The Yellow-Haired Villain in Soaring Phoenix’s Novels Also Desires Happiness - Chapter 277



55. Cause of Death

“Ha? Not going means I will definitely die? Why?”

Mu En looked at Teacher Meila in shock, wondering if some major incident would soon happen at the academy, like the return of an evil god, unleashing something suppressed at the bottom of the academy, which even Teacher Meila couldn’t stop. Knowing his time was up, she might be looking for an excuse to send her excellent disciple away, enduring humiliation and hardship until he could return after thirty years of training to take revenge for her.

“How painful!”

Lost in thought, Mu En suddenly felt a sharp pain, instinctively clutching his calf and hopping around.

“Hmph, if my time is up, the first thing I would do is use you, my ungrateful disciple, as a coffin cushion!”

Teacher Meila retracted the foot she had kicked at Mu En’s calf, her amber eyes glaring at him fiercely:

“There’s no complicated reason; it’s simply that if you don’t go, you’ll die. That’s all there is to it.”

“Wh… what?”

“Do you remember what I did to you before?”

“What was that?”

“The time I almost boiled you alive.”

“Alright, you finally admitted it; you were going to cook me…”

“Why do you think I did that?”

“…”

Seeing Teacher Meila’s suddenly serious little face, Mu En also became grave, starting to stroke his chin and think carefully:

“I remember… your explanation was… because my physical enhancement exceeded expectations, in order to make a certain subsequent step proceed more smoothly, a procedure had to be done in advance?”

“That’s right, I said that.”

“You boiled me for that procedure?”

“Mm.”

“But what does that have to do with me now? If that procedure isn’t completed, do I have to die?”

“From a causal perspective, indeed.”

“Huh?”

Mu En was dumbfounded again.

He froze for a moment, looking at Teacher Meila, who was leisurely sipping juice, seemingly unconcerned about the matter, and his handsome face instantly twisted in frustration.

Damn!

This damned old loli is going to trick me again!

“Speak! Hurry up and say!”

Mu En shook Teacher Meila’s neck vigorously: “What on earth is going on? Even lab mice have their rights; do you believe I’ll go find the Cute Disciple Protection Association right now, occupy your flower sea, and protest against you fiercely?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s no such strange association in this world. There was a Mouse Protection Association, but it only lasted three days before being ground to dust by the Origin Tower, which got annoyed by it.”

As Mu En continued to shake her, Teacher Meila’s baby fat on her cheeks also shook along; her gaze remained calm, and with a flick of her finger, Mu En suddenly found himself suspended in mid-air, shaking along with her.

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“As for the situation… I think I mentioned it to you at the very beginning, right?”

“You… you mentioned it?”

Like being electrocuted, Mu En stammered:

“I… I don’t remember?”

“Then let me help you review.”

Teacher Meila clapped her small hands.

In an instant, the juice, the sofa, and the sun disappeared, transforming into a desk, a blackboard, and a brightly lit classroom. Mu En found himself sitting at the center of the classroom, and even Teacher Meila’s pink strawberry nightgown had changed into a somewhat serious professional outfit.

But it must be said, with Teacher Meila’s figure and shape, she couldn’t quite fill out the blouse and the fitted skirt, making her look a bit silly and cute…

“Focus.”

With a sharp sound, a piece of chalk hit Mu En’s forehead. Teacher Meila adjusted her black-framed glasses and said seriously:

“Class is starting.”

“Oh.”

Mu En twitched his mouth.

“First of all, I told you that without living beings, or rather, living people as carriers, the Eternal Clock can only be considered a prototype of authority, because the so-called ‘authority’ is a concept that must be held by some existence in order to be established.”

Teacher Meila tapped the blackboard with her pointer, striking the alarm clock drawing that looked no different from a kindergarten child’s doodle, then tapped the one below it, which was also at a kindergarten level, and even had its two eyeballs deliberately drawn far apart, making it look extremely wise, a yellow-haired drawing.

“This is the Eternal Clock.”

“This is you.”

An arrow appeared in the middle.

“You are the vessel I selected for the Eternal Clock.”

“Everything is easy to understand, but…”

Suddenly, Teacher Meila changed her tone,

“Can you really be called the vessel of the Eternal Clock right now?”

“…What do you mean?” Mu En frowned.

Teacher Meila tapped the blackboard again.

Inside the arrow, a circle suddenly appeared, interrupting the entire line.

The circle was crooked and very rudimentary.

But for some reason, in that moment, Mu En understood what the circle represented.

“Alchemy Core.”

“That’s right, it represents the Alchemy Core.”

Teacher Meila said:

“Have you noticed? Rather than saying you are connected to part of the Eternal Clock, it would be more accurate to say that the Alchemy Core is connected to part of the Eternal Clock. Your true connection is only to the Alchemy Core.

The Alchemy Core is also an inanimate object.”

But the lifeless cannot transform the Eternal Bell into true authority.

Yet without the Alchemical Core, you cannot even establish a connection with the Eternal Bell, let alone the subsequent complete embodiment.

—This is the crux of the matter.”

“I see…”

Mu En immediately understood, stroking his chin in contemplation:

“So your previous actions were to completely merge the Alchemical Core, even those complex magical patterns, with me, thus turning the lifeless into the living?”

“It seems my foolish disciple isn’t too dumb after all.”

Teacher Meila nodded:

“That’s right, that was my intention.”

“But you failed.”

Mu En let out a breath, looking at Teacher Meila with some surprise.

He hadn’t expected even the great mentor Meila Domir would have a hurdle she couldn’t overcome.

“Everyone fails at times, not to mention turning the dead into the living, which, just saying it out loud, would get one spat on by those little fellows from the Stone Cauldron Association, completely defying the fundamentals of alchemy.”

“But…”

“My inability doesn’t mean others… or rather, other existences cannot.”

“You mean…” Mu En seemed to grasp something.

“Exactly.”

Teacher Meila adjusted her glasses, a strange gleam flashing across the lenses:

“When it comes to the word ‘life,’ who in this world besides the Goddess of Life, Emile, or that church that worships her, dares to claim they truly understand it?”

“All those reasons are false; this is the real reason I sent you on this journey.”

“…Damn.”

Hearing Teacher Meila’s explanation, Mu En felt a sudden darkness before his eyes.

He knew that this journey would likely bind him irrevocably.

Even if the outside world were dangerous, and the Church of Life truly intended to tie him to a pyre and burn him alive, Teacher Meila would undoubtedly kick him straight to the Holy City.

“But wait.”

Mu En regained his senses, puzzled:

“What does this have to do with what you just said about not going to certain death?”

“Heh, kid, I told you long ago, wanting to bear the Eternal Bell is not an easy task.”

“Have you ever thought about why such a convenient thing as the Alchemical Core was not used by anyone before you? Even without the Eternal Bell, just being able to store magical power and construct spells is an extraordinary thing.”

“This…”

Mu En’s vision blurred, and he found Teacher Meila standing on the desk in front of him, poking his cheek with her pointer, a hint of inexplicable amusement on her small face.

“So, when did you develop the illusion that your body could completely accept the alchemical core and those magical patterns, these foreign objects?”

“What…”

Mu En was taken aback.

Thoughts whirled.

As if recalling something, a bone-chilling cold suddenly surged behind him.

Along with the alchemical core that had helped him through countless crises, it now felt incredibly icy.

He thought of the surgery from his previous life.

The organ transplant surgery.

“Rejection… reaction?” Mu En squeezed out those words from his throat.

“That’s right, a rejection reaction. And as you felt before, due to the complexity and uniqueness of the alchemical core, along with the slightly special materials I used to construct it, this is a rejection reaction that even the power of the Silent Moon can only temporarily suppress.”

Teacher Meila tapped Mu En’s head, gloating:

“So, kid, don’t even think about slacking off this time. If you don’t solve this problem in the church, you really will be in big trouble later.

No one can save you, I mean it—not even the King of Withering!”