171: Chapter 171 Immortality is a lie, the bomb is real.

Xun Bai's scream was caught in his throat, his vocal cords spasming into silence from the tearing of two personalities. He knelt on the broken brick ground, fingers buried deep in his scalp, his body trembling uncontrollably.

Only four seconds passed.

Xun Bai suddenly looked up.

Those cloudy old eyes had already changed color; the two-thousand-year obsession had finally crushed the mountain villager's instinct, leaving only pure, frantic greed.

"Give it to me!"

Xun Bai's figure lunged, his movements so swift he didn't seem like an old man over fifty. His wide robes and large sleeves caught the mountain wind as he pounced straight at Jiang Feng.

His right hand formed a claw, and he didn't care at all as the pinch of soil residue in his palm crumbled away.

He had only one goal: the bulge in Jiang Feng's pocket.

That was the complete soil of reshaping, the peak original substance that had never lost its activity.

As long as he could get his hands on it, he could turn the tables, and the two-thousand-year dream of longevity could be forcibly renewed.

The remnants of the Mutual Aid Society had long since huddled at the base of the wall, and now they were scrambling even further away to dodge.

While the Alchemist disciples had retreated ten meters away, not one of them dared to step forward.

Once faith collapses, courage dissipates.

Jiang Feng only took half a step back, neither retreating nor evading.

In his mind, the system's settlement notification sounds were popping up one after another.

[Ding! Brain cancer cell activity reduced by 15%! Remaining lifespan increased by 120 days!]

[Obtained a cash reward of 5 million!]

[Additional mission evaluation: Excellent!]

[Extra reward triggered: soil of reshaping perfect fusion restriction, removed!]

At the same moment the last line of text appeared, Xun Bai's withered claw was already pressing toward his chest.

Jiang Feng's right hand reached into his pocket and firmly grasped the edge of the foil bag.

He pulled hard.

A mass of golden-brown glimmer overflowed from the tear; the light was not blinding, but it was incredibly bright.

A gentle warmth came from his fingertips, as if he were holding a piece of warm jade fresh from the kiln.

Xun Bai's claw was close at hand, the dark dirt under his fingernails clearly visible.

Jiang Feng had no intention of dodging.

He pulled out the mass of soil, cupped his hands, and pressed it against the back of his own head.

That was exactly where the Glioblastoma lesion was located.

The moment the soil touched his scalp, Jiang Feng felt a buzzing in his head.

There was no pain, only a searing warmth.

That mass of golden-brown divine object liquefied on its own, turning into a warm fluid that seeped into the depths of his mind through the pores and the gaps in his skull.

Red and white lights flickered across his vision.

The tumor in his brain, which had mutated countless times, fell into a state of unprecedented activity upon contacting this primordial energy.

There was no rejection, nor was there annihilation.

It was absorbing the energy in an almost greedy manner.

The mutated crystalline structure began to accelerate its fractal overlapping, tightly winding around the surrounding normal brain tissue in a dominant manner.

The burning sensation in the back of his head peaked and then suddenly retracted inward.

Tranquility returned to his mind after a long absence.

The dull pain and dizziness that had followed him like a shadow since his diagnosis were swept away in this instant.

But the tumor had not disappeared.

Instead, it rooted deeper, like the roots of an old tree entwined in rock, no longer able to be shaken in the slightest.

At the same time the tumor and brain tissue completed their integration,

An energy pulse originating from the complete soil of reshaping silently radiated outward, centered on Jiang Feng's cranium.

The pulse swept across Xun Bai's palm, and the final energy was drained from the pinch of residue he regarded as his lifeblood.

The grayish-black color faded to a pale white, then turned transparent, finally becoming a cloud of fine ash.

The white ash fell through Xun Bai's fingers and mixed into the mud on the ground; the two-thousand-year obsession vanished into thin air.

Xun Bai's figure froze in place.

His fingers still held the grasping posture, but his palm was now empty.

The anchor point vanished, and the magnetic field was interrupted.

Xun Bai's knees buckled, and his body crashed onto the broken bricks, his fingers scratching the ground with a piercing sound.

That face, which had feigned being an otherworldly master for decades, was rapidly shriveling and decaying; the spirit forcibly sustained by obsession had already dissipated.

Beneath the skin, the outline of an ordinary mountain villager, about fifty years old, finally revealed itself.

He lay prostrate in the mud, making meaningless whimpers, no longer able to squeeze out a single word of pretentious pre-qin archaic pronunciation.

Ten meters away, the Thin-faced Disciple's eyes were red, and his body trembled uncontrollably.

Years of kowtowing and burning incense, years of reciting Alchemy Scriptures, had in the end become a ridiculous joke; a pinch of mud had fooled them all.

Jiang Feng moved his hands away from the back of his head.

His palms were clean; that miraculous soil had completely seeped into his cranium, leaving not a single trace behind.

He moved his neck slightly.

It really didn't hurt anymore.

The shadow of death that had always loomed over him was forcibly pushed aside by an external force; this long-lost feeling of ease was somewhat unfamiliar, and it took him two seconds to slowly adapt.

In his mind, the system's final explanation quietly appeared.

[Absorption of the soil of reshaping complete.]

[The mutated tumor in the host's brain has achieved deep symbiosis with the original energy; Second Neural Transmission System coverage increased to 87%.]

[Base lifespan +3000 days.]

[Warning: The tumor has completely symbiosed with the brain tissue, gaining permanent energy supply and infinite growth potential.]

[Current status: The tumor is latent, maintaining symbiosis; the host's vital signs will reach their peak.]

[In layman's terms: Congratulations, host, you have a permanent tenant in your brain that cannot be evicted. As long as you can coexist peacefully, you'll be collecting rent until your hands go numb.]

Jiang Feng looked at this string of prompts and subconsciously reached out to touch the back of his head.

It felt smooth, nothing unusual.

This... isn't quite what was agreed upon, is it?

Doesn't this just mean there's a permanent tenant in my brain that cannot be evicted, and as long as we coexist peacefully, nothing will happen?

Then why still show the remaining lifespan?

Are you kidding me?

Three thousand days of lifespan would have been a massive profit for the previous Jiang Feng.

But now he only felt like he'd been completely ripped off.

A terminal illness is still a terminal illness, except it has changed from a nuclear bomb into an unremovable symbiotic time bomb.

No, he still didn't know in what way it would detonate.

Since it's here, might as well accept it; three thousand days of lifespan were already in hand, and the bomb in his head was still behaving for now.

A simple life is the true life.

Jiang Feng let out a long breath of turbid air.

He looked down at the trembling former ancestor on the ground, then glanced at the despondent Alchemist disciples in the distance.

The people from the Mutual Aid Society had all run away, and the Scientific Expedition Team had already vanished with the wind; the tripartite balance of power that had occupied Wuyin Town for decades had been turned upside down by him with just a few coins and his words.

Jiang Feng bent down to pick up the damaged foil bag, folded it casually, and tucked it into his pocket as a souvenir.

He walked over to Xun Bai and crouched down, reaching out to pat the hollow shell's shoulder.

"I don't care how much is left in your head."

"But if there's even a shred of consciousness left of that local who went into the mountains forty years ago to gather herbs..."

There was no ripple in Jiang Feng's tone.

"Tell him, it's time to go home."

The husk on the ground twitched in response, the old man's lips quivering as he squeezed out a blurred Southwestern dialect from deep in his throat.

He was calling for his mother.

Jiang Feng stood up and looked up at the thick fog overhead.

The fog is about to dissipate.