Several burly men wielding clubs surrounded Fang Yuan, their faces hostile.
Outnumbered, an ordinary person would have been beaten into running with his head in his hands.
Fang Yuan hadn't started practicing martial arts yet, so he was an ordinary person too. But as he looked at the vicious servants, a mocking smile tugged at his lips.
"He's still laughing? Break his arms!"
"Get him!"
The Zhou family's burly servants were used to throwing their weight around. They were domineering and shouted as they charged.
Whoosh!
A streak of white flashed into view, swift as a fleeting shadow, darting back and forth across the scene.
"Ah!"
A few screams rang out.
By the time Zhou Wenxin came to her senses, her men were sprawled across the ground, clutching their right arms as blood poured from their wounds.
"This... What kind of mechanism or demonic arts is this?"
Her face went deathly pale. When Fang Yuan walked toward her, she stumbled backward in fright. "N-no... Don't come any closer!"
"Miss Zhou, the deal we made before was between Uncle Lin and me. He inspected the medicinal ingredients himself. Who told you they were fake?"
Fang Yuan advanced one step at a time, his eyes glinting coldly. If he hadn't had the Flower Fox Ferret, the valley's guardian Spiritual Beast, the outcome today might have been grim.
"Waaah!"
Zhou Wenxin retreated again and again, then caught her foot on something and fell. She burst into tears. "Boo-hoo... You're bullying me!"
Seriously?
Fang Yuan was speechless at the sight.
Her people had barged in as unwelcome guests. How had he ended up feeling like some bully picking on a little girl?
"Talk. Or do you want to end up like them?"
Fang Yuan threatened her coldly, then kicked one of the unlucky servants lying nearby.
At the sound of his scream, Zhou Wenxin's sobbing abruptly stopped. "I-it was Song Zhigao who told me!"
"Who's Song Zhigao?"
"A purchasing agent for the Gui Ling Sect's outer sect!"
Under Fang Yuan's interrogation, Zhou Wenxin's haughty facade crumbled, and she spilled everything.
She said that after the siblings got the Red Ginseng in their last deal, they had been overjoyed and taken it home for Old Master Zhou to use.
Old Master Zhou had indeed improved, but his good fortune didn't last. After his condition briefly stabilized, his injuries worsened again. By now, he was almost beyond the help of medicine.
Of course, Second Brother Zhou and Lin Benchu knew it wasn't Fang Yuan's Red Ginseng that was to blame. But Zhou Wenxin had always been the sort to take her anger out on others. How could she let it go?
Then Song Zhigao, who was familiar with the Zhou family, had stirred things up—and here they were.
"Song Zhigao? In charge of buying supplies for the outer sect?"
Fang Yuan rubbed his chin, feeling as if he'd caught hold of a thread.
"I've never met the man, and I've never heard anyone mention his name. We have no grudge between us. If I've somehow crossed him, it's probably over Lei Yue's marriage arrangement. What a headache..."
Heaven knew that, given his easygoing nature, if he'd known agreeing to the betrothal would cause this much trouble, he would never have agreed to it, no matter what.
"You've got what you wanted to know. Could you let me go now...?"
At last, Zhou Wenxin asked with tearful eyes. Her usual haughty air was gone, replaced by a pitiful, helpless look.
Still, a pampered rich girl might have been pretty, but after trekking through the mountains and rolling around in the mud, what would she look like?
Fang Yuan, for one, wasn't nearly that forgiving.
"Go. Take your dogs with you!"
Fang Yuan figured that Zhou Wenxin had made such a grand entrance that plenty of people must have seen her. It wasn't as if he could kill them all and dispose of the bodies. He simply said it with a cold face.
"Go!"
At once, Zhou Wenxin and her lackeys helped one another up and ran off, as if some raging flood or ferocious beast were chasing them.
In their eyes, Fang Yuan had easily taken down so many burly men by means of some unknown trick. He was no different from a demon person who lived secluded in the mountains and wielded demonic arts.
"Coo?"
Only after everyone had left did the Flower Fox Ferret appear. It circled around Fang Yuan, seeming to ask for a reward.
"Nicely done! The key thing is your speed... You've gotten even faster!"
Since the incident at the Plantation, this was the first time Fang Yuan had seen the Flower Fox Ferret go all out. Before, it had already been so fast that it left no trace, only a faint blur behind.
But now, perhaps thanks to the nourishing effects of the Spiritual Tea, it had grown even faster—swift as a flash of lightning. Those burly servants hadn't even known what had hit them when they fell.
Fang Yuan reckoned that if he'd been in their place, he wouldn't have fared any better.
"Thank goodness you weren't this fierce back then, Flower Fox Ferret. Otherwise, I'd never have made it out alive..."
He stroked the Flower Fox Ferret's head, still feeling a little shaken.
Now thoroughly accustomed to it, the Flower Fox Ferret contentedly narrowed its eyes, then lifted a tiny paw as if to boast: Anyone you can't handle, just leave them to me!
That brimming-with-pride pose made Fang Yuan laugh despite himself.
"The Flower Fox Ferret is powerful, but according to the manual, even a martial artist who's only broken through the first gate will have sharper senses and much quicker reflexes, far beyond an ordinary person's... They might still be able to follow the Flower Fox Ferret's movements!"
In the Hidden Valley, Fang Yuan studied the Black Sand Palm manual in silence.
At this point, the Flower Fox Ferret probably counted as a martial artist who had broken through a gate.
But the people Zhou Wenxin had brought last time were just ordinary men. They might have learned a few punches and kicks, but they only had brute strength. They could hardly be called true practitioners.
With the Zhou family's influence, they were unlikely to be short on martial artists like that!
Once Zhou Wenxin came to her senses and called in the Zhou family's Attendants or the like, Fang Yuan wasn't sure he could handle them.
"My Red Ginseng was definitely fine. If Old Master Zhou had only been weakened, he wouldn't have gotten this bad!"
Fang Yuan had every confidence in what he'd sold.
"So... his injuries must involve something else!"
He couldn't help admiring Lin Benchu's nerve. In the middle of such a mess, he'd still dared to jump in with both arms bare.
"The problem is, fine, you can jump in yourself—but now you've splashed mud all over me!"
Fang Yuan was annoyed.
"If this were one of those novels from my previous life, would I be expected to leave the mountains, show off my Medical Skill, cure Old Master Zhou, and take on the people behind it all...?"
His thoughts wandered as he mulled it over.
In truth, that was one proactive way to resolve the matter. But Fang Yuan simply didn't want to do it.
As for why...
He'd already left the mountains once this year. He really didn't want to make a second trip. And curing someone while tracking down the people behind it all sounded like far too much trouble.
Fang Yuan gave a lazy yawn and decided to go back for a nap.
"Flower Fox Ferret, if I ever have to run for my life, I'll be counting on you!"
Half a day later, Fang Yuan was trudging through the mountains with a bamboo basket on his back. He glanced at the nimble Flower Fox Ferret and couldn't help envying it.
The Hidden Valley had several routes leading into the mountains, so there was no chance of being trapped. Heart-Questioning Hermit had even left a few escape tunnels when he built the house. At present, Fang Yuan was the only one who knew about them.
Fang Yuan strongly suspected that his master had gotten into serious trouble somewhere before settling down. He must have been as jumpy as a startled bird. Otherwise, why would he have been ready to flee at a moment's notice while alive, then made such elaborate arrangements after he died? It just didn't seem normal.
Thanks to his foresight, however, Fang Yuan slept soundly every night.
Watching the Flower Fox Ferret dash through the woods without leaving a trace, Fang Yuan made the joke, then sighed wistfully.
If the White Sable were a little bigger, perhaps he could ride on it and roam across the entire Qingling Mountain range as easily as if he were walking on level ground. What a thrill that would be.
Mountain climbing was hard work, especially in the Deep Mountain Old Forest, where vines grew thick and there were no stone steps or trails—only more wild beasts and poisonous insects.
Fang Yuan hacked away at the brambles blocking his way with a woodcutter's knife, trudging onward and panting.
For the past few days, he'd tried every means of persuasion and coercion until the Flower Fox Ferret finally gave in and agreed to take him into the mountains to look for traces of Spiritual Fertilizer.
But he strongly suspected the Flower Fox Ferret was playing dumb. Ever since they'd entered the mountains, it had been running wild, dashing this way and that. They'd come across quite a few rare medicinal ingredients, but not the slightest trace of Spiritual Fertilizer.
"Flower Fox Ferret, don't try to wriggle out of this. Judging from how much you brought me, there should still be plenty of Spiritual Fertilizer!"
Fang Yuan checked the sun and stopped walking. He sat on a large rock, ate his lunch of rice balls, and tossed one to the Flower Fox Ferret.
"Coo! Coo!"
The Flower Fox Ferret clutched the rice ball and nibbled at it like a squirrel eating a pinecone. It spun around a couple of times and quickly finished, then gestured with its tiny paws.
Fang Yuan gestured back and forth with it for a long while, talking at cross-purposes, before he more or less understood: "I can't go there yet? I can only look around nearby for other good stuff?"
He turned and looked at what they'd collected in the bamboo basket, then reluctantly accepted its explanation. "All right, but after we visit the next place, we're heading back. The rare medicinal ingredients we gathered today need to be sealed and stored properly. Otherwise, it'd be a dreadful waste!"
After drinking a handful of cool spring water, Fang Yuan perked up and continued on with the Flower Fox Ferret. They soon reached a low-lying area shrouded in mist.
"Hmm... Places like this are full of poisonous miasma and toxic fog!"
At the sight of the mist's mottled colors, Fang Yuan frowned and hastily rubbed the medicinal powder prepared by Heart-Questioning Hermit beneath his nose.
Any hunter or herb gatherer traveling through the mountains needed something like this, but Heart-Questioning Hermit's preparation was the most effective.
"Coo!"
The Flower Fox Ferret hurried ahead, looking eager.
"Haha... What's the rush?"
Fang Yuan followed with a grin. But after pushing aside a clump of weeds, he sucked in a breath. "Poison Dragon Grass?!"
Beside a pool, among a jumble of white stones, a single purple herb stood out sharply.
It was one of the precious medicinal ingredients Heart-Questioning Hermit had mentioned. It grew in places steeped in poison and had the miraculous ability to counteract poison with poison. Many high-grade antidote formulas called for it.
"Good stuff!"
Fang Yuan's eyes lit up, but he didn't move rashly.
An herb like this was already nearly a Spiritual Object. A ferocious beast might be guarding it!
Before you continue