Chapter 177: Zhang Yu’s Lightning Strike
Under the same night sky.
On the outskirts of the city.
Zhang Yu and Bai Zhenzhen stood in a small alley, their gazes piercing through the rain-drenched gloom to study an apartment building not far away.
Bai Zhenzhen asked, “Are you sure this is the place?”
“Hmph, how can an evil god slumming it on the first level compare to my mastery over rituals? Besides, I used their own Shadow Gu to find them. There’s absolutely no mistake.”
“If you’re going, go quickly. Although I’ve lured that group away with false intelligence, they’ll come back as soon as they realize something is wrong.”
Zhang Yu nodded and said, “I’ll go first then.”
His muscles twisted and vibrated, and soon his entire frame seemed to shrink and contort slightly. Then, the muscles in his face shifted, transforming him into a complete stranger.
Then Zhang Yu changed into the delivery man’s uniform he had prepared earlier and entered the dilapidated apartment building.
Crumbling exterior walls, dim lighting, and a hallway cluttered with belongings.
Zhang Yu glanced at the moss growing in the cracks of the stairs, sensing a faint, foul odor in the air.
The entire apartment building gave him a sense of age and decay.
Even the security cameras had long been broken due to aging wiring and deliberate damage by the evil god’s believers.
However, because the rent was relatively cheap, the building was filled with a diverse and full roster of tenants.
Zhang Yu thought to himself, The evil god probably chose such a rundown and old apartment on purpose, which actually makes our operation today more convenient.
Zhang Yu arrived at the door of Room 606 and pressed the doorbell, but there was no answer.
So after pressing it again, he said, “Anyone home? Your delivery is here.”
“I’m in a hurry, so I’ll just leave it at the door. You can come out and get it yourselves later.”
After speaking, Zhang Yu stood where he was, took a photo of the package, and then left in a hurry, just like an ordinary delivery man.
Not long after he left, Li Quan opened the door. He looked left and right, and after confirming no one was there, he cautiously looked at the cardboard box in front of his door.
Seeing that the address on it was indeed for this location, Li Quan took it inside the room and asked, “Master, I think the package you ordered has arrived.”
“Oh?” Huoshan came bouncing over, shouting, “Is it the new mouse I ordered online? Hurry up and open it for me.”
In the room at that moment, besides the evil god Huoshan and the believer Li Quan, there was also a dark-faced man quietly inhaling a Dao heart buffer, lying on the sofa with a blissful expression.
Both Li Quan and this dark-faced man had graduated from high school many years ago and had long been at the peak of Qi Refinement. They were also Huoshan’s two most loyal believers, having always protected his safety.
Even today, when Song Xu had taken people to pursue that ten million, they had remained by Huoshan’s side.
At this moment, after Li Quan quickly tore open the package, he saw a high school general mathematics textbook inside.
“What is this?” Huoshan said angrily. “Did the seller send me the wrong thing? I want to file a complaint!”
Just then, the sound of police sirens came from afar, drawing closer to the apartment with each passing moment.
Hearing this sound, Huoshan and the two believers were slightly startled. They quickly went to the window to look downstairs.
As an evil god and his believers, they were always sensitive to such commotions.
And when they saw the police cars stop in front of the apartment building, they all grew more nervous.
“This can’t be for me, can it?”
Just as Huoshan was worrying, Li Quan said, “Besides the police cars, there’s also the Immortal Resonance Group’s security team. It probably involves a corporate matter and has nothing to do with us.”
Huoshan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, but then suddenly felt that something was not right.
It was not until the sound of a constable knocking on the door that a flash of insight struck Huoshan’s mind.
The long period of slacking and playing had not completely eroded his vigilance as an evil god, and he abruptly grabbed the mathematics book beside him.
Huoshan flipped through it quickly, and his eyes immediately widened.
Copied inside this math book was a martial art called Spring and Autumn Endless Zen.
“Damn it! Who’s trying to frame me!”
At the same time, the voices of the constable and the company security team came from outside the door: “Routine inspection. Please open the door and cooperate.”
Li Quan, who was beside him, grabbed the math book, intending to throw it out the window, but was stopped by Huoshan.
“Have you never watched the news or seen a movie? There are definitely corporate hounds downstairs filming our window! Throwing it out is just handing them the evidence!”
“You have to burn it! Burn this book quickly!”
Huoshan urged repeatedly, “Burn it! Burn it!”
One of the two believers ignited the book while the other brought over an iron bucket, only to find that the book’s material was extremely tough and burned too slowly.
Just then, the knocking on the door grew louder. The constable’s voice came through, “As citizens of Songyang City, you are obligated to cooperate with the investigation. Please open the door immediately.”
A corporate person said, “Do you guys smell something burning?”
The constable’s voice became more urgent, “We now suspect you are involved in the illegal distribution of cultivation techniques. If you don’t open the door, we will break it down!”
Hearing this, the three of them were scared out of their wits, scrambling around like ants on a hot pan.
“Damn it all…” Huoshan cursed inwardly, while at the same time hissing, “Pour some oil on it! Go light it on the gas stove!”
“Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! If we get caught, it’ll be a sky-high fine!”
“Every extra word burned means less money fined!”
“Li Quan, you go deal with them first! Stall for time!”
As the knocking grew louder, the warnings from the constable and the company security team became more and more urgent.
Sensing the strong fluctuations of magic power surging outside the door, Li Quan, with his forehead beaded with sweat, said to the room, “They’re about to come in.”
At the same time, the entire book finally burst into flames.
Huoshan looked at the math book that had been thrown into the bucket and was gradually turning to black ash, and only then did his heart relax slightly.
With a loud bang, the main door was broken open directly.
Watching a large team of constables and corporate security members walk in, Li Quan and the other dark-faced man quickly raised their hands, not daring to show the slightest resistance.
Huoshan also lay quietly on the sofa like a real teddy bear, without a sound.
The leading corporate security officer looked at Li Quan and said, “Why did it take you so long to open the door?”
Li Quan said nervously, “I… I didn’t know who you were. Why should I open the door?”
Just then, a team member said, “Sir, they just burned something.”
Everyone immediately turned to look at the scorched iron bucket.
Watching the corporate personnel searching through the burned residue, Huoshan and the other two instantly tensed up.
The corporate person rummaged through the charred book for a while and finally shook his head in frustration. “Can’t make out the contents anymore.”
Just as Huoshan completely relaxed, another corporate person suddenly reached into the iron bucket and fumbled for something.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, he pulled out a palm-sized iron plate.
Seeing this, Huoshan immediately understood that someone had slipped an iron plate into the book.
He cursed inwardly, Who could be so ruthless? Trying to frame me like this? Damn it, I’m going to be fined to death this time…
Looking at the two believers at the scene, he was already considering whether to abandon them.
The corporate person glanced at the characters carved on the iron plate, and his expression changed. “It’s Spring and Autumn Endless Zen, a top-tier expert-grade cultivation technique.”
Hearing this, the constables immediately backed away, afraid of seeing the content on the iron plate.
The corporate personnel, however, immediately swarmed it and sealed the plate away.
“You two, you are now suspected of purchasing pirated cultivation techniques. Please come with us to cooperate with the investigation.”
In the alley downstairs.
Zhang Yu, having shed his delivery man’s uniform, leaned against the wall in another unfamiliar guise, quietly watching as Li Quan and the other man were escorted into the Immortal Resonance Group’s vehicle.
Watching the corporate and police cars speed away and disappear into the night, Zhang Yu remarked, “So an anonymous tip is this effective? The result is even better than I imagined.”
Fu Ji said, “Well, it was a leak of a cultivation technique on the level of Spring and Autumn Endless Zen. Of course these corporate hounds would be as eager as dogs that have smelled shit.”
Zhang Yu replayed the image of the two men being taken away in his mind and thought, Those two should both be believers, right?
Fu Ji chuckled and continued, “This is the advantage of an information gap. Just this one piece of information—that we know his address, but he doesn’t know that we know—is enough to play him to death.”
Zhang Yu, however, did not relax in the slightest.
After the company arrested the two believers, they would naturally be fine after paying a hefty enough fine.
Or even if those two believers were sacrificed, the evil god was still around.
Zhang Yu looked at the apartment building and thought, Theoretically, all the believers in that room should have been taken away by the company.
However…
After some thought, Zhang Yu decided to test the waters again.
So he took out his phone and ordered some takeout.
A little over ten minutes later, as a shadow streaked through the air, a delivery man appeared at the door of Room 606 like a phantom, holding a drink.
Seeing the door that had been violently broken open, he was slightly taken aback and asked, “Anyone here?”
No one responded.
Looking at the notes on the delivery order, the delivery man sighed helplessly. His figure flickered, stirring up a gust of wind, and he had already swept through the room.
Then he walked out the door, took out his phone, and typed a message to the customer: I looked around, no one’s here. What do you want to do with this order?
The customer replied: Thanks for your trouble. If he’s not there, just forget it. Please have this drink yourself.
Not long after the delivery man left, the teddy bear on the sofa stirred slightly. It jumped off the sofa and was about to run outside.
But in the next moment, he stopped dead in his tracks.
No, what if… what if their real target is me, the evil god? Perhaps they are waiting outside right now for me to walk into their trap.
I can’t just go out like this.
Without the protection of my believers, I’m at my most vulnerable. What I should do is…
Thinking of this, the teddy bear sent a message to Song Xu and the others.
At their speed, they can get here in twenty-something minutes at most.
And all I need to do is not be found within those twenty-something minutes.
With this thought, Huoshan went to the wall behind the sofa, slowly opened a hidden door within it, and disappeared from the room.