Back in his new home at 1901, the room lights were on, but the screen of the DELL laptop in the study was black. Li Bai touched the keyboard. It was cold.
The Demoness was coiled up in her flood-dragon form, breathing in and out Demonic Qi as specks of light revolved around her.
Li Bai nodded in satisfaction. She finally knew to cultivate obediently instead of acting like a lazy demon pet that merely ate and waited to die.
The dishes packed from his grandmother's house sat on the dining table.
"Time to eat!"
Demons had no fixed mealtimes or concept of three meals a day. They ate whenever they were hungry. Besides, the Demoness had transformed from a green snake into a flood dragon, so it was perfectly normal for her to go three years without eating and then have one meal that lasted her another three years.
"What's good?"
The Demonic Qi suddenly drew inward and vanished completely into her flood-dragon body. The Azure Flood Dragon darted nimbly out of the study, landed on the dining table in the living room, and began circling the bag containing several paper food boxes.
After this demon had been conquered by instant noodles, she had thought she had grasped the ultimate secret of human cuisine. But before long, she was conquered by all kinds of food in modern society.
Whenever Li Bai brought something edible home, she eagerly looked forward to another surprise.
The Great Demon did not disappoint the Demoness. Thick-cut beef tongue, Goose Liver, tea-tree chicken, and several other dishes filled four or five paper food boxes.
Just as the Demoness tore open the bag and began eating heartily, his phone rang. Li Bai glanced at it and saw that it was the former landlord, Yang Fa. He immediately and decisively rejected the call.
Given that man's temper, he certainly had nothing pleasant to say.
But the other party called again without giving up. Naturally, Li Bai rejected it again.
After four or five consecutive calls, Li Bai finally had no choice but to answer.
"Li, what the hell do you mean by this?"
Yang Fa was practically furious. But after being hung up on several times, he had probably lost the nerve to launch into a tirade. Otherwise, the call would only be cut off again.
"Brother Yang, what are you talking about? I don't understand!"
Li Bai completely ignored the other party's furious questioning, even though he could guess exactly why the man was calling with such hostility.
"You moved out without even telling me?"
"Huh, Brother Yang, weren't you the one who said that if I didn't pay next year's rent, I had to move out immediately, or you'd throw my things out? So I had no choice but to leave at once!"
Li Bai's voice was full of innocence. The other party probably wanted to drive him out, only to find that he had already left.
As it happened, Li Bai had just found a new rental, and the former landlord, that miser, had immediately been left speechless.
"You left, fine, but how could you take everything away? Where's the gas stove? The gas water heater? The range hood? You even dismantled the exhaust fan! What do you mean by this?"
Yang Fa was clearly calling to demand an explanation. Li Bai had dismantled the rental until it was completely bare without saying a word, leaving him unable to trick an uninformed new tenant into paying a hefty rent.
"Brother Yang, that's not fair. The gas stove, water heater, range hood, and exhaust fan were all things I bought myself. You can't claim they're yours, can you?"
Li Bai was both angry and amused. The man was simply being shameless.
Moreover, Officer Xiao Wang had told him at the dinner table that Yang Fa planned to sell the house and had already found a buyer. This sudden rent increase had been nothing but greedy, shameless exploitation.
The sale of a property did not void an existing lease. Yang Fa would pocket an entire year's rent for nothing, while the buyer would not truly receive possession of the house until a year later.
If Li Bai had not been unable to accept rent that kept rising, forcing him to look for another rental, he might have fallen for this man's dirty trick.
"What? How could they be yours? Stop talking nonsense, or I'll withhold your deposit!"
Li Bai's sudden move-out had meant that both sides had completely fallen out, and Yang Fa's shameless nature was finally exposed beyond doubt.
"When I first rented your place, the apartment didn't even have light bulbs, let alone outlet panels or faucets. Brother Yang, you know exactly what you added yourself. Everything I took has receipts. As for the deposit, you weren't going to return it anyway, and I can't be bothered arguing with you. Anyway, I'm very busy. We'll talk another time if there's a chance!"
Li Bai had originally thought that, since they had met as landlord and tenant, they could maintain some goodwill and see each other amicably in the future. He had never expected the miser to be so shameless as to distort right and wrong.
"What did you say? What did you say? I'm warning you, if you don't bring those things back, I'll sue you! I'll find someone to break your legs..."
Since nothing decent could come out of that mouth, Li Bai simply hung up and put him on the blacklist.
As for who had actually bought the appliances and fixtures in the rental, Yang Fa did not want to think about it at all. He had decided that those things belonged to him.
The world was full of people who thought everyone else owed them something.
When the woods grew large, every kind of bird could be found. Character determined destiny. A shameless scoundrel like Yang Fa was bound to suffer because of that foul mouth sooner or later, and Li Bai could not be bothered to pay him any more attention.
After finding the call cut off again, Yang Fa tried calling several more times, but could only hear rapid busy signals. Though he was hopping mad, he could do nothing about it. Li Bai had already moved elsewhere, and even if he wanted to find him, he had no idea where to look.
Because someone had set a bad example, several of Yang Fa's tenants quietly moved out over the following days. Two of them even doggedly demanded that the unscrupulous landlord return their deposits. As a result, the prospective buyers arrived to sign the contract and saw the two sides arguing endlessly. They immediately lost interest in purchasing the property. They had come to buy a house, not pay money to buy trouble.
The unruly tenants' unrestrained remarks revealed to the buyers that Yang Fa had been engaged in the disgusting scheme of collecting rent early. The properties were soon blacklisted by every local agency. No one wanted to be dragged down by that swindler.
Unable to sell the houses, and unable to rent them out again after ruining his reputation, Yang Fa finally suffered the consequences, just as Li Bai had predicted. One blow after another sent him to the hospital.
His wife, however, remained loyal. After beating him until his face was covered in bruises, she continued taking meticulous care of him.-
After cultivating all night, it was already broad daylight outside the window.
Li Bai slowly opened his eyes and released his hand toward the trash can beside the bed. A puff of fine ash fell into the trash bag inside.
The Maha Bolan Sutra's linked cultivation of the upper, middle, and lower dantians, combined with ten Spirit Crystals, had not only restored a tenth of his Spiritual Power, but also covered the surface of the pea-sized spiritual energy particle solidified in his middle dantian with fine cracks. It could crumble into dust at any moment, returning to pure, lively spiritual energy no longer restrained by the Heaven and Earth Rules of this world.
The mist-like True Qi filling his lower dantian had become a slowly rotating vortex. From time to time, a drop of Gang Qi condensed in the center of the vortex and fell into the small pool of Gang Qi below.
If his martial cultivation could break through his current Mortal Transformation Realm and enter the Origin Returning Realm, Gang Qi would form directly in his lower dantian. It would not need to slowly condense from True Qi as it did now. However, this was also the normal process at the peak of the Mortal Transformation Realm.
After his cultivation increased slightly, the Chaos Green Lotus residing in his mind recovered some of its vitality. Although its petals were not filled with spiritual light as they had been in the other world, the number of spiritual-light particles released to refine Xuan Star had increased considerably.
Yet this Natal Magic Tool that truly belonged to the Great Demon remained dormant and could not be released for use.
Li Bai attributed it to the different Heaven and Earth Rules and his cultivation not having fully recovered. He estimated that once he returned to his peak condition, he would be able to use this divine weapon again.
But who was he supposed to cut with it? That was the question!
He could not exactly turn it into a Surgical Knife and cut open a patient's prefrontal lobe, could he?
After all, there were only so many places a psychiatrist could cut. It was not like those doctors specializing in mental illness, who could casually cut here and there.
Rustling sounds came from the living room. The Azure Flood Dragon was wrapped around a large rag, wiping the floor.
Steam curled up from the gas stove, where millet porridge was simmering and frozen meat buns were steaming. Two fried eggs sat on a plate on the dining table.
Li Bai looked over. The Demoness really was obediently doing the housework. Though she had not taken human form, she was still remarkably nimble. Not only had she prepared breakfast for both human and demon, she had also given the living room and study a simple cleaning.
Her exceptionally obedient performance made Li Bai wonder whether he should fulfill some promises as a small reward.
Perhaps he could buy her a phone and give her a bank card or something. In any case, she could only play around at home, so there was no need to fear her causing trouble. Wi-Fi cost nothing, and the Demoness's entire destructive capacity was limited to this seventy-five-square-meter rental. At most, she could max out the limited phone credit.-
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