Chapter 529: Paper Cicada Immortal (1:1 Clone)

After leaving the meeting room, Du Sixian led Lu Yibei through the office area, down a short corridor, and stopped in front of a wall covered in mottled moss.

I remember this was the entrance to the cellar, right? Why is there an extra stone here? Lu Yibei wondered.

“Dang–dang, dang–dang–!”

Du Sixian knocked rhythmically on the wall a few times. Instantly, several small holes opened up in the wall, exhaling with a “pfft” sound, releasing a few bursts of white smoke. Then, after a rumbling noise, the wall rotated ninety degrees outward, revealing a heavy iron door hidden behind it.

At this moment, Lu Yibei noticed that on the inside of the wall, two huge eyes were attached, hazy and sleepy-looking, as if they had just woken up.

She turned around, gave Lu Yibei a sweet smile, raised a hand, and explained softly, “This is the child of the gatekeeping painted wall spirit, just born not long ago. I thought the iron door wasn’t secure enough, so I had it guard the entrance.”

You call this just born? Its head is bigger than mine! Lu Yibei frowned, leaned in and whispered, “Hey, isn’t hiring child labor a bit inappropriate?”

Du Sixian gave Lu Yibei a meaningful smile. “If you don’t pay them, it doesn’t count as hiring!”

Lu Yibei, “???”

Uh… Is this the ugly face of capitalism?

“Pfft!” Du Sixian saw Lu Yibei freeze and covered her mouth, chuckling softly. “Hero, don’t worry, everyone treats this little one well!”

“Really? That’s good…”

Lu Yibei scratched the back of her head, not thinking much of it. Seeing Du Sixian take out a key to open the iron door, she followed her inside the warehouse.

When Hua City Calamity Irresponsible Scare Company was first founded, this warehouse didn’t exist. It was only after the hauntings in Hua City expanded their “Lost Item Return” business for a while, and more and more items couldn’t find their owners, that Lu Yibei dug out a cellar to store them.

While she was in Tang City, Du Sixian expanded the cellar and further transformed it into a large underground warehouse over twenty thousand square meters.

Although Hua City Calamity Irresponsible Scare Company doesn’t need such a large storage space for now,

Du Sixian is confident that, at the current rate of development, one day she’ll turn this place into a “king’s” treasure vault!

Entering the warehouse, a faint dusty smell greeted them. The spacious area, about five meters high, was filled with rows of simple, practical metal shelves, neatly arranged, stretching to the end of sight. At first glance, it felt like being inside a warehouse-style superstore.

On the shelves were small bamboo baskets, each holding a cleaned, disinfected, dried, and plastic-sealed item.

Maybe a pink suitcase with a shipping label that was never sent, or a patched-up teddy bear with “most beloved” scrawled on it, or a handmade photo frame holding a faded old family photo of three…

Every item seemed to silently tell a story–the stories of Hua City’s residents, and also the story of Hua City itself.

Looking at these things, Lu Yibei suddenly thought of Ms. Wang Meili’s photo album, her eyes dimming.

After she used those photos recording her life to reconstruct her body, the album was nowhere to be found.

She didn’t know if it was lost or destroyed.

Du Sixian caught sight of Lu Yibei’s tightly furrowed brow as she examined each item, and sidled up to her, whispering, “Hero, honestly… I feel most of these things will be hard to find their owners, maybe their owners even threw them away on purpose.”

Hearing this, Lu Yibei pulled herself together, looked at Du Sixian, and sighed silently, “Let’s keep them for now! Anyway, there’s still space here, right?”

As she spoke, she picked up a coverless, worn-out diary from a bamboo basket, then gently put it back.

On the first page of the diary was written: [February 20th, one hundred days in love, I wrote my first diary entry, starting to record our daily life…]

“Keep them! Maybe their owners just don’t want them for now.” Lu Yibei said, her brows relaxing.

Someday, people will remember the beauty they once lost, Lu Yibei added silently in her heart.

I’ll ask the Online Old Pervert later how their haunting bounty website manages to let people or hauntings “accidentally” open the page only when they need it. Then I’ll make one myself, dedicated to “Lost Item Return.”

Of course, it can’t be free!

Continuous scares, a short span of lifespan, or a certain amount of money–you have to pick one as a storage fee, right? Lu Yibei thought.

The haunting bounty website also has matching reward recovery technology, so I can just use that.

Void always copies me, so why can’t I copy it?!

It won’t affect their business anyway.

——–

Lu Yibei followed Du Sixian forward, passing through rows of shelves. About two minutes later, her vision suddenly opened up–a spacious platform the size of a soccer field appeared before her eyes.

In one corner of the platform, shrouded in shadow, something was piled under waterproof tarps into two small mountains, like a slumbering monster.

“Hero, please wait a moment.” Du Sixian smiled at Lu Yibei, then walked forward, switched on the lights, grabbed the edge of the waterproof tarp, and gave it a gentle tug.

Whoosh! The waterproof tarp flew off, and over a hundred cardboard boxes immediately appeared before their eyes.

On the outermost edge, two or three boxes were not completely filled and left open, revealing inside, vaguely visible, were palm-sized paper figures.

Glancing at the open boxes, Lu Yibei narrowed her eyes, her mind working rapidly.

Judging from the half-filled boxes, a full box could hold about eighty small Paper Cicada Immortals. Roughly counting, there were about one hundred and twenty boxes here…

That meant there were about nine thousand to ten thousand Paper Cicada Immortals here?

Not bad, just barely enough!

Lu Yibei nodded in satisfaction, turned to look at Du Sixian, raised her eyebrows, and asked, “Hey, where’s the big treasure?”

With so many small Paper Cicada Immortals, if she wanted to equip them all with Alchemical Bombs, there definitely wouldn’t be enough disaster water. Besides, the fingertip blood needed to activate the Paper Cicada Immortals would be enough to drain her dry, so she couldn’t make full use of them for now.

So, she was more concerned about the ones she could use immediately–the 1:1 Paper Cicada Immortals.

“Over here.” Du Sixian responded, took a few steps to the side, and with a whoosh, pulled off another waterproof tarp.

Whoosh!

As the tarp fluttered down, twelve large Paper Cicada Immortals of different designs were revealed before their eyes.

The twelve Paper Cicada Immortals were grouped in threes, each set crafted to represent the human state, witch type state, mythical type state, and the current state where the two major haunting core entities were relatively balanced.

Looking at those Paper Cicada Immortals, Lu Yibei’s eyes lit up, and she exclaimed, “These… were all made by Meng? That’s amazing!”

Although according to the Qing Ji Sect’s crafting method, making a Paper Cicada Immortal that could move wasn’t that demanding–you only needed to use bamboo strips, paste, and yellow paper to create a body that could be roughly identified, then paint on eyebrows, eyes, and red lips with watercolor and cinnabar.

But judging from her own previous attempts as a hopelessly clumsy crafter, being careless during the modeling stage meant that every finished product, once barely able to move, was enough to become a source of mental pollution–a bizarre oddity.

Clumsy hands are an incurable disease!

Now, the twelve before her, though made with the same common materials as her own–bamboo strips, paste, yellow paper, watercolor, and cinnabar–were on a completely different level, like “minimalist lines” versus “ultimate color.”

Aside from the skin still showing a bit of paper texture and the makeup around the brows carrying a hint of green-clothed style–two flaws that weren’t really flaws–they almost perfectly restored every bodily detail.

Just looking at them made one want to reach out and feel their breath, to see if they were truly alive.

Back when she left Hua City, Meng had volunteered to take on the task of making these large Paper Cicada Immortals. Lu Yibei hadn’t held out much hope.

If it worked, great; if not, she’d think of another way.

But the result was a delightful surprise.

“Meng is incredible! I have to ask her to help me make another one, modeled after the Bai Xiaohua third anniversary limited figurine!” Lu Yibei muttered excitedly.

That figurine had almost become her obsession.

Once, a 1:1 replica Bai Xiaohua figurine had been right in front of Lu Yibei–only fifty were made. She had to choose between an in-game purchase in a mobile game and buying the figurine, and she chose the former, only to regret it afterward.

Now another chance was before her, and all she wanted to say was, “If others have it, our child must have it too! Not only have it, but it must also be able to move!”

But soon, she shook her head at herself.

After thinking for a moment, she more or less figured out how Meng managed to make such highly accurate Paper Cicada Immortals.

Meng’s innate skill [Dreamcraft] was, in a way, similar to the operating principle of the Divine Land prototype–more or less a youthful minimalist version.

So she was very familiar with the body structure and details of those she had once pulled into her dreams, making it relatively easy to replicate them when crafting Paper Cicada Immortals.

However, Meng had never pulled the third anniversary Bai Xiaohua skin into a dream, so any product she made would probably end up just like the ones Lu Yibei made herself–a mobile source of mental pollution.

Lu Yibei glanced at Du Sixian, who seemed about to speak but stopped, and sighed silently, “Forget it, I don’t really want it that much anyway.”

It’s only what you can’t get that you can’t forget; once you have it, you take it for granted. Maybe if she had really bought that Bai Xiaohua figurine back then, it would just be gathering dust in the storage room now.

Besides, if a moving Bai Xiaohua really appeared at home and was discovered by Meow Meow-chan, there would be no way to explain it.

Most importantly, although she had become the King of Hauntings in Hua City out of necessity, Du Sixian and Meng were already working hard enough managing all the hauntings in Hua City. Since she couldn’t help much, she shouldn’t trouble them any further.

Lu Yibei pondered, her willow brows knitted together, and her large, sparkling eyes faintly revealed a trace of disappointment. Unconsciously, she pouted her cherry-colored lips.

She looked just like a child who, upon seeing a toy she liked in a glass display case, restrained her desire because she knew her family was struggling financially, sensibly choosing not to ask for it.

Du Sixian secretly observed Lu Yibei. Seeing this scene, she couldn’t help but cover her mouth, stifling a silent laugh.

Why does everyone always think Hero is scary?

She’s obviously so cute! Du Sixian thought.

With such an adorable “boss,” being able to work in her favorite field related to hauntings, and also fully utilizing her management skills–she felt there was nothing better than this!

“Next, I should find a place to test out these treasures.”

Lu Yibei sized up the twelve Paper Cicada Immortals, propping her chin with one hand and muttering to herself.

Sooner or later, she had to find a way to sneak into the Great Pure Palace and could leave Hua City at any time. She had already planned for this: to avoid missing too many classes and failing to get her diploma during her absence from Hua City, she intended to use these 1:1 Paper Cicada Immortals to attend classes in her place and ensure her attendance rate.

If before this was just a sudden idea, after seeing the finished 1:1 Paper Cicada Immortals, she was ready to put it into action.

However, this matter probably wouldn’t be as simple as controlling Miss Qiu.

To control Miss Qiu’s “divine retribution,” she only needed to let it fly over, land steadily, and then trigger the lnnate skill mark attached to it.

Not much technical skill required.

However, trying to multitask–sneaking into the Great Pure Palace while controlling the Paper Cicada Immortal to attend classes–would be much more difficult.

At the very least, she had to ensure that the Paper Cicada Immortal’s every move at school wouldn’t seem too abnormal to others, right?

It was like the difference between using an excavator to dig and demolish walls, and using an excavator to cook–one allowed for some roughness, the other at least required not puncturing the pan.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Yibei turned to Du Sixian and said, “Sixian, if it’s okay, I’ll take a few with me in a bit? I want to find a place to practice controlling these things.”

“Eh, sure!” Du Sixian nodded. “Do you need me to deliver them for you?”

“No need, I can take them myself,” Lu Yibei shook her head.

She had already decided to use the Divine Land prototype to transport the Paper Cicada Immortals to Hua City University of Technology, then find a secluded spot to practice controlling them.

After all, she would be controlling the Paper Cicada Immortals around campus later anyway, so getting some hands-on practice early to adapt to the environment wasn’t a bad idea.

Besides, at this hour, there were hardly any students or teachers on campus, especially near the main path of Gate No. 4. Because haunting incidents happened there all year round, it was almost impossible for students or teachers to show up, and she could even have the headless senior sister and the others keep watch.

Absolutely perfect!

——–

So, a dozen minutes later, a wild Jigglypuff appeared in the bushes near the main path of Gate No. 4 at Hua City University of Technology, staring with its big eyes at the main road not far away.

On the dilapidated main road, a “creature” was running wildly in a bizarre posture. Every time it encountered an obstacle, it would crash headlong into it, then linger in place for a long time before finally stumbling around it.

As it moved forward, it would occasionally let out a few sharp, piercing cries that sent chills down the spine.

“La~ li la~ la li li li la~!”

Watching that Paper Cicada Immortal, its lower body running full speed after its desires while its upper body flailed wildly as if it had a mind of its own–

Lu Yibei pressed her forehead, massaging her throbbing brow, and fell silent. She felt as if she were controlling a game character with terrible optimization, utterly exhausted in body and mind.

As it turned out, controlling the Paper Cicada Immortal to attend class was much harder than she had imagined. If she got the hands right, the feet wouldn’t cooperate; if she got the feet right, the hands wouldn’t obey. Even if both hands and feet were under control, the mouth and torso would start acting up.

Damn it, is this even going to work?!

Getting stuck on walls, running around aimlessly, losing all control was one thing, but why on earth did it have to start yelling?

And she wasn’t even multitasking yet–once she really had to control two things at once, wouldn’t it just fall apart on the spot and split up?

Lu Yibei was feeling frustrated when suddenly a soft sound reached her ears.

She looked toward the sound and saw that, while she was distracted complaining, the rampaging Paper Cicada Immortal had veered off the main road and charged into the overgrown woods near the main path of Gate No. 4.

As it darted through the dense branches, its head was accidentally hooked by a piece of wire hanging from a branch. With a tug, its body tore open at the neck with a ripping sound.

And then…

The body kept running forward and disappeared from sight.

Lu Yibei, “……”