In the late November, the weather gradually turned cooler.
Even in a megalopolis with tens of millions of people, I could feel the slight chill of late autumn.
I’m not really someone who can stay idle.
If I had grown up in the countryside, I would probably be an expert at climbing trees to take bird nests or wading in waters to catch shrimps.
Big cities have always lacked the warm, bustling atmosphere of local neighborhoods.
It feels like with every towering skyscraper that rises, human connections become more distant, hardened by the steel and concrete.
The unique layout of Xiao District’s commercial housing doesn’t really encourage wandering through alleys like in the old days.
Now, in the middle of the 21st century, society is nothing like it was in the last century.
That day.
I didn’t stay on campus but went to a slightly run-down Chengzhong Village.
Although it’s called a Chengzhong Village in a big city, it was essentially a residential area built over fifty years ago.
Because demolishing it is difficult and housing prices have remained high, the area was left as is.
The gray-black cement ground was dirtier near the walls, sticky with grime, making it easy to slip and fall.
“Miss, the security here isn’t good. Let’s go somewhere else to have fun.”
Behind me, Aunt Lin’s face was filled with concern as she spoke seriously.
I paused mid-step, “Who said the security’s bad? Don’t look at this place with biased eyes.”
“It’s already the new century. There are cameras everywhere. How could there still be so much crime?”
I curled my lips slightly, then smiled brightly, completely ignoring Aunt Lin’s warning, happily walking forward.
What nonsense. Even with a ghostly infant beside me, if I could still be attacked, then I might as well be reincarnated as a pig in my next life.
Because, I’m that dumb.
The young girl took perfectly measured small steps, dressed in a beautiful fairy-like gown, her hair neatly pinned up with pretty ornaments.
Her ethereal appearance was somewhat out of place in the surroundings.
This time, I had my own purpose for going out.
I didn’t bring Guan Xiyue, who was usually busy, and instead chose someone left behind by Su Liumeng to accompany me.
The reason for coming to Chengzhong Village was to find someone.
The village’s narrow roads twisted and turned so much that, despite having a mental map, it took me quite a while to find the place I was looking for.
It was a small Mossy Courtyard House hidden in a corner.
It was hard to imagine that among these decades-old commercial housing complexes, there was still a traditional house that was common many decades ago.
This ordinary-looking courtyard house had two floors, the red bricks on the sides used for construction seemed about to fall off, covered with green moss, making it look more like an abandoned, dangerous building.
There was a large-scale demolition campaign at the start of the century, and this house looked like one of the few survivors left behind.
Could anyone actually live here?
I raised my eyes to the building with faint doubts in my heart.
But the courtyard in front of the door was very clean.
Apart from some crumbling cement debris caused by the years, I didn’t see a speck of trash.
On the first floor.
A simple wooden door made up the entire facade — not even a single window was visible.
After thinking several times, I finally lifted my pale wrist and gently knocked on the iron ring in front of me.
Knock knock knock—
The sound of the iron ring striking the wood echoed rhythmically at the end of the narrow alley.
I glanced around quickly; it seemed this was the only house left in this corner.
“Mommy, the person you met online doesn’t seem very reliable.”
“Shouldn’t be.” I muttered, “I can’t be scammed, can I?”
When I was bored, I often wandered around on the internet and happened to come across something interesting.
*****
It’s a website only accessible to cultivators.
But the registration process was troublesome from the start, requiring answers to many questions ordinary people wouldn’t even know.
Then the second step required an introducer before one could become a full member, able to view posts and speak freely.
I got stuck at the introducer step, unable to register successfully, so for now I was just a regular visitor.
I was once an ordinary person, and now that I had just entered the cultivation world, everything was new and fascinating.
I was curious about the everyday life of cultivators.
Was it really like in novels, with endless adventures in various dungeons?
Honestly, I hated dungeons.
When reading novels, dungeons bored me to death.
The protagonists seemed to do nothing but adventure in dungeon after dungeon.
Such dull stories barely kept my interest.
Hate or not, complain or not, I didn’t need to enter dungeons myself, but if I was just watching the gossip, I’d be the first to approve.
After all, it was just something to entertain myself when bored.
I thought about lurking on the website quietly as a bystander.
I asked around among the people Su Liumeng left at the villa, but no one was a registered veteran member.
It made sense, since the Su family had strict rules from ancient times, still acting like a feudal clan.
They never allowed their members to join any civilian organizations, even just an interactive platform like this was strictly forbidden.
The website wasn’t small-scale; it looked like something set up by sect members, perfect for newcomers like me to expand their horizons.
My purpose this trip came from a job posting I found on a recruitment website.
The poster was very vague but hinted they could act as an introducer on the website for a tiny, almost negligible fee to complete the transaction.
I bought this address for fifty thousand yuan, and the deal could only be done in person.
There should be plenty of food sources nearby, which caused many mosquitoes to swarm around me.
Fortunately, as I was about to reach the end of the second cultivation stage, I could actively emit a faint aura of yin energy.
These annoying creatures froze into corpses when they got close to me, falling from the air like rain.
Within five minutes, the ground was covered with stiff mosquito bodies.
I was quite pleased with my new ability.
Though I couldn’t fight others yet, at least I could keep mosquitoes away, which suited my personality perfectly.
After all, who wants to be bothered by mosquitoes?
Besides, I went out every day flaunting my long, fair legs — quite an easy target in a crowd.
Before I started cultivating in September, I’d been bitten by mosquitoes more than once.
The results weren’t pretty — just one bite could swell up badly, and with my delicate skin, it looked quite scary.
Knock —
My patience was thinning, but I still forced myself to keep knocking.
Deep in my mind.
Sister Yixin hesitated several times, afraid that what she said might hurt her mother’s pride.
Who has their first experience on a recruitment website only to be conned by an agent?
And then to be scammed?
Being an introducer and connecting others is exactly the typical intermediary scam script.
What her mother encountered was nothing special.
Wasn’t it just that innocent college students saw the harshness of the world before even graduating?
Sister Yixin carefully weighed her words, finally settling on a less hurtful way to say it: “Mommy, did you get scammed?”
Well, it wasn’t very subtle, but she thought her emotional intelligence still needed work.
Hearing her daughter’s blunt comment, I bit my soft lips lightly.
After knocking without response again, I finally accepted the fact I’d been scammed.
Suddenly, anger exploded inside me, and I raised my small foot to fiercely kick the wooden door, muttering the name of some plant.
“Fine, fine, you scammed me, huh.”
I almost laughed out of frustration.
Mainly, I’m not someone without any resources; if anyone dared to stir trouble online, I’d find out their real info in no time.
So I truly never expected to be scammed myself.
And yet, it happened.
Thinking back to how polite I was after adding them on WeChat, cooperating quietly by transferring fifty thousand yuan — it made me want to break down.
Who just said if a person is too dumb, they might as well be reincarnated as a pig?
In short, my expression was hard to describe.
I took out my phone from my bag.
Aunt Lin had been holding my bag and knew some of the situation.
Seeing my face, she suddenly put her hand to her neck and said, “Miss, do you want to find this person and then…”
She made a throat-slitting gesture, so practiced it seemed she’d done it thousands of times, her expression calm like she was talking about killing a chicken.
I just opened my mouth slightly but said nothing.
I could only say, no wonder people from the Su family are so ruthless — just like me.
“Wait a moment.”
I opened my WeChat and sent a message to that person.
【I’m downstairs at the address you gave. I knocked but no one answered. Did I come to the wrong place?】
Seeing I wasn’t blocked, I secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
No one wants a lifelong joke of being scammed by a shady agent on their bad history record.
I stepped back two paces and took a photo of the entire courtyard house with the spring couplets still pasted on the door.
At that moment, a young female voice came from behind.
“Ah, why are you so late? I thought you weren’t coming today and just went out for lunch.”
The girl looked about fifteen or sixteen, with two lively pigtails, holding a giant cotton candy, bouncing happily to my side.
“Seeing your WeChat avatar, I thought it was a handsome young man, but who knew it was such a beautiful young lady.”
She smiled sweetly, showing two shallow dimples, and held out her little hand.
“Let me introduce myself, I’m Muyuet… Oh, by the way, what’s your name? Are you here to apply for the Twilight of the Gods Forum?”
Seeing I didn’t answer immediately, Muyuet bounced back and forth, pulling her hand back and forth as if she had a lot to say, “Miss, miss, how old are you? You look about my age.”
I did look quite young.
After all, I was cute rather than having a forever baby face.
Though not totally childlike, the slight baby fat on my cheeks made me look even younger.
Muyuet’s gaze shifted slightly, and her tone suddenly stammered, “Um, just now… sorry about that.”
My tone was flat as I squeezed her little hand, “Sister Yixin, I’m already an adult.”
“Oh.” Muyuet smiled awkwardly and toned down her temper, “Sister, you really don’t look like it.”
She took a key from her pocket and opened the wooden door in front of us, “My place is a bit simple. Registering isn’t something you can finish immediately. Do you want to come inside and sit for a while?”
“Sure.” I followed her into the living room.
Completely different from what I expected, the living room’s four walls were inset with luminous stones.
A faint yellow light hovered over the floor, like countless fireflies dancing around, creating a very romantic atmosphere.
“Be careful, the room is a bit dark inside. Don’t bump into anything.”
Muyuet was quick and tidied up the clutter in the living room, pushing it into the corners.
She brought over a chair for me to sit on, “Sit for a while. I’ll get you some water.”
“Thanks.”
The girl opened the back door, probably going to the yard.
I heard the rusty creaking sound of a water well, echoing strangely in this modern time, as if traveling back to the last century — a surreal scene.
Muyuet filled a kettle with water, then added two handfuls of firewood to the outdoor stove.
She struck a match, lit a dry stick, and placed it under three logs stacked with a hollow space beneath.
There was a black pot on the stove, which she casually took down, then put the kettle on it.
She stood by, blowing air into the fire until the flames roared high.
Curious, I walked over to the primitive stove.
Muyuet smiled and explained, “Our family follows a bitter cultivation tradition. There’s not a single electrical appliance in the house. We live in the most primitive way to return to nature and gain insight.”
“If that’s so, why do you post recruitment ads online?”
Muyuet smirked slyly, “I only do that secretly. Don’t tell my dad. They’re bitter cultivators, and I earn my own pocket money secretly. No one interferes with each other’s lives.”
She really talked a lot and complained, “Honestly, it’s ridiculous to cultivate bitterly in the modern world. It’s like depriving yourself of life’s pleasures. I can’t stand their way. If my family didn’t control me, who’d want to stay in this broken house? I’d have gone out to live my own happy life long ago.”
When she talked about her family, the girl seemed a bit desperate.
Probably because she hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a long time, she kept chattering non-stop since she saw me, “Sister, you must have gone to school when you were young, right? I’ve never been to school because my dad says school teaches nothing useful. He says with his education, I can learn everything. I’m just drunk on this. Going to school is partly for learning, but more for playing with friends. Who wants to have no friends?”
I stayed silent, mostly listening.
I reached out and patted her fuzzy head, “When you can’t change the situation, secretly doing your own thing isn’t bad. Just like your recruitment ad online.”
I’m not good at comforting people and don’t bother trying, but since she seemed somewhat useful, I rarely offered two comforting words.
We were all strangers.
No one just dumps their troubles on a stranger.
If she kept going, it would be too much.
Muyuet probably realized her mistake and stuck out her tongue shyly, then explained again, “Sister, you’re really kind. I’ve never met someone as patient as you… Sorry about earlier. You’re the first cultivator I’ve met this year, so I couldn’t help but say more. That recruitment ad has been up for a while, and you’re the first to believe it and choose to chat with me privately.”
What does that mean?
That I’m naive?
There was no way to continue the conversation.
An hour later, after getting my member account, I planned to return to Beiqing.
Suddenly, the girl grabbed my clothes, her eyes full of expectation, “Sister, if you ever need help, come find me. I, I don’t charge…”
She probably really had no friends to say such a thing about not charging.
I chuckled.
Because I was still a rookie and couldn’t tell others’ cultivation levels by appearance, it wasn’t a matter of a day or two.
By intuition, she should be much stronger than me — after all, she’d been cultivating since childhood.
The first and second stages, according to popular cultivation talk, are considered genius if completed within two years.
“I… probably don’t need your help.” I said and started to leave.
The girl’s head slowly lowered, looking a little disappointed, then suddenly raised her face again but couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
She watched my figure disappear at the alley’s end and sighed softly, “I just wanted to make a friend. Why is it so hard?”
Divine Ruin.
Su Liumeng hadn’t obtained anything worth exchanging points on this trip.
Her ambition was huge. She wanted to improve her strength and directly explore the depths of the valley.
If she could retrieve a treasure from the valley’s depths, she would surpass countless ordinary items in accumulated points.
Su Liumeng’s goal was never the top seven.
She was determined to win first place, so she had to take risks.
Inside the cave.
Su Liumeng’s face was rosy, with no visible injuries.
She casually punched the wall, breaking it, then soared upward.
It was time to absorb the sixth dragon blood.
This trial in the Divine Ruin — Su Liumeng was determined to astonish everyone.