Chapter 104 – Z

“Such grand ambitions,” Yang Zicang shot back with a disdainful glance.
“Who’s like you, a quadrilateral? Dammit, I used to draw 36-sided polygons on a blackboard back in the day, and now some hick like you dares to look down on me.”
Teacher Chen scoffed and gave an exaggerated eye roll.
Then he saw something swaying back and forth in front of his eyes.
“An Order Slip!”
He reached out to grab it, but Yang Zicang yanked it away.
“I’ll ask you one more time: Are you going to join my district? You heard me—I can build Good Wells.”
“Water…” Teacher Chen’s throat unconsciously tightened and he shifted, slightly parched.
The terrifying experience of almost dying of thirst multiple times, forcing him to even drink from the Wangchuan Stream, made his soul tremble.
“You have a supply order letter. What’s the name of your supply team?”
Yang Zicang replied weakly, “The supply team doesn’t have a name for now.”
He held his wrist with one hand while the index finger of the other curled slightly and picked at his lip.
To make his name and sub-team more unified and easily recognizable at a glance, he was considering whether to just use his own name.
Teacher Chen nodded with a semblance of politeness: “A new team? Then you’ll need to think of a good name.”
“I’ll consider it. Anyway, I have my own supply team, my own territory, my own well and plot. And most importantly, I’m a pretty good guy. Miss this village, and there won’t be another shop in the next one.”
“……”
Teacher Chen grinned, baring his teeth, and squinted as he looked the young man before him up and down.
“You’re not bad, huh. Well… when are you heading back? I still need to stay two days to trade for some materials. Anyway, I’m going to the Autumn Supply Meeting. If you’re not attending, I won’t go with you.”
Saying this already amounted to agreement. A model materialized in front of Yang Zicang’s chest, shooting toward the man across from him.
[Yang Zicang wishes to invest 500N full empowerment time sequence for me.]
“This is your local goodwill fee for this year.”
“Whoa, damn it!”
Who could tell if the person in front of him was a ghost or a human?
But what else could Teacher Chen say? In this ghost-world, it was time to take a gamble.
In the afternoon alone, Shixu had spent over a thousand kilocoins again, and the number of delusion models had reached seventy-five; half the purpose of this trip had been achieved.
Looking at the dusty crystals in the bag, YangZicang let out a sigh.
“Excuse me.” A thin man in a black coat walked past in a hurry, then said to someone squatting by the roadside ahead with a sign, “Have you found Armor-Stone Twelve yet?”
The man shook his head.
“I heard he took care of the monsters’ sneak attack on his own this morning.”
“No portrait this time; the awning master gave notice he’s an invited guest.”
YangZicang smiled and walked past them from behind. Suddenly, a nimble child of about ten or so wove through the crowd and ran up.
“Sir.”
YangZicang stopped and looked at the figure running toward him.
The child raised a slip of paper and said, “This is for you, sir.”
YangZicang took it, glanced at the malnourished child, and opened the paper with one hand.
—The auctioneer is Zorro, the phantom thief.
YangZicang bit his dry lips, folded the paper, and stuffed it into his coat, then looked at the child before him: “Who told you to give me this?”
“The boss of our gang said to give it to you when you return here this afternoon.”
YangZicang nodded: “Thanks.”
“Hey, wait a sec,” the child called out to YangZicang, who had turned to leave. “He said you’d give me a reward. Isn’t there one?”
“Tonight at midnight, have your boss come here in person, and I’ll give him the Shixu.”
“Oh.” The child stared blankly as he walked into the three-story rock house with horizontal rows, squatting down enviously to count the layers of piled rocks outside.
Zuofei Xian and the other person next door hadn’t returned yet. Yang Zicang twisted the key to unlock the door and entered. He had just placed his things on the bed when he spotted an extra handmade grass-paper envelope on the wooden table against the wall.
He touched it with his hand, but found no notification of a canceled timeline. After opening it, he pulled out a piece of paper.
On it, written in hard stone-grained sand, were a few deliberately crooked words.
—Tonight at midnight, come to Room 33 on the 2nd floor.
—Z.
“Room thirty-three on the second floor?”
He was in Room 12 on the third floor.
……
When Zuofei Xian and the other two returned, they brought some grilled meat for himself and Chen-shi. This was from the self-bred animals on the Wuyou side, and it tasted much better than what Luo Bin made. The room was filled with aroma.
“One bite and you want another. No wonder Wuyou’s turf even has grill chefs as food-related models—truly a master chef.” The two ate with grease smeared all over their mouths.
After sharing with them that he planned to take Chen-shi and the other teacher back, Xu Xiuchuan only expressed mild objection, saying that teacher seemed stubborn and stingy, likely hard to get along with.
Zuofei Xian, on the other hand, said he was fine with it, even adding that he could become the “land master,” specifically in charge of these two guys from now on.
At night, after sensing the revival of Ma Chao’s Midnight Train ability once again, Yang Zicang rose from his meditation and walked over to the window.
Below, two young kids were playing marbles by a pile of logs next to the rock square. One of them was the person who had delivered the letter to him; the other stood a full two heads taller.
Two minutes later, catching sight of the afternoon person emerging with a small bag, the smaller kid hurried over.
“Oh, big brother, I thought you wouldn’t come out.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to deceive little tykes like you.”
“So, what kind of reward are you going to give us?” the so-called gang leader asked excitedly, jumping down from the crosswise-stacked logs.
“A ‘year’ for each of you.”
“Whoa!” The kid’s mouth hung wide open; he had never expected to receive so much at once. Usually, for a mere errand, getting some small materials exchangeable for food was already considered quite good.
“If you can recall who assigned this task to you, along with their appearance, clothing, and even their accent, I will give you even more.”
“Ha, they were right—you’d ask me exactly that.”
Yang Zicang looked at him and smiled, as if carrying on an intangible conversation with someone else.
“So, how did that person instruct you?”
“They said they stole the water well, but by the time they got back after pulling it off, the mantis stalking the cicada had caught up with them. They also said that if you asked, I should tell you this is a contest between thieves, and you’re merely prey that stumbled into it. But then the thieves will continue a new round of rivalry; if you get involved, it will revolve around you.”
A contest between thieves.
Yang Zicang pondered for a moment and asked, “What else did he say?”
“He also said you would spend three hundred years buying information about him. If you agree, you can give me your lifespan, and I will bring it to you tomorrow at this time.”
Yang Zicang carefully examined the child before him.
He was about 1.6 meters tall, already at an adult’s height. Although his coat looked worn, it was relatively clean.
The child’s skin wasn’t in great condition, but he definitely wasn’t as thin and gaunt as the other children nearby.
“Did he say his name?”
The child pressed his lips tightly.
Yang Zicang stared intently at his face: “You’re the one who stole the well engine, aren’t you?”
“The gang leader” smiled and looked at the child beside him: “Big brother said it, didn’t he?”
The child nodded.
“That person said that although everyone can now change their age by will, except for those who are naturally children, no one can return to a state before adulthood, because the frequency of pre-adulthood doesn’t match the year frequency.”
“Alright, I’m not interested in a thief’s information. You two set up the model, finish quickly, and go back to rest.”
Yang Zicang gave one year to each of the two children. Then, glancing at the row of windows on the second floor of the house behind him, he turned around and walked inside.
“He said his name is Shi Qian.”
Yang Zicang took a deep breath, stopped in his tracks, and turned to look at the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old child.
“Three hundred years, tomorrow I’ll bring you information about himself,” the child gang leader said.
Yang Zicang waved his hand and walked toward the corridor, signaling the two to leave quickly.
Isn’t it just information gathering? I’ll find you eventually.
When I drag the two of you out, I’ll smack your backsides with a leather strap on the desk.
At least fifty minutes left.
Yang Zicang thought carefully—given his mental state today, traveling between platforms would only let him cover about two hundred li.
But with a station platform, his speed would be incomparable, a whole different story.
He hurried back to knock on Zuo Feixian’s door, and when it opened, he said to the two, “Who’s willing to plant my station platform? You can remove it anytime after tonight.”
Both of them raised their hands at once.
Yang Zicang chose Xu Xiuchuan, because Zuo Feixian had a “rock expert”—the old man Yanshan—behind him, which could lead to trouble.
“I’ll be back shortly. It’s best you don’t leave tonight. Do you have enough temporal order? Deduct it from those five hundred years.”
“How could it not be enough? That’s over four thousand years, man.”
The mention of temporal order felt like a hallucination to them. They still couldn’t believe Yang Zicang had given them over four thousand years each, if only temporarily—yet it was still over four thousand years.
A breeze swept through the room, and the side door of a train carriage materialized on the wall.
“Wait for my return.”
Yang Zicang departed swiftly.
[Next stop on the Midnight Train: Mu Xiaoyu Station. Estimated time: twenty minutes.]
[This train will traverse a void region. Do not let your focus drift.]
[Woo—]
Watching the occasional consciousness illusions flash across the pitch-black landscape outside the window, Yang Zicang’s chest model stirred as it connected to a person he had not contacted for several days.
{Aiya, aiya, brother, you finally missed me!}
The image of Luo Bin lying sprawled out in an old bathtub blasted into his eyes like a shockwave.
Yang Zicang felt a sting in his eyes and quickly shifted his gaze to the candle flame nearby, magnifying it again and again until it resembled a small orange sun.
“I’ve been in some place lately, and now I’m in a bit of a situation. I was hoping you could help me out.”
The sound of rippling water came through.
{What place? We all thought you disappeared. Asked Liang Xi that kid, but he can’t speak clearly either.}
A coarse, black-haired hand picked up a book from under the candlestick; its cover read Introduction to World Philosophy.
“I…” As Yang Zicang opened his mouth, he felt a strong urge to blurt out the truth.
Damn thing.