Xia Yunzhao thought of the spirit plants back home. Half a month had passed, and they had only just sprouted… So there really were formations in this world that could accelerate the passage of time!
Then another thought struck him. If a formation like this were used for cultivation, wouldn’t progress advance by leaps and bounds too?
Qingmu saw the temptation on his face and said, “Don’t look at me. More than ten years ago, I saved a formation master. He was the one who set this formation up for me. I have no idea how to make one myself.”
Xia Yunzhao hurriedly asked, “Is that formation master still in the area?”
Qingmu said, “Long gone. His lifespan was already exhausted back then. He tried every method he could think of but still failed to extend his life. I don’t even know whether he’s still alive now.”
“I see…” Xia Yunzhao was disappointed for all of a moment before quickly asking, “Then are there any other formation masters in Qingxi City?”
Qingmu thought for a while. “There aren’t any in Qingxi City, but Baishuangnan Prefecture definitely has some. As for Beiliang… Beiliang City has more pill cultivators. Both places are larger than Qingxi City. If you really need one, you could go take a look.”
Xia Yunzhao immediately nodded. “Thanks, Qingmu.”
“No problem.” Qingmu waved generously. “That Detoxification Pill of yours helped me a lot too.”
Xia Yunzhao could tell that Qingmu himself was not poisoned, so he had no idea what the man had needed an expensive Detoxification Pill for.
After leaving Qingmu Pavilion, Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze wandered around some more. They had not visited for a while, and many unusual stalls had appeared in the underground market. He even saw one that specialized in insect slaughter beasts, all of them still alive. He had no idea what people bought them for, since slaughter beasts could not be raised as pets. Even so, plenty of people crowded around the stall.
Once they had finished looking around, he went to his own stall and began setting up.
His stall was already famous throughout the underground market. Almost every day, cultivators came specifically looking for him.
Thus, the moment he sat down behind the stall, word spread from one person to ten, then ten to a hundred. Before long, cultivators came swarming over.
Xia Yunzhao was not nervous at all. He simply took out the pills and magical artifacts one by one while Shang Shuangze helped arrange them beside him.
Even with his face covered, Shang Shuangze’s bearing was intimidating enough that the cultivators crowding forward did not dare act unruly. They obediently cupped their hands and addressed him as Senior.
“Senior, do you have Dew-Condensing Pills today?”
“Yes.” Xia Yunzhao greeted them amiably. “Today I have one hundred and two Dew-Condensing Pills and one hundred and five Fasting Pills. I also have seventy Bloodstanching Pills and sixty-six Qi-Replenishing Pills.”
“You have Bloodstanching Pills and Qi-Replenishing Pills too?!” The cultivator jolted and immediately pulled out his money pouch. “Give me ten of each of the four kinds!”
The people behind him panicked. “Me! I want some too!”
“And me! Twenty of each for me! You absolutely have to save mine!”
The pill-buying frenzy began all over again. Xia Yunzhao was already experienced at this. He opened one of his bamboo jars, where the pills were packed so tightly they were nearly being squashed out of shape. The surrounding cultivators winced painfully at the sight, but Xia Yunzhao ignored them. With a sweep of spiritual energy, he grabbed the exact number of pills he needed. “I’m out of porcelain bottles. Do you have your own?”
“Yes, yes!” The cultivator hurriedly pulled out his own porcelain bottles, sorted the pills into them by type, then happily squeezed his way out of the crowd and went off to find somewhere to cultivate.
Pills were difficult to obtain, especially for cultivators like them who belonged to neither sect nor family. Having a reliable place where they could regularly buy pills was an enormous blessing.
What Xia Yunzhao did not know was that the underground market’s sudden increase in visitors had quite a lot to do with him. Stories of a black-robed pill cultivator had spread throughout the market, and many cultivators had come to Qingxi City’s underground market specifically to try their luck and see whether they could encounter him.
The mad rush lasted less than an hour before the pills Xia Yunzhao had accumulated over half a month were completely sold out. He looked regretfully at the cultivators still waiting and showed them his utterly empty bamboo jars. “All gone. Fellow Daoists, come earlier next time.”
The cultivators who had missed out were frantic, but with Shang Shuangze standing nearby, none dared lose their temper. One could only ask politely, “When will Your Excellency set up a stall again? Could we pay deposits now and return for the pills next time?”
Xia Yunzhao thought about it. “I can’t say for sure. I’ll come once I’ve accumulated another batch of pills. As for deposits, I won’t take any for now. After all, I don’t even know what kinds of pills I’ll have next time.”
The cultivator was about to say more, but Xia Yunzhao had already rolled up the beast hide he used for his stall. He called goodbye to the neighboring stallholders, grabbed Shang Shuangze, and ran. “Retreat!”
The crowd behind them had not even reacted before they started chasing after him and shouting, “Senior, please take the deposit! I haven’t been able to buy pills for half a year!”
“Exactly! Any kind of pill is fine!”
Xia Yunzhao ran even faster.
The two shot straight out of the underground market like rabbits. Xiao Xia glanced behind him, and only after seeing that no one had followed did he finally relax.
He turned his head and caught the faint smile at the corner of Shang Shuangze’s mouth.
Shang Shuangze was wearing the same kind of bark mask as Xia Yunzhao, though both masks had been freshly made before they left home. They had chosen bark containing spiritual energy, so it was sturdier than ordinary bark. The mask covered the upper half of Shang Shuangze’s face, leaving only the smooth lines of his jaw visible.
Xia Yunzhao snorted. “What are you laughing at? If they surrounded you like that, you’d run too.”
A faint smile also colored Shang Shuangze’s voice. “I was merely thinking that your pills have helped many people.”
“I’m not that noble. I’m doing it to make money.” The moment money came up, Xia Yunzhao was wide awake. He began rummaging through his storage pouch. “Do you know how rich we got this time? Those three hundred and something pills sold for ninety-four thousand six hundred spirit pearls in total! Ninety thousand! That’s so much money!”
Ever since he obtained the Hundred-Compartment Pouch, Xia Yunzhao no longer stored spirit pearls in a money pouch. Instead, he had set aside one compartment inside the Hundred-Compartment Pouch specifically for piling up spirit pearls. He had been too busy selling pills to count them earlier, and now that he looked, he was simply stunned.
Ninety thousand spirit pearls was enough to cultivate all the way to Foundation Establishment! Well, assuming there was nothing else at home that needed money…
He quietly glanced into his robe. Excellent. Xiao Qing was still asleep.
Shang Shuangze thought for a moment. “When I was searching for a pill cultivator before, I traveled through every nearby city. The farthest I went was Pinglan. A formation master has settled there. If you want a time formation, we could go ask him.”
“Pinglan?” Xia Yunzhao had heard of the place. “Isn’t that where Sister Chang and the others settled? Didn’t they say it was a small town? There’s actually a formation master there?” Then he asked, “A time formation probably isn’t cheap, right?”
Shang Shuangze nodded slightly. “The lowest-grade version is one where a day is equivalent to a year. I heard even that costs around one hundred thousand spirit pearls.”
“One… hundred… thousand…” Xia Yunzhao closed his mouth and stared blankly. Quick, tell me you’re actually a money-devouring beast that gained sentience! How is it that every time you open your mouth it’s a hundred thousand? How dare you even say it!
Shang Shuangze finally laughed and gently coaxed him in a low voice. “If you don’t want to buy it, then we won’t. We have plenty of time. We can simply let the spirit plants grow slowly. Besides, haven’t we still got all those slaughter-beast corpses we accumulated? Why not sell those first?”
Xia Yunzhao sighed. “We still need to buy it. The age of spirit plants really is important. But, well, let’s save a little more first. Ahem. Let’s accumulate more spirit pearls before we talk about it…”
Naturally, the whole slaughter-beast corpses were meant to be sold to the Wei siblings, so the two went to the information shop.
The shopkeeper today was someone new, surprisingly a young girl of about sixteen. She wore a pink jacket and had her hair tied into twin buns. Her voice was as crisp as birdsong when she spoke. “Huh? You two are back again. What would you like to buy this time?”
Xia Yunzhao asked in confusion, “You recognize us? Where’s the shopkeeper from before?”
The girl covered her mouth and smiled. “All the shopkeepers at our information shops share information. Since you two have visited before, of course I recognize you!”
Xia Yunzhao said, “Did a pair of body-cultivator siblings leave a message here? I came to sell slaughter beasts.”
The girl gave a delicate little cry. “The Wei siblings? They didn’t just leave a message, they also left spirit pearls here. They said that if a Fellow Daoist surnamed Xia came to sell whole slaughter-beast corpses, we should buy every one of them.”
Xia Yunzhao had not expected the Wei siblings to be so generous. He immediately said, “That’s perfect.” With a wave of his hand, one bloodied slaughter-beast corpse after another dropped out. “Please inspect the goods.”
When traveling with Shang Shuangze, they might lack anything else, but they would never lack slaughter-beast corpses. This man used to leave every slaughter beast he killed lying where it fell. It was only after spending so much time with Xia Yunzhao that he learned to pick up the slaughter beasts he casually killed.
Still, Xia Yunzhao now had a body-tempering cultivation method, so he kept every slaughter beast suitable for his own use. He only sold those that were unsuitable.
Even so, the number was considerable, around seventy or eighty corpses in all. The shop could not hold them at once, so they had to wait for the shopkeeper to inspect and put away one batch before Xia Yunzhao took out another.
The girl spent another fifteen minutes inspecting them. “Everything looks fine to me!” She took out the spirit pearls. “Seventy-four thousand spirit pearls in total.”
The price was fine. What surprised Xia Yunzhao was something else. “The Wei siblings left that much money deposited at your shop?”
The girl smiled. “Our information shops are spread across cities large and small. Our reputation is excellent.”
Xia Yunzhao had thought the information shop was merely one little business in Qingxi City. It was actually a chain? He quickly asked, “Then do you have any information about Liuyun Market?”
The girl replied brightly, “There is no information our shop cannot sell. The only question is whether you can afford the price.”
Xia Yunzhao immediately perked up. “How much for that information?”
The girl walked behind the counter, turned around, and knocked on the wooden wall behind it. A clack sounded from within, and a hidden compartment opened in the wall. Inside was a bamboo tube containing a sheet of paper.
She glanced at it and raised an eyebrow. “This information isn’t expensive. Three hundred spirit pearls in total.”
Xiao Xia paid immediately.
The girl handed him the slip of paper. It read: One thousand years ago, Qingxi City, Beiliang City, and Baishuangnan Prefecture all lay within the territory of Liuyun Market. Later, the market master cultivated an evil method and began a massacre. Cultivators joined forces to capture and kill him. Liuyun Market then split into three cities, which have continued to the present day.
Holding the paper, Xia Yunzhao leaned close to Shang Shuangze. The two read it carefully twice, then looked at each other. So Liuyun Market was actually the very place they were standing in now? And that IOU was from a thousand years ago?
Xiao Qing could actually draw an IOU from a thousand years ago…
Xia Yunzhao turned back to the shopkeeper. “I want to find a shop or family in Qingxi City that has been passed down continuously since a thousand years ago… Basically, someone who knows the history from that time. Roughly how much would that information cost?”
The girl asked curiously, “What does the guest want something like that for? It’ll probably be difficult to find.”
Xia Yunzhao said, “Never mind what I want it for. Just tell me how much.”
The girl knocked on the wooden wall again and waited. There was no response for a while, so she said, “Approximately five thousand spirit pearls.”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. “Fine.”
The girl immediately smiled happily. She turned and knocked three times on the wall, and something instantly dropped into the hidden compartment with a sound.
She opened the compartment, took out the bamboo tube inside, and glanced at its contents. Her eyebrow rose. “…No wonder it was so hard to find.” Then she handed it to Xia Yunzhao.
Xia Yunzhao took it and saw an address written on the paper: Carpenter Workshop, West District.
“Why is it a carpenter workshop? Run by mortals? Is this information reliable?” He looked at the shopkeeper.
The girl nodded openly. “Information sold by our shop has never been wrong. Simply go and find the place. If it’s incorrect, I’ll compensate you one hundred times the price.”
Xia Yunzhao relaxed and smiled. “Then thank you.”
The two left the information shop, and Xia Yunzhao said, “Let’s head to the west district… Wait. Since we’re already over here, come on, let’s visit Wanglai Pavilion first.”
Du Yan was leaning behind the counter, snoring away. The Mist-Barrier Period had begun nearly half a month ago, and cultivators from all over Qingxi City were rushing into the mountains. Yet he alone remained in his shop without budging, no one knew what he was doing. He looked utterly devoid of worldly desire.
Xia Yunzhao walked over and knocked on the counter.
Du Yan opened one eye. Seeing it was him, he closed it again and went back to sleep.
Xia Yunzhao was speechless. He quietly gossiped to Shang Shuangze, “Why don’t we empty out his shop? Better I steal it than somebody else.”
Du Yan mumbled, “Do as you like.” He yawned and sat up. “Went to the information shop?”
Xia Yunzhao nodded. “I wanted to ask about Liuyun Market. The people there told me that this place was Liuyun Market a thousand years ago.”
“Liuyun Market?” Du Yan frowned. “A thousand years ago… So that’s how it is…”
Xia Yunzhao had no idea what exactly Du Yan had figured out. When he turned around, he noticed that the skeleton frame in the corner had grown even larger, with more bones pieced onto it. Moreover, its aura felt strangely unusual. It did not seem like a dead object. If anything, it felt more alive.
“What exactly is that skeleton for? Why does its aura feel wrong?”
Du Yan said, “I told you. It’s for serving tea and pouring water…”
Xia Yunzhao was speechless. Shang Shuangze glanced at it too and spoke several words. “White Bone Spirit-Summoning Art.”
Xia Yunzhao froze. Du Yan opened his eyes, his gaze sharpening slightly. “You know it?”
Shang Shuangze calmly met his gaze, merely nodding toward Xia Yunzhao. “I once saw it with my elders. Bones that have had spirits summoned into them can be controlled, and their combat strength is equivalent to that of the practitioner.”
Xia Yunzhao thought about it. “Then isn’t that basically a puppet? The materials even seem cheaper than a puppet.” He turned to Du Yan. “I’ve got a few pieces of Level-Two slaughter-beast bone. Want them?”
Du Yan looked at him, then Shang Shuangze. Something strange entered his gaze. “That’s it? Don’t you two know that the White Bone Spirit-Summoning Art is…”
Seeing him stop halfway, Xia Yunzhao looked blank. “Is what? What’s wrong with it? The Spirit-Summoning Art seems pretty useful. In a way, it’s also, uh… recycling waste?”
Du Yan stared at him for a while and ended up laughing from sheer irritation. “Forget it. I’ve known for ages that you brat aren’t particularly bright. What bones? Take them out and let me see. If they’re useful, I’ll give you spirit pearls.”
Xia Yunzhao snapped, “You said I was smart before! And what do you mean you’ll pay me if they’re useful? Even if they aren’t useful, you still have to pay if you take them! Right, have those three female cultivators brought anything by recently?”
As he spoke, he took out several pieces of bone. They had picked them up along the road. Slaughter beasts would devour one another too, so bones could occasionally be found in the mountains, though most lost their spiritual energy very quickly. If they happened upon fresh bones whose spiritual energy had not yet dissipated, that counted as very good luck.
Du Yan inspected the bones. Their quality was quite good, so he took out spirit pearls and bought them, then leaned bonelessly backward again. “Haven’t seen them lately. If they come, I’ll help collect the things for you.”
Xia Yunzhao relaxed and headed outside with Shang Shuangze.
At the doorway, he looked back. “Du Yan, has anyone ever told you that you’re actually pretty dependable?”
Du Yan lifted one eyelid and looked at him.
Xia Yunzhao grinned. “Look at you. Even when you’re fully committed to slacking off, you still insist on keeping a shop open. You don’t make money, but you haven’t closed the door for a single day. You can’t let go of even the tiniest bit of responsibility, understand? So if you ever need help, tell me. I’ll help you.” With that, he waved and pulled the sword cultivator beside him out the door.
Du Yan watched his back, raised his wine gourd, and took a drink. He laughed and cursed, “Nosy brat.” Then his brows slowly furrowed again, and he murmured, “Liuyun Market… No wonder the Fang family chose this place…”
Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze had already reached the west district. From a distance, they could see a fairly large carpenter workshop.
Just as they were about to enter, Xiao Xia suddenly stopped. “Wait, wait…”
Shang Shuangze looked at him questioningly.
Xiao Xia casually stopped a passerby and asked, “Auntie, is this the only carpenter workshop in the west district?”
The woman had been hurrying along, but when she saw his handsome face, her tone softened. “It is. Never mind the west district, this is the only carpenter workshop in all of Qingxi City! Plenty of carpenters begin apprenticing here and continue working here after they’ve learned the trade.”
“I see. Thank you.” Xia Yunzhao lowered his head in thought, then took something from the Hundred-Compartment Pouch. It was a jade pendant engraved with a stylized character meaning “silk,” the very pendant Xing Wenyu had given him.
When Xing Wenyu gave him the pendant, he had said that if Xia Yunzhao ever encountered trouble he could not solve, he should take it to the carpenter workshop in the west district. Fortunately, aside from the Fang family, Xiao Xia had not offended anyone, so he had never needed to use it.
He had not expected that after searching so long for Liuyun Market, the trail would lead him here.
Xia Yunzhao muttered an explanation of the jade pendant’s origin to Shang Shuangze, then said, “The person inside might be Brother Xing’s friend. Our luck is pretty good!”
Shang Shuangze, however, did not think it was necessarily luck. Not everyone possessed Fellow Daoist Xia’s talent and personal charm when it came to making friends.
Xia Yunzhao entered with the jade pendant in hand. The moment he stepped through the door, a cloud of flying wood shavings hit him in the face. Numerous carpenters were working inside, while wooden cabinets, tables, and chairs were stacked messily along the walls.
Xia Yunzhao called out several times, but not a single person answered him. He could not help wondering how this shop even did business when nobody bothered greeting customers.
The two worked their way through the crowd and finally managed to stop a young servant in the back. Xia Yunzhao held up the jade pendant. “Please inform your master that I’m here to see him.”
The moment the servant saw the jade pendant, his expression changed into a smile. He led them to a side hall and even served tea.
Then he left to report their arrival.
Xia Yunzhao picked up the tea and took several sips. He could not tell whether it was good or bad, but he did sense a trace of spiritual energy. Did this carpenter workshop actually brew tea with spirit herbs?
While he was wondering, footsteps approached. Xia Yunzhao looked up and saw a dark, skinny man enter through the doorway. He had a hooked nose and grayish eyes, and the expression he wore when looking at people was somewhat sinister.
Xia Yunzhao could sense that the man had cultivation, though it was not high. He was only at the second layer of Qi Refining.
The man scrutinized Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze with an unreadable expression. “Where’s the jade pendant?”
Xia Yunzhao showed it to him.
After looking it over, the man asked, “Did you kill Xing Wenyu?”
Xia Yunzhao frowned. “Why would you say that? Brother Xing gave me this pendant and told me I could come find you if I ran into trouble.”
After he finished, the man’s facial muscles twitched several times, as though forming some distorted version of a smile.
Xiao Xia summoned every scrap of his interpersonal intuition and finally realized the man was joking. Speechless, he said, “Friend, that wasn’t funny.”
The man did not care. “I make that joke to Xing Wenyu every time.”
The corner of Xia Yunzhao’s mouth twitched. With Brother Xing’s temper, the fact that he hasn’t crushed you to death means the two of you must be extremely close.
After exchanging names, they learned that the sinister-looking man was Qiu Cang, owner of the carpenter workshop. Qiu Cang tapped a finger against the table. The wooden fruit tray sitting on it suddenly moved, sprouted two legs underneath, and toddled in tiny steps until it stood between Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze.
Apparently very satisfied by Xia Yunzhao’s astonished expression, Qiu Cang gave that strange smile that made him look thoroughly villainous. “A minor trick.”
Xia Yunzhao looked around and realized everything in the house was made of wood: teacups, teapots… even the lampstands. Curious, he asked, “Is your cultivation method related to wood?”
Qiu Cang replied casually, “It’s an ancestral cultivation method. Most of it has been lost. I call it the Carpenter Cultivation Method.”
Xia Yunzhao: …So even the name was lost?
If his own family cultivation method had mostly been lost, could he really know anything about Liuyun Market from a thousand years ago? Xiao Xia began losing hope in this trip.
Still, since they had come all this way, he had to ask. He did not mention the IOU, merely saying that he wanted information on someone surnamed Shen from Liuyun Market a thousand years ago.
“Liuyun Market…” Qiu Cang thought for a moment, then gestured toward the outside. Before long, a wooden figure carried in an enormous book.
Xia Yunzhao could not take his eyes off the wooden figure. Its movements were somewhat stiff and far less nimble than the puppets back home, but the fact that its entire body was made from wood was fascinating!
He stared longingly at it. “Is this for sale?”
Qiu Cang’s face started twitching again. “No, but I can let you play with it. Come whenever you want.”
“Then it’s settled!” Xia Yunzhao said happily. “I’ll bring you specialties from Liancui Mountain!”
And just like that, the two became friends.
Shang Shuangze slowly drank his tea. As he had thought, not everyone possessed Fellow Daoist Xia’s ability to make friends.
Qiu Cang flipped through the book, which was almost half as tall as a person. After searching for quite some time, he said, “The Shen family… Mm, found it. Who are you looking for?”
Xia Yunzhao quickly said, “Shen Ziming!”
Qiu Cang continued reading. “Here. Shen Ziming, second son of the Shen family. He later married the Ji family’s fifth young lady.”
Seeing Xia Yunzhao’s blank face, he explained, “He married into her family.”
Xia Yunzhao said, “Right, right. So his descendants belong to the Ji family now?”
Qiu Cang slowly flipped another page. Despite looking sinister, he seemed to have an unusually unhurried temperament. “The Ji family’s fifth young lady cultivated the Yellow Springs Art and reached the Golden Core stage. She later settled in Qingxi City and died naturally three hundred years ago. Mm. That is indeed the present Ji family.”
Xia Yunzhao thought it over. So if he wanted to collect the debt, he would have to demand payment from the Ji family? He did not doubt that the Ji family could produce fifty thousand spirit pearls. He only doubted whether they would acknowledge the debt.
Still, he had investigated the matter partly because he was curious about the IOU, and partly because he wanted to gather as much information about the cultivation world as possible. He had not been determined to collect the debt no matter what.
He simply had not expected to gain so much from this trip. The Qiu family’s book was surprisingly detailed. Had Qiu Cang’s ancestors perhaps served as historians of Liuyun Market?
“Oh, right.” Qiu Cang winked at him, making an expression that looked ninety percent evil but was apparently meant to convey friendliness. “Since we’re friends now, I’ll warn you about something. Between half a month and a month after the Mist-Barrier Period begins, Liancui Mountain will…”
Before he could finish, Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze simultaneously raised their heads toward the same direction.
A rumbling noise sounded in the distance. It was faint at first, then grew louder and louder until it resembled thunder. Even the ground began trembling.
Many mortals thought there was an earthquake and rushed from their homes into the streets, looking around in panic. After a while, the shaking gradually weakened. Everyone remained baffled, but eventually dispersed and returned home.
Inside the workshop, both Xia Yunzhao and Shang Shuangze frowned. “That came from the direction of Liancui Mountain. Did something change in the mountains?”
Only then did Qiu Cang slowly finish the rest of his sentence. “Liancui Mountain will collapse.”