Free Web NovelIt was night, in the distant suburbs of Hua City, inside the Amber House.
Intermittent erhu music drifted from the top-floor music room, intermittent, mournful yet spirited. Just hearing the sound could conjure a scene in one's mind: a lone boat drifting precariously on a storm-shrouded sea.
The person playing the erhu was none other than Jiang Li.
After finishing a piece of "Flight of the Bumblebee," she put down the erhu and bow, and slowly let out a breath.
Picking up the erhu wasn't too difficult for her, having studied the violin for eight years as a child.
She only spent about ten hours and was already able to play some high-difficulty pieces.
As for why she didn't just use the violin but chose to learn the erhu instead, she couldn't quite explain it herself.
Perhaps it was seeing Lu Yibei master an instrument in three days that made her subconsciously compete in secret.
After a long while, the door to the music room was pushed open. A Hua entered, holding a silver tray in both hands, and brought Jiang Li a steaming bowl of instant noodles.
"Miss, these are the instant noodles I cooked according to your method. Quick, have a taste, how does it taste?"
"Mhm," Jiang Li responded, turning around and nodding at A Hua. She took the bowl and chopsticks from her, took a small sip of the soup, then a small bite of the noodles, then slightly furrowed her brow and shook her head.
"Miss, does it not taste right?" A Hua asked, observing Jiang Li's expression.
"It seems to be missing something..."
A Hua frowned and muttered, "That's strange, but I clearly followed the steps You told me, doing it step by step!"
Jiang Li held the noodle bowl and looked at A Hua, silently sighing and comforting her, "A Hua, this isn't your problem. It's likely there were steps Lu Yibei took when cooking the instant noodles that I don't know about."
"Okay," A Hua responded dejectedly. Then she pursed her lips, and as if suddenly remembering something, her eyes darted around as she said, "Miss, You said, is Lu Yibei really the child of Your lifesaver?" freēwēbηovel.c૦m
If that were true, wouldn't that bastard Lu Yibei be my future young master?
Miss even specifically learned the erhu for him...
I used to bully him so much. With his petty personality, he's definitely going to hold a grudge.
A Hua thought about it and felt that the days ahead were turning gloomy at a visible speed.
But there's nothing I can do about it. What can I say when Miss likes him?
"I went to Peony Street today and helped You check the list of past members in Hua City with the surname Lu. There was indeed a member with the surname Lu."
"Is that so?" Jiang Li's eyes trembled slightly, and she asked in a calm tone, "What was their name?"
"No name..." A Hua gently shook her head. "Besides the surname, all other records about him were deleted. I don't know if he retired or died in the line of duty."
After members of the Night Watch retire or die in the line of duty due to certain special circumstances, their basic files in their residing city are deleted. Only the Night Watch Headquarters in Prosperity Beijing retains a backup.
"Is that how it is?" A hint of disappointment flashed in Jiang Li's eyes. She gently patted A Hua's shoulder and said, "It's okay. I've waited this many years, so I don't mind waiting a little longer."
She always felt that since Lu Yibei could make instant noodles exactly like that Uncle, even if there was no blood relation, he must know something. There would be plenty of time to probe indirectly in the future.
"A Hua, I still need to practice the instrument for a while. You go rest first?"
"Okay, Miss, I'll leave now. You should also rest early and don't get too tired!" A Hua straightened up and bowed slightly to Jiang Li before leaving the music room.
Listening to the footsteps in the corridor, Jiang Li waited until A Hua had gone far before picking up the bow and erhu again. She flipped through the music stand in front of her, preparing to play "Croatian Rhapsody" again. Just then, the phone placed on the chair beside her suddenly vibrated twice, making a "buzzing" sound.
She slightly furrowed her brow, picked up her phone, and looked at it. It showed a message from "Wang Bu Liu Xing."
【Message withdrawn】
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "Are You there?"
Why would she suddenly think of contacting me at this time... Jiang Li frowned, picked up her phone, and replied.
Genius Mahjong Girl: "What is it? Speak. 【Heart emoji】"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "Actually, there are some things I've always wanted to tell You. I've been holding them in for a long time."
Jiang Li, "..."
What in the world is she up to? Why is she talking so strangely?
Genius Mahjong Girl: "Please speak like a normal person. 【Heart emoji】"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "I've never had many friends around me. You're the best to me."
Jiang Li rubbed her temples, trying to recall what she had done to make Lu Yibei have such a misunderstanding. Then she realized that she had probably never really been nice to Lu Yibei.
Genius Mahjong Girl: "It's late at night, did You listen to some song and enter depression mode?"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "No! Listen to me, I'm about to go to a very dangerous place now, and I don't know if I'll have a chance to tell You later, so..."
Seeing this, Jiang Li had a vague feeling that something was wrong.
Genius Mahjong Girl: "What is the sentence You want to say related to?"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "It's related to feelings!"
Are young guys, or maybe young girls, like this nowadays? Jiang Li frowned, holding her phone in both hands, typing several paragraphs of text, then deleting them all cleanly.
She suddenly didn't know how to give a relatively appropriate reply without hurting Lu Yibei's pure and young heart.
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "So, in order to tell You what's in my heart in person, if I encounter danger later and ask You for help, You must come save me! 【Please】【Please】"
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "【Location sharing】"
Jiang Li, "..."
If You want help, just ask me properly!
Why are You spouting so much nonsense to fool me? Do You think I'm a three-year-old child?
Genius Mahjong Girl: "Depends on my mood. If I'm free, I'll go. 【Heart emoji】"
After replying to Lu Yibei, Jiang Li locked the screen, set her phone to silent, and placed it aside.
After putting down her phone, she didn't immediately start practicing the erhu. Instead, she rested her chin in her hands, gazing out the window at the moonlight that poured in like mercury, lost in thought.
What in the world is that guy up to?
Thinking this, she picked up her phone again and tapped on the location sharing sent by Lu Yibei.
"Hongshan Villa District... What is she doing running off there late at night?"
----
The Hongshan Villa District in Hua City could be said to be the only relatively safe villa district after the nights grew longer. Although located in the distant suburbs, there had been no urban legend attack incidents there so far.
The people of Hua City once flocked here eagerly, only to be deterred after learning about the housing prices.
There are rumors that when this villa area was built, it referenced some kind of formation, with each villa being a formation eye. The thirty-six villas represent the number of Heavenly Gang, which is why evil spirits cannot approach.
However, this explanation is neither scientific nor mystical at all.
Psychic and urban legend who are slightly more informed know that this villa area is protected because of the Spiritual Energy fluctuations emanating from an exceptionally powerful mythical urban legend, which makes ordinary urban legend dare not enter easily.
Of course, Lu Yibei didn't know about either of the above explanations. The only thing she knew was that the people living here were either rich or powerful.
And so, upon learning that the legendary Li Tanghan lived here, she silently added a bright and eye-catching large label to him – Abundant Large Leek.
Another label was Ruthless Character.
Although Lu Yibei hadn't personally seen Li Tanghan, after meeting the driver Li Tanghan sent, she felt that he should also be quite formidable.
If he wasn't formidable, how would he dare to transport anything?
Anyway, besides Uncle Zhang Shan, Lu Yibei had never seen another ordinary human who could remain calm and composed, not panicking at all, while carrying three urban legend in their car.
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His driving skills were so steady, they were comparable to a veteran P-site driver.
Lu Yibei hadn't yet arrived at Li Tanghan's residence, but the thought of him potentially being a large leek plus a ruthless character already made her feel a bit panicked.
She had always regarded money like her parents. Now, there was a ruthless character who had kidnapped her non-blood-related parents. Just thinking about it made her feel very scared.
For the safety of her parents, she might end up doing something that compromises her principles.
And then.
When Lu Yibei entered the Hongshan Villa District and saw the statue in front of the main gate, she suddenly became even more panicked.
----
It was night, the bright moon hung high, and the night covered the continuous green mountains. Between the surrounding green mountains, an elegant, antique-style gate stood tall.
From a distance, an unlicensed black SUV drove along the mountain road, and as if sensing it in advance, the gate slid open on both sides, slowly opening.
After the car drove through the gate of Hongshan Villa District, the first thing that came into view was a tree-lined avenue full of ginkgo trees. It was late autumn, and golden ginkgo leaves were falling under the streetlights. The bushes in the distance were dense, and the sound of water could be faintly heard, but no houses were visible.
After driving forward for a while and turning a bend, the view suddenly opened up, and a large artificial lake appeared. Under the moonlight, it looked like a silver mirror, with strange rockeries and stones standing in between, and hidden corridors and pavilions, giving it a classical garden style.
However, Lu Yibei had no intention of admiring the beautiful scenery in front of her. The moment she saw the artificial lake, her attention fell on the strange statue on the [N O V E L I G H T] island in the center of the lake.
The statue seemed to be a cluster of clouds, presenting an irregular twisted shape throughout. From some angles, it looked like smog about to disperse, but as the perspective shifted, it quickly condensed together, outlining a human-like silhouette, but the next second, it turned into dark clouds.
But that kind of cloud didn't look like a creation of nature, revealing a strong sense of unnaturalness from something artificial.
The statue, about ten meters high, stood on the island in the center of the lake, casting a large shadow on the ground. The shadow extended into the calm, waveless lake water, as if connecting the statue and the lake surface, which was unique but also strange.
Lu Yibei stared at the statue, her thoughts seemed to become restless in an instant, and something in the depths of her consciousness was wildly colliding, about to break out.
She didn't detect any Spiritual Energy fluctuations on that statue, but she felt a strong hostility from it, as if being targeted by some kind of wild beast, and her back felt cold in waves.
An unprecedentedly strong sense of crisis suddenly surged from all directions. The witchs egg attached to her heart was trembling slightly, and her eyes also felt a long-lost intense burning pain.
This is bad! If my eyes hurt this much, something bad is definitely going to happen! Lu Yibei thought.
According to her experience, the first time her eyes experienced such pain was when she devoured the witchs egg, and the second time was when she first glimpsed the full appearance of the Great Serpent God. Both times almost took her life.
She subconsciously wanted to avert her gaze, but found that her eyes were fixed on the statue, unable to move.
After staring at the statue for a long time, her thoughts seemed to be pulled out of her body, becoming light and airy, similar to dreaming.
Light and airy, she passed through a dark and narrow passage, oppressive and suffocating. Then her eyes suddenly brightened, and she saw the tranquil Hongshan Villa District under the night sky again.
But unlike before, all the lights in the villa area were off, and a thick layer of gray mist, as if ancient and unchanging, shrouded everything.
A maddening murmur drifted in the wind.
The sky was piled with dark clouds, like dusk or a rainy evening, and faint yellow light was cast down through the gaps in the clouds.
She vaguely saw a blurry figure, larger than the tallest building in Hua City, hidden in the clouds and mist, moving slowly, with a pair of wings formed by rolling thick smoke waving behind it.
Amidst the rolling thick smoke, various shapes and structures briefly appeared on it. Either grotesque limbs such as arms, claws, or tentacles, or mouth-like fissures opening and closing.
Then.
The giant figure seemed to notice her presence as well. A slit suddenly opened at the end of all the twisted limbs, and one by one, eerie green eyes slowly emerged from beneath the slit, densely covering the sky, casting their gaze, examining her with malice.
Lu Yibei had seen similar giant figures moving through the city in the dream where she met the mysterious girl, but those giant figures were far away in the sky and couldn't give her any direct feeling other than a blurry outline.
But at this moment, that figure was right above her head, wantonly unleashing a massive, irregular, maddening fear upon her.
The feeling of suffocation came very suddenly, as if she had suddenly entered a confined space filled with high-concentration smog. A strong irritating sensation came from her mouth and nose, as if an invisible hand was holding an iron rake with tiny barbs, plowing through her trachea.
In her ears, the chaotic sounds, like city noise, suddenly erupted, gradually becoming sharp and intense.
Just as Lu Yibei felt that her consciousness was about to be shattered by the desperate suffocation and the noise that seemed to pierce her eardrums, she gritted her teeth and took a risk by muttering the description originating from within her body, attempting to resist.
Having come into contact with the Great Serpent God, she knew very well that this was the pressure brought by the Power of a certain higher-level urban legend, and only the power of urban legend Power could resist it.
"There is Zhong Mountain. There is a woman in Qingyi, where she is seen, there is great drought..."
"Traveling north of the Red Water, looking south from Kunlun, the Jiang is winding, the water is beautiful..."
"It is fog and also stars, it is her child, and also the lips that blow out the lamp in the darkness..."
Then.
In a trance, she felt something slowly rising from within her body, condensing into a brilliant firelight in mid-air, like a crescent sun, radiating terrifying heat in all directions.
That crimson sun wheel constantly fluctuated under the pressure of the giant mist urban legend, showing countless tiny cracks, as if it could collapse at any time.
Immediately after, as a crimson blood-colored light surged from the center of the sun, the power of the witchs egg emerged.
Finally, under the superposition of the two forces, the mist urban legend finally stopped, and the strange scene in the sky gradually faded, then dissipated, returning to normal.
However, that feeling was not like being repelled, but more like running out of strength or losing interest.
Lu Yibei stared blankly at the statue outside the car window, and it took her a while to recover. When she came to her senses, she realized that Peeling Skin and Burlap Sack Face had shrunk to the corner of the third-row seat of the car at some point.
Seeing how they were trembling, if the third-row seat of this car wasn't separated from the back, they would have wanted to crawl directly into the trunk.
Seeing Lu Yibei, who had kept her eyes closed for a long time, slowly open them, Peeling Skin's voice trembled as it tentatively asked, "Then, that... Are you alright?"
"Why do you ask?" Lu Yibei tilted her head in confusion.
Burlap Sack Face shivered all over, shaking off large clumps of pale maggots, and pointed to the seat beneath Lu Yibei.
Lu Yibei looked down and realized that while she was resisting the pressure of that Power, a lot of calamity water had spilled around her.
"..."
Although I almost had a big problem just now, I can't lose the cool demeanor I've finally built up!
Lu Yibei thought for a moment, then waved her hand and said casually, "It's just calamity water, it happens every now and then, it's fine."
I admit, I lied this time. It's not every now and then, it's every day. Lu Yibei thought to herself.
While thinking, she leaned down and rummaged through her guitar bag for an unfilled bottle and collected the calamity water.
Peeling Skin and Burlap Sack Face, having inadvertently absorbed some of the volatile high-purity calamity water, almost passed out on the spot. Seeing Lu Yibei collecting the calamity water with her bare hands, their urban legend core was about to collapse from fear.
Just calamity water?
It happens every now and then?
What the hell is she?
While Peeling Skin and Burlap Sack Face were still in shock, Lu Yibei had already discreetly taken out her phone and sent a message to Jiang Li.
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "I'm dying! Help help help! Danger danger danger!"
Lu Yibei, "..."
Will this make me look too cowardly?
【Recall message】
Wang Bu Liu Xing: "Are you there?"
...
A moment later, looking at Jiang Li's final reply, Lu Yibei's face darkened, and she was so angry that she almost threw her phone on the spot.
Damn it! It depends on her mood? Is she that cold?
Sure enough, there must be something wrong with me for having any expectations of that woman, right?
After knowing that I am a urban legend, she probably wishes I were dead! Lu Yibei thought.
