Free Web NovelIt was early morning.
Hua Sang had a dream. She dreamed she was in a vast expanse of white, faintly glowing mist, being chased by a golden light.
The object wrapped in the golden light seemed to be the finger of some existence, emitting an extremely alluring aura.
Allure often meant danger.
She ran, occasionally looking back. Through the mist, she could faintly see a figure.
The figure was very blurry, with a pale golden outline, almost merging with the mist, appearing and disappearing like an illusion.
That figure was very similar to a human, but much taller and sturdier. Its nearly five-meter body was almost perfectly proportioned, exuding a unique sense of beauty.
However, when Hua Sang focused her mind, trying to see the figure clearly, a dazzling golden light suddenly erupted, stinging her eyes.
Along with the stinging in her eyes, Hua Sang woke up, opening her eyes to see the dimly lit room.
...
Sitting up, she rubbed her dry eyes and was surprised to find that the stinging sensation remaining in her eyes after waking from the dream was still so vivid.
What did that dream mean? Hua Sang thought, puzzled.
Just then, a knock on the door suddenly sounded.
"Knock knock knock—!"
Immediately after, she heard the voice of her Senior Brother from outside the door.
"Junior Sister, are you alright?"
To prevent Hua Sang's Spirit Mark from losing control again, Li Xuan brought her home, letting her sleep in the bedroom while he slept on the sofa.
Anyway, it was only for a day or two, he could make do... Although Li Xuan thought this, as soon as he heard a slight noise, he woke up from his light sleep.
He was already terrified of the black night's erosion. If he got hit again, Master might not necessarily help him treat it.
That's right. After being baptized by the lightning, he had already confirmed with his Master. He asked his Master, "Master, it must have been you who gathered the Senior and Junior Brothers and went to the Zixiao Platform to summon lightning to help me with the treatment, right? I knew that you, Old Sir, still cared about me, your disciple."
Master Bixuzi was silent for a few seconds, then replied to Li Xuan, "Don't let there be a next time."
If this happened again, Master Bixuzi, who was far away in Da Chunyang Palace, would truly have no other way.
...
After roughly checking her Spirit Mark and Spirit Seal, Hua Sang looked at the closed door and said lightly, "I'm fine, Senior Brother, you don't need to worry."
Her Spirit Mark was temporarily stable, with no signs of losing control.
"Is that so!" Li Xuan's voice came from outside the door. "Then you rest well, I won't disturb you."
"Okay, Senior Brother, good night."
Hua Sang replied, lay back down on the bed, and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling until dawn.
She missed Da Chunyang Palace a little.
Besides the small mountain village she could never return to, only by staying in Da Chunyang Palace could she shed her heavy 'turtle shell'...
"Click!"
The sound of Li Xuan leaving early came from the living room.
She looked out the window. Through the curtains, a ray of bright and beautiful morning light shone on her pillow, less than a finger's width away from the delicate tip of her nose revealed beneath her messy long hair.
But...
She was too lazy to reach out or move her body to touch that light.
----
In the early morning, the sky, washed by the rain, cast down the first ray of morning sun.
Inside the unfinished building on the edge of the University City, a tempting moan sounded.
"Mmm ying..."
Soon, as the sunlight dispelled the remaining darkness on the terrace of the unfinished building in just over ten seconds, a handsome young man with a cold expression flipped into the building and walked towards the underground parking lot.
Using the Directional Soul Summoning Spell to summon Old Dad was something Lu Yibei initially refused. After all, she knew the essence of this Spell was to make the summoned entity descend in the form of an unranked Strange Tale. The process of sending off the spirit was to 'kill' the summoned unranked Strange Tale in a relatively gentle manner.
Letting a long-deceased relative be reincarnated as a Strange Tale and then personally 'killing' them... such a thing...
Did she feel that sending them off only once wasn't enough to show her sincerity?
This was simply too filial!
If it were Lu Yibei from a year ago, even with her current abilities and the strength needed to face Old Dad's departed soul, she would absolutely not have attempted to use the Directional Soul Summoning Spell to summon Old Dad.
But now the situation was a little different. The more she learned about Old Dad's unknown side, the more she felt something was fishy.
All signs indicated that Old Dad was at least an A-level Spirit Ability User. Even when facing Calamity-level enemies, escaping shouldn't have been too difficult.
Of course, Lu Yibei's deductions were based on Smelly Girl, Big Boss, and Wang Yingying, but their states were more or less problematic. She wasn't sure if such deductions were reliable.
After all, up to now, she hadn't encountered Calamity-level entities in their peak state like 【Black Emperor】 or 【Lord Bing】, and didn't know if they had any incredible methods.
Another point that made her suspicious was that she had almost completely lost the memory of the period after the car accident, and she hadn't seen Old Dad's body at all.
If she were still a poker-faced, talkative ordinary university student now, perhaps she would still believe the fact that Old Dad had passed away.
But now... she always felt that an urn of ashes and a grave couldn't prove that a Psychic, especially a high-level Psychic with endless methods, was dead.
Before, she had no means to confirm, but now she did.
I still have a grave in Lion Mountain Cemetery! Half of my youth is buried there...
So she still had to try. She didn't need to actually summon Old Dad; she just needed to reach the step of condensing the unformed Strange Tale to determine if he was alive or dead!
Thinking of this, Lu Yibei's gaze slightly focused, and she began to operate the Directional Soul Summoning Spell.
She set up the altar, lit the underworld candles, placed the sacrificial wine and the five animal stones, then picked up the scarf that had been in contact with Old Dad for the longest time, raised her hands in front of her, closed her eyes, spread out her Spiritual Energy fluctuations, and softly chanted the spell.
"Youth fades, the white sun shines alone... Spirit, return! Neither east nor west, neither south nor north..."
Along with the chanting of the spell, the sound and intention extended towards the void. The onlookers' gazes and strange whispers appeared as expected, and the process of casting the Spell was as usual.
"Lu Ming, spirit, return!"
After finishing the last line of the spell, Lu Yibei held her breath and began to wait.
Time passed bit by bit, so slowly it seemed to freeze.
Suddenly!
Lu Yibei's thread of consciousness trembled violently, and her heart instantly skipped a beat.
!!!
Old Dad responded!
But, this also meant that Old Dad had really...
Her mood fluctuated wildly in an instant, bringing a great impact to Lu Yibei. Excitement and sadness intertwined into a fierce vortex, tormenting her nerves.
Her heartbeat began to accelerate, pounding wildly in her chest. Her nostrils flared slightly, and her breathing became uncontrollably heavy.
Lu Yibei didn't stop the Spell, nor did she continue with the next step of 'promising'. She just stood there blankly.
She looked as if a child studying or working in a foreign land, having suffered a grievance, was holding a phone and hesitating whether to call their parents to complain, when they suddenly received a video call from their parents, leaving them at a loss.
After a long while, she called out in a voice as soft as a mosquito's hum, "Old Dad..."
As if responding to Lu Yibei's call, the other end of the thread of consciousness trembled again.
Although it was just a simple tremor, Lu Yibei seemed to hear that familiar voice.
"Are you hungry? I developed a new dish today... Not hungry? You still have to eat even if you're not hungry!"
"Isn't this annoying! Why do you need a parent's signature again? Do you want to learn my signature?"
"See that? This is a football signed by Cristiano Ronaldo himself. I held him captive for several days to get it. Aren't you going to thank your old man me?!"
...
Memories surged in her mind, and Lu Yibei instantly couldn't control her emotions, breaking the rule she had set for herself before casting the Directional Soul Summoning Spell.
"I promise, from now on, I will never find Lu Ming verbose again, and I will listen to him carefully."
"I promise, from now on, if Lu Ming puts food I don't like in my bowl, I will obediently finish it."
"I promise, from now on, I will no longer cancel Lu Ming's childish pranks, unless I can't help it."
...
Lu Yibei spoke softly and gently, as if making a promise, and also as if apologizing very seriously.
Every time she finished a sentence, she could feel the thread of consciousness tremble slightly.
It was as if it was saying, "Okay, I understand."
When she finished the three sentences and spoke the words "I promise" for the fourth time, the thread of consciousness suddenly trembled violently.
It was an astonishing tremor, surpassing any soul summoning she had done before.
There was a sense of shock, like fishing in a small ditch on Peony Street and unexpectedly catching an adult Nile crocodile.
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Meeting was a death roll, catching her off guard.
At that moment, Lu Yibei even had the illusion that her soul was about to be pulled out of her body by the thread of consciousness.
Is he coming?
Has Old Dad been summoned?
Lu Yibei opened her eyes, bit her lip, looked at the empty space between herself and the altar, and clenched her fists nervously.
Just then, the candlelight in the incense burner suddenly flickered. The altar, the wine cup, the five animal stones on the table... all the materials and items used to cast the Spell trembled violently, making a chaotic clattering sound. freewebnovёl.ƈom
"Pfft... Pfft..."
Accompanied by two soft sounds, like water droplets falling onto a red-hot pot bottom, the candlelight instantly changed from orange-yellow to pitch black.
That was... the aura of the Black Sun Fire Seed?! Lu Yibei's pupils contracted violently.
The black flames flickered, as if consuming light and sound as fuel, casting a large area around them into a faint shroud and plunging it into suffocating silence.
The presence of the black flames was like a thorn stuck in the throat, bringing intense discomfort.
A terrifying force tugged at Lu Yibei's thread of consciousness, and through it, a wild and savage power surged, gradually driving her thoughts towards chaos.
The Spirit Mark on her back seemed to sense something, aching faintly and violently devouring Lu Yibei's Spiritual Energy.
Negative emotions intertwined, churned, and twisted in her heart, transforming into the most primal pain.
"Damn it, stop!" Lu Yibei roared angrily.
Taking a second or two, she recovered from the shock brought by this sudden change, endured the discomfort, and with a backhand, drew out Lingtai Pure Karma from the God Kingdom Prototype, quickly assumed a sword stance, silently chanted the Spell of the Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon, used her movement technique, and flashed forward.
Then, brilliant golden light flashed in her eyes.
【Royalty】, unfold!
She didn't know if her methods could interrupt such an anomaly, but her intuition told her she had to do it, otherwise the Directional Soul Summoning Spell would collapse.
Lu Yibei advanced, staring intently at the flames. Space seemed to be stretched by some unknown force; the short distance of two or three meters felt as if it could never be traversed.
The black flames seemed to be extremely corrosive, burning the Dark Candle to ashes in a breath, spreading into the incense burner, which was then also ignited.
A little closer, as long as she could touch it... If she could touch it, there would be a chance! Lu Yibei thought anxiously.
However, she could only watch helplessly as the black flames burned the incense burner, spread to the altar, and then the altar burst into flames, instantly reducing everything needed to perform the Directional Soul Summoning Spell to ashes.
Like an illusion, the sound of glass shattering rang in her ears; that was the Spiritual Energy Lu Yibei used to wrap the altar.
"Bang—bang—!"
The dissipating Spiritual Energy let out a series of explosions.
Along with the explosions, the thread of consciousness Lu Yibei used to connect with her Old Dad snapped abruptly, like a broken string.
Terrifying wind pressed down on the ashes covering the ground, like a pair of merciless hands, pushing Lu Yibei's unbalanced body aside.
"Boom—!"
Lu Yibei's back hit a concrete pillar, and she fell to the ground, unable to get up.
One attempt confirmed two things for her.
Old Dad had truly left her forever, and...
The Eclipse Society was suspected of imprisoning her Old Dad's soul, or interfering with the Spell in some way.
"The Eclipse Society... Heh, how nice..."
She slumped to the ground as if exhausted, staring blankly at the small pit where the Spiritual Energy had exploded nearby. Her eyes were filled with exhaustion, and beneath the weariness, a flame burned fiercely...
----
Early morning, Salt City Financial District, a certain intersection.
Fang Ji sat on the stone steps of the green belt by the intersection, watching people come and go on the street, his face full of confusion.
He had set off from Qianqiu Town early this morning, walking towards the city center. Just after leaving Qianqiu Town, he met a scavenger driving a jeep who was going to the city to fence stolen goods for cash.
He was very lucky. That scavenger was one of the rare kind among many who were good-natured. He only charged him eighty-seven yuan and dropped him off at the toll station closest to the city.
Yes, he even left him fifty cents.
If it were another scavenger, even if they were willing to give him a ride, he would have had to pay with at least a fresh kidney.
"But... why did I come to the city?" Fang Ji murmured to himself.
He felt his mind was empty, with no memories of the past at all.
Apart from basic common sense and knowledge, before seeing [N O V E L I G H T] the ID card with his photo printed on it, he didn't even know his name, like a sheet of letter paper with grids and patterns printed on it, but nothing written.
Such a memory gap gave him a sense of inexplicable loneliness.
He urgently wanted to find someone who knew him and a place where he could belong.
Therefore, he felt he should leave Qianqiu Town and go somewhere with more people, and then he luckily arrived here.
Unfortunately, after arriving at the busiest commercial street in the city, he wandered for a long time and asked many people, but found nothing.
Except for a few young men who found him cute, with a face like a delicate flower, mistook him for a girl, came forward to ask for his contact information, and were then scared away by his masculine voice and slightly neurotic questions, he didn't meet anyone who knew even a little about him.
Looking at the crowds coming and going, Fang Ji rubbed his face with both hands, sighed silently, and said to himself, "If only someone could tell me."
As soon as he finished speaking, something hit the back of his head hard.
"Hiss—!"
He gasped, rubbing his head, and looked back, seeing a brand new Cherry 14proplus phone. The phone was not locked, and the screen was displaying the private chat interface of a certain goose social app.
Internet Maniac (Monster Story Chat Group): "Do you have any other questions?"
Fang Ji held the phone, was silent for a few seconds, and typed a message asking: "Do you know who Fang Ji is?"
Internet Maniac (Monster Story Chat Group): "Why are you asking this?"
A Little Hamster: "I just want to know. Could you please tell me? This is very important to me."
After waiting for a few seconds, Fang Ji received a reply.
Internet Maniac (Monster Story Chat Group): "I checked. Fang Ji is an agent of the Huai City Night Watch. It seems he made outstanding contributions in the previous work of repairing the Plague Tai Sui's seal and received commendations. He should be on his way to Da Chunyang Palace for spring training now!"
A Little Hamster: "Um... Da Chunyang Palace? How do I get there?"
Internet Maniac (Monster Story Chat Group): "Can't you just search for it on Baidu? It's a national 4A-level scenic spot... Tsk, stop worrying about these trivial things. That bounty mission from before, stop doing it quickly! It involves the Eclipse Society; if you continue, you'll lose your life!"
A Little Hamster: "The Eclipse Society? Very dangerous?"
Internet Maniac (Monster Story Chat Group): "Otherwise?"
A Little Hamster: "Got it, thanks for the reminder."
The Eclipse Society is very dangerous, don't contact them... Fang Ji silently noted down this information, then exited the chat interface and searched for the address of Da Chunyang Palace on Baidu.
"Uh, so far! Over two thousand kilometers... I probably can't hitchhike there, right?"
Saying this, he thought for a moment. Relying on the common sense in his mind, he opened the ticketing app on his phone, selected flight tickets and connecting high-speed rail and bus tickets, compared them with his ID card, entered the information, and clicked 'Confirm Payment'.
Immediately, a prompt appeared before his eyes.
【Current payment method balance is insufficient. Please confirm the correct payment method...】
Seeing this prompt, Fang Ji slapped his head and suddenly realized, "Oh, right, this costs money! Let me see... balance... Got it!"
After spending a few minutes, he miraculously passed the facial recognition authentication and looked through all the accounts of the phone's original owner. He frowned, "This... there's only two hundred yuan in total that can be used. It doesn't seem like enough, does it?"
Fang Ji bitterly switched the phone screen back to the ticketing interface, shook his head helplessly, and was about to cancel the order when he suddenly saw a pop-up ad at the top of the screen and frowned.
【Get a chance to draw by purchasing tickets, I'll pay for your commute all year!】
He stared at the ad and pondered for a few seconds. Since he had no money anyway, he decided to try his luck, clicked on the ad, booked the cheapest high-speed rail ticket, and then happily used his only chance to draw a prize.
The next moment, the phone in his hand vibrated, fireworks exploded on the screen, and the stirring music scared him so much that he threw the phone away.
【Congratulations! You have won the lucky grand prize...】
Looking at the little pig with "Grand Prize" written on its back bouncing around on the screen, Fang Ji tilted his head, "It seems I won? Does that mean I don't have to spend money to go to Da Chunyang Palace?"
"What a good person, says they'll pay and they pay..."
He said this without any emotional fluctuation, as if such a thing was a matter of course.
----
A moment later, Salt City Night Watch, Office No. 1.
A young woman pushed the door open, looked at the middle-aged man with slightly graying temples behind the desk, and handed a document to him.
"Void, take a look at this. It seems some strange urban legend incident has occurred..."
The middle-aged man browsed through the document the woman handed him and frowned, "6:30 AM, Highway No. 2 toll station, one traffic accident occurred.
Weak Spiritual Energy fluctuations were detected wandering in the city. From 8:30 AM to 9:50 AM, a total of one hundred and seventy-four people were accidentally injured, seventy-five with superficial wounds, eighty-eight with soft tissue contusions, and eleven with fractures..."
"What kind of urban legend incident is this? The morning rush hour has such a large flow of people; it's probably just a coincidence. Don't be suspicious all the time... Speaking of which, has Fang Ji been found?"
Hearing this, the young woman lowered her head and shook it.
"Ah..." The middle-aged man withdrew his gaze, looked out the window, and sighed softly.
