Chapter 439: Return to the Past

Lu Yibei’s New Year wasn’t exactly comfortable. Because of his trip to Tang City, he spent New Year’s night with Professor Ma, turning on the computer and using the Spring Festival Gala as background music while writing reports for the project research group’s wrap-up work.

Back when he first went to Chunfeng Residence, he had boasted that he’d make a certain pesky little sister do homework over the New Year, but now it turned out he was the one writing.

However.

After returning to Hua City, he still had a pretty happy Lantern Festival.

Since that car accident, it was the first time he’d celebrated a festival so lively.

He had to admit, Meow Meow-chan’s house was really quite big, An Qing’s hawthorn-filled dumplings were really quite strange, Du Sixian’s fireworks show was really quite extravagant, and Shui-Ge’s yangko pole dance with the <Great Sorrow DJ Remix> accompaniment was really quite outrageous.

Anyway, Jiang Li had already banned Shui-Ge from getting close to Amber Mansion for the time being.

—-

After the Lantern Festival, the new semester season soon arrived at all the major universities.

Today was the registration day for the new semester at Hua City University of Technology. When the first ray of morning sunlight was still flirting with the horizon, the alarm clock at Lu Yibei’s bedside rang.

There was no chance for that strange phenomenon of “the alarm rings in the morning, you want to sleep a bit more, and when you wake up again you’re already half an hour late.”

The moment the alarm rang, Lu Yibei climbed out of bed, turned off the alarm, walked into the bathroom with a blank face, washed up, put on his coat, hid a fruit knife in the inside pocket, pocketed a few Alchemical Bombs, and dawdled out the door.

Even though he himself was the head of Hua City’s biggest “criminal underworld,” it never hurt to be prepared for emergencies-those who fail to plan ahead will surely have immediate worries.

The holidays were over, but the streets were still decorated with lanterns and streamers. Walking on the way to school, he could still smell the lingering “New Year flavor” in the air-a mix of delicious food aromas and the smoke of fireworks.

Lu Yibei couldn’t remember what year Hua City started allowing fireworks again, but it must have been after the nights grew longer, probably to drive away the Nian beast.

According to The Midnight Tome, as a haunting with a long and rich cultural history, the Nian beast had a high chance of coming into being.

From the knowledge of the Great Serpent God, regarding the Nian beast, Lu Yibei speculated that its psychic energy fluctuation level was at least A- to start with, and just like those cute yellow peony enamel basins used for lard, it was standardized nationwide, as if it had mastered the Multi Shadow Clone Technique-truly dangerous.

Being able to eliminate multiple potential high-tier hauntings by setting off fireworks and firecrackers was a very cost-effective method.

It was just that, in this way, firefighters and ordinary citizens like Lu Yibei who liked peace and quiet had to suffer.

Just a couple of nights ago, he’d been woken up by the firecrackers of naughty kids in the neighborhood.

The fact that the firecrackers could pull him straight out of a dream showed just how outrageous they were.

He once wanted to spend a lot of money to buy several thousand magic bullets to drive away the naughty kids setting off fireworks, but in the end, he couldn’t bear to part with his money. He could only send his little Haunting at home to sneak into the naughty kids’ houses at night and wipe their nearly finished winter homework clean.

And so, the world became quiet again.

Although during the day he could always hear the cries of children being scolded in the neighborhood, it was still much better than the firecrackers at night.

—-

Passing by the bun shop at the entrance of the apartment complex, Lu Yibei, who strictly adhered to the principle of a healthy breakfast, bought a basket of buns and a cup of soy milk, then ate slowly with a face like he was attending a funeral.

At least he didn’t throw up this time… The bun shop owner watched him walk away with a fierce look, silently putting down the kitchen knife in his hand.

Ever since Uncle Zhang Shan’s live radio show had become more and more popular, Lu Yibei rarely suffered from the kind of hunger that drove him to the brink of madness. And after successfully carrying out the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts, with the blessing of Ley Line Energy, the “food” problem was finally properly solved.

The only issue was that, when eating normal human food, it still occasionally tasted like chewing wax.

Tsk, small problem, just endure it.

Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly, biting into a bun, pulling out his phone, logging into the chat app, and frowning slightly at the messages from the Online Old Pervert.

Online Old Pervert 00: “There’s still no progress on the thing you asked us to investigate. [Loli Apology.jpg]”

Wang Buliuxing: “Then go tell your boss, if you want to know how Gou Meng recondensed her power and even took her strength a step further, I just won’t tell it for now.”

That day, when Gou Meng recondensed her power, so many psychics and hauntings-both friend and foe-around Taoyuan had already spread the general situation through all sorts of overt and covert channels. It was no secret.

Due to limited information, clueless onlookers had even made up a dozen different versions.

Now, the Gou Meng in the rumors had become a terrifying figure that even Rakshasas would bow to and Dharma Protectors would frown at.

In just half a month, she’d jumped from the bottom of the top ten on The Midnight Watchers Society’s Wanted List to second place, only behind the mysterious president of the Eclipse Society.

However, the description of Gou Meng’s new power was finalized after long discussions among several loyal familiars, including Grandpa Turtle.

Very few people or hauntings knew the detailed process. Now, all the factions were wondering whether Gou Meng had mastered some new path to advancement.

If Gou Meng hadn’t been strong enough, had just clashed head-on with the city’s barrier, and conveniently killed hundreds of psychics and hauntings who had their eyes on her, making a name for herself-

Most organizations would probably have already started plotting to capture her for dissection and research.

As the person involved, Lu Yibei naturally knew what happened that day, and knew even better that Gou Meng didn’t become stronger immediately after successfully condensing a new power, but grew stronger gradually over half a month, and that this process was still ongoing.

But knowing didn’t help.

After he came back, he made up more than a dozen different versions of the story for himself, tried at least eighty if not a hundred times, but none of them worked.

He speculated that this was probably because the number of people and hauntings who truly believed in the existence of the “Calamity” haunting was still far less than Gou Meng’s.

The deeds of “Calamity” also weren’t as distinctive and unique as Gou Meng’s.

Almost no one knew about killing the Great Serpent God.

The credit for bringing down Dream Come True Entertainment City and sealing the Big Boss mostly went to Black Peony and the Celestian.

As for the Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts, sorry, there were so many King of Hauntings who had successfully completed it worldwide-which one do you mean?

So, after consulting Gou Meng, he decided to use the “secret” of her condensing a new power as a bargaining chip, and tell the Void.

Online Pervert 00: Don’t! You don’t know, our boss has only been awake two hours a day lately, and every time he wakes up he nags me about this-I’m sick of it. [Loli pouting and crying.jpg]

Online Pervert 00: If it really won’t do, as an exchange, we can help you investigate something else? Or collect some other intel, that’s fine too.

Other intel? Lu Yibei looked at the phone screen, thought for a moment, and sent a message back.

Wang Buliuxing: How about this, you get me some Flame Fish Scales and enough Spirit of Ignition, and also a Xiezhi Crown from before the Eastern Han, and I’ll tell you.

He had already bought the materials needed to complete the core entity of the haunting from Fat Master, but the relatively rare Flame Fish Scales and the especially rare Spirit of Ignition were still nowhere to be found.

As for the Xiezhi Crown, that was for Jiang Li.

Xing Yuan was a woman who kept her word. Not long after Jiang Li returned to Hua City, she got an opportunity for Spirit Pattern advancement and was invited to the Shengjing headquarters of The Midnight Watchers Society for Spirit Pattern completion.

However, the Spirit Pattern reserves of The Midnight Watchers Society were also limited.

Of the eleven types of Spirit Patterns Jiang Li could advance, the Society currently had complete materials for only four.

The rest were all missing some materials to varying degrees. If she wanted to choose those types, she’d have to wait for the headquarters to collect them.

Of course, if an operator who met the Spirit Pattern advancement requirements could gather the missing materials themselves, they could also go to headquarters to complete the advancement, and even get some compensation.

Jiang Li had never liked to settle. Although the advancement options the headquarters could currently provide were all good, none were what she wanted.

The choice of Spirit Pattern was a big deal; whether one could fully unleash its power was closely related to the user’s personality, experience, and habits.

Some people would deliberately change themselves to fit the Spirit Pattern and use it to the fullest, but Jiang Li would never do that.

In her view, Spirit Patterns were just tools. If you changed yourself to fit the tool, making the tool the master and yourself the accessory, wasn’t that ridiculous?

Besides, doing so would increase the risk of the Spirit Pattern going out of control.

So she chose to wait.

But this meant the time spent became an unknown.

The Xiezhi Crown, as the official hat of law enforcers from the Tang dynasty and earlier, was mostly made of various fabrics except for the iron crown pillar and some jewel decorations. It couldn’t withstand the erosion of time and was hard to preserve intact, making it difficult to find.

Online Pervert 00: Flame Fish Scales and Spirit of Ignition are easy to understand, they’re related to your haunting’s power. But what do you want a Xiezhi Crown for? [Catgirl curious.jpg]

Ancient books say: “Xie Zhi, like a qilin, one horn, can distinguish right from wrong. When it sees people fighting, it butts the unjust; when it hears people arguing, it bites the dishonest.”

From this, it’s clear that the Xie Zhi is a brave and just divine beast, with no connection whatsoever to the disaster-spreading Nu Ba or the calamity-bringing Lilith.

Wang Buliuxing: Don’t worry about it. If you can do it, great; if not, forget it. And can you stop sending lewd image emojis? My emoji storage is almost full.

Besides, seeing those emojis and thinking of your lecherous old man face just makes my skin crawl… Lu Yibei thought.

Online Pervert 00: We can do it, we can do it, I was just asking, don’t take it to heart.

Online Pervert 00: To be honest, some psychics who specialize in tomb raiding often sell psychic artifacts through our bounty site. Getting them to help ask around won’t be a problem.

Wang Buliuxing: Then I’ll leave it to you. Contact me when you have news.

Hmph! The fact that Meow Meow-chan wants to transform from a Centaur into a “Unicorn” is practically a top secret of The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City-how could I tell you that?

Lu Yibei thought to himself, replied to the message, put away his phone, and continued walking toward Hua City University of Technology, lost in thought.

It’s too strange-even the Void can’t find a single clue about Qi Nanzhu?

Who exactly is this woman, and what is her relationship with my old man?

Could she be the third party who drove away Ms. Wang Meili? Lu Yibei wondered.

That’s right, Wang Meili is the name of Lu Yibei’s mother. Although he had never seen his mother since birth, at least he knew her name.

This was also one of the reasons he felt justified using the alternate account “Wang Buliuxing”-after all, half of the blood in his veins came from the next-door Wang family.

Whenever he thought of the Wang Meili he had never met, Lu Yibei would sigh silently.

Whenever he asked about his mother in the past, his old man and Shui-Ge would always dodge the question, vaguely hinting at the cruel truth that his mother had already passed away.

But they underestimated how sharp a child’s mind can be. Maybe it was just his imagination, but Lu Yibei always felt there was a tone of “after a breakup, your ex is as good as dead” in their voices.

So, as a child, Lu Yibei often wondered if his mother was still somewhere in the world, forced to leave home for some unspeakable reason.

He even suspected for a time that it was because of Shui-Ge’s role as a third party.

Who told Shui-Ge to always be hanging around with his old man in such a flamboyantly gay way?

But as time went by, he gradually forgot about it.

After all, his old man gave him enough fatherly love, and Shui-Ge provided a bit of motherly care, ensuring he grew up healthy and with no major issues in his thinking.

—-

After the Lantern Festival, the weather in Hua City quickly warmed up.

At dusk, a fine drizzle began to fall over Hua City.

In a secluded alley not far from Hua City No. 15 High School.

A round-faced girl holding a pink umbrella tiptoed through the muddy puddles, heading toward the residential building ahead.

Suddenly, the manhole cover in the middle of the road ahead gave a dull thud, followed by a “Duang!” as it popped open a crack. An ugly, pitch-black bizarre fish crawled out from the gap, speaking human words.

“Young lady! A terrible threat is approaching, the world is in grave danger, please sign a contract with me and become a Magical Girl!”

“……”

The girl stared at the peculiar little thing before her, silent for a few seconds. Her eyes narrowed warily as she slowly closed her umbrella, gripping it in a textbook sword-holding stance.

The next moment, she lunged forward, wind whistling, the tip of her umbrella piercing countless raindrops.

“Ah-! Stop hitting me, stop! I’m going to die!”

“Magical Girl, huh? Incubator, huh? Want to turn my emotions into energy, huh? Go to hell!”

systems, “!!!”

Can you stop watching so much depressing stuff?

All I did was invite you to become a Magical Girl, where are you getting all these conspiracy theories from!

Damn!

The systems had never thought that finding a like-minded host could be so difficult, but in this city that looked like Hua City but wasn’t quite Hua City, the young people’s vigilance was off the charts.

Standard system loading doesn’t work, deities granting wishes doesn’t work, even becoming a Magical Girl doesn’t work… basically, nothing works.

It’s as if someone had pre-installed a program in their brains to guard against anything mysterious-everyone’s a hardcore materialist warrior.

—-

While the systems were being brutally beaten, on the other side of the city.

As night fell, Gu Qianqian crouched by the brightly lit street, a piece of corrugated cardboard over her head, watching the crowds hurrying to avoid the rain, looking like a kitten abandoned in the corner of the city.

Where is this place? It looks so much like Hua City!

But why does everyone dare to go out at night? And there are no obvious psychic energy fluctuations around.

If only the systems were here… Eh! What is that person eating? It looks and smells so good!

Gu Qianqian thought, staring at the snack in the man’s hand as he passed by, watching until his figure disappeared from view, and then her eyes quickly dimmed.

Hungry, want to eat, but no money in her pocket-this was a deadly problem.

When Gu Qianqian woke up this morning and found herself still in the familiar Hua City, she was very happy, but reality soon struck her with a series of thunderbolts, leaving even the ahoge on her head drooping listlessly.

Her brother was gone, the bamboo slips wouldn’t open, and it seemed like no one in the entire city remembered her name.

Most importantly, the systems had disappeared without a trace.

To Gu Qianqian, the systems were both a playful mentor and a meticulous yet sharp-tongued nanny. Ever since meeting the systems, all her daily needs had been taken care of by them.

Now, without the systems, she felt as if she had returned to the days when she first wandered the streets…