Pampered By All In Different Planes

The heavy city gate suddenly opened from the inside.

Accompanied by the slow movements of the people inside, the gate creaked as if it hadn't been opened in a long time, suddenly exposed to daylight.

The moment the city gate opened, the animosity of the Inner City and the black and red fog seemed to hit a critical point, bursting forth in torrents. Su Zhiruan couldn't even see the face of the person coming in as she steeled herself to look, unwilling to miss any suspicious detail.

It was only when Changqi held her hand that Su Zhiruan could see the face amidst the fog.

It was the face of an old man full of wrinkles.

Perhaps certain that Su Zhiruan and her companion could not see clearly, a cruel smile surfaced on the old man's face. Then, slowly, he retracted his fangs, licked the blood off the corner of his mouth, and his features twisted into a bizarre expression that seemed both like a laugh and a cry. His eyes were cloudy, and his hair hung in disarray.

"Who goes there?" croaked the old man.

His voice sounded like a saw with jagged blades cutting through wood—somewhat dry and somewhat hoarse, it didn't sound like a human voice at all.

Earlier in the carriage, so as not to startle any unintended attention, Changqi had concealed the Spiritual Energy on both himself and Su Zhiruan. To outsiders, they were just ordinary people, powerless yet carrying plenty of Spirit Stones.

Changqi took out an invitation and handed it over, "We were invited to obtain the immortal elixir."

The old man scrutinized the invitation. The fog around him dispersed significantly. After he finished reading, a stiff smile squeezed onto his wrinkled face, "Honored guests, please come in!"

Then, the gate was pushed open further, revealing the entirety of the Abandoned City before them—

The first thing that caught their eyes was a desolate wasteland.

To say it was simply ruins doesn't quite capture it; the place looked too eerie, causing discomfort from just a glance.

The street stalls were in place, but both the stallholders and the peddlers had disappeared. The food on the stalls had long rotted away, and the dust on the small jewelry stalls had accumulated to cover everything beneath.

Changqi and she exchanged glances, and Su Zhiruan could see the concern in his eyes.

Their held hands did not part.

She continued to survey her surroundings; with each step, she could see deep and shallow bloodstains and stark white bones on the ground.

The sky over the Abandoned City was enshrouded in gloom, obscuring both the light and the path.

Everything here was dark and dreary.

"The Sect Hierarch is not here today; let me get you two settled first." The old man pointed to an inn at the street corner, indicating they should head there.

At that moment, Changqi let go of Su Zhiruan's hand.

She felt a blur before her eyes, and when she opened them again, what she saw was entirely different.

Now, in Su Zhiruan's eyes, the scene of the Abandoned City had undergone a radical transformation. The streets were neat and clean with small vendors continuously calling out their wares, and the sky was light blue with warm rays shining upon her.

The bones and bloodstains she had just seen seemed to have vanished into thin air, replaced by the clean stone slab of the streets.

She turned to look at the old man, and he too seemed completely different from before. He now appeared benevolent, dressed neatly and cleanly, stroking his beard and leaning on a cane, extending his hand to invite Su Zhiruan and Changqi in, "Please come in; once the Sect Hierarch returns tomorrow, there will surely be arrangements for you. For tonight, you two esteemed guests will unfortunately have to stay at the inn."

"It's no trouble; as long as we can get the recipe for immortality, staying one night in an inn is nothing," Su Zhiruan followed Changqi into the inn.

The inn was crowded, with many men and women sitting in the hall. When they walked in, everyone smiled at them, the waiter and the Shopkeeper hurried over, and even the chef came out after wiping his hands on his apron.

"Honored guests! The Sect Hierarch had already instructed us to take good care of both of you. Please, come quickly to Superior Room No.1, everything there is ready!" The Shopkeeper showed extreme enthusiasm with all the guests, making Changqi and Su Zhiruan the focus of the entire inn at that moment.

Su Zhiruan looked at all this and knew it was all an illusion.

The way they were now being surrounded and made the center of attention reminded her of a tactic used in modern pyramid schemes.

She pretended to be shyly close to Changqi, gently taking his hand, "My husband, everyone is so enthusiastic~"

The moment their palms touched, she could fully see the true face of the inn.

Even though she was well-traveled and knowledgeable, she was still terribly shocked at that moment—

The guests who had warmly smiled at them were all a bunch of large black rats!

Huge rats with long tails were nibbling on rotten meat on the tables, their black eyes piercing as they incessantly turned to look at both of them.

The seemingly bright and clean inn was nothing but a rotting, rundown house riddled with holes, and the waiter was a very large rat, standing even taller than Changqi, about two meters tall!

And the Shopkeeper standing with the old man had turned into a cloud of black fog.

In that black fog, he had no body, no limbs, only a pair of eyes.

The eyes were red, staring straight at Su Zhiruan. Although he wasn't moving, Su Zhiruan could distinctly feel that he was smiling.

"Well, since the Sect Hierarch has arranged a room for us, let's go up first. We're tired from the journey," Changqi pinched her hand and then released it.

Instantly, the beautiful illusion was recreated before her eyes.

Although the transformation of the scene was somewhat unsettling, Su Zhiruan wasn't very scared, mainly because she had Changqi by her side, had her own means of self-protection, and held the talisman and Compass she had obtained from the Rabbit Clan Leader.

Until they went upstairs, the Shopkeeper and the guests below continued to maintain the motion of tilting their heads to watch them.

As soon as they closed the door, Changqi casually pointed, causing several black rats in the room designated for surveillance to be flung away in an instant.

He folded his hands together and set up a Barrier. Only when a transparent Barrier enveloped them did Su Zhiruan finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Okay, now we can talk," Changqi said, moving the cleanest chair in the room for Su Zhiruan, and he also wiped a chair again and sat down.

"Master, earlier I saw two different scenes. The reality is what I saw when we shook hands, right?" Su Zhiruan had guessed as much.

"What you saw with your own eyes was the illusion they wanted us to see, which is what you're seeing now," Changqi explained, sighing as he reached out to hold the back of Su Zhiruan's hand, "What we're seeing now is the real thing."

Su Zhiruan's version of the room was very clean, even the bed was neatly made, but what she saw through Changqi was an utterly dilapidated room, with even the windows leaking wind.

There were even corpses in the corner.

Two skeletons, one human, one rat.

The walls were also stained with dried brown blood.