Chapter 494: Mom?

A waterbed formed from tens of tons of icy pond water swept across the sky.

Watching the scene outside the windshield, Li Xuan’s face was ashen. He had already given up resisting; unless he could teleport his beloved car a hundred meters away in an instant, it would be hard not to get caught up in this.

However, just as his car was about to crash headlong into the waterbed falling from the sky, the waterbed suddenly paused in midair, then collapsed with a thunderous roar.

The torrent surged, as if the Milky Way had overturned, crashing violently onto the asphalt road and mountain wall, producing a deafening boom.

In an instant, the deserted highway in the deep night was shrouded in thick mist, the moisture so dense it felt like drowning.

Immediately after, countless water droplets splashed everywhere, swept up by some force, transforming into water tornadoes that, like gently parting a curtain of rain, avoided Li Xuan’s car and flew off to both sides.

Bang–!

A girl, wrapped like a cocoon, emerged from behind the curtain of rain and crashed onto the hood with a dull thud.

The hood instantly twisted and deformed.

The muffled sound reached his ears, snapping Li Xuan back to his senses. He slammed on the brakes.

Screech–!

The tires screeched against the road, sending wisps of blue smoke drifting from the wheel hubs.

The car came to a sudden stop. The girl on the hood was flung into the air, tracing a parabola before crashing heavily to the ground. She bounced a few times like a rubber ball, landed headfirst, and slid more than ten meters along the slippery road before finally hitting a stone pillar and coming to a stop.

Through the windshield, Li Xuan looked at his long-heard-of but never-before-seen junior sister Huá Sāng, and a sheen of sweat quietly appeared on his forehead.

The girl, clothes tattered and hair disheveled, lay face down in the grass by the roadside, motionless, her shoes flung far away. She looked just like a murder victim dumped at the scene.

Although a psychic’s body was much tougher than an ordinary person’s, it was still flesh and blood.

Even a Class A Psychic, without actively defending, could very well be sent to another world by a car accident.

What now? Shifu hasn’t even forgiven me yet, and now I’ve killed my junior sister. I might really get expelled from the sect this time.

Li Xuan muttered to himself with a grave expression, got out of the car, and cautiously approached Huá Sāng.

Could she be… dead?

He’d long heard that junior sister Huá Sāng never made big mistakes but was constantly in trouble for small ones. The elders all detested her, and the sect sending her over like this–could it be they actually wanted to clean house?

Like throwing out the trash… Li Xuan thought darkly, but then reconsidered.

If they really wanted to clean house, there was no need to send Huá Sāng to Hua City. If the Headmaster wanted, he could send her straight into the atmosphere and make her a human satellite.

Just then, Huá Sāng, lying on the ground, suddenly twitched, turned her head, drooped her eyelids at Li Xuan, and asked weakly, “Senior brother Li?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s me. You… okay?” Li Xuan asked, stunned.

For a moment, he was actually curious what Huá Sāng’s Spirit Pattern was. To take such a hit without activating her Spirit Pattern and come out unscathed.

“I’m fine.”

Seeing this, Li Xuan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, frowned, and asked, “You fell from such a height–why didn’t you protect yourself? Scared me half to death.”

“Didn’t feel like moving,” Huá Sāng replied lazily, then changed the subject, “Oh right, the Headmaster said you’d untie me once I got here.”

“Uh, this… right! Hold on, I’ll untie you now.” Li Xuan said, quickly stepping forward to undo the spell rope binding Huá Sāng.

——–

Half an hour later, on the rescue tow truck of an auto repair shop in Hua City.

After hearing Huá Sāng recount the whole story, Li Xuan asked in surprise, “So, you were sent to Hua City this time to support us on behalf of the Headmaster?”

To be sent in place of the Headmaster to support Hua City–not only did this prove Huá Sāng’s strength, it also showed the Headmaster’s trust in her.

But what puzzled Li Xuan was, shouldn’t this kind of task go to junior sister Fu Xinyi?

After all, she was the once-in-a-century genius of the Great Pure Palace, rumored to be as strong as some elders already. And this junior sister Huá Sāng…

Back when Li Xuan was at the Great Pure Palace, he’d heard of her.

But by then, he was already about to graduate and head down the mountain to report to The Midnight Watchers Society, while Huá Sāng had only been in the sect for three years. Their daily training schedules were completely different, so they’d never met.

Still, he’d heard stories about Huá Sāng from his fellow disciples.

Her studies were unremarkable, she skipped morning classes all year, was always sneaking chickens from the kitchen or stealing fruit from the herb garden, and spent her free time fishing for turtles in the back mountain pond…

She didn’t sound like a proper cultivator at all–if anything, she seemed to be heading toward becoming a disgrace to the sect.

For such a junior sister to be entrusted by the Headmaster to support Hua City, Li Xuan found it hard to believe.

Hearing Li Xuan’s question, Huá Sāng, slumped in her seat, nodded ever so slightly, “Yeah, I was sleeping, then got tied up and thrown over here to hold the fort.”

As she spoke, she glanced at the now-twisted sports car on the tow truck through the rearview mirror, frowning slightly, “By the way, senior brother, is your car okay?”

Though the car was wrecked, senior brother Li probably wouldn’t make her pay for it. She didn’t have the money anyway. At most, she could give him two turtles from the back mountain pond. But that would mean owing him a favor.

And nothing in the world is harder to repay than a favor. Just thinking about it was a headache… Huá Sāng thought.

Li Xuan was stunned for a moment, looking at Huá Sāng, his eyes trembling slightly, mist welling up in his gaze.

After all these years, for the first time something happened, and someone actually cared about whether his beloved car was okay. Honestly, he was so moved he could cry.

This is what it means to have your own people!

Completely different from those monsters and demons of The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City!

Li Xuan opened his mouth, just about to say something to Huá Sāng, when the tow truck driver suddenly laughed.

“Haha, miss, it’s just a small problem, you don’t need to worry. Xiao Li is an old customer at our repair shop–he comes at least eight times a month!”

Li Xuan, “……”

Huá Sāng glanced at the crestfallen Li Xuan out of the corner of her eye, nodded thoughtfully, then closed her eyes.

She had always believed in the principle that “life lies in tranquility.” Seeing there was no need to worry about Li Xuan’s beloved car, she decisively entered standby mode and began to meditate.

As she meditated, her thoughts drifted farther and farther away. In a daze, a massive phantom with a turtle’s body and a snake’s tail appeared in her mind. The snake tail was vivid and lifelike, its appearance fierce, flicking out a long tongue, while the turtle body was faint and illusory, like a wisp of mist that could dissipate at any moment……

——–

After falling into the pitch-black vortex, Lu Yibei felt herself drifting in the darkness for a long, long time.

Then, she opened her eyes and saw the moonlight outside the window.

Dust drifted down from the wooden ceiling, dancing in the dim firelight of the fireplace. The air was filled with the unique aroma of burning fruitwood, and from time to time, the soft crackle of burning firewood reached her ears.

Where… is this? Lu Yibei wondered blankly, sitting up and looking around.

It was a plain, almost boringly simple room, tidied up neatly.

But in fact, there wasn’t much to tidy up. The whole room contained only a single bed, with a few pieces of women’s clothing messily thrown on it, a desk with a coffee pot and a thick envelope on top, and an old television in the corner that seemed unused for a long time, covered in a layer of dust.

The entire room seemed to convey a message to Lu Yibei–the owner of this house lived a simple, frugal, low-desire life, almost like a monk.

Could this be the place at the core of the special space?

Doesn’t living alone in a place like this get lonely?

As Lu Yibei was thinking, the door to the room was suddenly pushed open. With a soft creak, a familiar face appeared before her eyes, and her pupils shrank slightly.

The newcomer was a woman, her gentle brows and eyes bearing an eight or nine-tenths resemblance to her own, giving her the illusion of looking into a mirror.

In that instant, without any hint, the deep sense of familiarity from her soul told her who this woman was.

But… is this really Ms. Wang Meili?

Isn’t she a bit too young? Lu Yibei thought. In her imagination, Ms. Wang Meili should be like her father–no longer young.

In fact, from the very first second the woman entered the room, Lu Yibei had been staring at her, but she couldn’t tell her age at all.

Her delicate skin seemed like that of an eighteen-year-old girl, but her aura felt like that of a woman just past thirty.

“Awake? If you’re up, come eat,” the woman said with a bright smile. “I made king crab, just caught from the sea, it’s very fresh.”

Hearing “king crab,” Lu Yibei suddenly understood something. She called tentatively to the woman’s back, “Mom?”

At the sound, Wang Meili, who was heading to the kitchen, paused, turned around, tilted her head, and smiled, “What is it?”

“……”

Staring at that familiar yet unfamiliar face, Lu Yibei’s lips parted slightly. Her thoughts and emotions surged violently, as if the sky was collapsing, but she couldn’t utter a single word.

After a long while, she shook her head. “No, it’s nothing.”

How could it be nothing? She had so much she wanted to say, all of it important, but for the moment, she didn’t know where to begin.

“Silly child, if it’s nothing, hurry and come eat,” Wang Meili said with a smile. “Seafood gets fishy when it’s cold, and it won’t taste good.”

With that, she turned and left the room.

Watching Wang Meili’s departing figure, Lu Yibei hesitated for a few seconds, then followed.

She really wanted to rush up and hug the woman who had disappeared from her life for nineteen years and now suddenly reappeared.

But she raised her hand, then slowly lowered it, clenching her small fist until her nails dug into her flesh, her body trembling slightly.

In that instant, she remembered a lost puppy she’d seen on Mudan Street as a child. The puppy had always waited in the same spot for its owner to return, only eating a little of the food and water the neighbors gave it each time.

But when its owner finally came looking for it more than two months later and reached out to it, the puppy hesitated and backed away warily……