"...What's going on, Leader?"
It was some time before Chunfeng finally stirred. He looked down at himself in confusion, finding himself dressed in simple cotton robes, loose and light, like the clothes of a patient.
He was on the second floor of the clinic. On a nearby bed, a woman lay unconscious, her breathing shallow. Bai Fanxian stood beside her, two fingers resting with feather-light precision on the woman's wrist.
"Her constitution has strengthened," she said, withdrawing her hand after checking the woman's pulse. "It won't be long before I can begin the proper treatment."
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Zhu Jinming's smile was one of pure, visible relief. Between the work on the village and Bai Fanxian's own frequent absences, it had been a while since they last spoke. In fact, many who traveled to see her lately were forced to leave without an audience.
As for the village project itself, it was moving forward at a pace that didn't seem real. With full manpower and resources poured into construction, the empty land was changing shape fast. Since Bai Fanxian returned from the emergency meeting, everyone involved had noticed things moving even faster, with approvals and support materializing within minutes of any request.
This was the true weight of her standing. Those who had been present were powers in their own right, yet they had all seen the sheer scale of her capability. There wasn't a soul among them who didn't long to curry favor with her, hoping to draw just a little closer to the center of her storm.
"Sleep well?" Bai Fanxian came over when she heard him stir. She sent a thread of qi through his body to check his condition without him noticing, and added:
"You slept longer than I expected."
"Huh?"
"Almost seven full days." Meiying told him as she held out a glass of clear, cool water.
"Thanks... seven days?"
His brow went up. Much of his body had become machinery, but his digestive system still worked like anyone else's. Which meant he hadn't eaten or drunk a thing in a week.
So why did he feel fine?
The answer was the dense life force flowing through this area. It was one of the quiet advantages of being a patient in Bai Fanxian's clinic. You didn't need to eat normally here. The life force was enough to sustain a person on its own, at least partially.
Combined with the potent elixirs he'd been fed each day, his constitution was more than satiated. Even without solid food, he felt brimming with a vitality he hadn't known before.
"Drink some water."
Meiying's nudge brought his attention to just how parched his throat had become. A full week without a drop. He lifted the glass and drained it in a single breath.
But at that very moment—
"...Liquid elixir. Begin testing."
*WHOOSH!*
The second the water hit his stomach, that familiar, searing heat roared back up his throat. There was no time to brace himself. Within moments, the agony surged with renewed fury, and the world around him faded to black.
"…Mm."
With a careless flick of a finger, Bai Fanxian sent Chunfeng tumbling onto the beach. Ignoring his writhing form, she calmly flipped open a small notebook.
"No significant change…" she murmured, her brow slightly furrowed as she paced in slow, clinical circles around him. From the outside, the scene looked deeply strange.
"...What exactly are you doing?"
Liu Yianfei, who had just come back with Hui'er, stared at the two of them. Had his lady picked up some unusual new hobby?
"You're back."
Bai Fanxian glanced over. At that same moment, Chunfeng let out a roar. The white light forming around him fractured, just like before. When it was over, he went rigid and his eyes rolled back.
"..."
"...Should I take him back upstairs like last time?" Meiying asked, entirely calm.
.
.
.
"GASP!"
Chunfeng snapped to attention, his heart hammering against his ribs. He scanned his surroundings like a cornered animal.
"Thirsty?"
Meiying's calm inquiry sent a shiver down his spine. His eyes locked onto the glass she offered, tracking it with profound mistrust.
He didn't dare reach for it.
"It's fine. My lady said the liquid version doesn't work either. This is just plain water."
Meiying's calm reassurance slowly pried the tension from his shoulders. Chunfeng stared at the glass, reflecting on the absurdity of his life; he had never expected to find himself this terrified of a glass of water.
"…Even if she did mention a powder version as well."
*SPLASH!*
The water he had just swallowed came straight back out of his mouth. He checked himself urgently for any signs that something was happening.
"Oh! But that one didn't work well enough either. So she threw it away."
Meiying said it as if she had only just remembered. That was more than enough to make him feel like an unwitting participant in someone else's experiment.
"How long was I asleep?"
Once he was reasonably certain he was intact, he asked what he most needed to know. The first time he had passed out, it had been seven days. He was hoping for better news.
"Um... about ten days, I think?" Meiying answered, tilting her head innocently.
"What?"
His eyes went wide. Half a month, vanished just like that? "Have you seen Li Xinmei?"
"Miss Li? She's at the village celebration."
"Celebration? ...What village?"
The words made no sense to him. It was as if he'd woken up in an entirely different world.
"The village project next door is complete. They held the opening ceremony this morning, and your subordinate even secured a home there."
Chunfeng fell silent, processing the news as he mentally aligned it with the facts he already possessed.
He recalled that Li Xinmei had invested in a housing project known for its rich life force atmosphere — one that had drawn influential people from across the country, many of whom had already bought in.
Her father, Li Fuzhu — the National Police Commissioner — had almost certainly secured a place there too. A man like him would have had no trouble getting in.
"Can you show me around?"
What he saw when he stepped outside stopped him cold. The area around the clinic was barely recognizable, as if the world had been swapped out while he slept.
People were crowding into the entrance of the newly completed village. With just a passing glance, Chunfeng picked out several familiar faces greeting each other along the streets.
"Mr. Wang! It's been too long."
"Mr. Ta — you're moving in as well?"
"Of course! At first I didn't believe a word my son said. But after seeing it myself, there was no going back to my old place."
"Same here. Once you've breathed this air, everything else feels like a step down."
Two elderly men strolled past, every inch the picture of retired gentlemen at leisure. But those easy smiles hid histories that were anything but ordinary.
"Former Minister Wang... Former Minister Ta..." Chunfeng murmured. Both had stepped down from office. But neither had lost their reach — not by a long shot.
He spotted several more with national-level standing as he scanned the street corners.
"Everyone is screened before they can move in," Meiying explained as she led him through the gate. The atmosphere shifted the moment he crossed the threshold — something tangible settling over him like a change in pressure.
Rows of detached houses stretched ahead as far as the eye could see, each with its own garden, each with its own character. What they shared was a quality he could feel more than see: a deep, living vitality rising off the walls and soil, as though the land itself was breathing.
The residents moved through it all with an ease that spoke for itself, walking without the hesitation of age and stopping to greet new neighbors with genuine warmth.
Everything about the layout had been designed with calm and convenience in mind. This was a home for people of consequence, and it showed. Almost no vehicles moved through the streets. People walked.
What caught his eye most was the ten-story monolith at the village center. A hybrid of luxury residence and commercial hub, its lower levels housed a curated selection of high-end restaurants, a convenience store, and a supermarket stocked with fresh produce. A constant stream of people flowed through its doors.
"Meiying?"
A voice called out from the direction of the supermarket. A woman had just stepped through the doors and recognized her from across the way.
"Grandma Luo!" Meiying's face lit up. The woman making her way toward them was Luo Xintao, who had wanted nothing more than to live here.
"Hello, dear. Are you here on your own? Come, have some snacks."
Luo Xintao glanced around, found no one she recognized nearby, and pulled out cookies and a small cake from her shopping bag.
"Thank you!" Meiying accepted them with a smile, then asked:
"Grandma, have you seen my lady?"
"Lady Bai?... If you're looking for her..."
*BOOM!*
A thunderous concussion rolled across the rooftops above them. A column of familiar energy blazed upward into the sky — deep purple, vast, the kind of thing that made the air feel thin just looking at it. Somewhere far above, cheering broke out.
"...She's most likely up there."
"..."