27: Chapter 27 Taking Stock of One's Wealth

Three in the morning, the Hour of the Tiger.

The autumn rain in Jiangzhou City had stopped silently in the second half of the night.

Puddles accumulated on the streets, reflecting the dim yellow streetlights.

A green taxi braked sharply at the entrance of the alleyway on Taiping Old Street.

The driver hunched his shoulders, his teeth chattering from the cold.

Through the rearview mirror, he cast a lingering, fearful glance at the three passengers sitting in the back seat.

This man and two women were truly bizarre.

The man was normal enough, quite handsome, though his complexion was slightly pale.

But the two female companions beside him were as cold as two walking blocks of dry ice.

The two didn't say a word after getting in, and the temperature in the car plummeted from twenty degrees to below zero within three minutes.

Even with the heater turned to the maximum setting, the driver still felt a chill seeping from the gaps in his bones.

"D...Driver, we've arrived at Taiping Street. That'll be forty-five yuan." The driver's voice trembled.

Lin Ye pulled a fifty-yuan note from his pocket, handed it over, and said casually, "Keep the change."

Afterwards, he pushed open the car door and got out of the taxi with Leng Yue and Frost Star.

The car behind him roared, its engine screaming as if it were fleeing for its life, and it vanished around the street corner in a flash.

Leng Yue pulled her black trench coat tighter around herself.

Nourished by the spiritual spring beneath the mental hospital, her originally pale skin now had a layer of lustrous, pearly sheen.

Those deep red eyes concealed all their sharpness in the night, looking no different from an ordinary person's.

Frost Star followed beside him, her hand still tightly clutching the small bone knife that had shredded the Stitched Corpse Charm.

After swallowing the inner core of the century-old Yin Python, the little girl's height had actually increased by about two or three centimeters.

Her originally petite, one-meter-forty-five frame now faintly possessed a hint of a young girl's slender elegance.

"Let's go, time to go home."

Lin Ye took out his keys and pulled open the rusty rolling shutter door of Lins Funeral Shop.

Accompanied by the harsh sound of metal grating, that familiar scent, a mixture of cheap sandalwood and preservatives for paper effigies, rushed toward him.

Lin Ye took a deep breath.

Having experienced the sword flashes, sword shadows, and life-and-death struggles outside, this dark and cramped, dilapidated shop had become his safest haven in this chaotic world.

He closed the shop door and pulled down the power switch.

The dim incandescent bulb on the ceiling flickered twice, barely illuminating the furnishings inside the shop.

The three of them went straight up to the second-floor bedroom.

Lin Ye collapsed onto that massive three-by-three-point-two-meter bed, his whole body feeling like a puddle of mud.

Tonight's excursion—first tearing apart the Yinshan Sect evil cultivators with his bare hands, then going head-to-head with the Blood Corpse King using the Golden Light Incantation, and finally guarding the two women on the shore—had drained his Pure Yang Qi to almost nothing, and his mind was exhausted to the extreme.

Leng Yue walked to the bedside and bent down to take off Lin Ye's mud-stained sneakers.

This high and mighty Thousand-Year Red Hou showed not the slightest displeasure in performing such menial service.

She extended her jade-like hand, her fingertips gently pressing onto Lin Ye's calves, as a thread of gentle, icy aura was transferred through his acupoints to relieve his muscle soreness.

Frost Star kicked off her little leather shoes decisively, threw herself onto the innermost side of the bed in a spread-eagled position, rolled around hugging a soft down pillow, and made satisfied murmuring sounds.

"Beep!"

Just as Lin Ye was drifting off to sleep, the screen of his old mobile phone on the bedside table lit up.

A bank text message popped up.

"Jiangzhou Commercial Bank: Your savings account ending in 7788 received a deposit of 5,000,000.00 RMB on November 2nd at 03:15. Current balance: 5,210,000.00 RMB. Payer: Bureau of Abnormal Phenomena Management of Jiangzhou City."

Five million! It had arrived!

That woman, Deputy Captain Chu Hongyan, was truly efficient; she said she'd pay on the spot, and she didn't drag her feet at all.

Lin Ye was instantly wide awake.

He sat up abruptly, clutching his phone, counted the string of zeros three times over, and grinned from ear to ear.

Half a month ago, he was still a pauper who had to hesitate over whether to add a braised egg to a bowl of pork trotter rice.

Now, with over five million in his account, plus the one million Young Master Qin had given him earlier, he had firmly stepped into the ranks of the minor wealthy in Jiangzhou City.

"Now that I have the money, it's time to improve my hard power."

Lin Ye put away his phone and silently recited in his heart, "System, open the interface."

A semi-transparent, high-tech light screen, visible only to him, slowly unfolded before his retina.

""My Lord, Please Behave Yourself" System"

Host: Lin Ye Constitution: Pure Yang Dao Body (Primary Awakening)

Current Yang Qi Value: 45 / 150 (Depleted state, supplementation recommended) Husband Points: 1250

Harem Harmony: 35 (Master balancer initial success) Bound Partners:

1. Leng Yue (Rank: Half-step Drought Demon; Status: 20% Source Restoration; Intimacy: Extremely Trusting)

2. Frost Star (Rank: Nether Corpse King; Status: Evolving and Transforming; Intimacy: Yandere Dependency)

Lin Ye's gaze carefully swept over the interface.

The upper limit of his Yang Qi value had increased from the initial 100 points to 150 points due to tonight's repeated battles and the system's rewards.

This meant that his Daoist talisman techniques were more powerful, and his stamina to withstand the demands of the two female zombies was also stronger.

As for those 1250 Husband Points, Lin Ye opened the system mall.

The "Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade Bed" at the top of the list, priced at 10,000 points, was still shimmering with an alluring purple light.

That was Lin Ye's ultimate goal.

Once he got that thing, Leng Yue and Frost Star would be able to absorb Extreme Yin Qi on their own and would no longer have to squeeze him like a power bank every day.

"With only a thousand-plus points, I can't afford the big items, and buying miscellaneous magical artifacts isn't really necessary."

Lin Ye rubbed his chin.

With Leng Yue, a Half-step Drought Demon, as his personal bodyguard, ordinary ghosts couldn't even get close to him.

As his thoughts turned, Lin Ye extracted the item rewarded after killing the Yin Python from the system space—the "Mysterious Grade Yin-Gathering Formation Map."

A flash of golden light passed, and a roll of old scroll, made of a material that was neither metal nor silk, appeared in Lin Ye's hand.

Unrolling the scroll, an octagonal formation plate pattern was drawn on it with intricate cinnabar lines.

Beside it were detailed formation incantations and directional diagrams.

"This thing has come at the right time."

Lin Ye's eyes lit up.

The patio in the backyard of the Funeral Shop had originally been modified by the old man into a crude Yin-Gathering Pond.

That formation was simply too rudimentary, and the Yin Qi dissipated severely, causing the first floor of the shop to be cold all year round, so much so that even someone as Yang-vigorous as Fatty Wang would shiver upon entering.

With this Mysterious Grade Yin-Gathering Formation Map, he could completely transform the backyard into a perfect "Yin Qi Greenhouse."

Once the formation was running, it would not only be able to draw in the free-roaming Yin Qi from a radius of ten miles for the two women to cultivate, but it would also lock it tightly within the patio, ensuring not a single bit leaked out.

In this way, the front hall of the Funeral Shop could return to a normal temperature.

"Wife," Lin Ye put away the formation map and looked at Leng Yue sitting by the bed. "Go downstairs and brew a pot of tea; let's chat."

Leng Yue nodded. She stood up, her grey knitted long dress outlining her graceful figure.

She walked down the wooden stairs with a light step, and before long, she came back up carrying a pot of steaming goji berry and codonopsis tea.

This was Lin Ye's exclusive drink.

Leng Yue placed the teacup on the bedside table, held the celadon cup with both hands, blew away the foam, and then brought it to Lin Ye's lips.

Lin Ye took the teacup, sipped the hot tea, and a warm current slid down his throat into his stomach.

"Leng Yue, I checked earlier; your current realm seems to have touched the threshold of what is called a 'Drought Demon'?"

Lin Ye put down the teacup and asked seriously.

He had seen the words "Half-step Drought Demon" on the system interface.

Upon hearing this, Leng Yue's expression became slightly solemn.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, her legs elegantly crossed.

"Husband, the zombie clan is born from the gathering of heaven and earth's resentment, filth, and death energy. They have no soul or spirit and are cast out beyond the Three Realms and Six Paths."

Leng Yue's voice was cold and clear like shattered jade, slowly echoing in the quiet bedroom.

"In the world of zombies, the ranks are strict, and there are insurmountable chasms between levels."

Lin Ye leaned against the headboard, adopting a pose of listening attentively.

The old man left in a hurry; apart from teaching him some Feng Shui knowledge, he knew very little about such esoteric existences as zombies...