Chapter 596: How Did You Get In?

“Fairness. What do you think of that?”

The moment she said this, Lu Yibei was startled by her own words. In the past, even if she thought it in her heart, she would never have said it aloud in front of an enemy who could threaten her life at any moment.

This was probably influenced a bit by Meow Meow-chan?

In her view, such words were, to some extent, a provocation that made many safer courses of action impossible.

For example… verbally agreeing to the other party’s proposal, naming a price acceptable to both sides, and then, once out of danger and the item was in hand, launching a counterattack for a perfect backstab.

After hearing Lu Yibei’s words, that voice fell silent for a few seconds, then laughed.

“Fairness? Haha, too funny. This is truly one of the funniest jokes I’ve ever heard, haha—hurk, hahaha—!”

The voice laughed without restraint, the laughter full of mockery, laughing until breathless.

Along with that laughter, all kinds of “items” hidden in the surrounding darkness trembled softly, emitting faint buzzing sounds, like a crowd of extremely rude spectators watching a lowbrow comedy.

“Hoo—!” The laughter gradually subsided. The voice let out a long breath, then said in a deep tone, “Friend, you want fairness?”

“Then let me ask you, is Zhang Shuo treating me like livestock fair? Some people, because of mediocre natural talent, can never reach the heights they dream of—is that fair? Some people suffer constant discrimination because of physical defects—is that fair?”

“Oh?” Lu Yibei frowned and said thoughtfully, “What you say… seems to hold a bit of sense? Go on?”

As she spoke, Lu Yibei glanced out of the corner of her eye at the girl lying nearby, unconscious but still breathing. Her gaze sharpened slightly.

The item fused with that girl’s body was a pigeon-egg-sized diamond ring, concealed by a long-sleeved garment that covered the bodily features, making it hard to spot. That was exactly why Lu Yibei had failed to kill her with a single strike before.

Her eyes lingered on the girl’s body for a few seconds. Using the little psychic energy she had left, Lu Yibei activated her Dream Infiltration ability. Silently, she extended invisible tendrils into the girl’s forehead and began slowly reading her memories through dreams without being noticed.

“I tell you, I spread the grace of that great lord, making the mediocre extraordinary, completing the incomplete, allowing the lagging to stage a comeback…” The voice continued, tinged with somewhat obsessive fanaticism.

“Everything I do is truly in pursuit of fairness! If not for the Dark Emperor’s existence, so many more people would gain fairness!”

“I’m helping them, do you understand? What’s wrong with using tools to make yourself stronger?”

“Is that really the case?” Lu Yibei listened seriously, then nodded. “I think I understand what you mean…”

“Very well, I am more and more interested in you!” The voice said. “In that case…”

“I get it—you’ve probably got a serious mental illness!” Lu Yibei interrupted impatiently. “Do you have any shame at all? Have you been tortured crazy by Zhang Shuo? Everything you said is nothing but self-righteousness!”

“I know a catastrophe-class haunting who can easily crush Zhang Shuo, and she has never bullied the weak. I also know a disciple of the Great Pure Palace with mediocre natural talent who became brilliant through hard work. And a girl with a lame leg… hmm, she’s one of the finest people I’ve ever met.”

“What you’re doing—to them it’s unfair, to Jiang Yuzhen it’s unfair, and to the several hundred people who died unjustly in those residential buildings, it’s unfair!”

As her words fell, Lu Yibei instantly prepared for battle. She had no confidence in guiding the plot toward the classic trash talk segment where the enemy would find self-redemption.

Her trash talk only mentally polluted people, making them angry and humiliated, or even increasing the severity of the beatdown. She was well aware of this.

“…” The voice fell silent again for a moment, then sighed with pity. “Gu Qianqian, I gave you a chance, truly! But you don’t value it, so it can’t be helped.”

“Cunning Chestnut Hair? The Bloody Witch who devours hauntings? I know you’re formidable, but even if you can defeat the tools I sent, you still cannot leave the special domain bestowed by that great lord.”

“But don’t be afraid. You won’t die. You will become a perfect tool, just like Zhang Shuo… heh haha, haha…”

Along with that somewhat neurotic laughter, a howling sound arose, and violent rumbling came from the surrounding residential buildings.

Amidst the howling and rumbling, a flood of several silhouettes and various items converged and descended from the sky.

In an instant, they swallowed Lu Yibei’s figure.

The ground trembled, flames and thick smoke rose from the earth like the claws of a demon, stretching toward the sky.

This brutal ambush finally reached its finale.

At the very moment the storm swept through, Lu Yibei pushed her movement technique to the extreme and lunged at the dying girl, decisively ending her last breath. Then, through the familiar mark, she sent a message to the jacket—Jacket, imitate her aura!

————

Elsewhere.

5:48 in the morning, still over two hours until dawn. The Sleepless Street, which had been noisy all night, was beginning to cool down.

Brushing past the gradually thinning crowd and passing through a somewhat narrow street, guided by Shem, Huá Sāng finally arrived at the residential area sealed off by the Esoteric Society’s unknown power. The moment she stopped, she saw “half a person.”

Judging by the physique, it should be a young man.

He floated in midair about three meters off the ground, his body as if split in two from head to toe. Half of him was swallowed by the impenetrable ink-like darkness ahead, vanishing from sight. The other half, still exposed, twitched from time to time, as if reminding others that he was still alive.

The whole person looked as if he had clipped through a model in a video game and gotten stuck—eerie yet somewhat ridiculous.

Shem looked at Huá Sāng, then at the stuck Salih, and placed a hand on his forehead, explaining, “Sorry you had to see this. This is the companion I mentioned to you on the way.”

“Mhm…” Huá Sāng responded, nodding to show she understood, then swept her gaze past Salih toward the distant residential area.

Is this some large-scale sealing spell formation?

Or a special spatial construct created by some high-tier existence?

If it is a special spatial construct, then the enemy’s psychic energy fluctuation level must be at least A+ tier or higher? Huá Sāng thought.

Within that area, there was not a sliver of light, and thick fog drifted about. The buildings were reduced to vague silhouettes. Though it was just a single step away, one could clearly feel an unpleasant aura that isolated it from the outside world.

That aura held no trace of vitality, yet it was not fearsome like death, but simply cold, rigid, and incomprehensible.

That sensation was like facing an object—a person could hardly understand its thoughts at all.

The entire area seemed to have turned into a ghost town that had been devoid of humans for a long time. If a tourist from Sleepless Street strayed nearby and saw this scene, they would most likely be terrified.

After a brief deliberation, she immediately pulled out her phone, and, hiding it from Shem’s view, uncharacteristically took the trouble not to slack off, patiently sending a rather detailed message to her own shifu.

She wasn’t worried that Qingxiazi wouldn’t see the message in time. After all, Qingxiazi had set special ringtones for every disciple, and the phone volume was turned up particularly high; even while resting, she would hear it.

Huá Sāng: “Shifu, emergency. I’ve encountered a serious psychic energy attack. From the scene, it seems a special spatial construct might be present. Preliminary assessment: the perpetrator’s psychic energy fluctuation level is above A+ tier. That Lu Yibei might be trapped inside.

Additionally, when you come, bring more people. If it’s convenient, better get the old Headmaster to come, too.”

After sending the message to her shifu, Huá Sāng immediately found the number of the on-duty front-desk disciple of Chenyi Inn and sent him the detailed address here.

After sending those two messages, Huá Sāng put away her phone and looked once more at the area ahead that was clearly exhibiting anomalies.

She wanted to see if there was any way, before the Chenyi Inn’s on-duty staff and the reinforcements from the Great Pure Palace arrived, to obtain more information about this anomalous region.

Just then, as if some voice from an unknown source whispered a reminder in her mind, she suddenly had the idea of trying the ferule.

Strange, why would I think of that? Huá Sāng tilted her head with a puzzled look, then shook her head.

Although according to what Zhang Huainan said, this ferule was once a divine weapon for vanquishing evil, its quality was reliable, and it wouldn’t easily be damaged.

But the ferule housed a fragment of Qing Ji’s soul, and Qing Ji was one of her few close friends. She would never use a friend to take risks.

After brief consideration, Huá Sāng raised her hand and reached forward.

This action was not reckless. After all, the resilience of her body was also at the level of a divine weapon—the human-shaped divine weapon referred exactly to her.

Of course…

If one must specify what kind of weapon it was, it was probably a blunt instrument like a large hammer.

Her palm touched that invisible “barrier.”

In an instant, a sharp pain, as if countless razor-sharp teeth were gnawing, shot from her palm. It also carried a numbing sensation, like an electric shock.

The next moment, Huá Sāng felt a strong pulling force. The surroundings shattered instantly, and everything went black before a dizzying spin.

When she came to her senses, she was standing on a dimly lit street.

The narrow, old street was filled with corpses lying in pale, sticky liquid.

Huá Sāng looked around in bewilderment, then at her blackened palm, which appeared to have been scorched by flames, and frowned.

How did I… enter this place?

Just then, hurried footsteps came from a distance.

Following the sound, a group of people with limbs fused with items rushed into her field of vision…

————

Among the crowd.

Lu Yibei glanced sideways at the sturdy man beside her, who had a barbell “growing” on his shoulder, and said sarcastically, “Ha, diamonds last forever, one passing down through generations—a truth you lot could never understand!”

Her tone carried a strong whiff of materialistic, green-tea snobbery.

Yes, Lu Yibei had read the girl’s memories, changed into her clothes, and had the jacket mimic her aura. Mingling among the Esoteric Society members, she was chasing “Gu Qianqian” even more gleefully than they were!

With her psychic energy nearly depleted and having provoked Hu Chuan with her trash talk, this was the best way she could think of to survive.

Although she couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t be discovered, at the very least she could stall for time to recover some psychic energy or wait for reinforcements.

“Hmph, diamonds? Flashy but useless things. How can they compare to muscles trained by oneself?” The sturdy man said disdainfully.

“Stop arguing!” The person whose head was fused with a cellphone let out a low growl, interrupting their quarrel, and then said in a stern, lecturing tone, “No matter what the item is, it is the grace of that great lord. There is no essential difference…”

Before she could finish, a distant shout cut her off.

“An unidentified person has appeared ahead!”

Hearing the shout, the group flew swiftly in the direction of the sound. Moments later, they spotted the girl who had appeared at the street corner, her expression somewhat bewildered.

The moment Lu Yibei clearly saw the girl’s face,

Lu Yibei: “???”

Ah… isn’t this Huá Sāng?

How did she get in?