**Chapter 20: Professor Ma’s Search for Friends**
The warm winter sun reflected off the accumulated snow, casting faint markings on the black tiles, as if someone had stepped there under the eaves.
Sunlight streamed through the bare branches, illuminating a tall figure standing by the side of the antique street on Taohua Road.
Professor Ma stood alone on the roadside, pulling out a note from his jacket pocket to confirm the address, nodding to himself.
“It should be here. I didn’t expect him to move here from the countryside. Looks like he’s made quite a profit dealing in antiques over the years!”
He muttered to himself, tucking the note away and tossing a copper coin into the air, catching it as it fell, glancing at both sides and revealing a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
According to the copper coin’s prediction, everything today would go smoothly.
Using copper coins to pave the way for his errands was a self-cultivation practice of a seasoned member of the “Copper Coin Cult.”
Putting the coin away, he straightened his clothes and adjusted his coat’s collar to shield against the chilly wind. Professor Ma looked around before crossing the street and heading toward the alley across from him.
According to the address on the note, his old friend lived deep in that alley.
—
Recalling the past, just a bit over thirty, Ma Zhen led a field investigation team on his own for the first time, only to encounter an unexpected incident and get separated from his team, lost in the rugged and stormy loess highlands, nearly dying in a sandstorm. However, this marked the start of the most thrilling adventure of his life.
At the brink of d*ath, a boy with extraordinary martial arts skills saved him amidst the yellow sand. Upon waking, he learned that the boy was in search of the legendary tomb of the Yellow Emperor, located somewhere in the loess highlands, and he voluntarily joined the boy, taking on the role of “encyclopedia.”
As the two explored the loess highlands together, they encountered a group led by Lan Sheng, a seasoned treasure hunter. The three quickly bonded.
What a combination: a knowledgeable older brother, a carefree young man experienced in treasure hunting, and a cold boy with superb martial arts skills and mysterious knowledge. This was practically one of the golden combinations in various tomb raiding novels!
Later, this small team ventured into deserts, traversed dense forests, witnessed ancient cities standing firm amidst yellow sands, and delved into the bronze palace beneath the clay forest, battling against poaching gangs and strange wolf packs.
Truly, in their prime, making the most of life, they experienced carefree adventures.
However…
Legends are just legends. After encountering things that most people might not see in a lifetime, the three ultimately failed to find the Yellow Emperor’s tomb. Due to a series of irreconcilable conflicts, they eventually parted ways.
Professor Ma returned to the university and continued his research on ancient script, while Lan Sheng reformed and returned to his hometown, Tangcheng, starting a business dealing in antiques.
They kept in touch sometimes, reminiscing about the past and exchanging antiques, not particularly close but not estranged either.
As for the skilled boy, he disappeared without a trace after they parted, as mysteriously as he had come, leaving no word behind.
Reflecting on the past inevitably brought a sigh; it had already been twenty-one years since then.
—
Walking through the alley, it was not long before he arrived in front of Lan Sheng’s unmarked private antique shop.
The door was half-open, yet the shop inside was closed. Crossing the threshold, he could smell a faint hint of high-grade incense lingering in the courtyard.
“Old Lan, Old Lan?” he called out twice, but no one responded. Taking a few steps forward, he called again, “Lan Sheng, I’m here!”
Inside the shop, it was silent as if time had frozen. Only the sunlight filtering through the wooden windows cast shadows of dust floating in the air, a testament to the passage of time.
“Strange, weren’t we supposed to meet this morning? Where is he?” Professor Ma muttered to himself. Just then, something hit the back of his head unexpectedly.
Looking around, he saw a particularly clean jujube pit lying in the snow.
Staring at it for a few seconds, Professor Ma suddenly looked up and spotted a little girl at the window of the neighboring small building.
The girl was petite, about six or seven years old, wearing a peacock green cotton jacket with fur trim. Her long hair was bundled into two round little buns, and her delicate oval face was slightly chubby, her skin glowing white like the snow on the eaves.
What a cute little girl! If only she were my granddaughter! Professor Ma, who had a strong fondness for granddaughters, couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.
Although many men are often taken with beautiful women, he truly had no such thoughts.
He simply loved children, especially little girls.
The reason being, his grandson, who seemed like a reincarnation of the Monkey King, was a handful, and no one could handle him.
A well-behaved granddaughter would be wonderful!
Sometimes, Professor Ma, in a fit of anger with his bl**d pressure skyrocketing, even thought about slapping his grandson down with a five-finger mountain.
As he was lost in thought, the little girl finished gnawing on a winter jujube and casually threw the pit, hitting him squarely on the forehead.
“Old pervert! Staring at little girls with your eyes all aglow, how shameless!” the girl teased, sticking out her tongue. “Now, tell me, what are you here for?”
The hit from the jujube pit jolted Professor Ma back to reality, and as he looked at the girl, he couldn’t help but furrow his brows.
A six or seven-year-old child should be innocent and carefree, yet this little girl, despite her young age, had a flirtatious demeanor. And looking at her bearing, while charming, there was nothing banal about it; rather, she exuded an air of nobility and elegance, unlike an ordinary person.
Under her elevated gaze, Professor Ma actually felt as if he were in the presence of a queen.
He had heard that some children were precocious but had never encountered one so astute, almost as if facing a deep and cunning old monster.
What would she be like when she grew up?
He wondered which poor boy would be in trouble!
Seeing that Professor Ma had not spoken for a long time, the girl frowned and said, “Old man, I’m asking you a question! If you don’t speak, I’ll call the police to take you away!”
“Uh…” Professor Ma was taken aback, quickly explaining, “I’m here looking for someone, Lan Sheng, who runs this shop—he’s my friend.”
“Oh~!” The girl nodded knowingly, “You’re looking for little Lan? Well, you’re probably not going to find him.”
Little Lan? Lan Sheng is old enough to be her grandfather! Professor Ma frowned, “Not found? Where has he gone? I spoke with him yesterday and we agreed to meet today.”
“Probably went back to his hometown!” The girl, with a winter jujube in her mouth, shrugged and muttered.
If things went quickly, his family must be keeping vigil right now… Jumeng silently added in her mind.
“Hey, old man, who are you to him? What are you looking for him for?”
“Ha ha!” Professor Ma explained cheerfully, “Little girl, I came to ask him about some things. You’re still too young to understand exactly what.”
After all, she was a little kid, how could she understand protecting cultural relics? Professor Ma thought.
Tsk, when I was growing up, your grandfather hadn’t even been born yet! Jumeng rolled her eyes, impatiently saying, “If you don’t say, how would I know if I understand or not? If you don’t say, I’ll just assume you’re a bad guy!”
“Grandpa, there’s a bad guy!”
Professor Ma was taken aback, a hint of panic flashing in his eyes as he hurriedly said, “Little girl, don’t say that! I’m a good person. Lan Sheng is really my friend!”
What kind of ill intentions could a child have? As long as he explained clearly, it should be fine, Professor Ma thought.
“Friend?” Jumeng scoffed, “What good person could be a friend of that guy?”
She already knew that the neighbor of Chunfeng Residence was a spiritual ability user, but before she knew about He Tianjun following that whoever to attack the pawnshop last night, she hadn’t really thought much about it.
Now recalling, his intentions probably had been sinister, and it appeared he had been plotting for a long time.
She just didn’t understand, as someone whose spiritual energy fluctuated between B+ with various spirit energy items assisting him, how could he be lurking around without revealing himself? What was he doing at the pawnshop?
A B-level spiritual ability user would stand no chance against Grandfather Yuan, who was a formidable urban legend.
There is a saying: “The giant turtle bears the weight of Mount Penglai on its back.”
This reflects the scene of the giant turtle standing on the sea with Mount Penglai atop its head.
When Jumeng had just awakened that morning, the first thing she checked was Lan Sheng’s small courtyard, and seeing no one, she surmised he must have been crushed to d*ath by Grandfather Yuan the previous night.
Now seeing Professor Ma appear at Lan Sheng’s shop, claiming to be his friend, she naturally presumed he was an accomplice.
Her situation was dangerous, and she needed to be cautious.
If Professor Ma hadn’t displayed any spiritual energy fluctuations, looking entirely like an ordinary person, he probably would have already been lying down talking.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Jumeng’s bright eyes twinkled with a sly glimmer as she turned and yelled towards the shop.
“Grandpa, Grandpa, there’s a bad guy here—someone who bullies little kids! Hurry and call the police to take him away!”
Professor Ma, “??? ”
Suddenly, he felt that his granddaughter might not be as cute as he thought; what was going on?
Darn it, didn’t I predict this with the copper coins when I came here?
Could it be that I misread the divination results?
As he was lost in thought, an old man with a noticeably bulging belly suddenly rushed in, knocking him to the ground with a broom. A short while later, officers from the nearby police station burst in, quickly putting shiny handcuffs on him.
As he was taken away by the police, Professor Ma stood at the mouth of the alley and turned back to look, seeing the little girl standing on the second floor of the small building, watching him with a smile that was completely inscrutable, then waving goodbye.
Professor Ma, “……”
—
In the early morning.
At Tangcheng University, College of Arts and Literature building.
The door to the “Cultural Relics and Museology I” laboratory was cordoned off, and the corridor was crowded with people, most of them members of the Dongyi Culture Research Project, mixed with a few onlookers. However, everyone seemed to be deliberately keeping their distance from the laboratory.
The body of Li Ziqi was discovered by one of Professor Hou’s students who had come to the lab for materials that morning.
As soon as he opened the door, he saw Li Ziqi sprawled over the long table, mostly covered by a notebook. He initially thought he was just tired from an all-night gaming session and teased him about it, approaching to mock him about his lack of self-restraint.
As his gaze passed over the laptop screen, that student immediately turned pale and collapsed onto the floor, taking a while to regain his composure before tremblingly pulling out his phone to call the police.
Li Ziqi was dead; his entire body above the collarbone had vanished, merged with the laptop screen, as if he had been devoured by the computer or something had pulled his head into the screen, leaving nothing but bloodstains on the display.
Even the police and forensic experts who rushed in afterwards were shocked by this bizarre d*ath.
—
Lu Yibei bit into a croissant he hadn’t finished eating on the way, his expression grave as he observed the police and forensic experts moving in and out of the “Cultural Relics and Museology I” laboratory, deep in thought.
This was clearly the aftermath of an urban legend attack.
Furthermore, there were residual spiritual energy fluctuations at the scene, initially estimated to be at a level between one to two old rabbits.
Not particularly strong, but the urban legend had presumably fled. It would have been nice to observe it up close, but that would have to wait until the police cleared out.
Sighing silently, Lu Yibei took out his phone and continued trying to contact Jiang Li.
Even though his last message to Jiang Li got intercepted and received no aid from the Void, he hadn’t given up.
However, he had tried various methods, including screenshots, homophonic characters, and breaking up messages to send, all of which had been intercepted, as if he were dealing with a censorship god. Even attempts to initiate a video call and communicate through eye contact were hindered by poor signal, resulting in blurry images and stuttering transmission.
In desperation, Lu Yibei simply reported his daily activities to Jiang Li.
Wang Buliu: “Breakfast at the hotel was not bad. I met a senior sister while eating; she’s quite cute.”
Miaomiao Sauce: “Is she cuter than me?”
Wang Buliu: “She’s very beautiful, how could a senior sister compare?”
Miaomiao Sauce: “Can I interpret this as you finding me beautiful, but privately?” [Heart gesture]
Wang Buliu: “EMMM… Alright then!”
If one day I suddenly stopped reporting, she would probably suspect something had happened, right?
Looking at Jiang Li’s reply, a soft light appeared in Lu Yibei’s eyes as he silently put away his phone.
“Tsk tsk, moderate gaming is good for the brain, but becoming addicted harms the body. Intense gaming leads to ruin!”
The voice came from Lu Yibei’s right side, where Mao Sanyou had squatted down beside him at some point, both of them watching the laboratory in a daze.
“You still have time to daze off? Isn’t this the kind of thing the Tangcheng Siye Society should handle?”
“I’d like to help…” Mao Sanyou shrugged helplessly, “But I can’t. Did you know something major happened last night?”
“Oh? A friend from the M78 Nebula appeared in Tangcheng and invited you to turn into light?” Lu Yibei tossed a taunt.
“I wish! But it’s been over ten years and they still haven’t come to pick me up.” Mao Sanyou pouted. “However, given the things I’ve done, I’d say I have little chance of turning into light; turning into a giant turtle might be more feasible.”
Pausing, he quietly explained to Lu Yibei, “Last night, there was an explosion in the Arrow Tower Old Street area, centered around a nameless pawnshop, which obliterated buildings with a diameter of over fifty meters, killing seventeen people and injuring more than forty.”
Lu Yibei frowned, “Was it an urban legend incident?”
Mao Sanyou looked at Lu Yibei seriously and replied, “No, it should be said that it was an accident caused by the aging and negligence of the gas pipeline in the old district.”
Lu Yibei shrugged, noncommittal.
Excuses like gas pipeline explosions, high-voltage power line malfunctions, and minor earthquakes due to land subsidence were old tricks used by the Siye Society to cover up serious urban legend incidents. He had seen enough records of this in the files at the Huacheng Siye Society.
Seeing that Lu Yibei had said nothing, Mao Sanyou stood up and leaned a bit closer, speaking in a voice only the two of them could hear, “From the situation at the scene, last night there was a battle between urban legends.”
“Causing that kind of damage, even under the illusion of a barrier they set up, if they had unleashed their full power, the destruction would likely have been comparable to a medium-scale Hundred Demons Walk.”
“Also, Nanxing made some other discoveries on the ring city expressway. Guess what she found?”
Lu Yibei shot him a look of “you can say or not” and replied, expressionless, “You’re the riddle master of Tangcheng, huh?”
Ignoring Lu Yibei’s sarcastic remark, Mao Sanyou spoke with a sense of urgency, “We found what seems to be the bl**d of Jumeng, the master of Peach Source.”
“When combined with a series of recent anomalies around Tangcheng, we suspect that last night’s battle was very likely an assassination attempt against Jumeng.”
At these words, Lu Yibei’s heart tightened, yet his face remained expressionless.
Noticing this, Mao Sanyou crossed his arms and frowned, “Why do you look so unfazed?”
“What’s there to be surprised about? I’ve only heard of this urban legend, Jumeng, by name, but I’ve never seen her in person. I’m not from here, so I have no real sense of her being targeted,” Lu Yibei said nonchalantly.
“That’s true!” Mao Sanyou shrugged.
“What I’m more curious about is what brings you over here after such a big incident?” Lu Yibei questioned. “You’re not slacking off again, are you?”
“Well, it’s a monster incident! The one who died was my junior brother,” Mao Sanyou said. “I obviously had to come and take a look! Who knows, maybe the urban legend that caused the incident hasn’t gone far, and I might get the chance to deal with it.”
“However, right now…” Mao Sanyou shook his head. “That urban legend has obviously fled. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to continue investigating until I can pull it out.”
“Things have to be prioritized. Nanxing is urging me heavily, so I have to go and help her first. If this crisis passes smoothly, I will find a way to avenge my junior brother.”
“…” Lu Yibei glanced at the laboratory in silence for a few moments and nodded, “Understood! However, doesn’t saying such things count as setting a FLAG? Be careful not to live past this crisis.”
“…” Mao Sanyou opened his mouth, about to say something to Lu Yibei, when a sudden low voice from within the laboratory interrupted them.
“Miss, please don’t cause a commotion, hurry and go outside!”
Hearing this, both Lu Yibei and Mao Sanyou froze, turning to look at the source of the sound, only to see a blonde girl being “invited” out of the laboratory by an officer.
“Officer, you have to believe me! I can really summon souls! Just let me try; I can call him back to ask what happened last night, and we’d know everything, right?”
Lu Yibei, “…” Is that Fu Xinyi? She can summon souls? Could my guess have been correct, and she really was that person from last night?
Seeing the girl, cute yet with a hint of grievance, Mao Sanyou took a deep breath and muttered, “How come we have such a beautiful junior sister in our team? How come I never noticed before?”
Lu Yibei shot a glance at Mao Sanyou, whose face was written with “this girl is meant for me,” rolled his eyes, and said annoyingly, “Don’t even think about it.”
“What? Are you interested in her too?”
“No, I’m worried that even if you succeed, Professor Hou will come down hard on you two.” Lu Yibei replied, “Her name is Fu Xinyi. She helped me support and tease your teacher yesterday.”
At these words, Mao Sanyou glanced at Professor Hou, who was staring at Fu Xinyi with a scowling face, huddled his shoulders and said to Lu Yibei, “Alright, I think it’s time for me to go over to Nanxing’s side.”
“Things may be dangerous over there; it’s best you don’t go. If you have time, you can stay here and check the urban legend incident from last night. If you need any help, just say the word.”
Lu Yibei nodded, just as he was about to say something to Mao Sanyou, his phone suddenly vibrated. Taking it out, he saw an unfamiliar landline number calling.
“Hello?”
“Yes, I’m Lu Yibei.”
“Do I know Ma Zhen? Yes, he’s my teacher. Officer, may I ask what happened to him?”
“What? Attempted child abduction?”
“???”
Lu Yibei was taken aback, suddenly recalling Ma Professor’s strange behavior when he saw his mythical species form, a sense of foreboding washing over him.
This old fellow, usually behaving strangely toward me is one thing, but now, he has actually set his sights on innocent pedestrians like little girls? Does he not consider others at all?
After a moment of silence, he replied expressionlessly, “Sorry, officer, what did you just ask me? I didn’t hear clearly due to the poor signal.”
“If you have time, could you come to the Taohua Road Police Station?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Not that phrase,” Lu Yibei rejected.
“Uh… do you know Ma Zhen?”
Lu Yibei thought for a moment and said seriously, “Sorry, comrade, I don’t know this Ma Zhen. I’ve never heard of that name before. If there’s nothing else, I’ll hang up now. Bye!”
“Beep—!”
