Hunter of Mysterious Creature

"I have a premonition," Yang Lian looked at Sun Hang and said, "If you keep messing around like this, sooner or later you'll cause big trouble."

"Tch, what you're saying is..." Sun Hang glanced at the ruins not far away, "The world of human civilization is full of troubles, big and small, everywhere. If you do nothing just because you're afraid of causing more trouble, how's that any different from sitting around waiting to die?"

"You guy, how come you can talk so philosophically now?" Ye Jiu praised with a click of his tongue from the side, "Look at Yang Lian, trying to argue back but can't find the words... hahaha, this is killing me."

During the time when Sun Hang was away, Ye Jiu hadn't been spared from Yang Lian's sharp words — even though, position-wise, Ye Jiu could still be considered half a boss to her, Yang Lian didn't care about that when she criticized people.

No wonder she never got a promotion despite working as an errand runner for so many years before she met Sun Hang.

"Keep laughing. I'm going to work." Yang Lian rolled her eyes at Ye Jiu and left with a stack of documents.

"Ling Xiao!" Sun Hang waved his hand at the dazed boy standing aside, "The place where you met that woman should be not far from here, right?"

"Right next to the resettlement camp," Ling Xiao answered.

"Take me over to have a look."

…

The ruins were right next to Refugee Resettlement Camp No. 6, where Ling Xiao used to live. His family of six squeezed into a rental apartment of less than fifty square meters... They weren't the worst off in the neighborhood. Next door, the neighbors had eleven people, including elderly and children, crammed into a room like a sardine can. Even their three-square-meter balcony had a folding bed set up to relieve the overcrowding in the room.

For them, the conditions in the refugee resettlement camp weren't much worse than their original living conditions... At least in the camp, everyone could get a clean sleeping bag, and the tent space was far more spacious than the cramped, moldy little cubicles they had before.

Sun Hang and Ling Xiao walked through the ruins. Although Sun Hang had never been to this place, due to reading Ling Xiao's memories, many things here felt eerily familiar to him.

This spot was once a half-collapsed dangerous building, most of the residents had moved out, and only a few who couldn't afford to move still lived inside. There were quite a few homeless individuals sleeping in the corridors, and the blankets were stained and full of holes, through which you could see the cotton inside had turned brown.

This was the activity area of the neighborhood, but the sports equipment had long been in disrepair. Many of the pieces were just barren bases, while ropes strung between the single bars and parallel bars served as communal drying racks, often causing arguments between Ling Xiao's mother and the housewives downstairs.

Walk fifteen meters forward, then turn right, and there was the ruin that was once Ling Xiao's "home" — though calling it "home" wasn't entirely accurate since the house was rented, and the rent was already overdue by two months. If Ling Xiao's parents couldn't pay the rent by the end of the month, the landlord would evict them.

Thanks to Dragon Rock Fortress, they no longer had to worry about this problem.

Ling Xiao's family originally had reasonably good living conditions, living closer to the Celestial City center. However, his father got obsessed with stock trading and particularly trusted the advice of some mysterious online gurus. He lost his life's savings in it, even pawned the house and car.

In Ling Xiao's memory, his father didn't resemble a stock trader at all; he was more like a gambler blinded by loss.

And Ling Xiao's mother, on her way back from burning incense at the temple, picked up a gold ring and became an extremely devout believer, even borrowing money from relatives and friends to bring home a "consecrated" Bodhisattva Guanyin statue.

Although his mother never told the children how much the statue cost, during an argument between his parents, Ling Xiao heard his father roaring at his mother, "Why spend 88,888 buying this crap?! That money would be better off with me bottoming out those two stocks I liked earlier! If I had money back then, I would've made a fortune by now!"

Ling Xiao could not grasp why a twenty-centimeter tall bronze statue was so expensive, but his mother valued it more than her life... What puzzled Sun Hang the most was Ling Xiao's father, after being dragged by his wife to worship the Bodhisattva once, found his stocks rise the next day, and his attitude did a 180-degree turn, worshiping more diligently than his wife.

Even though such events never repeated later, the couple didn't blame the Bodhisattva; instead, they felt they weren't devout enough, or blamed the children for not being devout enough.

At this point, Ling Xiao, who was least interested in worship, naturally became the couple's outlet for frustration... Because of this, he endured much scolding and beating from a young age.

Sun Hang suddenly understood why Ling Xiao bore an inexplicable resentment towards deities and Buddhas.

The two continued walking for a while, and this time, Sun Hang knew they'd arrived without Ling Xiao having to speak up.