Chapter 177: The Guan Residence

"Young man, if you could distinguish the true gods, you'd see how ignorant you are to be brainwashed by a cult at such a young age!" The middle-aged woman puffed out her stomach to lecture Luo Qi.

"I..." Luo Qi was choked with anger. After a moment of thought, he said, "Then all the merit I donated here was for nothing? I haven't even made my wish yet. No, I have to find those monks."

"Monks? What monks? They ran off long ago. I heard from the police at our local station that they were all fake monks," the woman said.

"How are they fake? The police didn't even catch them, so how do they know they're fake? I think they were real; every time the head monk lectured on the scriptures, it was quite good," Luo Qi argued.

The woman looked Luo Qi up and down twice. "You kid, you look smart for nothing. I think you're the type to call every bald man 'Master'."

Luo Qi was half-dead with anger, left speechless by the woman's retort. The woman looked at him haughtily, superiority flashing in the bags under her eyes. "Monks all have certificates, understand?"

"What?" Luo Qi asked, though he vaguely remembered something. He retorted, "Do they chant Buddha with a license?"

"The police just check the computer and they know. It's just like checking a regular person's ID at the station. They check and know it's a nest of wild monks, a cult!" The woman held her head high and spoke loudly, as if she were the one who had checked the records and made the arrests.

Luo Qi bit his lip; in his heart, he could vaguely confirm that what this rampant old woman said was actually correct. Du Zhengyi asked him in a low voice from the side, "Is what she said true?"

The woman didn't care that this was a private conversation and immediately cut in. "How could it not be true? Would I lie at my age? I went out of my way to tell you, and you still don't believe me? You have no manners! How did your parents raise you? Let me tell you, you young people need to go online more and learn new things. You can't be young with empty heads; how else will you realize the Chinese Dream?"

Luo Qi didn't say a word. The woman's face made his head ache. He thought that even if he teamed up with Du Zhengyi, he probably couldn't match the combat power of one middle-aged woman, so it was better to say nothing. He felt awkward telling her to go away, and she stood there blocking their path, looking like she wanted to keep chatting.

With a dark face, he grabbed Du Zhengyi's arm and walked away. "Let's go rest for a while."

The woman hadn't had her fill of talking. Seeing them about to leave, she was a bit displeased and made a half-hearted attempt to block them. "Where did you two come from?"

Luo Qi didn't speak; his head really ached a bit. He pulled Du Zhengyi to the gate of the Guan Family home and, familiar with the routine, shook the large iron gate of Guan Xinyue's house. The gate was a bit loose and unlocked; after shaking it for a while, the bolt inside would loosen, and it could be opened with a slight tug.

The woman actually followed them over and asked in surprise, "What, are you relatives of this family?"

"Yeah," Luo Qi said with a sullen face. "Don't talk to me. I'm afraid you'll catch the Curse; the graveyard is almost full."

The old woman understood the meaning behind his words, but she was indeed a bit wary of this Guan family. Living next to them was never comfortable, and she didn't want to get too close now. But she never admitted defeat when arguing with people, and besides, the pent-up anger from being suppressed by Jingtu Temple all these years had finally been released; she was currently full of fighting spirit. "Hey, where in the countryside is there a shortage of graves? Can't you find a spot in any field? You can fit a few more. It's just that the government says us farmers don't have to be cremated anymore, so it takes up a bit more space. If you just burned them, then..."

Luo Qi's expression darkened. It was impossible to be serious with a farm woman, but not being serious made him genuinely angry. He wanted to say, "Are you a Christian too? Christianity looks a lot like a cult in your hands."

Just as he drew a breath to speak, Du Zhengyi pushed him and said in a low voice, "Shut up."

Luo Qi closed his mouth with a sullen face and stepped forward into Guan Xinyue's gate. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Du Zhengyi immediately turn around and close the gate, his movements as swift as if he were on a battlefield. He couldn't help but let out a "pfft" of laughter.

Du Zhengyi impatiently pushed Luo Qi away from the gate. He unceremoniously locked the woman outside, which infuriated her, so she started cursing in the street outside. Luo Qi laughed all the way, following Du Zhengyi across the courtyard and into the house. "If you ask me, all this 'pastoral life' stuff is nonsense. At least in the city, no one blocks your door to curse. I don't know why Guan Xinyue's grandfather chose to live here in the first place."

Du Zhengyi turned on the lights in the house one by one. Although there was still light outside, it would be dark in the blink of an eye. The place remained exactly as they had left it, just covered in dust everywhere.

Luo Qi sat down on a chair in the living room and skillfully searched on his phone. In less than a minute, he said, "She was indeed right. After becoming a monk, one receives a certificate of ordination; monks are registered with the Buddhist Association and the Bureau of Religious Affairs. If they are real monks, they can be found on the Buddhist Association's website. So, since they really sealed off Jingtu Temple, besides someone reporting them, the police must have obtained evidence. For example, these monks were not registered monks at all."

Du Zhengyi sat in the chair next to him and suddenly reached out, grabbing his short hair and yanking his head up.

Luo Qi stared with wide, astonished eyes, bewildered as to what he had done wrong again.

"Why is your complexion not very good?" Du Zhengyi asked.

"Brother, can you be a little gentler? You treat me like you're raising a husky. Let me tell you, I'm very neurotic, don't scare me—I'm not like a husky," Luo Qi said shamelessly, pushing Du Zhengyi's hand away. "If I go bald in middle age, it's all your fault."

Du Zhengyi reached out again, but Luo Qi quickly stood up, keeping himself at a higher position than Du Zhengyi. "I'm just annoyed by that old woman, it's nothing. I'm still a bit restless; Da Hei really hit hard. It's obvious he reported himself. I'm afraid the temple we were able to track in the Lu Jinfeng Case has also been shut down." He was indeed very restless. He walked to the window and looked gloomily outside; there was only a desolate, filthy scene. Luo Qi thought of his own home. The Luo Family had several residences, and his favorite house was by a lake. The lake was in a forest in Yunnan, as beautiful as a dream.

Mages have the ability to live very well. When given a choice, what kind of mage would live in a place like this?

He suddenly turned his head to look at Du Zhengyi. "Brother, why don't you find a better place to live? You can use Teleportation. Even if Teleportation consumes power, there are plenty of good places along the Pendragon Track. The place where you met my father last time was quite nice. Even if you want to live in seclusion in a human city, it wouldn't be hard. You are very rich; you could totally buy a few villas that aren't near anything and just live in the middle one. No one would notice a rich person's eccentric habits; in the public eye, being rich means you can be eccentric."

Du Zhengyi didn't expect the topic to suddenly shift to him. He looked at Luo Qi, opened his mouth silently, but no words reached his lips. He had once had beautiful houses, and he had enjoyed everything humans liked to enjoy—classical or modern, beautiful or stimulating. But once he had prepared himself to die, those things lost their meaning. He only hoped to calm himself down; a place like a morgue was just fine.

He might have been able to say these things easily to Mahjong, but he couldn't say them to Luo Qi. Luo Qi was the person in this world furthest from death. He never had a trace of deathly aura about him; he ate endlessly, played to his heart's content, had to win every argument, and laughed until he held his stomach... Even when the world treated him most harshly, he was still finding ways to survive.

Du Zhengyi recovered from his chaotic thoughts and realized that Luo Qi was staring at him, observing him in a childish way. But there was suspicion in Luo Qi's eyes. He didn't know what Luo Qi had seen in him, but that clear gaze flickered and became thoughtful.

"Let's not talk about this for now," Luo Qi said. He didn't expect Luo Qi to voluntarily give up his own question and turn his gaze away, as if he really didn't care about the previous question anymore. "I think we need to study Guan Yushan more."