I Am Your Natural Enemy

It doesn't matter if a wild sacrificial priest dies, or an evil demon dies—Cai Qidong never really pays attention to that kind of thing.

When Feng Yao sent over the video, he just glanced at it. The moment he saw that turtle demon—turning from a pet turtle into a snapping turtle—he stopped watching, since there was no point in seeing the rest.

How a snapping turtle ended up in the West River, how it became a demon, how it ended up being worshipped, and who exactly worshipped it—there were just too many unresolved questions here.

They really think normal people nowadays are as easy to fool as they were a hundred years ago? With the way information spreads now, just the slightest clue, once someone picks up on it, this kind of wild water god worship would blow up instantly.

Cai Qidong's real headache was figuring out how he'd talk to the boss of Changfeng Group.

If it were something like the Soul Devouring Beast case, the Scorching Sun Department would have absolute authority—if necessary, they could do whatever needed to be done.

But in ordinary times, we're talking about a super major taxpayer in Nanwu County, with tens of thousands working under them, the ripple effects touching at least a few million people.

So as Minister, he couldn't just do whatever he wanted. Bringing someone in for questioning or the like—procedures like that definitely couldn't be done on a whim.

If things could be resolved smoothly and quietly, that would obviously be ideal.

At the moment, it looked most likely that the woman president wanted to resurrect her husband.

That really wasn't hard to understand. With people, money, and an opportunity—if Cai Qidong were in her shoes, he figured he'd probably do the same thing.

But as for how exactly she did it, what effect it might have—that's where the Scorching Sun Department had to step in.

If they really managed it, and didn't harm anyone else, then the department honestly didn't have much ground to interfere.

Take the Fake Mo Zhicheng, for example. He'd once managed, purely by his own ability, to burn through his own lifespan and bring someone back for a few seconds. And as long as that didn't hurt anyone else, the Scorching Sun Department really had no authority to step in.

Because the regulations of the department just don't cover resurrection. There's no such rule prohibiting it.

Although, so far, every resurrection-related incident they knew of had ended badly.

A couple years back, over in Europa, there was this guy whose job was Holy Knight, supposedly. They said that after advancing to the top tier, Holy Knights could resurrect people from the grave.

So someone running a big trust fund over there got suckered in, gave him all kinds of resources to help the Holy Knight advance.

The more money and status you have, the less willing you are to just die, right? Even the tiniest bit of hope is worth investing in—if it fails, it's no real loss anyway.

But nobody expected that so-called Holy Knight to burn through all those resources and end up creating a tragedy in a small town.

The guy had never been a Holy Knight in the first place—he was something else entirely.

He sacrificed a massive number of creatures there, completed his job change, left a total mess behind, patted his ass, and ran—still hasn't been caught to this day.

Compared to beyond Divine Land, where people obsess over resurrection, it's inside Divine Land where the obsession with immortality runs even deeper.

Were it not for the zombie thing—where, for a really long time, you're really just a mindless beast—plenty of people would probably want to become zombies.

At least up to now, nobody's ever heard of a zombie dying of old age.

If you don't mind already being dead, then zombies do count as immortal, in a sense.

As for other life extension methods, there are a bunch—but outright immortality? Not a single option.

At least, that kind of free-and-easy immortality everyone pictures doesn't exist at all right now.

Cai Qidong massaged his temples, wondering why there had to be so much trouble.

When he came to Nanwu County, he'd never planned on leaving alive, but he really hadn't expected the Soul Devouring Beast case to be basically wrapped up this quickly.

According to the Scorching Sun Department's monitoring, the Soul Devouring Beast's massive body was shrinking by the day, sinking deeper into the darkness—the whole giant beast seemed totally paralyzed, not budging an inch.

Chances were, it wouldn't be long until this case was fully wrapped up.

But even if this case closed, Cai Qidong was still stuck running the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department for at least three years.

During these three years, he'd be in charge of the department, and every bit of crap that came up would end up on his plate.

Looking at the mess of the situation here, with a bunch of Scorching Sun Department people still discussing the Golden Body Water God they'd just witnessed—the Taoist priest, seeing the dust settle, was boasting to the field agents to show it wasn't just that little Taoist was incompetent, just that the other side was too damn ridiculous. The field agents were left gaping in awe, gasping nonstop.

Cai Qidong rubbed his forehead, told the driver to get the car moving, and left the rest for someone else to handle.

He used business over at Wen Yan's side as an excuse, and made himself scarce early.

On the other side, Wen Yan was bored, looking at the big turtle flopped on its back, all four feet in the air, and he couldn't help itching to do something.

He dismissed the Temporary Ability Blessing, and swapped in a different one: Burning Body.

Because of Jiang Yanyan, he now had two temporary abilities: one Blessing—he'd already tried that—and now he wanted to see what Burning Body could do.

Since this was an experiment, he obviously couldn't use Jiang Yanyan as a guinea pig, but this big turtle would do just fine.

Once the swap was done, he held out his finger and activated Burning Body.

A fingernail-sized spot of bright golden-red flame appeared at his fingertip. He flicked his finger, and that tiny little fire seed floated over and landed on the big turtle—instantly, it was like pouring gas on a fire.

Poof—a burst—and the entire giant turtle was engulfed in flames. Just a minute ago, this thing was supposed to be completely dead—Jiang Yanyan had said it had no heartbeat or breath—but now it was thrashing its limbs like crazy, letting out a shrill and miserable scream.