Great Lack, Great Virtue

Ash, dripping wet, praised in broken Chinese, "San, thank you for your utterly inconsiderate behavior."

Yu Xing looked at Ash innocently, as if she didn't understand why Ash said that.

Ash was just joking. He's a mercenary who lives on the edge, so of course he was prepared before contacting the strange fish, and he could guarantee his own safety.

However, the appearance of the strange fish still startled him greatly; he had never seen such a ferocious mutated fish in his life.

After eating, most of the team members who had been chatting together just moments before fell asleep instantly, leaving a few to keep watch for the first half of the night. Carlos was also exhausted; he had to travel and also had to focus his attention on connecting with the paper figures. His body was still okay, but his mind was already completely worn out.

After saying hello to Yu Xing, Carlos went to sleep in a corner.

The men on night watch were several men with a menacing aura; the kind you could tell were not to be messed with just by looking at them on the street.

According to Carlos's previous introduction, apart from the young "geography whiz," the other three were from tomb raiding families.

They weren't particularly aggressive in appearance, but their presence was striking. The group sat in a circle, whispering about buying and selling funerary artifacts and antiques, looking remarkably like a murder-and-sell gang.

Compared to them, the black-haired youth sitting alone in the bundle seemed incredibly innocent, even though he had a stern face and a somewhat gloomy demeanor.

Yu Xing didn't go to sleep. Instead, he sat near the door to "enjoy" the night view, occasionally glancing at the other night watchmen.

He didn't hide his gaze, and the black-haired youth noticed first, responding with a look tinged with impatience. After a moment, he asked in a low voice, "What do you want?"

They sat close together, so their conversation wouldn't disturb the person sleeping.

"No, I just think you're a bit like one of my friends." Yu Xing smiled. "He's just as aloof."

"..." The young man wasn't interested in Yu Xing's friend. He gave a casual reply and planned to withdraw his attention.

Yu Xing then said, "Lin, Carlos asked me to tell you something."

The black-haired youth's name in the group was Lin; it was unclear whether that was his surname.

Lin then looked at him seriously. "Go on."

Yu Xing told Lin about the number of people before the meal, and seeing Lin's slightly furrowed brows, she repeated Carlos's instructions, "He wants you to find a point of contact and mark the thing that has infiltrated the group."

Lin is skilled in feng shui, and he applies it with great flexibility. He is not only the key to this team's search for ancestral halls all over the world, but he can also use the subtle feng shui energy field on a person to identify things that are difficult for ordinary people to discern.

Another member of the team who can perform divination can also identify ghosts, so Carlos said they have many ways to deal with the ghost, and it wasn't just empty talk.

However, divination has greater limitations, so it's more appropriate to leave this matter to Lin.

Lin, despite being only in his early twenties, remained remarkably composed after hearing Yu Xing's words. He nodded and said, "I will handle it."

It means there's no rush.

Yu Xing conveyed her meaning, not wanting to disturb Lin's thoughts, and silently watched the swaying shadows of the trees outside the window.

The sky was dark, and the moon was hidden behind the silently gathering dark clouds. He squinted and observed for a while, instinctively feeling that it would rain again during the day.

The rain might have some impact on entering the Live Tail Lake, but Yu Xing wasn't in a hurry. Before leading the team into the lake, he needed to obtain the exploration results of ancestral halls around the world, as well as the array diagrams drawn after clarifying the distribution of the ancestral halls.

Judging from the appearance of this group, they must know some information that other forces do not. They were the ones who initially found the location of the tomb palace. Unfortunately, one of the team members had a family accident and sold this information in order to raise money.

The traitor has now been removed from the list, but out of consideration for years of friendship and the circumstances surrounding the incident, no one has taken any further action to punish him.

Yu Xing managed to extract all of this information from the team members during a meal.

He stayed for a while, then got bored. Remembering what he did when he was bored in the Coffin Village, he quietly took out the painting tube.

This time, the conditions weren't as good as in Coffin Village; there wasn't even an easel. Yu Xing took the painting tube and sat down behind the square table in the ancestral hall, spreading out a sheet of drawing paper.

The three members of the tomb-raiding family were drawn to him. One of them, a bespectacled, most refined-looking man, stood up, walked over to him, and watched him for a while.

He asked in confusion, "What's wrong with you...?"

Yu Xing took out his paintbrush and ink. This time, he wouldn't paint with oils, but with ink wash. After wetting his brush, he said matter-of-factly, "Can't you tell? I'm about to paint."

The bespectacled man. "... Oh." He figured it out, but what normal person would be drawing at a time like this?!

And this guy named San actually prepared drawing paper? After hearing what Carlos said, he thought San's drawing tube only contained knives.

Yu Xing was idling around anyway, and he thought the scenery outside was quite nice. Every time he came to this simulation world, he especially liked to draw, probably because of the influence of the characters.

He ignored the bespectacled man watching the commotion, and with a few strokes of his pen, he sketched an old and oppressive door.

The gate was open, and outside, the sky was a pale gray, with long, sharp shadows of trees, like ghosts, exuding a strong sense of gloom and eeriness. The painting was even more terrifying than the original.

Yu Xing barely conceived anything, yet the drawing perfectly matched his identity as a "horror painter" in this deduction world. It seemed that Xiao Xuechen picked up the painting he drew last time and took it out to throw it away when he left that place.

This time, he decided to leave the painting in the ancestral hall, so that if someone saw it later, they could take it out and sell it for money.

The bespectacled man was so engrossed in reading that he only realized he had been standing there motionless for over half an hour when Yu Xing put down her pen.

The bespectacled man took a step back, and the person behind him cried out in pain, "Holy crap, you stepped on my foot!"

"..." The bespectacled man turned around and saw his two companions, as well as Lin, who was usually not curious about drawing, standing behind him, looking like he had just woken up.

The man who was stepped on was a middle-aged man with long hair. He looked very refined, but he was the one who spoke the most rudely among the few people who were awake.

"Your paintings can bewitch people." Lin, jolted back to reality by the bump in front of him, frowned. "Is this your ability?"

"No, I'm just drawing." Yu Xing's paintings are inherently pleasing to the eye, flowing smoothly, and what he presents can greatly stimulate the viewer's senses. Anything that is beautiful to a certain degree will fascinate people, and his paintings are one of them.

Yu Xing was quite confident in his painting skills; he didn't need any tricks to make others stop and admire him.

Lin seemed unconvinced by his answer. Although he thought San's drawing was indeed beautiful, perhaps he was being misled into believing it?

Lin carefully observed Yu Xing's body. His pupils lightened, their contents seemingly shifting like wind and clouds, yet also appearing empty.

He had originally wanted to see if Yu Xing had any bewitching abilities, but as he watched, the doubt in his eyes grew deeper and deeper.

Ordinary people, besides their own appearance and physique, will exude a sense of Zen if they wear a jade pendant blessed by a high monk; those who have studied Daoist knowledge and carry talismans and peach wood will carry a Daoist aura.

By the same token, people with evil intentions, such as those who have killed someone and still carry the murder weapon, will have an ominous feng shui field; those who carry evil objects and intend to harm others will have a turbid feng shui field. Lin can identify such people at a glance, which has helped the police a lot and made him quite respected in the school and the local area.

In general, a person's feng shui field is limited by their personality, the items they carry, and the location of those items. The same item, worn by different people or even in different locations, will produce different energy fields. Lin's family has a natural ability to see this kind of energy field.

He discovered that San's senses were very chaotic, as if many things were influencing this person's power and fortune. There were both turbid and smooth and spiritual elements, which, instead of destroying each other, achieved a strange balance.

He stared at you for a long time, then finally closed his eyes. "The feng shui energy around you is so strange..."

Yu Xing could roughly guess what kind of feng shui site he was referring to. As for the messiness, it was probably due to the offerings and the Persona Mask.

The Persona Mask carries the strongest personal aura, and given his unique physique, Lin naturally couldn't discern anything from it.

NP doesn't know about the mask; he only thinks that NP is special. Presumably, either Lin didn't look at Carlos's feng shui aura, or Carlos used some means to change his aura to be similar to NP's.

"Everyone has secrets. You have them, and so do I. It's not surprising." Yu Xing smiled at Lin, intending to comfort the young man who had just experienced a setback.

Lin paused for a moment, then nodded.

"You're right, I've become a little curious about you." He was so blunt that he was practically saying, "I think your feng shui is too strange, I've decided to observe and study you more closely."

Yu Xing checked the painting, which was drying slowly due to the humid air, and then casually packed up her things.

He did bring his traditional Chinese painting tools, but he used them to copy murals.

We've been delayed quite a bit tonight; the first half of the night is almost over, and we'll soon be rotating the night watch.

Lin was exhausted, so Ash took his place and happily got up.

After a nap, everyone felt much better. Except for the injured Unica and the sleepy Shi Jiu, who refused to participate in the shift, everyone else was very conscientious.

Carlos put on his coat, patted Yu Xing on the shoulder, and said, "Go to sleep, I'll take your place."

Yu Xing said, "Okay, remember to keep an eye on the painting for me. It's not dry yet. Once it's dry, put it in a corner so that the fish doesn't get it wet."

Carlos paused in his stretching, looking on incredulously. "Drawing? You were drawing again?"

Before Yu Xing answer, he saw the drawing paper on the square table.

After taking a closer look, Carlos gave a thumbs up. "You're something else, no wonder you're a renowned painter, even when you're a tomb raider you're still thinking about your profession."

Yu Xing was too lazy to argue, so she went to sleep.

After falling asleep, he seemed to have a dream.

In the dream, the blue figure was blurry, but the jingling pendants on its body and its ankle-length black hair left a deep impression.

Amidst the clinking of crystals, the figure in blue pushed him, who was standing still, toward a coffin.

"What do you want me to do?" Yu Xing felt his thoughts freeze, as if his soul hadn't caught up with his body. He subconsciously followed the coffin, and his question echoed, drifting through the space.

A figure in cyan appeared before him, its mouth opening and closing as if speaking, but Yu Xing could not hear it. Apart from the swaying of the crystal and its own voice, there was only silence around him.

Seeing that he didn't react, the figure in blue grabbed his hand and pressed it onto the coffin lid.

Suddenly, a strong sense of joy and melancholy surged into his heart. Yu Xing felt much more awake. He maintained this posture and looked at the blue figure. The figure's face was still unclear, but it felt very familiar to him.

"Yiqing, what are you doing here?"

Wasn't the Sheqing Dreamscape temporarily blocked? Oh, I see, he's dreaming right now.

Dreams are Yi Qing's freest place; perhaps in dreams, Yi Qing can defy the abilities of certain rule-level sacrificial offerings.

Yi Qing shook her head, pointed to the coffin, and let go of her hand.

His mouth continued to open and close, uttering words that Yu Xing couldn't hear, before he slowly retreated, his figure becoming increasingly blurry and faint until he disappeared.

Yu Xing could only make out the words Yi Qing uttered before disappearing. "Remember it, remember you. This is all I can do for you."

The next morning, Yu Xing was woken up by a shoving. For a moment, he thought it was Yi Qing pushing him, but as his consciousness returned, he knew before he even opened his eyes that it was impossible.

After a short nap, Yu Xing felt great and had no morning grumpiness.

The hand on his shoulder increased its pressure, then moved a little too far to his face, rubbing his cheeks as if taking advantage of him, and then pushing his head. The girl's irritable voice rang out not far away.

"Get up, San! Get up, get up, get up!"

"..." Yu Xing opened his eyes. The sky was bright, and his gaze was clear.

Shi Jiu froze, gave an awkward laugh, and thought he had naturally withdrawn his hand, trying to pretend nothing had happened.

Just then, Carlos's amused voice came from behind Yu Xing: "Nineteen, how can you wake him up like that? You have to say, 'San, you better get the hell out of here, or I'll break your little...'"

Yu Xing suddenly turned around, catching Carlos off guard. "Little what?"

"Holy crap, you're awake!" Carlos immediately stopped talking.

He's too familiar with Shi Jiu, so he doesn't know how to speak properly and likes to make slightly risqué jokes.

His original intention was to amuse Yu Xing with Shi Jiu, but little did he know that Yu Xing had already sobered up and heard what he said.

Good grief, the person who was teasing you behind your back got caught!

Carlos isn't embarrassed at all; it's definitely others who are.

Yu Xing stared at Carlos, then lowered his gaze and let out a cryptic sneer.

Carlos: "...?"

Shi Jiu: "..." It seems she's gotten caught up in the boy's inexplicable competitive spirit.