I Am Your Natural Enemy

Other than feeling hungry, everything else is just fine.

Back at home, Zhang Laoxi, who'd been out all day, came back with dinner too.

This guy basically never goes back to his own place anymore.

He cooked noodles for Sparrow Cat, fed yang energy to the Little Zombie, threw in a tomato blessed with yang energy as dessert, and brought a bowl of food down to Uncle in the basement.

Afterward, Wen Yan and Zhang Laoxi finally sat down to eat, chatted about Wen Yan's progress today. Zhang Laoxi was expressionless the whole time, like it was only natural—he wasn't even shocked anymore.

Wen Yan finished the First Stage in just a month, and he found that perfectly normal.

After talking about training, Zhang Laoxi spoke up.

"I met with the owner of this villa district today and had a chat with him.

This guy's actually loaded. When he first got this land, detached villas were still allowed, but rumors were already going around that they'd ban standalones in the future.

He went against everyone's opinion and built all standalones. If it weren't for so much weird stuff going on, this villa area would be super popular.

Now Virtue City wants to seamlessly expand northward into the new district, so this place is right at the edge of old and new. The land's going to be worth a fortune.

This isn't even his biggest business, but it's become the one he obsesses over the most—he even lives here himself.

He's been wanting to find someone, figure out a way to clear up all these issues here."

"Old bro, you thinking of taking this job? I mean, you must've heard the other day, things get real messy around here," Wen Yan advised.

"It's not about taking on all the crap here. I checked—there are a bunch of different problems, sure, but nothing crazy dangerous or super unstable.

I want to buy a unit here, then we can just be neighbors in the future.

Sucks though, that boss kept things real polite, but bottom line is, he still doesn't want to sell.

But if I just wanna live somewhere, any empty place is fair game. No rent, just pay the utilities and property fees—just a token."

"Huh? He won't sell, but he lives here every day? Waiting for the price to go up after the problem's solved?"

"No idea. The dude gives me weird vibes—like he's scared shitless of the weird stuff, but at the same time, kind of hoping for it? Must be one of those rich-guy quirks or something—nothing weird to them. Anyway, I'll just take the place east of yours from now on."

Zhang Laoxi didn't spell it all out, but he understood perfectly. That boss just thinks his skills aren't up to par, so he doesn't want to sell.

If he sells cheap, he'll feel like he's getting ripped off; if he sells high, he's afraid of pissing people off. Most importantly, he's worried Zhang Laoxi isn't good enough. If he gets spooked off later, the house he paid for will be stuck in his hands.

He doesn't want to offend anyone, so he says live for free, no rent, just a courtesy—actually, everyone's just leaving themselves an out.

Zhang Laoxi's been doing rituals for food for years, so of course he can read all this, and on the surface everyone just keeps things polite—everyone's happy.

He doesn't really care about that stuff. It's just that crashing at Wen Yan's day after day isn't so appropriate. He's got a few disciples to look after, and if he wants to stick around long-term, naturally he wants to buy a place of his own around here.

Same price as a regular apartment, so it's not like it's a ripoff, and honestly, this place is bound to appreciate.

This setup's fine for now—he can just chill next door for awhile.

Thing is, he's still a bit too proud to just mooch. Look at that little zombie he's raised—no shame at all, just sticks out a hand for food and gets fed every day.

After dinner and cleaning up, Feng Yao's car pulled up at the door.

With dark circles under his eyes and his ever-present laptop in hand, he walked into the living room, and there was Sparrow Cat and Little Zombie, sitting side by side—one cat, one zombie—each clutching a tomato and slurping away.

He'd seen plenty of weird stuff before, but even he thought this was a little off.

"Wen Yan, got some new info."

He recapped the day's events to Wen Yan.

"Wait, hang on..."

Wen Yan organized his thoughts.

"So you mean, you just dug up the last of the brainwashed folks inside the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department, and used the name Su Yue to bait the fish—but the one who took the bait was actually Fake Mo Zhicheng?"

"That's how it went..."

"So, what exactly do you guys want from this?"

"Minister's idea is, you already have some contact with that side, and in their eyes, you're a Foreigner—that makes it much easier to gain their trust.

All we pulled up were nobodies—those brainwashed people don't know any of the core stuff anyway.

So we need you to keep going into that Water Ghost Domain and talk about working together.

In the docs, we only wrote you're from Fuyu Mountain—nothing detailed, so it's easier for you to improvise."

As soon as Fuyu Mountain was mentioned, the Little Zombie blinked right into Wen Yan's arms, looking at Feng Yao and nodding furiously, making little whining noises nobody could understand.

Sparrow Cat spat out tomato skin and curled its lip.

"She says you've really got good eyes—Wen Yan is from Fuyu Mountain."

Feng Yao eyed the Little Zombie, whose pupils shrank to pinpricks and skin was tinged pale greenish-white—the Scorching Sun Department didn't have her on record...

But the ancient robe that little zombie was wearing, with what looked like fancy embroidery, Feng Yao had actually managed to find some records about it.

After a deep dive, he finally found some fragmentary notes and traced its origins.

This type of clothing was used by Fuyu Mountain at its peak, as a means to suppress the zombie's ferocity. The crafting process was insanely complicated and the requirements strict as hell.

By today's standards, just making one would take multiple professionals working together.

And only certain professions could even participate, with their own professional abilities. Back then, it had to be Silkworm Girl, Weaver Girl, Painting Girl all cooperating, then finally Phoenix Girl—the highest-ranked Embroidered Girl—would handle the most crucial step.

Once it was done, you couldn't see even a trace of talismans on the outside—its power was hidden within. Plus, with gold thread woven in, after a zombie put it on, it would basically nourish them constantly—not only would it never decay, it would actually keep getting stronger over the years.