PD -Chapter 67 Next Step Plan

“It seems that now that Shentu has broken through the seal, Lucifer has actually found a method to merge her with the primordial spirits of the other Five Direction Ghost Emperors. Truly worthy of a demon who has devoured an Archangel.”

“Devoured an Archangel?” I froze again.

Di Ting let out a sigh. “After escaping his prison, Lucifer gathered countless Western demons and various heretical evil gods… and he discovered a method to refine the energy of angelic wings using dark power, greatly increasing his own spiritual strength. Archangel Uriel was ordered to suppress him, but Lucifer captured him, stripped away his wings, and ultimately devoured and refined them.”

Hearing this, I suddenly recalled the scene when I invaded Marcus’s dream last time—the pure white wings he had unfolded. I had assumed he was an angel…

But I never imagined that he might have been refining the wings of an Archangel, and that I only managed to exploit a moment of weakness when his consciousness was unstable.

“So then… is Tang Shanshan still alive?” I finally asked the question I most wanted answered.

Di Ting looked at me and replied, “At present, there is reason to believe that Miss Tang Shanshan’s primordial spirit still exists. It is merely being forcibly suppressed within her body by the overwhelming soul power of the Five Direction Ghost Emperors…”

“After all, this body does not originally belong to the Ghost Emperor. If Miss Tang’s soul were completely destroyed, the body would also decay. They would not risk destroying her primordial spirit—unless…”

“Unless what?” Liu Xiaopeng and Zhu Zhu asked in unison with me.

Di Ting answered, “Unless the Ghost Emperor finds a more suitable vessel, or… discovers a way to maintain the body without relying on Miss Tang’s soul.”

I frowned and sorted through everything I had just learned in my mind, telling myself that as long as there was even a sliver of hope, I had to try to save Tang Shanshan. After all, I owed her far too much. Her current fate could be said to have been caused by me.

Tang Shanshan had no one to rely on. If I abandoned her, her soul might be suppressed forever within the Ghost Emperor’s consciousness—that might be worse than death.

I gritted my teeth and asked Di Ting, “Then what should we do now? Can we find the whereabouts of the Ghost Emperor and Lucifer?”

Di Ting frowned slightly. “I have already said it—your next task is to recover from your injuries.”

“And also, you must ensure the safety of these two people. They have already been drawn into this incident.”

As he spoke, he slowly turned and pointed at Zhu Zhu and Liu Xiaopeng.

He looked at Liu Xiaopeng for a long moment. “You also possess spiritual power?”

“I can see the spiritual energy in your bloodline… but it seems to be suppressed by something,” Di Ting muttered to himself. After a pause, he turned away again, but then stopped mid-step, looked back at me, and said, “Once your injuries heal, I will come find you again.”

With that, Di Ting led the other unfamiliar individuals who had been standing by the bedside out of the ward, leaving only me, Zhu Zhu, and Liu Xiaopeng staring at one another in silence.

The room fell into complete stillness.

After a long moment, Zhu Zhu suddenly burst into tears.

I turned to look at her. The young miss of the Zhu family was crying so hard that her face was streaked with tears, her lips pale.

Liu Xiaopeng looked at her helplessly. “Hey… don’t cry…”

I sighed on the hospital bed, not knowing what to do. Just as I was thinking of how to comfort her, she forced herself to stop crying, wiped her tears, and looked at me.

“Brother Han… you won’t abandon Shanshan, right?”

I sighed again and nodded. “All of this started because of me. Old Tang is annoying, sure, but if I don’t care about this… I’ll never be able to live with myself.”

After a pause, I looked at Zhu Zhu’s tear-streaked face.

“Don’t worry. I will do everything I can to save Tang Shanshan. But this matter… you’d better not get too deeply involved.”

“As an ordinary person, the existence of the 507 Institute and the Zero Investigation Unit shouldn’t have been made known to you. It’s just that you’ve already been dragged into it. The fact that they didn’t erase your memory when recruiting me is already fortunate enough. So… you should just go home and take care of your father.”

“I won’t!” Zhu Zhu glared at me, aggrieved. “I’m not useless. I can take care of myself. I’m going with you to find Shanshan!”

“My dear miss, stop adding chaos!” I sighed, slightly irritated, but then forced myself to calm down. “Fine. Look—searching for Tang Shanshan will take a lot of effort, and my studio definitely can’t operate during this time. If you really want to help, then do it behind the scenes. Be our financial support. How about that?”

Zhu Zhu frowned, clearly considering my words.

I signaled to Liu Xiaopeng with my eyes, and he quickly chimed in, “Right. As the saying goes, ‘armies move on their stomachs first.’ Logistics support is extremely important. With your Zhu family’s connections and financial backing, things will be much easier for us.”

Zhu Zhu seemed to find this reasonable and finally agreed.

I lay back down again, but the weight in my chest felt like a thousand-pound stone, making it impossible to relax.

After a moment of silence, Liu Xiaopeng asked, “Brother Han, you should recover here first. Once you’re healed, we’ll go to the Zero Investigation Unit.”

I shook my head. “We can’t wait. And… we can’t let the Zero Investigation Unit lead us by the nose. If we want to find Tang Shanshan, we have to act on our own.”

“I don’t get it, Brother Han. Now that we’ve got backing, why go off on our own?” Liu Xiaopeng scratched his head in confusion.

I slowly sat up again. The pain in my chest instead made my mind clearer.

“Think about it—what kind of organization is the 507 Institute? And Di Ting—he’s the divine beast of Ksitigarbha. Their mission is to stop the two great demons from joining forces and prevent the apocalypse.”

“But I can say with certainty that rescuing Tang Shanshan is not part of their plan. The reason they’re pulling us in is probably because we still have use to them. But when it comes to the bigger picture, they could easily abandon her life.”

“So if we truly want to save Tang Shanshan, we can rely on no one—we can only rely on ourselves.”

I gritted my teeth and looked out the dark window.

“Then… what do we do next? If we don’t cooperate with the Zero Investigation Unit, we have no leads at all,” Liu Xiaopeng frowned.

I shook my head again. “I didn’t say we wouldn’t cooperate. I mean we can’t just wait around—we need to take the initiative. We have to know everything they already know.”

“I think… we need to become thieves. Sneak into the 507 Institute and see whether they’re hiding anything from us.”