Otherworldly Affairs Office

Chapter 1099: The Gatekeeper

"Pei Yan!" Pei Jin saw her little brother trying to divert the trouble eastward, slapped the suitcase lid and pointed at him, scolding."I’m really not that worried about your sister. Your sister’s pretty and in every way better than you, she’ll never have trouble finding someone."

"Mom! Are you saying I’m ugly?!" Pei Yan huffed when he heard his mom say that.

"Who said that! I never said that, my son’s so handsome! Didn’t those little girls all line up to take pictures with you? I’m just afraid you’ll have too many choices and your eyes will go blurry." Li Yuhua saw her son was genuinely mad and hurried to comfort him with a smile.

"You’d better worry more about my sis! At our unit there are way more people trying to chase her than there are chasing me!"

"Really?" As soon as she heard that, Li Yuhua immediately became alert and shifted her attention to Pei Jin.

Seeing his Old Sister about to point at him and start in, Pei Yan quickly made a gesture of surrender. His gaze swept around and landed on a few sets of fishing gear in the corner of the room; they looked like they’d been used a few times. He hurriedly stepped up, picked up a rod and said, "I’m gonna go fish with Dad for a bit. We’ll come back in the afternoon and eat together! Sis, you and Mom have a good talk! And don’t forget to tell her about that thing!"

As he spoke, Pei Yan winked at Pei Jin, hooked his arm through his dad’s and headed outside with him. Only after the two of them stepped out the front door did Pei Yan finally breathe a sigh of relief, silently thinking that dealing with Nero and the other two in the ring hadn’t taken as much mental effort as dealing with his mom.

Watching his son’s sorry state, Old Pei chuckled without saying much, casually took the fishing gear from his son’s hand and said with a grin, "Come on then! Didn’t you say you wanted to fish? I’ll take you."

"Ah, sure!" Pei Yan said, following beside his dad and looking around at the surroundings, chatting casually, "Dad, since when did you start catching fish? I remember you didn’t have this hobby before."

Old Pei gave Pei Yan a meaningful glance and said, "Didn’t have time before either. Just our little restaurant—your mom and I were busy from dawn till dark every day, where would we find the leisure to go fishing! Now it’s different, we’re not even allowed to open the shop anymore and we get money every month on the dot. You’ve only been gone a few days and they’re already talking about upgrading our benefits and changing our place. Son, I feel uneasy living with this kind of treatment."

"Ah~! Mm! It’s good! Just live here with peace of mind, nothing’s gonna happen." Pei Yan knew what his father meant. When he was young, his dad had been a soldier, and after demobilizing he used the family savings to slowly grow a breakfast stall into a small restaurant. It was that income that fed the two siblings and put them through university. His father was an honest man who only believed in money earned through solid work and never believed in pies falling from the sky. This sudden change in treatment filled him with anxiety. He knew all of this came from his son, and that only made him even more suspicious and worried about what his son actually did for a living.

"Dad, how’s this resort? Having fun?" Facing his father’s puzzled look, Pei Yan changed the subject.

"Eh, nothing especially fun, just that the scenery’s nice and the air’s good! These two days I’ve climbed some hills, gone fishing when I had nothing to do, even rowed a boat on the lake. There are a few gyms that are pretty good too. I heard from Xiaozhou they’re also going to put in a swimming pool and a golf course. Didn’t they say golf courses aren’t allowed to be built anymore?" Old Pei saw his son didn’t want to talk about the other matter and didn’t press, just followed his lead and answered.

"Ah, that’s fine. They could build ten or eight golf courses out here and no one would care!" Pei Yan laughed when he heard that. This place was the Jiezhi Space—if it lacked anything, it certainly wasn’t land.

Father and son chatted idly as they walked. Before long they were out through the resort gate, following a path all the way down. After about ten minutes they reached the lakeshore. From a distance they saw the fenced gate and the fishing dock behind it; this must be the spot his dad mentioned where you could fish.

At the gate, his dad raised the rod in his hand toward the old man watching over the fishery. The two of them quickly began chatting like old acquaintances. Old Pei pointed back at Pei Yan with a bit of pride in his tone and said, "Old sir, this is the son I told you about! He’s on break and came to visit me this time."

"Oh! Good, good! What a fine young man. These past two days your dad hasn’t stopped talking about you. You’ve got a future ahead of you, keep it up!" The old man at the door, with his white hair and youthful face, looked almost like an immortal hermit. He watched Pei Yan with a kindly smile as he praised him.

"You, you how—ah~! Mm, you flatter me, sir! I’ll be sure to work hard!" Pei Yan stared at the old man, his mouth falling open in shock, almost blurting out the man’s name. Only when the old man gave him a quick wink did Pei Yan snap back to his senses and hurriedly cover his words before his dad noticed anything.

"Alright, I won’t get in the way of your father-son bonding. Go on in! Fish wherever you like, have fun!" The old man said as he pushed open the gate to the fishery, pointing inside with a smile.

"Uh, Dad, you go grab us a spot first, I want to have a few words alone with the old gentleman."

Old Pei saw how his son’s expression had changed the moment he saw the old man, and seemed to guess something. He didn’t say much, just nodded and smiled at the old man, then carried the fishing gear down toward the lake.

Watching his dad walk farther and farther away, Pei Yan finally turned back, looked at the old man and said with a bitter smile, "Minister Cen, how come you’re here manning the gate?"

This gatekeeper wasn’t anyone else but Cen Xiaoran, Minister Cen, the current head of the Investigation Hall. He could be considered the single longest-serving member the Hall still had.

"The Hall’s busy up and down and we’re short of people everywhere, and I’m actually the freest one. You all are fighting and bleeding on the front lines for the Hall; when it comes to your families’ safety, the Hall has to guarantee that. Someone has to sit in town for this, and I think I’m just right for the job." Minister Cen said, pointing at himself with a joking tone.

"You’re at such an advanced age and still troubling yourself like this, sigh!" Pei Yan stopped midway through his sentence, unable to go on. With all he’d been through, he understood this might well be a way for the Hall to win hearts. But he still couldn’t stop a wave of emotion from rising in his chest. For the Hall to go this far, it really had done right by the efforts he, Pei Yan, had put in these past days.

"We’re all family, what’s with the formal talk?" Elder Cen smiled and waved his hand, then held it out to Pei Yan with a hint of expectation in his eyes, asking in a low voice, "Got a cigarette?"

"Ah? Yeah! Yeah!" Pei Yan said, pulling out a pack of Zhonghua from his pocket. He normally didn’t smoke this brand; he’d only grabbed a few cartons to stash in his storage ring when he came home. He took one out and handed it to the old man. Watching the old man’s trembling hands clamp it between his lips, Pei Yan stepped forward, cupped his hands around the flame, and lit the cigarette for him.

"Hoo!" Minister Cen took a drag and shut his eyes in enjoyment. A moment later he exhaled slowly and said, "They say my body’s about done for and are all over me, won’t let me smoke. But I know what shape I’m in. My days are already set, just waiting for that date. Isn’t it better to spend each day as comfortably as possible? Don’t you think so, Xiaopei?"

"Minister Cen, you...?" Pei Yan was shocked when he heard this. With Elder Cen’s cultivation, even if an ability user’s lifespan wasn’t as long as a Plane Cultivator of the same level, living three to four hundred years shouldn’t be a problem. Then he suddenly remembered that as one of the earliest ability users in the Hall, Cen had accumulated far too many hidden injuries in the course of cultivation and missions, and had never gotten proper treatment, so his lifespan had been drastically shortened. Thinking of this, Pei Yan stepped forward and grabbed the old man’s wrist.