Chapter 40

Chapter 40

This scene was just too miraculous. Even having seen it with their own eyes, they still found it utterly astonishing.

Not only could the man make people vanish and reappear, but he could also teleport objects out of thin air. Such an ability was... just too incredible.

Xie Licheng moved everything in one trip, then led the old physician to the Gu residence.

The old physician's family consisted of four people: the old physician himself, his wife, his son, and a granddaughter.

The old physician's son had divorced his husband.

They'd originally had two assistants at the clinic, but since Lingzhou City had suddenly descended into chaos, the old physician had sent them back home.

When the old man was brought to see Xuan Cui's injuries, he still hadn't fully processed what was going on.

He was still trying to figure out where exactly this place was, but when he saw that Xuan Cui's condition was pretty critical, he had to set that aside for the sake of saving a life.

Gu Zhangyuan, to keep watch over Xuan Cui, didn't go out with Xie Licheng again afterward.

He needed to arrange lodging for the old physician's family and also take the old physician to treat the other injured.

Since things here couldn't manage without his care, he couldn't continue accompanying Xie Licheng outside.

Xie Licheng thought this was perfect. Bringing Gu Zhangyuan along would make him cautious and held back. Now that Gu Zhangyuan was willing to stay put in the portable world, it was the best possible outcome for him.

When Xie Licheng came out of the portable world again, he planned to head back to the Gu residence first to check things out.

But just as he reached the street where the Gu residence was, he ran into two folks who looked pretty familiar.

Those two spotted Xie Licheng too and immediately walked toward him, knives in hand.

Xie Licheng watched them come at him with their knives and couldn't help but crack a slight smile.

Honestly, his only reason for coming out today was to find the Gu family's secret chamber and a physician.

He wanted to grab back as many good things as he could for his wife before the Gu family's stuff was all moved out.

But unexpectedly, he ran into familiar faces so fast—and ones he didn't get along with, at that.

Both were low-ranking male slaves who'd previously shared a room with the original owner of this body.

One of the male slaves was really short—the one who'd soaked Xie Licheng's bedding with water.

Xie Licheng remembered him well, because the guy had also tried to seduce Gu Zhangyuan.

Xie Licheng had always thought he was pretty confident, but he never expected someone else to be even more so, so that guy had left a strong impression.

The other was that square-faced guy. Before Xie Licheng had transmigrated here, he'd liked to lead the pack in bullying the original owner.

Later, after Xie Licheng transmigrated, he still liked to lead the bullying.

This guy was like those schoolyard types who liked to gang up and bully others.

Tsk, tsk.

What a small world—enemies really do cross paths.

Now that the Gu family had fallen apart, these two actually hadn't run off.

Judging by the knives in their hands and the fact they weren't wearing Gu family slave clothes anymore, could they have thrown in with those bandits?

Before Xie Licheng could keep thinking about it, the short male slave pointed at him and yelled, "You! Stop right there!"

Xie Licheng obediently stopped on the spot, even raising both hands in a show of surrender.

The short guy laughed at the sight. Walking toward Xie Licheng, he said, "Well, well—didn't expect to see you still alive!"

Xie Licheng mimicked his tone and said, "Well, well—so you've hooked up with the bandits?"

The square-faced man shot back angrily, "Bandits? We've joined the government! We're officials now!"

By then, they'd reached Xie Licheng. The short male slave pointed at him and said, "Hand over all the good stuff you've got on you now, or don't blame us for getting rough!"

They'd never liked Xie Licheng to begin with, and now that they had the chance, they naturally wanted to humiliate him any way they could.

Xie Licheng looked totally confused at their words. He asked, "Don't you guys know about me?"

The short guy looked puzzled. "Know what?"

Xie Licheng had figured that with everything that had happened—whether with the bandits, the officials, or the Gu family—everyone should know who he was by now. But he hadn't expected two people who didn't.

Xie Licheng sighed, then closed the distance to the short guy in three quick strides.

Before the guy could react, Xie Licheng easily snatched the knife from his hand.

Xie Licheng held up the guy's knife and looked it over. "Pretty ordinary knife. Ever killed anyone with this?"

The short guy froze for a second, then instinctively tried to back away from Xie Licheng—but the next second, he fell straight back and hit the ground.

He probably died never believing that the guy they used to bully so freely could now take his life so easily.

Seeing this, the square-faced guy who'd been with the short one quickly raised his knife and swung at Xie Licheng.

Xie Licheng glanced at him, then muttered, "Idiot!"

Couldn't he see they were no match for him? Why would he still stupidly rush in to die?

Xie Licheng was starting to wonder if this guy had a screw loose.

With that thought, Xie Licheng cleanly cut him down too.

If this were still the apocalypse, he'd have taken his time tormenting someone he didn't like.

But not now. Now he had too much to do and really didn't have time to mess with them.

After taking down both guys, Xie Licheng stripped them of their stuff.

None of the stuff these two carried was actually theirs.

Relying on their ties to the bandits, they'd probably done plenty of bad things over the past couple of days.

Because when Xie Licheng searched them, he not only found a woman's gold bracelet but also an embroidered lotus pouch.

He stashed the loot in his portable world, keeping only a miao dao he usually used, then stepped through the gates of the Gu residence.

There weren't many people left in the Gu residence now. When he entered, Xie Licheng only saw a few sneaky-looking figures.

Were these Gu family servants, or outsiders who'd snuck in to steal stuff?

Since they all seemed scared of him, Xie Licheng didn't bother chasing them down and killing them.

He headed straight to the back courtyard, going to Gu Zhangyuan's place first.

Gu Zhangyuan had told him that besides the secret chamber, there was another hidden room in his rooms.

That hidden room was Gu Zhangyuan's, and he'd stashed a bunch of valuable paintings and jewelry in there.

Xie Licheng figured that since he was already here, he might as well take these things with him.

Anything Gu Zhangyuan had carefully treasured must be things he really liked, so Xie Licheng decided to help him pack them up.

If the Gu family's belongings weren't taken, they'd either end up with the bandits or with the male lead's crew.

Xie Licheng didn't like either bunch, so he sure as hell wasn't going to let them have these things.

Besides, grabbing the stuff wasn't much work, so he was happy to make the trip.

Then, to Xie Licheng's surprise, when he got to Gu Zhangyuan's courtyard, someone was already prying open the stone door to the secret room.

Four people were working on the door: one woman and three men.

The woman looked kind of familiar—seemed like one of the Gu family's concubines.

Turns out Xie Licheng had saved this concubine before, though he didn't remember it.

When he'd rescued Yuan Qiao, he'd saved a bunch of people in the inner garden.

They were all women and young men, and this concubine had been in the crowd back then.

Xie Licheng didn't remember her, but she sure remembered him.

So when they were halfway through prying the door open and Xie Licheng suddenly showed up, the concubine nearly scared herself to death.

She quickly told the three men, "Stop! Someone's coming! Someone's coming!"

A young man turned around at the noise. He wasn't from the Gu family, wasn't a bandit, and wasn't from the government, so he had no idea who Xie Licheng was or how scary he could be.

Seeing how scared the concubine was, he figured those guys had come back.

But when he saw it was just one guy, the young man casually picked up a blade off the ground.

He pointed it at Xie Licheng and snapped, "Get the hell out of here, or I'll gut you."

Xie Licheng didn't back off—instead, he walked right toward them.

Seeing that, the young man immediately waved over his buddies, wanting to take Xie Licheng down together.

The concubine saw that and blurted out, "No, no, don't—don't fight him! You can't win! Let's just go—forget the stuff!"

At that, another man, a bit older, kicked the concubine out of the way.

They didn't know her. The only reason they were together was that she wanted to flee the city and had begged them to take her with them.

These three weren't good men, so of course they didn't want to drag along extra baggage.

In the end, to get them to take her, the concubine told them about the Gu family's eldest young master's secret room.

The older man said, "Worthless woman, what's there to be scared of from some brat?!"

The concubine clutched her chest where she'd been kicked, still wanting to talk them out of it, but saw them already charging ahead.

She quickly covered her eyes, and then heard two screams ring out.

Scared out of her wits, she dropped to her knees facing the doorway.

She kowtowed and begged, "Young master, Master Xie, please spare me! I don't want the stuff here anymore—I don't want any of it!"

Xie Licheng didn't know her, but since she was being smart about it, he told her, "Get out of here."

The concubine felt like she'd just been pardoned. She scrambled on all fours, crawling past his feet.

But when she caught sight of the bodies on the ground, she nearly passed out from terror.

But her survival instinct kicked in, and she managed to crawl out of Gu Zhangyuan's room.

Once the room was empty, Xie Licheng wiped the blood off his miao dao with one of the dead men's clothes, then headed for the stone door to the secret room.

He knew how to open it, so it wasn't much trouble.

As the stone door slid open, Xie Licheng grabbed a flashlight and calmly walked down the steps.

The room below wasn't big, but it was stuffed full of stuff.

He wondered how that woman had known about this place.

She clearly wasn't from Gu Zhangyuan's courtyard, so there was no reason she should've known about it.

With that thought, Xie Licheng started quickly shoving items into his portable world.

He started with the books and paintings, all carefully boxed up—clearly works by famous masters.

Too bad stuff like this wasn't worth much in times of chaos.

But since Gu Zhangyuan liked them, and his portable world was big enough, he'd take whatever he could.

Then, the whole roomful of stuff got swept into Xie Licheng's portable world in one go.

After grabbing everything, Xie Licheng came out of the secret room.

He was about to leave when he noticed there was still a lot of stuff left in Gu Zhangyuan's bedroom.

His bed, dresser, and stuff like that were still there.

Xie Licheng walked over and took the bed, nightstand, dresser, table, chairs, and everything else too.