Great! I'm surrounded by villains!
Chapter 35: The Watchmaker’s Wonderful Adventure

Chapter 35: Chapter 35: The Watchmaker’s Wonderful Adventure

Leave this bedroom?

The man on the bed looked at the door just a few steps away and steadied his nerves.

He watched as the Fox Lady took a step back, trying to figure out what she was really planning.

But...

But with a distance of less than five steps, it would only take three seconds, maybe even less, to roll off the bed and dash out the door!

Now is the time!

Just as the Fox Lady’s gaze drifted away and she lazily yawned, he suddenly threw off the covers, using them as a shield to throw at her. There was no point in wondering whether the Fox Lady would keep her promise. After bursting through the room door, he had no intention of stopping; he aimed straight for the exit.

For the first time, the man felt lucky to live on the first floor. If he could just make it to the yard, get the attention of others, she probably wouldn’t dare to kill him in public.

However, all his thoughts came to an abrupt halt the moment he got out of bed.

Why,

Why did he step on the bed sheet at this critical moment?

Already weakened upon waking, a slip of the foot caused the man to instantly lose his balance. To make matters worse, the back of his head knocked against the corner of the bedside table without any protection.

"Wait—"

Before he could finish speaking, excruciating pain enveloped him.

A surge of scarlet flooded into his sight.

Streaming down the corner of the bedside table, it also splattered onto the slightly yellowed wall.

"Oh dear, don’t be in such a hurry, Mr. Clockmaker; this challenge has no time limit."

"Help, help..."

Virtually collapsing in front of the bedside table, his injury was too severe, even his speech became incoherent. He simply couldn’t understand how a slip of his foot could result in this dire situation.

But it seemed that misfortune had no intention of letting him go.

A heavy thud came from behind him; following the fierce impact, the lamp on the bedside table toppled towards his face. But what was worse, the bent electric cord suddenly made a "crackling" noise. Amidst the stench of blood, a strong burnt odor mixed in.

It seemed something had ignited.

The air grew increasingly hot and dry, the rising black smoke blocked the view between him and the Fox Lady, and his thoughts seemed to drift far away. He could barely hear the words coming through the other side of the smoke, "I actually feel sorry for you. You inherited the family clock shop business, running a modest trade. People like you should have led a simple yet happy life. But the arrival of the Extraterrestrials took everything from you. First, they bankrupted your shop and then used some techniques to saddle you with a huge debt. To clear the debt, you had to mortgage both the shop and all your savings.

"But fortunately, fate didn’t abandon you altogether. One night, you had a bizarre and thrilling dream. In the dream, you turned into a monster, found that customer manager who’d pretended to be a friend, approached you, and tricked you into taking on a huge debt,

Then you killed him, chopped up his body."

The man’s breathing grew more and more rapid.

The increasingly thick smoke infiltrated his body; he felt himself getting closer and closer to death.

His limbs grew cold, as if he was clad in only a thin layer, facing a blizzard.

Suddenly, the man was no longer afraid, perhaps because the voice from beyond the smoke was recounting his past. To this day, the experience of that night could still make him wildly excited.

"The next day, you saw the news about the disappearance of the client manager, which sparked an investigation at the company. You were summoned by the police, and after being interrogated, they eventually released you without charge. But it was in that moment that a seed was planted in your heart,"

At this point, the voice across the smoke paused slightly.

Gentle and airy, as if stepping into his soul, admiring the darkness hidden deep within, "You are quite fascinated with the feeling of killing, aren’t you? Becoming the master of others’ lives in Dreamland, watching them struggle to survive until all their efforts turn into naught. It’s only in those moments that you truly feel alive."

The man opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but ultimately, no sound came out.

If it were another occasion, he would definitely offer the Fox Lady a drink. At the end of his life, he met the first person who could understand his existence.

Jiuyue watched the man, whose eyes no longer sparkled, as flames spread to him and quickly engulfed him.

The man before her had once been chosen by the organization.

If only he could have stopped after his revenge and used his extraordinary talent elsewhere, they might have become comrades-in-arms today.

But she wasn’t one to mourn a lost life; up until death approached, the man’s life had been as vivid as those wild dreams. To look on the bright side, at least he had touched a world beyond ordinary understanding.

"Mr. Watchmaker, it seems that your wonderful adventure has come to an end—"

Jiuyue turned and walked towards the outside of the house. She needed to get back home before Mr. Mingyuan returned. "Embark on your journey in peace. One day, I will send the company and those Extraterrestrials down to join you."

.....................

Elsewhere, Duan Mingyuan, having dispersed the crowd of onlookers, began to deal with the aftermath.

Although he had saved Yang Ping from the watchmaker’s hands, he had still missed something crucial.

Yang Ping’s usual backpack had suffered a catastrophic blow.

Hands transformed into blades had poked a massive hole in it, fatally impacting the textbooks and workbooks within.

He had also come up from high school, so he knew very well that this level of "injury" was enough to subject Yang Ping to a mix of punishment from his parents. Moreover, it would be difficult for Yang Ping to explain that his backpack was destroyed by an evil spirit with Time Stop Ability.

This would only result in his parents equipping themselves with slippers that grant +3 attack power during their scolding session.

From bits and pieces of conversation, Duan Mingyuan understood that Yang Ping’s parents were impatient people. The boy’s introverted nature was the result of a long-term domestic environment where the parents held absolute authority and did not listen to any feedback from their child. Over time, Yang Ping had lost any desire to communicate with them.

But as Duan Mingyuan said, abilities have limits.

No perfect abilities exist in this world; to reconstruct an object, one must understand the state of the object after reconstruction.

All this led to Duan Mingyuan having to find a place to sit and take out his phone after repairing the backpack. Based on the searched-for textbooks and Yang Ping’s oral descriptions, he meticulously refurbished the damaged books.

It was a time-consuming and labor-intensive task, requiring his full attention.

Looking at Yang Ping with his head bowed, as if he had done something wrong, he couldn’t help but sigh.

"You’ve done well; don’t blame yourself. That evil spirit is not an enemy you can deal with now."

This battle was a clear gain, as Yang Ping’s Life Energy had broken through a major threshold.

More importantly, the boy was already vaguely touching the boundary of his Ability.

Even Duan Ming, unaware, wondered what kind of fruit this sense of impending crisis would eventually bear.

He patted Yang Ping on the shoulder encouragingly, "Congratulations, you have passed the hardest part of the internship and have moved into the next stage."