Chapter 1838 — A Place to Stay

"Granny, we really aren't fairy maidens — and having somewhere to rest our heads at all is already more than we could ask for!" Gu Mengyao smiled bitterly. She could not fathom why the old woman was so utterly convinced that they were fairy maidens.

As she spoke, the old woman opened the door of the house, and they all went inside together. The courtyard had been a mess, piled high with every sort of scrap and junk, but the room itself was spotlessly neat.

The old woman lived in an old two-bedroom flat with a living room — no decoration to speak of, no fine furniture, and yet even so the place had been swept and scrubbed until it was spotless and tidy. It was plain that the old woman was a very industrious soul.

"Please sit down, you two fairy maidens, and let this old woman brew you some tea..." The old woman carefully laid Wei Zhao down on the sofa. She had no idea what was wrong with him, but since the two fairy maidens said nothing, she did not dare ask; and by now she had recognized Wei Zhao — he was the man who had been with the two fairy maidens at the back gate of Tiandi Entertainment City.

"There's no need to trouble yourself, Granny. We really aren't fairy maidens — and more than that, we have a favor to ask of you..." Gu Mengyao hurriedly stopped the old woman before she could go off to make tea.

Not long after the three of them and the two beasts had passed through the courtyard gate, a figure appeared at the mouth of the alley: Yu Liu.

Yu Liu's gaze swept coldly over the empty alley. He leaped up and stood atop a three-story building, looking down over everything in the alley — but he saw nothing amiss. This was the innermost alley of them all; he had already searched every other one, and in none of them had he found any trace of Gu Mengyao and the others.

At first, Yu Liu had been certain that Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu must be hiding here, yet there was still no sign of them.

Could it be that they truly were not here? Or had they reasoned it out in reverse — supposing that he, having watched them abandon the car, would surely track them to this alley, and so deliberately avoided it, choosing instead the main street, where they would be far more easily spotted?

At that thought, Yu Liu's expression darkened slightly. He felt that he had still underestimated Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu. The most dangerous place is the safest place — why had that old saying never crossed his mind?

Of course, Yu Liu did not believe that Gu Mengyao could have friends or relatives in this old tenement district. Judging by the villa district where they lived, there was no way they could have any connection with the sort of people who lived here.

Yu Liu sighed faintly, then flashed away from the old district and returned to the Grand Cherokee parked beneath the overpass, working out which routes Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu could have taken to escape. But he knew well enough that even if he found the right route, he might no longer be able to catch them. So much time had passed that they had likely found a hotel and settled in already.

Still, no matter what, Yu Liu had to give it a try...

Gu Mengyao wanted somewhere to stay, so she held nothing back here either. She told the old woman how she, Shen Yushu, and Wei Zhao were being pursued, and explained that she and Shen Yushu were no fairy maidens — but that Wei Zhao was a highly skilled doctor, who could cure the old woman's illness and at the same time inflict a similar-looking ailment on Zhen Yingjun.

When Gu Mengyao asked whether they might stay here for a time, the old woman agreed without a moment's thought. She was a lonely widow living by herself; Gu Mengyao's arrival would bring her no inconvenience at all. And more than that, the old woman was set on repaying Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu, so she was all the less likely to refuse them.

"You say you are not fairy maidens, but to these old eyes, with all my decades behind them, even if you are not fairy maidens, you are wondrous beings. That you would stay here is a blessing this old woman earned in a former life — I am truly overjoyed!" the old woman said.

"Thank you, Granny!" Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu breathed a sigh of relief at last. Their original plan had been to find a secluded hotel and stay there, but then — though they could register under Wei Zhao's name, "Ling Yi" — after a while there was no guaranteeing Yu Liu would not find them. After all, the three of them were far too conspicuous: two young women with a comatose young man. A few inquiries at the hotels would be enough to locate them.

But if they stayed here, so long as Wei Zhao remained inside and never showed himself, who would pay any attention to a rag-picking old woman?

"Don't thank me — it is I who should thank you. To let this old woman, before she dies, enjoy the life of an ordinary person — I cannot be grateful enough!" the old woman said. "By the way, you said this young divine doctor fell into a coma from illness, so surely he needs medicine. This old woman's life savings are not much, but take them all — it is the little I can do, my way of repaying this young divine doctor for his healing."

"That..." Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu were desperately short of money, and yet at this moment they could not bring themselves to take the old woman's.

"Take it..." As she spoke, the old woman brought out a bankbook and held it out to Gu Mengyao and Shen Yushu. "All my life... my husband and my child are both gone, and I have little use for money day to day."

Seeing the figure in the bankbook, Gu Mengyao could not help but start: a full hundred thousand yuan. Never would she have imagined that a lonely old widow could scrape together so much money collecting scraps.

"This... then let it be a loan. I will pay you back one day!" Thinking of her father's condition and of Wei Zhao's, Gu Mengyao steeled herself and accepted the bankbook. Money was exactly what they needed now. An Jianwen had sent a sum, but it was not enough to cover her father's medical expenses — and on top of that, the money for Wei Zhao's medicine was still nowhere in sight.

"Heh heh, pay it back or not, it makes no difference to me. But you say someone is tracking you — why don't you call the police?" the old woman asked, rather puzzled.

"That..." Gu Mengyao found it hard to explain. "That person is very formidable — he already counts as a cultivator... Do you know what a cultivator is?"

"A cultivator?" A strange light suddenly flashed through the old woman's eyes, though it faded at once, as if she had sunk into some memory. After a long moment, however, she shook her head and said, "I seem to have heard of such things before, but it was so very long ago that I can hardly recall..."

Gu Mengyao nodded, not paying it much mind. After all, ordinary people knew very little about cultivators; even if they had heard of them, it was only rumor, and the only ones who ever saw such things with their own eyes were the bodyguards of the rich and powerful. (To be continued)

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