Chapter 159: Moving Toward Each Other

Yu Lei hesitated for a moment.

It was just that fleeting pause, and before he fully registered what was happening, he found himself being dragged out of the courtyard by Yu Wan.

Yu Lei was reluctant to admit it, but deep down, a profound sense of relief washed over him at that very moment. Putting aside Chen Biqin’s blatant favoritism toward Yu Yan, she truly loved Yu Lei, her son, from the bottom of her heart.

Yet, his eldest sister was also exceptionally good to him.

He neither wanted to break Chen Biqin’s heart nor run back only to put his eldest sister in an awkward position.

Yu Lei lowered his gaze.

And allowed himself to be pulled forward by Yu Wan’s strength.

Yu Wan quickly sensed the change in her younger brother. "See, I told you, little bro! The look on our eldest sister's face made it pretty obvious that going back was completely out of the question. The relationship between her and Mom has always been complicated and hard to put into words."

"If you ask me, making a complete break isn't necessarily a bad thing."

"Remember how Eldest Sister used to live in town and only came home for festivals and holidays, maintaining a polite and cordial facade with everyone? Wasn't that great?"

"Ever since she started eating three meals a day here at home these past few days, I've actually felt the atmosphere around the house has been rather strange."

Yu Lei: "..."

Sometimes, he genuinely suspected that his gender and Yu Wan's had been accidentally swapped while they were still in their mother's womb.

How could his second sister be so carefree and utterly lacking the delicate, sensitive sensibilities of a young woman? Instead, it was he who overthought everything, easily perceiving that this situation was entirely different from the past. Outwardly, it seemed no different from previous times when they only ate together during holidays because Eldest Sister lived in town.

Back then, they could barely use the excuse that the distance was too great and she simply didn't want to make the trip back just for meals.

Now that they lived in the exact same village, yet still insisted on cooking and eating separately, how was that any different from dividing the household and living apart?

Even so, the relationship between Eldest Sister and Mom was indeed indescribably complex.

As a younger brother, it was impossible for him to forcefully demand that Yu Yan not "split the household." The silver lining was that Eldest Sister’s attitude toward him and his second sister remained completely unchanged from before. Should a conflict ever arise between Mom and Eldest Sister in the future,

with him and his second sister mediating from the middle, things hopefully wouldn't become too terribly awkward.

It had to be said that the first half of Yu Lei’s thoughts had struck somewhat close to Yu Yan’s actual mindset.

As for his subsequent worries, however, they were entirely unnecessary.

Affection breeds anxiety, and love breeds fear; it was only because she had cared in the past that Chen Biqin’s various actions could repeatedly sway Yu Yan’s emotions. From the moment she decided to let go completely, nothing Chen Biqin did would ever be able to affect her mood again.

Some things are simply not meant to be, and rather than clinging to them, it is better to release them with grace and equanimity.

At the very least, doing so brings inner peace.

Yu Yan leisurely tore off a strip of wild boar meat, roasted to a fragrant, oil-dripping perfection, and popped it into her mouth.

A rich, exotic aroma filled the air around her nose. Through the courtyard wall, Yu Yan’s gaze seemed to pierce the distance, envisioning a lonely figure in Chen Biqin’s house, clutching a quilt and weeping silently. At this moment, her heart remained completely tranquil, without a single ripple.

Chen Biqin’s reaction had caught her slightly off guard, to be sure.

Yet now, she only felt that clinging to that tiny shred of genuine affection just to return to the exhausting, anxiety-ridden life of the past was simply not worth it in the least!

Instead of wasting time on that, she would be far better off figuring out how to expedite the massive relocation of the Fire Phoenix Base.

Only once matters here were fully concluded could she free up the time to pursue what she truly wanted to do.

...

Over the following period, everyone in Fenghe Village sensed an unprecedented wave of urgency.

This pressure cascaded directly from the top down.

The official explanation given to the outside world was that in less than a month, the might of the dimensional domains would more than double once again. By then, even E-class and F-class domains would no longer be safe for ordinary villagers or even certain members of the hunting squads with slightly lower combat prowess.

They had to race against time and increase their overall squad strength by at least threefold within the next half-month!

To achieve this, Yu Yan went so far as to increase the frequency of the elite hunting squad evaluations from once a week to once a day.

The top three performing hunting squads in each evaluation would receive rewards such as spirit armor or spirit beast meat.

In just over ten days, all thirty-six hunting squads achieved their very first minor milestone: equipping every single member with spirit armor. As for the two truly unlucky squads that failed to win a single evaluation, to prevent them from holding everyone else back,

Yu Yan distributed unranked spirit armor to each of their members under the guise of a "loan."

By now, every single team leader of the hunting squads possessed at least one piece of Grade 1 spirit armor or higher.

All of this was entirely thanks to Chen Biqin, who had been working herself to the bone!

Driven by some unknown catalyst, Chen Biqin’s personality had undergone a drastic transformation.

She no longer spent time every day basking in the flattery and bootlicking of the villagers like she used to. Nor did she waste time on trivial matters; whenever people came looking for her, she had Zhang Zhenye turn them away unless it was absolutely unavoidable.

Instead, she poured her heart and soul into crafting spirit beast leather armor day and night. Where she used to produce only thirty to fifty finished pieces a day,

lately, she had been turning over a hundred and some odd pieces to Yu Yan almost daily!

It wasn't until Yu Yan couldn't bear to watch any longer and stepped in to persuade her otherwise that Chen Biqin finally stopped working around the clock, agreeing to eat and sleep according to Yu Yan’s wishes. But outside of eating and sleeping, she still focused exclusively on one single task—

refining the spiritual energy within the spirit beast hides and fashioning them into pieces of spirit armor of varying grades.

Because of her frantic, unsparing efforts, the last two batches of spirit armor delivered to Yu Yan had actually contained a sporadic few Grade 2 spirit armor pieces!

Although the quantity was very small, totaling only two or three pieces in all,

Yu Yan was nonetheless deeply shocked.

By any reasonable calculation, Chen Biqin had started learning to make spirit armor less than a month ago.

And yet, she had miraculously achieved a lightning-fast leap from an ordinary awakened being straight to a Grade 2 armor crafter!

If those armor crafters from her past life—who always fancied themselves possessed of supreme talent—were to find out about this, they would likely be so ashamed as to wish the ground would swallow them up. In Yu Yan’s memory, the most talented armor crafter she had ever known had taken three full months after becoming a Grade 1 crafter just to produce their very first piece of Grade 2 spirit armor.

Occasionally, a mildly narcissistic thought would cross Yu Yan’s mind.

Could Chen Biqin’s drastic change in personality have anything to do with her?

Yet she would immediately banish the thought from her mind; if Chen Biqin had truly cared about her that much, why had she never noticed it in the past when Yu Yan used to hover around her like a pitiful, love-starved child day in and day out?

Regardless, some transformations are simply irreversible.

Even if Chen Biqin’s abnormal behavior lately truly was because of her, Yu Yan thought deeply about it and realized she could never go back to the past anyway. Right now, her sole focus was on wrapping things up here as quickly as possible, and then... Yu Yan cast her gaze far into the distance.

It was as if her vision crossed countless towering mountains and numerous domains, plunging straight into a pool of gentle, watery tenderness.

While Yu Yan was accelerating her steps, eager to draw closer to a certain someone,

far away, a man plagued by an equally consuming and agonizing longing slashed through a blood-sucking vine with a single sweep of his blade, shouting to the people behind him, "Everyone watch out! These vines consume blood! Guo Wei, Zhai Ge, your stone-skin techniques seem to be effective; they can't pierce the petrified skin."

"Hold the line for a moment."

"Once the blazing fire array is set up, we can wipe these little pests out completely."

"Got it, Boss!"

Guo Wei and Zhai WenShan stepped forward, replacing Lin Zhe at the vanguard of the formation. "Boss, you better make it quick! My Grade 3 earth-type ability can handle these peak Grade 3 vines, but holding them off for half a minute is about my limit."

"As for me, I can probably only last a little over half a minute myself,"

Zhai WenShan added, grimacing.

Lin Zhe frowned slightly, speeding up the movements of his hands...