DADH Chapter 64

Jing Nian had considered the possibility of being rejected before he made the proposal, but he hadn’t expected to face rejection from Old Hesse right here.

“This is the war of the Grans Continent, and we can’t rely on external help,” Old Giant Dragon said with the deep wrinkles of his dragon face, looking kindly at Jing Nian.

Jing Nian was taken aback, and the persuasive words he had prepared in his heart crumbled under the serious gaze of the old Giant Dragon.

Seeing the young boy’s beautiful eyes dimming, his head drooping, looking disappointed that he couldn’t be of help, a warm light flickered in the old Giant Dragon’s eyes. He gently placed Jing Nian on a higher spot, bringing them to eye level.

“We accept your help because you are a part of the Giant Dragon clan from the beginning.”

“The dignity of Grans Continent does not allow any self-respecting life to accept outside assistance in cleansing our traitors.”

This kind of dignity, with a cultural background vastly different from Jing Nian’s upbringing, was something he couldn’t fully empathize with. Nevertheless, he chose to respect and accept it.

As he walked out of the dragon’s lair, he saw the little dragon cub and Huo Yi waiting at the entrance. It seemed that the two of them hadn’t been getting along well lately, as their positions indicated.

Seeing Jing Nian’s lowered brows and apparent lack of success, the little dragon cub hurried over, awkwardly trying to comfort him.

“Jin Jin is the cutest!”

“Jin Jin, don’t cry!”

“Mwah~”

Jing Nian couldn’t help but smile wryly.

Huo Yi, who had fallen behind for a moment, approached. He hesitated for a moment and then reached out his hand, only to pull it back.

Huo Yi finally reached out to touch Jing Nian’s head and said, “You don’t need to worry.”

Jing Nian looked up at him. Considering Huo Yi’s identity, Jing Nian felt a glimmer of hope.

Huo Yi didn’t disappoint Jing Nian. He brought more than one piece of good news.

First, Huo Yi’s friend, the one who could ensure Jing Nian’s safe return home, had been contacted.

Second, the betrayal of the Temple of Light didn’t come from the will of the Light God.

Jing Nian asked, “Then who was it?”

Huo Yi lowered his head, gazing into the beautiful eyes of the young boy with his golden, fluffy hair. Suddenly, he remembered the adorable little bear doll from Mini Street. He understood why the boy always wanted to give that little guy an extra piece of candy.

Because he was just too cute, and it made you want to be nice to him involuntarily.

“It was his substitute. The Light God from the Divine Realm has been missing for a long time. Now, the God of the Undead is searching for him. Both divine positions are temporarily vacant. The substitute of the Light God wanted to take advantage of this opportunity and deceive the believers with false divine orders.”

As Huo Yi spoke, he was stroking the young boy’s golden hair when a chubby little paw grabbed his hand.

Following the chubby little paw, Huo Yi inevitably met a pair of round eyes filled with anger.

Ao Ao was fuming; this despicable person was taking advantage of the opportunity to touch Jin Jin’s hair! After all, once its paws hardened, it couldn’t bear to touch the hair.

‘Jin Jin, he’s touching your hair!’ Ao Ao looked at Jing Nian with a complaining expression.

But this time, Jing Nian didn’t pay attention to Ao Ao’s little temper. He was completely captivated by Huo Yi’s words.

“What does this mean? Do we need to find the real Light God now?” he asked. Then he thought of something else. “Doesn’t the substitute of the God of the Undead also have the risk of betrayal?”

Thinking about those terrifying monsters, demons, and undead creatures he had encountered while clearing out the Temple of Light’s traitors, Jing Nian’s face turned pale.

He didn’t want to fight those devilish beings. The battles were nauseating enough without considering the corrosive and dark magic.

Huo Yi shook his head and affirmed, “The Temple of the Undead won’t betray us because the substitute of the God of the Undead is his own puppet left in the mortal realm.”

Jing Nian asked, “Does the God of the Undead have a body in the divine realm?” He hoped it wasn’t just a formless dark mist.

Huo Yi thought for a moment and replied, “I think so.”

“Probably,” Huo Yi continued.

For the sake of precision, he added, “As a lifelong shut-in with little interest in hobbies other than meditation and training, even the news about the God of Light is the latest gossip from a divine friend I recently reconnected with. I’m used to being a loner and don’t pay much attention to these things. Besides, in the divine realm, I’m a relatively new god, so I don’t know many other gods.”

Jing Nian made a reasonable guess, “So, his substitute doesn’t have his own thoughts? Like, trying to replace him?”

Expecting a serious rebuttal from Huo Yi, Jing Nian was surprised when he replied, “Yes.”

Jing Nian raised an eyebrow, looking curious. This piqued Huo Yi’s interest. He started recalling some random information shared by a friend, which was previously dismissed as idle gossip.

“But the Temple of the Undead has too many branches, and various dark races operate independently. The God of the Undead in the mortal realm is not as revered as the God of Light. With such a weak belief to begin with, the substitute of the God of the Undead has no way to deceive and gain the belief of its underlings.”

“The major branches of the Undead, such as skeletons, ghosts, zombies, liches, and others, all have their leaders, and these leaders are aware of the existence of the true God of the Undead. So, it’s impossible for the substitute of the God of the Undead to deceive these leaders.”

“In contrast, in the Temple of Light, only the High Priest knows the true identity of the God of Light. Furthermore, almost everyone in the Temple of Light is a devout follower of the God of Light.”

Sometimes such devout faith can lead to blind belief. Perhaps when the substitute God of Light betrayed them, some of the followers sensed that something was amiss, but their doubts were easily overcome by their faith. This ultimately led the entire Temple of Light to be deceived and manipulated by the substitute.

After hearing the sequence of events, Jingnian fell into silence for a while, then posed a soul-searching question, “So, the goal of the substitute God of Light is only to replace the true God of Light. Why did he choose to merge Grans and the interstellar game?”

Huo Yi recalled a brief meeting with his friend, a meeting that could have ended with him walking away in anger. However, he was held back by a nonchalant voice.

…

“Tsk, don’t you want to know how to get your pretty boy back into his own body?”

The man with scruffy blueish stubble on his face, this time, was not the casual character seen in the studio but rather appeared genuinely excited.

Huo Yi furrowed his brows and spoke with a slightly colder tone, “His name is Jing Nian.”

The man called Ji Heng shrugged, “Now you’re being protective? Well, they say, ‘out with the old, in with the new’…”

Huo Yi’s frown deepened, “Don’t talk nonsense.”

Ji Heng said, “Alright, alright, I won’t say more. Two tops have no future, I get it! So, tell me about something else. Do you know about the relationship between the God of Light and the God of the Undead?”

Huo Yi was once again contemplating leaving, “…Enough with the nonsense.”

Seeing his friend about to leave if he didn’t get to the point, Ji Heng quickly got back on track.

“Don’t rush, what I want to talk about is related to the changes in the game world. Do you know that Light and the Undead are a pair?”

Huo Yi: “…”

Ji Heng: “Alright, I get it, you don’t know. But now I’m telling you. You know, Light and the Undead are going to break up because…”

Realizing that his old friend was once again being his eccentric self, Huo Yi’s brow furrowed once more. He was about to interrupt, but then he heard Ji Heng mysteriously continue.

“Because, in the realm of mortals, certain things between them were too cold. So Light couldn’t stand it and ran away… Hahaha…”

Huo Yi: “…”

He endured it and finally, amidst all the gossip about the love affairs between the God of Light and the God of Undead, he heard some genuine information.

Then Ji Heng leisurely told him the way to get Jing Nian to leave Grans and return to his own body.

Having received the information he wanted, Huo Yi glanced at the time and was about to leave.

But then he heard Ji Heng mutter, “Truly a son of the heavens, even his love affairs shake the world.”

Huo Yi turned back, suddenly remembering that this mischievous friend had quite the reputation in the game studio.

And then his dark eyes took on a dangerous glint.

Realizing he had let something slip again, Ji Heng muttered “dammit” under his breath and then quickly left, throwing out one last sentence as he did.

“Light God’s substitute doesn’t have as significant an impact on merging worlds as you think, it was me who connected you two, you fool!”

Before vanishing, Ji Heng tossed a red thread shuttle to Huo Yi.

Ji Heng’s divine position was on the Red Phoenix Star, in charge of matchmaking – essentially, he was the God of Love.

To be more precise, his duty wasn’t to create the red threads; it was to manage these red thread shuttles. Human relationships naturally formed, and even more so, divine relationships were beyond control.

Lowering his head, Huo Yi noticed that the red thread shuttle had already been activated. He infused a bit of divine power and opened it.

One end of the red thread was connected to him, while the other passed through countless world barriers, linking to a certain small world, a particular planet, and ultimately onto a person.

Divine power traversed time and space, allowing Huo Yi to witness various moments in the young man’s life, from birth to growing up, to inadvertently getting trapped in another world.

Huo Yi’s heart was deeply moved, and he even regretted not meeting the young man earlier.

This lovely and adorable young man had faced a short and challenging life, standing strong with his frail body.

He had struggled with painful treatments, shedding tears in secret while carrying the weight of his family’s expectations. Yet, he managed to put on a soft smile in front of them.

Huo Yi had seen the brilliance in the young man’s eyes when he achieved victory in the game.

The young man’s life had been quite short, especially compared to Huo Yi’s time in the cultivation world.

Huo Yi could only glimpse fragments of it.

However, it felt as if he had experienced a lifetime of emotions with every frown and smile, every tear and sip, as each moment tugged at his heartstrings.

Suddenly, Huo Yi realized that he wasn’t naturally indifferent to emotions.

His long and lonely existence had felt like waiting, waiting to meet this young man.

Huo Yi lowered his gaze to the red thread shuttle in his hand, recalling what his friend had let slip. He was a person favored by the heavens, and considering this, along with his friend’s revelation, he had a new theory about the reason for the world’s merging.

…

Lost in thought, Huo Yi met the curious cat-like eyes of the young man, and he suddenly felt guilty.

Under the young man’s gaze, the images he had seen in the red thread shuttle replayed in his mind. He restrained his impulse to embrace the young man and spoke earnestly:

“For now, I can’t tell you the exact reason, but I promise you that Grans won’t face any trouble. Right now, all you need to do is…”

Huo Yi remembered the solution his friend had mentioned.

To safely extract his divine soul from the small world, he needed a method of ascension or something similar.

Option one: As a god, and one favored by the heavens, he could form a partner covenant with the young man. This would allow the young man to ascend right where he was. After ascending, he could choose to return to his physical body in the mortal realm.

Option two: Become a demigod or a pseudo-god, like the substitutes for the Light God or the God of the Undead in Grans. These beings could cross world barriers while inhabiting a body, and since the young man would possess divine power, he could use it to cross the world barrier and return to his own body.

However, once formed, a divine partner covenant couldn’t be broken. This meant it was a lifelong commitment. Even the Light God and the God of the Undead, whom Ji Heng had described as loving and fighting each other, didn’t have such a bond.

However, it had to be admitted that the first option had made Huo Yi’s heart race.

The prospect of forever including the young man within his protective embrace delighted him immensely.

Yet, since he had obtained the red thread shuttle, he felt another surge of emotions, an unprecedented desire welling up within him.

He clenched his fist, suppressing the darkness in his eyes, and spoke to the eagerly waiting young man in a somewhat unnatural tone:

“You only need to wait for the right moment to return to your body.”

He also needed some time to consider which option to reveal to the young man.

 

Author’s note:

Ji Heng (Heavenly Lord): The incident of me picking up my friend’s gossip turned out well because I found this adorable little character.

PS: Ji Heng and Huo Yi have a purely friendly relationship, with no romantic involvement, just banter, hearts~

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