Chapter 86: People Under the Moonlight and Home Purchase

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The ascension of an intangible relic consumes the materials used in a rite, and a “secret” used as a special component does so all the more.
When a secret disappears, some things linked to it disappear as well. It depends on how the secret was sworn.
Take the example of a safe: you know its code, and you need that code as a rite component.
You write it on a slip and put the slip into the safe.
At that moment, if the rite is completed, the note in the safe should disappear, because the “secret is gone.”
But if everything associated with the secret were to vanish too, then the safe itself would vanish as well.
If the safe vanished, would not the secret itself—“I alone know the safe’s code”—not fall into paradox the instant the rite finished?
Clearly, that cannot be the result.
The note disappears, but the safe that still bears the secret itself remains.
And that was exactly Chen Qing’s case.
When he understood the rule inscribed on the heir, he used the one secret only he knew—“the divine entity I alone am meant to attend to”—as material and began the ascension rite.

So he felt a chill of unease in the dark unknown, a sensation that had visited him countless times before.
So that night, he forcibly entered the ascension ritual Chen Qing had opened, and inevitably became a source of amusement in the rite itself.
Because of all this, after the ceremony ended, one line from Cen Nianyan kept echoing in Chen Qing’s head.

“She’s deceiving you.”

In all honesty, Chen Qing did not take this as deception against him.
She had no reason; she had broken her own interests; she did not even obey the ascension rite… He could not imagine there was any chance at all that Cen Nianyan would lie to him.
That said, it might have been that she had simply misjudged the situation. But in essence, that possibility should only be considered after Bu Zhaozhao’s fraud was established—and now it was too early for that.
For this reason, the two, each with their own tangled thoughts, set off home under the moon.

...

Under moonlight, in a residential block, a girl of about nineteen stared at her screen, sweat beading in her palm. Fear and weariness marked her face; she was exhausted, having slept not at all for two nights.
She gripped her phone, while her face reflected on the computer looked unnaturally white.
A strand of hair slipped from her forehead, drifting across her eyes, but she did not seem to notice it, eyes fixed on the information on the screen.
“Faster… what websites haven’t I checked yet…”
She bit her fingertips; her thumb was already bright red with blood.
She was breaking into cold sweat, her eyes drifting now and then to the hallway outside.
“What is there that I still haven’t found? And the VPN is down too…”

Her eyes scanning the list of sites suddenly stilled. A strange website appeared on the screen, one whose address she vaguely recognized.
Yet it looked like a blank site.
But was that really how its description had been before? Was it really laid out with those odd symbols and script?
She stayed silent, looked once down the hallway, then decisively clicked into that site.

...

Under moonlight, inside a villa radiant with gilded splendor, a girl clung to a boy and chattered without pause.
“Come on, come on! You said you’d written a new story. Tell me right now!”
The boy looked dejected. “Forget it… they won’t let me talk about this.”
The girl pulled up her lips in mock anger and huffed, “Listen to me! Not them!”
“Listen… to you?”
“That’s the spirit.”

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He switched on the lamp and pulled the girl to the computer.
“Cities remain strange. Evil spirits still wander among humans.
Some say the websites on the internet are not always made by people.”

...

Under moonlight, in a jungle, a man with paint smeared across his face lay on a tree, his spread legs braced against the top branch, one free hand flipping through the screen before him.
In the jungle, even a tiny light was as glaring as moonlight, but he paid it no mind.
He read the message on his phone and used a freed hand to shade the glare.
He swiped through the message again and used another hand to swat away mosquitoes.

“We are shocked by your experience, but your current report makes us question your mental state. Special Operative One Hundred Fifty-Two, return to the standby base at once. Return immediately.”

On his screen, the same message had arrived for the twenty-sixth time.
From once an hour to once every half hour.
It seemed those at the standby base were growing impatient too.
Yet as he watched the screen, he had not a shred of desire to return.
“No… no… If I leave, I’m certain to die.”
He whispered it, and with six hands he tightened his grip on the treetop.

...

Under moonlight, on dark-blue waters, moonlight’s reflection made the bow seem to bear two moons.
This was no omen of good fortune.
Four people were already missing from that ship.
They took out every container they could use for water, filled them, and lined the bow with them.
Now there were twelve moons upon the water and twenty shining green pupils.
In those reflections, none of them appeared in a human shape.
They were fanged, bearded with matted tufts, wild and feral, viscous liquid wetting their chests at the corners of their mouths.
Yet away from the water, each and every one was ordinary—plain, practical, no more than a sailor.
On that ship, the captain’s gaze was cold, and wary.

It was the third day. He had to decide again.
On the third day, the crew’s transformations had already brought too much loss; he could hardly bear it.
In his mind, he pulled up the Foundation contact page on his phone.
“Hmm?”
But as the page opened—whether from being so far from shore or because the network simply failed—the Foundation page locked up.
He cursed and refreshed the page several times.
He roared, but his voice, on the open sea, did not reach the crew’s ears.
He banged his phone in his hand and brought out another, retyped the URL.
Still, the webpage did not improve.
In mounting panic, he clicked another link at random.
This time, the new connection opened.

...

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A whole night passed before Chen Qing’s fatigue finally began to drain away.
He stared at the intangible relics still in his pocket and let out a long sigh.
“We may need to consider changing houses today…” he muttered, brows knit, eyes sweeping the room.
To be honest, he had lived in this place for two or three years; it was hard to let go so quickly.

He tapped his chest, and Bu Zhaozhao’s figure appeared in midair.
“Prioritize a detached house, and it must have a basement. The basement should be nearly as large as the floor above.” She paused, then added, “One mu may be too much. Half a mu ought to be enough.”
Chen Qing’s mouth twitched twice without his control; seeing there was no jest in Bu Zhaozhao’s face, he suddenly came back to himself. “Right… housing prices only started soaring in the last twenty years or so.”

He pressed his forehead, half in frustration. “Half a mu… if that gives you a clean hundred square meters, that’s already decent. And you’re still talking in mu.”
Bu Zhaozhao frowned. “How can that be?”

“Economic bubbles, financial crises, and real-estate harvesting the base market,” Chen Qing said with a helpless gesture. “Times have changed. It is no longer your era of five yuan for a month. It is no longer your era when a couple hundred yuan could buy dozens of mu.
These days, buying a home means draining your finances, sacrificing your latter life, and after paying, still having to look to someone else’s face.”

“Look to someone else’s face?”
“Right.”
“Whose face?”
“The bank’s, and the developer’s.”
“Developers? Those who sell the houses? Why should I look to their face?”
“Because they took your money and hold your house. A merchant who has been paid becomes the master over the buyer.”

“Is that all?”
“That’s it. And you still pay thirty percent interest to buy it back at a markup.”
“Then buying a house is self-humiliation?”
“Yes. Nowadays, buying a house means humiliating yourself. Many people are desperate for what you call impossible.”

Bu Zhaozhao frowned, still unable to imagine such a condition.
“In our age, we still allotted land to the farmers.”
“In our age, for a farmer to eat full bellies is a revelation in itself.”
“Didn’t anyone help them?”
“We did. Of course we did. We gave them grand titles, praised the hardships of their lives. The rest is for them to solve.”

“Then a house no longer has a whole mu?”
“At most a hundred square meters—just one hundred.”
“And the basement…”
Chen Qing fell silent a moment, his temples aching. “Let me think… If we can buy an old villa in the outskirts of Pangshan… maybe that might be possible.”

But at his side, Bu Zhaozhao’s expression had grown dim.
“More than a hundred years have passed, and the ones who decide are still the same.”
She sighed. Chen Qing gave a mocking laugh:
“Humans have never learned lessons from the past, never from history.
Humans are only mammals governed by a higher appetite.
Desire, desire—that is the strongest driving force.”