Chapter 415: Can’t You Make Things a Little Easier?

At night, the antique street was deserted. Under the dim yellow streetlights, Lu Yibei strolled forward, carrying Gou Meng on her back and thinking about Chunfeng Residence.

As they neared the entrance of the alley to Chunfeng Residence, Gou Meng gently patted Lu Yibei on the shoulder. “Lu Yibei, just drop me off here, okay? Put me down. If Xiao Liu sees us later, he’ll gossip again.”

Why did this sound so much like walking a female classmate home and being afraid of running into her dad? Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly, set Gou Meng down, and nodded. “Go on!”

“Mm.” Gou Meng responded, then ran into the depths of the alley without looking back.

Watching her small figure gradually swallowed by the shadows of the alley, Lu Yibei suddenly remembered something, lightly slapped her own forehead, and called out to her back, “Wait a second!”

Gou Meng stopped, turned around, tilted her head at Lu Yibei, and asked in confusion, “What is it? Is there something else?”

“……”

Are you about to die?

Lu Yibei hesitated several times but never managed to ask. She always felt that saying it would sound like she was cursing her to die soon.

“Um… how about I stay here with you tonight?”

Gou Meng put her hands on her hips, frowned, and said with disdain, “I only have one bed at home.”

“That’s not a problem. We’re both girls now, I don’t mind,” Lu Yibei said.

“……” Gou Meng looked Lu Yibei up and down, then glanced at herself, squinting slightly. “Lu Yibei, do you have some weird fetish or something?”

“When I stayed at your place before, I wanted to share a bed with you, and you practically wanted to scatter a basket of caltrops on it. Now that I look like this, you actually want to come home with me? Oh, right, you seem to really like Bai Xiaohua, don’t you?”

“I don’t, I haven’t, don’t make things up!” Lu Yibei denied flatly.

After a few seconds of silence, Lu Yibei scratched the back of her head and said expressionlessly, “Forget it. Where do you want to go tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow…” Gou Meng thought seriously, pouted, and said, “Let’s talk about it then! I’ll think about it when I get home and call you in the morning if I decide.”

After a few seconds of silence, Lu Yibei nodded, waved at Gou Meng to urge her to go home, then turned and walked toward the edge of the antique street. When she reached the street corner, she paused slightly, looked up at the snowflakes falling from the sky, and let out a silent sigh.

Though night had fallen and all things rested, she still had many things to do.

She hadn’t seen Fu Xinyi all day and needed to visit her at the hospital. After that, she had to enter the Dream to find Qing Ji and continue practicing how to control the power of the Hundred-Armed Giant. If time allowed, she also wanted to practice the sword techniques and spell formations she’d learned before.

With the Tang City barrier about to activate and Taoyuan being bombarded, she felt that something terrifying was about to happen. Before that, she had to be fully prepared.

Oh right! If possible, she needed to make a few more Paper Cicada Immortals!

Thinking of this, Lu Yibei took out her phone and sent a message to Mao Sanyou.

Lu Yibei: “Senior brother, do you know where I can find workers who make paper effigies?”

Meanwhile, in Tang City, at Eight Immortals Ancient Street.

This street, located in the most secluded corner of Tang City’s center, was the city’s funeral supplies street. During the day, it mainly sold incense candles, spirit money, wreaths, and other sacrificial items.

At night, since most people avoided these things for fear of running into a haunting, there were no ordinary people walking on Eight Immortals Ancient Street, and it became a trading place for psychic artifacts.

At this moment, Mao Sanyou, dressed in rags and covered in blood, stood in front of a funeral supplies shop called Little Ming classmate, preparing to sell the core entities of hauntings and a few psychic artifacts he’d collected today. He received Lu Yibei’s message and instinctively glanced at the lifelike paper figures in the corner of the shop, frowning slightly.

Mao Sanyou: “What do you want those things for?”

Lu Yibei: “Self-defense.”

Mao Sanyou knew a bit about using paper figures to perform special spell formations. Thinking of the turmoil about to hit Tang City, he felt Lu Yibei’s “self-defense” reason was justified and didn’t ask further.

Mao Sanyou: “How many do you want? Any specific requirements?”

Lu Yibei: “Not many. The key is the materials and the shape. Here’s the list [image].”

Mao Sanyou, “……”

Can’t Lu Yibei just do something normal for once?

A perfectly healthy living person, making paper effigies in her own likeness-doesn’t she find it unlucky?

The owner of Little Ming classmate was a knowledgeable person. Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at the image Lu Yibei sent, immediately recognizing what she wanted to make. He muttered, “Oh, Paper Cicada Immortal, huh? Great Pure Palace’s technique… and a so-called disciple of a righteous sect, heh!”

So Lu Yibei was actually a disciple of the Great Pure Palace… Mao Sanyou grumbled inwardly, and his doubts about Lu Yibei’s actions faded further.

What bad intentions could a disciple of the Great Pure Palace possibly have?

Mao Sanyou had met quite a few Great Pure Palace disciples who joined The Midnight Watchers Society, each one overflowing with a sense of justice. Getting them to do anything shady was harder than killing them.

He glanced at the shop owner, ignored his sarcastic tone, and casually asked, “Boss, can you make this thing here?”

“Of course I can! The method for making the Paper Cicada Immortal is very simple-the real trick is the secret art that makes them move! Besides, even if you make them and know the secret, controlling them is another hurdle. Without a year or two of practice, don’t even think about it…”

“All right, all right, you don’t need to go on,” Mao Sanyou couldn’t stand others showing off these things in front of him and couldn’t help but interrupt, “I’m not interested in this stuff anyway. Why don’t I just give you my friend’s WeChat? You two can talk directly.”

With that, he notified Lu Yibei, then handed the screen displaying Lu Yibei’s account QR code to the boss.

The boss scanned the QR code and successfully added Lu Yibei’s WeChat. He looked up and smiled at Mao Sanyou, “Master Mao, thanks in advance for introducing me to some business!”

Mao Sanyou shrugged and pushed the cloth bag containing the haunting core entities and psychic ability items toward the boss. “Since that’s the case, I won’t haggle with you. Just take the commission you mentioned earlier and put these up for consignment.”

At this point, he suddenly remembered something and added, “Oh right, I saw the list my friend sent over-all cheap materials. Once the stuff is sold, just deduct the labor for making those paper figures from my share.”

“Master Mao, I have to say, those Paper Cicada Immortals aren’t exactly cheap, but they’re not that expensive either!” the boss reminded him.

“No worries, I’ve always been like this with friends. I don’t care about a little money like this!” Mao Sanyou waved his hand grandly, unconcerned.

Now that he had money, he wouldn’t have to set up a street stall anymore-this was what it meant to be generous!

“All right, if anything comes up, just talk to him. I’m busy these days, got big things to take care of, so don’t bother me.”

Whether he could come back unscathed after helping his aunt, or even collect the consignment earnings, was still up in the air.

Taking out some earnings in advance to support a fellow Midnight Watchers Society member-he could count that as a good deed.

Besides, that kid Lu Yibei said he only needed a few. Even if it was a thousand or eight hundred little paper figures, how much could it cost? Mao Sanyou thought, curled his lip, and turned to leave the little shop.

In the cold wind, the “Ming” character on the funeral supplies shop’s lightbox flickered faintly. The boss watched Mao Sanyou’s figure disappear at the street corner, gave a silent thumbs-up for his loyalty, then lowered his head and relayed his exact words to Lu Yibei via phone.

Little Ming: “That’s the situation, just as I said. Sir, how many do you want to make?”

Lu Yibei: “There’s a deal like this? I don’t need many, just give me a thousand to start!”

Boss, “???”

–

The next morning, 9:03.

Hua City, Amber Mansion.

It had snowed through the night, leaving a thick layer of snow in the Amber Mansion’s garden. Early in the morning, the sky was still murky and dim, with a faint light hovering at the horizon. Ah-Hua had already changed into winter clothes, shouldered a shovel, and started clearing snow in the garden.

At the end of the garden, inside the building, long white curtains fluttered in the breeze.

In the room, Jiang Li, still asleep, heard the faint sound of a shovel scraping against the ground outside the window. She frowned slightly, her long lashes trembling as she slowly woke up and sat up in bed.

The white down comforter slipped off, revealing her delicate, flawless shoulder. She lazily rubbed her eyes, gently pulled up the slipping strap of her nightgown, and then, like so many people do upon waking, reached for her phone on the bedside table.

She unlocked the screen, glanced at her inbox and the chat history on a certain penguin social app, and frowned. “He really didn’t reply all night…”

Muttering to herself, she thought for a moment, then held her phone in both hands and started composing a message.

[Reserve operator Lu Yibei, today is the third day. Please submit your work report by 6 p.m. today. Awaiting your reply.]

After editing the message, she stared at the screen for a second or two, but didn’t hit send. Instead, she tapped the [Cancel] option in the upper right corner, pulled up her contacts, and called Lu Yibei.

“Beep-beep-Hello, the number you dialed is busy and cannot be reached at the moment…”

“…”

It hung up after only two rings?

Jiang Li was stunned for a moment, brought the phone in front of her and studied it for a few seconds. Her bright eyes shifted as if she’d thought of something. She hurriedly got out of bed, deftly strapped on her prosthetic limb, and hobbled over to the desk in her bedroom. She turned on the computer, then grabbed a pen from the desk and quickly tied up her long hair.

The fact that the call hung up after only two rings meant that Lu Yibei either had his phone in hand and heard the call, but couldn’t or simply wasn’t able to answer.

First of all, she ruled out the possibility that there was another girl beside Lu Yibei. He didn’t want her or me to hear strange noises and cause misunderstandings. That was the most basic trust. Besides, if that were the case, he wouldn’t have ignored work messages for over a dozen hours.

If it was inconvenient or impossible to answer the phone, and he couldn’t reply to messages either, then it meant he was probably in some kind of trouble, or his phone wasn’t even with him. That was a dangerous signal.

As Jiang Li pondered this, her fingers flew across the keyboard. In a browser with a blue Death Owl icon, she entered a string of special gibberish, tapped the Enter key, paused for a moment, then stretched her neck toward the window and called out to Ah-Hua, who was busy in the garden.

“Ah-Hua, when you come up later, make me a pot of bitter tea, and keep breakfast simple!”

“Got it, miss!”

Hearing Ah-Hua’s reply, Jiang Li took a deep breath, briefly recalled the list of The Midnight Watchers Society operators and reserve operators who had gone to Tang City with Lu Yibei, and then skillfully pulled up their profile information one by one.

“Yue City, Wang Yichen… Shan City, Zhou Zhengxiang… Jiang City, Fu Xinyi… Foshan, Ye Shihu…”

After briefly browsing through the information of those operators and reserve operators, Jiang Li casually picked one, picked up her phone, and dialed the number listed in the file.

“Hello, the number you have dialed is powered off. Please try again later…”

“Hello, the number you have dialed is powered off…”

“Hello…”

“…”

She made eight or nine calls in a row, nearly half the number of operators and reserve operators who had gone to assist, and all of them were powered off. Jiang Li finally put down her phone, her expression growing grave.

If it was just Lu Yibei who couldn’t be reached, whether something unusual had happened in Tang City was still up for debate.

But if none of the operators and reserves who went to assist could be reached, then there was probably a big problem. Jiang Li thought.

Just then, the bedroom door was pushed open. Ah-Hua brought in a pot of bitter tea and steaming hot dumplings and set them down beside Jiang Li.

Seeing her serious expression, Ah-Hua was about to ask what had happened, when she saw Jiang Li grab a dumpling, bite into it, and mumble, “Ah-Hua, book me a flight to Tang City…”

Halfway through, she remembered that there might be an unpredictable crisis in Tang City. If a haunting or psychic attacked the plane, there would be no chance of survival. Jiang Li paused for a moment and changed her request, “Better book me a high-speed train ticket instead.”

“And then notify Bai Kai to come find me. If he won’t come, just tell him Lu Yibei is about to die.”

“Huh?” Ah-Hua froze for a moment, surprised. “Miss, what nonsense are you saying? The young master-uh, that brat Lu Yibei, how could he be dying?”

“It’s hard to explain right now. Just do as I say,” Jiang Li said.

“…” Ah-Hua parted her lips slightly, then bowed, “Understood, miss. I’ll take care of it right away.”

After Ah-Hua left the room, Jiang Li picked up the bitter tea and took a sip, swallowed the dumpling in her mouth, then dove back in front of her computer. Comparing the information of the unreachable operators and reserve operators, she began contacting the “death notifiers” listed in their files.

Becoming a member of The Midnight Watchers Society meant you could die unexpectedly at any time. The so-called death notifier, besides being an alternate contact, was, in a sense, also the person who would handle your affairs if something happened.

Just like Jiang Li was Lu Yibei’s death notifier. Bai Kai had pestered her about this for a long time before.

“Hello, is this Shi Datong of Yue City’s Midnight Watchers Society?”

“Zzzzt-zzzt-!”

“…”

Hearing the piercing, metallic scraping noise in her ear, Jiang Li moved the phone slightly away, frowned, and waited for over ten seconds before finally hearing a reply.

“Hello, who’s this?” A rough male voice on the other end asked impatiently.

“Hello, this is Jiang Li, Operator 05 of Hua City’s Midnight Watchers Society. That sound just now on your end…”

“Oh, a colleague from Hua City? Just now a ghoul bit my neck, couldn’t speak for a moment. You have no idea, ever since last year when, uh, can’t remember the name, the sixth haunting on the Wanted List stayed here for a while, things have been a mess ever since…”

Jiang Li nodded slightly, as if not at all surprised by things like ghouls biting throats.

Halfway through, the man on the other end suddenly started yelling at someone, “Cut the crap! If the mountain’s full of ghouls, then blow up the mountain for me! Why can’t you blow it up? There’s a coal mine under the mountain? Listen to me, if I tell you to blow it up, just do it. If something goes wrong, I’ll take responsibility!”

The sixth on the Wanted List, the Beast of Inheritance? That guy who can mimic the powers of other hauntings? While the man was yelling, Jiang Li silently grumbled in her heart.

“Hello? Ms. Jiang, are you still there? By the way, why did you suddenly contact me?”

“Oh, I just wanted to ask, has your reserve operator Wang Yichen contacted you recently?” Jiang Li said calmly. “Our reserve operator Lu Yibei went to Tang City for support and then lost contact. I tried reaching out to Wang Yichen and the other support and reserve operators, but got the same result.”

“What? Wang Yichen is missing?” The person on the other end cursed. “Damn it, Miss Jiang, hold on a moment. As soon as we finish blasting the mountain here, I’ll have someone check the situation and get back to you.”

“Okay,” Jiang Li replied. “Sorry to trouble you. I’ll go ahead and contact The Midnight Watchers Society in other cities to inform them of the situation.”

Apparently realizing the seriousness of the situation, the man on the other end replied repeatedly, “Alright, alright, this is important. You go ahead.”

After hanging up, Jiang Li immediately opened the file of the second operator, found the contact information for their bereaved, and dialed the second call.

“Hello, this is Operator 05 Jiang Li from The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City…”

“……”

It took Jiang Li nearly half an hour to contact all the bereaved of the missing operators and reserve operators. Then she put down her phone and waited for their replies after confirming the situation.

While waiting, she rubbed her brow, picked up her phone again, and, venting her frustration, sent a message to Lu Yibei.

Jiang Li: “Lu Yibei, can’t you make things a little less worrying?”

–

On the other side.

Tang City, on a vacant lot outside an abandoned distillery near the outskirts of Eight Immortals Ancient Street.

Lu Yibei felt her phone vibrate lightly in her shirt pocket. She took it out for a glance, and a barely noticeable smile flashed across her lips.

As expected of Meow Meow-chan!

Looks like she’s already caught on. With her efficiency, she’s probably already confirmed the situation with The Midnight Watchers Society in every city, maybe even reported to her superiors and started preparing to act.

This, this is truly “though we have no wings to fly together, our hearts beat as one!” Lu Yibei thought.

Although she didn’t want to rely on such mysterious things as telepathy, the situation left her no choice.

She had even tried to use-by tapping out Morse code to Jiang Li, to send information over, but that had failed too.

Fortunately…

Just as Lu Yibei was thinking this, the roar of an engine came from afar. An old truck with its cargo bed covered by a tarp slowly drove over, and a middle-aged man with heavy dark circles jumped down from the cab.

It was the owner of Little Ming classmate’s funeral supplies shop.

He looked Lu Yibei up and down and asked tentatively, “You are…?”

“That’s right, I’m the one Lu Yibei called to pick up the goods. Are all one thousand paper figures ready? You made them with wings, just like I said, right?” Lu Yibei said expressionlessly.

The owner gave a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I did exactly as you asked. I got half the street to help, worked all night, and barely finished. The alchemy residue you wanted is all on the truck too. Can you sign for it?”

“Thank you,” Lu Yibei replied, taking the receipt the owner handed over and signing her name in bold strokes-Wang Buliuxing. Then she stepped forward and lifted the tarp on the truck.

“Whoosh-!”

With a soft sound, the tarp slowly fell away, revealing the truck bed piled high with paper figures. They looked exactly like the small Paper Cicada Immortal figures Lu Yibei had made before, adorably clumsy, but now each had a pair of delicate little wings on their backs.

These wings were the result of Lu Yibei’s careful observation of the Paper Cicada Immortal’s performance in previous battles and her efforts to improve their flying ability.

Although this improvement made them much more expensive…

But it wasn’t her money anyway!

After examining them for a while and seeing that the owner still hadn’t started unloading, she frowned slightly, turned around, and asked, “What’s wrong, is there something else?”

“Well, ha…” The owner gave an awkward laugh, rubbing his hands. “Master Mao helped pay the wages in advance, but then you added an order for alchemy residue…”

Such a big order not only used up all of Mao Sanyou’s earnings from yesterday, but even exceeded it by quite a bit. He had wanted to contact Mao Sanyou for advice.

But after Mao Sanyou left last night, he lost contact. If he couldn’t get the money from this Miss Wang, he’d be taking a loss.

Seeing the owner stammering and fidgeting, Lu Yibei paused, then said expressionlessly, “I get it, you want the difference, right? Do you take disaster water?”

“We do, but…” The owner looked troubled.

How much disaster water could there be? It wouldn’t be enough to cover the extra cost!

As he thought this, he saw Lu Yibei take out a whole water cooler jug of deep black liquid from the oddly shaped metal box behind her.

The owner, “……”