First-Year Internship—And You Went to Site 749 to Contain Monsters?!

He was in a really sorry state right now.

Calling him down-and-out didn’t even begin to cover it.

Just like this.

Lu Ding still came to save him, didn’t even mind his condition.

And he hadn’t even revealed his Heaven Observer Realm cultivation yet.

Just that alone.

Made the old Daoist feel truly touched deep in his heart.

This kid really is...

Good! So damn good!“Old Daoist really didn’t misjudge you!!”

“Wasn’t in vain that I kept thinking about you.”

He thought silently.

He really had nowhere to go right now. He couldn’t swallow his pride and go back to the mountains.

And he had no place to stay in the city either.

He had made a pact with the main director of Yunhai 749.

Without invitation, don’t enter Yunhai City.

Now...

You never said who had to invite me?

So what.

The kid I once mentored is inviting me now—that’s still an invite!!

“Alright, I’ll go back to the city with you.”

He staggered to his feet.

Lu Ding helped him up.

He limped as he walked, still rambling: “Kid, you saving the old Daoist now means you hit the jackpot. Just wait until I’m healed.”

“This world is vast—ninety-nine percent of it is our turf. Go wherever you want.”

“Just wait till I sort things out. Then the whole world’s open to us. Everywhere will be home. You’ll be living the high life with the old Daoist, eating good and drinking fine.”

Lu Ding smiled, recalling something the old Daoist had said before: “Didn’t you use to say you treated money like dirt? Changed your tune now?”

“Old Daoist still treats money like dirt. But here’s the difference: before, I was alone. Now, we’re two—a pair, father and son.”

“I don’t need it, but you do.”

He himself had always lived simply—that was his ideal.

But in his eyes, Lu Ding was just a kid.

And such a good one too!!!

So he had to live the best life!!

None of that stuff about doing good in this life and reaping the reward in the next.

That was monk talk.

What the old Daoist believed in was: do good, get rewarded—right now! Immediately! This instant!!

Payback couldn’t come fast enough!!

Forget that later-life nonsense.

Lu Ding glanced at his shoulder patch: “I’m actually doing pretty well now. You don’t need to worry about me.”

The old Daoist, who had been a little dizzy and seeing stars from being struck earlier, finally noticed the shoulder patch on Lu Ding.

He thought of that guy from Yunhai 749.

And instantly got pissed.

“Hmph, what do you mean ‘pretty well’? Working yourself to death, it’s dangerous. From now on, you stick with the old Daoist. I’ll charge ahead, and you just follow and pick up the scraps.”

“Step right in my footsteps. One step at a time. Solid and safe.”

“Fine, fine, I’ll specialize in scavenging behind you.”

The old Daoist could tell Lu Ding was just humoring him.

Not saying it sincerely at all.

But remembering Lu Ding’s face and how his parents’ palace was fading...

He figured this kid must’ve suffered a lot.

To have such fortune today.

And he even had a flying secret technique.

749 must be treating him well.

Because even after all these years, and those few manuals from the past, he still treated me this way.

Asking him to follow me and leave 749—it wasn’t realistic.

If that’s the case...

The old Daoist began to think.

The two arrived in the city.

Lu Ding had already sent a message to Yan Feifan, asking him to prepare a better place to stay.

The result?

Our Brother Feifan went all out and gave Lu Ding a whole villa.

Of course, he didn’t buy it.

It was sponsored by the Sihai Group.

They had the money.

Lu Ding followed the location Yan Feifan sent and brought the old man to the villa.

Security, a butler, housekeepers—Sihai Group arranged it all.

He helped the old man sit on the sofa.

“Uncle Crooked Mouth, just rest up here today. Whatever you need, just tell them, or message me, and I’ll have someone get it for you.”

“Today’s the Mid-Autumn Festival, I’ve got a lot going on. Once I get through tonight, I’ll come see you again tomorrow.”

The crooked-mouthed, slant-eyed old Daoist grabbed Lu Ding’s hand: “Kid, I’ve got a merit I want to give you.”

“Just report it up to 749, they’ll definitely credit you with a major achievement.”

On the way here, the old Daoist had thought it over.

He really didn’t have anything to give outright.

Dao follows nature, he lived with nothing to his name.

As for techniques...

His cultivation method was different from what these Cultivators of Qi practiced now.

Not suitable.

And besides, he was badly injured right now.

So the old Daoist thought: since Lu Ding had joined 749, he’d give him a major merit to report and fleece 749 for resources!

Use 749’s own assets to raise Lu Ding.

Absolutely perfect.

The old Daoist had lived for centuries. Every year, he’d come out once. Even though the outside world had changed dramatically...

But he knew quite a lot.

That saying “the old grow shrewd” wasn’t just for show.

Lu Ding was intrigued too.

“What merit?”

The crooked-mouthed, slant-eyed old Daoist stroked his scorched, curled-up beard.

“Further south of Yunhai, not too far from here, there’s a large village with a thousand people called Huokang Village. There lives a man—don’t know his name.”

“I found him twenty years ago when I was searching for a Feng Shui blessed land.”

“That guy secretly stole incense offerings meant for the Kitchen God and used them for himself. A few years ago, remember the massive explosion at the Broken Bridge Pier in Yunhai? That was caused by him using the Kitchen God’s incense flame and cultivating Fireball Children from the sparks of Ten Thousand Homes’ lights.”

“The 749 folks have been investigating that case for a long time. That explosion had a huge scope.”

“I don’t know exactly how much loss it caused Yunhai, but definitely not a small amount. A lot of people died too.”

Broken Bridge Pier?

Hearing that name—

Lu Ding reacted instantly. That was in his own patrol district.

And he’d heard of the Broken Bridge Pier explosion.

It caused nearly ten billion in damages and over a thousand casualties.

Originally, Broken Bridge Pier was just a name—the bridge wasn’t really broken.

But after that explosion, it truly became a broken bridge.

And that was also during the Mid-Autumn Festival!!

Some people claimed they’d seen two strange kids, one red and one white.

Thinking back now—

Weren’t those the Fireball Children!?

But the old Daoist didn’t know any of that. He continued:

“Last year, last year when I came out, I found that man had started getting chummy with the Tianli Cult.”

“The Tianli Cult is one of the evil sects officially listed by your 749 Bureau, right?”

Lu Ding nodded.

The crooked-mouthed, slant-eyed old Daoist went on: “He and the Tianli Cult were trying to nurture and condense Four Pillars Gods from people’s birthdates—trying to defy fate and rewrite destiny.”

“I suspect he’s in charge of providing the Ten Thousand Homes lights and incense from the human world, while the Tianli Cult handles other parts—like the Taishui Mine.”

“The moment I saw that guy, I knew he was born under the Calamity Star.”

After listening carefully to everything the crooked-mouthed old Daoist said,

Lu Ding fell into silence.

No wonder the Tianli Cult had been so quiet lately.

He could understand them not coming for him—that was smart of them.

But to stay quiet across the entire country?

That was suspicious.

So all this time, they’d been cooking up something.

And the things this Uncle Crooked Mouth mentioned—never mind the Kitchen God, everyone knew about him. What baffled him was how this guy even managed to steal the Kitchen God’s incense.

Just talking about those Fireball Children and the Four Pillars Gods of Fate—

Pick any one of them, and it wouldn’t be ordinary.

Especially those Four Pillars Gods—

Mourning Garb, Wild-Haired One, Hanging Guest, Calamity Star.

They were real-deal, textbook inauspicious stars in a birth chart.

And that last one, Calamity Star, was particularly famous—there was even a curse based on it.

But what Lu Ding was thinking of were the genuine ones.

Man-made versions could only be fake gods at best.

But once they took on those names, even fake gods deserved extra attention.

A thought started rising in his mind.

‘If this is true......’

‘Once I report this, aren’t we going to have another full-blown group battle!?’

...