7. About another unknown world

Gu Tao was actually very poor. Apart from what he brought from his home planet, his entire worldly possessions probably consisted of only a broken guitar and a few changes of clothes. He used to have an old cellphone, but now it was stolen. Without any exaggeration, he truly had nothing at all.

This wasn't because he was incapable of doing anything; on the contrary, in the six years he'd been here, he had nearly completed over sixty percent of his investigative mission. If nothing unexpected occurred, he could finish the remaining projects within three years. However, a world isn't so easily deciphered, and the deeper he delved into the life of this world, the more superficial his investigation seemed to him.

Especially after Xin Chen had opened a new world to him, he deeply believed that this world still had countless things for him to investigate. Although he could no longer report back to his home planet, as a scientist, he never lost his initial passion and thirst for knowledge.

But, even the smartest scientist needed to eat, and without his freakish technology, Gu Tao's physical strength was practically worthless. He remembers, two years ago, in desperate hunger, he tried to hunt a wild dog and nearly got eaten by the dog instead. So... now that he had a job with food and shelter provided, he could naturally continue his investigation in greater stability.

As for the deadline of the investigation, there was no hurry... he had a whole long life ahead.

"Speaking of which, why are you living so wretchedly? When you went out to buy pancakes just now, I took a look at your account book. You can make twenty or thirty thousand just from rent each month—where does the money go?"

"Spent on games." Xin Chen was stuffing chili sauce into his half-pancake when he heard Gu Tao's words and looked up. "Can't help it. I end up starving by the end of each month."

Gu Tao wanted to scold him but didn't know quite how to start. A person who lived like him was quite pitiable, because just now, he had asked Satania to collect some keywords about Sword Immortals and found that most characters seemed to come from films and novels. There, the Sword Immortals were either from a powerful background or held high positions of authority, making someone like Xin Chen an absolute anomaly—living a potentially brilliant life like a dog.

And it was truly a dog's life, wasn't it? Didn't you see that he was even eating dog food?

"How about this, I'll help plan your life. First and foremost, we need to figure out a way to make money. This isn't sustainable."

Xin Chen looked surprised, sizing up Gu Tao for a while before he said hesitantly, "You're even worse off than me, aren't you? I still have food; you're starving."

One characteristic of someone who doesn't speak well is that they stick to one point obsessively, saying things that are undeniably true—leaving you with countless reasons but no idea how to respond...

"Let's not talk about making money for now. Can you quit the habit of spending money on games?"

"Then... what do I do usually? Or say, do I have any hobbies or something?"

"I'll play games non-stop for the first half of the month, and for the second half, I go pick through trash to sell because I'm broke."

"That's a pretty hardcore hobby," Gu Tao moved a stool over. "Let's change our approach and think of a way to make money."

"I do make money. My family owns several shops, and we make money each month."

He truly seemed to be without desires, and someone as seemingly inept as that was really teeth-grindingly irritating. Suppressing his negative emotions, Gu Tao took a deep breath and patiently said, "Vanquishing demons and subduing evil spirits! Many people still believe in such things. How about we hunt ghosts?"

"Did you get rid of my Lvlv? I felt it disappearing with a whoosh yesterday!"

"Forget about your Lvlv, okay?" Gu Tao clenched his molars. "We're discussing how to make your life better."

Xin Chen propped his cheeks with his hands, leaning on the counter like a girl, seemingly deep in thought. Gu Tao didn't disturb him, merely crossed his legs and reviewed the knowledge about special energy bodies in his notebook.

"Okay, but you should know that even when it comes to subduing demons and evil spirits, it's not something you can do just like that. There's good and bad among demons and ghosts."

"Pure energy entities don't have such things as good or bad," Gu Tao laughed disdainfully. "It's like me taking out two coins and you have to tell me which one represents a noble dollar and which a despicable one."

Xin Chen looked quite indignant after listening, as if he'd been insulted, but he didn't explain further. He ran upstairs, thump thump thump, and then brought down a dusty box from some corner.

"See for yourself!"

Gu Tao brushed off the dust, holding his nose in disgust. "What's this?"

"Old man's manuscripts. He spent forty years exorcizing demons and eliminating evil, all his efforts are in here."

This was indeed extraordinary! While many might consider secret martial arts techniques the real gems, someone like Gu Tao who was also a recorder understood very well that such a life's summary and compilation were the true treasures of humanity. If nothing went wrong, with just these manuscripts, he would have one foot in the door of this mysterious world of mysticism.

"Let me see."

"Just look!" Xin Chen tilted his head back proudly. "Saying there's no good or evil in spirits, that's a joke!"

Gu Tao ignored him and plunged into the pile of manuscripts. Some were quite old, but all were exceptionally well-preserved, each with carefully annotated dates, from before China's liberation right up to seventeen years ago—a complete record of forty-three years.

The handwriting on the manuscripts was beautiful, penned in tiny, neat characters, as precise as if they had been printed, and the very first page described the inner thoughts of that legendary old man after he became an Earth Immortal.

Can't get out... really can't get out, Gu Tao didn't doubt the authenticity of these things because no one would systematically save their own made-up crap like this.

For the next three days, Gu Tao didn't go downstairs at all. When he was thirsty, he called for Xin Chen to get him some water; when he was hungry, he just ate a handful of dog food. He was completely immersed in the mysterious world recorded in the notebook.

And he wasn't just reading, but also taking notes, summarizing key points in his own notebook, just like he did in school, resting only four hours a day, spending all his other time on these materials.

Xin Chen came over to check on him several times, each time with a worried look because Gu Tao's state was too much like what the old man described as "going berserk," but he wasn't practicing any techniques, only reading the notebook, was it worth it?

He didn't ask this question, but if he had, Gu Tao would have definitely told him "it's worth it" because the value of these things was much more precious than his so-called whatever secret technique, almost perfectly recording that completely unfamiliar world.

When Gu Tao came downstairs three days later, tired out of his mind, he found Xin Chen actually sitting there eating braised pork over rice, and he just exploded, pointing at him and yelling, "I'm upstairs eating dog food, and you're down here eating braised pork? Don't you have any humanity?"

"I saw you enjoying the dog food, thought you liked it," Xin Chen said as he gobbled up all the meat in a few bites, then started pouring the rice from the lunchbox frantically into his mouth, swallowing without even chewing, and then spread his hands: "Nothing left."

Gu Tao scratched his head, rolled up his sleeves: "At this point, there's no use keeping you. Don't worry, I'll send you to a good place, if your kids ask, I'll say you've gone to a faraway place."

"I don't have kids yet, not even a girlfriend," Xin Chen said with a touch of sadness: "Ever since Tiantian next door moved away, it's been a long time since I've talked to a girl my age."

But after his moment of reflection, he still took out a lunchbox of braised pork over rice he hadn't eaten and handed it to Gu Tao: "Got the rent, we've got money now, we can eat meat."

He didn't feel it while upstairs, but when he smelled the rice, Gu Tao really couldn't hold back. He snatched the lunchbox like a rabid dog and started shoveling rice into his mouth, his eating manner was incredibly unseemly, but he didn't care, because if he went on any hungrier, he'd start getting low blood sugar.

"Finished reading?" Xin Chen asked while clicking open the game on his computer, and without thinking, went straight to the recharge page: "Any findings?"

"You wait for me!" Gu Tao reached out and yanked the power cord out: "You're recharging again?"

"Ah? Just a little, there's a new card released."

"Move aside!" Gu Tao, with his bowl in hand, brutally pushed Xin Chen aside: "Go stand over there."

Although he didn't know why, Xin Chen obediently let himself be bullied to the side, looking pitifully as Gu Tao booted up the computer, then removed something that looked like a USB interface from his wristwatch, and watched him operate.

"What are you doing?"

Xin Chen felt a bad hunch seeing the screen full of incomprehensible stuff, and, sure enough, after his question, Gu Tao turned around and gave a sinister smile: "I modified the configurations for your computer, phone, and network. As long as it's with your SIM card, your computer, your IP, forget about opening the recharge page, consider it cutting off your obsession."

"But I can go to an internet café and pay with Alipay QR code."

"Damn it!" Gu Tao slammed the table: "If you dare to waste money, I'll kill you!"

"Why would you kill me? It's my money, I can spend it however I want."

This sentence... probably makes no mistakes, if Xin Chen wasn't foolish, Gu Tao would definitely be blown up, after all, he's the real parasite, living off someone else, using their stuff, nominally an employee, but enjoying the privileges of a real son while also enjoying those of a real dad, where is the justice for Xin Chen?

"Look, your master's notes say that cultivating that whatever of yours needs a lot of money, you can't go on like this." Gu Tao decisively changed his face and thick-skinnedly wrapped his arm around Xin Chen's neck: "I want to study this system, and I have to start with you, but I can't do anything without money, right? You might as well help me out, it's not a waste of your talent, right?"

"I've already reached my peak, the old man said I won't make any more progress in this life unless I have some kind of adventure," Xin Chen blinked innocently: "I actually reached the peak at eighteen, the old man said he couldn't teach me anymore, he said I'm an Earth Immortal."

"Earth Immortal?" Gu Tao had read the notes, he knew what an Earth Immortal was supposed to be, so he was pretty much disbelieving: "You're full of it."

"Really," Xin Chen nodded earnestly: "No joke, although I'm not superstitious, sometimes I really feel like I might be a reincarnated demon star. I could beat the old man when I was sixteen, even though he was very old, but I think he was still pretty tough."

'You're not superstitious, you yourself are a superstition...'

Gu Tao mumbled to himself for a while, then stroked his chin looking at Xin Chen: "How about this, I'll take you to a place, a system test, how about it?"

"A test for what?"

"Just your energy level, I made a rough estimate based on our master's notes, an Earth Immortal could probably reach twelve lyards... Um, translated to Earth units, that's about fifty thousand tons of TNT, want to go test it out?"

"You haven't done the apprentice ceremony yet, you can't call him master." Xin Chen was still serious: "You need to do the apprentice ceremony first."

"Alright, alright, your word is law. What do I need to prepare?"