Chapter 53: Yun Zhi is Being Targeted

Su Man recounted her harrowing experience with a mix of anger and grievance.

At the end, she acted coquettishly and said, "Third Master, you simply must help me exact revenge and strip that damned woman of everything she owns! Since she dared to take Dou Wanqin away, she should pay for it with her own self!"

Liu Yuxuan projected his spiritual power outward, carefully sensing the lingering trace of aura belonging to "that woman" that stained Su Man.

Soon, a look of ecstatic joy appeared on Liu Yuxuan's face: "Good, very good!"

Su Man was completely baffled: "Third Master, what's good?"

Liu Yuxuan laughed heartily: "I never expected that there would still be someone in this world whose fortune is so overwhelmingly prosperous—more than twice as strong as Su Baimiao's and Dou Wanqin's combined! If I can obtain her fortune, I can completely regain my youth and extend my life by another thirty years! Hahahaha!"

Yun Zhi: ...

Wasn't this fellow talking about her? Had she been targeted?

However, Yun Zhi was not afraid. The chat group system had stated that no one could ever take away her fortune.

Liu Yuxuan looked at Su Man and casually placated her: "Rest assured, when Master eats meat, there will definitely be some soup left over for you to share!"

Su Man said with a pleasantly surprised expression: "Really? That's wonderful! But, Third Master, that woman is extremely uncanny. She was able to silently rescue Dou Wanqin, she can turn invisible, she can immobilize people with acupoint pressing, and she wasn't affected by the misfortune curse of my koi jade pendant..."

Liu Yuxuan mused, "This mysterious woman of unknown origin is indeed a bit tricky. Right now, I can't even divine her true identity; something is masking her fate destiny. It seems I will have to ask your other masters to join forces with me so that we have the certainty to take her down. The other party has too little background information, so this matter must be deliberated slowly and thoroughly."

Su Man tugged at Liu Yuxuan's sleeve and pleaded, "Third Master, before dealing with that woman, please help restore my appearance to when I was twenty! Otherwise, I won't be able to stay in the Su family any longer."

Liu Yuxuan chuckled softly: "Help you restore your youth to twenty? It's not out of the question, but if I do that, at least one of those fortune reserve grains in the Su family will have to be eliminated. Have you decided who to get rid of?"

Su Man hurriedly nodded: "I've already thought about it, let's get rid of Tong Qiu first! Once she's gone, I can just inherit her estate."

Liu Yuxuan smiled without really smiling: "Isn't she the one in the Su family who loves you the most? Can you bear to do it?"

Su Man replied, "What's hard to bear? Precisely because she loves me the most, she probably won't mind dying for me."

"That woman clearly recognized that I wasn't her biological daughter the moment I arrived at the Su family, yet she pretended not to know just to avoid being blamed for losing her daughter while only caring about shopping and playing cards with others. Being nice to me at first was merely to build a persona for herself, making it look like she's a good mother."

"Later on, just like the rest of the Su family, she only treated me well because I could always bring good luck to the family. Since they have leeched off my good luck for over a decade, it's only right that they pay a price."

Although her good luck had also been stolen from Baimiao, Su Man had already taken it for granted that everything belonging to Baimiao was hers.

Hearing her words, Liu Yuxuan pinched the bridge of his nose: "If Tong Qiu falls severely ill or dies in an accident at this juncture, others might not know, but that mysterious woman who has already set her sights on you will definitely guess that the person behind you made a move, and I'm afraid she might follow the vine to unearth me."

"For some reason, I always have a rather ominous premonition. This matter cannot be rushed; I need to discuss it further with your First Master, Second Master, and Fourth Master."

"Anyway, you still have ten years of lifespan left, so you can hold on for quite a while longer."

Su Man said discontentedly: "Do I care about my lifespan? It's my face! Third Master, you should know how important my face is to me. Without a pretty face, I won't be able to draw small amounts of luck from the fish in my fishpond over long periods."

Lifespan could still be slowly extracted from the fish in the fishpond, but without her face, she would lose everything.

After pondering for a long time, Liu Yuxuan said with a look of extreme reluctance: "Fine, I'll transfer some fortune to you first so you can recover your looks."

With that, Liu Yuxuan grabbed Su Man's shoulders and transmitted a surge of energy into her.

A few minutes later, Liu Yuxuan, who originally looked to be twenty-five or twenty-six, now appeared to be in his mid-thirties.

Meanwhile, Su Man, who had looked to be in her thirties, transformed into her early twenties, and the injuries on her face had faded significantly, leaving only faint marks.

Yun Zhi watched in awe—beauty never vanishes; it merely gets transferred!

Yet, when she thought about how the beauty, good luck, and wealth they possessed were all plundered from countless innocent ordinary people, it was utterly spine-chilling.

Touching her newly restored youthful and pretty face, Su Man was overjoyed. Then she met Liu Yuxuan's gaze, which had grown much more weathered, accompanied by a suddenly gloomy look in his eyes.

Su Man's bubbling excitement instantly stalled as she cautiously said, "Thank you, Third Master. I will definitely work hard from now on and raise more fish in the entertainment industry."

Liu Yuxuan cared about his face even more than Su Man did. Had it not been for the sake of long-term planning, he would never have parted with the fortune he had already acquired to give to a fortune-stealing tool like Su Man.

He said coldly: "As for Dou Wanqin's matter, your First Senior Brother and I will investigate. If you get any more news about that mysterious woman, report it to me immediately! That mysterious woman possesses extraordinary abilities. Before we figure out her background, you must not make any major moves regarding the Su family for now, and Tong Qiu's life must not be touched either. Do you remember?"

Su Man nodded repeatedly and said obediently, "I remember."

Liu Yuxuan coldly issued an eviction order: "Then scram!"

Su Man felt aggrieved. She had clearly recovered her pretty face now; why had her Third Master's attitude toward her instead become cold and harsh?

Yet, remembering that among all the masters, the Third Master was the most obsessed and fixated on appearance—and she had just snatched food from the tiger's mouth.

Recalling the last time she provoked the Third Master and displeased him, the consequence was... having three ribs kicked and broken. If the Fourth Master hadn't been there at the time to stop the Third Master, she might have perished right then and there.

Su Man hurriedly stood up, her voice trembling slightly: "Okay, then I'll come visit you again when I have time, Third Master."

Having said that, she bolted out of the door as if chased by a pack of dogs.

The moment Su Man closed the door, Liu Yuxuan could no longer control the manic turmoil in his heart and swept everything on the coffee table crashing to the ground.

Even through the security door, Su Man could faintly hear the clattering sounds.

Patting her chest in lingering fear, Su Man frantically hammered the elevator's down button.

Inside the spatial safehouse, Yun Zhi watched Su Man's reaction—akin to escaping the jaws of death—and then looked at Liu Yuxuan inside the room: his eyes were bloodshot and his expression ferocious, acting just like someone undergoing a rabies attack as he smashed everything in the room that could be broken.

No wonder Su Man had fled so quickly.

This Liu Yuxuan had extremely unstable emotions!

No wonder he had to hide out here, making even a single trip outside extremely difficult.

The three doors forming the normal exit on the top floor were all additionally secured with padlocks from the outside, meaning they could only be opened externally.

Yun Zhi had previously found it strange why locks were added outside; wouldn't it be terribly inconvenient for the occupant to go out, having to wait for someone to come open the door?

Now she understood the reason.

Unless it was an emergency where Liu Yuxuan used his cultivation to forcibly break through the door, his usual way of leaving the house was either waiting for someone to help unlock the three outer doors or taking a convoluted underground tunnel, walking a twenty-minute detour to exit through a shabby red-light district in the urban village.

Judging from Liu Yuxuan's pale complexion and slender build, he didn't seem like someone who enjoyed frequent outdoor activities.

Yun Zhi stayed quietly inside the spatial safehouse, watching Liu Yuxuan vent for over half an hour, smashing everything smashable in the house except the study, before he slowly calmed down.

His expression returned to calm as he took out his phone and made a call.

"Come up. Clean up."

With that, he hung up.

The command was extremely brief.

After waiting for roughly a couple of minutes, Yun Zhi saw two men in their thirties holding cleaning tools unlock the three padlocks at the top floor's normal entrance.

Once Liu Yuxuan let them in, the moment they crossed the threshold, they efficiently tidied up the mess all over the floor.

Then they replaced the damaged items with new furniture, daily necessities, and ornaments, all freshly unpacked and brought up from the storage room of the apartment downstairs.

That storage room was filled with all sorts of unopened daily supplies.

It seemed this wasn't their first time doing such a chore.

When they finished tidying up the room, one of them cautiously asked, "Third Master Liu, dinner is ready. Should we bring it up for you?"

In the study, Liu Yuxuan, who was practicing calligraphy with a brush, gave a faint "Mn."

A moment later, a wooden insulated food box was brought up and placed on the dining table.

The two men silently left the apartment, locked the entrance door, and padlocked the three outer doors from the outside once more.

Liu Yuxuan practiced brush calligraphy for another ten minutes, feeling that his mind had completely quieted down, before emerging from the study.

He washed his hands, sat at the dining table, and gracefully opened the food box.

Inside were four exquisitely prepared dishes and a soup—three meat dishes, two vegetable dishes, a bowl of rice, a platter of sliced fruit, and a dessert.

By this time, it was dinner hour, and watching it made Yun Zhi feel a little hungry, prompting her to take a piece of bread from her personal space and nibble on it.

Yet, faced with such a sumptuous dinner, Liu Yuxuan had no appetite to touch his chopsticks.

He took out his phone and made a call.

"Hello? Number Four, I've found a new target whose fortune is even better than Su Baimiao's. Are you interested in joining forces with me?"

"This prospect is a bit thorny; just the two of us probably can't handle it. I'm thinking of pulling Number Two in as well. Forget Number老大 (the First Senior Brother); he always wants to take the largest share. With him around, he always eats the meat while we only get to drink soup."

"Alright, you and Number Two come over tomorrow night, and we'll discuss this in person."

After hanging up, Liu Yuxuan shed his previous manic irritability and sat down to enjoy his dinner in quite a good mood.

Liu Yuxuan didn't have a big appetite; after eating only a third of the meal, he put down his chopsticks.

He leisurely wiped his mouth with a handkerchief and muttered to himself: "The direct descendant offspring of Dou Wanqin? Back during that incident thirty-eight years ago, we failed to get her daughter killed according to plan because those incompetent fools below let her get lost. Who would have thought there could be such an unexpected harvest?"

Inside the spatial safehouse, Yun Zhi overheard that Liu Yuxuan was meeting with "Number Two and Number Four" tomorrow night, deducing that these two must be Su Man's second and fourth masters.

She also knew that the new target in Liu Yuxuan's mouth must be referring to her.

Yun Zhi felt a mixture of trepidation and the excitement of meeting a worthy match.

Having advanced to a Tier 2 esper, possessing numerous mission rewards and gifts from time-traveling group members, and having the spatial safehouse as a life-saving divine artifact, she felt that while she might not be invincible right now, she had nothing to fear against ordinary opponents.

It was precisely by crossing swords with such formidable opponents—with the enemy in the light and her in the dark—that things became truly interesting!

However, just as she was pondering whether to stay a bit longer at Liu Yuxuan's place and leave only when she couldn't glean any more useful information, saving her "eavesdropping" for tomorrow night's conspiracy against her, she suddenly heard Liu Yuxuan's soliloquy.

Yun Zhi felt as though she had been doused with a basin of ice water from head to toe.

In front of Su Man, Liu Yuxuan had clearly claimed he couldn't divine her identity.

He had clearly figured it out already! He knew she was Dou Wanqin's direct descendant!

Furthermore, could it be that thirty-eight years ago, Ran Yao being abducted by traffickers was also plotted by this jerk and his accomplices?

So they had set their sights on her grandmother from that long ago!

They had even planned to murder Ran Yao outright, and it was only due to a blunder by the subordinates during execution that she got lost.

Yun Zhi was shaking all over—partly from anger, partly from lingering fear.

Ran Yao had only been five years old when she was abducted! These people were utterly deranged!

If they had truly carried out their "plan" and killed Ran Yao back then, Yun Zhi would never have existed in this world at all!

Yun Zhi glared fiercely at Liu Yuxuan and took a vicious bite of her bread. This time, she was resolved to root out Liu Yuxuan and all his accomplices completely!

Liu Yuxuan involuntarily looked up toward the direction of Yun Zhi in the void.

"That feeling of being watched is back again... Could it be that Dou Wanqin's descendant has cultivated spiritual power? And is spying on me right now?"

"Very well, little girl, you've piqued my interest. It's been a long time since I encountered a match of comparable strength."

"Dealing with ordinary people all these years has been as simple as slaughtering chickens and fish; it's truly boring."

"Little girl of the Dou family, if you can hear these words, show some guts and come out to duel with me right now!"

"Surely you aren't planning to wait until I meet up with Number Two and Number Four tomorrow night before revealing yourself? If you do that, you won't have a shred of a chance of winning!"

Yun Zhi: ...

She had utmost confidence in the spatial safehouse; this person could never discover her presence. At most, her prolonged direct gaze during her recent wave of anger had allowed him to perceive a trace of being watched.

The moment he looked over, Yun Zhi averted her gaze in time and manipulated the spatial safehouse to shift its position.

Liu Yuxuan spent a good while talking to the empty air.

His spiritual power repeatedly scanned the room, sweeping every single inch of space, yet he still failed to find any anomalies.

Only then did Liu Yuxuan sit back down on the sofa: "There really is no one, no trace of spiritual power intrusion, and nothing strange."

"Could it be that the girl possesses some magical artifact capable of spying on my status from afar?"

"No matter what methods she has, the advantage is on my side."

"I refuse to believe that a little girl at most in her early twenties can outplay someone over a hundred years old like me."

Yun Zhi: ...

Good grief, this fellow really dropped a blockbuster piece of information!

She had thought Liu Yuxuan was only fifty-six; she hadn't expected him to be in the triple digits.

Realizing this, Yun Zhi didn't dare to be overconfident anymore.

After lingering a little longer and watching Liu Yuxuan return to his study to practice brush calligraphy, Yun Zhi drove the spatial safehouse away.

She needed to make more preparations!