Home's Gone

Home's Gone Lian Yi stepped outside and saw ten large trucks and a forklift rolling into the residential compound. She felt like committing murder. She hadn't made this big a production even when she'd moved house. She pulled out her phone and opened Taobao, and only then noticed she had ordered a pile of stone lions and stone blocks. The money wasn't expensive—just a few tens of thousands. That much wouldn't trouble her. The real problem was that this was a residential building! Where was she supposed to put these things?! Forget fitting them into her apartment—they wouldn't even get through the building's front door! When the driver opened the cargo bed, it was packed full of stone lions over two meters tall. Lian Yi's face went green. It was a weekday, broad daylight, and not many people were around the residential building—just some old men and women sitting in the shade, chatting and sunbathing, the kind who loved a good spectacle. They called over their friends and gathered in knots to see what was happening. At the sight of a whole truckload of stone lions, they exclaimed in wonder. "Such a pretty young girl—what's she buying so many stone blocks for?" "A young girl who won't learn to behave properly, throwing money away." "Any man who marries a girl like this is in for bad luck." Lian Yi's eye twitched slightly. When had she ever been talked about like this? Normally she was the one savoring other people's negative emotions. Now it was her turn to savor her own. At this point, Lian Yi didn't even have a chance to move the stone lions and stone blocks into her storage space. If she told the courier, "Never mind, take it all back," she couldn't even get past the courier. Lian Yi suspected that if she pulled that, every courier in the area would blacklist her, and she'd never get a smooth delivery again for the rest of her life. In the old days, immortal cultivators lived in desolate mountains and wild ridges. When they wanted something, they'd head down the mountain; sometimes they even had to travel farther, to some great city, to buy things. Immortal cultivators nowadays were used to living in cities—logistics were far more convenient than anything ancient times could offer—and even members of the Demon Alliance enjoyed modern life. The courier, seething with resentment, sized Lian Yi up from head to toe. He'd long heard from his seniors that some rich idlers liked to order stone blocks and stone lions online just for something to do—but the cases his seniors had run into were nothing more than hauling these things out to villa districts or parks and the like. Delivering them to a residential compound was a first, and she'd ordered so many, too. Lian Yi was dressed in home clothes and slippers, her hair gathered over her chest, looking frail and delicate, positively pitiable. The sight eased some of the courier's resentment. But only some of it. Seemed she was just a pretty lunatic. Pretty or not, if she dared say she'd ordered by mistake and wanted a refund, he'd make her regret it! "Hey, hey, what's going on here? You can't unload cargo here." The compound's security guard came out to intervene. "Yes, yes, I'll have it hauled away right now." Lian Yi didn't want trouble and hoped to keep things low-key. In the end, she rented a warehouse on the city's outskirts and hired people to haul everything there, and only then was the matter settled. ... Su Tingxue had spent the past couple of days thinking over the matter of the Demon Alliance and Lian Yi. After returning from Ji Sen's place, she'd immediately reported the Demon Alliance to her master. But even her master knew very little about the Demon Alliance, had never heard the name Lian Yi, and had no good way of dealing with a cultivator who was so skilled in the shapeshifting art. Ever since she was little, Su Tingxue had loved exorcising spirits. As a girl, she'd often wave a small wooden stick about, shouting "ei-ya, hi-ya," bouncing from the bed to the sofa and from the sofa to the floor, imagining herself a peerless master who roamed the land punishing evil and rewarding good. After joining Mount Longhu, that dream had come true. Yet Lian Yi had left right in front of her, openly and without a care, and Su Tingxue had only felt relieved. She couldn't even manage a single polite word—she'd done worse than Chu Xiaoyao, who had no cultivation attainment at all. And there was Zhou You. Judging by what he'd described afterward, he had only just gotten the hang of this Poverty Ghost spell and couldn't yet use it skillfully. He didn't even know what he'd bought Lian Yi, but at least he had made a move against her. Meanwhile, she—the one with the highest cultivation attainment present—had done nothing at all. How embarrassing. "My state of mind and my cultivation just aren't enough yet..." Su Tingxue sighed to herself, and at the same time quietly resolved to break through to Foundation Establishment as soon as possible. Right now, she was only half a step from the return from the acquired to the innate, from attaining Foundation Establishment. Once she reached Foundation Establishment, Lian Yi wouldn't be able to get away from her anymore. One day after school, Su Tingxue was wheeling her bicycle home when she passed by a certain residential compound. The security guards there were changing shifts and handing over their duties. "Too bad you weren't here during the day. You really missed out," the day-shift guard said mysteriously. "Missed out on what?" The night-shift guard was baffled. "Did some pregnant mistress show up? Or did a wife catch her husband cheating?" That kind of thing always cropped up a few times a year. "Neither. Remember that really pretty young girl from Building 9?" The night-shift guard thought for a moment and quickly recalled her. After all, that young girl had been very good-looking—once you saw her, you couldn't forget her. "Haven't seen her for about a year now, I'd say." "Right. We figured she'd moved away, didn't we? Turns out she didn't. She came back today, and she bought a whole pile of stone lions and stone blocks." "I counted—there were twenty stone lions, and even more stone blocks, maybe fifty or sixty." "Whoa—" The night-shift guard was startled and let out a long, drawn-out "whoa." "What's all this for? Our compound couldn't even use that many stone blocks." The day-shift guard shrugged. "Who knows. All right, I'm off. Don't doze off tonight." "I only came after I'd just woken up, so I won't." Su Tingxue's steps faltered. Something felt off. "Really pretty young girl," "gone for about a year," "twenty stone lions," "fifty or sixty stone blocks"... All of it seemed to line up with Lian Yi. At that thought, she immediately called her master. "Hello, Master? I think I've found Lian Yi." True Person Muyu tensed at once. "Don't go by yourself. I'll find someone to help you." ... Mount Longhu was too far from here, and True Person Muyu couldn't come at once. As it happened, two fellow disciples of Mount Longhu were in a nearby city, so True Person Muyu sent them over. "She's gone." The two senior brothers from Mount Longhu spoke regretfully. They had come carrying magic treasures and clutching talismans, kicked open the door of Lian Yi's apartment, and searched the whole place—but found nothing. It looked like the home of an ordinary person living alone. The neighbors all said the two of them must be loan sharks. "Though we did find some empty pill bottles by the computer desk—the kind used for treating injuries." "All of them extremely precious medicinal pills. Whoever took them must have been badly hurt." The two senior brothers clicked their tongues. Mount Longhu was a top-tier sect, and its disciples were never short of money—but even they wouldn't casually use medicinal pills this expensive. "Injured?" Su Tingxue frowned. That shouldn't be. Lian Yi had mocked everyone and left with such flair—there hadn't even been a fight. How could she have been hurt? Besides, her methods were unfathomable, ever-changing. Who could possibly have hurt her? Wait. Su Tingxue suddenly remembered what Chu Xiaoyao had said: "Do you really think you can get away?" Even though Chu Xiaoyao had explained afterward that she just found Lian Yi an eyesore and was only trying to scare her. But could such a coincidence really happen? No sooner had Chu Xiaoyao said "Do you really think you can get away?" than Lian Yi turned up seriously injured right after? Lian Yi was watching all of this from the shadows, her heart pounding with alarm. She thanked her lucky stars that her mind had reacted fast enough to keep her from going home again. While moving the stone lions to the warehouse, she'd suddenly felt that something was off. Ten trucks had come rolling in like a grand procession, kicking up such a commotion—if the other side set their mind to it, they could easily follow the trail back to her door. "What a brilliant move! First buy a pile of useless stone blocks to stir up a commotion, and use that to expose my whereabouts!" Lian Yi had actually loved this home. She'd spent a fortune decorating it—an entire wall of figurines, a computer assembled at great expense, designer handbags... Every time she finished messing with someone, she'd come home, relax for a while, switch gears, and enjoy life. Now that Mount Longhu knew her address, there was definitely no going back home. She couldn't take any of her things with her either. It was worse than dying. "Who on earth used my phone to buy this stuff?" Lian Yi gnashed her teeth and thought about it all night without figuring it out. What kind of move was this? She knew ninety-nine percent of the tricks in the cultivation world, and she had never once heard of anyone whose spell had the effect of "using another person's phone to buy stone lions and stone blocks." Even though immortal cultivators these days were all chasing modernized spells, this spell was a bit too modern. Had Red King done it? He didn't seem like the type to use such methods. It couldn't have been Chu Xiaoyao... could it?