Chapter Ninety-Five: How Did You Know?

As for how thrilling the last room in that hotel was said to be, one had only to think of the many horror stories and terrifying films people loved to talk about.

Chen Jin had always enjoyed watching videos about ghostly mysteries and strange, frightening tales, and quite a few of them concerned the hotel’s final room.

Yet nothing had ever happened to him.

In the past, whenever he stayed at a hotel, he would never choose that sort of room. It was not as if he lacked money, so why take unnecessary risks? Who knew whether those nonexistent things might actually exist?

But now Chen Jin had at last learned a little magic, and with it came a small desire for adventure, so today he had checked in here.

That was probably what one called acting grand on a poor man’s budget.

In truth, this hotel had never had any supernatural incident. No one had died there, and there had been no construction accident either; it was perfectly clean.

After entering the last room, Chen Jin felt a trace of disappointment, because the place truly was spotless.

According to those ghost stories, the final room gathered the hotel’s dark and baleful energy, which caused spirits and monsters to congregate there.

Yet that notion now seemed plainly wrong. Still, on reflection, dark energy could hardly gather in one place so easily. If it were really that simple, then ghosts and monsters would be found everywhere under heaven. There were countless buildings across the land, after all, since real estate supported half the nation’s economy.

So the idea that baleful energy gathered in the last room and caused paranormal events was probably just a consequence of hotels being so numerous that a few odd cases were bound to appear. Any crowd has its eccentrics; anything in sufficient quantity will inevitably produce a few “outstanding” individuals.

Then, with those few cases magnified by the media and passed from mouth to mouth, paranormal incidents were born.

Having talked himself into acceptance, Chen Jin slowly fell asleep.

That entire night, nothing happened. No ghosts, no nightmares, and no sudden concentration of spiritual energy far beyond that of other places.

Chen Jin had been sitting cross-legged on the bed, breathing in and out to draw in the energy of heaven and earth. Although the spiritual energy of the present day still could not satisfy his exacting tastes, having something was better than nothing, and far better than the days when he had to rely on food alone to extract essence and then transform it into primal mixed energy.

Chen Jin now truly wanted to know how those seniors had managed to cultivate successfully three years ago. After all, even now he found the inhaling and exhaling of heaven-and-earth energy rather arduous, so how had they cultivated in an age when such energy might only exist in specific locations?

He thought of the chat group he had joined. There were still quite a few people showing up these days, and perhaps because the concentration of spiritual energy had increased, even more had joined. The group now had more than three hundred members.

Among the cultivators in the group, the ones who had been cultivating the longest were probably the group owner and a few of the older hands. In general, the longer one cultivated, the stronger one became, but just as different people sitting in the same exam room taking the same paper would still earn different scores, cultivation depended even more on one’s innate talent and cultivation methods.

So in fact, some people in the group had also begun cultivating three years ago, but for various reasons they were still mired in stagnation. Some would boast in the group of their youthful exploits, saying that rich men once paid them in cash and beauties threw themselves at them; all the things found in novels had happened in real life.

Unlike now, when they lamented the decline of the times and felt that cultivators were becoming less and less desirable.

That was partly their own doing. In principle, every step forward in cultivation should elevate the mind, deepen one’s understanding of life and the world, and make one see through things more clearly. Yet they were still immersed in worldly wealth and splendor.

Chen Jin, in fact, felt even more deeply after going to the Qilu region. Especially after coming into contact with the people from the Cultivators’ Association, he saw that many there were scheming and grasping, steeped in wealth and power, caring nothing for cultivation and wanting only to manipulate others.

This only strengthened Chen Jin’s resolve to cultivate. He had gained much from this trip.

...

The next day, Chen Jin met up with some former colleagues and friends for a meal during the day, and then around six in the evening he took the high-speed train home.

On the train, Chen Jin received a call from Zhang Yuhang. He said that he had failed the cultivation aptitude test, while his girlfriend had passed, which made him extremely frustrated.

As for Lu Yingying, she had instead passed the aptitude assessment, and the Cultivators’ Association immediately invited her to join as a member, promising not to issue her the kind of basic cultivation scripture distributed by the state, but rather one of the superior scriptures held by the association...

Truly, comparison is the thief of joy. Under the association’s evaluation, that big drinker Lu Yingying actually turned out to have such excellent cultivation aptitude.

Zhang Yuhang, upon hearing this news, should probably go back and grab a wine barrel and pour himself a hard drink.

...

The train Chen Jin took this time still did not have a business class, so he could only sit in first class. Fortunately, he got lucky and ended up in the seat between two others, and on either side of him sat a couple...

They wanted him to switch seats, but Chen Jin refused without hesitation. Heh heh heh.

If he let them sit together, Chen Jin would be drowned in their public display of affection and likely stuffed to death, so better for one man to die than to burden his comrades. He made them endure that one hour.

Besides, Chen Jin was broad in frame and deliberately refused to lean back against the seat, stretching himself right between the two of them so they could only communicate through their phones...

An hour later, under the murderous glare of the pair, Chen Jin alighted at Xiahu Station.

Perhaps they could find their luck with the next fortunate companion, but they certainly were not going to find any luck in Chen Jin.

Chen Jin’s home was right beside the train station, so he got back very quickly. Only Chen Lan was at home; his parents were surely at work, and the housekeeper was not there at that hour either. After all, there was no need to cook in Chen Jin’s home, and routine cleaning and laundry were enough, so working there as a housekeeper was quite easy.

Chen Lan had been in Chen Jin’s room the whole time, and she had turned it into a mess, mostly by taking books down from the shelves. The housekeeper usually did not tidy the bookshelves, and Chen Jin had instructed her not to.

Seeing this, Chen Jin could only rub at his temples.

“You’re all grown up, and you still act like a little rascal,” he said helplessly.

“I’m just doing what you said and reading more scriptures. I can’t even buy them in bookstores anymore, and the ones I order online take more than ten days to arrive, so I can only come here and read yours,” Chen Lan said with a pout, complaining of injustice.

“Fine. Move all of these to your room. I’m giving them to you,” Chen Jin said, even more helplessly.

“Really?! I’ll move them right away.” Chen Lan’s face lit up with joy.

“Oh, and one more thing: I saw the purple qi from the Great Pure Palace, but I didn’t get anything from it,” Chen Jin added.

“Huh?! Oh.” Chen Lan cried out in surprise, then nodded.

What kind of reaction was that?

“How did you know?” Chen Jin asked next.

“...”