Chapter 556: Killing Two Birds with One Stone

“Hello? Is this Lu Yibei?”

Lu Yibei answered the call, and as soon as the voice on the other end sounded, before the other party could say anything else, he rattled off a barrage of words.

“I don’t join religions, I don’t want insurance, I’m not interested in stocks, yes, the overseas high spending was my card, I bought an elephant, is there anything else?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Li Xuan said. “It’s about time, you should get ready to leave. I booked your ticket, it’s with Huá Sāng, you two can meet at the airport later, and also…”

Lu Yibei closed his eyes, listening to Li Xuan’s rambling voice in his ear, responding perfunctorily, “Mm, mm, oh…”

“Hmm? Your voice… doesn’t sound quite right?”

“It’s not quite right, I keep thinking about a French wet kiss, yeah, the tongue kind, didn’t sleep well all night.”

The other end of the call was silent for a few seconds, then the tone became serious. “Damn it, Lu, I’m warning you, don’t try anything weird with my junior sister…”

Before Li Xuan could finish, Lu Yibei impatiently hung up.

Tch, lunatic!

Do they think I’m some Shui-Ge, who flirts with everyone he meets?

The morning sunlight filtered through the gray gauze curtains into the room. Lu Yibei rubbed his dry eyes, sat up, dazed for a dozen seconds, then turned and stuffed Wang Yingying from the bedside table into the Divine Land prototype, took out the Paper Cicada Immortal, and finally dragged himself into the bathroom to wash up.

After washing up, dressed and carrying a metal box packed full, he hurried out the door.

After the last trip to Tang City, carrying Alchemical Bombs and Pure Lotus Sword and other items, and the inconvenience of boarding, he had specially learned a spell formation to block security checks after returning to Hua City.

Some people stuff themselves into suitcases and still manage to bypass security and reach their destination, so what’s the big deal about him bringing explosives and weapons onto a plane?

At the entrance of the neighborhood, he flagged down a taxi. After telling the driver his destination, Lu Yibei closed his eyes to rest.

He had barely slept all night, secretly controlling the Paper Cicada Immortal to attend classes at Hua City University of Technology, and squeezing out some mental energy to recall the Ancestors’ instructions about the Great Pure Palace, leaving him no energy to deal with the driver’s small talk.

Unless he could split off a bunch of messy department heads like Spider Child.

But, the methods of psychics and hauntings are pretty outrageous too–maybe such abilities really exist?

Seeing Lu Yibei sitting like a block of wood, unresponsive no matter what was said, the driver quickly got the hint and quieted down.

——–

When Lu Yibei saw Huá Sāng at the airport, he was a bit surprised.

Today, she wasn’t in a wheelchair, but walking!

“Congratulations, you’ve finally mastered upright walking, the basic skill of healthy humans! But, you really picked the wrong time to master this skill!”

“If you still had your little car, maybe we could use the special channel to get in.”

Lu Yibei said, turning to glance at the terminal entrance, shaking his head and sighing silently.

Early summer in Hua City was starting to show its oppressive heat. Under the morning sun, the ground steamed with muggy vapor, and with crowds surging like the Spring Festival rush, just looking at it made one feel unbearably hot and uncomfortable.

Ever since the nights became longer, there were morning and evening peaks for flights. The evening peak was mostly for those chasing cheap tickets, daredevil warriors, while the morning peak was for those rushing out of town or cautious sages.

As a cautious sage, Lu Yibei felt for the first time that Li Xuan was actually quite considerate–provided he didn’t show up in person and have direct contact.

Through messy hair, Huá Sāng cast a resentful glance at Lu Yibei, ignored his trash talk, and simply said three words.

“ID card.”

With that, she reached out her hand to Lu Yibei.

That hand was clean and fair, fingers slender, completely at odds with her sloppy, lazy appearance, as if the hand wasn’t hers.

But…

Still a bit worse than Meow Meow-chan.

Right, should I have tried holding hands yesterday?

Damn, forgot the important step!

Lu Yibei grumbled inwardly, then held out his hand to Huá Sāng, “Better give me your ID card instead?”

“Your senior brother asked me to look after you, can’t let you handle this kind of thing, right?”

I was thinking, later I’ll ask you to help probe the whereabouts of the Pure Lotus Sword! Of course I have to temporarily put other things aside and focus on getting close, Lu Yibei added in his heart.

Huá Sāng looked at Lu Yibei, hesitated, then took out her ID card and placed it in his hand, following him into the terminal.

And then, she happily received a pager.

“By the way, did you have breakfast? Want some water? Is your luggage heavy, do you want me to carry it? Speaking of which, I’m actually quite familiar with Fu Xinyi from your Great Pure Palace…”

Huá Sāng, “…This guy talks so much, so annoying.”

She thought, silently put down her suitcase, pressed the power button, and rode her beloved little car deep into the terminal.

Yes, the wheelchair was gone, but she had switched to a rideable electric suitcase.

Lu Yibei, “……”

——–

After a while, Huá Sāng finally found relief.

She sat on the bench, watching Lu Yibei walk toward the counter to exchange his boarding pass. Her gaze slowly dropped to the bag full of snacks, and she smiled.

Perhaps it was because she was about to return to the Great Pure Palace, or maybe it was Lu Yibei’s somewhat uncomfortable eagerness, but looking at these snacks, she suddenly thought of her junior sister, Fu Xinyi. Strictly speaking, Fu Xinyi was also her distant relative.

Their grandfathers were cousins, but Huá Sāng’s grandfather had passed away very early, and for many years, the two families had almost no contact.

Though separated by only three generations, Fu Xinyi and Huá Sāng had completely different life paths.

Although Fu Xinyi, like Huá Sāng, hadn’t seen her father since she was very young, what she had–an affluent family, loving relatives, and exceptional looks–were all things Huá Sāng lacked.

And yet, someone like that also had a great personality and worked especially hard.

So, when the two families reunited after many years, the young Huá Sāng felt the disparity of life the first time she met Fu Xinyi.

Sometimes, when Huá Sāng recalled that encounter, she always thought of Mr. Lu Xun’s “Hometown.” Fu Xinyi was like Brother Xun, while she was like the weasel in the melon field under the moon.

Bathed in moonlight, a flash of silver, a steel fork fell, and she became a pitiful, laughable corpse with her guts spilled out.

Although she matured earlier than her peers and wasn’t twisted by that sense of disparity, at that time, she truly disliked Fu Xinyi.

A child’s dislike is always unfiltered.

With that mindset, Huá Sāng would always “set up” Fu Xinyi, both openly and secretly. When she accidentally burned down a room while practicing a spell formation, she said it was Fu Xinyi’s doing. When she sliced off the head of the first Headmaster’s statue during sword practice, that too was blamed on Fu Xinyi.

Even when she and her senior sister went down the mountain for training and her slacking caused her senior sister to be seriously injured, then secretly healed her afterward, she did it under Fu Xinyi’s name.

After all, Fu Xinyi was there that time too. Amid the chaos, the senior sister didn’t know who was slacking off, and when Fu Xinyi volunteered to heal her, she took the blame.

Huá Sāng did all this just to make Fu Xinyi stay away from her–the farther, the better. On one hand, out of sight, out of mind; on the other, she was worried that losing control of her Spirit Pattern would hurt her.

But…

“That girl…” Huá Sāng smiled again and shook her head.

But, perhaps because she’d been too well protected since childhood, or maybe she just wasn’t very bright, Fu Xinyi never noticed Huá Sāng’s malice at all.

After learning that Huá Sāng was her relative, she clung to her almost every day. Whenever her family visited and brought delicious food, she would always give more than half to Huá Sāng.

If Huá Sāng refused, she would sneak into Huá Sāng’s room at night and stuff it into her bed.

But…

Who puts ice cream in someone else’s bed? And more than once! As Huá Sāng thought about it, Lu Yibei’s voice interrupted her memories.

“Um… I have something I’d like to ask you. I think you might know more about this.”

Huá Sāng turned slowly to look at Lu Yibei and nodded.

“It’s about the Daoists of the Du’an Weir Sandoumi Sect, Nanshan Temple in Xiurong City, Taihe Palace in Shiyan City–are the Daoists or monks in these places the same as the senior Daoists of your Zhenwu Mountain Great Pure Palace? Do they all have psychics?” Lu Yibei asked seriously.

“Yes, they all do.” Huá Sāng nodded.

She’d heard Shifu mention the monks of Nanshan Temple and the Daoists of Sandoumi, and she’d even seen disciples of Taihe Palace in the Great Pure Palace.

Upon hearing this, Lu Yibei suddenly understood and muttered, “So that’s how it is…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” Lu Yibei shook his head.

Previously, the Online Old Pervert’s investigation into Hu Chuan’s seemingly aimless route after leaving Hua City had left Lu Yibei puzzled.

It wasn’t until just now, when he was exchanging his boarding pass and saw that the destination was Fangshan Airport, that he planned to book a car in advance to leave the airport right after landing. When he searched for Fangshan Airport’s address, he discovered it was in Shizhou.

And the center of Shizhou City was less than fifty kilometers from the Great Pure Palace!

Immediately, Lu Yibei searched the other cities and found that they all had places similar to the Great Pure Palace. He just wasn’t sure if those places, like the Great Pure Palace, also had psychics, which was why he’d asked Huá Sāng earlier.

If it were just one or two places, it could be a coincidence, but so many places–there had to be a reason.

In other words, Hu Chuan might be visiting those sects? Or looking for someone among those psychics?

But, with his close ties to someone as vicious as Zhang Shuo, and being an undocumented person himself, how could he dare do such a thing?

It was like a wanted criminal’s accomplice going from one police station to another, asking about a certain officer–a bit too brazen.

Taking such a big risk, what was his goal?

The last place Hu Chuan appeared was Shizhou City–could it be related to the Great Pure Palace? Maybe he found the person he was looking for here?

A string of questions surfaced in Lu Yibei’s mind, making him even more eager for this trip to the Great Pure Palace.

Maybe he could catch Hu Chuan near the Great Pure Palace.

This time, it would be killing two birds with one stone!