Clan Building System: I'm not the Protagonist?! - Chapter 295

Chapter 295: 295- Updated*
Du Juan flinched back, her shoulders trembling.

“I—I had no other way!” she cried, her voice breaking again.

“I fed the souls of the bandits who attacked me… to her! It was the only way to keep her alive!”

Fang Yuan’s sigh came heavy and long. He closed his eyes briefly, then returned the necklace to her trembling hands.

“Her soul is contaminated,” he said softly, “beyond repair. Even the Seven-Ring Lotus wouldn’t be able to heal her now.”

Du Juan froze in her steps, her lips parted, but no sound came out and only a silent shudder ran through her body.

Her tears had all dried, leaving her face pale and hollow. Despair weighed on her like an invisible chain.

Fang Yuan studied her in silence for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

The dim glow of the necklace reflected in his eyes, and for an instant, even the air around them seemed to still.

Finally, he exhaled softly and shook his head.

“We can’t repair it,” he said quietly, his tone carrying a finality that made Du Juan’s shoulders tremble.

Her breath hitched, despair beginning to shadow her face but then, a spark flickered in Fang Yuan’s gaze.

“However…” he continued, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips, “I can rebuild it.”

Her head snapped up, eyes wide with sudden, fragile hope. “R–really? You can?”

He nodded once, his expression steady.

“Of course. But understand, when I rebuild her soul, she’ll probably be like an infant again. Except she may retain her memories and what not. It’ll be as if Brother Xiao and you had… a child of your own.”

Du Juan blinked, and for the first time, a smile broke through the grief.

“I don’t mind!” she said brightly, her voice trembling with relief.

“As long as she’s normal again… as long as she can live, I’ll raise her all over again!”

Fang Yuan couldn’t help the faint smile that tugged at his lips.

“Good,” he said. “Then let’s get started.”

He turned his gaze toward the horizon, where faint plumes of smoke rose from the distant cities below.

“We’ll need a few materials to craft the new vessel. And as it happens,” he added with a dry chuckle, “the Qin and Azure Phoenix kingdoms are hoarding more than enough treasures for us both. Since they’re so eager to rob others… what goes around, comes around.”

He placed a firm hand on Du Juan’s shoulder. The air around them rippled like water disturbed by a storm.

“Hold on,” he murmured.

In the next instant, the world folded. The gentle breeze of Mount Skyhowl was replaced by the oppressive aura of power.

When the void split open again, Fang Yuan and Du Juan stepped out into the night directly outside the towering gates of the Qin Palace.

The air was thick with spiritual energy and the faint stench of burning woods.

Above them, banners fluttered proudly under the moonlight.

Fang Yuan looked up at the gilded walls of the imperial fortress and smiled faintly.

“Well then,” he said softly. “Shall we begin?”

Du Juan nodded firmly, determination gleaming through the lingering redness in her eyes.

Fang Yuan smiled faintly at her resolve, the corners of his lips curling in quiet amusement.

“Alright,” he said, voice calm yet carrying that familiar, dangerous confidence. “But let’s wait here for a moment.”

As Du Juan caught her breath, Fang Yuan’s eyes flickered, his focus turning inward.

A familiar chime echoed in his mind, followed by a cold line of text that shimmered in front of him like starlight.

[Quest: Ransack the Two Kingdoms’ Treasuries]

Reward: The Perfect Vessel for a Soul to Possess.

He stared at it for a brief moment as the text pulsed faintly, bathing his face in a soft golden hue.

After a long moment, he sighed and stretched lazily, rolling his shoulders as if to shake off the tension.

Truth be told, that confident declaration earlier about his claim that he could rebuild a soul hadn’t come from certainty or mastery.

It was nothing more than a bluff and the only real reason he’d dared to say such a thing was because of this quest.

He had received it the moment Du Juan begged him to save her sister, and its reward of a perfect vessel for a soul was the only thread of hope he could give her.

Without it, even Fang Yuan wouldn’t have the audacity to make promises that danced between life and death.

He ran a hand through his hair, lips twitching into a faint, helpless smile.

Exhaling, he dismissed the system window with a flick of his fingers, letting the faint glow dissolve into the night air.

Then he turned toward Du Juan, whose anxious eyes were still fixed on him.

“Alright,” he said lightly, his usual easy confidence returning as he lifted his right hand. “Are you ready to save your sister?”

Without waiting for a reply, he reached into his spatial ring.

A ripple of qi spread through the air, and a sleek, jade-colored flying boat emerged, hovering in midair.

Its surface gleamed under the moonlight, inscribed with faint spiritual runes that pulsed like a heartbeat.

Fang Yuan smirked and patted its side.

“Come on,” he said with casual charm, tilting his head toward her. “Hop in.”

Du Juan nodded once and she stepped aboard.

Fang Yuan followed, the night wind stirring his robes as the floating vessel rose smoothly into the air, cutting through the mist toward the gleaming walls of the Qin Palace.

The floating boat hovered silently above the world, its sleek hull gleaming faintly under the moonlight.

And then the Fang Yuan infused a wisp of qi into its core, the runes along its sides shimmered, and the vessel began to hum with a deep, resonant tone.

Then, in the space of a breath, the air around them folded inward.

The stars stretched and bent, swallowed by swirling darkness as the boat slipped out of the physical world, vanishing from mortal sight.

The sound of wind, the glow of moonlight, even the pulse of heaven and earth all fell away into a tranquil, endless void.

Here, inside the folds between space, time felt slower. Every ripple of energy left behind long silver trails, like brushstrokes on black silk.

The void was vast, silent, and suffocating, yet Fang Yuan piloted the craft with one hand resting lazily on the helm, his expression calm.

Du Juan stood beside him, her fingers gripping the railing tightly.

The strange stillness of the void pressed on her chest, but she kept her eyes forward, watching as faint fragments of the real world shimmered beyond the veil, like ghosts flickering through a dream.

Fang Yuan wasn’t rushing this mission.

Every few moments, he made small gestures with his fingers, adjusting the boat’s spiritual resonance to slip past invisible folds of energy.

If he went too fast, the void’s fabric might tear, alerting the royal formations guarding the capital.

He guided them like a man threading a needle through thunderclouds.

Hours or perhaps minutes, time was hard to tell here as they passed before the faint outline of Qin’s royal city began to form through the veiled darkness.

It shimmered beneath them like a vast sea of light and qi.

Fang Yuan’s gaze sharpened as he slowed the boat even further, moving along the outer layers of the capital’s barrier.

To mortal eyes, the palace would appear serene, grand towers bathed in moonlight, watchtowers lined with guards, and a thousand spirit lanterns glowing gently through the mist.

But to Fang Yuan’s divine sense, it was a fortress of death.

Nine layers of protective arrays, each woven with Heaven-grade seals, wrapped around the treasury like a dragon coiling its hoard.

Every few seconds, bolts of spiritual lightning traced through the air, scanning for intruders.

“Typical of Qin,” Fang Yuan muttered. “So much security just to hoard what they stole from others.”

He raised one hand, drawing symbols in the air.

Threads of dark-blue qi followed his motion, merging into a faint sigil that pulsed rhythmically with the flow of the barrier below.

The jade boat responded instantly, its runes dimming to match the exact frequency of the city’s defensive formation.

They were now part of the system, undetectable, invisible even to divine sense.

As the boat drifted lower, Du Juan’s breath quickened.

Below them, the treasury came into view, a colossal structure of white jade and black iron.