Chapter 49: Information on Yu Jianqiu has been found!
Lu Yibei was unaware that Huaxie Yu had been following him all the way to Mudan Street, and, in front of the Huacheng Folk Culture Research Management Bureau, was trying to coax a certain unfortunate little fatty into entering the bureau for a closer look.
He entered the “V” office, sat down at Jiang Li’s old-fashioned desk, pressed the power button on the computer, and once the password input interface popped up, he typed in the password that Jiang Li had told him.
It is worth mentioning that Jiang Li’s computer startup password was unusually long and difficult to remember without knowing its specific meaning.
“QYSSBXS+GSKH=9F, 512B”
This string of nearly garbled characters was something even Lu Yibei couldn’t remember completely on the first try until Jiang Li clarified its precise meaning.
“All eighteen scholars + offhand growth = 9 times, 512 times.”
Upon hearing Jiang Li’s explanation, Lu Yibei fell silent on the spot, leaving a deep impression on him.
He opened the computer, logged into the Siye Society’s intranet, and immediately got to work searching for information related to “Lord Long of Nanling County.”
The file system of the Siye Society was quite convenient; after inputting a few keywords, Lu Yibei quickly found some information he was interested in.
[Spiritual Ability User File Number 0037, King of Nanling County (Tang). Name: Longxiang
Spirit Energy Fluctuation Level: Unknown, Spirit Patterns: Chivang (in doubt)]
“I?” Upon seeing this, Lu Yibei let out a soft gasp and took out the summon command from his bag.
The summon command was shaped like the legend of a hornless dragon, “Chivang,” corresponding to the spirit pattern of the King of Nanling County in the file.
Someone with such a legendary creature as their spirit pattern surely wouldn’t have a low spirit energy fluctuation level, right? At least it should be A-Class?
However, at that time, there wasn’t the current standard of spirit energy fluctuation levels, so it was hard to determine strength accurately.
Lu Yibei thought as he toyed with the summon command for a moment, then placed it back on the desk and continued scrolling down through the file with the mouse wheel.
[File Number 0037-1
After the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tibetans took advantage of the situation to conquer the Hexi states, causing immense suffering among the people.
(According to investigations, behind the Tibetan victories, there was high-level urban legend assistance known as ‘Xiang Xiong Spuban,’ also referred to as ‘Black God.’)
The King of Nanling County, Longxiang, who was initially trapped by the Tibetans, secretly gathered a large number of spiritual ability users and, in the second year of the Dazhong era, led them to expel the urban legends from the Shazhou region.]
Is the monster mentioned in the summon command really referring to urban legends? Lu Yibei wondered.
[File Number 0037-2
Name: Hong Bian.
Spirit Energy Fluctuation Level: Unknown.
Spirit Patterns: Vajra Pagoda (in doubt).
A high monk from Shazhou, who was both a teacher and friend to Longxiang, provided significant assistance during Longxiang’s efforts to expel urban legends from Shazhou.
File Number 0037-2-1
Hong Bian seems to have had close contact with the predecessor of the Miracle Cult—a Zoroastrian sect.]
“Wait a minute! Vajra Pagoda?” Lu Yibei furrowed his brow; he recalled hearing the term “Vajra Pagoda” somewhere.
Staring at the computer screen and recalling for a moment, a figure of a burly man holding a Vajra and self-harming flashed through his mind.
“Isn’t that the guy I encountered at the South Suburb Slaughterhouse?” Lu Yibei muttered to himself.
Previously, while Lu Yibei and Jiang Li were going through the admission review process for the Urban Legends Chat Group, they had met a spiritual ability user named Zhang Dexian at the South Suburb Slaughterhouse, who claimed to be the sole inheritor of the Vajra Pagoda Sect.
“Is there a connection between these two?”
It’s not impossible for a sect formed by a spiritual user around the year 800 AD to have faded over a thousand years to just one person.
After a short contemplation, Lu Yibei couldn’t think of any solid evidence linking Zhang Dexian to the monk Hong Bian, so he collected his thoughts and continued reading the file.
[File Number 0037-3
Name: Yumen Pass
After Longxiang reclaimed Shazhou, Ganzhou, Yizhou, and over ten other states, he was commanded by the Tang Emperor Xuan Zong to build a God Realm, guarding the Hexi region. After successfully establishing the God Realm, Longxiang named it after the Han dynasty’s majestic pass, “Yumen.”
The God Realm Yumen is one of the important origins of the spiritual ability organization, the Jade Gate Desert.]
“Goodness!” Upon reaching this point, Lu Yibei quietly exclaimed, “So my guess was right; it is related to the Jade Gate Desert? This means that the Miracle Cult’s attack on the Jade Gate Desert might not have been purely about ‘creating miracles,’ right?”
Were they trying to find something that used to belong to the Zoroastrian sect from the Jade Gate Desert? Could it be something similar to the Oujinbang?
Connecting this with the information he obtained when he interacted with Sheim and Salih from the Miracle Cult, as well as the possible existence of Fang Ji, who resembled a Miracle Saint, he speculated that they were close to him because he had the aura of the Oujinbang.
Perhaps what they were looking for included the Oujinbang.
However,
Lu Yibei did not intend to hand over the Oujinbang to the Siye Society or return it to the Miracle Cult.
Of course, this was not because he felt a sense of righteousness and wanted to prevent the Miracle Cult from obtaining it and creating some great mischief.
The main reason he kept it was that it could turn stone into gold!
With the Oujinbang in hand, it was like having an endless mountain of gold; if he were to give away such a treasure, he wouldn’t be Lu Yibei anymore.
Although,
It looked a bit peculiar, and accessing the “gold” from that golden mountain carried a high risk of turning into a small gold statue.
While thinking, he clicked on the entry of “Jade Gate Desert” in the file, preparing to view detailed information related to it. The next moment, a prompt box marked with a red mourning Gray Owl Badge popped up on the computer screen. The content of the prompt box can be summarized in four words: “Insufficient Permissions.”
Seeing the prompt, Lu Yibei exited the file of the King of Nanling County, changed several keywords, and tried to learn about the Jade Gate Desert from another angle, but to no avail, ultimately having to give up.
The file system, almost entirely established by the guardian—Wordless Book, was said to have integrated part of the authority of the Wordless Book at the time of its establishment, making it extremely “user-friendly.”
When the permissions are sufficient, you can find any information you want inside, but when the permissions are insufficient, if it won’t show it to you, then it won’t, and that’s just how it is.
It’s like a math problem, no matter how pressured you are, if it’s unsolvable, it’s unsolvable. At the same time, it can also push someone to the limit.
Recently, the Jade Gate Desert encountered major issues, severe enough to require two guardians and over ten A-Class spiritual ability users to address the situation, thus adjusting the viewing permissions for related information to the highest level.
Let alone Lu Yibei trying to browse the related information on the Jade Gate Desert using his own internal account, even if he used Jiang Li’s account, who manages the files in the Huacheng Siye Society, he still wouldn’t be able to access it.
There was no way around this; he couldn’t possibly ask Xu Wu for help to hack into the Siye Society’s file system, nor could he ask the guardian to help open the permissions, could he?
One was too afraid, and the other was unfamiliar, so it was hopeless!
No matter, I don’t absolutely need to know about the information regarding the Jade Gate Desert, right?
Lu Yibei thought, deleted the keywords in the search bar, and replaced them with the words “Liao Zhai Tavern,” then gently pressed Enter. As the page refreshed successfully, three relevant pieces of information appeared on the screen.
[Urban Legend Event Number 0079
Name: Liao Zhai Tavern
This urban legend event lacks specific urban legend information and spirit energy fluctuation levels.
The target is a tavern of uncertain architectural style, randomly appearing in any corner of the eastern hemisphere. The Liao Zhai Tavern seen by different guests has certain degrees of difference.]
[File Number 0079-1-1 Siye Society Operative He Yong (Alias) Interview Record]
Seeing the attached voice file in the file, Lu Yibei raised an eyebrow and clicked the play button. Isn’t this exactly what he needed?
Listening to how others got there would help him know how to enter the Liao Zhai Tavern. Lu Yibei thought. [Operative 009: “Operative He, I heard you visited the Liao Zhai Tavern recently?”]
He Yong: “Yes, that’s right.”
After hearing just a couple of lines, Lu Yibei pressed pause, unable to hold back a sigh, “What’s going on? Why isn’t it following the process?” He recalled his own interview record in Miss Rabbit’s file, which detailed the entire process from when he answered “name.”
Ahua told him that was the normal procedure, and he believed it until now. “Beep!”
Lu Yibei pressed the play button again, and the audio resumed.
[Operative 009: “Please tell us about your entire experience of entering the Liao Zhai Tavern?”
He Yong: “Okay, I remember that the day I entered the Liao Zhai Tavern, I received a call from home; my mother told me that my father had suffered a stroke and was hospitalized, unconscious, and I…”
Halfway through, the man, who was using the alias He Yong, suddenly choked up, falling silent. Hearing this, Lu Yibei pressed pause.
As someone who had lost his father, he could empathize somewhat with He Yong’s feelings at that moment.
After the car accident, when he woke up in the hospital to find himself blind, he hadn’t really felt much impact to react excessively. But when he heard that his father had died in the accident, at that moment, he truly felt that the sky had fallen.
After adjusting his emotions slightly, Lu Yibei pressed play again.
[He Yong: “I’m sorry; I just thought of that day and got a bit emotional.”] [Operative 009: “Hmm, I can understand. Is your father doing any better now?”]
He Yong: “Much better. Thanks to some colleagues at home helping out. I’ll continue telling you about how I entered the Liao Zhai Tavern that day.” “After getting the phone call from my mother, I initially wanted to rush back to take care of my father, but my mother stopped me. As a compatriot in the Siye Society, you should know that in our line of work, it’s impossible to tell family what we are doing.”
“It sounds a bit ridiculous; even now, my family still thinks I’m involved in some unspeakable criminal activities.” [Operative 009: “Hey! They will understand you in the future.”]
He Yong: “I hope so! To continue, after my mother stopped me, I felt very low and wanted to find a place to drown my sorrows in drink. However, the city I worked in, you should have heard of, was quite active with urban legends at night, and there was simply no tavern or restaurant that operated at night.”
“So, after informing my colleagues, I planned to go home directly to have a few drinks, but while taking a shortcut home, I suddenly felt emotional after recalling what my mother said on the phone, then a thought flashed through my mind, and unexpectedly, something happened.”
[Operative 009: “What did your mother say?”]
He Yong: “Can I not say? In short, she blamed me, feeling that I had done something wrong and that my father was suffering because of me.”
[Operative 009: “Sorry, can you tell me what were you thinking?”]
He Yong: “Well, it was like this: that day was the winter solstice, and we had the first snow, and as I walked through that alley, I suddenly remembered that the old, shabby building my family lived in had a similar alley in front.”
“That alley was particularly dark even during the day and was next to a sewage ditch, always reeking of decay. I was very afraid to walk that road alone as a child, so I thought if I came home on time every day, my mother would make me my favorite bowl cake.”
“I then thought of my mother making bowl cake and wished that if I could have some when I got home today, that would be great. If I could have it, I would be willing to never drink again; then when I walked through the alley, I found myself at the Liao Zhai Tavern and met that Boss Hu.”
[Operative 009: “So, did you have bowl cake at the Liao Zhai Tavern?”]
He Yong’s emotions were a bit agitated: “That’s right! The bowl cake made by Boss Hu tasted exactly like the one my mother made, and I couldn’t help but cry as I ate it.”
“Uh, by the way! There’s another thing.” [Operative 009: “What?”]
He Yong’s voice suddenly became heavy as he made a deduction based on being an operative of the Siye Society and a spiritual ability user.
“To be honest, although I wasn’t an alcoholic, I really enjoyed drinking, but after that day, I never wanted to drink again. Even encountering the smell of alcohol makes me want to throw up; I suspect that the price for Boss Hu to make me the bowl cake at the Liao Zhai Tavern was my love for alcohol.”
“He must be a type of urban legend that feeds on human wishes?”
[Operative 009: “There will be a special team to investigate this later; for now, please tell us what you saw at the Liao Zhai Tavern.”]
He Yong: “Okay.”
*Beep!*
Lu Yibei turned off the audio file and stared at the computer screen, falling into deep thought.
Operative He’s deduction might be correct; Boss Hu of the Liao Zhai Tavern might indeed be an urban legend that feeds on human wishes or something else.
After all, he was running a business, not a charity; how could he possibly serve you food without taking anything in return? That’s likely why he knew how to master the cooking of human delicacies.
Lu Yibei thought and opened the audio interview records of two other people who had been to the Liao Zhai Tavern.
The statements of the other two were not much different from He Yong’s; they all experienced certain events after which they suddenly craved certain foods, willing to offer some of their own passions as a price, and then “coincidentally” encountered the Liao Zhai Tavern.
However, it was worth noting that although the general layout of the Liao Zhai Tavern they described was similar, there were obvious differences in some of the details of the decor style.
The Liao Zhai Tavern that He Yong saw had an aesthetic reminiscent of his hometown in the Chaoshan region, while the latter two saw one tavern with a style from Shaanxi and another in the Victorian style.
“If I really want to go to the Liao Zhai Tavern…” Lu Yibei pondered for a few seconds and murmured, “I wonder if I can see one with a style similar to the War God Team’s base?”
While talking to himself, he was about to continue browsing the files related to the Liao Zhai Tavern when suddenly, his phone vibrated with a new message.
Net User 00: “Information on Yu Jianqiu has been found!”
Then, within less than five seconds, he received another message from Qi Dong.
Qi Dong: “Operative Lu, we caught a person who was following you. She claims to be named Yu Jianqiu. Do you have any leads?”
