategy system nervously responded with coordinates: "...Z City."
In the blink of an eye, Qi Bai Cha teleported to the distant city.
It was a major industrial city, home to numerous chemical factories and the province's largest waste treatment facility. Daily industrial emissions, car exhaust, and wastewater discharges had led to severe environmental pollution.
From a distance, Qi Bai Cha saw a massive mushroom cloud rising over the city, the sky covered in a haze of yellowish smog. The putrid stench was so unbearable that even he, a god who prized cleanliness, couldn't bear to approach.
Air pollution had damaged the ozone layer, creating a hole. Should the degradation continue, and the hole expand, the consequences would be unimaginable.
This too was a type of temporal rift, one caused by humans.
Humans, despite their insignificance, possessed both destructive and creative powers of equal magnitude.
With his divine powers currently sealed to a mere fraction, Qi Bai Cha was incapable of mending the tear in the fabric of spacetime.
Hesitating for a moment, he ascended to the heights of the ninth heaven. Only after confirming that the distance would prevent any repercussions in the mortal realm did he unseal and unleash his full divinity.
Once his divine power was unbound, resealing it would require several months. He would have to find some excuse to avoid marital consummation with Fu Ming Ye once he returned...
The pressing matter at hand was to mend the heavens.
The Snow God, once returned to his full divine glory, easily repaired the sky. This was not a severe breach; he channeled his divine power to swiftly fill the hole in the ozone layer. Then, forming a sacred seal with his hands, he graced the human realm with a snowfall.
The people below felt the cold touch and looked up in surprise, exclaiming, "It's snowing!"
To be honest, the air quality in Z City was worrisome. Residents lived in constant fear of acid rain; the idea of snow was the furthest from their minds. Moreover, it was currently the height of summer!
"What in the world? Snow in June?"
"It looks like the mushroom cloud has dissipated somewhat..."
"Hey, the snow tastes sweet!"
"The sunlight is breaking through the clouds! Quick, take pictures. The smog in Z City is usually so thick, the sun can't even penetrate!"
"Forget the sun; the real photo-op is this miraculous June snowfall!"
Concealed within the clouds, Qi Bai Cha quietly observed the world below before turning to leave.
Snow in June was both a blessing and a warning to humankind.
After the snowstorm, the skies would clear, revealing the blue yonder.
Snow possesses a purifying quality. This snowfall could cleanse the air across the city, sparing its residents from sickness due to severe pollution.
However, this was only a temporary solution, a palliative rather than a cure. If the factories exceeding emission standards were to continue operating, the city would inevitably return to its former polluted state.
True resolution still required humans to take the initiative in protecting nature.
But that was not a matter for gods to interfere in.
Gods of Nature are guardians of the world itself, never the protectors of any specific species.
He had witnessed the extinction of countless species. If humanity were to err and suffer the consequences, it would be their burden to bear.
Still, Qi Bai Cha had no qualms about leaving an anonymous tip with the local environmental agency on his way out.
The rest was up to human initiative.
"I was blind not to recognize you as the Snow God..." Had the strategy system possessed a physical form, it would have knelt by now.
Seeing the young man summon snow with a mere gesture, it had no doubts about his divine rank.
"What will become of you and other systems if the Aimo that created you perishes?" Qi Bai Cha inquired.
"We would become obsolete," the strategy system replied in despair. "The love and fortune that the Aimo gathered would return to their original owners. We would lose our power source and automatically disengage from our hosts."
This revelation would, in effect, liberate countless victims whose bodies had been occupied.
While Gods of Nature don't draw their strength from granted wishes, they can accrue virtue from good deeds, making them stronger over time.
Qi Bai Cha, having spent eons at the forefront of defending the world, would likely emerge as the strongest deity in the cosmos by the time his godly peers awaken—ironic for the gentle and peaceful Snow God.
"What about the skills gained by the hosts from the system?"
"Those too will disappear," the strategy system explained. "The Aimo needed love and fortune, and the hosts exchanged these for points to redeem skills and items from our shop. Essentially, these abilities were powers granted by the Aimo; once it dies, the hosts will revert back to ordinary people."
"However," the system added, "some items in our shop are real objects from our world, merely transported to another realm. Our shop offers a wide array of diverse and fascinating items..." Its tone took on a sales pitch.
Qi Bai Cha suddenly interrupted, "Do you have an elixir of immortality?"
Earlier in the day, while teaching history to his students, a horrifying thought crossed his mind.
Centuries from now, another batch of students would sit in his classroom, while he, still incognito, continued his mundane role as a history teacher.
He would have his students open their textbooks to discuss the last century of Huaguo's development, recounting the story of a young man surnamed Fu who became the richest person in the country at a young age, enjoying unparalleled glory and fortune.
...That man was his husband from centuries past.
"..."
Qi Bai Cha couldn't bear to think any further.
For someone long accustomed to farewells, he found it agonizingly difficult to talk about Fu Ming Ye as a mere historical figure.
The mere thought was painful.
He wanted to share an everlasting life with Mr. Fu, not merely glimpse at each other across the pages of history.
A thought occurred to Qi Bai Cha.
The laws of this world forbade immortality for mortals, offered no elixirs, and the sparse spiritual energy of the present day couldn't turn mortals into immortals. Souls who didn't reincarnate would eventually fade away or transform into powerful malevolent spirits.
How could Qi Bai Cha let Fu Ming Ye become such a malevolent spirit? Not to mention, Fu Ming Ye harbored no such resentment that could turn him into one.
If this world offered no solution, then perhaps something could be borrowed from another realm.
However, a god's duty is to expel external entities. Items from other realms would be considered contraband. Employing such forbidden items for personal reasons would not befit a deity.
Yet...
Yet he still asked.
"Do you have an elixir of immortality?"
When Qi Bai Cha posed the question, his eyes were serene and his voice maintained its usual calm.
He followed the norms for this world yet wished to bend them for Mr. Fu.
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