Everyone ascended, but I didn't get on board

Chapter 224 The Immortal Who Balances Accounts

For the next few months, Qiu Ci stayed obediently in the Spirit Garden. Fortunately, the immortal fruits weren't ripe yet, so she didn't have much to do. There was still no news from Steward Yao, as if he had forgotten about confirming her identity.

Fortunately, she had ample time to cultivate. Several months were enough for her to consolidate her cultivation and at one point even raised her cultivation to the Great Perfection of Earth Immortal, which meant she could step into the Human Immortal realm at any time.

Just as he was hesitating whether to simply break through and make a scene, the Immortal City descended into chaos. The entire city seemed to have suddenly fallen under martial law, with immortals patrolling everywhere, and even the usually quiet Spirit Garden was now being inspected from time to time.

"What's going on?" Even Qiu Ci, who was focused on cultivation, sensed something was wrong after watching the third batch of inspectors leave.

"Sigh, something happened in another immortal realm. It seems a rogue immortal has escaped, and the entire immortal realm is searching for him. Even several celestial immortals have been mobilized. I heard that he is very likely heading towards our Yinxian City, so Yinxian City has been on high alert these past few days, waiting to catch him like a turtle in a jar." Yi Hongyu sighed, clearly having inquired about it.

"Escaped?" Qiu Ci was stunned for a moment, glancing at the departing figure. "Are the Four Immortal Realms always so united?" They even join forces to help capture escaped rogue immortals.

“Oh, no.” Yi Hongyu shook his head and said, “But I heard that this rogue immortal committed heinous crimes. He not only injured the manager of the immortal realm, but also stole hundreds of thousands of immortal stones from the immortal mine, countless high-grade immortal plants, and emptied the treasure vault of Yuanchuan Road. Dozens of immortal artifacts were all taken away.”

"Ah! So this escaped immortal is also a great thief?" Qiu Ci was somewhat surprised.

“That’s right! And that’s not all.” Yi Hongyu counted on his fingers, “I heard he fled towards the Eastern Immortal Realm, and along the way he stole ten seventh-tier immortal artifacts from Lengtai City, fifty sixth-tier or higher immortal beast eggs from Andong City, a hundred eighth-tier or higher immortal pills from Jinyi Prefecture, tens of thousands of spiritual plants cultivated in Fuji Prefecture over the past thousand years, all the Heavenly-tier cultivation techniques from the Cultivation Technique Pavilion in Lianxing City, and the ten-zhang Demon-Suppressing Golden Body from Qianqing County…”

"Wait a minute!" Qiu Ci felt something was off as she listened. "How did he manage to take all of these things?" Putting aside the others, how big of a storage magic artifact would it take to hold that ten-zhang golden body?

"Oh, don't worry about it. That's what everyone's saying anyway." Yi Hongyu waved his hand dismissively, showing no intention of investigating the truth of the matter. Instead, his eyes lit up as he thought of something and said, "Anyway, that Thief Immortal will probably be arriving in our Yinxian City soon. Let's go, we need to make some preparations."

"Huh?" Qiu Ci was stunned for a moment, thinking that the preparations he mentioned were some kind of defenses. Unexpectedly, he directly led her into the spirit garden, then picked several ripe immortal fruits in the garden, turned around and stuffed two into her hands, urging, "Eat quickly, eat quickly. Such opportunities are rare. Don't let anyone see. Fourth-order immortal fruits are all good things."

She was completely dumbfounded. "No, Fellow Daoist Yi, didn't you say that these fruits are limited and can only be harvested when the deadline for handing them over arrives?"

"Yes!"

"So, where are we?"

Yi Hongyu gave her a look that said, "Are you stupid?" and said seriously, "The Immortal Thief must have stolen something when he escaped to our Immortal-Guiding City, right? We can just report it then." It wasn't them who picked it; it was the Immortal Thief who stole it.

"..." So that's how he got that list of stolen items he just reported. No wonder they were so enthusiastic about things that happened in other immortal realms. This isn't a thieving immortal, he's clearly a balancing immortal!

"Don't worry, I asked the patrol team, and everyone does it this way, so no one will notice. These immortal fruits can purify immortal energy," Yi Hongyu said in a low voice.

Qiu Ci took a bite of the immortal fruit and found it quite delicious. After thinking for a moment, she couldn't help but ask, "Which immortal realm is that Thief Immortal from? Why did he flee to our side?" Isn't Yinxian City just a small border town?
"I heard they came from the Western Immortal Realm," Yi Hongyu replied while collecting fruit. "As for coming to our Immortal Guiding City, it's probably because there's an Ascension Platform here."

"The Ascension Platform?" "That's right." Yi Hongyu nodded and continued, "Whether it's Earth Immortals or us Loose Immortals, we all come up from the lower realm through the Ascension Platform. The Ascension Platform is the only passage connecting to the lower realm, so many Loose Immortals can't accept the difference between the upper and lower realms and think about returning to the lower realm through the Ascension Platform. But they don't know that the Ascension Platform can only guide, not lead to the lower realm."

"I see." She nodded. All the loose immortals are bound to a system. Which one of them is not a powerful figure who dominates a region in the lower realm? But after ascending to the upper realm, they instantly become a grandson. Naturally, some people cannot accept this and it is normal for them to want to descend to the lower realm.

"I have one last question."

"What's the problem?"

"This accountant... no, this thief, is his surname Sun?" Qiu Ci took a bite of fruit and couldn't help but shudder.

"No, that's not it." Yi Hongyu clearly didn't understand.
"Oh, I wonder whose immortal is this, so unlucky."

Yi Hongyu thought for a moment and added, "The patrol team seemed to have mentioned him to me before. I remember that person had a strange name, something like... Mountain... Guardian, oh, Mount Guardian!"

Boom!
Qiu Ci lost her grip on the fruit and it fell to the ground with a thud.

Holy crap! So this account-balancing immortal belongs to her family!
(-)
"It will be a few more days before that Immortal Thief arrives at Immortal Guiding City. There are still a few fruits ripe ahead. Fellow Daoist Chu, let's split up... Huh! Where did everyone go?" Yi Hongyu was about to continue when he turned around and found that the person behind him had already disappeared.

--------

At this moment, Chu Qiuci flew towards the outside of Yinxian City while frantically tapping the system in his mind.

"Damn system, wake up! What's going on? Why didn't you scan anything?"

"Master...?" The dog system's voice stammered for a moment before groggily replying, "Master, I've been processing the energy from those systems lately, and my processing power is insufficient, so I temporarily shut down my scanning and perception. Should I turn it back on now?"

"Open it, quick!" she said anxiously. "Find where Juanshan and the others are now."

[Old man from Juanshan? Weren't they always outside the search range...? Wow!] The dog system was halfway through its sentence when it suddenly exclaimed in surprise. [Found them! So...so close! How did Master and the others suddenly appear?]

"You're asking me?" Qiu Ci's lips twitched. "Quickly set up the navigation; we must find them as soon as possible."

【Yes, Master!】The dog system then realized it had made a mistake and immediately displayed a map screen.

Qiu Ci took a look and was amazed to find that the distance was less than two hundred miles. If he hadn't heard what Yi Hongyu said, it was uncertain whether Juanshan could have even made it to Yinxian City.