Chapter 297

Chapter 297: A Lead from Xuan Che

Yu Sheng was genuinely surprised. He confirmed again, and Xuan Che’s expression didn’t change. He was serious.

“You’re just a tourist from out of town,” Yu Sheng said with a frown. “You don’t have to get involved in a regional disaster investigation like this.”

“Fighting the strange and sheltering the common people is the duty of cultivators like us,” Xuan Che said, proud yet gentle. “And Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain has had an ancestral rule since our founding: the powerful help the world. You don’t need to worry. Even if our ‘out of town’ isn’t as special as Borderland, we still have otherworlds. We have experience exploring otherworlds and dealing with entities. We won’t drag you down.”

“Uh, it’s not that I’m worried you’ll drag us down…” Yu Sheng started, reflexively.

But with Xuan Che putting it that way, Yu Sheng swallowed the rest of his objections and only added, “Then wait for me to drive the house into the otherworld, and we’ll go out together. Mistbound City is weird. Be careful.”

Xuan Che blinked. “…?”

It sounded like a brand-new string of words, but he’d heard so many of those today he didn’t even have the energy to ask.

Yu Sheng ignored his expression. He stepped forward, gripped the doorknob, and—like last time—calmed his mind and guided the entire Wu Tong Road 66 address as it shifted position, moving toward the coordinates of Mistbound City.

Xuan Che sensed a subtle change. A hollow, low rumble seemed to rise from deep inside the manor, like a vast, unseen living creature slowly moving its limbs. The “atmosphere” of the entire house shifted in an instant.

For a heartbeat, everything felt alive. The ceiling lights, the wallpaper, even the tissue box on the side table—everything seemed to look at him with a gaze that wasn’t hostile, but definitely wasn’t human.

Then the sensation vanished. Before he could truly react, the manor settled again, and Yu Sheng said from nearby, “All right, we’re here.”

The door swung open.

A fog-filled street spread beyond it.

Xuan Che stared, stunned. The moment the door opened, his divine sense broke free from the suppression that had plagued him inside the house. It reached outward, touched the space beyond Wu Tong Road 66, and in that instant he finally understood what Yu Sheng meant by “driving the house into the otherworld.”

He looked at Yu Sheng, and the words spinning in his mind were almost reverent.

The expert!!!

…How did the Special Operations Bureau accept this manor? How did anyone accept the whole “human imitation” style going on inside it?

Yu Sheng didn’t notice the subtle horror on his face. At the moment, he was busy deciding which Irene to bring outside.

“Bring a DPS, bring a controller.” Yu Sheng gave orders quickly. “Pro and Rebar come with me. The other two stay home. If anything creepy shows up outside the windows, it’ll be easier for you to notify me and Foxy right away.”

“We can bring one more!” Irene (lotus) protested at the door. “More people is better in a fight!”

“I can’t hang any more on myself,” Yu Sheng said, helpless, glancing at steel Irene and ProIrene already sitting on his shoulders like they owned the place. “Unless you get down and walk.”

The moment he said that, Little Doll on the floor rattled off in one breath, “Have a safe trip watch out be careful come back early if anything happens I’ll contact you immediately!”

Yu Sheng stared. Then he decided not to respond at all.

A moment later, Yu Sheng—carrying two Irene—stepped into the fog with Foxy and Xuan Che.

He still held the vicious tetanus staff. In their last fight with the artificial saintess, that “war club” had been hacked full of scars by her fingertip blades. Nearly half the blades and rebar had been shaved off, but Foxy had repaired and reinforced it afterward, and now it looked vicious again.

The two Irene on Yu Sheng’s shoulders didn’t stop warning him as they walked. “Don’t suddenly put that thing on your shoulder. Don’t forget we’re sitting on both sides right now!”

“I know, I know,” Yu Sheng said impatiently. “You’ve said it eight hundred times since we left.”

Xuan Che’s gaze kept drifting to the staff. He looked like he wanted to speak, stopped himself, then tried again—over and over—until Yu Sheng finally broke first.

“Interested in this spiked club?” Yu Sheng asked casually. “You’ve been staring at it for a while.”

“Elder—Mr. Yu, forgive me.” Xuan Che’s tone turned solemn. “I just don’t understand one thing. Why does the weapon in your hand carry such heavy bloodlust? And even… layers of deathly aura?”

He asked it with an expression that said, I might die for saying this, but if I don’t ask, it violates my Dao heart.

Yu Sheng froze.

Then Irene burst out laughing on his shoulder. “Hahahaha! Someone thinks you’re an evil cultivator~~”

Yu Sheng tugged the corner of his mouth, then shook the staff slightly. “Don’t worry. The bloody aura on it is mine. I coated it with my own blood. It has special effects against some weaker entities, though the downside is it makes the thing look… creepy.”

He paused, then added, as if it were nothing, “As for the layers of deathly aura… it’s probably from killing too many entities.”

“Is that so?” Xuan Che murmured. Doubt still lingered in his eyes, but he seemed willing to accept it.

Irene chimed in cheerfully, “Hey, don’t overthink it. Our Hotel always does things openly. Even if someone dies, they definitely deserved it…”

Something about that sentence made Yu Sheng’s instincts itch. “Wait. Are you implying something?”

“Ah, you’re thinking too much,” Irene said, patting the back of Yu Sheng’s head. Then she stiffly changed the subject. “Anyway, we don’t really need to come exploring ourselves, right? Didn’t the Special Operations Bureau send a bunch of people to investigate inside? Wouldn’t it be the same to wait for their news?”

“It wouldn’t.” Yu Sheng shook his head slowly. “This fog can appear right outside the windows of Wu Tong Road 66. That alone worries me. And there’s also that artificial saintess who escaped earlier…”

“Huh? What about that artificial saintess?”

“She showed up nearby before,” Yu Sheng said flatly, sweeping his gaze through the fog. “And she hasn’t gone far.”

Both Irene snapped awake in perfect unison. “C Buckle!”

Foxy’s ears perked up. She scanned the surroundings, voice going sharp. “Benefactor, this is not far from where we were ambushed last time.”

“So that C Buckle looped around and came back to the edge of Old Quarter?” Irene hugged Yu Sheng’s head, suddenly serious. “Is something really hidden here?”

“It’s hard not to suspect it.” Yu Sheng frowned. “But the deep dive squad the Special Operations Bureau sent already searched this area. They found nothing.”

Xuan Che had been listening quietly. Now he spoke, slow and careful. “You mentioned an ‘artificial saintess.’ Is it the kind of mechanical doll made by Holy Revere Hermitage?”

“Yeah.” Yu Sheng nodded. “You’ve dealt with that thing too?”

“I haven’t seen one in person, but I heard a sectmate mention it.” Xuan Che’s expression darkened. “They saidd they said this evil thing is extremely hard to deal with. Its moves are bizarre, it’s fast, and it can hide in shadows and shift instantly. Ordinary cultivators aren’t its match.”

“You need an expert,” he added, “or many people to surround and kill it.”

Yu Sheng stared. “…Even you people who can soar and burrow think an iron shell like the artificial saintess is hard to deal with?”

“Sigh. It’s mainly that iron shell.” Xuan Che let out a long breath. “As far as I know, it’s a material used to make starship armor. It’s not only tough—the inner lining also contains many strange secret methods. Ordinary spells barely affect the outer shell. And constructs don’t fear curses, illusions, or restraints.

“Just that ‘breaking spells’ aspect alone means most cultivators lose more than half their methods when they face her. What’s left is rushing in and chopping her up close… A flesh body trading blows with starship armor—of course it’s dangerous.”

He paused, then added, “Of course, stronger cultivators aren’t afraid. There are always ways to deal with it. It just might take some effort.”

Yu Sheng listened carefully, and something Bai Li Qing had mentioned earlier surfaced in his mind.

Holy Revere Hermitage had a relatively fixed range of activity, and they’d been low-key for the last decade or so.

He also remembered Bai Li Qing mentioning that the featherwing-13b belonging to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain was a relatively sealed star region. Its security might not match Borderland, but it wasn’t far off.

“So the artificial saintess also ‘invaded’ your place?” Yu Sheng asked, frowning. “When did that happen?”

“In the last year or two,” Xuan Che said grimly. “There were traces of the so-called Hermitage Order on a few frontier planets. Twice, an artificial saintess appeared. They didn’t cause huge damage. The stationed cultivators drove those demonic outsiders away in time… but their appearance is truly suspicious.”

“What did they do over there?” Yu Sheng asked quickly.

“Seems like they were smuggling something.” Xuan Che thought, then shook his head. “But those demonic outsiders are always cautious. When the mountain-guarding cultivators arrived, they only found warehouses and machines that had been wrecked. What exactly they did there is still unclear.”