Divine Beast Creator

The interior decoration of the Department Store had been hastily overhauled. What now unfolded before everyone’s eyes were a series of completely different sections, each with the distinctive flavor of a particular era, ranging from the scenes of Qi Chen’s childhood to the era style of his father’s childhood.

In each section, a clear yet unobtrusive broadcast played music in the style of that era. It didn’t do much for Feng Yuan, but it still had a somewhat relaxing effect.

For Qi Chen and the others, though, it worked very well. After all, these were times they had actually lived through, even if only a small part of them.

"Moe Card? I remember that after Magic Dream disbanded, because of copyright issues, Moe Card stopped releasing new merch. I didn’t expect to still see it here."

Suddenly, Qi Chen pointed at a cartoon raccoon and said in surprise. Then, as if remembering something, he snuck a glance at Dou Yanlan. She smiled slightly and said,

"Moe Card was really popular back then. I liked it a lot too."

Qi Chen scratched his head and gave an embarrassed laugh. Feng Yuan hadn’t watched the Moe Card anime, but he did find that raccoon design pretty cute. He just had no desire to go over and take a photo with it.

Watching Qi Chen and the others run up to pose with Moe Card like little kids, Feng Yuan folded his arms, standing in place with a smile as he quietly waited. Just then, someone patted his shoulder. He turned his head in puzzlement and asked,

"What is it?"

Even without looking, Feng Yuan already knew who it was. Yang Hongzhi chuckled and said,

"You came to the mall too?"

"Mm, nothing to do, and there’ve been a lot of troublesome things lately. Coming here to relax a bit isn’t bad."

Hands pillowed behind his head, Feng Yuan spoke casually. Yang Hongzhi looked him up and down in amazement and said,

"This environment doesn’t give you that nostalgic feeling at all? You really are... special."

"Mm-hm? What are you trying to say? That I’m some kind of freak?"

"Not that. I’m just surprised. We’re just some not-very-famous small city. I didn’t expect you to stay here."

Shooting Yang Hongzhi a glance, Feng Yuan said irritably,

"That’s just what you call fate. Besides, it’s not a big deal, is it? I picked a place at random. Even if I hadn’t shown up, your future wouldn’t have changed that much."

Feng Yuan hadn’t forgotten what their future strength looked like. That might not be set in stone, but it still faintly proved something.

Yang Hongzhi smiled and said,

"Without you, we might not have reached the level we’re at now. More than that, if it weren’t for you, I’m afraid..."

As he spoke, Yang Hongzhi reached out and gave Feng Yuan’s shoulder a firm slap, saying,

"Thank you."

"If it weren’t for you, they might never have had that chance. Or rather, many of us would never see each other again."

"You never thought all that happened because of me?"

Turning away, Feng Yuan pretended not to care as he spoke. Yang Hongzhi shook his head with an amused look and said,

"No. Some things would happen whether you were here or not. You’re not the one who brings disaster. On the contrary, because of you, Maomu City has been able to get through all those calamities in one piece."

Listening from the side, Veronia shuddered, turned her back, and quietly drifted off, muttering under her breath,

"That’s some seriously cheesy stuff."

"Hong Zhi is worried he’s piling too much unnecessary burden on himself. This isn’t just his business. We don’t want to rely on him for everything either."

Najia floated beside Veronia, speaking with a smile. Even if those words sounded a bit awkward coming from Yang Hongzhi, they were what he truly felt. If not for Feng Yuan, just the pile of messy incidents they’d run into this past year would probably have already caused massive casualties in Maomu City.

"Not rely on him? Too bad. Now that the Anti-Divine Beasts have shown up, without him we’d probably be stuck on the back foot."

Veronia glanced at Najia and said calmly. It obviously didn’t think this current overreliance on Feng Yuan was a good thing. It was just that, when faced with the chaos brought by the branches of time, it felt utterly powerless.

There was no helping it. Leaving everything else aside, the hidden mastermind behind Qi Chen and the others was already a huge problem. Yet aside from Feng Yuan, everyone else—other people and other Divine Beasts—could barely even detect the faint traces the other side had left behind.

"Speaking of which, have you noticed anything similar elsewhere?"

Thinking of something, Veronia brought up the recent events with Najia. It felt somewhat pointless, but there might be some unexpected gain.

After listening to Veronia’s account, Najia pondered for a long while before saying,

"We hadn’t paid attention to that before. But if it’s targeting Qi Chen, it must serve some necessary purpose. And why specifically the War timeline?"

"If it’s just to keep us from drawing in the War timeline, I don’t think there’s any need for that."

"No idea. If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you."

Veronia glanced at Feng Yuan—he was still chatting with Yang Hongzhi—and then said. Najia thought it over and said,

"You all think it’s a coincidence, but I don’t think it’s that simple. There are no missing persons in Maomu City. That means, barring special cases like identity replacement, we can consider that the only one being targeted in Maomu City is Qi Chen."

"Hm?"

Because neither Veronia nor Feng Yuan had checked the local records in Maomu City, they hadn’t known this. Najia slowly spoke up,

"It might not be perfectly precise, but ever since the War started, Maomu City has been continuously tallying every person within the urban limits. With the help of the Data Domain, the chance of a miss is very low. That means even if some people slipped the count, there wouldn’t be many."

"That really is a suspicious point."

Veronia nodded slightly. If the target really was Qi Chen directly, that was very suspicious. Setting aside the influence Feng Yuan had brought, Qi Chen was just an ordinary person. Even if his future potential wasn’t low, he wasn’t at the level of some peerless prodigy.

Under those circumstances, why lock onto him? That was strange. Could the real target be Feng Yuan?

"Sorry, this is as far as I can analyze it. I can’t guess the rest."

Najia spoke helplessly. Veronia glanced at Feng Yuan, who was horsing around with Qi Chen and the others, and said,

"You don’t need to apologize to me. And the clue you gave is very important."

Feng Yuan had no idea about Veronia and Najia’s private conversation. To avoid dampening his mood, Veronia had no intention of bringing it up to him right now.

Or rather, in its view, even if it did, it probably wouldn’t be of much use. It looked like an important new clue, but in practice it still did very little to help track down the mastermind.

"They even swapped out all the merchandise. Their methods are really something."

Letting his gaze sweep over the shops, Feng Yuan said in surprise. Because of the War, the flow of goods across all of Great Xia had actually taken a huge hit. You could say the entire logistics network had almost ground to a halt.

Most goods now circulated only within the same city. Between cities, aside from necessities, there was almost no flow of goods.

There was no choice. The Imperial People could launch a raid at any time. Even the railways were no longer safe. Just maintaining the transport of food and basic living supplies already consumed a massive amount of manpower in Great Xia, so there was simply no way to coordinate the movement of other things.

"It’s not strange that our city has factories producing these things. And I heard the rail lines are preparing to resume. Production should soon get back on track. It’s normal for them to start using the stockpiled goods from before."

Dou Yanlan said mildly. After the Temple was established, the safe rear areas had become the main routes for shipping supplies. There was still a risk of surprise attacks, but it was much better than before.

In fact, as far as she knew, some of the stronger Beastmasters were already planning to form caravans for transporting goods between cities.

There was no helping it. Even if the railways were being reconfigured, restoring the pre-War capacity for transporting goods would still be difficult.

"Heh, this hat is pretty good～"

Seeing a baseball cap with long animal ears, Feng Yuan darted over, grabbed it, and stuck it on his head. The long ears swung wildly with his movements. Xiao Ji stared curiously at those ears, no matter how it looked, they just seemed odd.

"These hats were trendy for a while. I remember back then, all the shows on TV were animations like Spirit Beast Knight."

Chuckling softly, Dou Yanlan picked up a hat with animal ears and put it on, showing Qi Chen a radiant smile. Qi Chen, who had sunk into his memories, only came back to himself after a while. He picked up a hat with wolf ears and said,

"Yeah. Too bad they later criticized that kind of show for ’leading kids astray,’ and in the end it completely vanished."

"I remember they said humans fusing with Spirit Beasts to transform had no basis in reality and violated the common sense of Beast Taming. I wonder if there’s a world out there where people actually have that kind of power."

Thinking of that craze, Qi Chen shook his head with a wry smile.