Chapter 67: Please Come With Us

Chapter 67: Please Come With Us

Although I had explained to Fatty Huang that I had nothing to do with the Shadow Pavilion, he still looked utterly unconvinced, which left me at a loss for words.

After a long while, Fatty Huang muttered to himself, his face pained. “But that shouldn’t be possible. Before the war, the Shadow Pavilion had already gathered every capable person in the world into the Elite World. You’re telling me you’re from the Mundane World—how could that be? An ordinary person can’t be this strong. Fine, you have a resistance background, but at most that would make you a descendant of elite people. Even elite people themselves don’t have anyone this strong.”

“Why not?” I said. “Hegel said existence is reasonable. There’s plenty you don’t understand.”

Fatty Huang looked me over. “Who are your parents? They can’t be ordinary elite people, can they?”

“I grew up in the Mundane World, raised by my Grandma,” I said. “When I came out of the mountains, I’d never so much as seen my parents. Even now, I don’t know who my father is.”

“You—” Fatty Huang sighed. “Forget it. No point asking. Asking gets me nowhere.”

We went back to the private dining room and ate in silence for a while. Fatty Huang drank a fair amount of wine, and so did I.

When we parted, I’d already stepped out of the wine house, but Fatty Huang still couldn’t let it go. “You—you’re really not from the Shadow Pavilion?”

“Shadow Pavilion my ass,” I said. “Are you done or not? Want to settle this with your fists?”

“Fine, fine,” Fatty Huang said. “I’ll stop asking. But if you’re really not from the Shadow Pavilion, then I’d say the Shadow Pavilion will search for you like mad. Because you’re absolutely an anomaly—an extreme one. Both the Elite and Mundane Worlds are made up of people, and the normal range for people is level seven to ten. Someone like Pu Liuqian, who reached level twenty, is the distilled essence of hundreds of millions of people, specially tempered by the Shadow Pavilion’s core supercomputer. Your level simply isn’t human.”

“You’re the one who isn’t human,” I said. “If normal people are level seven to ten and you’re level twelve, then you and Pu Liuqian aren’t human either.”

“I’d love not to be human,” Fatty Huang said, “but my strength won’t let me! Right, something important—I really didn’t know you were this strong. So that test just now, the Shadow Pavilion might already know about it. Why don’t you just run?”

I laughed. “Run where? In this virtual world, is there an inch of sky or earth that isn’t the king’s land? I haven’t had my fill of fun yet. If I bail now, what’s the difference between that and being dead? Might as well let someone from the Shadow Pavilion beat me to death—at least then I’d know who did it.”

Fatty Huang nodded. “Fair enough. This is my own carelessness. That Spirit-Calibrating Ruler of mine is only civilian-grade, really. Plenty of wealthy households have one. Since gold-patterned pills don’t work on you, don’t eat any pills from now on. None of them will do a thing.”

“I definitely won’t,” I said. “Last time I ate a gold-patterned pill it did nothing at all. Broke my heart. A hundred points, man.”

“If you ask me,” Fatty Huang said, “you’re going to die anyway, so you might as well play it big. Go straight to the City Lord’s Castle in Ghostdark City and rob the city lord’s pill vault. All the money Ghostdark City pays tribute to the Shadow Pavilion, plus the achievement points ordinary folk trade for immortal pills—it’s all concentrated in the City Lord’s Castle.”

“You’re pretty rotten yourself,” I said. “Robbing money—that kind of unreasonable business doesn’t interest me. I’d rather win money, or grab some high-tech gear like last time. I came here to grow stronger, not to spend money chasing thrills.”

“That’s easy, then,” Fatty Huang said. “Just log out to the real world, and I’ll take you around the major research institutes. They’re packed with high-tech achievements. We’ll hit them one by one, same as before, fifty-fifty split.”

“That’s actually what I wanted to ask you,” I said. “If I log out, does Song Chenfeng’s body die? Or does it go into standby?”

“Of course not,” Fatty Huang said. “Elite people who spend time in the virtual world always have to return to the real world eventually. No need to worry about that. Every body in the virtual world has its own autonomous intelligence. Think of it like a parasitic host in the real world—when you’re gone, it keeps running on its own, continuing the life state you left behind: your tracks, your habits, your abilities. You just won’t have any sense of experiencing it. When you come back, the body’s memories and experiences will let you pick right back up.”

“So that means if I run into danger here, I can bail out any time?”

“Of course,” Fatty Huang said. “Only, if you do, you lose this body. Every bit of effort you’ve put into it goes to waste. And whatever anyone does to the body after that, you won’t be able to step in.”

“Got it,” I said. “So the way I understand it, the Shadow Pavilion is the boss of both the real world and the virtual world combined. In the virtual world, if it wants someone dead, all it has to do is shut down that person’s soul code. So when you said whoever causes trouble dies on the spot, that means the Shadow Pavilion can shut down anyone’s soul code in the virtual world, any time it likes. But in the real world, people don’t have soul code, so it can only kill them physically.”

“That’s not wrong, exactly,” Fatty Huang said. “It’s just that the virtual world is actually linked to the real one. Take the money you earn here—even if the Shadow Pavilion deletes your soul code, you still walk away with the achievement points. And at the same time, the Shadow Pavilion can trace your physical body’s whereabouts through how you spend those points. One thing I should warn you—gold-patterned pills can’t be taken out. Want to convert them all into achievement points? I can do that exchange right here.”

“Sure,” I said. “Since the pills are useless to me, from now on, just convert everything into money for me.”

With that, I turned back into the wine house and had Fatty Huang exchange every pill I had for achievement points.

Just then I noticed the upper-left corner of my vision showing my achievement points at 2,260—2,250 more than when I’d first arrived. If I hadn’t eaten those two pills, it would’ve been another 110 points higher.

Such a waste.

Fatty Huang and I were still busy counting when two figures suddenly sprang out behind me.

I turned and saw they were dressed up as Black and White Wuchang.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?” I said. “Your tongue’s hanging out. Reel it in before you drool all over someone else’s floor.”

White Wuchang hastily retracted his long tongue. “Song Chenfeng. The city lord has given an order. Please come with us.”

I laughed. “Here to collect a soul, are you? Bring your mourning staffs? Don’t fight in here, it’d be a shame to trash someone else’s wine house. Let’s find someplace empty. If the two of you can beat me, I’ll go with you.”

White Wuchang said, “Song Chenfeng, I know you’ve got plenty of tricks up your sleeve. The two of us might not be a match for you. We’re only here on the city lord’s order, to invite you over. If you won’t come with us, the city lord will come invite you himself. And then nobody comes out looking good.”

“What rank is your city lord?” I asked. “That impressive?”

Black Wuchang said, “Stronger than you, definitely. You’re not even rank nine. But the Ghostdark City Lord—even your Ziyun Sect’s Sect Master yields him three parts of respect.”

I nodded. “Sounds like he’s quite something. Fine, I’ll go with you. Fatty Huang, if I don’t make it back, I’ll contact your alt account, and we’ll team up somewhere else.”

Seeing that I was really going with them, Fatty Huang said, “I was only joking earlier. You can’t rob the City Lord’s Castle. Their power is something even the Ziyun Sect can’t push back against.”

I glanced back. “Don’t worry. I came here for the experience anyway. If it really doesn’t work out, we’ll meet again in the real world.”

With that, Black and White Wuchang and I flew straight out through the window.

Black and White Wuchang made no move to detain me. They simply led the way.

We flew like that for about ten minutes before I finally spotted, in the gloom ahead, a stone castle standing on a small hill—like the walled city of some ancient king. The sky above it had been deliberately darkened, giving the whole place an especially oppressive air.

The two Wuchang went in through the main gate first and struck the bronze bell at the entrance.

I glanced around, then followed them in.

From the Judge’s Office, past the Merit Officer’s Office, all the way to the Hall of the Ten Yama Kings, I barely saw anyone.

I asked Black and White Wuchang, “What’s your city lord called? Don’t tell me it’s Great Emperor Fengdu.”

White Wuchang said, “The city lord isn’t called Great Emperor. But his name really is Feng Du—Feng as in the two-horse character, Du as in ‘supervise.'”

“Do you also have the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak and Lady Houtu?” I said. “Don’t tell me you’ve hauled the entire underworld bureaucracy over here.”

Black Wuchang said, “No high-ranking ones. But we do have merit officers, judges, Yama Kings, and so on—mainly to keep the peace and settle disputes locally. The city lord connects directly with the Shadow Pavilion. The Shadow Pavilion is the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak.”

At the Northern Yin Fengdu Office, Black and White Wuchang withdrew and let me walk in alone.

Inside, the place looked much like an ordinary grand Daoist temple, cluttered with the whole set of intimidating deity statues. I saw no one, so I found a large meditation cushion and sat down.

I’d once served as abbot of Pingtan Temple, so temple décor held no interest for me.

Then I noticed the statue at the center behind the incense table seemed to shift, ever so slightly. I gathered my penetrating waves and looked closer. Sure enough, someone was sitting there, shaped to look like a deity statue.

I didn’t call him out. Let him play his little game.

I simply sat with my eyes closed, resting my mind, pretending not to have noticed.

He observed me a while longer, then slowly extended a hand and began sending force of consciousness toward me. A powerful consciousness wave surged at my face like a gust of wind.

Courtesy demands a response in kind.

I sat up straight, extended a hand of my own, and pushed my force of consciousness at the statue.

The two waves met and pressed against each other, forming an invisible wall of air.

He began building up his force. I matched him, holding the line, not letting his wall advance a single inch.

He raised the pressure again. I met it with equal force. The two of us were like duelling Daoists, neither willing to yield.

Soon he began steadily escalating the intensity of his wave. That was when I realized I couldn’t keep grinding it out like this. If this man was the city lord, he had to be rank ten at least—his force of consciousness could easily outstrip mine. Yes, the Spirit-Calibrating Ruler had measured my consciousness thickness as absurdly strong, but thickness was just that: the size of a vessel, not how full it was.

So I fused my force of consciousness with same-frequency sensing and drove it toward him on the same wavelength as his brainwaves. Just as I’d hoped, the two forces tangled together—no longer opposing each other but twisting into a powerful vortex that dragged his force of consciousness relentlessly toward its center, giving him no way to break free.

At first he paid it no mind, still pushing harder, trying to break through the spiral vortex I’d spun. But it didn’t take long before he sensed something was wrong.

Because the vortex wasn’t pulling much of my own force of consciousness in. Most of it stayed on the outside, like a whip cracking a spinning top, driving the vortex to spin ever faster.

As the vortex grew, no matter how much force he poured in, it never seemed to fill this black hole. Pulling out had become impossible. He could only spin along with it, powerless.

Sweat had begun to bead across his face. And still I kept whipping the vortex faster.

By now, all the incense ash, meditation cushions, and loose objects inside the Northern Yin Fengdu Office had been swept up into a visible whirlwind, clattering and banging around the hall.