When Li Banfeng returned to the newspaper office, Bai Qiusheng was beside himself with anxiety.
"Seventh Master, you can't do this to us! When you left, you said you'd try to be back the same day, or at most the next day. You've been gone three days without a peep!"
Li Banfeng said, "Ran into a little accident on the road, delayed me two days. There's something I need to ask you—what's our newspaper called again?"
Bai Qiusheng blinked in surprise. "*Night Fragrance*!"
Why was he asking that?
Li Banfeng continued, "Is this your first day running a newspaper?"
Bai Qiusheng blinked again. "No, I've always worked in this business."
"Where did Yuwen Qi go?"
"Taking photographs, putting together a magazine."
"Take me to see him right away."
Li Banfeng suspected he was still trapped in a dream. One of the best ways to test a dream was to urgently seek out a specific person or place and see whether they could actually be found.
Dreams were constructed by the mind, and the process of constructing them took time. Certain people and complex scenes were not easy to conjure up at a moment's notice.
Bai Qiusheng led Li Banfeng straight into the workshop. Because they arrived so abruptly, the girls inside were startled, frantically covering themselves above and shielding below, not knowing what to hide first.
Yuwen Qi frowned. "What are you scared of? This is our Boss Ye. If any of you actually manage to catch Boss Ye's eye, it'll be your good fortune."
At that, the girls stopped covering up.
One, claiming an ache in her waist, deliberately swayed her hips.
Another, pretending to be unsteady on her feet, deliberately bounced up and down.
Another noticed something dropped on the floor and hurriedly bent over to pick it up.
Li Banfeng watched all this for quite a while, yet showed no reaction.
Why no reaction?
Was it because of the dream?
Li Banfeng observed a bit longer, but still couldn't put his mind at ease. He returned to his room, locked the door, and carried out a few more tests.
He read a newspaper; the characters didn't shift.
He wrote down a sequence of numbers and checked them again; they didn't change either.
He ate some pastries and mixed a cup of fruit syrup, and it tasted quite flavorful...
Li Banfeng wanted to keep testing, but his body couldn't hold out any longer.
Having stayed away from home for three days, his Dwelling Cultivator cultivation was pressing down heavily on his body.
Strength surged upward through his legs as his journey cultivator cultivation rapidly advanced.
He needed rest.
Li Banfeng produced his key, hesitated for a moment, and unlocked the Portable Abode.
He was worried the Portable Abode might be exposed, but right now he had to go back.
Once inside, he remained very nervous, because he didn't know what kind of reception awaited him.
Not just his wife's attitude, but the house's attitude as well.
The moment he stepped into the Main Room, the wife bristled: "Hoo-yah-yah~ You madman! Gone for three days and three nights without coming home, not even a word of notice in advance! What kind of person do you take me for?"
"Wife, hear me out first..."
"Hear what out? Get over here, quickly!"
Her tone didn't sound quite right.
Rather than complaining, she was mostly worried.
Not just worried about Li Banfeng staying away from home, but seemingly even more worried about his current situation.
"What are you standing there for? Hurry over to your humble servant!"
The gramophone urged repeatedly, and Li Banfeng walked over to stand beside it.
A cloud of steam enveloped Li Banfeng. "That's what you get for not coming home! See if I don't scald you to death, see if you ever dare do this again!"
Though her words were fierce, the steam wasn't actually very hot—just right for a warm bath.
The wife was putting on a show, but for whose benefit?
For Hong Ying's?
Hong Ying couldn't see anything anyway.
The gramophone asked, "Do you admit your mistake or not?"
Li Banfeng hurriedly answered, "I know I was wrong."
The gramophone's horn swivelled in all directions, as if observing the situation.
After looking around for a moment and finding nothing amiss, it puffed out a cloud of steam.
Just as the gramophone breathed a sigh of relief, the entire Portable Abode suddenly began to vibrate violently.
The wife was easy to deal with, but the house was not.
The house had lost its temper.
The wife cried out, "Husband, do you truly know your mistake?"
Li Banfeng shouted, "I truly do!"
The Portable Abode shook even more violently, and loose ornaments throughout the room came crashing down.
The house did not accept Li Banfeng's apology.
The wife cried, "Husband, explain carefully, what was the reason you didn't come home?"
Li Banfeng explained, "I ran into villains and couldn't get away."
"What kind of villains?"
"They were..."
Before Li Banfeng could finish, a violent lurch sent him tumbling to the floor.
The gramophone shielded Li Banfeng beside it, only to suddenly sense an imposing aura surging from behind.
Hong Ying had reached her limit.
During the three days Li Banfeng was away, the Portable Abode had already thrown two tantrums, which had kept even battle-hardened Hong Ying living in terror.
"Rather than be scared to death by it, I might as well fight it out!" Hong Ying was ready to risk her life against the Portable Abode.
The gramophone barked, "Stop! If you want to seek death, go on your own, don't drag Husband into it!"
Provoked by Hong Ying's aura, the Portable Abode trembled even more fiercely.
With Hong Ying preparing for a desperate struggle, the gramophone doing everything it could to stop her, and the other magical treasures terrified into silence, Li Banfeng suddenly broke into song:
"Run the flatlands, cross the hills, chug and puff with smoky thrills!
Add coal and water, we hit the track, once the train starts rollin', there's no lookin' back!
Cross the bridges, bore through stone, rolling iron wheels through the danger zone!
Countless perils, endless fright, not a worry in our sight,
Through the wind and through the rain, ten thousand rivers ride again!"
When Li Banfeng finished the first verse, the Portable Abode's tremors weakened noticeably.
By the time he finished the second verse, the Portable Abode grew quiet and stopped shaking altogether.
Both the gramophone and Hong Ying were dumbfounded. They had no idea what trick Li Banfeng had used to subdue the Portable Abode.
Li Banfeng glanced back at the gramophone. "Wife, impressed?"
"Uh..." The gramophone puffed out two wisps of steam. "Your servant is impressed."
"Good that you are. Time for machine oil." Li Banfeng came over holding an oilcan.
The gramophone panicked. "Aiya, Husband! What does being impressed have to do with machine oil? Your servant was protecting you just now!
Hong Ying, that slut, almost caused a catastrophe. Husband ought to punish her instead! Husband is being unfair! Your servant refuses to yield! Your servant... does... not... yield..."
With both hands stroking the gramophone's turntable, Li Banfeng applied the machine oil.
After lingering intimately with the gramophone for a while, Li Banfeng ate some food, hung the calendar poster in Room Three, and told the gramophone, "I'll be recuperating in Room Three for a few days. Wife, if you notice anything abnormal about me, seal me in Room Three first, then figure out what to do."
The gramophone grew tense once more. "Husband, what on earth happened?"
Li Banfeng said, "Didn't I just say? I ran into a ruthless character and fought a nasty battle."
"What kind of ruthless character?"
"Someone from the Inner States named Meng Qian. Have you heard of her?"
At the mention of the Inner States, the wife shuddered; upon hearing the name Meng Qian, the water in her tank came to an immediate boil.
Hong Ying remained calm. "Meng Qian? Isn't she just a Dream Cultivator?"
She recognized the name.
The gramophone said, "Blind old hag, you've been deaf and blind for so many years that there are things you don't know. Meng Qian has already become the head of the Dream Cultivators, someone of real standing in the Inner States."
"The head?" Hong Ying murmured to herself. "If he ran into the head, how could this madman have come back alive?"
While they spoke, Li Banfeng had already stepped into Room Three.
Room Three was the most peculiar, situated differently from the others.
The Main Room connected to Room Two, Room Two to Room Four, and so on, continuing in sequence all the way to Room Six, resembling train carriages lined up in a row.
Yet Room Three connected directly to the Main Room, which closely matched the special carriage Grandpa Train had mentioned—the one specifically meant for laying tracks.
Since it was the cleverest carriage, it undoubtedly possessed extraordinary abilities. If something went wrong with Li Banfeng during this period, Room Three should have a way to handle it.
Seeing Li Banfeng shut the door, Hong Ying suddenly let out a laugh.
The gramophone paused. "Slut, what are you laughing at?"
Hong Ying said, "From the sounds of it, didn't that madman put it in the wrong place just now?"
"What wrong place?"
"Where he put the machine oil!"
"What do you mean, right or wrong? It was just applying machine oil, what right or wrong could there be..." The wife's voice grew rather quiet.
Hong Ying sneered. "Vicious woman, does it hurt?"
"Why would it hurt? You don't have gears, and you've never been oiled, what would you know?"
"Hahahaha!" Hong Ying burst into laughter. "Vicious woman, you claim to be the greatest beauty under heaven, yet you let a madman fool around with you like that!"
*Chug, puff!*
The wife was furious. "Go on and laugh! Laugh yourself to death! A slut like you sticking your backside out, and no one's even willing to touch you!"
...
Lying in bed, Li Banfeng began retracing everything that had occurred.
*I woke up on the train, which proves I fell into the dream while aboard the train. Everything that followed—getting off, asking for directions—was all experienced within the dream.*
*Meng Qian targeted me on the train. Going by my current theory, it was because she knew I was a journey cultivator and wanted to use my identity to invade Grandpa Train's dream, thereby tricking the train craft out of him.*
*She certainly doesn't know the train is on my person, or else even more formidable figures would have been sent after me.*
*She could only pull me into a dream, but couldn't bring my physical body into the Inner States. That proves the Inner States face limitations when exerting power over Puluo Province.*
*Grandpa Train rescued me, but what consequences will he face?*
*His true body should be hidden somewhere in the Inner States, and the people of the Inner States might not necessarily find him.*
*They definitely won't find him; he surely has a way to deal with it...*
Li Banfeng closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.
*Elder Brother, your little brother lacks the ability and couldn't help you this time.*
*You must stay alive. No matter what it takes, I will rescue you!*
...
In a farmhouse in Yaowanggou, Old Yao handed the medicine bottle back to Monkey Qiu.
"Little Qiu, I can't help you with this. What afflicted the Lu family's second brother was done through Lü Huazi's methods."
Qiu Zhiheng stood stunned for a long while, unable to fathom the reason behind it.
According to his deductions, the one who struck at the Lu brothers should have been He Haiqin. How could He Haiqin have joined forces with Lü Huazi?
Who had brought them together?
"Lord Medicine King, please take another look. With Lüshui Beggar's status, he shouldn't have moved against Lu Yuanhai."
"He might not have acted in person, but this bottle you brought indeed contains the focus of his disease. I cannot dissolve his affliction. Unless you can find a master of extraordinary skill, the Lu family's second brother will have to spend the rest of his life as an idiot."
Qiu Zhiheng looked dazed.
How could things have turned out like this?
Just as the Lu family was beginning to see a turn for the better, how did it come to this?
Who else could he turn to?
In all of Puluo Province, whose medical skills could surpass the Medicine King's?
Old Yao sighed. "I can't be bothered to meddle in mortal affairs. Little Qiu, you're a good boy, so take my advice.
The Lu family's eldest brother is dead, the second is ruined, and the Lu family's fortune has run dry. No amount of effort on your part will do any good. Leave while you still can, and don't end up throwing your own life away."
Chapter 285