The proprietor of Wanglai Pavilion ran his business whenever the mood struck him, but the shop itself contained an astonishing assortment of miscellaneous things.
The last time Xia Yunzhao went there, he had seen bundles upon bundles of spirit plants tossed on the floor like weeds. He glanced at them twice, then his attention was drawn away by the damaged storage pouch.
Thinking back now… one bundle of those weeds, no, spirit plants, seemed to carry a cool scent, and the silver threads running through the leaves had been quite obvious.
Xiao Xia immediately stood up and headed outside.
He still had more than three thousand spirit pearls on hand. Buying a few stalks of Silver-Thread Grass should not be a problem.
The sky was overcast today, and it looked like rain. The elderly and children returned after gathering fodder grass. The fish-selling group had left that morning and had not yet come back.
When the aunties saw Xiao Xia rushing out at this hour, several called after him at once, “Take an umbrella! Are you coming back for dinner?”
Without looking back, Xiao Xia merely waved. “If I make it back in time!”
He ran down the mountain in one breath. From a distance, the camp below looked completely normal, with people coming and going just as usual.
So he changed direction again and headed for Qingxi City.
After entering the city, he followed the familiar route straight toward East Street.
The sky was equally gloomy here, and East Street was less crowded than usual. Xiao Xia was just about to head to Wanglai Pavilion when he suddenly heard an argument.
He turned toward the sound and discovered, unexpectedly, that the commotion was coming from the entrance of Fangcun Pavilion.
Fangcun Pavilion was not far from Wanglai Pavilion. Since he would have to pass it anyway, Xia Yunzhao stopped to see what was happening.
An elderly man dressed in rags knelt on the ground. He looked even more pitiful than Xia Yunzhao had when he first transmigrated. His white hair was messy, and the only thing in his hand was a wooden stick serving as a cane. He repeatedly kowtowed, trembling as he pleaded, “Please have mercy and save my son. He was injured while working for your family. Please, please save him…”
Opposite him, the Fangcun Pavilion shopkeeper who wore a kindly smile every day simply watched coldly and waved one hand without the slightest sign of compassion.
Two attendants immediately stepped forward, grabbed the elderly man, and began dragging him away.
The old man struggled and shouted, “Please have mercy! My son is only twenty-two! Please save his life! Our entire family will work like oxen and horses for you…”
The shopkeeper frowned and barked under his breath, “Deal with him quickly!”
The people passing nearby showed traces of sympathy. Even the shopkeepers on either side sighed and shook their heads, but the moment they looked at the prominently displayed character “Fang,” none dared speak.
The two attendants immediately bowed and nodded in obedience, dragging the elderly man toward a distant alley. Whatever this “dealing with him” involved, it was unlikely to end well.
Xia Yunzhao frowned, then instantly relaxed his expression and shouted, “Shopkeeper! Did you know I was coming and come all the way outside to welcome me?”
He hurried over in a few quick strides. “Come on, come on! It’s about to rain. Let’s finish our business quickly so I can get home early.”
The shopkeeper changed faces like an actor onstage. His disgust vanished instantly, replaced by an amiable, delighted smile. “Our honored guest has come early today. What treasures would you like?”
“Talismans, of course! What else?” Xia Yunzhao casually glanced aside. “Hm? Who’s this old gentleman? It’s almost raining. Why hasn’t he gone home? If he falls at his age, that’s no joke. Why don’t I…”
The shopkeeper immediately caught his arm. “Oh, look at that! I was just about to have someone escort him home. You two…”
Xia Yunzhao waved dismissively. “Why send your own people? Think how much work they’ll lose going there and back. Aren’t your attendants supposed to be working?” He beckoned toward the crowd. “Hey, little brother over there, are you busy? If not, take this old gentleman home. He’s already this old and still doesn’t know how to take care of himself. If he falls and hurts himself, won’t his family worry?”
The person he called was a young man of eighteen or nineteen, the one in the crowd who had looked most indignant. He froze, then immediately caught on. “All right!” He stepped forward at once to support the elderly man.
The two attendants hesitantly looked toward the shopkeeper.
Xia Yunzhao nudged the shopkeeper’s arm. “Come on, I’m in a hurry to buy talismans!”
At the end of the day, the shopkeeper merely managed business for the Fang family. Nothing under heaven mattered more than business, so he waved the attendants away and led Xia Yunzhao inside.
The surrounding crowd relaxed as well. The shopkeepers on either side especially had seen Xia Yunzhao come by to sell things often enough to recognize him. They could not help sighing inwardly. There are kindhearted people among cultivators too. This young man might wear a strange mask, but he had quietly defused the situation without making a scene.
Without him, the old man might not have survived the day.
Xia Yunzhao always wore a mask whenever he entered Qingxi City. Even in his hurry today, he had not forgotten it.
He had not originally intended to visit Fangcun Pavilion, but since he was here, he really did need to replenish a few supplies.
After entering, Xiao Xia’s manner did not change at all. He continued smiling. “The talismans I bought here last time were expensive, but they worked very well. Do you still have any?”
The shopkeeper beamed as he led him over. “Naturally. We received a new shipment a few days ago. At present, we have ten Flame Talismans and twenty Protective Talismans. Would our guest like both kinds?”
“I still have Protective Talismans. Just give me two Flame Talismans!”
Two Flame Talismans still cost two thousand spirit pearls. The shopkeeper’s smile widened further as he brought out two talismans, and the two sides completed the transaction.
Xiao Xia exchanged a few more casual remarks before pretending he was desperate to get home and hurrying out of the shop.
He wandered around East Street once. After confirming that no one was following him, he turned and entered the alley from earlier.
The young man who had escorted the old man home was waiting there.
Xia Yunzhao gave a slight nod. “Not bad. You’re clever.”
The young man cupped his hands. “My lord was standing beside me earlier, so you must have heard me cursing those Fang family dogs. Even so, you specifically told me to escort the old gentleman home. I knew then that you had something you wanted to ask me.”
Xia Yunzhao did not waste time. He asked directly, “Did you get the old gentleman home safely?”
“Yes,” the young man hurriedly replied. “But there’s only his bedridden son at home. Once he got back, he just sat on the ground and cried.”
Xia Yunzhao asked, “What happened to his son? Do you know why he went to Fangcun Pavilion to make trouble?”
The young man sighed. “What else could it be? A cultivator bullied him. I don’t even know whether he’ll survive.”
Xia Yunzhao frowned slightly. “Take me there.”
The young man froze, then brightened and hurried to lead the way.
Qingxi City was not particularly large. Wealthy households mostly lived in the eastern part of the city, while the northern part was where the poor lived.
Xia Yunzhao had visited Qingxi City so many times, yet he had never realized that the western part of the city was this dilapidated… Many houses even had holes in their roofs. They were worse than the little house he had lived in at the camp below Liancui Mountain.
The young man clearly knew the area well. He led Xia Yunzhao through a narrow alley and knocked on a battered wooden door. “Old sir, I’ve brought a cultivator lord to see you.”
A muffled response seemed to come from inside. The young man pushed open the door and led him in.
A heavy smell of blood mixed with a foul stench immediately drifted toward them.
Xia Yunzhao looked up. The room was almost completely bare, with only a single bed. A pale young man lay on it without a blanket, exposing his bandaged chest. Pus and blood so dark red it was nearly black seeped through the gauze.
The elderly man sat beside the bed, looking at his child with both anguish and despair. When he saw Xia Yunzhao enter, he froze, then struggled shakily to his feet and tried to kneel. “Cultivator lord, please save my son! Please save him! He’s a good child. He’s never done anything evil in his entire life. How could he deserve such terrible retribution…”
His aged sobs were full of grief.
Xia Yunzhao hurried to support him. “Please get up first. Let me look at his injuries before anything else.”
The young man behind Xia Yunzhao helped persuade him as well, and only then did the old man barely calm down.
Xia Yunzhao stepped closer to examine the man on the bed. The external wound itself was manageable. What was troublesome was that the blood seeping from it had turned black, yet it did not quite look like poisoning…
After thinking for a moment, Xia Yunzhao decided he might as well try whatever he could. “Bring me a bowl of clean water.”
The old man shot to his feet. “Yes! We have clean water!” He did not even use his cane as he hurriedly brought over a bowl.
Xia Yunzhao took two porcelain bottles from his storage pouch. One contained Bloodstanching Pills and the other Lingwei Pills.
The Bloodstanching Pill was a Level-One pill that could treat external wounds. But for an ordinary person, the medicinal potency of a Level-One pill was too strong. Xia Yunzhao therefore split one pill in half, then split it again, dissolving one quarter into the water.
As for the Lingwei Pill, it was only lowest-grade, so ordinary people could take it without harm. He dissolved one mid-grade Lingwei Pill into the water as well.
The clear water became a bowl of brown liquid carrying a faint medicinal fragrance. Xia Yunzhao slowly fed it to the patient.
The spirit pills took effect almost immediately. Large amounts of blackened blood poured from the mangled wound. The rotting flesh sloughed away on its own while fresh pink flesh rapidly grew underneath. The abundant spiritual energy supplied by the Lingwei Pill nourished the patient’s body, and color gradually returned to his face.
The young man beside them was overjoyed. “He really recovered?!”
The old man burst into tears. “My son has suffered so much!” He immediately tried to kneel again. “Thank you, my lord, for saving his life!”
Xia Yunzhao jumped in fright and hurried to support him… In the middle of the confusion, the person on the bed groaned and woke.
The old man cried as he spoke to his son, telling him that Xia Yunzhao was his lifesaving benefactor.
The son was honest too. He immediately tried to climb out of bed and kneel in gratitude. Xiao Xia supported one, then the other. Saving someone had been easy; keeping everyone from kneeling left him sweating all over.
Only after finally calming both father and son could he sit down and ask a few questions.
The injured son was named Zhong Kai. When he heard that his benefactor wanted to know exactly how he had been injured, he explained everything in a careful, straightforward manner, one detail at a time.
“For the past half month, I’ve been working at that cultivator lord’s residence. His household needed a pond and a cellar built, and the project was supposed to take two months. The wages were generous, so we worked day and night. We slept there too, and whenever we woke up, we went straight back to work.”
“Three nights ago, I woke up needing to relieve myself and wanted to go to the latrine…”
Xia Yunzhao did not know whether to laugh or cry. “You can skip that part.”
Zhong Kai obediently nodded. “After I went outside, I saw a figure beside the unfinished pond. There wasn’t any water inside yet, so I was afraid someone might fall in and get hurt. I called out to warn him. The moment he turned around, I realized… that wasn’t a person.”
Xia Yunzhao froze. “Not a person?”
“You can’t exactly say he wasn’t human either…” Zhong Kai frowned as he thought. “He was human, but he couldn’t understand human speech. It was like… like a monster that a person had turned into. He lunged at me and bit me, then pinned me down and started eating my flesh. I screamed, and some coworkers nearby heard me and came running. The monster fled.”
Xia Yunzhao lowered his head and thought for a moment. “A monster? Was it a Human Plague?”
The old man jumped in fright. “It wasn’t a Human Plague! It can’t have been! If it were a Human Plague, wouldn’t my son have turned into a monster too?”
Zhong Kai shook his head as well. “I’ve never seen a Human Plague myself, but I heard there was an outbreak outside the city a few days ago. People say Human Plagues stink, their faces are swollen, and their nails are very long. This monster wasn’t like that. He looked exactly like an ordinary person. It was only the way he looked at people… like a wild beast.”
“There’s something else…” Zhong Kai lowered his voice, uncertain whether he should say it. But since his benefactor had asked him to explain everything in detail, he did not want to hide anything. “I think that monster might have belonged to that cultivator lord. I saw it crawl into the unfinished underground room. There’s a tunnel inside that cellar leading somewhere else. None of us workers have ever gone through it.”
Xia Yunzhao lowered his gaze and thought. The Fangcun Pavilion shopkeeper belonged to the Fang family. Did the monster discovered at his home have something to do with them? And then there were the Human Plagues on the mountain, the cotton money pouch…
Just what secret was the Fang family hiding?