Chapter 249: Lu Yibei's Preparations

In the early hours of the world beyond the bamboo scrolls…

The false Sun’s rays penetrated through the thick fog of the world, allowing its brilliant rays to bask upon the pitch-dark mountains and inky rivers. The fog that lingered throughout the night was dispelled instantly, and dew could be seen sliding down the ink-black leaves of the world’s cursed vegetation. Light rain permeated throughout the world, causing various tiny rainbows to be outlined wherever the [Copper Sphere of the Sun] shone.

It was cool in this once-wretched place, as if it was late autumn back in the real world. Despite the cool, relaxing weather, Gu Qianqian’s willpower that was developed throughout the years of working many odd jobs sprung her out of bed immediately.

She has never been the type to procrastinate – as soon as she received the request from the Witch to help her refine a potion, she bought the remaining materials required and planned on crafting the potion today.

Gu Qianqian’s alchemy workshop is located deep within the mountain range of this world.

‘Alchemy workshop’ is an exaggeration on its own – compared to the alchemical workshops on the scale that of the Night Division or the Eclipse Society, it is incredibly pitiful. All she had was a small wooden hut built along the paths of the mountain.

Moreover, her alchemical equipment were all remodeled from second-hand furniture.

The ventilation fan squeaked and creaked as she turned it on, and she had just remembered to cast a solidification spell to help support her barely-cold refrigerator used to store materials.

Her cauldron is a modified pressure cooker; her Midas rod was crafted from a disassembled bicycle part; her measuring instruments and beakers were discarded beer bottles or glass containers…

She had no need for a tool to help her grind materials or to help her heat the solution up – her powerful grip is strong enough to crush, and she could simply use her psychic powers to heat the solution up.

The Night Division’s Department of Alchemy is like a 3-Star Michelin restaurant, while Gu Qianqian’s pitiful alchemical workshop is like a street-side vendor whose most frequent customers are wandering flies.

Although a street-side vendor may be unhygienic and unhealthy, that doesn’t mean that their food isn’t good.

In such a shabby environment, she was able to craft the [Copper Sphere of the Sun], widely considered to be a mid-to-high level alchemical product, without much trouble.

Setting her materials down, she took them out and begun to grind them carefully with her hands.

After all the required materials were ground into a fine powder according to the Witch’s formula, she set up her pressure cooker and directed her psychic energy to begin the heating process.

As the pressure cooker heated up, she used the dew she collected, wrapped the materials in gauze, and slowly filtered out the liquid that was produced into a small bowl.

The system poked out their half-human, half-fish appearance from the inside of her head, and stared at the bubbling flames beneath the pressure cooker.

After a moment, the system directed, “Gu Qianqian! Now!”

“Got it!” she responded, and immediately poured the red-hot copper acting as the principal medicine into the pressure cooker. As the copper melted, she grabbed her Midas rod, injected it with psychic energy, and traced the surface of the liquid as she murmured strange mantras.

When the final syllable fell, the liquid instantly turned from a dull yellow to a brilliant red.

Seeing this, she calmly added the other ingredients into the pressure cooker one after another.

Soon, the liquid grew thicker and thicker, and at the very moment before it became a solid goo, she grabbed the volcanic crystal, willed her body to surge with psychic energy, and clapped her hands together in a violent boom.

Boom!

With a firm, resonating clap, the volcanic crystal was instantly crushed into a powder as it fell like snow onto the pressure cooker.

In an instant, countless streams of light emerged from the liquid, like tiny, magnificent fireworks.

Psst!

In a low hum, the streaks of light disappeared.

The liquid within the pressure cooker began to hover into the air as it formed a strange shape in the air. Then, it morphed itself into a liquid-like ball of golden-red liquid, as it slowly began to float downwards.

Gu Qianqian produced a clean jar that was previously used to store sliced peaches, and gently allowed the liquid to plop right into the jar, successfully completing the production of a [Desolate Fire] potion.

Glancing at the finished product, the system couldn’t help but be astonished, “Gu Qianqian, you… you did it in a single try! You’re too good at this!”

“And!” the system reminded. “Time to add some poison to it, and make sure to add a lot! I hope she drinks it and dies immediately on first taste!”

“System? Wouldn’t it be bad if they were all poisoned?”

“Excuse me? Did her bribe work on you? Really? Pork trotters? Of all things?”

“That’s not what I meant!” her eyes flashed with panic. “I-if they were all poisoned, wouldn’t she be able to tell right away?”

“…you’re right! That makes sense! According to my database, that Witch is extremely cunning! Every time she obtains or even refines a new potion, she will find a test subject to help her taste it first to confirm that it isn’t poisoned!”

“Therefore!” the system grinned. “Of the eight potions that need to be delivered, we will tamper three with slow-acting poisons.”

“Cool!” Gu Qianqian agreed. Because of your pork trotters, I’ll only poison three of eight of your potions!

…After all, she is the World Ender. It would be bad if I just sit back and do nothing.

As she thought about it, she turned around, prepared to refine the second batch.

…

Early in the morning, three days later.

Jiangli had only slept for about two hours before clocking into the Night Division, and she was visibly groggy as she trudged through the void-like hallways.

In addition to collecting information on the Happy Community every single day, she also devoted her time to hone her mahjong skills by practicing thirteen rounds daily, which is a lot even for her.

After exchanging pleasantries with Bai Kai, who was in charge of the night shift the day before, she took over his position, sat down in her office, and was ready to welcome her first guest of the day.

Clack clack clack.

An Qing, as seductive as ever, smirked as she gently placed a thick stack of documents on Jiangli’s desk.

“Here are all the things you asked me to investigate.”

As she spoke, she made sure to hand copies of documents such as partnership and property rights information to Jiangli.

“My research indicates that the results are completely identical to previous surveys – from the purchase of the land for development, to the completion of the buildings, all the way to its sale, there have been no issues reported. It’s impossible to even find something as subjective as a labor dispute throughout the building process.”

“Moreover,” An Qing continued as she placed down more documents in front of Jiangli. “Here are the files detailing all the deaths of residents over 40 in the Happy Community this past year. All causes of death seemed pretty weird – especially the resident who died after half of his head was sliced cleanly off by a fan that fell from a ceiling. I mean, isn’t that the kind of death that only happens in the nightmares of school children?”

“One last thing,” An Qing placed down a final document. “Here is a report of the autopsies I performed on their corpses – although they are, indeed, just 40 years old, their organs displayed signs of accelerated aging. However, that was all the information I could get since I couldn’t detect any residual psychic energy in the bodies.”

Jiangli flipped through the various files and documents on the table, and An Qing patiently waited for her to finish reading. For a moment, the only sounds in the vintage office were the sounds of pages turning.

After a moment, An Qing clapped her hands together, attracting Jiangli’s attention.

“Speaking of which, why are you picking up this case again? As long as we continue to spread negative rumours about the community, wouldn’t it be fine?”

Indeed, the biggest contributors to the rumours surrounding the Happy Community are part of the Night Division’s misinformation department.

Although they couldn’t find concrete evidence surrounding the urban legends of the Happy Community, for the time being, they decided to dissuade as many people as possible from staying there by generating rumours scary enough in hopes of deterring ordinary folk.

“Lu Yibei accepted the task of investigating the Happy Community,” Jiangli explained briefly.

“I see. Wonderful! I didn’t expect that boy to be useful as soon as he was hired,” An Qing nodded, curling her lips. “My Du Sixian, on the other hand… I’m afraid it’ll be another two months before she’s ready to help in simple investigations.”

“Well,” An Qing stretched, turning around. “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be heading back to my office.”

“Mm.”

As the door shut, Jiangli couldn’t help but look out the window, looking at the small garden under the morning Sun.

What is Yibei up to these past two days?

As she thought about it, she took out her phone and dialled for Hua.

“Hua? About my request for you to keep an eye out on Yibei – how’s it going?”

“He’s…” Hua paused; her tone seemed to be dripping with resentment. “I don’t think he’s prepared for the investigation at all.”

“Every single day,” Hua explained. “He would study for his finals in the library every morning. Then, he will spend the rest of his time either drinking tea at the old teahouse down Peony Street, watching old men play chess by the street, or watching those seniors rehearsing their dance performance in the park. If anything, I feel as if he has integrated into their circle! It won’t be long until he becomes the centre of their group!”

…?

Yibei, what the hell are you doing?

Damn it! I was hoping that he would take the investigation a little more seriously… to think I even advised him to prepare well…

“…and yesterday? He purchased a all-day-experience ticket at the Dafong Art Centre, watching all those young women dancing, singing, and playing the piano. Mind you! He went on a blind date three times during the experience, and-”

“A blind date? Isn’t he just nineteen? Why the rush?” Jiangli wondered.

Plus, isn’t he a Witch now? You can’t go on blind dates! You’ll hurt their hearts! Or… are you trying to use these dates as an excuse to hide your identity?

Should we just arrest her after all this is over?

“Figures. Maybe he’s just full of energy and greedy for love, with teenage hormones running wild in him,” Hua responded.

“I understand. I’m hanging up.”

Hanging up, Jiangli glanced at the documents scattered across her table and sighed.

These documents should be enough to make up for his investigation, if he investigated at all. Besides, I never expected him to obtain useful information from the very beginning – I am simply observing how he plans on investigating the urban legend at hand.

However, An Qing’s investigations are… indescribable, to say the least.

Jiangli, after a while, took out her phone again, and logged into the chatting software, sending a message to Yibei.

[Genius Mahjong Girl: When will we meet tomorrow? 🫰]

Ten minutes later…

[VACCARIA: Oh, my bad. I was watching a performance and didn’t see your message. Is tomorrow afternoon good?]

[Genius Mahjong Girl: Alright! See you tomorrow afternoon! 🫰]

[VACCARIA: Forget it. How about tomorrow evening? I have something coming up in the afternoon.

]

…Tsk. He’s getting more and more annoying lately.

“Whatever. Evening it is,” she muttered. Before she could type out a message, she received another message.

[VACCARIA: Ah… change of plans. How about the day after tomorrow? You asked me to prepare well, correct? Well… I’m not prepared! Are you okay meeting a day after tomorrow?]

Jiangli’s mouth twitched slightly reading the text as she clenched her phone. She willed herself to take a deep breath as she typed out her reply.

[Genius Mahjong Girl: What do you think? 🙂 ]

[VACCARIA: I deeply apologize. I’ll see you tomorrow evening!  ]

Seeing that Jiangli had replied with a completely new emoji without any guidance, Yibei felt that something was very, very wrong and decided to make a wise reply.

…

After Yibei had settled the housing contract in the Happy Community, the sky had completely darkened.

Shoving the contract into his bag, he felt a throbbing pain in his chest and felt as if he was coughing blood, “What the fuck? Why is the rent in this shitty neighbourhood so damn expensive?!”

Even with all the negative rumours running rampant online, it has obviously not affected the housing situation in the Happy Community. People still flock here regardless.

Yibei requested a real estate agent to help him three days prior before finally finding a landlord willing to rent their unit out.

Indeed, over the last three days, he wasn’t wasting his time trying to fight for the centre position of the senior’s dance performance group – in fact, he beelined it straight towards the Happy Community to investigate.

From his point of view, the Night Division had investigated the Happy Community countless of times, only to discover nothing, which meant that it was impossible for him to gather any useful information through conventional methods.

No best way forward, so I’ll have to take a detour.

For example, in reference to the seniors who rehearsed their performances at the park daily.

Yibei has spent many years in the teahouses down Peony Street during his childhood, and are familiar with the senior citizens who probably have witnessed the development of Huacheng, growing from a small, rural city, to a bustling, modern city.

If he were to ask anybody in Huacheng, apart from the Night Division, the ones who knew the most about older urban legends must be those senior citizens.

Of course, they are very temperamental at their old age – their temperaments are unpredictable, their gossips are like parkour, and they couldn’t stay on topic if their life depended on it. This is probably why the Night Division never bothered to interview them.

However, Lu Yibei is the king of talking absolute gobshite in the whole of Huacheng.

He is not afraid of overtly verbose people. In fact, he worries that even he might be too verbose for them.

After three days of yapping and chatting with the elders, he managed to scourge some information regarding the Happy Community that the Night Division did not have.

The only bad thing about talking with senior citizens are the grannies. Over the last three days, he has been forced into more than 20 blind dates.

In today’s society, appearances are more or less the same – what matters most is the inside… and what lurks behind them. Yibei couldn’t believe that people would come with urban legends on his blind date with a girl.

A bunch of ghastly embryos hovered behind the girl, and Yibei was so frightened that he told her on the spot…

…

When Yibei came to the ghost market, it had just opened, and the streets were busy. Waves of aromas wafted from the vendors that sold various snacks.

He pushed through the crowd for a long time before locating Gu Qianqian, who was squatting by her stall. Her stall seems to offer a wide range of goods, selling fried rice, toys, handicrafts, and other less conventional business projects.

He waited quietly for a moment, and stepped forward when she was done packing a customer’s food.

“Excuse me, could I get an order of [Desolate Fire] to go?”

“Oh! It’s you! Give me a second!”

Gu Qianqian, seeing that it was Yibei, hurriedly went over to her trolley and rummaged through it to find the potions contained in the glass jars.

He took the potion from her hand, and looked at the jar with the tacky packaging in disdain before walking away silently, blending in with the crowd.

Seeing him leave, she was about to breathe a sigh of relief to continue making fried rice. When she turned back around, she saw Yibei sitting by her stool, holding a copper coin in one hand and a glass jar in the other.

“Wh-wh-wha-!? I thought you just left!” Gu Qianqian blurted out.

“Ah, well,” he raised his head, expressionless. “I was indeed leaving, but I felt that there might be something wrong with the potion, so I came back.”

“I… see! What seems to be the problem?”

“Isn’t it obvious?!” he raised his voice, shaking the potion in front of her face. “This glass jar looks like shit! Of course I’m worried about how hygienic it is!”

…?

The system and Gu Qianqian considered the many possibilities of their cover being blown, leading to Yibei rejecting the potion. However, they never considered that he would refuse because of hygiene reasons.

“You know what? How about I drink it right now? If something happens to me, I’ll just return it to you. Oh, by the way, you don’t have some kind of hygiene-health-certificate-thingy on you right?”

“No? No.”

“Well, guess I’d better test the potion out myself,” Yibei sighed.

“H-how?”

Gu Qianqian was atrociously bad at lying, and her voice would tremble every time she speaks. Her doe eyes stared at Yibei as she held her breath.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Like this!”

As he spoke, he tossed his copper coin in the air and thought to himself: Heads if the potion is tampered with, tails if the potion is fine to consume.

“Gu Qianqian!” the system yelled in her mind. “He’s using divination to test whether the potion is poisonous!”

“Wh-wha-?!”

Before she could ask the system for a solution, the copper coin landed firmly on his palm.

Tails.

He nodded with satisfaction, then glanced at Gu Qianqian’s sweat-covered forehead and panic-stricken face as he picked up the second potion.

“System! What do I do now?”

“…”

“System! System?!”

…I’m choosing a rich host next time! Gu Qianqian is way too poor, and now, we got ourselves into this mess! How shameful!

Yibei simply wanted to test Gu Qianqian by randomly picking out a single bottle to verify. However, seeing her current expression, he became more worried about the hygiene and production of the potion.

What is she so scared of?

Clink!

Tails. Perfectly safe to consume.

Clink!

Tails. Safe again.

The entire scene lasted for less than a minute, but to Gu Qianqian, it felt like an eternity of torture.

Just as she was wondering whether he would test all eight potions and expose her for tampering it with poison, he put away his copper coin and stood up.

“Well, seems like everything’s fine,” he said, rummaging through the bag Gu Qianqian gave him and stuffed a random one into Gu Qianqian’s hand. “Here you go! As a gift – I look forward to our next deal!”

Gu Qianqian watched as the boy leave, and after confirming that he did, indeed, leave, her voice trembled inwardly, “System? Did you reconnect yet?”

“I’m here.”

“Let’s not do these shady things ever again. That was way too scary!”

“Ditto.”

“By the way, system? What should I do with this potion?”

“Throw it away!”

“Ah, but I don’t want to! It’s so precious to me…”

“Listen, Gu Qianqian… this might be the poisoned one…”

“Well, what if I test it out myself?”

“…”

TRANSLATOR NOTES:

First off, we’re back! Second off, Happy 20th Chapter on the new site! I apologize for the sudden absence – if you weren’t updated, my dog, who I was very close to, got poisoned, and I have been mourning for her even until today. I think translating helped me to distract myself from the sadness a little, though I can’t say for sure the translation quality is up to standard… I’ll edit it if anybody (or myself) spots out any errors.

As always, if you would like to support the translation, you can do so by clicking on the button below. ^_^