Chapter 423: Neighbor

Hong Ying was dressing herself in front of the mirror when she heard a sound outside the door. She hurried over to greet him.

"Husband dear, you are back?

"Ying, give me your hand."

Li Banfeng grabbed Hong Ying’s hand.

Hong Ying shyly lowered her spearhead and thought, Wicked woman, are you about to cry?

She could hardly wait to see how the Gramophone would react.

Li Banfeng made a small cut in Hong Ying’s palm, squeezed out some blood, and then walked away.

The Gramophone burst out laughing.

Hong Ying covered the wound, went back to the mirror, and continued dressing herself.

Before long, Li Banfeng came running back. Seven or eight muskmelon Hong Yings followed behind him, each carrying seven or eight aberrant creatures. Together, they hauled the creatures into the Pocket Dwelling.

The Gramophone chuckled. "Our Ying is useful, isn't she?"

Li Banfeng nodded. "Very useful! Though she's made of muskmelon, she is as strong as me."

Hong Ying threw down her comb, hid herself away in the third room, and wiped her tears.

Li Banfeng kept making trip after trip, carrying aberrant creatures into the Pocket Dwelling. Before long, every room was packed full of them.

The Gramophone reminded him, "Husband dear, you don't need to bring this kind of food home. I can't eat it."

"I can't eat it" was merely the polite way of putting it. What the Gramophone really meant was that she did not want to eat creatures like these, but she was afraid Husband dear might get angry if she said so outright.

Li Banfeng was not angry. "Wifey, these aren't for eating. I am sending them to my own territory."

"You are using our house to send them there?" Wifey was startled. "You need to be careful about that!"

Li Banfeng had brought plenty of living people into the Pocket Dwelling before, but he had never used it to carry living people back out. These aberrant creatures might have no intelligence now, but there was no telling whether they might gain awareness one day and remember what had happened.

The Music Box poked its head out of Li Banfeng's pocket. The little bronze figure on top stared confidently at the Gramophone, as if telling Madam that she could leave this matter entirely to her.

The Gramophone frowned. "You can't even speak, and you expect me to trust you?"

Wifey really did not trust the Music Box. Steam spread through every room of the Pocket Dwelling as the Gramophone carefully checked all the aberrant creatures.

Once she was certain that every one of them was asleep, the Gramophone said to Li Banfeng, "Husband dear, you can set off. I will keep watch along the way."

Li Banfeng went to the third room. Hong Ying thought he had come to apologize, so she wiped away her tears, turned to face the wall, and said nothing.

Li Banfeng paid her no attention. He spoke directly to the Pocket Dwelling. "Take me to the station in my territory."

Hong Ying was speechless. The Pocket Dwelling said nothing either. The old master still seemed to still be thinking about something.

Li Banfeng waited for more than half an hour. When he stepped outside to check, they had indeed arrived at the station.

Li Banfeng led the muskmelon Hong Yings and had them carry the aberrant creatures. However, they could not simply carry the creatures out. The station had been built inside the Mountain-Uprooting Lord's residence, and Li Banfeng's contract was hidden there, so he could not allow anyone to wander in and out freely.

Li Banfeng went back to the Pocket Dwelling and gave Hong Ying an innocent smile. "Ying, lend me your abilities for a bit."

Hong Ying asked calmly, "Darling Qi, are you treating me like your errand girl now?"

Li Banfeng clasped her hand and looked at her affectionately. "Ying, you know me well."

Hong Ying spat right in his face, then lent him her abilities anyway.

Li Banfeng wiped his face and took the aberrant creatures through the rock wall, scattering them across different parts of his territory. He had to move fast as the train would only stop for half an hour.

He made three trips in all, moving nearly all the aberrant creatures from Qiu Luoye's territory into his own. Afterward, he ran around his territory.

In the past, he could run for more than a dozen kilometers without seeing a single aberrant creature. Now, he could spot one wandering around almost anywhere he looked.

It was the sheer number of aberrant creatures in his territory that had allowed Qiu Luoye to reach the second level of the Cloudborne Layer. And now, all the resources he had spent so many years accumulating had been taken away by Li Banfeng.

Back inside the Pocket Dwelling, Li Banfeng said, "Let's make one more trip back and sweep the place clean, just in case we missed any."

The Pocket Dwelling replied impatiently, "We are running low on fuel. Save it for when it really matters. Hurry back to Qiu Luoye's territory. There are still a few things I haven't figured out."

The old master had been studying the boundary lines.

Li Banfeng had expected new boundary lines to form around Qiu Luoye's territory once it became Proper Land. Instead, the entire territory had somehow moved from the deep lands to the edge of Proper Land and merged into its existing borders.

Why had the territory moved?

As this new Proper Land merged with the old, could the process reveal what the boundary lines really were? And where exactly had Qiu Luoye's territory ended up?

All of these questions still needed to be investigated. However, there was one thing that they did manage to confirm. Qiu Luoye's territory had joined with the existing territories of Proper Land without the Border Controllers doing anything. At least, Li Banfeng had not seen them taking part in the process.

This meant that there were two possibilities left.

One possibility was that the Border Controllers had been working behind the scenes. They might have moved Qiu Luoye's territory themselves, then used the existing boundary lines to seal it off.

The other possibility was that the Border Controllers had nothing to do with creating or merging boundary lines at all. Perhaps they had simply learned how to make use of them.

So what exactly were these boundary lines?

After returning to Qiu Luoye's territory, Li Banfeng went around to take a look.

He Yuxiu and Ma Wu were both anxious about the situation. They could not leave the territory, and they had no idea where they were.

A few villagers stood on the other side of the regional border. He Yuxiu and the others called out to them for quite a while, but the villagers barely answered.

The three-headed people, however, were not nervous at all. They went back to repairing the collapsed wooden houses and salvaging the damaged farmland. This was their home now, so whether they could leave the territory hardly mattered to them.

Li Banfeng walked to the edge of the boundary line, moved over a rock, and sat down on it.

The Pocket Dwelling had a rule. When Li Qi was inside, he would be wherever Li Qi was located. When he was out of the pocket dwelling, he would be wherever the key was hidden.

The closer the key was to the regional border, the better the Pocket Dwelling could observe it. Li Banfeng also wanted to study the boundary more closely and see if he could uncover anything unusual.

After watching for quite a while, he found nothing. Li Banfeng took out the Music Box and smiled. "You did a great job this time. You deserve a reward."

The Music Box understood him. The little figure on its turntable gave a slight bow, then began to spin.

What are you doing? Playing a song for me?

However, what came out of the music box was not music, but an argument between two people.

"Wretch, you don't believe I will really cut you down?"

"Then do it. Get it over with."

"You don't regret any of it?"

"There's nothing to regret. If I had to choose again, I would still kill you!"

Those were Wifey and Hong Ying's voices.

Li Banfeng raised the Music Box to his ear and listened carefully.

***

Qiu Luoye stood at the border to New Land, preparing to step into New Land.

Shui Yongquan tried to stop him. "You are a land deity of Proper Land now. You should avoid going into New Land if you can. People might think you are going in there to take their territory."

Qiu Luoye shook his head. "A local land deity from Proper Land can't go into New Land? Didn't Greenwater Beggar go into the New Land all the time?"

Shui Yongquan sighed and explained patiently, "When Greenwater Beggar went into New Land, he was really there to take other people's territories."

Qiu Luoye waved him off. "I am not like him. I am not going there to bully anyone. I just want to ask for directions."

"Give it a few days. You have only just arrived. Going over there so suddenly wouldn't be appropriate."

"Wait? I think you are only saying that because you are not worried. I don't even know where I am right now. I can't wait another moment!"

Shui Yongquan replied, "I am even more worried than you are. I don't even know how to get back to my own territory!"

"If you are worried, then come with me. They say no one strikes a smiling face. If we visit the neighbors more often, we will get along better."

Qiu Luoye looked at his reflection in a pond and practiced a friendly smile. Then he strode into New Land. Shui Yongquan had no choice but to follow.

It was much like the New Land they were familiar with. Even at midday, everything was pitch-dark.

Shui Yongquan frowned. "This place is right next to Proper Land, so it should be considered shallow lands. Why isn't there any Heavenly Light at all?"

There was not a glimmer of light anywhere ahead. That meant no one nearby had successfully activated a plot of land. They had not seen any land activators either. In fact, they had not even come across a single hunter.

Qiu Luoye thought for a moment. "Maybe these aren't shallow lands. Perhaps this place got dragged over here along with me."

The two walked for more than an hour without seeing a single person. They did not even encounter an aberrant creature with any intelligence.

Shui Yongquan's frown deepened. "Elephant Qiu, are you sure this is New Land? Don't tell me we have ended up in Old Land."

Qiu Luoye looked around. "If this were Old Land, there should at least be some houses. There's nothing here."

"Maybe it's been abandoned for so long that even the broken bricks and tiles are gone. We better be careful," Shui Yongquan said. He became even more careful. Even though he had reached the Cloudborne Layer, he still did not like wandering through Old Land. There was no telling what they might run into.

Qiu Luoye didn't really care. Whether it was New Land or Old Land, as long as it belonged to someone, it meant that they were neighbors.

After crossing a hill, they came to an open stretch of ground. In the distance, they could just make out a house.

Shui Yongquan grabbed Qiu Luoye. "A house in the middle of wasteland? This is almost certainly Old Land!"

Qiu Luoye laughed. "I live in a house too, and my courtyard is even bigger than that one. Does that make my place Old Land as well? Stop making a fuss. If there's a house, there's probably someone living in it. It's good to finally find someone."

When they reached the front door, Qiu Luoye lifted the knocker and rapped a few times. Before long, the door opened, and a burly man appeared inside.

He was so broad that he could not fit through the double doors normally. He had to turn sideways and squeeze himself out.

The man stopped in front of Qiu Luoye. The two were about the same size, and even their looks had a certain resemblance.

The man's face was round and fleshy, with two long tusks curling up from his mouth and a very large nose. Of course, compared with Qiu Luoye's, his nose could only be considered ordinary.

With the two of them looking so much alike, one might have expected them to hit it off just as well.

The burly man asked, "Who are you?"

Qiu Luoye smiled. "Neighbors from the north."

"From Neverbury?"

Qiu Luoye glanced at Shui Yongquan. He had never heard of a place called Neverbury.

Shui Yongquan shook his head. Neither had he.

The burly man grew impatient. "I am asking you a question. Have you both gone mute?"

Qiu Luoye was startled and Shui Yongquan quickly answered, "We are not from Neverbury."

"Then where are you from?"

That was a difficult question to answer as Qiu Luoye's territory did not even have a name yet.

The burly man barked, "I have only got one neighbor to the north. If you are not Neverbury's little shits, then where did you come from? Who exactly are you neighbors with? What are you doing here trying to cozy up to me?"

Neverbury's little shits... Qiu Luoye did not say a word. Shui Yongquan didn't say anything either. He was very familiar with Qiu Luoye's temper and he knew that it was too late to say anything now.

The burly man snapped, "Do you not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Or do you not speak it? I am asking where you came from. Why aren't either of you answering?"

Qiu Luoye smiled. "I wasn't answering because I was giving you a chance to run for your life. Shame you didn't take it."

Author's Note:

PS: What is Neverbury?