Chapter 369
Chapter 370: At the Hotel, Everyone Has Something to Do
The next day, Yu Sheng finally enjoyed a rare spell of Clear Tranquility: that eerie Otherworld stayed quiet, and Immortal Yuan Ling focused on contacting every faction while coordinating searches everywhere for suspicious Space Rifts and any Evil Path Cultivators. Outsiders could not help with that work, so Yu Sheng simply relaxed and treated it like a vacation.
After all, the Otherworld is always there and shows up everywhere; daily life still has to be lived.
With free time on his hands, Yu Sheng made a quick trip back to Boundary City. He bought some daily goods, then brought Foxy to the Special Affairs Bureau cafeteria to freeload two more meals. Bai Li Qing was a little surprised that he would run all the way back from Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain just to mooch food, then she asked about Zheng Zhi’s recent situation.
Normally someone like Zheng Zhi, a probationary rookie at the lowest rank, would not draw a Director’s personal attention. But the legendary story of the big nephew who got yanked by Yu Sheng’s slip of the hand up to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain and then fell at once into a high risk Otherworld would be rare even in a famed and blessed Borderland. Because of that, Bai Li Qing specially asked for many details.
Irene’s routine hardly changed. When she came to Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain she said she wanted to enjoy the joy of stepping out the door to wander whenever she liked, but once she arrived she still spent most of her time at home. She watched TV, played games, and argued with strangers online, happily butterfly-stroking through the pits of social media every day. She looked like she was about to rot into the couch, though to be fair she had always leaned that way.
Luna had already started her grand farming plan. She loved the plot Yu Sheng gave her, and after getting a set of tools she began working right away. The climate in the Valley was pleasant but lacked seasons, holding steady around twenty five or twenty six degrees year round, which was not great for wheat. So she chose vegetables, just like Yu Sheng.
Foxy was even happier than Luna and Irene. Besides being able to freeload at the Special Affairs Bureau, she now had the “canteen” of Parted Clouds Palace to eat and drink her fill. Even better, she found a perfect foraging spot: the pill refining rooms for ordinary disciples.
Spirit Infusion Peak is where Thousand Peak Spirit Mountain teaches the arts of pills and talismans. Under Parted Clouds Palace alone, thousands of pill cultivators refine all kinds of elixirs all day long. Failures are unavoidable, and any pills that turn out wrong or look bad and cannot pass Immortal Yuan Ling’s strict standards are “waste pills.” Those are usually stored the same day in the pill room’s recycling vault, where the impartial pill room Artifact Spirit guards them strictly until destruction.
No one knew how Foxy slipped inside. By the time people discovered it, she was already lying in the middle of the vault, having nearly polished off all the waste pills on the surrounding shelves.
The scene was spectacular. After noticing the Artifact Spirit had fallen into an abnormal sleep, the on-duty disciples rushed in. Their first sight was a Nine-Tailed Fox as large as a small Celestial Ship sprawled on the floor, forepaws cradling a medicine jar and glugging from it. She ate while hiccuping. Several disciples went pale on the spot, not because the waste pills were stolen, but because they were terrified that the honored guest lying there might eat herself to death.
Foxy was perfectly fine. After stuffing herself she bounced around, then even tossed out a lump of Spirit Fox Dark Iron on the spot to “pay the bill.”
Now that fox with a belly full of “immortal pills” lay beside Yu Sheng. A heap of tails covered him like quilts. In her hand she clutched a Medicine Gourd, shaking it from time to time to pour out a random elixir. She tossed the pill into her mouth like a jelly bean and crunched away.
The key point was that each pill she poured out was different, like opening mystery boxes.
“I asked the Artifact Spirit who guards the door before going in, it said everything in that room was useless and set for destruction, so I went in,” Foxy mumbled as she ate, “and it did not stop me.”
Yu Sheng glanced at the lazy fox lady: “Is there a chance the Artifact Spirit did try to stop you, but when it first activated its Demon-Suppressing Mirror it could not identify you and crashed itself instead.”
“Ah, was it like that?” Foxy froze, then squinted happily and scooted closer to rub against Yu Sheng’s arm with her tail: “Anyway it all got cleared up, and Immortal Yuan Ling said I can go eat there whenever I like.”
“As expected. You traded Spirit Fox Dark Iron for waste that was headed for the furnace. If it were me, I would let you eat freely too,” Yu Sheng said, eye twitching. Then he looked at the fox lady rubbing his arm with her tail and grew uneasy: “But be honest, you really feel fine after eating like that? Those are not food.”
“Nope, but what is the difference?” Foxy blinked at him in confusion and tossed in another unknown elixir: “Ah, benefactor, this one is crunchy.”
Yu Sheng: “…”
He decided not to ask again. [A cyber Foxy with a fusion reactor stuffed in her belly obviously cannot be judged by normal biology.] What he could not figure out was how a Nine-Tailed Fox Demon who ate immortal pills like jelly beans could get a stomachache from chocolate. [Is that some kind of bug in the world’s rules?]
Shaking his head, Yu Sheng put his attention back on the “Traffic Manual.”
He had just read two lines when a voice across the coffee table cut him off: “Ah-brother, I can’t finish my essay! Can you help me…”
Yu Sheng raised his head and saw Rapunzel sitting cross legged on a cushion opposite him. Her unfinished holiday homework sprawled across the coffee table in wild handwriting. Next to it was another pile that belonged to Mermaid.
“Write it yourself,” Yu Sheng said with a blank face.
“My essay is only a hundred words short,” Rapunzel groaned, scratching her hair into a messy bird’s nest, “you are a famous writer, right? That many words will take you no time at all.”
“Look at Little Fish. She has been writing all morning and is not acting like you,” Yu Sheng said, nodding at Mermaid, who was bent over the page, writing carefully stroke by stroke. “If you worked half as hard as she does, you would be done by now.”
Rapunzel raked her hair again, peeked at Mermaid’s almost finished sheet, and sighed in defeat. She had just written a few more words when she lifted her head and pointed at Little Red Riding Hood on the other sofa, who was staring at her phone: “Brother, look at her, she has been on her phone for ages.”
“I finished already,” Little Red Riding Hood glanced at Rapunzel, “and I’m not just playing on my phone. I am studying for the first theory test.”
Rapunzel froze for a few seconds, sighed again, and finally bowed her head to write honestly.
Hearing Little Red Riding Hood, Yu Sheng leaned toward her with interest and smiled: “Finally started?”
“Yeah,” Little Red Riding Hood nodded, “I am already practicing driving.”
“How is it going?”
Little Red Riding Hood blushed: “I drove into a ditch.”
Yu Sheng was stunned.
He had not expected that. In his impression, Little Red Riding Hood was always mature, steady, smart, and quick to react. Those traits do not always help with a driving test, but even so, how did she manage to put a training car with a locked throttle straight into a ditch?
The next second he heard the girl sigh: “I am used to riding a wolf. When I saw the ditch ahead, I thought I could just follow the shadow and jump over it. The idea went over, but the car did not.”
Yu Sheng: “…”
“But I helped lift the car out right away. The coach looked a little mad at first, then did not scold me, just told me to be careful next time,” she added.
Yu Sheng’s eye twitched, and he noticed the sly little smile at the corner of her eye.
“Take it easy. Do not scare normal people.”
“I know, I know,” Little Red Riding Hood said with a smile. Then her eyes fell curiously on the booklet in Yu Sheng’s hands. “What is that? You have been reading it a lot lately.”
Yu Sheng chuckled and showed her the cover: “Interstellar Driving Theory Manual. Want to trade?”
Little Red Riding Hood froze, then instantly lowered her head and went back to her phone.
Yu Sheng laughed, leaned back on the sofa, and looked over the scene around him.
Foxy had dozed off with her gourd of “candy.”
Dragged out early by Little Red Riding Hood to finish homework, Rapunzel and Mermaid were working hard across the coffee table.
Little Red Riding Hood was seriously cramming for the first theory test. She had finally taken the first step toward the driver’s license she had long wanted.
Irene watched TV in the dining room, and this time the little doll thoughtfully kept the volume at the lowest.
The other three Irenes were not so quiet. One huddled in the living room corner watching short videos on a phone she had sweet talked out of Foxy, laughing like crazy, while the other two gamed upstairs so loudly it sounded like the game was beating them.
Luna was not home. She should still be in the Valley tending the fresh garden, and might not be back until afternoon.
Zheng Zhi had gone out early. Although he had just returned from a dangerous Otherworld, his mind was in a very good place. Living by “even if the sky falls, life must go on” and “better to grow skills than sit and wait,” he headed to the Enlightenment Hall halfway up the mountain to learn a few self defense moves from the Immortals.
It was not exactly by the rules, since he had no local residency and had not done any enrollment paperwork, but Immortal Yuan Ling reportedly gave him special approval, and the elder in charge at the Enlightenment Hall felt an instant kinship with him.
Fine. This was all pretty good.
Yu Sheng thought drowsily, then the powerful sleep magic of the Interstellar Driving Theory Manual slowly closed his eyes.
A voice suddenly broke into his ears at that moment: “All cultivators… activate the Youth Form Guardian Grand Array… may the land and rivers endure.”