Chapter 1 We're Always Here

Walking through the alley, the scene suddenly opened up, and Jiang Cheng and Fatty saw a street, its liveliness no less than the previous one.

Fatty was stunned for a moment. No, that's not right. This street was the same one from before. "What's going on? How... how are we back here again?"

Jiang Cheng turned halfway around to look behind him, only to find that the alley behind them had long disappeared, replaced by a solid blue brick wall.

Near the brick wall hung a large sign with the words "Tianfu Zhai Tea House" written on it, white characters on a black background, the strokes like dragons and snakes, looking quite imposing.

"We didn't come back; we've been here all along."

After saying this, Jiang Cheng walked straight toward the tea house. Several ragged beggars were squatting in front of the tea house, basking in the sun. Seeing someone approaching, they immediately raised their broken bowls, grinned, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth, their faces wrinkled together. "Sir, please have mercy. We haven't eaten in days."

Without wasting words, Jiang Cheng took out a small piece of broken silver from his pocket and dropped it into the beggar's broken bowl with a "clang." "I'll ask you, have you been here the whole time?"

The beggar stared at the silver in the bowl, his eyes wide. After a long while, he nodded frantically. "Yes, that's right, sir, we've been here the whole time."

"Then did you notice me?"

The leading beggar picked out the silver, carefully tucked it into his clothes, and then smiled obsequiously, his mouth full of auspicious words. "Of course, I noticed you, old sir. You, old sir, are blessed by the lucky stars. I noticed you from afar. You have an outstanding appearance and talent, radiating with vigor and energy. I'm afraid you couldn't find a few men in the entire Luo'an City who are more outstanding than you. If you went to the brothels in the south of the city, those courtesans would pay you to accompany you."

The beggar thought his words were impeccable, but the young man in front of him suddenly turned cold. "Speak human language! What did you see me doing just now?"

"You... you and your fat servant boy came from the other end of the street, and then you two suddenly stopped moving. After standing there for a while, that fat servant boy must have been sick or something because he dared to pull on you."

"As a servant, he was defying his master. This bad habit cannot be tolerated." Another beggar said with a flattering expression, seemingly hoping to get some benefits from Jiang Cheng.

The noisy sound of people came from along the street. Everything looked the same as before, but Jiang Cheng knew that the street he had just experienced did not belong to this world, and he even felt a sense of familiarity with the scene.

It was this strange sense of familiarity that reminded him so that he could realize he had entered a trap in a short time, and he had also found the source of the familiarity: the street in the Yamamoto ancestor's mission.

The scene just now was like pulling him back into his memories, reliving it again, but with even greater risk. If Fatty hadn't pulled him at the last moment, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

Tianfu Zhai Tea House was famous throughout Luo'an City, especially for its Frozen Summit Oolong tea, brewed with morning dew, considered the best of teas. Now, in an elegant room on the third floor of the tea house, facing the street, two tea drinkers were sitting by the window, fragrant tea rising in bursts of water vapor, the tea leaves spinning in the bright tea soup.

"Failed?" Looking at the departing backs of Jiang Cheng and Fatty, Lu Qin's face was expressionless.

Shao Tong, sitting opposite her, was in a much more miserable state, his forehead covered with cold sweat, his whole body trembling slightly from exhaustion, so weak that he could barely hold the teacup. "It was interrupted at the last moment."

"What a pity, just a little bit more." Lu Qin took a small sip of tea and put the teacup back on the table, looking at Shao Tong calmly.

Shao Tong felt uncomfortable all over from her gaze and couldn't help shaking his head. "Don't think too much. It's not just a little bit more; it's much more. It seemed to be interrupted at the last moment, but Jiang Cheng realized something was wrong very early on. I read part of his memory, and he had such a calamity in his memory. I just visualized this calamity."

"I told you before that this was too hasty, and the probability of success was very small." Seeming unwilling to accept it, Shao Tong defended himself, "They have already guessed that something is modifying their memories, and the paper in Jiang Cheng's arms is the evidence. And I think it is very likely that they have locked onto us."

"Being able to suspect us, instead of the ghosts in the mission, is enough to show how troublesome they are. Now we can be said to be the target of public criticism."

"I don't need you to lecture me. You just need to follow orders. But..." Lu Qin leaned forward, her slightly fat face close to Shao Tong, staring into his eyes, "Did you really do your best? Or... are you just being perfunctory with me?"

Shao Tong was startled when he heard this and immediately raised three fingers to the sky and swore, "My God, Physician, do you hear what you're saying? You treat me like my own parents. Besides, you promised me that you would heal me and give me my freedom. How could I not do my best? To repay kindness with enmity, is that even human?"

"Pack up, let's go too." Lu Qin stood up and walked out.

Shao Tong drank the hot tea in one gulp and hurriedly followed.

After a whole day of tossing around, by the time they returned to the Marquis's mansion, it was already dark. Everyone gathered to share the gains of the day. After all, tonight and tomorrow night were the main events, so everyone was well prepared.

Li Bai used her expertise and went to the pharmacy to prepare many kinds of herbs, most of which were for stopping bleeding and relieving pain, and some were for detoxification. She divided them into small packets and placed them on the table.

Tang Qisheng seemed to have thought of something, leaned over and sniffed gently, then reached out and took a packet of medicinal powder and opened it. The next second, he couldn't help but nod. "Amazing. I didn't expect Miss Li Bai to have such knowledge, even putting together a prescription for removing corpse poison."

"Prescriptions are just fixed formulas, but I didn't expect to find so many kinds of medicinal materials in this border city. It seems we are quite lucky." Li Bai replied.

Yao Shunyu brought back a book, which contained local customs and, most importantly, a map. Yao Shunyu carefully spread out the map, pointing to one location and saying, "This is Spring God Lake." Then he moved his finger to another place, "This is probably where we are now, the Zhennan Marquis's mansion."

From the map, the distance between the two places was not close, as much as dozens of miles, and they were all rugged mountain roads. But what really surprised everyone was that Spring God Lake occupied a large proportion on the map, almost equivalent to two Luo'an cities, looking more like a sea at first glance.

And in the near center of Spring God Lake, there were also three points marked, the three points linked together by dotted lines, forming an irregular triangle.