Chapter 73: Joint Operation (3rd update, please subscribe)

Yiguo does not favor high-rise buildings; cities are mostly developed horizontally, and unless necessary, floors are not very high.

Yujing is especially so.

Yujing is a massive city; its population and economy do not rank first in the country, but its urban area is absurdly large.

Looking down from high altitude, Yujing sits on a flat plain, with canyons and mountains outside the city; the city as a whole is relatively level, and the vast majority of buildings do not exceed ten stories. Furthermore, a large area of ancient architecture from several hundred years ago is preserved in the city center, with the Imperial City and Imperial Palace at the very heart.

At this moment, the Eastern Palace.

The heavy snow adds a unique charm to the deep palace.

A man draped in a long robe sits on a chair, holding a Mobile Phone in his hand, reciting softly: "It must be the heavenly immortals drunk with madness, carelessly crumbling the white clouds..."

After finishing, he cannot help but chuckle:

"Heh..."

It just so happens that the next post refreshed; the previous one was posted last night, and this one was just posted:

"Suddenly like a spring breeze coming overnight, thousands of pear trees bloom with flowers..."

The attached picture is of the bare trees in Huaiyuan, with snowflakes falling and filling the leafless branches with specks of white, as if pear blossoms were in full bloom.

These two lines of poetry are actually quite good.

"Never heard of them."

The man takes his Mobile Phone and searches for them.

Naturally, he finds no results.

He then puts down the Mobile Phone, picks up the hot tea beside him to take a sip, and says with a smile: "This kid shouts every day like a fool about being obsessed with poetry; after all these years, he finally has two lines of poetry that sound pleasant to the ear. Rare, rare, truly rare..."

Someone nearby echoes him with words of flattery.

Deep in the night, one knows the snow is heavy; from time to time, one hears the sound of bamboo snapping.

Last night was another night of wind and snow; Chen Shu closed the doors and windows tightly, so the wind and snow had nothing to do with him, and could not even enter his dreams.

The cold of early morning makes one not want to leave the blankets; he decides to laze in bed for a while, but wanting to play with his Mobile Phone and finding it too cold, he warms it under the covers for a bit before sticking his head under the covers to curl up and play.

Chen Shu: So cold

Qingqing: 【Image】

Clicking on the image to look, Qingqing is already on her way to class.

She took this photo with great care; after the snow, the sky is azure, and in the photo, half a withered branch covered in snow pokes out, the ground is covered in snow, and the students walking back and forth are all holding books, full of vitality.

Courtesy demands reciprocity.

Chen Shu: 【Image】

A pair of bare legs under the covers.

Qingqing: My eyes are blinded

Chen Shu: Did you get stifled while practicing Jingxin Dao? You talk even more now than before.

Qingqing: A day's plan starts with the morning.

Chen Shu: Getting up late ruins the morning; getting up early ruins the whole day.

Qingqing: Why sleep long while alive? One will naturally sleep long after death.

Qingqing: These are all things you said yourself.

Chen Shu: I regret it now.

Chen Shu: When I am old and become a High-level Practitioner, I will definitely compile a bunch of famous aphorisms teaching people to be lazy, ensuring the balance of famous quotes.

Qingqing: Stop talking.

Qingqing: Get up quickly.

Chen Shu: /yawn

Chen Shu: I don't have class anyway.

Qingqing: I guess you will have good luck today.

Chen Shu: What good luck?

Qingqing: Didn't guess in detail.

Chen Shu: Then guess in detail.

Qingqing: Too lazy to.

Chen Shu: You are getting lazier and lazier.

Qingqing: One who stays near vermilion gets stained red.

Chen Shu: /sigh

Qingqing: I'm entering the classroom, get up quickly.

Chen Shu: Okay.

After Chen Shu sends the message, he lies back on the bed with his Mobile Phone resting on his chest, and closes his eyes again.

"Buzz buzz!"

The Mobile Phone vibrates again.

Gate of All Wonders: Found it.

Gate of All Wonders: Nancheng, Jixiang Garden C District and its vicinity, within one kilometer of the center of Jixiang Garden C District.

Grandma Always Says: Received.

Chen Shu picks up the Mobile Phone and opens the map to take a look.

Jixiang Garden is located on the edge of Nancheng, about to leave Yujing; housing prices here are cheap, and it is home to many migrant workers and undocumented residents year-round. Jixiang Garden is a highly densely populated community, but despite the many people, they are almost all workers who leave early and return late, and are too busy to browse their Mobile Phones; as long as one chooses a time when there are few people to go out and avoids surveillance, it is very easy to hide.

Grandma Always Says: Going to find it now.

Grandma Always Says: I'm afraid it's not easy to find, anyway if I can't get the money, you can't get it either.

Gate of All Wonders: I will continue to assist you.

Grandma Always Says: Heading out.

Gate of All Wonders: Be careful with everything.

Grandma Always Says: /yawn

Chen Shu also gritted his teeth and got out of bed, dressing himself while cheering himself on: "Why sleep long while alive, one will naturally sleep long after death..."

Just as he opened the door to go out, Meng Chunqiu was sitting on the sofa, staring at him in deep thought.

"Brother Meng."

Chen Shu yawned and woke him up: "The heavy snow hasn't stopped today, phew, why did I get led into talking like you too? The snow is still falling today, how about, why don't we go out and buy some meat, some spices, and vegetables, and when we get back I'll cook you all a tender beef hot pot, how about it?"

"That would be excellent... but those two lines of yours..."

"Saw them on a website." Chen Shu urged repeatedly, "Don't worry about it, you dress warmly, don't catch a cold, I'm going to wash up, we're leaving now."

"Emmm..."

Chen Shu had already ducked into the bathroom.

A moment later, they went out, bought hot pot base and extra chili, spices, and high-quality beef; upon returning, Chen Shu began to cook, cutting the beef into mahjong-tile-sized chunks, blanching them, frying the spice base, and preparing to start stewing.

Meng Chunqiu stood behind him watching, repeatedly wanting to speak but stopping himself.

The low heat simmered, the fragrance slowly spreading.

The beef gradually became tender and soft.

Chen Shu sat on the sofa reading a book intently.

Meng Chunqiu sat beside him, scratched his head, and finally couldn't help it: "Brother Chen, those poems of yours, they couldn't have been written by you yourself, right?"

"Of course not!" Chen Shu looked at him strangely, "Why would you think that?"

"I was just saying..."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, are there any more?"

"Can't remember." Chen Shu turned his head and said, "When I was younger, I had just learned to go online and often hung out on that website, read a lot of posts, but later my studies were busy so I rarely went online, and later the website was gone, so I've forgotten a lot of them too."

"That is truly a pity."

"Yeah, yeah... I'm going to continue reading?"

"Fine, fine, fine, you continue."

Thus, Chen Shu continued to immerse his mind into the book in his hands.

Brother Meng truly loves poetry; these cultural treasures can occasionally be recited to him, but one must not say too many, as this is, after all, the password for the Square Body—the Square Body must be activated by his Crystal, and one must correctly answer three random lines in a row; a mistake leads to memory loss, so leaking a small amount is fine, but if a large amount is leaked, there is a tiny possibility of someone noticing the anomaly; although tiny, one must still guard against it.

Noon had arrived, the room full of fragrance.

Jiang Lai, who was the only one attending class, also returned.

Chen Shu ladled all the beef and soup base into the electric rice cooker, plugged it in, and took out the vegetables and meatballs from the refrigerator to cook hot pot with it.

It was cooked with hot pot base to begin with, so the beef tallow flavor was very rich, and the added spices made it even more fragrant than ordinary hot pot; the large chunks of beef were stewed inside until tender and flavorful, one bite and it was extremely delicious.

And after eating the beef, one could immediately blanch other hot pot ingredients.

In this snowy weather, it was beyond satisfying.

After finishing lunch, in the afternoon, Chen Shu lay on the sofa digesting, and a lament from a certain member came through the Ancient Cultivation Group.

Grandma Always Says: This damn place is too big.

Grandma Always Says: Can't find him at all.

Grandma Always Says: I used the most advanced Spirit Eye, checked the Cultivators one by one, leaped over roofs and vaulted over walls, and still didn't find where he is, I reckon he's gone Dark Silence.

Haoran: Do not use profanity.

Grandma Always Says: Not allowed to use profanity on the internet? You're quite controlling, what can you do to me if I say it?

Grandma Always Says was muted for 1 minute by Haoran.

One minute later—

Grandma Always Says: /Is that it???

Grandma Always Says: /Give Daddy a one-hour package.

Grandma Always Says was muted for 1 hour by Haoran.

Gate of All Wonders: I vaguely glimpsed that Zhao Haojiang seems to be making preparations; according to information, he seems to plan to leave Yujing late tonight. If you cannot find him, perhaps you can try to block the road out of Yujing at Jixiang Garden tonight. I checked, there are only three roads, one main road, two small roads.

Gate of All Wonders: At that time, I might be able to glimpse some vague information, such as the vehicle type or license plate, but I might not see it either. In any case, be prepared.

Grandma Always Says invited Haoran to a private chat.

A moment later—

Grandma Always Says was unmuted.

Grandma Always Says: Why don't you calculate which one they will take?

Gate of All Wonders: The Daoist sect can only backtrack into the past, it cannot see the future; only the Buddhist Sect can vaguely glimpse the future. If you want to blame someone, blame Shengzu, he arranged it this way.

Haoran: 【Image】

While lurking in the chat, Chen Shu clicked on the image to take a look.

It was the chat history between Grandma Always Says and the Group Owner just now. In the image, Grandma Always Says's attitude was sincere, calling him "Big Brother" every other word, saying he knew he was wrong, apologizing now that there were fewer people around; it perfectly portrayed the image of a man who is arrogant but knows when to bend.

Is this the reason for being unmuted?

Love it, love it...

Grandma Always Says: Damn it.

Grandma Always Says recalled a message.

Haoran:?

Grandma Always Says: Nothing.

Chen Shu was laughing so hard he could die.

He didn't know how many other people in the group were lurking like him, whether they were also watching the joke in front of their screens, wearing a silly grin all by themselves.

Grandma Always Says: @Anonymous Person

Grandma Always Says: @Qingcai Keke

Grandma Always Says: Just in case, come on, let's block the roads and split the money.

Qingcai Keke:?

Anonymous Person: Am I coming too?

Grandma Always Says: 【Image】

Grandma Always Says: As shown in the picture.

Grandma Always Says: Three roads.

Grandma Always Says: I personally think the one on the left has the highest probability, I'll block that one; the main road in the middle often has drunk driving checks, so it has the lowest probability, but it requires extremely high discernment, though it's the safest, so I'll leave it to the little schoolmate, she's careful; the one on the right has a slightly lower probability than the left, leave that to Anonymous.

Grandma Always Says: If it works, I'll split eighty thousand for each of you.

Anonymous Person: I can do it!

Qingcai Keke: I can do it too!

Haoran: Can you put two periods in the middle?

Grandma Always Says: 【Image】

Grandma Always Says: I've also marked the suggested positions for everyone; it's easy to hide and observe here, and at the same time, it won't let us see each other. Hmm, I always feel like we're pretty good as internet friends; meeting in person would actually be awkward.

Grandma Always Says: Also, Qingcai's road is closer to Anonymous's road. Qingcai, you stay a bit further forward; Anonymous, you stay a bit further back. If Zhao Haojiang takes Qingcai's road, it's best you don't act rashly, Qingcai; at most, damage his car, then send a message in the group. Anonymous can rush over quickly and still block him. I'll also head over quietly. If we happen to bump into each other, remember, don't be too surprised by my handsomeness.

Qingcai Keke: Received.

Anonymous Person: Received.

Haoran: Use two periods, or split it into more paragraphs; it's so uncomfortable to read.

Anonymous Person: But why don't we meet up? I feel like meeting in reality would be pretty good too. I really want to see you all.

Grandma Always Says: I don't want to.

Qingcai Keke: I'm a bit shy too.

Grandma Always Says: You're still shy? Aren't you very pretty? What's wrong, could it be you're actually an ugly monster in reality? /side-eye smile

Qingcai Keke: I'm just shy.

Qingcai Keke: And how can you be like this, attacking a girl's appearance? Not a gentleman at all.

Qingcai Keke: Then again, Grandma Senior Brother, are you shy too? No way, no way, Senior Brother, you look like a very outgoing guy. Oh my, I just want to find someone like Senior Brother to be my boyfriend. My current boyfriend is good, but he's just cold and boring.

Grandma Always Says: I'm afraid I'm too handsome and you'll fall in love with me.

Haoran: /side-eye smile

Qingcai Keke: /side-eye smile

Chen Shu pondered for a moment and felt that this joint operation still carried the risk of his identity being exposed, especially since he didn't trust Grandma Always Says; this group member seemed very unserious.

After a moment of thought, he typed again.

Qingcai Keke: Senior Brother, you wouldn't happen to be blocking the road and then suddenly run over to our spot to peek at us, would you?

Grandma Always Says: Absolutely not!!

Qingcai Keke: Your tone is so intense. It's like I hit a nerve. I don't believe you.

Grandma Always Says: What would it take for you to believe me?

Qingcai Keke: Let the group owner be the witness. You swear to the group owner that if you break your word, you'll be kicked out of the group.

Grandma Always Says: Fine.

Haoran: Can do.

Grandma Always Says: I swear, I will absolutely not peek at them. If I do peek, you kick me out of the group @Haoran.

Haoran: Screenshot taken.

Grandma Always Says: Your turn.

Qingcai Keke: I don't want to. /dazed

Grandma Always Says:??

Qingcai Keke: I never said I wanted to swear. /dazed

Grandma Always Says: Dog group owner, remember to be a witness for her too. If she peeks at me, kick her out too @Haoran.

Haoran: Why would I do that?

Grandma Always Says:???

Haoran: She didn't swear to me.

Grandma Always Says: Damn...

Zhang Suannai was trembling with anger in her room.

Meanwhile, Chen Shu was grinning from ear to ear in the dormitory.

At the same time, someone in the Eastern Palace looked at their mobile phone and also revealed a faint smile.