Chapter 36: Why Am I Here?
At 1:30 AM, in the Happy Neighborhood of Huacheng, at the corner of a warehouse belonging to Huacheng Calamity Irresponsible Scare Company.
Du Sixian bit her lip and lowered her voice, asking Lu Xianbei, “High person, why did you suddenly call me out? You had to avoid everyone just to tell me…”
“Shh—!” Lu Xianbei made a quiet gesture, looked around to confirm there was no one else, and quietly responded, “I managed to get some funding back. There are too many people outside, and money should not be exposed. I’m worried those guys might see it, go out and talk about it, and then someone will take note of it.”
She had just verified with Fat Second Grandpa that the golden substance produced by that stick-like object was indeed gold—high purity and a staggering amount. After buying all the alchemical leftovers from Fat Second Grandpa, she still had more than half left.
After thinking it over, she felt it was more reliable to leave it to Du Sixian to manage.
At this point, Lu Xianbei couldn’t help but want to complain about the proxies’ recommended candidates.
What a bunch of nonsense!
She had already inquired; the candidates recommended by the Proxy Player Sister were either dead or missing.
Even if they could really be found, could they manage better than Du Sixian? Could they be more efficient than Meng Meng in producing Spirit Energy Items? Could they be cuter than the coat?
Not worth much! Lu Xianbei thought.
Hearing this, Du Sixian was momentarily stunned and asked in confusion, “A little bit of funding? How much is that?”
To be honest, maintaining the Irresponsible Scare Company required more time, energy, and money than she had imagined. Almost all the rent she collected each month went into it, and it was hardly enough.
If there was a large sum of money… Du Sixian frowned, imagining many plans that couldn’t be implemented due to a lack of funds.
Lu Xianbei didn’t answer Du Sixian’s question; instead, she cunningly raised an eyebrow at her, followed by a flick of her hand, revealing a passageway leading to the God Realm Prototype behind her.
Then…
“Dong—dong dong—!”
A fist-sized piece of gold rolled out from the passage, bouncing twice before coming to rest in a corner between the shelves.
Gold? Du Sixian looked at the golden object that had fallen to the ground, a hint of disappointment flashing in her eyes.
She roughly estimated that the piece of gold weighed about 3KG.
Although it was worth quite a sum, it was merely a drop in the bucket for the vast Huacheng urban legend community.
At that moment, a rumble from the passage leading to the God Realm Prototype was heard, reminiscent of a mountain collapsing.
“Boom—!”
With the roar, gold came rushing out of the passage like a floodgate opening, rolling and covering the aisle between the shelves with a loud clamor.
Du Sixian roughly estimated the total amount to be at least two to three tons.
Watching the ground covered in dazzling gold, her eyes widened. After swallowing hard, she looked at Lu Xianbei and weakly said, “High, high person, you’ve finally chosen this path, haven’t you?”
True to her status, the high person seemed to have emptied a bank vault!
Aren’t you afraid the Siye Society will come looking?
However, if the Siye Society does come, all I have to do is team up with Senior Lu to help clear the high person’s name, right? Du Sixian thought.
“That path?” Lu Xianbei frowned.
“Robbery,” Du Sixian said seriously. A hint of ruthlessness shone in her eyes, “High person, you don’t need to worry. I’ll pick a good buddy later to give a sufficient living expense. They should be happy to take the blame for you.”
Lu Xianbei’s eyelid twitched, interrupting, “Stop, stop, stop! Where did you get your criminal gang from? Why does it sound like I’m about to run away? This gold isn’t stolen!”
I don’t have the guts for that; it’s not just me. I’ve never even heard of any urban legend or spiritual ability user daring to rob a bank! Lu Xianbei thought.
Among the protectors of the Siye Society, there is one presence codenamed “God of Wealth,” who hardly participates in investigations or handling urban legend cases. His daily job is to ensure that the vast majority of people’s wealth doesn’t get harmed by illegal spiritual powers.
Almost every bank vault bears the mark of the God of Wealth, and whenever a spiritual ability user or an urban legend attempts to carry out a bank robbery, the God of Wealth will appear within an hour.
Of course…
Such work requires immense effort, so the God of Wealth can’t look after everyone.
That’s why incidents occur, where people get their wallets, bank cards, and even credit services like Huabei and Weilidai cleaned out.
“Although I can’t detail how it came about, rest assured that these things were definitely not obtained through illegal means. You can use them without worry!” Lu Xianbei explained.
Du Sixian, having been born with a golden key, had seen much of the world. After a brief shock, she calmed down quickly.
She looked at the gold on the ground, silent for a few seconds, resting her chin on one hand before nodding, “I indeed have thought of a few plans that require massive funding, but…”
Pausing, she looked at Lu Xianbei and continued, “But with so much money, I can help you manage it and operate it, turning it into two or three times should be no problem. But don’t you have any other plans?”
“Of course! First, let’s buy a few tens of thousands of graphics cards, then sell them at a low price under the guise of cursed graphics cards, destroying the business of the scammers while gifting a one-month scare package. When these scammers and miners try to take advantage, that scare package will automatically upgrade into a real urban legend incident.”
“What do you think?” Lu Xianbei asked.
As a gaming enthusiast, she understood the pain of her brothers not being able to buy cheap graphics cards.
What’s so scary about a little fright? The ugly face of a scammer isn’t more terrifying than an urban legend, right?
Furthermore, when her brothers play certain indescribable games, if an urban legend suddenly pops out from the screen, it could help them quit their bad habits! It’s good for their health.
Du Sixian, “……” True to a high person, not willing to resort to vile means; the methods really are simple and brutal.
Seeing Du Sixian silent, Lu Xianbei was unsure of her thoughts, and feeling a bit awkward, hurriedly changed the subject, “Just kidding! We can discuss the graphics card purchase later. If possible, I’d like to use these funds to develop some new equipment…”
Pausing, she added, “Similar to the Spirit Energy Item equipment, but for the design blueprints, I’ve temporarily stored them elsewhere. I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until I retrieve them before we can start the development.”
“Elsewhere?” Du Sixian tilted her head.
Does the high person have other secret bases besides Huacheng and that mysterious space?
True to a high person, they always like to keep a hand!
“Oh, Dachunyang Palace,” Lu Xianbei casually remarked.
Anyway, she needed to go there to find the fragments of Ling Tai Purification and the visualization diagrams, and casually obtain some Spirit Energy item crafting methods. It should be fine.
When harvesting the sheep, you have to catch one to the end; don’t believe me, ask the other “sheep” if they think the same way. Lu Xianbei thought.
Du Sixian, “？？？”
That place isn’t…
The high person speaks as if it’s their home; they can just go there as they please?
True to a high person, even the Dachunyang Palace can be come and go freely, like entering an uninhabited realm! Du Sixian thought.
——————
At 2:30 AM, in a small town twenty kilometers outside the blocked Pestilence Taijie area, in Yancheng.
Although it was late and pouring rain, it was livelier here than in some places during the day.
After the urban legend events caused by the Pestilence Taijie, most of the former residents here died or were injured, with nearly every household empty, almost turning it into a ghost town.
However, after the Siye Society successfully suppressed the Pestilence Taijie and eliminated the threat, a group of low-level spiritual ability trash folks began to gather here.
These d*ath-defying trash folks came from all over the world, often lurking in abandoned areas due to urban legend events.
Whether it was an abandoned oil factory in the Siberian plains or a remote city in Northern Europe, even in an obscure street in Southeast Asia, their active presence could be felt.
They came like locusts, taking away the wealth that no longer had an owner, leaving behind only empty shells.
Although the areas abandoned due to urban legends are few compared to human settlements, these trash folks are insignificant compared to the more than seven billion human population.
However, just like in many unknown corners, a group of people lives in garbage dumps, spending their days with mosquitoes and diseases.
Though the existence of these trash folks is unknown to the public, worldwide, they collectively number in the tens of thousands and are incredibly mobile. Even if the Siye Society and similar organizations were willing to intervene, they couldn’t fully stop their actions.
Where there is light, darkness will always follow; some are willing to pan for gold in the dark.
Some countries even turn a blind eye; in their view, these trash folks are just asking for it by sending themselves to their deaths.
At this moment, under the cover of night and rain in the small town, lights occasionally flashed, the orange-yellow glow outlining the silhouettes of people in raincoats.
Amidst the indistinct murmur of arguments coming from unseen places, one party spoke with a Kansai dialect of Japanese, while the other used a South American-accented Spanish. The mismatched dialogue suggested a fight was about to break out.
Deep in an alley, a rotten stench pervaded the air, with several corpses lying in a dark corner.
At the alley entrance, a trash person pushed a small cart with a rain canopy, holding up a red flame-imbued spell stone as light, slowly approaching.
The rain tapped against the canopy, making a crisp sound that was almost drowsy.
He came here to search for corpses.
Where there are people, there is conflict, and in this small town, conflicts arise daily, and deaths are a common occurrence.
d*ath means wealth.
For a lone trash person like him, while scavenging for neglected wealth, he often struggles against those operating in packs. He can only check these corners piled with corpses in hopes of good luck.
Undamaged human organs can be sold to the Black Sun Brothers Tech Society, and the mobile phones and wallets left behind by the dead often contain some stray money, while finding one or two Spirit Energy items could yield more than raiding an entire apartment building.
The trash person flipped over a face-down corpse with a rusty hook in hand, seeing the empty abdominal cavity, and spat viciously, “Pah! Even the sh*t has been scooped out; these wild dogs!”
“This world is too bad. Hurry up and enter the Cataclysm Grade urban legends to destroy the world!”
As he cursed, he continued pushing the cart forward, occasionally stopping to use his iron hook to flip through the corpses that had already been rifled through several times, followed by another fit of angry cursing.
Finally, deep in the alley, he found a corpse that hadn’t been touched by other trash folks yet…
“Wait, this person is still alive? Holy cr*p! How can this be?” the trash person exclaimed in surprise.
Using the spell stone as light, he saw that the girl in the black raincoat was pale, with numerous bl**d holes on her body. He vaguely heard the cry of torn organs, and the wound was already beginning to rot, showing a moldy dark green color.
But she was indeed still alive, her chest rising and falling at an extremely low frequency.
“Ah, what does it matter if she’s alive? It’s bad luck to run into me; the bosses of the Black Sun Brothers Tech Society are pressing hard for you. They would definitely love this still-beating heart.”
“Hehe, looks like a young girl; it’s been a long time since I’ve touched a woman!”
The trash person muttered, crouching down to explore inside the girl’s raincoat. His smile suddenly froze.
He touched something indescribable and stick-like.
“……” After a brief silence, his smile widened again, “A boy? Isn’t that even better? Hehehe!”
He continued to search, soon pulling out a wallet that had been pierced by some sharp instrument.
“Fang Ji, male, Kyrgyz…” The trash person glanced at the ID inside the wallet, curled his lip, and took the eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents it contained, reaching out to continue searching in the young boy’s raincoat.
Suddenly, he froze, tremblingly withdrawing his hand to look at the cold object in his grip, his pupils contracting sharply.
It was a cracked Gray Owl Badge.
“Is, is this a Siye Society member? This, this…” The trash person murmured, staring at the unconscious boy on the ground, hesitating between helping him or turning back to the Siye Society to demand a bounty, or simply eliminating him to avoid trouble later.
At that moment, the boy suddenly woke up, opening his eyes, a sun-like glow flashing in them.
Staring into those eyes, the trash person trembled. He vaguely felt something being drawn from him by those eyes, perhaps his soul, or something else.
The next moment, a group of R nationals and South Americans suddenly started fighting in the distance, gunshots echoing across the empty street.
Amidst the chaos, an alchemical b*llet shot out from the crowd, entering the alley, hitting the wall. Its trajectory suddenly changed, falling precisely on the trash person’s temple, “Puff!” A bloody hole exploded, and before he could react to what had happened, he lost his breath.
On the side, the severely injured boy stared vacantly at the scene before him, raising his hand after a long time to wipe the bl**d from his face, muttering to himself, “Who am I?”
As soon as the words left his mouth, a gust of wind blew, lifting the ID lying on the ground, sending it flying to his side.
He glanced at the ID, and when he saw his photo printed on it, he furrowed his brow slightly.
“I am Fang Ji… What is this place?”
“d*mn it, fighting every day! R nationals and South Americans, get out of Qiuchun Town!” A loud shout echoed from a distance in the empty town.
“Qiuchun Town?” the boy murmured, “Why am I here?”
This time, he did not receive a coincidental answer…
