**Chapter 37: Preparations by Luxianbei**
In the early morning, within the Bamboo Slips Illusion.
The golden light of the **Solar Ball** pierced through the clouds and mist, casting down upon the rolling black mountains, dispersing the thick fog that had lingered all night. Clear dewdrops slowly slid from the branches of the black vegetation, resembling a gentle rain, outlining several rainbows among the dense forest.
The morning in the Bamboo Slips Illusion was cold, the climate akin to late autumn, but Gu Qiqi possessed an astonishing willpower developed from years of working odd jobs; as soon as dawn broke, she unhesitatingly crawled out of bed.
She was accustomed to finishing today’s tasks today. After receiving the commissioned work from Luxianbei last night, she turned around to buy materials and was poised to start brewing potions today.
Gu Qiqi’s alchemy workshop was set in the deep mountains.
Though termed an alchemy workshop, compared to the large-scale workshops under the organizations of the Siye Society or the Solar Eclipse Society, it was painfully rudimentary—a small wooden house built against the mountain.
Even the alchemical equipment inside was old furniture salvaged from a second-hand market.
The second-hand ventilation fan creaked and whined, the refrigerated refrigerator wasn’t particularly effective and required auxiliary spell formulas.
The alchemical cauldron was repurposed from a pressure cooker’s inner pot, and the gold extraction rod was made from parts taken off a bicycle; instruments were made from wholesale beer bottles or glass jars.
Grinding devices weren’t necessary; her incredibly strong hands sufficed, and a heating apparatus wasn’t required either, as a spell formula could provide heat.
If a comparison were to be made, the Siye Society’s alchemy workshop would be a Michelin three-star restaurant, while Gu Qiqi’s workshop was akin to a private, unlicensed takeout dive that didn’t even have a proper facade.
However, a dive merely represented unhygienic or unhealthy practices, not necessarily that good flavors couldn’t be produced.
In such a rudimentary environment, she surprisingly managed to brew **Solar Ball** type medium to high-level alchemical products, with a remarkably high success rate.
Upon reaching the alchemy workshop, Gu Qiqi retrieved the medicinal materials she had bought at the Ghost Market’s pharmacy last night and carefully ground them with her hands.
Once all the materials were ground into appropriate-sized particles according to Luxianbei’s formula, she set up the pressure cooker’s inner pot, activated her spirit energy to cast the spell, and began heating.
While waiting for the pressure cooker to warm up, she collected dew, wrapped the medicinal materials in gauze, and slowly filtered out the juice, storing it in a small bowl for use.
The System then poked its half-human, half-fish head out from behind her, staring intently at the flames beneath the pressure cooker.
After a moment, the System lightly called out, “Gu Qiqi, it’s ready! Hurry up!”
“Mm-hmm!” Gu Qiqi answered, immediately taking the fire copper block intended as the base material and pouring it into the pressure cooker. When the fire copper block completely melted, she picked up the gold extraction rod, infused it with spirit energy, and traced out a series of oddly-shaped spell sigils.
As the final stroke of the spell was made, the fire copper liquid in the pressure cooker instantaneously changed from yellow to red.
Seeing this, Gu Qiqi remained calm and methodically added various materials into the pressure cooker.
With the last ingredient added, the liquid in the pressure cooker gradually thickened. Just as it was about to solidify, Gu Qiqi grabbed a piece of volcanic crystal from the table, her spirit energy surged, and her hands clapped together forcefully.
“Bang—!”
With a loud air explosion, the hard volcanic crystal, under her astonishing strength, was crushed into powder the size of salt grains.
The volcanic crystal powder floated into the pressure cooker, and in an instant, countless flowing lights emerged from it, dazzling and brilliant, resembling fireworks.
“Bang—!”
In a deep rumble, all the flames appeared to vanish into thin air, abruptly extinguishing.
The liquid in the pressure cooker shot up, tracing complex outlines in the air, and then suddenly shrank into a mass of golden-red liquid, slowly falling.
Fully prepared, Gu Qiqi held a clean glass jar that previously contained yellow peaches, extending her hand to catch every drop of the **Blazing Fire** potion.
Looking at the finished potion in the glass jar, the System couldn’t help but exclaim, “It worked! You did it in one shot! Gu Qiqi, you’re amazing!”
“Quick, prepare to brew poison! Let’s brew the **Pigeon Feather Thousand Leaves Gu**! Make it potent enough so that eating it kills on the spot!”
“Um…” Gu Qiqi pouted, “System, I think poisoning everything might not be too good?”
“What’s wrong?” the System paused and asked, “Gu Qiqi, you didn’t get swayed by a couple of pig trotters and want to speak up for Calamity, did you?”
“Of course not!” Gu Qiqi’s eyes flickered with a hint of panic, “I—I just think that if everything is poisoned, it might get discovered!”
“…” The System pondered for a few seconds, “Gu Qiqi, you make a good point!”
“From what I know about Calamity, she’s quite cunning! Every time she acquires or creates a new potion, she has someone else try it first. Only after confirming there’s no problem will she consume it herself.”
“Then we’ll do this! Among the eight potions we need to deliver, we’ll add delayed-acting Gu poison to three of them, making it less likely to be discovered.”
Hearing the System say this, Gu Qiqi readily agreed, “Okay!”
For the sake of the pig trotters, I’ve only added poison to three of them!
After all, he is a factor in world destruction; we can’t just let him go without doing anything, right?
Thinking of this, Gu Qiqi turned to prepare for the brewing of the second potion.
——
Three days later, in the morning.
After only two hours of sleep, Jiang Li arrived early at the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Management Bureau, looking somewhat fatigued.
In addition to collecting materials on the Happy Neighborhood, she also had to keep up with practicing thirteen rounds of Mahjong, which was quite a heavy load even for her.
After handing over her night shift duties to Bai Kai from the previous day, she had just sat down in the office when she welcomed the first guest of the day.
An Qing still appeared in that enchanting manner, a faint smile at the corners of her mouth as she gently placed a thick stack of documents on Jiang Li’s desk.
“All the information you asked me to investigate is here.”
As she spoke, she sorted out the various contracts, property information, and other tedious document copies for Jiang Li.
“I glanced over them, and they’re completely the same as the results from the previous investigations. From land acquisition to the completion of the first phase with six buildings, to the recent conclusion of the third phase of sales, there have been no issues whatsoever. Not even a minor labor dispute has occurred.”
“Additionally…”
“Here are the records of accidental deaths among residents over forty at the Happy Neighborhood in the past year. The causes of d*ath are bizarre, the most odd being that someone was killed when a ceiling fan fell and cut off half their head; I always thought such causes only occurred in the imaginations of middle school students.”
“There’s also a portion of records from my personal autopsies; my only finding was that even though they were just barely over forty, their organs seemed much older, but it was all natural aging, with no residual spirit energy fluctuations.”
Jiang Li picked up the documents on the desk to review while An Qing quietly waited for her to finish, leaving only the sound of pages turning in the office.
After a moment, An Qing clapped her hands, drawing Jiang Li’s attention back to her.
“By the way, why did you suddenly decide to investigate the Happy Neighborhood again? Can’t we just keep spreading negative rumors about it online?”
Indeed, the chief online hater of the Happy Neighborhood was a member of a special action team under the Siye Society.
Although the Siye Society had not yet uncovered any problems with the Happy Neighborhood, they still hoped to reduce its occupancy rate through some covert means.
“Luxianbei took on the task of investigating the Happy Neighborhood,” Jiang Li briefly explained.
“Great! I didn’t expect that kid to be useful right off the bat.” An Qing nodded and pouted, “Du Sixian is a different story; I’m afraid it’ll take him another two months before he can handle even simple tasks.”
As she spoke, she stretched, turning to walk out the door. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I’ll take my leave!”
“Mm.”
Jiang Li slightly nodded, watching An Qing leave before turning her gaze toward the garden outside the window, basked in the morning sunlight.
What has Luxianbei been doing these past couple of days?
This thought crossed her mind, and she promptly took out her phone to call Ahua.
After waiting a few seconds, when the call connected, Jiang Li asked, “Ahua, the day before yesterday I asked you to keep an eye on Luxianbei’s recent movements. How’s it going?”
“He…” Ahua paused, sounding somewhat melancholic, “I don’t think he’s prepared at all for this investigation of the Happy Neighborhood.”
“Every day, aside from reviewing for his final exams in the library every morning, he’s either drinking tea in the old teahouse on Mudan Street, watching old men play chess on the street, or watching the sunset-red elderly Yangge dance troupe rehearse in the central park.”
“I feel like he’s about to integrate into the ranks of Huacheng’s elderly population. It won’t be long before he debuts in the C position of the Yangge troupe.”
Jiang Li, “……”
What in the world is Luxianbei up to?
d*mn it, I actually hoped he would take Siye Society’s work more seriously and prepare properly!
“By the way, yesterday he also group-purchased a ticket for the Great Wind Art Center to watch the ladies dance, sing, and play piano.”
“And lastly… he also went on three blind dates…”
“Blind dates?” Jiang Li asked, puzzled. “Isn’t he only nineteen? Why is he in such a hurry?”
Moreover, wasn’t he female after becoming an urban legend? Wouldn’t that be a disaster for the others? Is he trying to disguise his identity this way?
It seems it would be best to grab him as soon as this affair is over, Jiang Li thought.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s just that boys his age have too much energy and are feeling quite thirsty?”
“……” Jiang Li pondered for a moment and nodded. “Okay, got it. We’ll leave it at that for now.”
After hanging up, Jiang Li looked at the documents on the desk, silently sighing.
Although Luxianbei was quite unreliable, having this information should suffice; she hadn’t expected him to find anything either. She just wanted to observe his attitude toward investigating the urban legend events.
As for the results of her observation…
It’s hard to explain.
After a while, Jiang Li pulled back her thoughts, took out her phone, logged into the account specifically for infiltrating the Urban Legends Chat Group, and sent a message to Luxianbei.
Genius Mahjong Girl: “When shall we meet tomorrow? [Heart emoji]”
Ten minutes later.
Wang Buliu: “Sorry, I was just watching the ladies dance and didn’t see your message. Let’s meet tomorrow afternoon?”
Genius Mahjong Girl: “Alright, see you tomorrow afternoon! [Heart emoji]”
Wang Buliu: “Forget it, let’s meet tomorrow night instead; I have something going on tomorrow afternoon! [Squirtle wearing sunglasses emoji]”
Jiang Li, “……”
Is Luxianbei’s attitude getting more inflated lately?
“Well then, tomorrow night.” Jiang Li was just typing the text when she received another message from Luxianbei.
Wang Buliu: “Can we push it to the day after tomorrow? Didn’t you say for me to prepare properly? I’m not ready yet!”
Staring at her phone screen, Jiang Li’s mouth twitched slightly, her fist clenching, and she took a deep breath.
Genius Mahjong Girl: “What do you think? [Smile]”
Wang Buliu: “Got it, see you the night after tomorrow! [Hamster plea]”
Seeing Jiang Li readily using new emojis without any guidance, Luxianbei felt a hint of unease and replied accordingly.
——
By the time Luxianbei finally sorted out the housing contract for the Happy Neighborhood, night had completely fallen.
After keeping the contract, Luxianbei felt a sharp pain in his chest and couldn’t help but spit out, “Tsk! The rent for this d*mn place is really expensive!”
The various rumors online about the Happy Neighborhood didn’t seem to be reducing occupancy rates; people continued to flock there.
Luxianbei had asked the real estate agent to help him for a full three days and finally found a landlord willing to rent to him.
Indeed, during these three days, he wasn’t diligently integrating himself into the ranks of Huacheng’s elderly population. He was just about to head to the location where the urban legend incident occurred while also enjoying life, risking his life for spicy food.
In Luxianbei’s view, since the Siye Society had investigated the Happy Neighborhood so many times without finding any problems, it meant he wouldn’t be able to uncover anything useful through conventional means either.
Since the right path was out of the question, he had to take a crooked path!
For instance, infiltrating the ranks of Huacheng’s elderly population.
Having spent his childhood in the teahouses of Mudan Street, Luxianbei knew well that those elderly folks in their seventies, eighties, or even nineties had almost witnessed the entire development of Huacheng from a remote little city into a modern metropolis.
If one were to say who knew the various urban legends in this city the most besides the Siye Society, it’d surely be those old folks.
Of course, these elderly people were also hard to deal with, with their peculiar tempers, the ramblings from all walks of life making it difficult to seize the main points; this was likely the reason why the Siye Society had not started their investigation from this aspect.
However, who was Luxianbei? He was Huacheng’s king of prattling!
He wasn’t afraid of others chattering, just afraid others would find him bothersome.
After three days of debating with the elderly, he successfully organized some information about the Happy Neighborhood that the Siye Society had not found.
The only headache was that while idly chatting with the sunset-red Yangge dance troupe, he’d been targeted by two old ladies who had introduced more than twenty blind date candidates to him in three days.
In today’s world, beautiful appearances are all the same, while bizarre souls are strange. He was truly scared, and some even brought urban legends along on their blind dates.
A long string of urban legends trailing behind those women were nothing but formless ghost infants, frightening Luxianbei to the point of confessing right there.
——
When Luxianbei arrived in the East District of Huacheng, the night market had just opened, and the street was bustling with activity, the savory scents wafting from the various snack stalls.
After searching for a while along the street, he finally found Gu Qiqi, who was squatting on the roadside selling fried rice, toys, and handicrafts, with a wide range of items.
He quietly waited for a moment until Gu Qiqi finished with a customer before stepping forward.
“Boss, please give me a takeout of **Blazing Fire**.”
“Eh? Oh, just a moment!”
Gu Qiqi raised her head upon hearing the voice, and upon seeing it was Luxianbei, she hesitated for a moment before leaning down to rummage through her cart for the potion dispensed in a glass bottle.
Luxianbei took the potion from Gu Qiqi, looking at the rough packaging and even a bit of pig fat stuck on the surface of the glass bottle, frowned slightly, and silently walked away, quickly disappearing from sight.
Seeing him leave, Gu Qiqi was about to breathe a sigh of relief and continue selling fried rice. However, upon turning around, she caught sight of Luxianbei sitting on the road behind her, one hand holding a coin and the other holding the glass bottle.
“Ah! Y-You haven’t left?” Gu Qiqi, guilty of her misdeeds, panicked and called out.
Luxianbei looked up with an expressionless face, “I did leave, but halfway I suddenly thought your potion might have problems, so I came back.”
“Is there… is there a problem?” Gu Qiqi asked timidly.
“There is, definitely!” Luxianbei said confidently, shaking a bottle of potion in front of Gu Qiqi, “Look, your bottle looks like it’s been used by someone before; of course, I’d be worried about hygiene!”
Gu Qiqi, “…”
System, “…”
When they were dividing the potion, they had considered many possible rejections from Luxianbei, but they never thought he would refuse due to hygiene concerns.
“I thought I’d test it here; if there really is a problem, it’d be easier to return it, right?” Luxianbei mumbled.
“Oh right, let me confirm, this thing doesn’t have any health and safety certification or something, does it?”
“N-No…”
“Uh, then I’ll test it myself.” Luxianbei said.
“Well, how are you planning to test it?”
Gu Qiqi was not good at lying, her voice quivering slightly as she kept her gaze fixed on Luxianbei, not daring to take a breath.
“Like this!”
Luxianbei said, taking the coin, secretly thinking that the heads represent the potion having a problem, while the tails mean it’s alright, and then tossed the coin up into the sky.
Seeing Luxianbei act this way, the System became flustered, exclaiming in Gu Qiqi’s mind, “Oh no, Gu Qiqi! He’s testing if the potion is poisoned through divination!”
“Eh? Eh—!”
Gu Qiqi was momentarily stunned, and before she had time to ask the System for a response plan, she heard a light sound by her ear, and her body jolted as if electrocuted.
“Snap—!”
Luxianbei expertly caught the coin with both hands, glanced at it, and saw it was tails.
He nodded in satisfaction, then peeked at Gu Qiqi’s face, which was sweating and panicking, and picked up the second bottle of potion.
“Sy-System, what do we do now?”
“……”
“System?”
System, “……”
The next host must find someone wealthy!
Because the host’s extreme poverty indirectly led to a mission failure, this is just too frustrating! the System thought.
Luxianbei initially didn’t distrust Gu Qiqi to such an extent; he simply intended to verify with one bottle.
But upon seeing Gu Qiqi’s guilty expression after he came back, he became increasingly concerned that the potion might be unhygienic.
If there are no hygiene issues, why are you panicking?
“Snap—!”
Tossing the coin, catching it, tails; the second bottle was fine.
“Snap—!”
Tossing the coin again, catching it, tails; the third bottle was fine.
Luxianbei tossed the coin three times, spending less than a minute, but to Gu Qiqi, it felt like a long and torturous minute.
While she anxiously speculated whether Luxianbei would test all eight bottles of potion, potentially exposing her plan to poison, he pocketed the coin and stood up.
“Looks like there’s no issue.” He said, reaching into the small box containing the glass bottles and randomly grabbing one, stuffing it into Gu Qiqi’s hands.
“I’m very satisfied with this transaction; this one’s a gift for you! I’ll be off now, looking forward to our next cooperation!”
Watching Luxianbei walk away, Gu Qiqi confirmed repeatedly that he wouldn’t return before her voice trembled, “System? Are you back online?”
“Mm.”
“We should avoid duplicity like this next time; it’s too scary.”
“Agreed.” The System concurred.
If Calamity had tested a few more bottles, we might have been in serious trouble today, the System thought.
“System, what should we do with this potion?”
“Of course, we throw it away!”
“I can’t bear to; it’s so expensive.” Gu Qiqi frowned.
“Aren’t you afraid it’s the poisonous one?”
“How about I just take a tiny sip first?”
System, “……”
