The Great Inventor

"Dugu Qing, the Holy Capital is protected by a barrier. Let's walk into the city!"

Worried that Dugu Qing didn't know about it, Fern took the initiative to warn him.

"All right."

Dugu Qing nodded and gently guided the sword downward.

Pulled by gravity, Fern was caught off guard and bumped into Dugu Qing's back.

Their long hair tangled together.

The boy's scent was crisp and sweet, warm and clean.

Fern's skin pressed against Dugu Qing's, and she felt his heartbeat. A warm current flashed through her slender body, draining all her strength.

"Hold on to me."

Dugu Qing thought nothing of it.

"Mm."

Fern buried her face in Dugu Qing's back, greedily breathing in the boy's scent and savoring the brief sweetness.

Dugu Qing came to a stop on the ground.

Fern reluctantly let go and jumped off the sword, pretending nothing had happened.

The Holy Capital's walls were towering, and people streamed through in a torrent.

Two soldiers in heavy armor stood guard at the gate, halberds in hand.

Merchants, adventurers, tourists, citizens, civil servants, nobles, commoners... people of every class entered through the gate.

Two rows of snack vendors crowded the entrance, their cries rising and falling.

A short boy in ragged clothes, his face sallow, carried a heavy suitcase in both hands. Gritting his back teeth, he gathered his strength with each step and struggled forward.

He stepped on a stone.

The boy reached his mental and physical limits and fell to the ground, covering himself in dust.

"What's that guy carrying?"

"No idea."

"Why doesn't he hire a carriage?"

"Obviously, if he had the money, who'd want to drag it himself? He's come all this way to save money!"

Passersby stopped to look at the boy.

Dugu Qing happened to be passing and helped him up.

"Thank you, big brother. It's all this suitcase's fault. It's so heavy the handles made my hands bleed."

The boy held out his hands, showing the deep, alarming marks on them.

Dugu Qing gave the boy a sympathetic look and noticed that the suitcase had no wheels underneath.

With wheels attached, the boy could simply pull it along.

He wondered how people in this world could be so stupid! They hadn't even invented something like that.

"Let me see."

Dugu Qing looked around and found a broken-down tent with no owner in a corner beneath the city wall.

The fabric on the tent had been reduced to tatters with age.

But the two pulleys hanging from it were still intact.

A rusty iron rod and a half-meter length of wire had also been left in the tent.

Dugu Qing's eyes lit up. He beckoned and used his self-created Qi Manipulation Technique to summon the distant objects.

"Big brother, you're a mage!"

As the objects flew over, the boy stared at Dugu Qing in shock.

"Mm."

Dugu Qing bent down, threaded the iron rod through the pulleys, secured it with the wire, and fitted it to the load-bearing side underneath the suitcase.

Then Dugu Qing stood up and easily pulled the suitcase along for a couple of steps.

The suitcase, filled with dozens of books, rolled smoothly over the ground, leaving two faint tracks.

Everyone stared in astonishment.

"I didn't expect this guy to be an inventor too."

"Amazing. Young people these days really are amazing!"

"With those two wheels, that kid won't have to work so hard."

Their eyes sparkling with wonder, the onlookers gazed at Dugu Qing in admiration.

Dugu Qing set down the suitcase, winked to signal Fern to follow, and headed into the city.

"Thank you, big brother!"

The boy bent in a bow and thanked him loudly.

Dugu Qing smiled, paying it little mind.

"Remarkable, simply remarkable. It's been thousands of years since humanity invented the wheel, yet no one ever thought to put wheels on a suitcase. But you, sir, have done it."

"On behalf of all our colleagues at the Continental Luggage Merchants' Association, I offer you our heartfelt thanks."

A white-haired old man stepped down from a carriage outside the crowd and gave Dugu Qing a slight bow.

"It was nothing."

Dugu Qing waved a hand and prepared to leave.

"Wait. Putting wheels on a suitcase may be a trivial matter to you, sir, but for the luggage industry across the entire world, it's an earth-shaking event. Please, you must sell me the patent and let me sell wheeled suitcases all over the world."

Leaning on his cane, the old man blocked Dugu Qing's path.

"There's no need. It's not a complicated design."

Dugu Qing had the attractions of the city on his mind and didn't want to say more to the old man. He lifted his foot to leave.

The old man clapped softly, and a maid stepped down from the carriage holding a tray piled with gold coins.

The gold caught Dugu Qing's eye.

The old man smiled. "Consider these one hundred gold coins payment for the patent. Please, you must accept them."

Dugu Qing hadn't expected to earn so much money. Now, once he entered the city, he could buy whatever he saw.

"All right! I agree."

Dugu Qing accepted the gold, packed it into a sack, and took his leave.

"Amazing. You earned so many gold coins just like that. Lord Dugu Qing, you really are a super genius among elves."

Following behind Dugu Qing, Fern admired him beyond words.

In this world, one gold coin was worth ten silver coins, and one silver coin was worth a thousand copper coins.

One copper coin could buy a loaf of bread, two eggs, a skewer of grilled meat, or three potatoes.

An ordinary person earned only ten copper coins a day.

With barely any effort, Dugu Qing had earned one, two, three... so, so many gold coins. It was the equivalent of completing more than a dozen highly difficult adventure quests, and more than an ordinary person could spend in a lifetime!

A fashion store on Austerlitz Street.

Dugu Qing entered the store and looked at the clothes hanging on racks and walls. His eyes, which hadn't seen the inside of a store in over a decade, went wide.

"This men's sailor suit, this Western-style school uniform, this jacket, this sweatshirt, these pajamas, this..."

Dugu Qing strode forward with an imposing air and took more than a dozen outfits off the racks in one go.

"I'll buy them all."

"One moment, sir. I'll pack them up right away."

The clerk practically flew to the counter, her steps light, and happily began packing.

Fern kindly reminded him, "Dugu Qing, can you wear all those clothes?"

"Of course! Look: two outfits for sleeping, two for spring, two for summer, two for autumn, two for winter, two for bathing, two for walking, two for fighting... I'm already being very restrained, okay?"

Dugu Qing raised his eyebrows, perfectly clearheaded.

"All right!"

Fern shut her mouth and said no more.

Dugu Qing took Fern to a women's clothing store, where a light purple, long-sleeved dress with a tiny floral print caught his eye.

Dugu Qing picked it up, held it against Fern to see how it looked, and handed it to her.

"Purple has a lovely charm. It's yours."