“Hey…” Heavenly-Snake said with a furrowed brow, “I’m planning to make you powerful.”

“Powerful…?”

“This is also Qinglong’s intention,” Heavenly-Snake said. “After much consideration, I still feel this path is the safest for me…”

Xiao Ran felt she didn’t quite understand what Heavenly-Snake meant: “What are you blindly speculating about Qinglong’s intentions here? Do I need you to tell me what he means?”

Heavenly-Snake shook his head and said in a deep voice: “You don’t understand Qinglong.”

“I… don’t understand Qinglong?” Xiao Ran laughed angrily after hearing this. “That’s truly ridiculous. I don’t understand Qinglong… Why would he entrust such an important task to me then? I’m your commanding officer now.”

“Stop deceiving yourself,” Heavenly-Snake said. “Today was also your first time meeting Qinglong. If I’m not mistaken, you yourself don’t even know why Qinglong gave you this task, right?”

As Heavenly-Snake spoke, he turned back to organize the knives on the table. He wiped the blood from the scalpel somewhat clean, then walked to a box on the side and began rummaging through it.

“Even if I don’t know…” Xiao Ran changed her words, “But I have indeed gained Qinglong’s favor. You have to admit that, right?”

“That’s why I say you don’t understand Qinglong.”

Xiao Ran watched as Heavenly-Snake pulled out a round object from the box, examined it in his hand, then tossed it back and began searching for a second one, continuing to speak:

“For Qinglong… you can be useless now, but you can’t remain useless forever.”

“What… what do you mean I’m useless now…” Xiao Ran asked irritably. “Don’t just spout nonsense…”

“Wisdom, physique, ‘Immortal Arts’, methods, shrewdness, strategy…” Heavenly-Snake looked down at the box and said indifferently, “Which one do you think you possess?”

“I…” Xiao Ran was stunned after hearing this. “I think you still haven’t grasped the situation… I have ‘connections’. Now I have Qinglong protecting me, understand?”

“You…”

“If we must say you have something special…” Heavenly-Snake shook his head, “Then we can only say you’ve had tremendous luck. I don’t know what eyes heaven opened, allowing someone like you to survive until now, board the ‘Train’ safely and soundly, even walk through countless corridors where ‘Zodiacs’ and ‘Rebels’ appear, all the way to Qinglong’s presence, and the ill-tempered Qinglong actually didn’t kill you… Ordinary people truly don’t have this kind of luck.”

After Heavenly-Snake finished speaking, he paused, feeling something was off.

Could all of this… not be luck at all?

No, he decisively abandoned this thought. If all of this had been premeditated by someone, then he had no need to struggle anymore. The opponent would be too terrifying, and he might as well just admit defeat.

“Luck is also part of one’s ability, isn’t it?” Xiao Ran sneered. “Saying I don’t understand Qinglong… Do you all really understand him? Maybe he likes my type, it’s just that you men don’t know it.”

Heavenly-Snake slowly stood up, walked to the table in the center of the room, and tossed several objects from his hand onto the table surface.

After seeing those objects, Xiao Ran gasped. On the table surface clearly lay four bloody eyeballs.

“Ah… you pervert…” Xiao Ran was stunned. “What are you going to do?”

Heavenly-Snake took up the knife on his own and continued wiping it.

“Stop joking…” He gave a bitter laugh. “‘Qinglong likes your type’… We’ve been ‘Heavenly-level’ for so many years, and can’t even tell if Qinglong is male or female. How did you determine he likes your type?”

Xiao Ran could no longer listen to Heavenly-Snake’s words. She only felt that the “Snakes” in this place all seemed somewhat perverted. After all, who among normal people would collect eyeballs at home?

“What exactly are you going to do…?” She asked with a trembling voice.

“Ah…” Heavenly-Snake picked up a used pair of disposable gloves from the table and put them on his hands. “You don’t need to be afraid though. I won’t let you die, I’ll only make you even more powerful.”

“You got these eyeballs…” Xiao Ran pointed at the table surface. “These eyeballs can make me more powerful?”

“That’s right.” Heavenly-Snake nodded as he finished putting on the gloves. “Have you heard of the ‘Divine Beasts’ here?”

“‘Divine Beasts’…” Xiao Ran paused. “I think I know about Zhu Que… He’s the one who harmed me to this state, but he’s already dead.”

“Yes.” Heavenly-Snake supported himself on the table and looked up at Xiao Ran. “Zhu Que and Xuanwu are both dead. We urgently need new managers.”

“New… managers?”

These three words “managers” truly piqued Xiao Ran’s interest.

“These four eyeballs, each one represents a type of ability,” Heavenly-Snake said. “Originally, ‘Divine Beasts’ should only be transplanted with three types of abilities, plus their own ‘Immortal Arts’, making up four types. Aside from Qinglong and Heavenly-Dragon, ‘Divine Beasts’ get four types, ‘Heavenly-level’ get three types. This is the rule Qinglong established.”

Only now did Xiao Ran feel she had slightly misunderstood the situation.

Although Heavenly-Snake’s actions looked somewhat frightening, she hadn’t expected his purpose was actually to allow her to obtain those wondrous magical arts.

She still remembered how she looked when Zhu Que took away her rationality. That man flew in midair, possessed tremendous strength and appeared and disappeared mysteriously, exactly like a deity descending to earth.

Could she also reach this level?

“Then… these are the ‘abilities’?” Xiao Ran pointed at the eyeballs on the table surface and asked.

“Yes.”

“What are they all?” Xiao Ran asked again.

“Mainly for emergency response and close-quarters combat,” Heavenly-Snake said, looking at the eyeballs on the table surface. “It’s roughly what Xuanwu used to do, since you need to handle the problems on the ‘Train’ first.”

“Which means…” Xiao Ran paused. “I’ll be Xuanwu from now on?”

“Ha…” After hearing this sentence, Heavenly-Snake couldn’t help but laugh, then quickly shook his head. “No, no, no… Don’t insult Xuanwu. Xuanwu is the most satisfying work I’ve created so far, and the two words ‘Xuanwu’ are also a name I’m very satisfied with. It’s steady and restrained, very suitable for Wu Xuan. It’s hard for me to call you Xuanwu.”

“What kind of talk is that…” Xiao Ran said. “Can’t I be more to your liking than that whatever Xuan?”

Heavenly-Snake gave a cold laugh, his expression ambiguous. He only sighed and said: “Hard to say, but I don’t mind giving you a new name, a name that better suits your character and style.”

“What is it?”

“‘Qiongqi’,” Heavenly-Snake said.

“‘Qiongqi’ is… what the hell?”

Xiao Ran paused, feeling that her technical secondary school textbooks probably hadn’t introduced this kind of animal, but the name sounded fairly nice.

“In any case, it’s also an ancient beast, the principle is about the same as ‘Xuanwu’,” Heavenly-Snake reached out and patted the table in front of him. “Come lie down when you’re ready.”