Chapter 9#
No. 009 chapter#
There was no curfew in the city. Some people had other work during the day and only set up their stalls at night.
While the three were going over their accounts, people began pushing carts over and parking nearby. They shuffled aside a few steps and gestured for Duan Wei to continue.
Duan Wei recounted slowly: “My family was practically the wealthiest in town…”
They’d been rich for quite a few years, until he turned sixteen, when his father and older brother went out and ran into danger. His father died on the spot, and his brother was mauled by a demonic beast.
The wound was poisoned. They needed a cultivator to save him, so his mother held the family business together with one hand while seeking medical help far and wide with the other.
They spent a fortune and cycled through several cultivators, but the poison was never fully rooted out. Though they finally found a reliable medical cultivator, the poison had already seeped into the bone. His brother held on in agony for the better part of a year before passing. His mother, overcome with grief, followed soon after.
Duan Wei said: “I’m guessing it was her heart. Oh, by the way—I can draw qi into my body because that medical cultivator taught me.”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu both stared at him.
Fei Mo said: “Let’s just get to the point.”
Duan Wei stuck to his own pace: “Then I liquidated the family estate and joined a merchant caravan heading to Xianqing City. Halfway there, the convoy got pulled into an ancient realm, and both the medical cultivator and the servant at my side died.”
Fu Xingyu asked: “Did you lose the money in there?”
Duan Wei said: “Lost some of it. The rest is on me.”
Fu Xingyu said: “Then?”
Duan Wei said: “I had… feelings for my savior. But he’s a young sect master, and I looked so haggard—I had to buy some Furong Pills and Jade Countenance Pellets, didn’t I? You get what you pay for. Look at this face, this skin, this condition…”
Fei Mo cut in: “Get to the point. How much did you spend?”
Duan Wei pulled his rolled-up sleeve back down and took a half-step back: “All in.”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu instantly glared murder at him.
Duan Wei retreated again: “Hey now, don’t punish the whole boat for one man’s crime. I didn’t want to either.”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu remembered he was a soul-transmigrator and suppressed the urge to beat him up.
The three stood in silence by the noisy street, staring at one another.
Fei Mo asked: “Where to now?”
As the words landed, a series of “grrr” sounds went off beside them.
Fei Mo and Duan Wei looked at Fu Xingyu. This one had an elder’s reputation to maintain—at lunch he’d eaten with a bunch of little brats in the cafeteria and, keeping up his dignified air, hadn’t eaten much. Sure enough, hunger had caught up fast.
Fu Xingyu: “…”
Duan Wei said: “How about we eat first?”
Fei Mo said: “Depends on how much money we have left.”
There was no need to ask Fu Xingyu—he definitely had none.
After buying the buns, Fei Mo still had a few spirit stones left. Duan Wei was about the same. That “all in” had some exaggeration, but not much—he really had blown his entire fortune.
On the way to find a restaurant, Fei Mo clutched their only assets in his pocket and, looking at the situation so different from what he’d imagined, asked: “What was he thinking? With Guwang City’s status, plenty of people would kill to crawl into the heir’s bed. Trying a shortcut like that is normal enough, but someone playing that game doesn’t leave themselves no way out. I don’t get it. Could it be real love?”
They’d all done their homework before coming here to work.
In the current cultivation world, spiritual energy was abundant and sects were as numerous as oxen hair. The orthodox path had six top-tier powers: one city, one tower, one sect, one island, and two schools.
The “one sect” referred to the Myriad Stars Flying Gate, where Lang Xu was. The Xuanfang School, one of the “two schools,” was where the other important figure from the recruitment notice, Feng Yuntian, belonged. And the “one city” meant Guwang City.
As the locked-in heir of Guwang City, Zuoqiurong’s status was obviously immense.
Duan Wei laughed once: “Have you seen what the young master looks like? Being head over heels is only natural.”
Fei Mo was surprised: “So it really was love?”
Duan Wei said: “Partly. The main thing is, word has it the young master is cold and hard to approach. But after he was rescued, the young master learned about his situation and asked after him a few times, and also had people look after him along the way. And since he’d stayed with the young master’s party the whole time without being sent back to the merchant caravan, that’s what made his thoughts wander. Besides, the school covered room and board—he could survive even without money.”
Fei Mo understood this time. When a big shot occasionally acts approachable, to someone with impure intentions it looks like an opportunity worth gambling on.
He recalled: “Zuoqiurong did seem pretty hard to approach. Could the rumors be wrong?”
Duan Wei said: “No, they’re accurate. Because of his younger brother.”
Fei Mo was puzzled.
Fu Xingyu, who’d been listening beside them, also looked over.
So Duan Wei explained.
On the way back to the school, the guard had kindly tried to talk some sense into the original owner. Seeing him spouting obsessively about how well the young master treated him, the guard had reluctantly told him the truth: it was because his parents and brother had all died, and the young master, being an eldest brother in his own family, was reminded of his own little brother—that was the only reason he’d had them look after him along the way.
The guard’s tone had been somewhat heavy. The original owner hadn’t been in a state to read it, but Duan Wei, looking at it from a bystander’s perspective, could feel it.
He guessed: “His younger brother might have had an accident or some serious illness.”
Fei Mo nodded, deciding to keep an eye out in the future. If they could do Guwang City a favor, it would benefit them too.
Duan Wei gave his final assessment: “That kid was actually pretty lucky.”
He’d never suffered growing up, and even after his father and brother’s misfortune, his mother had held everything together.
Then he met a kindhearted medical cultivator. The medical cultivator taught him to draw qi into his body, and seeing he couldn’t hold on to the family estate, urged him to go study in Xianqing City.
Though it was a free school, the people of the Qimu School were very responsible, and the atmosphere was good—a worthwhile place to go.
With that connection to Zuoqiurong, if he’d focused on his cultivation and gone to develop his career in Guwang City after graduating, he might have had a fine future ahead.
It was just a pity… that one wrong turn.
The three eventually found a noodle shop.
While they waited, Duan Wei sized up Fei Mo: “You’re dressed pretty nicely. What’s your story?”
Fei Mo took out three pairs of chopsticks and cast a minor cleaning spell, replying: “I’m from a remote little mountain village. When I was twelve, a flood hit. I followed a big brother from the same village to town to scrape by, and a cultivator took a liking to us. That cultivator took us around swindling people, until a few years later he got beaten to death. After that, my big brother and I kept swindling people on our own.”
Duan Wei said: “And then he got beaten to death too?”
Fei Mo handed them their chopsticks: “Mm. We sold a local rich man a ‘ancient formula’ for men’s health issues. He ate it and started vomiting and shitting uncontrollably, then hired people to hunt us down. My big brother ditched me and ran.”
Duan Wei understood. No need to ask what happened after—he must have been beaten to death too, which is when Fei Mo’s soul transmigrated in.
Before long, the noodles arrived.
The three ate with their heads down, and only after they were somewhat full did they start discussing business.
Duan Wei had only just learned to draw qi into his body, and Fei Mo’s original body had neglected cultivation for years, sitting at mid-stage Qi Refining.
They asked Fu Xingyu: “What’s your cultivation now?”
Fu Xingyu said: “A hair away from Qi Refining Great Completion.”
Duan Wei said: “Suppressed that hard?”
Fu Xingyu nodded helplessly.
Duan Wei and Fei Mo sighed helplessly too.
The dimension of the cultivation world was high.
In layman’s terms: the overall energy was high, the world’s consciousness was strong, and its barriers were strong too.
Any external energy trying to enter would be repelled. Because of this, Duan Wei couldn’t carry a system that could communicate with the Bureau at any time, and Fu Xingyu, as someone who’d ascended, would have his cultivation suppressed. That’s why he couldn’t bring spirit stones—spirit stones contained spiritual energy, and the more he carried, the harder his cultivation got docked.
Fu Xingyu hadn’t felt hunger in over a thousand years.
He still had a while before Foundation Establishment, and his two teammates would take even longer. Food and shelter would be a major problem going forward.
He said: “We haven’t reached inedia yet. We need to figure out how to make money first, or we’ll all starve. Any ideas?”
Fei Mo glanced at Duan Wei, and Fu Xingyu’s gaze followed.
When it came to experience making money, they figured someone from the Fast Travel Bureau would have more of it.
Duan Wei bore their stares and finished chewing his noodles before thinking it over: “This is an ancient cultivation world with so many people needing to survive tribulations… how about… we sell lightning rods?”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu: “?”
Fei Mo stared at him: “Serious?”
Duan Wei said: “Mm.”
Fei Mo said: “Reason?”
Duan Wei said: “Think of it as doing the mission.”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu were taken aback, then caught on.
The recruitment notice didn’t state the cause of the world’s collapse. It only said it might be related to those two people—the uncertainty was huge.
It could be something Feng Yuntian or Lang Xu did that caused it, or it could be a chain reaction from one of them dying unexpectedly.
So they all wanted to stay close to those two, to keep watch at all times.
But since the deduction result said only with the seven of them added could there be a sliver of hope, they could also act as butterfly wings—maybe some small action of theirs would change the original course of events. Like making lightning rods, stirring up some noise.
Fei Mo asked: “Are you sure you can make a lightning rod, and not just a metal stick that attracts lightning?”
Duan Wei said: “I’m sure. Rest easy.”
Fu Xingyu said: “Where do we get materials for lightning rods?”
Duan Wei said: “We can buy them.”
Fei Mo and Fu Xingyu stared at him. Wasn’t this just going in a circle? They still needed money first.
“A big city like this is bound to have ways to make money,” Duan Wei said casually. “If worst comes to worst, we can pawn something at the pawnshop. That’ll cover us in a pinch.”
After the meal, the three returned to the streets.
Fei Mo had plenty of experience from his swindling days. In a big city like this, there were generally two ways to gather money-making intel: one was going to the Dacheng Tower, and the other was listening to gossip at various teahouses.
The three’s pockets were cleaner than their faces right now, and they didn’t want to spend extra at a teahouse, so they went to the Dacheng Tower.
Dacheng Tower—the name was straightforward, implying that everyone who entered could achieve Great Vehicle cultivation.
This was where intelligence was bought and sold, where bounties could be posted. There was a shared mission wall for the whole cultivation world, a separate section for local tasks, and even a bounty list for fugitives.
Night had already fallen, and the tower blazed with light, packed with people.
When Duan Wei and the others came in, a crowd was gathered around one wall, buzzing with discussion—snatches of “Fanhai Grand Assembly” and various names drifted over.
The three Qi Refining cultivators didn’t join the crowd. Instead, they looked around and found the local section.
This board was mostly bounties posted by people from Tuyu City. The Dacheng Tower treated everyone equally, with no threshold. Even mortals without cultivation could post here. The contents were all over the place, and the rewards ranged from low to high.
The highest reward currently was five thousand spirit stones. The task was extremely simple on paper: a family’s child refused to study, and if anyone could get him to recite something—even just one line—the money was theirs.
Fu Xingyu grew suspicious: “Could it be a trap?”
Duan Wei was curious too, so he went to chat with one of the tower’s attendants.
The attendant said: “That was posted by the head of the Xin family. Father and son made a bet. It’s been up for six days now.”
Duan Wei asked innocently: “Huh? Six days and no one’s taken it?”
The attendant laughed: “Plenty have tried, but none succeeded. If you’re educated, you can give it a shot.”
Duan Wei said: “Oh, I’ll think about it.”
He returned to his teammates and reported that it probably wasn’t fake.
The three then went out to gather intel on the streets, and this time they got more detailed information.
The Xin family was a local cultivation clan. The head’s youngest son was seventeen this year, highly talented, and doted on—spoiled into a proper rich brat. Recently, the family head wanted to send him to a school, but the boy didn’t want to go, and they’d argued.
The details of the argument were unclear. The result was that the family head posted a bounty at the Dacheng Tower. Word was, if the young master could hold out for ten days, he wouldn’t have to go to school this year.
Five thousand spirit stones was in lower-grade stones.
Anyone interested in that amount would mostly be Core Formation cultivators or below, and mostly loose cultivators at that.
The young master might be a rich brat, but he’d had an education—more learned than those loose cultivators. It was easy for him to leave them sputtering.
The city’s scholars and tutors had also tried and failed, which was why six days had passed with the bounty still hanging.
Duan Wei had a teacher’s heart. After learning about the young master’s temperament, he decided to take the job.
A passerby warned: “Don’t try any underhanded tricks. He has high-level cultivators guarding him. I hear someone tried to use a talisman on him the day before yesterday and got beaten to death.”
Duan Wei figured the family head had kept the reward at only five thousand precisely because he was afraid a higher amount would attract all sorts of riffraff. He thanked the man and headed back with the others.
Fei Mo asked: “You have a plan?”
Duan Wei looked at him: “You haven’t lost your actor’s touch, have you?”
Fei Mo said: “No.”
Duan Wei said: “Then we’re set.”
He laid out the plan as they walked back to the Dacheng Tower. After accepting the task and learning there was no time limit, they found a spot to rehearse, then headed to the Xin estate.
The Xin family head sized up the three who came in and figured there wasn’t much hope. He gestured for the steward to lead them through: “Go on. If you haven’t done it within an hour, leave.”
Duan Wei said: “No need. A quarter of an hour is enough.”
Xin family head: “?”
He called them to a halt: “You can do it within a quarter hour?”
Duan Wei nodded.
The Xin family head asked: “How old are you?”
Duan Wei said: “Eighteen.”
The Xin family head thought to himself that this one was just as ignorant of the heavens’ height and earth’s thickness as his own brat. He said: “Fine. If you really pull it off, I’ll give you ten thousand. If not, get the hell out right now.”
Duan Wei said crisply: “Deal!”