Chapter 4: Decision

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The two choices provided by the authorities did not need to be decided immediately—many people still had to discuss it with their families, and they might even need to come up with the right words, perhaps they could get more compensation!

Luo Cheng directly walked towards the container house where the miscellaneous items from their families had been dug out, entered, and after registering, a staff member led him to an empty container nearby. Then…

Looking at the smashed and crushed furniture, such as tables, chairs, beds, and wardrobes, Luo Cheng’s mouth subconsciously twitched twice.

The staff member, unperturbed, reminded him, "If you don't need these large damaged items, you can contact the people at the entrance who collect waste. However, due to the severe damage, they will probably only be sold by weight as scrap. Of course, you can also take them and handle them yourself. These are all small items, and many of them are damaged. You can take them back and sift through them slowly. By the way, if you plan to sell these large items, it’s best to check if there are any valuable things hidden inside. The staff who collected these things last night probably didn’t do a very thorough check."

Although this was said, the staff responsible for searching these items were all professionals, and they themselves were cultivators. Even though their levels weren’t high, they still had detection spell techniques. Unless someone had set up intricate, advanced hidden formations on some items, they could generally detect and categorize most things.

Once again, he thanked the professionalism of these workers. In most cases, it was unlikely that they would pocket anything for themselves.

Although Luo Cheng was not an official cultivator, his family still had a Qiankun bag. It looked like a wallet and wasn’t large, only ten cubic units, but it was enough to hold some valuable items and everyday things that would be useful in the future.

After the worker in the room finished explaining the situation, he walked out into the outer room, giving Luo Cheng the space to pack things on his own, as a way of avoiding suspicion.

Among the large items, there was indeed nothing worth picking through. After his grandmother passed away, Luo Cheng had already gone through the house and had placed all important items into the Qiankun bag. At that moment, his gaze fell upon the Qiankun bag he had forgotten at home last night, sitting on the table among the miscellaneous items. He picked it up and sent his divine sense inside. Cash, property deeds, household registration book, ID card, bank cards, and so on were all there. In addition, there was a worn-out, chipped little box.

Seeing that box, Luo Cheng's gaze shifted slightly, but he did not immediately take it out. Instead, he walked around the room, collected everything he might need, including daily necessities and clothing, and put it all into the Qiankun bag. He then went outside to call the worker and indicated that he would sell off the remaining items.

Seeing that there were still many daily necessities left in the room, the worker’s eyes flickered with doubt, but he did not ask further. He directly called the nearby waste recycling personnel to come and sort through the items. About half an hour later, everything was taken away.

Once back in the temporary house, Luo Cheng took out his own phone from the Qiankun bag. This phone, which he usually placed on the bedside when sleeping, had obviously not escaped last night's ceiling collapse. The screen was shattered, and the body was flattened. Luo Cheng tried for a while before he finally managed to remove the SIM card inside. However, after some thought, he did not insert it into the old phone — the phone left by his parents seemed quite suspicious right now. He wasn't sure if inserting his SIM card would cause any problems, especially with the software inside...

Luo Cheng felt some worry. What if inserting the SIM card affected the use of that software? Given that he suspected the software might push news from the future, it was best to leave this phone untouched for now.

He sat on the bed and thought for a moment, then took a deep breath and made a decision in his heart. With a serious expression, he stood up and walked towards the door again.

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After getting a brand-new phone, Luo Cheng inserted his original SIM card. When he turned the phone on, it showed several missed calls and messages.

The calls and messages were undoubtedly from the company. His address was not a secret, and since the company would have noticed he didn’t show up for work today, they would definitely check his address. After the commotion last night, they would probably think something had happened to him in the incident, so calling to check was very normal.

However, once they confirmed he was fine, that would probably be the end of it. The company didn’t have enough manpower to send someone over in person to check. At most, they would wait until after work, and someone who lived nearby might be asked by their supervisor to take a look. If no one was willing to come, they would probably just call the official authorities tomorrow to confirm after the list of casualties was released.

Luo Cheng flipped through the messages, then dialed a missed call, informing the supervisor on the other end of the line that he would come tomorrow. After hanging up, Luo Cheng turned and walked out of the communication hall, heading to an inconspicuous corner on the side. There, he took out the SIM card he had inserted earlier and swapped it for a new one.

After completing this operation, he finished setting up various communication apps, binding his bank card, and other procedures, then turned and walked toward the portable house store across the street.

Luo Cheng himself felt like he was crazy. He had actually chosen to get a portable house purchase voucher after receiving the compensation, rather than a house and compensation money.

As for the reason... aside from the suspicion that the person who gave him his parents' phone might have ulterior motives and was secretly watching him, there was another very important reason—his parents' old phone had received a gossip news push again earlier that day.

It was about a secret realm emerging in a certain place. And it was not the kind of stable secret realm that appeared regularly and had already been developed and mastered, but one that was highly likely to be a newly opened cave or secret realm! 

Generally speaking, the first group of people to enter a secret realm when it opens for the first time often gains the most, but it can also be the second most dangerous, as the most dangerous time when exploring a secret realm is often the last time before it completely disappears due to certain reasons.

Although Luo Cheng couldn't confirm whether this gossip news app's information was true, anyone with such a near-predictive app in their hands would inevitably want to give it a try.

Luo Cheng was only at the Great Perfection of the Body Training stage, and by all accounts, not even a proper cultivator, as long as he didn’t enter particularly dangerous mountains and forests, he wouldn’t be completely without the ability to protect himself.

Luo Cheng is slightly older compared to those who began body training in high school and cultivation in university, but in the broader cultivation community, his age is not considered unusual. Currently, most schools teach the cultivation path of Qi practitioners, which starts with body training, followed by refining qi, building the foundation, concentrating the spirit, and eventually achieving the Golden Core and so on.

However, cultivators who practiced other paths also had the opportunity to achieve the Great Dao. As the saying goes, there are three thousand Daos, and during the five hundred years of spiritual energy revival, countless ordinary people in their middle age, or even old age, achieved deeper understanding and accomplishments in their respective fields of expertise, and through this understanding, they harmonized with the Heavenly Dao and attained divine abilities in certain areas, becoming powerful beings.

For Qi Refining cultivators, starting cultivation at the age of seventeen or eighteen, or just over twenty, was just the lower limit of the cultivation age. Starting cultivation at twenty-five or twenty-six was not considered late.

Moreover, when exploring such secret realms, the strongest in power was not necessarily the one who reaped the greatest rewards. Additionally, if the opening of this secret realm had not been predicted, then it was really worth attempting to explore.

Luo Cheng's steps gradually grew more determined. In his heart, he had already made up his mind. He decided to take a chance this time. If the news was false, or if he didn’t gain anything worthwhile, he would completely give up on this unrealistic idea, change cities, find a new job, sell the portable house, and continue with an ordinary life. But if he succeeded and confirmed the authenticity of this software... then he would use it as a starting point and go to the secret realm where his parents had once died to see what had caused their deaths. He also wanted to investigate who had returned their belongings to him and what those people were scheming.

A fat bird collapsed Luo Cheng's house, but it also helped him cut off his retreat, pushing him to leave his old home, say goodbye to his peaceful life, and take a step forward.

In life, one will always encounter many crossroads that require choices. Years ago, Luo Cheng chose the most ordinary, stable, and common path. But now, today, at this moment, with no attachments left, he decided to choose another path!

Entering the portable house shop was like stepping into a room filled with various miniature house models.

Before Luo Cheng even entered, he saw, through the glass window at the door, rows of delicate little house models displayed on the shelves inside, facing the window.

Some of them were buildings like those described in Western fairy tales—little wooden houses, mushroom houses, flower houses, and so on. Each main category had countless different shapes and styles. On the other side of the door’s window, there were Eastern-style standalone small buildings—some in the Jiangnan style with white walls and green tiles, and others in the northern Chinese style with red walls and black tiles, each having various types of buildings and lofts with different shapes.

Just these two windows displaying the houses were enough to attract every passerby. Even Luo Cheng, before entering, lingered for a few more glances at these miniature houses.

Then, upon entering the main door, Luo Cheng was dazzled by a large, golden, and magnificent group of palace buildings right in the center of the room, directly in front of the entrance...

This thing was simply a miniature version of the palace often seen on TV, located in the imperial capital! The display case at the entrance showed delicate, small models, each one a miniature version of a portable house. The building directly in front of the entrance was a much larger, exaggerated building group than the small community models displayed in a sales center! What was even more astonishing was that this was clearly a complete portable house, not a set of individual buildings that could be disassembled into separate homes!

Luo Cheng entered the door and was shocked by the dazzling, rainbow-colored glazed tile palace group. After coming to his senses, he realized that in the air above the palace, there were constantly flashing colorful fireworks created by spell techniques. After the fireworks exploded, they transformed into bright, colorful characters, offering a more detailed introduction to the building complex.

[The Imperial Palace Portable House, a perfect royal garden architectural complex!]

Suitable for sects to travel, can float in the clouds, can be suspended in mid-air, comes with rare plants from the royal garden, and includes flower, bird, fish, and insect species from the royal garden's imperial garden, as well as the legendary imperial cats that roam the palace!

Luo Cheng twitched the corner of his mouth as he looked at the cute little cat drawing winking behind the text. He really didn’t know if this was trying to ride the coattails of a famous cultivator’s two-tailed cat, or if it was trying to ride the coattails of the real imperial cats that had been living in the imperial palace in the capital for years and were quite popular nationwide?

As he complained in his heart, Luo Cheng's gaze swept across the imperial garden at the back of the palace complex. Sure enough, he saw a miniature peacock spreading its tail, and on the roofs of some palaces, there were inconspicuous little cats seemingly sunbathing there. Though, to be fair, it was really quite realistic.

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