Tang Xun’an took Lu Yan’s finger into his mouth.

Lu Yan didn’t keep pets, but he was unexpectedly popular with stray animals. Every time he passed by the large flowerbeds downstairs at the hospital, three or four cats would always gather around his trouser legs, rubbing against him. Out of imitation of human behavior, Lu Yan had also tried to scratch the chins or heads of the little stray cats. Whenever he did, the cats would happily expose their bellies, and some would even wrap around his fingers, licking them affectionately.

A cat’s tongue has barbs on it.

Lu Yan hadn’t expected Tang Xun’an to have them in his mouth too, and the licking sent a wave of itchiness through his fingertips.

Tang Xun’an’s golden pupils regained their focus. The aura of time rippled out from his body; the vines tightly binding him withered away one after another, turning into ash and dust.

Even a creature as dull as the giant Banyan Tree noticed something was wrong.

“Aren’t you a believer?! How can this be?” Its tone was filled with shock. “You clearly bear the brand of the Holy Lord upon you!”

Lu Yan replied, “To tell you the truth, our Holy Lord has long desired to become the king of all pollutants. But there are too many high-level pollutants in this world, which hinders his plans. Therefore, my Lord entered into a cooperation with humans and signed the Regulations on Peaceful Coexistence—you are merely his first step in eliminating dissidents.”

The giant Banyan Tree became utterly furious. “He actually learned to betray like those ugly humans!”

The Banyan Tree raised its long branches and lashed out toward Lu Yan. However, before it could even get close, it was severed by a flash of a blade. Red sap erupted from the cross-section of the severed branch.

Tang Xun’an unfurled his dragon wings, shielding Lu Yan behind him. “Get further away and hide well. But do not leave my line of sight.”

This place was still too dangerous for Lu Yan. Remaining where he was carried a high probability of him getting caught in the crossfire. The mark of the Holy Lord had already lost its effect, but if he strayed too far, he might be attacked by other pollutants instead.

The Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center of City P finally received a long-awaited SOS signal. The sheer volume of backlog accumulated over these short two days was faint-inducingly high. There were even quite a few distress calls sent out by the teaching assistants themselves.

The two A-rank Awakened stationed in City P immediately went into action, entering the botanical garden to assist in evacuating the trainees. Quite a few pollutants had escaped within the botanical garden. Although their pollution values were only around three to four thousand, their vast numbers still made them an absolute nuisance.

The hiding spot Lu Yan chose for himself was a water pond. He had checked it with the detector, and there were no pollutants inside. The pond was neither too big nor too small, making it perfectly fine for Lu Yan to swim around in. Water flooded in through the gill slits beside his ears and drained back out, making it no different from breathing in the air. Furthermore, the natural water source tasted much better than the tap water back at Headquarters.

Under the strong urging of the System, Lu Yan poked half of his head out from the pond, looking toward the battle in the distance.

[Look at how other people fight, and then look at you.]

Tang Xun’an’s style of fighting closely resembled some kind of CG movie filled with violent aesthetics. The giant Banyan Tree was colossal in size, and its vitality was exceptionally tenacious. Thousands of roots burrowed out from the soil; these roots were pitch-black and clearly highly toxic, their tips bearing sharp thorns. It simply refused to believe that this human, whose distortion rate was as high as 97%, would dare to utilize his talent so boundlessly without any restraint!

But Tang Xun’an dared.

Branches were sliced away one by one, and green leaves littered the ground, withering into yellow mud in less than half a minute.

The Banyan Tree roared, “You forced my hand!”

The roots of the giant Banyan Tree reached far deeper than anyone imagined. Practically the entirety of City P fell within its coverage. It originally hadn’t wanted to employ this ultimate weapon. Back when it was just a tree, although ignorant, ugly humans always loved to carve words onto it, the staff of the botanical garden would still help water it and drive away pests—it had actually quite liked them.

Every single one of Tang Xun’an’s slashes was fatal, and the power of time attached to his blade caused its vitality to continuously bleed away. It had attained intelligence and life with great difficulty; it didn’t want to die.

The entire City P began to jolt as if experiencing an earthquake. In the middle of the road, stubborn roots bulged up, bursting through the asphalt. The roots seemed to possess a life of their own, grabbing the nearest pedestrian.

[Talent – Life Extraction]

This ordinary human quickly became a part of the Banyan Tree, pressing against the tree trunk like dried bark.

“What… what is this?!”

Pedestrians covered their mouths and let out screams, fleeing in panic. The earth cracked apart, and buildings collapsed. Quite a few speeding cars collided with one another, leaving a sea of crying sounds everywhere.

Standing atop a tall building, a researcher watched all of this unfold, his gaze suddenly turning vacant. “Teacher, is this… the future we hoped for?” He leaped down from the building.

The initially dying giant Banyan Tree suddenly experienced a massive surge in the aura across its body. Tang Xun’an could roughly guess what had transpired, and consequently, his expression turned exceptionally grim.

“You deserve to die.”

On his blade, a translucent yellow fiery glow abruptly flared up. This was the additional ability of the dragon bone: Dragon Breath. It was just that Tang Xun’an hadn’t utilized this ability for a very long time. The last time he used Dragon Breath, it had thrown him into a violent state of aftereffects. That was another nightmare he still dreaded to recall to this day.

The blade hacked into the tree trunk, bursting forth with a massive, vibrating clang that only occurred when metal clashed against stone. A section of the Banyan Tree’s main trunk was evaporated out of thin air by the high temperature.

Tang Xun’an didn’t strike with his blade again. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and with a trembling hand, he fished out a sedative from the inner lining of his uniform, subsequently lighting a cigarette.

The giant Banyan Tree spat out red sap, its face fierce and distorted as it roared toward the sky, “Holy Lord! You despicable pollutant! To actually turn coat and side with humans! My spores will carry this piece of news and fly to every corner of the world with the wind!”

The Banyan Tree crashed heavily to the ground. Within the botanical garden, all the mushrooms exploded into spores in an instant. The concentration of these tiny particles was so dense that for a moment, it felt as if a white rain was falling. The wind brushed past, blowing the spores toward rivers and mountains. After this round of eruption, all the mushrooms in the botanical garden withered away in a flash, losing all vitality.

Far away, resting peacefully in the Divine Kingdom, the Holy Lord inexplicably let out a sudden sneeze in his dream.

The sound of a helicopter echoed from the sky. Tang Xun’an’s vision was a bloody red expanse, and he could faintly make out a human-shaped silhouette walking toward him. Tang Xun’an smelled it—it was Lu Yan, but this was currently the person he least wanted to see.

He held his blade horizontally in front of himself, growling softly, “Don’t come over.”

Don’t come over, please.

This operation and final exercise had turned out to be far more tragic than imagined. A total of 29 trainees died, 11 were heavily injured, 3 teaching assistants died, and 1 senior researcher committed suicide. Within City P, over 700 people died, and 1300 were injured. Experimental Subject 07 was nowhere to be found.

Evidently, some step in the middle had encountered an unknown issue. Headquarters was furious. That very day, Gong Weibin, the current director of the First Research Institute, was invited over to the office for a talk. The matter was still under further investigation.

Ever since returning to the academy dorms, Lu Yan hadn’t seen Tang Xun’an. The other party was likely off writing some sort of debriefing report.

In the end, he accumulated a total of 53.7 trainee points. Converted into contribution points, that equated to fifty-three thousand seven hundred points. Overnight wealth was precisely this.

Fearing that everyone would be triggered by the scenery and recall past tragedies, Headquarters abandoned the idea of holding a graduation party, opting for a memorial service instead.

On Saturday afternoon, Lu Yan dragged his suitcase, preparing to return to his hometown in City K. Zhou Qiming mentioned that he happened to be in City A recently and could come pick him up.

Just as he was waiting for the car, Instructor Tang—whom he hadn’t seen for days—stepped down from another vehicle. It was currently early July and the weather was sweltering, yet he was actually still wearing that neat black uniform. Even the silver cross on the inner necktie wasn’t the slightest bit out of place.

He walked up to Lu Yan and asked, “Are you heading back to City K?”

Lu Yan replied, “Yeah.” After all, obtaining a household registration for City A was quite difficult. He still needed to go to City S to buy a school district house for Director Hu’s grandson.

The atmosphere fell into a brief silence. Having not met for over a week, any actual impulsive warmth had cooled down. Lu Yan admitted that he did have some inappropriate thoughts toward Tang Xun’an, but only toward that Tang Xun’an who would whimper and obediently curl up his tail. Not the man currently standing right before his eyes, from whom a sense of distance could be felt even from several meters away. And the current Tang Xun’an would likely never wrap his tail around him or nuzzle into his embrace like he did at nineteen years old.

Lu Yan suddenly asked, “Did the events in the dream truly transpire?”

Tang Xun’an lowered his eyes, answering in a low voice, “They did transpire. It’s just that there was no you in reality.”

Regrettably, the agonizing pain following the transplantation surgery, the terror of being perceived as a monster—in the actual reality, he had endured all of it entirely alone.

“What happened to Professor Qiao in the end?”

“His lover saved him, and at the final moment, it was also Professor Qiao who protected me.” Otherwise, he might have already been voted to be executed. Tang Xun’an held nothing back.

Lu Yan thought for a moment and said, “I will keep it a secret.”

“I…”

Tang Xun’an wanted to say something more, but a loud honking sound abruptly echoed from the side of the road. Lu Yan turned his head, only to see Zhou Qiming driving a pink convertible, blaring the horn wildly at the street corner.

“Yanyan! I’m here to pick you up!”

With that said, Zhou Qiming gave a grand wave of his hand, raising a banner with a red background and white text.

——【Congratulations to my husband Lu Yan for successfully graduating with the highest score】.

Behind him, the Detective and Chen Shier simultaneously set off party poppers, creating an exceptionally festive and lively scene for a moment.

Lu Yan: “…”

System: [Pfft. Excellent. It seems your first love is going to end before it even begins.]

Tang Xun’an rarely showed much expression, but at this moment, a look of astonishment actually surfaced upon his face. He looked toward Lu Yan, wanting an answer, yet Lu Yan merely shifted his gaze away in an evasive manner. Tang Xun’an wasn’t stupid; he already knew the answer.

Thus, he gripped the blade in his hand tightly, his lips pressing together. “…I still have work, so I won’t see you off.” Without waiting for Lu Yan’s reply, he turned and departed. His footsteps were unexpectedly hurried, resembling a deserter.

System: [Clearly a movie for three people~~ yet I can never~~ have a name~~~~]

“Shut up,” Lu Yan muttered under his breath, somewhat annoyed. After all, the things that happened in the dream were all fake.

[The dream is fake, but the feelings are all real.] The System let out a sigh. [I heard that dragons have two dicks, don’t you want to give it a try?]

“Not at all, thank you,” Lu Yan replied expressionlessly. “And there aren’t two, those are all rumors.”

The System’s tone instantly filled with shock: [Why do you know it even clearer than I do?!]

Lu Yan didn’t answer it. Instead, he walked toward Zhou Qiming, questioning, “What are you doing?” He was referring to the word “husband” on the banner.

“In our circle,” Zhou Qiming’s reply was completely righteous, “sisters always call each other husband! Unless you want me to call you wife? That’s not out of the question either.”

Lu Yan: “…” He felt a slight urge to beat someone up. “Is there any problem?”

Lu Yan: “…No.”

Zhou Qiming opened the car door with a very gentlemanly flair. “Let’s go, big brother is taking you out for a meal! By the way, who were you talking to just now? He looked quite tall and handsome.”

With that said, Zhou Qiming subconsciously looked at the top of Lu Yan’s head. Due to his talent Virtual World, everyone in his world had a title over their head that could be seen as long as they approached within a certain distance.

A moment later, he took off his sunglasses in disbelief, unable to hold back a loud “Holy crap! What on earth did you do during this training?!”

The titles over a person’s head could change at any time, but under normal circumstances, there was only one. This time, Lu Yan actually possessed two titles, and one of them was even a golden title of the highest rarity!

【Dragon Taming Expert】

【Cult Terminator (Primary)】

The last time Zhou Qiming saw a golden title was when he brushed shoulders with Tang Xun’an back at the City A Prevention and Control Center Headquarters. Zhou Qiming recalled for a brief moment.

Tang Xun’an’s title seemed to be… 【Black Dragon of Despair】??*

__

Author’s Note:

Tang Xun’an’s dragon wings originate from Nidhogg. Nidhogg means “Despair.” In Norse mythology, it is a black dragon that dwells at the bottom of the World Tree, continuously gnawing at its roots. When the roots are entirely consumed and the World Tree rots, the world will meet its destruction.

《How I Caught My Wife in Half a Minute》by Tang Xun’an

Book Summary: (Ghostwritten by Xiaotian)

I practiced my blade at Headquarters for 100 years, and my heart has already grown as cold as my blade. Men will only affect the speed at which I draw my blade. If it’s Lu Yan asking to date me, consider that I never said it.

Wait, you guys won’t actually go search for it, will you!!! Look at the name clearly!!!)