Lu Yuan had initially thought he was running into organ harvesters. It turned out to be a good Samaritan.
"Around here..." Lu Yuan surveyed his surroundings.
The location wasn’t too far from where he had visited Chen Yang’s home last time. This was where the city merged with the countryside.
He saw a twenty-story building standing tall in the distance. It was quite an old building, its exterior covered in white ceramic tiles and large green glass panels. Four gilded characters hung on the building, intended to spell "Baishi Grand Building." However, the final character, meaning ’Building’, was missing a part, altering its appearance.
The entire urban-rural fringe area had developed around this large building. Therefore, this area was shown on the map as "Baishi Town," though some also called it "Baishi Village" or "Baishi Township."
Lu Yuan walked into the town along the street.
Discarded household rubbish was strewn everywhere along the roadside, and the midday sun baked it, releasing a stale, sour, and rotten smell into the air.
Two battery-powered scooters zipped past him at an alarming speed. Each carried two teenagers with brightly colored hair.
Moving forward, he spotted a cart selling mung bean jelly, several clothing stores, and a mobile phone shop blasting music. A few crows and other birds rested on a nearby telephone pole, seemingly unnoticed.
Have Yellow Bear’s people not been here yet? Or are they not ready to close the net? Lu Yuan arrived at a bubble tea shop. He pretended to check the menu while actually using his Spiritual Power to communicate with the crows outside.
He had mentioned this to Gao Qing once when he filled out the application form. He didn’t know if she had taken it seriously. Apparently, she hadn’t.
However, Lu Yuan did observe that it looked like the police had taken notice of this area. Two plainclothes officers were having a meal in a fried noodle shop just two blocks away.
If the crows detected them, then the Divine Servant of the Crow God hiding here surely knows about them too. His decision to stay is probably because he doesn’t take them seriously.
Should I make a move? Should I make a move?
As Lu Yuan was pondering, the blond young man at the bubble tea shop’s counter impatiently prompted, "Have you decided what you want, handsome?"
"Oh." Lu Yuan looked up, quickly scanned the menu board, and then named a drink. "I’ll have the ’Eternal Mood’."
"Fifteen. I’ll scan your code," the young man said.
Lu Yuan took out his phone to pay and waited a short while.
Soon, his ’Eternal Mood’ was ready. It was lemonade with two small, wedge-cut green tangerines floating in it.
The taste was quite good: sour and sweet with a hint of bitterness.
Lu Yuan stood at the entrance of the bubble tea shop, gulped down all the lemonade, then tore open the drink’s packaging and poured the ice cubes and small green tangerines into his mouth.
His aggressive chewing shocked two young women, who looked like wannabe delinquents and had apparently been planning to strike up a conversation with him. They stopped in their tracks and rolled their eyes.
"He looks pretty handsome, but he’s such a hick..." one of them muttered.
After finishing his drink, Lu Yuan tossed the plastic cup into a nearby trash bin. He then turned into a small alley next to the bubble tea shop, heading in the direction indicated by the crows.
The ’Eternal Mood’ had given him an idea—Why should I care so much about Yellow Bear? I should just do things according to my own mood.
Lu Yuan had also noticed something. Despite the cameras peppered throughout the streets, Yellow Bear’s surveillance of this world wasn’t as tight as he’d imagined.
It was probably as Gao Qing had said: the information and intelligence network in the Old City Circle was too outdated. Besides, Yellow Bear didn’t seem to care much about the Old City Circle in the first place.
Otherwise, the Crow God Sect wouldn’t have been so brazen in Burnt Rock City. And Yellow Bear wouldn’t still be tolerating the Sect’s lingering presence even after their arrival.
Lu Yuan continued deeper into the alley, making many turns. He noticed that most of the few surveillance cameras in this area were broken. The damage bore the marks of teeth.
He immediately thought of those mutated crows with teeth in their mouths. He relaxed a bit more.
Soon, guided by the crows, he arrived at a three-story house. It was a typical rural, self-built house, surrounded by many similar structures, each with its own small courtyard.
A cardboard sign hanging on the wall near the entrance read: "Today’s pork: SOLD OUT!"
Lu Yuan sniffed lightly, detecting the faint smell of blood emanating from inside.
Using a butcher shop as a cover? Clever,
Lu Yuan wasn’t bothered. He walked over to the side of the iron gate, placed a foot on the wall for leverage, and easily vaulted over the two-meter-high courtyard wall.
His sharp senses detected the unique aura of a Divine Servant of the Crow God faintly emanating from the third floor. Although he already had a general idea of this Divine Servant’s capabilities through the crows, Lu Yuan still adhered to his usual principle: If I can beat them, I’ll kill them. If I can’t, I run. Then... call for backup!
Lu Yuan jumped off the wall, landing without a sound.
He was about to walk straight towards the upper floor.
But at that moment, two people emerged from the house: a man and a woman.
The man was burly and bare-armed, wearing only a black rubber apron. He held a heavy cleaver, the kind used for chopping pork. The woman was tall and thin. They were in the middle of a conversation.
As soon as they stepped out, they came face to face with Lu Yuan.
For a moment, everyone froze.
"I’m here to look at the house," Lu Yuan said, his face impassive.
The man stared at him, then at the locked gate behind Lu Yuan, his expression one of disbelief. He gestured dismissively, yelling at Lu Yuan in a local dialect, apparently telling him to leave.
"So, I should just go upstairs and take a look myself, right?" Lu Yuan nodded and headed towards the staircase at the end of the corridor, which led to the second floor.
The man cursed fiercely in dialect. Seeing Lu Yuan ignore him and walk past, his face contorted with rage. He roared, raised his cleaver, and hacked at Lu Yuan. The woman, meanwhile, had already darted back inside the house.
Lu Yuan didn’t flinch, letting the man’s cleaver fall. The heavy blade struck his neck with a dull THWACK, but it was like hitting an inflated tire; the cleaver bounced right off.
"Ugh..." The cleaver-wielding man froze, stunned. He stared at the cleaver in his hand, utterly bewildered, taking a moment to process what had just happened.
Lu Yuan casually brushed his neck where the cleaver had struck. He then flashed a grin at the man, revealing a set of pearly white teeth. "A deposit of five hundred, was it? Alright, I’ll pay it now!"
With that, Lu Yuan splayed the fingers of his right hand and thrust it forcefully at the man’s head.
The man didn’t even grunt; he shot backward like a cannonball...