Extras

Extras

Fan Lin's room.

A few minutes after Gu Yue and Fan Lin left the room, 12 Spirit Pagoda members entered his room and began to clear away all the things.

Five minutes later, the 12 people left the empty and spotless clean room of Fan Lin.

A small box with a letter was neatly placed directly in front of the entrance door.

The 12 members were later joined with another group who were coming from the security department. After a small robotic nod, they all dispersed into the Pagoda, doing their own tasks.

.....

The three people who followed Gu Yue when she was talking with Fan Lin.

Xu Xiaoyan, Xie Xie and Yu Zhengyu quietly looked at Gu Yue entering the dorm and glanced at each other. They could all see the curiosity in their eyes but had no way to calm it.

"Let's ask Ye Xinglan. She is always proactive and straightforward in stuff that might interest her."

Xie Xie suggested. The other two looked at him and then began to think about it as well.

"What if she told Gu Yue that we wanted her to pry in Gu Yue's personal matters?"

Xu Xiaoyan said from the side. Although Xie Xie's idea was good, it had a chance of backfiring.

Xu Xiaoyan knew Gu Yue enough that she knew Gu Yue wouldn't discriminate between Xie Xie and Xu Xiaoyan... on the amount of slaps she was going to award them with.

Although Gu Yue was like all prim and flowery in front of Tang Wulin, Xu Xiaoyan knew just how flowery and kind Gu Yue was on the inside.

"What if we invite the others(Tang Wulin) as well? You go and invite the girls and start a girls night out and subtly introduce the topic of love and such in there;"

"Meanwhile I and Xie Xie will drag others (Tang Wulin) into it as well, I doubt Gu Yue would do anything excessive in front of all of us(Tang Wulin)."

Yu Zhengyu proposed. They both looked at him and then dispersed into the night after a bright nod. They all wanted something to gossip about since the classes were tougher than they thought.

Xu Xiaoyan was able easily get Yuanen Yehui and Ye Xinglan through her coquettish words and Yu Zhengyu hurriedly dragged Tang Wulin from his blacksmith workspace.

He knew that getting another chance to have a group event might be hard since the classes were going to become tiring from now on.

Hence they all talked into the deep night as Gu Yue, who had already been enduring Fan Lin's no sequence talking for more than a month, had enough experience and expertise to easily deflect all the questions related to her love interest or Fan Lin.

It's not like she had a choice at that. Tang Wulin was present in the gathering and she was currently not the in mood of creating friends and all.

Why?

Because a certain blackmailing psycho was her current partner in crime and she knew that he will definitely target her through her weaknesses if she had one.

The other girls had no choice but to give up halfway and talk about other more interesting and cultivation related stuff.

Which all somehow came to the weird fact of Fan Lin getting arrested and serving two days at prison in the Bright City during one of the trials, him getting outvoted by the class for the class representation competition.

And the most weird of them all, how the seniors indirectly reported him to the Pagoda because of his incessant killing in the first year.

The Lecturer was the one who had discretely told the class representatives in one of the meetings.

Yuanen Yehui didn't tell them about the upcoming trials and tests though. Even when they asked.

....

"Find him and report his activities to me."

Gu Yue had ordered Di Tian to tail Fan Lin due to the recent problems and questions he had left unanswered.

A few hours later, Di Tian found Fan Lin through the mark and informed Gu Yue about it.

"When did you mark him?"

Gu Yue asked after getting the call of Di Tian in the early morning. She thought that even with Di Tian's speed, he would need a day to find Fan Lin, maybe even more.

Di Tian was hesitant about telling Gu Yue about the mark but finally chose to do so after some silence.

"When you told me to grab his stuff from the Spirit Pagoda, he was in the soul cab, on his way to the soul train station of Shrek City. The current President of the Spirit Pagoda was with him as well. I thought that was quite suspicious."

"I got the box from the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters and then marked him when Qiangu Donfeng left."

"...Ok." [Gu Yue]

Gu Yue's cold reply came and then she quietly cut the call.

Di Tian slowly followed behind Fan Lin while thinking,

'Wouldn't she have abducted him if she knew he was still in the city?'

....

Qiangu Donfeng's masterplan.

Qiangu Donfeng was looking at the entirety of the Shrek City from his office in the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters.

He had just gotten the news that Fan Lin had been done with 8 sites in just three hours of starting his work and now Qiangu Donfeng was trying his hardest to not let a smile form on his face as he thought about the great future.

"Now was the time to take actions.'

He dispatched his men to secure the various sites and to find a good place to start building the research facilities.

He also informed the other members of the council and the various research teams under them about the new availability of the labs in a few months and this had further tightened his authority in the Spirit Pagoda.

Now the young and the old both thought that he was a good leader, providing them with research data and materials.

"If I had a granddaughter as well, I could have Fan Lin marry her, then the Qiangu family will have the monopoly on the one who can create a forest, the one who can restore the ecological balance anytime he wanted to... anytime I wanted to."

"I should ask someone in the family just in case, maybe I could find a suitable puppet to entice him."

"If he didn't agree then seduction or drugging him and making him the father might seal the deal as well."

"I wonder what would the result of his child would be."

Qiangu Donfeng wondered🤔 while taking out his family registry to find some suitable candidates.

.....

What do you think about the new kid?

Someone asked the Federation officials who were appointed to Fan Lin's replantation project. Their job was to solely take care of the official matters so that Fan Lin would have a smoother and less time consuming replantation work left to him.

It was these guys that made it possible for Fan Lin to just enter a city, plant the forest in the replantation site and then leave after plantation.

These guys did the rest of the management work. Most of the core members of this group were Qiangu Donfeng's secret hires and they also had the secondary task of monitoring Fan Lin and recording the process of each plantation so that the Pagoda could research on it.

This was the task that was given to them by the council members of the Spirit Pagoda Headquarters.

They wanted to be able to develop a low quality version of this soul skill in their artificial spirit souls later down the line.

That would be a life changer in the lives of those folks with low innate soul power or those whose soul master journey ends at level 30. Now those people could become more useful that they could ever be.

There were also the peace loving guys, the garden frenzied rich who would like to plant a good garden and would absolutely pay a lot to get this soul skill.

They could either make their servants have it or just get one themselves.

Youths could also get this soul skill and provide their own services like gardening, farming, vegetable and fruit selling and much more.

Lastly, this could reap them a huge profit from the military and other forces as being able to grow plants regardless of the condition meant that there would not be a need to be too dependent on the food type Soul Masters in dreadful situation.

Multiple people could grow food(vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices,) that could even provide enough for a whole regiment, and all it take would be soul power and land.

The more the Spirit Pagoda council members thought about the various possible usages of the soul skill, the more their eyes shone and Fan Lin's importance rose with that.

What about the various variation of his skill?

What about the enhanced version of his skill?

Thoughts like this filled their minds as they made their minds to keep Fan Lin in the Spirit Pagoda.

The recent situation of the Douluo Planet was quite special. There were talks of spacial exploration while research teams were also keen on the underwater secrets.

The world was strife with war, hunger, poverty and discrimination and differentiation.

But if the mass production of his soul ability could be done; Decrease in food prices, ease of war rations, sufficient and healthy food availablity in the orphanages, elderly and special needs organizations; combating food hoardings, battling various famines, and lastly getting rid of chemical fertilizers and much more could be easily implemented.

It could even potentially end their millennias old struggle with the Abyssal plane as well.

If only they could mass produce it that is. By then, the Spirit Pagoda might have their second big avalanche in popularity and authority as the new generations wouldn't just know them as the progenitor of spirit souls but also as the vitality preserver of the Douluo plane, the protector of the plane, the defender of the Abyssal plane and what not.

They will be revered throughout the history!

And that's why, Fan Lin's importance to the Spirit Pagoda council members were far higher than anyone, even Qiangu Donfeng.

The council members were already planning on throning Fan Lin as the new successor of the Spirit Pagoda because of their unhappiness with Qiangu Donfeng.

In the recent years, Qiangu Donfeng had been gaining power and popularity from the masses and the members of the Spirit Pagoda. His seer authority and connections along with his ambitious attitude made the rest of the council members vary.

Adding his recent gain in popularity among the newer staff of the Pagoda and how he had been hiring talents and such in the secret and in the open, they all had some guesses in their mind that Qiangu Donfeng was planning something.

To many of them, the most perceivable and also the most likely answer was the he was planning on passing his position to his grandson.

That didn't sit right with the council as well since the Qiangu family and Qiangu Donfeng's influence on the Spirit Pagoda and Federation was already quite large. Nearly on the point of autonomy. Spirit Pagoda might just became a family organisation of the Qiangu family if his grandson was to succeed.

They all knew that Qiangu Donfeng would just retire after giving the chair to his grandson, he will most likely become a member of the council and rule from the sidelines.

Hence some of the council members planned to put Fan Lin in the fight for the next President's position.

As for with why Fan Lin?

With his Boundless Ring, Fan Lin was the only one whose importance could rival the recommendation of Qiangu Donfeng. Adding the replantation that he was doing and that he was a three word Battle Armorer with a cultivation of a Spirit King and under 15 years old in age and having rank 7 in his secondary profession.

Even if someone took his boundless ring, then he is actually more fierce and strong with his previous roster of skills, especially that crystal control and energy manipulation.

You don't hear about a 15 year old kid killing a hundred thousand year old beasts with a self created attack.

And unfortunately, Qiangu Donfeng had no knowledge of this as the council members knew already that he was planning on making his grandson his successor which they were quite unhappy about, but they didn't reveal their intentions regarding Fan Lin in the meantime.

They all knew who Qiangu Donfeng was and how he was able to remain in his position for the past hundred years. Nothing that got in his way had became a hurdle for him for too long. Nothing.

Hence, it was a measure to both protect Fan Lin and to allow him to grow with their indirect support. They would do their all to retain Fan Lin in the Spirit Pagoda while continuing his work, his work was just that important.

The more he worked, the more data they would have on his soul skill, which would led to more concrete reasearch and development in the creation of an artificial spirit soul with his soul skill in it. Even if it's the lowest or the worst version.

With time, they will succeed. Their ancestors had, so will they as well. They just required time and lots of data on him, which could only come if he worked on his project.

Remember this point.

....

"Fan Lin's project was stopped by the Federation!"

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"

Qiangu Donfeng roared at his secretary when he heard the news.

"Ye, yeh, Yes Sir. He, He is currently kept in house arrest for the moment to cite down the public outrage."

The secretary replied while his back was drenched with sweat. He was afraid. He was genuinely afraid that Qiangu Donfeng might bash his head in anger.

"Call him right now."

Fortunately Qiangu Donfeng said after some thinking. The secretary's head was safe.

As Qiangu Donfeng was reading the report on why Fan Lin was on house arrest and the people behind it, he had another idea.

He planned to become the hero in Fan Lin's eyes, saving the damsel in distress and gaining her trust.

Qiangu Donfeng decided to personally help Fan Lin deal with the trouble, thus getting on the good side of Fan Lin as well.

He had checked his family registry a few days ago and there was a suitable female candidate for Fan Lin that he found after some trouble. A beautiful and nice bodied female with passable cultivation.

Qiangu Donfeng was the President of the Spirit Pagoda and obviously had the current situation of Fan Lin most of the times.

Qiangu Donfeng planned to sent the candidate to where Fan Lin was so that she can woo him in when they were alone.

No matter how straight a spaghetti was, it was bound to melt in the water.

Since the location was outside the Shrek City and away from the Tang Sect, Qiangu Donfeng, despite having not much influence in the southern continent, could personally go and drug Fan Lin to do the deed and then force him to get married to his candidate as a repayment.

After that Fan Lin would be of Qiangu Family and everything would be perfect.

Now that plan was in shatters.

Hence a new plan.

Qiangu Donfeng will act as a hero and save Fan Lin from his current peril. Then he will slowly win over Fan Lin with a carrot and stick strategy and introduce the girl later on.

Once Fan Lin had become too accustomed to the power that being with Qiangu Donfeng provided and/or the girl had hoodwinked him into the honey trap, Fan Lin would give in on his own and accept his allegiance to Qiangu Donfeng.

Another shady smile formed on his face as the secretary took a step back in fear.

.....

Si Nao and the weird kid.

I am Si Nao, a trusted spy of the President (Qiangu Donfeng).

I proud myself as one of the best in my field.

My task is to spy on this greenhorn kid who is in charge of a project - Resurgence of Life.

He is a weird kid.

Till now (day 16), he had been doing nothing but going places, cleaning them and then somehow summoning forest in those lands.

From my years of experience and knowledge, I think he most likely has a top grade martial soul druid or forest watcher.

[That's wrong.]

For now, following this kid is basically repeating the same thing again and again.

He keeps on going and going, without any rests.

He does eat sometimes.

Why is it always tomatoes?

... sometimes oranges are also taken. Just once though.

Day 23

Looks like this kid's in trouble. The protestors look quite enraged and even the Federation seemed to have taken actions after a week of protests and public unrest.

Well, what can we say?

This kid was a greenhorn who did not socialize with the officials, nor did he pay any 'tributes' to them. All he did was plant this land, or plant that land.

Now those that were going to suffer loses from his actions are indirectly assaulting him.

Should I save him?

Let's wait a bit. First I should report this matter to the President and then keep a lookout on the protestors. What if anyone had some 'funny' ideas going on their minds?

Regardless how greenhorn the kid was, till the time I am not assigned to assassinate him, he is a valid member of the Pagoda and President's current favourite.

If something happened to him, my head might be the new decoration in the President's secret office.

And this kid is indeed doing a good job in conserving the environment, although hundreds of thousands are going to lose their homes due to him as well.

....

The mysterious guest.

For the past weeks, Fan Lin's small shop has seen the arrival of the young guest who often liked to come at 3 am in the night.

"Would you like some tomatoes? He seems to love those a lot."

Xiao Nai said to Gu Yue while filling her glass of tea.

Xiao Nai was the oldest and the most experienced in the Handler's group. She was also the one who served Gu Yue her nearly expired cake on her first early morning visit.

"Don't need."

Gu Yue said while taking a sip of her tea. This was the aromatic tea that was sold as a product in Fan Lin's small shop and Gu Yue had been served the same thing for the past 26 days of her visit. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad as well. It was passable for its price.

Gu Yue, after failing to contact Fan Lin and then later realising that he was busy planting trees, had decided to pry info from the shop assistants of his.

She was on too much of a disadvantage against him in terms of her past and the secret she didn't want anyone to know about.

Just one thing and Fan Lin had been milking that fact as much as he wants while she had no possible weakness of his that she could also use to blackmail him.

Fan Lin on the other hand would continue to use her since he knew what she wanted and he was the only one who could complete it.

Hence Gu Yue came to the shop assistants of his to exploit something out of them. The reason for that was particularly simple as well. The tea that she was drinking and not just the tea but everything that the small shop was selling, seemed to be created in a same way as Fan Lin's 'magic' vials.

(That's what she calls it. Magic vials.)

And considering that the shop assistants knew about the vials and potentially about Fan Lin's plan of creating the forest, Gu Yue wanted to know how much they knew about him and his plan of the Moon Forest.

Fan Lin was both a source of headache and pain relief to her in the current scenario and she wanted to ease out one of it.

Having crucial information about him could help her easily control Fan Lin if needed.

For now, she was the one who needed Fan Lin more than he needed her. This made it possible that he can discard her whenever he wanted to buy she had no choice but to bear with his antics and listen to him because in the end, he indeed was helping her and her cause.

Gu Yue wanted to change this scenario though. She wanted to know about his frail side and use it to reverse the situation.

A situation where he would need her and would have no choice but to beg her for her help while faithfully and completely following her orders without any errors.

Humans were fickle creatures and Fan Lin probably stood at the top of the line in fickleness.

His nature was too unpredictable and that was a problem for her.

She had mistaken her own importance in his eyes for two entire times and in both those times, she was used and tossed aside when she wasn't needed.

Fan Lin was like that with everyone that he was using as his puppets. He was that kind of person and she hated him for that.

Hence she was giving her all to find a weakness of his. No one was invincible. Nothing was eternal and ephemerality was the name of existence. He will have a weakness as well and she was going to find it.

[If only she knew...]

"By the way young lady, can I ask something personal from you?"

Xiao Nai asked in a soft voice. The Handler and the rest were quietly looking at her while drinking their tea.

Fan Lin had already prepared the orders and they had shipped all of them a long time ago (20 days ago). Now that they were free, they were enjoying their life to the fullest... by lazing around and eating or watching soap operas and other things on TV.

They sometime played some games as well.

Previously they worked late till the night, now they lazed and watched or play games late till the night.

And then there was Gu Yue's event as well. Gu Yue, or the young lady (as they usually call her) was one of their recurring guests that had been coming to their shop as 3 am in the night for the past three-four weeks.

Every day, she came, asked questions about Fan Lin, his school life, their lives and how they got acquainted with him and whatnot.

The Handler and her friends had been deftly lying through their teeth for the past few weeks about literally most of the things Gu Yue asked them because they were information gatherers.

[And they still have no idea that he is creating a forest or wants the revival of soul beasts. Information gatherers?]

They knew exactly what Gu Yue was trying to do?

She wanted to get info on Fan Lin.

The Handler and her friends knew the past of all those that knew about Fan Lin more than they should and since Fan Lin hadn't told Gu Yue about his info, why should they?

It's wasn't like they didn't know how much Fan Lin killed when having his mood swings or just because he wanted to.

Knowing that and still daring to talk too much about him, they didn't have the guts to do that.

Plus they were information dealers, they had their pride and it was for the sake of Gu Yue as well. The less she knew, the longer she will live.

This lead to a weird clash as Gu Yue, who knew that this people were lying to her was slowly controlling their minds, and the Handler's group, who were hiding the info on Fan Lin thinking that it would bring bad luck to Gu Yue.

Both sides were currently in a stalemate, not because Gu Yue was not that great in subtle mind interference but because the Handler's group had no actual idea of Fan Lin's plan for the Moon Forest and soul beasts.

Gu Yue's question was wrong from the beginning. She had asked about Fan Lin and his activities.

That was a wrong question. Contrary to what Gu Yue was thinking, the Handler and her didn't particularly care about Fan Lin's life. They liked to stay as far away from his personal knowledge and they particularly didn't like him that much.

Their relationship was basically that of a worker and their employees. Just professional.

They didn't know about the true motives of Fan Lin's killing, or his conversations with Gu Yu, or his promises with Gu Yue, his creation of the Moon Forest, his plan to revive the previous glory of the soul beasts or why he killed or what he did in his time in Shrek or his life on the Spirit Pagoda or his basic life outside killing.

They knew nothing and neither did they plan on knowing. All they did was guess about his actions but they never tried to actually learn it and there was a reason for it as well. It was fear.

Fan Lin was a total heretical psychopathic killer when he was enraged. They had seen and read about the deaths around the whole Douluo continent.

They were the ones who helped him in it as well and that's why, they knew just how dangerous he was.

Anyone who knew too much about him had ended in death and no matter how gitay they got, they would rather not anger the person who killed in thousands at the tiniest of disagreement in his beliefs.

Hence Gu Yue's questions about Fan Lin's school life and such was meaningless because what she was asking was about 'Fan Lin'.

Her question should have be what was he doing when he wasn't 'Fan Lin'.

Asking about Fan Lin's life would give her no returns as Fan Lin was an eluded mystery to many with multiple answers on him depending on the person asked.

They all knew about Fan Lin but they only knew about their version of Fan Lin, each incomplete without the other.

And yet no one ever decided to group together and share their info about him. That would have given them the true answer behind everything he did.

Except no one did that and how would they?

They were all people from different sorts of life, having no actual connection to each other, neither was there any acknowledgement of the others existence.

Fan Lin would remain a mystery, not because it was troublesome to find his info but because they were just looking at the wrong places.

The right answer was always in front of them and yet they ignored him.

The atmosphere was silent in the shop as Gu Yue silently ate her cake while patiently waiting for the four of them to slip up and reveal even a single thing that she could use against him.

But the Handler and her friends were trying their hardest to exclude Gu Yue from the topic of Fan Lin as much as possible since even that couldn't do anything against the subtle mind interference and whatever bits they knew (the good and clean parts) about him were already told to her.

The others, well they thought Gu Yue must have already known about Fan Lin being the killer and all since Fan Lin entrusted her with the vials and such, and since they were in Shrek, they never mentioned it to her in their conversations as well, carefully avoiding each and every conversation that went in that direction.

What's the point to saying things someone already knows. More so when it can bring troubles.

And thankfully, Gu Yue also never asked questions that were in that particular topic or troublesome to deal with since Gu Yue had no interest in suddenly coming to his shop and asking about murders and such out of nowhere.

This however further cemented their reasoning that Gu Yue indeed knew about his killer status and intentionally never mentions it in the small shop.

But then as Gu Yue continued to visit and they began to run out of legal and white things about Fan Lin and such that Gu Yue asked, they decided to lie and create another past for him.

They were really afraid of slipping up and mentioning something bad because they knew that Gu Yue must have known about his killer status but how much did she knew?

They didn't know that.

What they knew was that Fan Lin always had different lies and personas and personal background for each partner he worked with.

Be it the child killer or mysterious death, it's just they didn't know which one Gu Yue knew off or if she even knew about them being the doing of Fan Lin.

What if Fan Lin didn't tell Gu Yue about his past alias and just informed her of his killers identity?

Should they even be thinking about it?

They could at least plead for mercy and give reasons for lying about his school life and such but what about the slip up?

That would basically count as betrayal.

The stalemate continued as Gu Yue left the small shop after she got a call from someone she didn't expected.

"He is in the Moon Forest?"

Gu Yue whispered to herself after ending the call.

.....

The Ardent

Spirit Pagoda Headquarters.

Qiangu Donfeng had been waiting for Fan Lin's arrival.

The Spirit Pagoda council was waiting for Fan Lin's arrival.

The Shrek Academy's previous outer court Headmaster was also waiting for Fan Lin's arrival.

Fan Lin never came though.

He had left the southern Douluo continent though.

Where did he went?

To the west. They all knew about it.

For what?

They didn't know that.

....

"Is he planning something in there?" [Outer court Headmaster]

....

"Inform me if he moves." [Qiangu Donfeng]

....

"How's the progress? Found the kid yet?" [The Spirit Pagoda council group that supported Fan Lin as the next leader.]

....

Various forces were trying to find him but a week later, everything changed.

[Spoiler - Fan Lin challenges the Spirit Soul Tower.]

Now many were going to regret not taking him out when they had the chance to.

....

(Final extra of this chapter)

(This happens right after Gu Yue explodes Fan Lin in the final chapter.)

"Why?"

Fan Lin said while regenerating from Gu Yue's attack. Everything was going perfectly fine and they had reached a mutual agreement, then she suddenly attacked him for no reason.

[!???]

[Did I miss something?]

Fan Lin went towards his storage soul guide that he had thrown away from him at the last moment before exploding. He took out a new pair of baggy shirt and got dressed.

"I will punch you if you unreasonably attack me after this." [Fan Lin]

"I am unreasonable?" [Gu Yue]

He calmly said to Gu Yue making her eyes constrict in confusion. She unknowingly tilted her head to the side, fully incapable of understanding how it was her that was the problem.

He was the one who never told her the complete truth, lied whenever he wanted to, discarded her two times, tried to frame her with him, kept the information that someone was planning to marry their grandson to her even when he knew it, and not just that, he even indirectly aided the enemy in easily getting her to marry his grandson.

He told her that he was going to use not just her but her Master as well and then about Na Er and all those other things he was hiding from her, adding his unlikable tone and choice of words in his conversation with her and their past.

It was was quite applaudable that she had been able to hold her anger from ravaging Fan Lin till now after all this.

And yet here he was, blaming her for being unreasonable, and even threatening to use violence to deter her.

'Why do I have to rely on this guy of all things?'

Gu Yue tiredly thought.

And she wasn't the only one that thought that. The Great Beasts who had returned from their first round of migration thought the same.

"Why did you protect your lower half?"

Gu Yue asked while looking at him.

She did attack him with her elemental burst but it wasn't enough to kill him, she made sure of that.

Killing him wasn't her objective (although she wanted to).

He would have just lost one or two limbs from her attack while having at least two-thirds of his body turn into a mingled corpse but he can heal from that.

It will just take some time. An hour or so and he would be perfectly fine.

But something unexpected happened. Fan Lin blocked the attack towards his lower body, thus leaving his wet pants intact.

'That's fishy.'

[Quite literally at that.]

(Since he just came out of the ocean with fish and all. I don't even know why I add things like this when I have to explain it to the readers myself.)

(Onto the story, I mean extra story.)

Gu Yue knew that her attack wouldn't harm Fan Lin that much. At most, he will have to wear a new pair of pants as the previous ones got destroyed.

'Hmm...'

'Is he... shy?'

As Gu Yue thought about some of the possible scenarios in her mind, her thoughts went into a dangerous direction before she stopped it from delving deeper.

'But what if he is just shy about being seen without clothes?'

'He is at that age.'

'...'

'No no no no no naw.'

'It could be something else. It had to be. This guy isn't that simple.'

'Is it his pants? Does it have something in it? but it is made up of normal materials and just has a soul storage guide and his Spirit Pagoda ID Card.'

'... Let's test the waters then.'

"Why don't you take off your pants?"

'That came out wrong."

The moment the words got out of her mouth, she realised the other meanings her words could take but it was too late by then.

"..." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin listened to her silently. Not even a few seconds have passed since he threatened her in slight annoyance but now Gu Yue asked something really weird. Something that she shouldn't know.

'Did she realise?' [Fan Lin]

He quietly thought while putting all his attention towards her, which in turn was portrayed as him staring at her deeply with nearly passionate gaze(not true).

'I think not. Knowing her, she would have either told me directly or had asked for it already.'

'That means she is just suspicious about the fact that I purposely protected the transmitter in my pants.'

'I should move it somewhere else on my body later.'

Fan Lin thought while putting forward a reply that was equally weird for the bystanders (Great Beasts).

"Why do you want me to take off my pants?" [Fan Lin]

"Because they are wet." [Gu Yue]

Gu Yue gave a rational answer that she had thought to salvage the situation of her previous words. Now the meaning would be clear.

"That's... a viable answer. Let me rephrase my question." [Fan Lin]

"Why do you want me to take off my pants in front of you?" [Fan Lin]

"I never said to do that in front of me. I just asked why aren't you changing your pants." [Gu Yue]

Gu Yue rivalled his gaze and answered. She did find the question odd but coming from Fan Lin, the unknown could be expected more than the known.

"Your pants smells fishy and it's quite unbearable whenever you come near me." [Gu Yue]

'Is that why she attacked me?' [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin thought and adding the previous scenario where she asked him to strip, it might have been the reason as well. His words might have angered her and adding the extra fishy stench, Gu Yue burat him.

He indeed was sitting quite close to her, so close that he passed her fruits and such.

(less than a hands distance for those that didn't understand.)

So she might have smelled the stench of the fish and all and must have found them unbearable. Fan Lin didn't care about the smell of the fishes on his clothes, he didn't even consider as a stench as he had played and bathed in the blood or corpses and whatnot. This much couldn't be considered as a stench to him.

"You have asked me to take off my clothes twice, I am doubting your intentions now." [Fan Lin]

Feeling relieved and skeptical that Gu Yu still had no idea about the transmitter or the lie he told her, Fan Lin decided to joke at the worst possible time to diffuse the situation and move into a new conversation, away from the pants and transmitter.

Except he was the only one who knew he was joking.

"Huh?" [Gu Yue]

'What does he mean by that?'

Gu Yue and her mind unknowingly wandered towards the suppressed thoughts of her.

'Pants... lower body... strip... bad intentions 🤔...'

😶.

And then as if the situation and his words suddenly became clear, Gu Yue's eyes dilated and anger surged in her heart once more when she thought that Fan Lin was indirectly mentioning that she desired(wanted to see/craved) his lower body in perverted ways.

She eyed him fiercely as the surrounding elements turned chaotic.

Fan Lin was innocently looking at her thinking about what happened now that she was mad again.

He just made a joke about how Gu Yue had previously asked him to strip just to attack him.

So the joke was that he was trying to link the previous situation by the new one, saying that Gu Yue had destroyed his upper body the previous time she asked to take off his clothes, now she wanted to destroy the lower body to even out the damage to his body.

It was a bad joke. Poorly explained as well.

(It takes more brains to explain a bad joke while making it sound bad, Ok.)

But Fan Lin was totally unaware of the direction that Gu Yue was taking his innocent joke into.

And he was particularly at fault as well. He did know she was the female protagonist and had eyes only on the main protagonist.

And Gu Yue was not the type of person to say or think about this kinds of things with anyone except Tang Wulin. That's how she was written, or how he had read her.

He was right in his thinking as well since Gu Yue had a really tough anti NTR fate written for her by the author of the dd3 as well.

But all this had no effect on how she took a bad joke or insult, more so when it was from a person who was currently hated by Gu Yue.

To Gu Yue, his poorly transliterated and bad joke felt like an insult to her maiden mind.

And then there was Fan Lin who dared to joke on a person who half murdered him a few seconds ago, with a misleading joke like that as well.

The whole situation would have sorted out at that exact moment of either Fan Lin of Gu Yue had decided to talk it out or ask.

But did they?

The following events that transpired were something that the bystanders (Great Beasts) still couldn't understand even after years to come.

"YOU!" [Gu Yue]

Gu Yue, now fully enraged attacked him with force just enough to leave him disabled for a few hours.

Fan Lin would have normally tried to talk out of the situation but there was a small problem in that.

He was currently in the Moon Forest and if Gu Yue were to rampage or they had a seriously drawn out fight, the damages to his forest and the new worms would be something he couldn't reverse.

He could regrow or restore a forest or animals but he can't revive the dead. He didn't even want to leave any kinds of damages to the forest much less have any of it be destroyed to such a state that they were dead.

Fan Lin didn't want that. Neither did the Gloomy Forest approved of that and this lead to this.

"I will pluck every single teeth out of your mouth if even a single blade of grass was to destroyed due to your meaningless rage." [Fan Lin]

As his voice and eyes turned completely emotionless, Fan Lin's dead calm state took over his emotion state.

The elements around Gu Yue stopped for a brief moment before dying down as she looked at the current him in stupefied manner.

That's not the person she knew as Fan Lin, he felt different.

"If you have a problem that requires you to use force, let's do it outside. I have been thirsty for battle (bloodshed) for a long time as well." [Fan Lin]

"Why did you say that then?" [Gu Yue]

"First of all, I think you are the one who misunderstood what I wanted to say and didn't clarify it with me." [Fan Lin]

"How do I clarify that you degenerate?" [Gu Yue]

"Okay. Just for clarification, my joke was that the previous time you asked me to strip, you suddenly attacked me." [Fan Lin]

"Now you are asking me to change my clothes again, what do I take it as? You preparing to attack me again? Or just a simple statement without no ill will behind it." [Fan Lin]

"The joke was just that. From your words, you thought about something else. Didn't you?" [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin emotionlessly remarked.

"... You should stop joking, forever." [Gu Yue]

"I am stupid. I know that." [Fan Lin]

"What did you think? You didn't answer." [Fan Lin]

"When are you going to enlarge the forest?" [Gu Yue]

"Did you just change the topic?" [Fan Lin]

"I did. What of it?" [Gu Yue]

Gu Yue said while staring him dead in the eyes. She was never afraid of him, even in his new unknown form.

"Nothing." [Fan Lin]

"Don't make me do this again." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin reverted to his emotion state after saying that and looked at Gu Yue. Still emotionlessly though.

"So why did you just ask me about it?" [Fan Lin]

"Is that your other self?" [Gu Yue]

"Who knows (even I don't know)" [Fan Lin]

'I can't even trust my own memories.'

"You should work on your wording." [Gu Yue]

"Don't wanna." [Fan Lin]

"Throughout my long life, I have realised that words often don't describe the emotions that we feel. What we say doesn't necessarily mean what we feel, be it good or bad. Why do I have to change just for the ease of others?" [Fan Lin]

"You are acting spoiled now. Did that weird state leave some after effects?" [Gu Yue]

"What did you thought my words meant?" [Fan Lin]

"Let's change the topic then." [Gu Yue]

"Indeed." [Fan Lin]

"Would you have truly plucked my teeth if I destroyed this place?" [Gu Yue]

"Much worse than that." [Fan Lin]

"Why?" [Gu Yue]

"Someone I loved, loved and worshipped forests." [Fan Lin]

Fan Lin said while giving some oran berries to Gu Yue. She took them and prepared herself for his unknown, unexpected and undeniable task in between the words.

"Oh." [Gu Yue]

Except nothing was said. He just ate some fruits in silence. Gu Yue chose to remain silent as well.

Meanwhile the bystanders (Great Beasts) side.

"What the heck happened?" [Bear Lord]

"They were just on each other's throats and now they are eating fruits in silence, sitting so close at that. What happened?" [Bear Lord]

"Didn't he threatened our Liege that he will pluck all her teeth out, then why are they silently eating now?" [Bear Lord]

The Bear Lord voiced out the questions in the minds of the other Great Beasts. They all couldn't understand how two people who were quietly sitting together and talking in one of the most weird conversations that they had heard suddenly changed the scenario to a death battle and then into calmness again.

And with those acursed words at that.

End of the Extras.

Now for those that are going to saying I am late. Listen to me.

I have painstakingly created this chapter today in the morning and then was editing in the webnovel chapter submission page.

Then I got a call and when I was finished with the call and went to complete the rest of the chap, it was gone.

For those of you who are going to say that why I don't use a notepad and such, they have a word limit of 16k to 25 k characters (around 3 to 4.5 k words) and I use a smartphone.

So after moping about it for five hours, I painstakingly recreated this chapter again as without this extra chapters, I couldn't release the next chapters.

With that, the rest of the chapters are coming today as well.

A total of three. This was an extra chapter.

Bye

Trivia :

(For those of you who don't know, Fan Lin can recover from a three-fourths body destruction in around an hour at limited excess energy, sufficient excess energy heals him faster and just excess energy destroys him.)

(So when she says that he would be disabled for a few hours, that means she is either going to hurt him enough to leave him nearly on the verge of death or...)

(That she would continue to damage him so that his recovery could not keep up with the damages. One of this things. And yeah, it's quite severe.)

(The days that Si Nao counts are different than the dates than Gu Yue counts. Si Nao had been counting her date from when she was observing/spying on Fan Lin whereas Gu Yue had been counting the days from the night Fan Lin had left.)

(Si Nao's day 16 is Gu Yue's day 18 of going to the small shop and it was Fan Lin's 17 day at work.)

(Di Tian and the rest took the help of the Bear Lord for extra speed in migration of the soul beasts. That's why he was in the last part.)

(The Bear Lord is quite bloodthirsty and rageful but Fan Lin is one of the few people who didn't instill his rage for unknown reasons)[Foreshadowing]

(Bi Ji and Zi Ji are lovers of Di Tian and Di Tian had a daughter that is a White Tiger(?). These three characters are often portrayed as key roles only to be discarded after being shown as either a punching bag or irrelevant to the plot characters and truthfully, they are irrelevant to the plot characters after certain point.)

(Fan Lin still has no idea about the various soul beasts that are migrated to the Moon Forest since they were hidden by the Great Beasts.)

[I bet most of the readers might have forgotten that as well.]

(If you have anything that if you want to ask, just leave a comment and I will post the answer at the end of the each chapter.

(Secondly these are canon chapters that I couldn't include in the actual chapters since my writing isn't on that level to ingrain so many plot points and word flows in one chapter without making it a weird hotpot.)

(Lastly, this all happened in the seven chapters of the Imagine you and me)

(Also if you have guessed what Gu Yue was thinking or have some bad thoughts when reading Fan Lin's joke. You are perverts ☺️