It Was Good to Be Rich

The assistant left his phone number and told Lu Yuan to call him immediately if he needed anything. Then he said goodbye to Lu Yuan and his family and left.

The life of a cultivator? Lu Wenkai and Xu Yongmei exchanged a glance and understood what the other was thinking.

It looked like Dabao had really made something of himself.

When they had scraped together 1.5 million last time, the couple still hadn't been sure, but now they truly were.

The family took the elevator up. Before they could lift a finger, two efficient young attendants loaded their luggage onto a cart and followed them.

One of the attendants noticed the slip of paper in Lu Yuan's hand, with the phone number the assistant had left written on it.

He asked warmly:

"Sir, have you lost your phone?"

"Yeah," Lu Yuan answered casually.

The attendant picked up his walkie-talkie. "The guest in room 1628 has lost his phone. Bring up a new one, and tell customer service to come up and arrange a replacement SIM card for him."

Lu Yuan's face was expressionless, his manner calm and unruffled. In truth, he was thinking:

Damn, it was good to be rich!

Lu Wenkai and his wife stayed in one suite, while Lu Yuan and Xiao Bing stayed in another. Theirs had two living rooms and two bedrooms, giving the siblings a room each and more than enough space.

When Xiao Bing entered the room, she was like a country girl visiting a grand garden for the first time. In her own words, she had never set foot on a carpet so soft; it was like walking on clouds.

A wool carpet covered the floor, its pile ankle-deep. She happily took off her shoes and socks and rolled around on it.

Before long, she discovered a gorgeous brocade bathrobe in the closet and wrapped it around herself without even taking off her clothes.

Lu Yuan lay on the bed watching her play, a smile on his lips. Within a minute, he had fallen into a deep sleep.

He was simply too tired. Although he looked as though he had fully recovered, that was all thanks to the Essence Restoration Pill. He was actually severely injured, with a hole in his chest that still hadn't healed.

"Brother?"

Seeing Lu Yuan close his eyes, Xiao Bing called to him softly several times.

Only after confirming that Lu Yuan was truly asleep did she put away her joyful expression, replacing it with deep worry.

All her laughter just now had been for Lu Yuan's sake. She knew everything her brother did was for this family.

But Xiao Bing cared nothing for all the splendor in the room. All she truly cared about was her brother's injury.

I won't let you work yourself so hard again, Xiao Bing vowed silently.

She didn't sleep a wink. Apart from arranging a replacement SIM card for Lu Yuan along the way, Xiao Bing stayed by his side all night.

Xiao Bing wasn't the only one who stayed up all night. A whole crowd of poor souls at the Internal Affairs Bureau did too.

The cult led by Li Tailai of Jiangzhou First Hospital had been expanding in Jiangzhou and the surrounding areas for quite some time. It had many followers and posed a grave threat.

The Internal Affairs Bureau launched an operation overnight, special operations vehicles roaring off in every direction.

In the operations command center, Zuo Ling was in charge, with Ji Yin assisting her. The two had been classmates for years and worked together seamlessly. Professionally, they made a good pair of partners, though their private lives were a little tangled.

It was already late at night, and Zuo Ling frowned over the reports that had just been submitted.

Ji Yin smiled. "You're still not satisfied after earning so much credit? You're as greedy as you were back in school."

"You think I'm like you, just muddling along?" Zuo Ling shot back irritably.

Their personalities had determined which of them was the superior and which the subordinate.

"How are things with Li Tailai?"

"He's already being sent to headquarters, but it's hard to say. There's a restriction inside him, and his brain is a bowl of mush right now. We can only see whether the refinement cultivators have a way to deal with it."

"So the cult guards we captured before weren't willingly martyred either? It was the restrictions inside them activating?" Ji Yin asked.

"That's very likely."

"So that's what you've been thinking about all this time?"

"No." Zuo Ling tossed the intelligence report in her hand to Ji Yin. "It's the information Lu Yuan brought back."

Ji Yin picked up the report and read it carefully.

Zuo Ling had sent her subordinates to ask Lu Yuan for this information after his surgery. There hadn't been much time, so they had only asked a few questions, but the contents were quite suggestive.

Lu Yuan had described the Holy Descent Ceremony to the agent. Of course, he hadn't said a word about the changes to his own system.

According to Lu Yuan, all the cultists had fallen asleep during the ceremony. A translucent hummingbird had emerged from Li Tailai's ear and then entered the ears of the three examinees one after another.

Lu Yuan hadn't fallen asleep, and when he opened his eyes, he startled the hummingbird, which went back into Li Tailai's ear.

As a result, Xu Wenbin, who had originally had little faith in the cult, had completely transformed into a fanatical believer.

Even Lu Yuan knew this was significant, so he had made special mention of it in the note he passed out. The situation had been urgent, however, and he hadn't recorded it in detail.

After receiving the note, Zuo Ling had keenly realized that this so-called "Holy Descent Ceremony" was very likely the advanced mental technique that headquarters suspected existed.

So after Lu Yuan woke up, she hurriedly sent her subordinates to question him. Now the intelligence had been compiled into a report and placed in Ji Yin's hands.

"Old Ji, what do you think?" Zuo Ling wanted to hear her old friend's thoughts. He had more ideas than she did.

"Mental techniques aren't universally applicable. The range of world planes where they can be used freely is very narrow."

"At the very least, they definitely can't be used in our Divine Land Grotto-Heaven."

"After seeing that video last time, I thought a technique of that level couldn't be deployed within the Divine Land."

Ji Yin seemed to be talking to himself, but he was actually organizing his thoughts.

"But they did do it," Zuo Ling reminded Ji Yin.

"The possibility of the world's rules suddenly changing is extremely slim," Ji Yin continued his analysis. "So this technique must have been performed outside the Divine Land."

"They just used some kind of medium to project its effects into the Divine Land."

"What kind of medium?"

At that, they exchanged a glance and said in unison:

"Dreams!"

Lu Yuan's report mentioned that the core of the entire ceremony was a powerful hypnotic effect. Even Li Tailai himself, who had presided over it, had fallen asleep.

Dreams, meanwhile, were among the few things not bound by the limitations of a world.

"All I can say is," Zuo Ling said in admiration, "what a grand undertaking!"

Dreams indeed weren't bound by the limitations of a world, but in exchange, they were severely restricted by distance.

The Spiral Illusion Realm Zuo Ling had used to capture Li Tailai was a variation on the use of dreams, and she had only managed to use it when she was right up against him.

At a distance of more than a meter, Li Tailai could struggle free of the Spiral Illusion Realm. But the person who had performed the cult's mental technique was at least a world away. How far was that?

"I don't think that's the case. They must have used some trick."

Ji Yin didn't believe anyone could reach across a world to meddle in dreams. If they really were that powerful, they wouldn't need to play cultist games; they could simply come over and sweep across the Divine Land.

"That bird might be the key," Ji Yin said. "Is it in the illustrated guide?"

"No."

"What do the refinement cultivators say?"

"They say it's not their mess."

"What do the combat cultivators say?"

"They say they've never heard of that kind of bird! But they're sure the Qin Clan is behind it."

"Why?"

"They say the Qin Clan is best at fancy tricks like walking dogs and playing with birds. Suspecting them can't be wrong."

"The Qin Clan... the crown prince..."

Ji Yin painfully rubbed the space between his brows and tossed the report onto the table.

"Report it to headquarters. This matter is already beyond the capabilities of the local Internal Affairs Bureau."