When the airplane landed at YN airport, Lian Hua instantly felt that he had finally come back to life. He lazily stretched his waist, and really wanted to light some fireworks to celebrate. A life without pig leg is great!

After getting off the airplane, he hesitated for a bit before removing the phone card and throwing it in the trash.

You thought he would throw away the phone? You thought too much.

How could he throw away the phone that lots of people wanted?! -_-

Lian Hua only felt that the atmosphere of the new location was much purer compared to S City! Ah! The sky is a clear blue! Ah! The trees and plants are really green!

"Why are you blocking the road?"

Lian Hua "..."

"Let it go, let it go, that person seems to be mentally sick, right?"

"Remember, next time if you see someone like that, you should definitely get away from them!"

"I know, or else I"ll be kidnapped and sold!"

"That"s right, let"s go quickly!"

"Uh huh!"

Lian Hua "..."

A murder of ravens flew by[1]...

This world didn"t have any love, Lian Hua ran off crying into the wind... There was a storm inside his head, but in reality Lian Hua only quietly twitched the corner of his lips.

...

He called a taxi and reported the location of the villa. He decided to go see the villa first. The driver"s eyes swept over him with a strange expression. Lian Hua didn"t understand, was there anything unusual about him?

The taxi driver had a hesitant expression, as if he wanted to say something, but then decided not to, making Lian Hua feel even weirder. However, the driver started the car with a straight face, showing that he was professional driver.

Lian Hua "..."

Was he so handsome that stopping a taxi could seduce someone into paying so much attention to himself?

However, he quickly found out the reason. He watched as the taxi left the town, pa.s.sed the suburbs, and drove directly into the distance! -_-There were many small towns and villages out here deep in the mountains and jungles! Lian Hua was tossed and turned by the mult.i.tude of bends and found it hard to breathe. He couldn"t stand it and started talking to the driver.

"Hey sir, do you know if there"s any place selling mineral wool[2] in the vicinity?"

"Oh? Little brother, did you also come here to partic.i.p.ate in the gambling convention[2]?"

"That"s right!" Lian Hua directly ignored the term "little brother".

"Then you"ve come at the right time. Wait one more month and Qing Yang town will have a gambling convention. They only hold it once every three years. At that time lots of businessmen will bring good mineral wool. The new Myanmar goods will also be here!

Lian Hua mumbled in his heart that at that time the world was going to end, who would care about those rocks? It was not hard to imagine why pig leg picked up lots of mineral wool, processed jade[2] and jade stones[2], after fighting and killing his way here in the story. Lian Hua was depressed. f.u.c.k, wasn"t this like giving pig leg all of the benefits for cheap? This was unacceptable! Even he didn"t know how good his adoptive father"s goods were!

"Right now, Qing Yang city already has a good selection of mineral wool in stock. Little brother, if you"re impatient, you can go check it out first."

"Alright, I"ll go."

Lian Hua casually agreed and channeled his inner cuteness, looking very simple and lovely.

As expected, the driver started speaking more, blah blah, about all sorts of things from mineral wool and processed jade, from scenic views to eateries, from the local snakes to the police department somewhere else. Lian Hua listened until he felt dizzy, but still struggled to remember everything. This was all useful information!

Lian Hua only needed to occasionally reply with "Ah, oh, is that so, wonderful, really now..." and the driver would spew an endless stream of words like he had been injected with chicken blood[3]. It was as if he hated that he couldn"t spill his guts out to Lian Hua.

Lian Hua broke out into a cold sweat in his heart. This sh.e.l.l* was good looking on the outside, but sir, you even confessed your wife"s three measurements[4]! Are you trying to get me in trouble?

*He"s referring to his current body.

Hearing the driver chatter incessantly, watching the mountains pa.s.s by the car, his heart slowly felt at ease. Just when Lian Hua was about to fall asleep, Mr*. Driver announced that they had arrived at the destination.

*For some reason, after this, Lian Hua starts addressing the driver politely.

Lian Hua wore his backpack and stood in front of the so-called "villa", the corner of his lips twitching intensely. Dammit, this is a villa? It would be more believable if you said this was a haunted house! No wonder Mr. Driver used that kind of gaze to look at him!

The walls were at least three meters high, with barbed wire on top. If you looked past the fence, you could see a three story house inside. However, the ceramic tiling was old and the paint was patchy, as if no one came to do maintenance in eight hundred years.

The walls were covered with grape ivy[5] and green moss, overwhelming with the charm of nature. It would be fine if this house was like an antique, a remnant of history. However, this was clearly modern architecture, but it didn"t amount to anything.

The yard was overtaken by weeds as tall as a person. It was desolate and quiet. There were also some tall trees Lian Hua didn"t know the name of.

A harsh wind blew, swirling a bunch of residual forest leaves. Lian Hua felt in his heart that... The benefit that his adoptive father left behind was really this area?! Look at the villa"s position. There were no villages ahead, no stores behind, and no residential housing around. Did he come here to seclude himself?

Look at the mountains behind the villa. To the left are mountains, to the right are still mountains! If it wasn"t for the twisted road leading outside, Lian Hua suspected that he was in the wrong place. Is this the legend of "The Ethereal Spirit of a Beauty"[6]?

Why were the benefits his adoptive father left behind in such a remote valley? It needed to be fixed! The road into the mountain was repaired by money that came from his own pocket. -_-Adoptive father is a righteous man! Lian Hua genuflected. OTL

Eventually, he still bit the bullet and took out the keys to open the gate. He hesitated before pus.h.i.+ng aside the gra.s.s, and stepped in. Mr. Driver had run away long ago, as if a ghost were chasing after him.

Standing before the villa, he hesitated again before finding the right the key and slowly putting it in the lock. He turned the key a few times and pushed the door open.

Lian Hua"s eyes lit up. The outside of the villa didn"t look good but the inside wasn"t bad. Oh G.o.d! The interior was modernized and the windows were large. The lighting was good, but after more than a decade without a living person, there was a layer of thick dust on everything and a musty smell.

After circling inside the house once and testing the lights, which lit up, Lian Hua was excited. But when he twisted the taps, there was no water. However, Lian Hua found a hand pump that could pump groundwater in the back yard. Tragically, the machine seemed to be was broken.

The first floor had two living rooms, one hall. Lian Hua continued up to the second and third floors. Oh, the second floor had a master bedroom and two smaller guest bedrooms. Lian Hua pulled open all the windows and curtains, ventilating the rooms.

The third floor gave him a cause for celebration. It was an open study room full of gla.s.s cabinets stocked with jade ornaments. Each piece was very delicate and beautiful. Lian Hua didn"t care about how dirty it was and lay directly on the counter while drooling. This was his future life insurance! It was hidden away by his foster father! Lian Hua carefully counted. There were at least a few hundred! This was a real haul! Lian Hua was so moved that he burst into tears.

But he felt something wasn"t right. He remembered clearly that in the story was it not written that pig leg found several blocks of high quality processed jade in here? He relied on them to break through to level five in one fell swoop. Even though he didn"t know much, he could tell that the jade here was not high quality.

Lian Hua began to desperately recall the details of the novel. Suddenly, inspiration hit himー a secret lair[7]!

Lian Hua began to look for clues. He remembered pig leg picked up high quality goods on the third floor, so the hidden mechanism should also be on the third floor? He looked to the left and searched to the right. Finally, in the WC on the third floor, he found a key and a suspicious keyhole. The brain works in mysterious ways! -_-If he didn"t know ahead of time that pig leg would find something good on the third floor, he definitely wouldn"t be able to figure out that the entrance to the secret lair was also on the third floor. And in the WC! Who knows why pig leg was in the WC by himself when he found out.

Indeed, a wall could be removed, exposing a ladder. Lian Hua carefully descended and immediately felt blinded. Glancing quickly, he could see three objects that were natural and unprocessed. One was as crimson as a blazing fire, one was a damp emerald green, and the last one was a dark as ink! Lian Hua felt his mind was entranced by these three pieces of jade.

Priceless artifacts! Lian Hua gave them this definition. If the Bai clan knew that his adoptive father"s villa held such treasures, would they regret leaving him the villa so much that their intestines turned green with envy?

Lian Hua was felt injustice again. Just how lucky was pig leg to be able to come to this place in the middle of nowhere to find the villa and dig out the treasures that were hidden inside? Or was it the halo of the protagonist? Sob sob╭(╯^╰)╮this lifetime he had to use up all of pig leg"s halo!

Lian Hua casually picked up a piece. Ah, really heavy. He quickly switched to holding it more securely with two hands. At first, he only saw that this piece of jade was smooth, s.h.i.+ning, glittering and sparkling, as if it held a luminescence inside. Looking closely, it turns out there was a liquid inside the jade. In Lian Hua"s head there immediately appeared the two words "jade marrow"[8].

It wasn"t hard to imagine how pig leg broke through to level five and afterwards his cultivation continued to advance rapidly. It was all due to finding these precious materials! He grasped the two others and indeed, they both had jade marrow. Lian Hua put his hands on his hips and laughed maniacally, "Muahahaha, it"s all mine! Mine!" His appearance wasn"t any different from an ambitious villain.

He put the pure jades back and looked around again.It wasn"t wrong to call this a secret lair. The ventilation and lighting were both very secretive. He couldn"t detect it from above. On the ground was a piece of jade that was only half processed and various blocks of mineral wool. It seemed this was a work room.

He returned to the third floor, carefully locking the door, and placed the key into his backpack. After thinking, he felt insecure, so he decided to find a string to tie it around his neck. Right now he wasn"t in the mood to continue exploring the villa. He had to calm his nerves first. Mm, he"s decided, the third floor is restricted!

Lian Hua left the third floor, and carefully locked the door to the third floor behind him.

He peeked at his phone, thanking the heavens that this place still had signal. He immediately called an intermediary company and directly made several requests.

After waiting a few hours, a convoy of cars slowly drove up. Various muscular women armed with the tools of their trade stormed into the villa. In their hands, they carried brooms and rags and they cleaned until dust and water droplets filled the heavens. Lian Hua quietly retreated.

He went to the front yard, directing some men to do the weeding, demanding that they completely uproot everything! After the apocalypse, many plants will mutate! Lian Hua decided to literally cut the problem at its roots. As for the tall trees with unknown names, Lian Hua could only reluctantly cut down the forest. Prepare for the unexpected! If all these plants mutated into something powerful, how could he live?

After the villa was cleaned thoroughly, Lian Hua led people to clean up all the surrounding vegetation again. For a time, birds flew, insects hibernated, and animals migrated, truly a majestic sight...

The hygiene was taken care of, the electrician also came and went. After checking the electrical circuits at the villa, whatever needed to be changed was changed, whatever needed to be fixed was fixed. A solar powered generator was specially added to the roof. This point satisfied Lian Hua immensely.

The supplies Lian Hua listed were also delivered, such as several large refrigerators, filled with fresh meat and frozen foods. Lian Hua had the workers bring it all to the second floor. The new bedding arrived and Lian Hua also bought many thick cotton quilts and mattresses. It was said that afterwards, the weather would change drastically. He chose clothes that were thick and durable, not caring about the style.

There were also lots of rice, flour, seasonings, bottled water, and anything that could last a long time such as compressed biscuits*, canned foods, candy, chocolate and such were all placed on the first floor.

*See Hardtack.

Lian Hua was very satisfied. When calculating the bill, he burned ten million and was only downhearted for a moment. For the sake of insurance, he still bought lots of solid fuel and lighters. He didn"t have power over fire, so it would be inconvenient for him to cook food to eat.

After sending the team away, Lian Hua finally felt completely at ease. He could finally have a peaceful night"s rest!

Translator"s Notes:

[1]Ravens made a sound that sounds kind of like they"re calling you an idiot in a certain country. I"m not sure if that"s a thing in China or if they just mean that you can hear the birds because the silence is deafening.

[2]毛料 is literally hair material or wool, but in this particular case, this term seems to mean "stone or mineral wool" and refers to unprocessed stones directly after it has been mined. It may or may not contain precious materials inside. 赌石(literally stone of risk/bets) is a form of gambling that uses 毛料 because you never know what you"re going to get. 翡翠 is either processed jade or just really pure jade and 玉石 is literally jade stone/rocks, or.... just normal jade. In the previous chapters, I considered using "jade stone" because of this chapter, but decided not to because it"s more like jade in general. There were too many specific terms, so I just went by the context.

[3]Chicken blood is kind of like steroids. It"s supposed to make you faster and stronger. Also an idiom meaning someone is just really energetic.

[4]In the off chance you didn"t know, this refers to bust, weight, and hip measurements.

[5]爬山虎 "Wall climbing tiger" or Parthenocissus tricuspidata

[6]A Chinese Ghost Story AKA "The Ethereal Spirit of a Beauty" was a 1987 Hong Kong romantic comedy horror film.

[7]In the raws it"s called a bas.e.m.e.nt, but I"m actually pretty sure it"s not underground.

[8]玉髓 lit. jade marrow, means chalcedony, a kind of integrated quartz and moganite crystalline structure that appears waxier. Its fine grained structure, high surface area to volume ratio, and moganite components makes it more soluble in water. However, in this story, this is literally a liquid.

© 2024 www.topnovel.cc