The three of them climbed over the wall and entered the courtyard.
Ruan Mingchu instinctively didn't want Banlan and Muyu to stray too far from him, so they didn't split up and instead walked around the yard together.
The yard was dirt, overgrown with withered weeds, and smelled of decay. There wasn't a single path worn into it, as if no one had lived there for many years.
Looking again at the house in the center of the courtyard, which faces south, there are cobwebs covered in dust on the corners of the glass windows, and a layer of dust as thick as a thumb on the windowsill.
The main entrance, however, was brand new, with a metallic texture and a gleaming sheen.
Ruan Mingchu raised his hand and pushed the door open with almost no resistance.
Leaving Mu Yu and Banlan to wait outside for the time being, Ruan Mingchu stepped over the threshold, which was as high as a three-year-old child, and onto the obsidian-like ground.
Not a speck of dust, a stark contrast to the outside.
The room was very empty, so empty that there was only a sacrificial table placed directly opposite the door against the north wall.
A black shrine was placed in the very center of the table, facing north. Although it was a shrine, it exuded an ominous aura.
Parting the curtain, a faceless statue stood inside.
Ruan Mingchu took out the faceless statue and examined it closely, but found nothing unusual. Regardless of the carving, it was just an ordinary piece of locust wood, not even remotely valuable.
It was as if the ominous aura emanated from the shrine itself, and had nothing to do with the statue inside.
Ruan Minh Thu walked out with the faceless statue, but was stopped by Ban Lan when he got close.
"Don't go near Banlan if it makes her uncomfortable!"
Ruan Mingchu: "Step back."
Banlan leaped back to where she was against the wall.
"Xiao Yu, take a look and see if there's anything wrong with it." Ruan Mingchu held it up for Mu Yu to see, but to be on the safe side, he didn't let Mu Yu touch the statue.
Mu Yu opened his eyes wide and looked closely. Suddenly, he rubbed his eyes and leaned closer to look, but all he could see was a head without a face.
"I think I just saw a face appear here. It had all the facial features and looked quite angry."
Mu Yu pointed to the faceless head and said.
Upon hearing this, Ruan Mingchu turned his face toward himself but did not see the angry expression Mu Yu had described. It seemed that this thing was indeed strange, but it was just not showing itself for the time being.
He placed layer upon layer of mental barriers on the faceless statue until Banlan said her head no longer hurt.
The strange fluctuations emitted were only directed at star beasts, affecting the mental level, and could be shielded by mental power. Ruan Mingchu considered the information he had obtained and put the statue into his bag.
They thoroughly checked the room again, including the floor and walls, but found nothing strange. So Ruan Mingchu and the other two searched the room again.
Mu Yu asked, "How do we get back?"
The front of the hovercar was dented, and the system was unresponsive; in short, it was unusable.
Banlan belatedly realized that he seemed to have done something not so good. Did he still have the snacks in his two yards?
He kicked the hovercar twice, feeling guilty; it was all its fault for being useless.
The hovercar, which had been kicked twice, was moving again. Banlan excitedly said, "Banlan fixed it."
Ruan Mingchu & Mu Yu: ...Great.
Although the hovercar developed a love for clubbing after being kicked around, that's not a problem as long as it can still move.
Although his own men had replaced most of the enemy's high-ranking officials, Ruan Mingchu still chose to continue living at Fox Ear's house in the main city.
However, the gorillas and wolves were all sent away to where Brother Yin was, so the house returned to its spacious state.
The hovercar they were driving was Fox Ear's private property, and he seemed particularly reluctant to leave it behind.
Ruan Mingchu looked at the hovercar in the underground parking garage, and as soon as he turned the corner, he saw Fox Ears staring longingly in his direction.
Fox Ears certainly didn't consider this wrecked car his treasure, and didn't even spare it a glance, until Ruan Mingchu and the other two got out of the wrecked vehicle.
Fox Ears was so frightened she almost lost her mind. Pointing at the car with trembling fingers, she asked, "Is this my Junfeng?"
His Junfeng, a custom-made version that is one of a kind in the entire universe, cost him ten years of savings and was carefully nurtured by him.
Ruan Mingchu brought Banlan to the fox ears: "He did it."
The spotted fox bared its teeth, and the fox-eared fox, though furious, dared not utter a word, and then fainted from anger.
"Useless," Banlan complained.
Ruan Mingchu sighed, "Banlan, he's in your hands now." He's such a worry.
After saying that, Ruan Mingchu led Mu Yu upstairs, leaving Banlan squatting on the ground poking at the fox's ears, wondering if foxes were really tasty.
Upon arriving at Fox Ear's house, Ruan Mingchu placed the faceless statue in the most prominent spot in the living room, and set up a smart video recorder opposite it. The recorder was pointed at the statue's face; if the face changed, the recorder would send a message to Ruan Mingchu's terminal.
In the middle of the night, Ruan Mingchu was awakened by the terminal and immediately felt a strange force attacking the mental barrier he had placed on the statue.
As Ruan Mingchu walked toward the living room, he reinforced the barrier.
After finally breaking through most of the barrier and victory was in sight, they were suddenly back to square one, even more vulnerable and solid than before.
Fortunately, it was inside the statue; otherwise, Choi Kwang-hyuk might have been so angry that he vomited blood.
Cui Guanghe is the former Divine Envoy whom the First Divine Envoy believed had returned to seize power, but in fact he is the founder of the Miracle Organization, and each generation of the First Divine Envoy is just one of his various aliases.
During the last selection of divine envoys, he accidentally broke through and left this world, failing to make proper arrangements, which led to the First Divine Envoy taking his place.
Now that he has established himself in the upper realm, he is coming down to reap the fruits of his labor over the past few hundred years. He never expected that the First Divine Envoy would appear as an obstacle.
As if things weren't going to go wrong, before the First Divine Envoy could be dealt with, the medium through which he descended to the mortal realm was stolen.
If the medium is destroyed, the divine power that brought him here will be discovered by the Heavenly Dao. Even if he manages to escape by chance, he will be severely injured, and it may even threaten his original body.
He wanted to retrieve his medium, but the First Divine Envoy and others kept bothering him, so he didn't feel any danger. Therefore, he only came to retrieve the medium after he had dealt with the First Divine Envoy.
Unexpectedly, the medium was trapped, and he was unable to break free of the restraints with his own strength. He couldn't even leave the area where he was distracted. Choi Kwang-hyuk was furious.
Slow footsteps sounded, and whether it was intentional or not, the more Choi Kwang-hyuk wanted to see who dared to touch his things, the less he could see.
Even though the house was only that big, the footsteps lasted for a full ten minutes before a figure finally appeared in Choi Kwang-hyuk's sight.
"You little thief, I advise you to quickly return my things to their original place, and I will spare you a whole corpse, otherwise I will surely make your soul disappear."
The statue's face has facial features, and its mouth, though not open or closed, makes a sound.
Judging from the voice, it was that of an adult male. Ruan Mingchu only felt a strange power gathering in the statue's body, but he could not discern the nature of the power.
After hearing what the statue said, Ruan Mingchu didn't know how to respond except to laugh.
Ruan Mingchu extended a finger and pushed the statue over, saying, "What can you do to me?"
Choi Kwang-hyuk felt a sudden dizziness, and he gasped for breath in anger, trying to stand up. However, the statue was a single piece, and he couldn't stand; he could only lie on the table, staring at the ceiling.
"Do you even know who I am? I could crush you with a single finger, you—"
When you put the statue into a pressure cooker and put the lid on the statue, the sound that comes out becomes a "buzzing" sound.
Ruan Mingchu yawned, turned around, and went back to sleep. This kind of idiot wasn't worth him giving up his wife and warm bed to play with.
Choi Kwang-hyuk cursed under the pot lid until dawn. Anyway, the statue wouldn't get thirsty. The only regret was that no one paid any attention to him.
When Mu Yu got up to use the restroom in the morning, he plugged in the pressure cooker and turned it on. He had already put the ingredients in last night, so all he had to do now was open it.
The temperature inside the pressure cooker rose higher and higher, and Cui Guanghe felt both heat and humidity. The high temperature and pressure turned the solid into a liquid, and the statue sank down, being stewed along with the ingredients.
"Help, help me..."
When Mu Yu finally got up, washed up, and prepared breakfast, he opened the pressure cooker to pour the soup into a bowl. But when he tried to stir it with his spoon, he got stuck on something.
When Mu Yu retrieved a soaking wet statue that smelled of meat, he was completely dumbfounded.
Choi Kwang-hyuk was on the verge of death, his mind scattered. "Is...I'm saved?"
The sudden sound startled Mu Yu, causing him to lose his balance and the statue to fall into the soup again. The sound of it hitting the water brought Mu Yu back to his senses, and he quickly grabbed a rectangular plate and scooped the statue into it.
After serving it, Mu Yu didn't know what to do next.
"It smells so good."
Banlan floated over, "Banlan wants to eat Xiangxiang."
Mu Yu slapped away Banlan's hand that was reaching for the statue: "You can't eat this."
Banlan pouted, "Then Banlan will drink Xiangxiang."
Mu Yu pushed Banlan's head away from the pressure cooker again: "We don't know if it's poisonous or not, so don't drink it yet."
Banlan felt wronged. "Don't drink yet" meant she would drink later, so Banlan stayed by the pot and didn't move.
After Ruan Mingchu left the bedroom, he followed the scent to the dining room.
Upon seeing the pressure cooker and the boiled statue, Ruan Mingchu instantly realized what had happened, and cold sweat broke out on his brow. Last night, he seemed to have seen Mu Yu putting something into the pot.
Disliking the noise of the statue, Ruan Mingchu turned around and saw the pressure cooker. At that moment, all Ruan Mingchu was thinking about was going back to hug Mu Yu and sleep, so she forgot that there was something in the pot.
With an extremely strong survival instinct, Nguyen Minh Thu chose to frame someone, saying, "This broken statue has ruined a whole pot of good soup!"
The half-dead Choi Kwang-hyuk wanted to vomit blood upon hearing this: You bastard, you're slandering him!
Mu Yu sighed and poked at the statue with his chopsticks. "Is this thing still usable?" Ruan Mingchu seemed to value this thing quite a bit, but now that he's stewed it, he might ruin everything.
The chopsticks stung painfully, and Cui Guanghe cursed inwardly, wishing he hadn't chosen to sympathize. Despite his weakness, he still managed to yell, "You lowly commoners, once I recover, I will take your dog lives!"
Upon hearing this, Ruan Mingchu quickly replied, "It seems there's no problem at all."
Mu Yu breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good."
"However, the soup is probably not safe to drink; let's have milk instead."
"Uh-huh."
Banlan, after listening for a while, became upset: "Banlan wants soup!"
Mu Yu frowned and asked Ruan Mingchu, "Can we give it to him? Even though it's a star beast, it's not good for him to eat and drink whatever he wants all the time."
Ruan Mingchu shook his head: "I don't know, let him handle it himself, he's not a child."
Banlan understood this and immediately ran back to her room with the fragrant soup in her arms.
What a joke! He's the greatest spotted-toothed beast, what can't he eat?!
Fox Ears was awakened by hunger. As soon as he woke up, he thought of his beloved Junfeng, which had suffered terrible torment and had become unrecognizable as a car. Fox Ears' heart ached uncontrollably.
The culprits were people he couldn't afford to offend, and he even had to treat them to good food and drink. Fox Ear really wanted to poison them!