Chapter 47 A New Blessed Land

Seeing the expression on Huo Gai’s face as if he had just swallowed a piece of excrement, Wu Xian instantly felt a wave of pleasant satisfaction and took a leisurely, comforting sip of his coconut juice.

One must know that, to ensure Huo Gai didn't get the short end of the stick, Wu Xian had purposely chosen large denominations when picking out the joss paper—a single bill was worth a whopping one billion!

Huo Gai’s anger quickly transformed into terror.

Screech!

Two black vans pulled to a halt, perfectly blocking the view of pedestrians on both sides. Four men in black, holding handguns, got out of the vehicles, abducted Huo Gai into one of the vans, and then sped away.

The entire process took less than two minutes. Aside from Wu Xian, who had been deliberately keeping an eye out from the start, no one else noticed a thing.

Wu Xian finished his coconut juice with a beaming smile.

"They really showed up. Things are getting interesting."

He finished his last bite of food, took away the cutlery stained with his own saliva and fingerprints, left through the back door of the Qipei Restaurant, and straddled a black motorcycle.

He didn't need to trail the van.

The tracker hidden inside the package would tell Wu Xian where their destination was.

Fifteen minutes later.

Wu Xian parked his motorcycle in front of a tall building, easily slipped into the top floor, and looked out into the distance through a pair of binoculars. His expression turned subtle.

"So, this is where they've been hiding."

What came into Wu Xian's view was a large courtyard with high walls, a spacious yard, and an elegant, relaxed environment...

Wu Xian was very familiar with this place.

Because this was the Fuyuan First Orphanage, where he had been adopted by the old man all those years ago!

Back then, he was just a clueless, ignorant little brat.

The lifelong bachelor and veteran detective had spotted his unique temperament at first glance, and lured him back home using a pirated detective novel.

Wu Xian stopped reminiscing.

And continued observing.

The floor he was on was already the highest building in the vicinity, but after waiting for quite a while, he didn't see the two black vans, yet the tracker indicated that they had already returned to the orphanage.

"It seems their security measures are very strict..."

"They must have built a long underground tunnel."

With facilities of this level, unless one got close enough, it was impossible to gather any useful information.

However, Wu Xian had no desire to put himself in danger. Even using his bare toes, he could figure out that an organization like this definitely had plenty of surveillance equipment nearby, and getting close would only increase the risk of exposure.

Fortunately, besides the tracker, Wu Xian had also installed a bug in the lining of the package.

He shoved the earphone into his ear, but all he could hear was the static hiss of current.

"Tch, figures."

Wu Xian crushed the bug under his heel. Now, all channels for gathering information were cut off.

He wanted to take one last look.

To look at the very place that started it all in his memories.

After gazing for a few moments.

Wu Xian's gaze paused slightly, his eyes turning sharp.

Inside the orphanage, he spotted something familiar.

It was a white van!

The trees, the grass, the stone pillars beside the vehicle...

Everything, absolutely everything, was identical to what Wu Xian had seen in the Thirty-Three Heavens of Grievance and Hatred.

This was where the survivors of the previous blessed land, those guided away by the underworld emissaries, were taken!

His gaze swept quickly over every person in the yard, finally landing on a hunchbacked old woman. She was sitting on a bench, watching the children running lightly before her, smiling so wide that three yellow teeth were exposed.

Wu Xian’s lips felt dry.

"The people from the blessed land have come to reality as well!"

...

Wu Xian destroyed all evidence and traces.

And returned to his own home.

From this tracking operation, he had reaped a multitude of gains.

First, he confirmed that organizations related to blessed lands genuinely existed in reality, and he located the base of operations for this particular group.

Second, Wu Xian probed the general strength of this organization.

To put it simply...

It was terrifying!

Stationed near an orphanage, boasting massive underground facilities, obtaining news sent to a newspaper office within two hours, and ruthlessly abducting Huo Gai at gunpoint...

This level of information-gathering capability and operational efficiency was definitely something ordinary departments could never hope to compare to.

Compared to the bizarre and malevolent entities within the blessed land, these men in black looked amiable and gentle, but in the real world where divine artifacts could not be used, an organization like this was terrifying beyond measure.

As for that domineering little lapdog.

Of course he was innocent.

Yet, under Wu Xian's meticulous setup, he had already become a crucial person of interest. Especially the yellow paper inside the package, which further enhanced the credibility that the delivery originated from a blessed land.

And that compressed archive...

Wu Xian had used several top-tier encryption algorithms, multi-layering the encryption to the point where even he couldn't decrypt it himself. Thus, Mr. Little Lapdog was probably going to suffer for quite a while longer; an organization like this surely wouldn't skimp on torture.

All these gains could be considered within expectations.

What genuinely shocked, and even slightly horrified Wu Xian, was what he had seen inside the orphanage.

Originally, Wu Xian had harbored many conjectures regarding the existence of blessed lands.

In most of his hypotheses, the blessed lands were merely virtual spaces manufactured using the real world as a template—perhaps through immortal arts and spells, perhaps through technological means, perhaps illusions and phantasms, or some other high-level concept.

The blessed lands were just arenas designed to make them, the chosen ones, suffer.

Everything else was illusory. The surviving humans, the evil specters, they were all merely NPCs. Even the final 'disaster rollback' felt to Wu Xian like nothing more than a cutscene.

Yet now, those NPCs had actually appeared in reality!

This meant either that everything that happened in the blessed land was completely real, and everything Wu Xian witnessed there genuinely existed.

Or else...

The so-called real world was actually just as fake as the blessed land!

However, the appearance of those people in the real world also answered a lingering doubt Wu Xian had carried all along.

Why was it that despite the frighteningly high number of missing persons cases attributed to blessed land incidents, the population structure of the real world remained consistently healthy?

This had once left Wu Xian utterly baffled.

Only now did he understand that while people in reality kept disappearing, the people from the blessed land were also constantly being replenished into reality!

Following that, Wu Xian began to doubt his own identity.

He had been adopted at the orphanage.

Then, was there a possibility that he, just like those blessed land survivors, wasn't a human born and raised in this world, but rather a blessed land survivor whose memories had been wiped clean?

Had his obsession with the blessed land all this time been his soul yearning to go home?

That night, Wu Xian didn't sleep a single wink.

...

Beneath the orphanage.

Interrogation room.

A man in black barked harshly, demanding an answer:

"Speak! What is the password?"

Huo Gai grievance-strickenly wept: "I don't know!"

Slap!

Huo Gai was dealt a tight slap across the face. The man continued pressing: "Are there any other backups of the archive?"

"I don't kno—ah!"

Another one of Huo Gai's canine teeth was violently pulled out.

"Stop! How many times do I have to tell you people not to use such crude interrogation methods? Look and learn how an interrogation should be done."

Right at that moment, a gentle-looking man who looked like an albino walked over, taking over the interrogation. He spoke to Huo Gai in a benevolent tone: "Tell me about your happy memories together. Perhaps recalling them will help you remember something."

Huo Gai was deeply moved.

"To be honest with you, I'm just a scammer who preys on money and—"

Half an hour later, the white-haired man was dragged away by force.

He shouted back as he was being hauled off:

"I haven't finished interrogating him yet! He still has four toes left, we can shove sixteen needles into them. Once we stick them all in, he'll definitely tell the truth..."

...

Over the next few days.

Wu Xian did nothing at all, merely enjoying life.

Playing video games, eating barbecue, hanging out at karaoke bars, traveling and sightseeing...

Some might wonder: not working, just staying at home—won't you feel empty?

Not at all.

Wu Xian was having the time of his life!

Earlier, his dark circles were the result of staying up late investigating blessed lands; now, he was intentionally staying up late playing and having fun, making his dark circles even deeper.

Of course, it wasn't as if Wu Xian had nothing proper to do.

There were still plenty of things he could investigate.

For instance, investigating the worship status of the Three Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water in reality, looking into the mysterious person who had once hired him to investigate the blessed land, or checking out the 'Creed' organization mentioned by Qi Zhiyong, as well as the recent updates on Wen Chao and Shi Ji...

Yet, investigating everything—how exhausting would that be?

Walking the tightrope of death inside the blessed land wasn't enough; coming back to reality and engaging in high-intensity mental labor was something only Superman could do.

Wu Xian used to be Superman.

But after visiting the blessed land, he was an unemployed, burnt-out Superman.

After enjoying himself like this for over ten days, Wu Xian began to feel a hollow ache in his chest.

It wasn't that he was done playing.

It was simply that he was starting to miss home a little.

Therefore, he took out the blessed land invitation letter and casually tore it apart. A massive door carved with the statues of the Three Officials abruptly materialized in his room.

This time, Wu Xian hadn't prepared anything at all.

He merely wore a set of stain-resistant clothes, layered with a black undershirt, and draped a deep gray trench coat over the outside.

Besides, any preparations he made would just be blocked by the blessed land anyway, so he might as well prepare nothing at all.

Wu Xian tidied his clothes with a dignified air and stepped into the new blessed land.

——————

Transition chapters concluded.

Tomorrow at 5:00 PM, the new arc—Infinite Pursuit Arc—officially begins serialization!