Inside Wangshu Pavilion, Lu Mingfei sat cross-legged.
Su Lin tapped a finger against Lu Mingfei's brow and murmured:
"Let qi rise from the dantian, let the spirit dwell within."
He was helping Lu Mingfei find his sense of qi. Fortunately, the things Lu Mingfei had eaten earlier had been quite effective.
Or rather, Lu Mingfei's own hidden talent was fairly decent as well.
Over twenty minutes later, Su Lin withdrew his finger and quietly left Wangshu Pavilion, leaving Lu Mingfei alone to cultivate inside.
Klein: "Are you there...?"
Klein sent him a private message.
Su Lin: "I'm here."
Klein: "Can you come to Rong City? No. 35 South Street, Chunhua Road..."
Klein: "Spring Rain Pavilion, private cuisine..."
Su Lin: "Sure, no problem. Are you treating me to dinner?"
Klein: "Mr. Zhongli spent a little too much."
Su Lin: "Say no more. I understand."
Before Zhongli and Klein left, Su Lin had given them some cash.
"My fault."
For anyone else, it might have been enough. Even if it was not, they would have contacted him first.
But Zhongli...
It was hard to expect someone who had once controlled wealth and printed his own money to have any concept of money.
Even Snezhnaya's toy dealership owner could only shake his head.
Su Lin arrived in Rong City through a portal. After emerging from a concealed location, he hailed a taxi outside a residential complex.
The weather in Rongcheng was not very good today. Thick clouds hung overhead, and the gloomy gray sky seemed to have laid a filter over his eyes.
Money was enough for Su Lin alone, but if his group friends came to visit, he would have to find a solution.
Although he occasionally received new funds while cracking down on organized crime, they were income from unknown sources and could not be deposited into a bank in large amounts.
He had distributed most of the cash to struggling patients at hospitals and orphanages.
The cash he kept was sufficient, but not abundant. After all, they were cultivators now. With longevity, their greatest desire, already fulfilled, their other desires naturally diminished.
If something urgent truly required money, he had ways of getting it.
At worst, he could send Historical Projections out to work. Several incomes a day would still add up nicely.
It had to be said, Historical Projection was just too useful.
It seemed he needed to increase his financial reserves, and he also had to start dealing with the issue of identity documents.
In truth, Su Lin had his own little calculations in doing all this.
If possible, he hoped the group members would visit his world often in the future.
To be honest, he occasionally let his imagination run wild over the items available for exchange in the system.
He had confirmed through certain methods that, so far, this was an ordinary world with virtually no supernatural power.
But what if?
Having read webnovels for over a decade, he had considered every possibility.
Could it be that the supernatural beings of the past had merely gone elsewhere among the stars?
Or perhaps they had gone to another world, and as time passed, the supernatural beings who had departed in ancient times would one day return, bringing their enemies back with them.
Without the Chat Group, as a system host, would he have lived a carefree urban life of happily farming? Or would he one day be swept up by the tide of the era, forced to grow under pressure and take on the great responsibility of saving the world?
It was never wrong to prepare for danger before it arrived.
Sitting in the taxi, Su Lin propped his head up with one hand, his forehead resting against the window as he watched the congested traffic outside.
Water Mirror Peak had already begun to take on the form of a Cave-Heaven blessed land. Or rather, it already counted as one.
The Chat Group members could often come to Water Mirror Peak to cultivate and discuss the Dao. When they had nothing to do, they could also wander around Earth in this world.
Ye Fan could still return to his own Earth in another decade or several decades, but it would be difficult for Xiao Yan and Klein to return to theirs.
Everyone's home was unique and irreplaceable. Su Lin merely hoped that this Earth could offer them a little comfort whenever they missed home.
Once the group members all regarded Water Mirror Peak and this world's Earth as places they could visit often, then if some great catastrophe of the era truly came in the future, or if someone behind the scenes was secretly steering the larger situation, some members would take the initiative to help and do what they could.
If the group members were strong enough by then—if Han Li, Ye Fan, and Xiao Yan possessed the strength they had in the later parts of their stories—then everything would be nothing but paper tigers.
Although Su Lin felt that with the system and the Chat Group, he too could climb toward the peak in the future, who could know what would happen?
Oh, it was possible to know. It just cost more. World-level fate items started at 100,000 points. Heaven Derivation Art cost 8,000 points to begin, 80,000 to master, and 800,000 to complete. He would still have to endure things like Heavenly Dao backlash himself.
Su Lin believed that under normal circumstances, if he were in danger, the group members would lend him a hand. But if the world itself faced a crisis, he could not exactly invite others to his world to act as world police and uphold justice and peace, could he?
That was not very realistic.
So while sparing no effort to help newcomers, Su Lin also had these little thoughts in mind.
Among the spirit plants and spirit medicines Lu Mingfei had eaten today were quite a few from Su Lin's own medicinal garden, rare treasures that would provoke disputes and struggles in other worlds.
He would consider it an investment.
Of course, Su Lin hoped even more that he was simply being overly suspicious and imagining too much.
Wasn't urban farming nice? Wasn't it nice to wait for his group friends to take off and carry him along?
He could be a laid-back Azu in the city, living freely and happily. Then, after another few decades, he could wait for technology to advance, or perhaps get lucky and meet a group friend from a world with advanced technology, then experience a real metaverse.
"Sir, we're here. Don't space out," the middle-aged driver reminded him in a thick accent. "Twelve yuan."
"Driver, let me scan your payment code."
Su Lin closed the car door and arrived outside an alley with a Republican-era style. He had searched for it on the way over.
This restaurant claimed to be a representative of modern Sichuan cuisine and had a certain reputation both at home and abroad.
There was only one master chef and several apprentices. Everyone else was service staff. Normally, it was impossible to get a table without booking in advance.
He walked around a hundred meters down the alley along moss-covered blue stone slabs before Spring Rain Pavilion's sign came into view, hanging on the wall.
"Hello, sir. Do you have a reservation?" A young waitress who looked to be around twenty asked softly.
"I'm here to find my friends. Grain Rain Room." Su Lin gave the room name Klein had mentioned.
The young server's delicate brows twitched slightly. Covering her mouth, she spoke with a smile in her voice:
"I thought it would be someone cosplaying Tartaglia. Please come with me."
"..."
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(End of chapter)