Chapter 571: Sleepless Street

In the small park near the Shizhou City Bus Terminal.

Having finally seen Lu Yibei off, Huá Sāng felt as if she had sent away a Plague God. She closed her eyes, lay down on the park bench, and let out a long sigh of relief as if granted amnesty.

“Phew—!”

As the stale air burst from her thin lips, she ruthlessly deleted all memories of Lu Yibei from her mind, like clearing data from a computer.

“……”

At last, that girl was gone. She was simply too tormenting—just thinking about her drained a huge amount of energy. She was basically a walking human-shaped debuff that constantly sapped one’s spirit.

Next, she still had to find her senior brother, and she might even have to fight an as-yet-unknown enemy. She absolutely had to conserve energy.

Speaking of which, Sleepless Street should have the materials for making a Thousand-Night Paper Crane, right? That Fu Xinyi bought quite a lot of things over there before, if I recall. Huá Sāng thought.

Huá Sāng settled on her plan of action, then decided…

Sleep for ten minutes first!

——

Lu Yibei looked at herself in the mirror, lifted the chestnut bangs over her forehead, straightened the long red scarf, and nodded in satisfaction.

“Not bad, very nice!”

“But didn’t this girl grow up on the streets? What on earth did she eat to grow like this? Milk dumped into the sewers by those evil capitalists?” Lu Yibei quipped.

The girl in the mirror was petite, but the flamboyant “pectoral muscles” that even the long trench coat couldn’t hide seemed to proclaim to the world that the only thing small about her was her height.

Under the trench coat she wore a clean white T-shirt. Her well-proportioned legs extended from beneath a pleated skirt, and she wore a pair of slightly worn short boots.

Although there was no way to replicate the metal rod or Gu Qianqian’s exceptional facial expressiveness, other people didn’t know Gu Qianqian anyway.

As someone bearing the title “the Bloody Witch with cunning chestnut hair, killing intent hidden in the shadows, and who devours hauntings,” wasn’t a blank face and cold eyes perfectly reasonable?

“Though it’s a bit unfair to Gu Qianqian. After all, she and I…” Lu Yibei murmured.

Halfway through, she switched gears. Gu Qianqian commanded the bamboo slips of the Great Serpent God. Even within the bounds of Hua City, with part of the Ley Line Energy and a vast network of haunting informants, she still couldn’t track Gu Qianqian’s movements. The thought put her at ease.

“……”

Worst case, I’ll help her take out those psychics and hauntings who chase her into Hua City. If I really can’t deal with them, I can always report them to The Midnight Watchers Society.

Those psychics and hauntings are hunting “The Bloody Witch.” If they get wiped out by a counterattack, that’s perfectly reasonable, right? Lu Yibei thought.

Thus, a bold sting operation took shape in her mind—using Gu Qianqian as bait while helping the hauntings of Hua City reap some benefits.

Collecting her thoughts, Lu Yibei walked out of the public restroom, ready to head to the nearby Sleepless Street to investigate.

Just then, her jacket wriggled slightly and, through the sleeve, delivered a slip of paper into her hand.

“This is…”

Lu Yibei looked at the note, frowning. A scene flashed in her mind—on the bus, Salih had slipped a note into her hand. She froze.

“Is this the note from those two guys just now?”

After getting off the bus, she’d been so focused on tailing Huá Sāng she had nearly forgotten about it.

After all, it’s not like I’m a devil. If they didn’t pester me, I have no reason to beat them up for no reason, right? she thought, then flicked the note to the ground, stepped back a few paces, and took out the Pure Lotus Sword.

Those two definitely had issues. Who knew whether they’d set some kind of trap on the note?

Better to be careful!

Holding the Pure Lotus Sword, she gingerly prodded open the rolled note. The next moment, a faint psychic energy fluctuation surged. With a soft “pfft,” a few brilliant, colorful sparks shot out of the paper and burst in midair like fireworks.

Like an illusion, an unintelligible whisper echoed in the air.

Seeing this, Lu Yibei immediately retreated a few more steps, pulled back to a safe distance, and waited in a corner for a while. Only after confirming no further psychic energy fluctuation came from the note did she approach again.

Leaning close to the note, she glanced down. Her face darkened; she nearly called the police on the spot.

[Miss Wang, we have been watching you for a long time. We have discovered an enticing fragrance upon you, like the corsage upon Zurvan’s chest—one that makes us covetous, intoxicated, unable to extricate ourselves.

We followed that fragrance to you and wish to invite you to a secluded place for a talk. We hope you won’t fail to appreciate our favor!]

“Holy—those two really were planning to do something filthy to me, huh?” Lu Yibei muttered grimly.

As she spoke, the slip of paper in her hand absorbed enough of the fragrance of the Flower of Miracles, and a hidden sigil, branded by a spell formation, gradually emerged.

“This is… the Flower of Miracles? Are they members of the Miracle Order?”

Lu Yibei recognized the sigil instantly.

Back in Taoyuan, she had crossed paths with members of the Miracle Order and had a deep impression of them. The sigil on the paper was identical to the embroidery on those Miracle Order robes back then!

Propping her chin with one hand, she studied the sigil for a moment, then nodded. “If they’re with the Miracle Order, their bizarre behavior makes sense.”

“In that case, I can just ignore them. If they show up again, I’ll greet them with an Alchemical Bomb.”

She had no intention of digging into what exactly those two men wanted.

After all, the behavior of the Miracle Order could never be judged by common sense. The moment you start pondering why they do what they do, you’ve already lost.

Besides, she and the Miracle Order never got along to begin with—their life creeds ran in opposite directions.

——

Shizhou City, Sleepless Street, in an alley behind a certain restaurant.

It was a remote, narrow alley, barely wide enough for a single car to pass.

Prosperity always hid chaos and filth.

Though this place was less than two hundred meters from the bustling main drag of Sleepless Street, it felt like an entirely different world.

Only one lamp lit the alley, its dim, tepid light casting large swaths of shadow. The unadorned concrete walls on both sides were shrouded year-round in cooking fumes, coated in a thick layer of black grease. A few large garbage bins were scattered deep within, refuse piled into a small hill.

Concealed by the heaps of trash, a man sat collapsed against the wall, head tipped back to stare at the sky, eyes numb and empty, lips slightly parted, breathing soundlessly.

His tattered white clothes were completely stained with blood. Through the rips, gashes deep to the bone were visible. In his hand he held a folding fan with only the ribs remaining, as broken as his body.

The man was Wu Yutang. He was still alive, yet felt as though he were already dead.

Though he had escaped with all his might, he could clearly feel that something—perhaps his soul, perhaps the meaning of his life, or perhaps something even more important—had been left behind forever.

As he got farther from that lightless hellhole and fled here, he no longer had the slightest desire to move forward.

Why keep running?

Isn’t it fine to stop? Everything has already lost its meaning!

A broken clock, if it keeps going, will only remain wrong—but if it stops, at least it will be right twice a day, won’t it?

…

Wu Yutang sat there, mind filled with negative, defeatist thoughts. Now and then, a restaurant employee would pass by. Even if they glanced his way, their gaze would only pause briefly on the severely damaged folding fan in his hand, completely ignoring his existence.

It was as if the folding fan was his entity, and now that the fan was broken beyond recognition, blended with the trash until they were indistinguishable—

Wu Yutang’s very reason to exist vanished along with it.

After a short while, a small truck loaded with fruits and vegetables drove in from the mouth of the alley. Its tires rolled over the waterlogged pavement with soft sounds and finally parked by the restaurant’s back door.

Wu Yutang glanced at the truck indifferently, then quickly withdrew his gaze, inwardly unruffled.

Thump! The car door shut with a dull bang.

The driver, clutching a delivery slip and cursing under his breath, went through the back door into the restaurant. The alley fell quiet again.

After a moment, a rustling came from the truck’s cargo bed. Then a slim… human, with a pumpkin over their head, trembled and crawled out of the pile of vegetables.

Wu Yutang had seen that posture before—once, during a hunt for hauntings, when a Jiangshi crawled out of a graveyard. Just like that.

The person slowly climbed to the top of the heap, then suddenly went limp and fell from three or four meters up, crashing heavily to the ground, rolling a few times, getting evenly caked in mud, and finally slamming headfirst into the wall beside Wu Yutang.

With a crack, the pumpkin split open, revealing the “girl’s” face—seven parts delicate and ninety-three parts wretched.

“Help…” Fang Ji looked up at the blood-soaked man beside him, froze for a second, and perhaps from fright, twitched and fainted dead away.

Wu Yutang: “???”

In that moment, his heart—ashen as dead embers—stirred with the faintest tremor, then sank back into stillness…

——

Some say clues are like flowers on a lofty peak: the more actively you seek them, the more they ignore you.

Lu Yibei felt the metaphor was apt. Clues weren’t just high-altitude blossoms; they were also surrounded by a crowd of excellent suitors, making them hard to approach.

Sleepless Street teemed with people, every inch of land worth its weight in gold. All kinds of shops squeezed in with all their might. Noodle joints, desserts, barbecue, specialty snacks lined both sides, dazzling the eye.

“Tsk, terrifying. How is anyone supposed to investigate in peace?!”

This difficulty was like going for a night run past a late-night snack street without eating anything!

Tsk, I’m not usually this gluttonous. This is definitely a negative side effect of pretending to be Gu Qianqian! Lu Yibei thought fiercely, turned around, and called out expressionlessly:

“Boss, twenty skewers of lamb belly and two grilled flatbreads to go, please. Thanks!”