Paying at the Door

Inside Wangshu Pavilion, Lu Mingfei sat cross-legged.

Su Lin pointed a finger at Lu Mingfei's brow and murmured:

"Qi rises from the dantian; the spirit resides within."

He was helping Lu Mingfei find his sense of qi. Fortunately, the things Lu Mingfei had eaten earlier were quite effective.

Or rather, Lu Mingfei's own hidden talent was fairly decent as well.

More than twenty minutes later, Su Lin withdrew his finger and quietly left Wangshu Pavilion, leaving Lu Mingfei to cultivate alone 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: "Mm, no problem. Are you treating me to dinner?"

Klein: "Mr. Zhongli spent a bit 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 difficult to expect someone who had once controlled wealth and printed his own currency to possess any real concept of money.

Even Snezhnaya's toy distributor boss could only shake his head.

Su Lin arrived in Rong City through a portal. After emerging from a secluded spot, he hailed a taxi outside a residential complex.

The weather in Rong City was not very good today. Thick clouds hung overhead, and the gloomy sky was gray and dull, as though a filter had been laid over one's eyes.

Money was more than enough for Su Lin alone, but if group members came over as guests, he would need to find some way to earn more.

Although he occasionally received new funds while cracking down on crime and evil, they were, after all, income from unknown sources and could not be deposited into the bank in large amounts.

He had distributed most of the cash to patients from struggling families at hospitals and to orphanages.

The cash he kept was sufficient, but not abundant. After all, they were cultivators now. With longevity, their greatest desire, fulfilled, their other desires naturally diminished considerably.

If there really was an emergency that required money, he had ways to obtain it.

If all else failed, he could have Historical Projections go out and work. Several incomes a day would still be quite considerable.

It had to be said, Historical Projection was incredibly useful.

It seemed he needed to increase his financial reserves, and he also had to start addressing 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 often come to his world in the future.

To be honest, he sometimes could not help but entertain certain thoughts about the items available for exchange in the system.

He had confirmed through certain means that, so far, this was an ordinary world with basically no extraordinary powers.

But what if?

Having read webnovels for more than a decade, he had considered all kinds of possibilities.

Could it be that the extraordinary beings of the past had merely gone elsewhere among the stars?

Or perhaps they had gone to another world, and as time passed, the extraordinary 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 happy farming, or would he someday have been swept up by the tide of the times, constantly growing under pressure and shouldering 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 pressed against the window as he watched the congested traffic outside.

Water Mirror Peak had already begun to take on the form of a blessed grotto-heaven. Or rather, it could already be considered one.

He could let the group members 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 return to his own Earth after another ten 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 only hoped that Earth on this side could offer them a little comfort whenever they missed their hometowns.

Once the group members all regarded Water Mirror Peak and Earth in this world as good places they could visit often, then if some great calamity of the age truly arose in the future, or if someone behind the scenes secretly pushed the course of events, 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, Xiao Yan, and the others possessed the strength they had in the later stages 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 possibly know what would happen then?

Oh, it was possible to know. He would just have to pay more. World-level fate items started at 100,000 points; the Heaven Derivation Art cost 8,000 points to get started, 80,000 to master, and 800,000 to complete. And he would still have to bear things like the backlash of the Heavenly Dao himself.

Su Lin believed that under normal circumstances, if he encountered danger, the group members would still lend him a hand. But if the world itself was in crisis, he could hardly invite others to his world to serve 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 such little schemes in mind.

Quite a few of the spirit plants and spirit medicines Lu Mingfei ate today came from Su Lin's own medicinal garden. In other worlds, they would be rare treasures capable of causing disputes and bloodshed.

He would treat it as an investment.

Of course, Su Lin hoped even more that he was simply being overly suspicious and letting his imagination run too wild.

Wasn't a peaceful urban farming life appealing? Wasn't it appealing to wait for the group members to take off and carry him along?

He could live freely and happily as a laid-back Azu in the city, then wait a few more decades for technology to develop—or perhaps get lucky enough to meet a group member from a technologically advanced world—and experience a real metaverse.

"Sir, we're here. Don't space out," the middle-aged driver reminded him in a strong local accent. "Twelve yuan."

"Sir, let me scan your payment code."

After closing the car door, Su Lin arrived outside an alleyway styled after the Republican era. He had looked the place up on the way here.

This restaurant claimed to be a representative of modern Sichuan cuisine and had a certain degree of fame both domestically and abroad.

There was only one veteran chef and a few apprentices in the kitchen, while everyone else was service staff. Under normal circumstances, it was impossible to get a reservation without booking in advance.

After walking about a hundred meters down the bluestone-paved alley, where moss grew in places, he saw Spring Rain Pavilion's sign 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 see my friend. Grain Rain Room." Su Lin gave the room name Klein had mentioned.

The young server's brows twitched slightly. Covering her mouth, she said with a hint of amusement:

"I thought Tartaglia would be coming in cosplay. Please follow me."

"..."

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