Sold As Is, No Refunds

"Since that's settled, let's make it official!" Xian He grinned from ear to ear. Supporting the old woman, he returned to the slave trader and pointed to a row of female slaves. "Take another good look and pick out the two best ones for me."

The old woman wasn't much good at hard labor, but she had a keen eye, plenty of experience, and a wealth of worldly knowledge. He could bring her home to serve as a housekeeper and manage the servants.

More importantly, he didn't know how to deliver a baby. He had to find Yun Ling a midwife.

Without one, if Yun Ling miscarried or had a difficult birth, he wouldn't know how to handle it, and the baby could very well die.

Yun Ling would be fine, because she had the Symbiotic Mark.

Only when he cultivated the Goddess Control Art to the tenth level, allowing every child to be born safely, would he no longer need a midwife.

If he hired a young, nimble midwife from the tribe, it would cost at most a hundred Copper Coins per visit. A thousand would cover ten visits, but there was a risk she'd discover the Mountain River Society Diagram and bring disaster down on him.

If he bought the grandmother and granddaughter, the old woman might not live another ten years. But if the little girl knew how to deliver babies, he'd come out ahead. If she didn't, he'd be out of luck.

She was so young that the odds of her knowing how to deliver babies were slim. That was exactly why he'd turned down the old woman's request earlier.

He'd assumed the slave trader would buy the pair at a fair price and help them through their troubles. He hadn't expected the trader to be such a heartless opportunist, offering a mere fifty Copper Coins.

The grandmother and granddaughter had come to sell themselves, so they must have been completely desperate.

He couldn't help them, and the slave trader wouldn't. That meant the old woman's kidnapped son was sure to die.

He'd been hesitating over whether to help them, but after learning that the old woman could read faces and pick good servants for him—and that she had value beyond being a midwife—he finally decided to help them.

He wasn't the sort of selfless saint who helped others without a second thought. Before helping anyone, he considered whether they were worth helping.

"Very well. I'll do my best."

After the old woman carefully inspected them, two female slaves were selected: one named Ziyan, the other Muyang.

Neither of them was particularly pretty, but they were both obedient.

"All right, they're yours now. Take them away." After counting the money, the slave trader untied two ropes from the wooden posts and handed them to Xian He.

Seeing that Xian He was a novice, the slave trader gave him a warning as he took the ropes. "If the slaves run away, die, or anything else happens to them, don't come back to me! 'Sold as is, no refunds' is the rule in our line of work."

Even if Xian He came back, the trader wouldn't admit that the two female slaves had been bought from him.

"Got it!" Xian He clutched the ropes tightly, afraid his two treasures might run away.

Before leaving, Xian He also reminded the slave trader, "Make sure you save those two beauties worth a hundred thousand for me! I'll be back in a few days to buy their freedom!"

"Then you'd better hurry. Xiao Lang, the leader of the Greedy Wolf Organization, has his eye on them too, and I hear he's almost got the money together. If you're too slow and Xiao Lang buys them, don't blame me." The slave trader urged him to buy them as soon as possible, so they wouldn't keep eating up his food.

"I'll be back as soon as I can!" Xian He gazed at the Iron Cage covered by a tarp, his eyes full of determination.

Come to think of it, he really couldn't understand why every time he took a fancy to a woman, someone else showed up to snatch her away.

It was so frustrating!

After leaving the slave market, Xian He found a secluded spot and sent all four of them into the Mountain River Society Diagram before following them inside.

"Muyang, where are we?"

"I dunno, Ziyan. Everything went blurry, and then we ended up here. By the way, the air smells so sweet! It's lovely!"

"Grandma, I'm scared!"

"I'm scared too. I've lived my whole life and never encountered anything like this."

The four of them huddled together, standing back-to-back as they anxiously watched their surroundings.

A beautiful, mysterious mansion stood quietly in the distance, making them both curious and afraid.

"Whoosh!"

Xian He appeared out of thin air.

"Don't be nervous. I brought you here from the Tianyun Plateau." Xian He explained, then pointed across the river at a courtyard with blue bricks and green tiles. With pride, he introduced it: "See that? That's your new home from now on."

He hadn't seen Yun Ling for several hours, and he'd really missed her.

"Yun Ling, sweetheart—your husband's home!" Xian He cupped his hands around his mouth and excitedly shouted across the river.

Two hours in the Real World was equivalent to a month in the Inner World.

He wondered how Yun Ling had managed these past few months. It must have been exhausting.

Xian He called out several times before Yun Ling finally emerged from the doorway, her round little belly making her move slowly.

Taking a closer look, he saw that she hadn't lost weight while he was away. If anything, she'd gotten plumper.

Her little face was round and chubby, like a pair of steamed buns.

Xian He bounded over and excitedly threw his arms around Yun Ling.