Chapter 179: Bitter Greens Manor

Wifey was right,

Li Banfeng thought.

In normal combat, the paper beauty he printed could barely last a minute before breaking apart. If she handled minor chores, she could last about three and a half minutes. If she fought with fists and kicks, she could endure roughly fifteen to twenty seconds. If she used weapons, she would last only ten to fifteen seconds.

If he focused with a gentle intent, the paper beauty could carry out simple moves such as punching or thrusting with a saber. If he focused with a fiercer intent, she could display a certain degree of martial skill. The only drawback was that she would fall apart even faster.

The pendulum swung faintly. "Master, you would do far better to continue learning proper painting techniques with me. This little shortcut of yours is hardly reliable."

"Yes, I must learn to paint," Li Banfeng replied calmly. "But this method is not without its uses."

He bought a large number of brushes and paint. While studying painting techniques under the pendulum's guidance, he also trained himself to print stronger paper beauties, striving to squeeze the greatest possible power from the few fleeting seconds they were allowed to exist.

Neither task was easy. After gathering everything he would need, Li Banfeng returned to the new land and entered secluded cultivation.

As Li Banfeng walked along the road, he suddenly began speaking to himself.

"Did you forget something?"

"What?" he replied at once.

"Weren't you supposed to return to Yuezhou?"

"That is no longer urgent."

"Why isn't it urgent?"

"He is still in Yuezhou. I don't know what's on his mind. If I go back now, I am afraid I won't win against him."

***

In Yuezhou, Dark Star Bureau investigator Zou Guoming, known to his colleagues as Blockhead, was sitting at the dining table, eating a meal prepared by his wife.

His wife, Miao Ruifang, was an excellent cook. She managed the household well, was careful with money, and considerate in every detail. Yet ever since she had lost her job, something in her temperament had changed. It was subtle, but it was there.

Halfway through the meal, she set down her chopsticks with quiet resolve.

"Let's sell the house," she said.

Blockhead stared at her, stunned. "Why?"

In the whole of Yuezhou, that one-hundred-and-three-square-meter apartment was the only thing he truly felt proud of after so many years.

Miao Ruifang said, "Our child is going to junior high next year. Either we buy a house in a good school district, or we send the child to a private school. We can't just scrape by the way we did in elementary school."

His salary from the Dark Star Bureau was not low. Even with his wife unemployed, their family would live comfortably enough. However, the tuition fees at the private schools in Yuezhou were enough to make anyone's heart sink.

And as for buying a home in a top school district, the price was so steep it left a man too stunned even to shiver.

Blockhead looked at his wife and said quietly, "I will find a way to handle the school placement."

Miao Ruifang let out a short laugh. "What way can you possibly find? You said the same thing back when our child entered elementary school. What did you manage to do then?"

When their child was about to start primary school, the bureau had promised to apply for a placement at a key school on Blockhead's behalf.

The placement had eventually been approved, but for various reasons, it had not been given to Blockhead.

The bureau had told him he needed to consider the greater good.

They had promised to apply again when the time came for junior high. But what if, once more, they asked him to think of the greater good?

"I have the night shift tonight. I am heading out," Blockhead said as he set down his chopsticks and pulled on his jacket.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

"Didn't you just work the night shift yesterday?" Miao Ruifang asked.

"I am covering an extra shift," he replied.

She stared at him, her voice rising despite herself. "I truly don't even know what kind of job you are doing."

They had been married for more than ten years. In all that time, his wife had never visited Blockhead's workplace, nor had she asked many questions about his job. She only knew that he worked for an electrical appliance company. What she could not understand was why such a company required so many night shifts.

She did not understand, yet she did not press further.

With a dark expression, she cleared the dishes. Blockhead lowered his head and left the house.

There was no night shift that evening. Instead, Blockhead went to Flower Lake Park. When he reached the back of the Western-style building, he saw the sobbing woman again.

Hu Lishan, the one who drowned herself in the lake, is still here?

Blockhead thought.

The truth was that she was no longer here. Neither her body nor her spirit remained. What lingered was only a marker, a sign left behind for Blockhead by He Jiaqing. Only Blockhead could see the sobbing woman. By following her, he could find the entrance to the New Land.

Step by step, Blockhead followed the sobbing woman straight into the lake. This time, he had come prepared.

Hidden beneath his coat was an oxygen bag, enough to sustain him for twenty full minutes beneath the water's surface. He also knew how to leave the New Land. If he could not endure it, he had a way to escape.

Blockhead plunged into the icy lake and sank toward the bottom. There, half-buried in the mud, he found a loach.

He reached down carefully and pulled it free from the silt. It wriggled faintly in his gloved hand. By his estimation, it was twelve or thirteen centimeters long.

This kind of loach could add five or six centimeters to a man's manhood without surgery. One only needed to swallow it.

Blockhead had once worked a case involving creatures like these. Someone had smuggled them out of Puluo Province and tried to sell them on the black market. A single loach could fetch eight hundred thousand. The investigation had led nowhere in the end, but Blockhead still remembered where the black market operated, and he knew exactly whom to contact if he wished to move the goods.

I am only doing business. I caught the loach myself. I am merely selling it. This is nothing major,

he told himself.

One loach can't earn me enough to buy a house in a good school district, but it would be enough to cover three years of private school tuition.

Clutching the loach, Blockhead was just about to rise to the surface when the creature, so docile a moment before, suddenly erupted with unnatural strength. It twisted free from his grip and sank its teeth into him.

After a surge of sharp pain, his body began to go numb. As he kicked upward, his head struck the surface of the lake. It felt like slamming into solid stone and he failed to break through the surface.

He could not get out!

Panic flooded him at once. Though he had entered the new land before, this place was still far too unfamiliar. He had no idea what to do next.

Suddenly, a hole split open in the lake's surface. A hand shot down, caught Blockhead by the collar, and dragged him upward.

It was He Jiaqing.

"I am a patient," He Jiaqing said sharply. "I am meant to be lying in a hospital bed. I cannot keep climbing out to rescue you every time you decide to do something foolish."

He looked at the wound on Blockhead's hand and asked, "Why were you catching loaches?"

"I want to earn some extra money to pay for my child's tuition," Blockhead said. And so, standing there dripping and shivering, he explained the whole matter.

He Jiaqing tossed him a pill. "A fifth-level Martial Cultivator worrying over such a small amount? You might as well head to Puluo Province and hire yourself out as a big support hook. You would earn more in a month than you do now."

Blockhead swallowed the pill and hurriedly thanked him. For a fleeting moment, he felt tempted. He wanted to go to Puluo Province and see what lay there, but he could not leave his wife and child behind.

"I will try going down again," Blockhead said. The pill had already begun to work, and the numbness in his limbs was fading fast.

He took a step toward the lake, but He Jiaqing stopped him.

"You are planning to sell it on the black market, aren't you?" He Jiaqing said. "Aren't you afraid that someone might investigate you?"

Blockhead fell silent for a moment before saying, "There are people in the bureau who deal with the black market too. No one has ever investigated them."

"It is true that they are not under investigation. However, you are not them! If you try selling goods today, you might end up behind bars tomorrow. If that happens, how will your wife and child survive?"

Blockhead said nothing.

He Jiaqing thought for a moment. "Your wife lost her job?"

Blockhead nodded.

"What did she do before?"

"She was a hotel lobby manager. The hotel went under, and she was laid off."

"I have a friend who just opened a hotel," He Jiaqing said. "He happens to need a lobby manager. Twenty thousand a month. Bonuses on top. They will also take care of the school placement. Let your wife take the job."

Blockhead's identity was sensitive. If someone wanted to help him, they could not simply hand him money. Otherwise, he would certainly be investigated. And so, this was the most sensible and safest method that He Jiaqing could think of.

Blockhead stood there in a daze, not understanding why He Jiaqing was helping him.

He knew He Jiaqing was someone who could change his fate. It was He Jiaqing who had shown him the new land in the Outer Provinces. In time, they would work together on certain matters.

Yet ever since they had met, He Jiaqing had never asked anything of him. He had never demanded repayment. He had never even hinted at a favor.

"Why are you helping me?" Blockhead asked at last.

"For no particular reason," He Jiaqing replied. "You are a man with real ability. A man with real ability deserves to live with dignity."

He took out a sheet of paper and a pen and quickly wrote down the hotel's address. He had just taken them from a nearby stationery shop. His movements were so swift that Blockhead could not even see clearly when he had done so.

"A fifth-level Martial Cultivator should live with backbone," He Jiaqing said, handing him the paper. "Why risk your life over something like this? If you need anything in the future, come see me."

***

"Can you stop coming to see me?" Ma Wu said, rubbing his forehead. "The matter at Paramount Club is already over. I have even hidden myself in the New Land. Why are you still clinging to me?"

Miss Chu looked at him, and for once there was no sharpness in her gaze. Only a faint trace of sorrow. "I came to say goodbye. I am going to Bitter Greens Manor to cultivate."

After what had happened at Paramount Club, she had finally woken up. In Puluo Province, beauty and connections meant very little. True cultivation was the only real capital a person possessed.

Ma Wu nodded. "It's wonderful that you are going to Bitter Greens Manor. But why come to me? Let me guess. Do you need a travel permit? Or money? You don't need a permit to go there. If you are broke, just say so and I can lend you some."

Miss Chu rolled her eyes. "Ma Wu, whatever else we are, we do share some ties. You don't have to be so mean."

"I have no ties with you," Ma Wu said flatly. "Never did. If you have something to say, say it. If not, I won't be seeing you off."

Swallowie had once warned Ma Wu never to speak of emotional bonds and ties with an Ascetic Cultivator. Ascetic Cultivators would talk about affection or love. If they truly longed for something, they would never say it out loud. Anything said out loud would be an act.

It was like how Zhong Desong felt about Old Madam Han. No matter how much he wanted her, he would never dare to say it.

Miss Chu let out a soft sigh. "There is one thing I want to ask of you. I would like to see Li Qi once."

"Why do you want to see him? Do you even know him? You better not say you share some ties with him! You only danced with him once."

As for emotional bonds and ties, even Miss Chu did not truly believe in them. However, she understood one thing. Ever since Ma Wu had met Li Qi, his life had changed completely. Li Banfeng possessed the rare ability to turn a person's fate around.

"I respect people with real ability. I only want to see him once. Otherwise, I won't leave."

"If you refuse to leave, that's your choice," Ma Wu replied coldly. "Li Qi isn't here."

"He has a plot of land here," Miss Chu said as she looked at Ma Wu calmly. "If I can find you, I can find him. But if I search for him myself, I don't know what I might be capable of doing."

Ma Wu let out a derisive laugh. "What could you possibly do? Do you think I am afraid of you?"

Miss Chu lowered her gaze. "You can take that gamble."

Ma Wu remained silent for a long while. At last, he let out a tired sigh and said helplessly, "Fine. I'll take you there. But if Li Qi refuses to see you, there's nothing I can do."

The two plots of land were five kilometers apart. Under Ma Wu's arrangement, each had a row of wooden houses built upon it.

They arrived at the wooden house belonging to Li Banfeng. Ma Wu knocked on the door, but there was no response. "You came at a bad time. Li Qi isn't here."

Miss Chu sat down in front of the door. "I'll wait here."

"Don't bother. Once he leaves, he might not return for three to five days."

Miss Chu waited outside for more than half an hour.

When Li Qi still did not appear, she finally stood up. Her shoulders slumped, and the light in her eyes dimmed. Without another word, she turned and walked away.

Ma Wu only escorted her a short distance before stopping. There was no need to see her off any farther. Once she was out of sight, he returned to his own plot of land and resumed his cultivation with Swallowie.

Among all the aberrant creatures in the New Land, Swallowie was the one he treated best. He fed her carefully, guarded her closely, and rarely let her suffer any hardship. That effort had not been wasted.

Under the guidance of the level-eight Madam Bagworm Moth, his cultivation had advanced rapidly. He had already stepped into level two. If Miss Chu dared to stir up trouble, he would not be caught unprepared.

He thought the matter had ended there. What he did not expect was that Miss Chu had not gone far at all. She circled back.

Miss Chu pressed herself against Li Banfeng's window and peered inside. Perhaps he was hiding in the house, refusing to see her.

What she saw made her heart jolt. A massive spider hung from the ceiling. One of its legs slipped into a crack between the floorboards and slowly pried out a key.

Miss Chu sucked in a sharp breath and shouted, "Daboinsky, is that you? You dare come here to steal? Old Wu, do you see this? Someone's stealing here!"

Ma Wu had already walked far away. Miss Chu was only trying to frighten the spider.

The spider did not react. Suspended by a strand of silk, it hooked the key and began to retreat toward the ceiling.

Miss Chu's expression hardened. She reached into her skirt pocket, pulled out a nail clipper, and flung it through the window bars.

The nail clipper expanded in an instant. With a crisp snap, it sheared off the spider's leg that gripped the key.

The severed limb dropped. The clipper dove after the falling key, clamped onto it, then shot back out through the window and slipped neatly into Miss Chu's skirt pocket.

Miss Chu did not wait to see what would happen next. She turned and ran.

Behind her, the spider dropped to the ground and gave chase. Its legs hammered against the earth in rapid succession. The distance between them shrank with every breath she took.

Is it truly Daboinsky? If it is, it's the end for me,

Miss Chu thought. She knew Daboinsky's cultivation was not low.Without a support hook, she had no chance of standing against him.

She ran for more than a kilometer before the sound of skittering legs abruptly vanished. The spider had suddenly stopped chasing her.

Miss Chu bent forward, bracing her hands on her knees as she gulped in air. Her face had turned a sickly pale green, and it took her a long while to steady her breathing.

She felt for the key. It was still clamped firmly in the nail clipper's jaws.

What should I do? Should I give it to Ma Wu?

Miss Chu thought, turning to look for him. Then, she stopped.

This key is clearly importan

t, she muttered inwardly.

Should I really let Ma Wu know about it? Or should I wait for Li Qi to come back? And what if the spider comes back too?

***

The spider was not Daboinsky himself, but a puppet he controlled from afar. It had stopped chasing Miss Chu because she had already run beyond the range of his control.

He had sent it to search for the Crimson Lotus. By sheer accident, it had discovered a key hidden beneath the floorboards.

"What is that key for?" Daboinsky muttered. "And why does the Chu Family's Second Young Lady want it as well?"

Now that Miss Chu had seen the puppet, he did not dare remain any longer. He immediately left the New Land.

***

The train slowed and pulled into Bitter Greens Manor Station. Miss Chu rose to her feet and picked up her suitcase, preparing to get off.

Yang Yanzheng and Wen Hongyan stood as well, intending to follow her, but she turned and stopped them.

"You both know the rules of Bitter Greens Manor," she said. "Go back. Unless it's urgent, do not come looking for me."

Without waiting for a reply, she stepped off the train with her suitcase in hand. Wen Hongyan and Yang Yanzheng stared at her with worrying expressions.

"Old Yang," Wen Hongyan said softly, "what if she causes trouble again at Bitter Greens Manor?"

"If she deserves a beating, she will get beaten. If she deserves punishment, she will be punished," he replied. "It all depends on her own fate. What else can we do?"

***

Li Banfeng manipulated the paper beauty with a thread of will and sent her forward to spar against the Tang Saber. The moment the Tang Saber struck, the paper beauty split cleanly into two halves.

Li Banfeng frowned. "Didn't I tell you not to strike so ruthlessly?"

"I merely exerted thirty percent of my strength," the Tang Saber replied. "This woman is too frail to endure even a single strike."

"Then use twenty percent this time."

However, even at twenty percent, the paper could not endure.

After three slashes, the Tang Saber drew back to rest. The pendulum stepped forward in its place.

Yet before the pendulum, the paper beauty still could not last a single exchange. She shattered almost the moment contact was made.

What's the use of this paper beauty then?

Li Banfeng thought.

It's better to let the pendulum fight directly in a real fight. No! I must continue practicing!

For two full days, Li Banfeng did not step outside. He devoted himself entirely to practicing the fourth-level technique. It caused him to neglect his Wanderlust Cultivation for a bit, but his control over his fourth-level technique was improving.

He managed to control the paper figure to exchange two rounds with the pendulum. Though the pendulum deliberately held back, the paper figure finally had a chance to counterattack.

All the white paper was almost used up. Li Banfeng had meant to ask Ma Wu for more. When he pushed open the door, he found that he was no longer in his wooden cabin, but inside a mud house.

The room was dark and crumbling. The walls were rough and damp. On the southern side, a jagged hole barely passed for a window, letting in a thin sliver of gray light.

Where is this?

His thoughts buzzed. Then a chill ran down his spine. He realized that someone had taken his key.

A dull thud echoed from the outer room.

Chop. Chop.

It sounded like someone splitting firewood.

Li Banfeng walked toward the sound. In the outer room, he saw a farm woman dressed in coarse cloth. A towel wrapped around her head. An axe rested in her hand. She stared at him as though she had seen a ghost.

"You really came to see me!" The farm woman's face lit up with delight.

Li Banfeng looked at her for a long moment and asked, "Who are you?"

The woman removed the towel and wiped the dust from her face. "You don't recognize me?"

Do I know her?

Li Banfeng thought.

She does look somewhat familiar.

"Where is this?"

Miss Chu froze. For a moment, confusion crossed her face.

"You came here yourself. You don't know where this is?" She pointed at the ground as if the answer should have been obvious. "This is Bitter Greens Manor!"

Author's Note:

PS: A major figure in the Bitter Greens Manor