Carrying Wine and Singing Long Songs

Chapter Twelve: Pretending to Be Young Is an Old Rogue's Specialty

The materials he had uncovered were all things that should never have been in short supply. Their most common use was as ingredients for pills that Demonic Cultivators took to improve their cultivation. What was more, the Imperial Advisor of Shangxuan Kingdom had even used the name of their Azure Nether Sword Sect as a banner to rally behind. Just then, Bai Qiuran caught the sound of a conversation from a table downstairs.

Another constable grumbled, "If we want families willing to lend us their children, we'll have to go to remote places and find poor families. Give them a little silver, and they'll lend them to us... But that's such a hassle. Sigh, are there any little boys or girls wandering the streets, with no parents and nobody who wants them?"

Unlike orthodox cultivators, who stressed laying a solid foundation and advancing one step at a time, Demonic Cultivators valued freedom, boldness, and rapid progress. They treated all things under heaven as their own to use, so their techniques were more extreme in every regard—and alchemy was no exception.

A Blood Sacrifice of this kind required slaughtering at least an entire village to complete. That was why, among the Demonic Sect's sects, the Blood God Sect was the most reviled by the righteous path. Depending on their conduct, other Demonic Cultivators might not draw the righteous path's attacks, but every accomplished member of the Blood God Sect had at least several thousand innocent lives on his hands. Thus, the great sects of the Righteous Path Alliance and the Blood God Sect were locked in a fight to the death. Once the sect's members were discovered, the righteous would show no mercy.

Bai Qiuran knew full well how unusual his situation was. For three thousand years, he had tried every method imaginable to establish his Foundation. He had studied fragments of immortal texts left behind in the caves of Immortals, ancient scrolls discovered in the ruins of Cultivator sects that had survived from before the Dacang Calendar, and even the techniques of the Demonic Cultivators, the sworn enemies of the Righteous Path Alliance.

The sight reminded Bai Qiuran of his younger self. Before meeting Daoist Qingming, he had wandered near battlefields, stripping the dead of their clothes and belongings to sell.

But after searching high and low, Bai Qiuran found nothing strange in the city. He had paid particular attention to Shangxuan Kingdom's imperial palace, but neither the emperor nor the Crown Prince, nor the Imperial Advisor or First-Rank Imperial Retainer Sima Yingbo, had shown anything unusual.

During that time, Bai Qiuran also saw Tang Ruowei return to the imperial palace. She was in the inner quarters, likely inside her own chambers. When he spotted her, the Princess—who had little regard for Cultivators—had changed into women's clothes and looked quite charming. But she was standing before a tall bronze mirror, vigorously stuffing something into her bodice until it bulged.

For now, the imperial palace seemed to offer no clues. He would have to find another lead.

"Sigh, how could we ministers know what His Majesty and the Imperial Advisor are thinking?" It seemed Demonic Cultivators really had visited Shangxuan Kingdom. Given Tang Ruowei's attitude toward Cultivators and the rumors Bai Qiuran had heard in various places—that the emperor had become obsessed with the Imperial Advisor's magical arts—he had no choice but to focus his suspicions on the Imperial Advisor.

The moment he caught the two sensitive phrases "boys and girls" and "Heaven Worship Ceremony," Bai Qiuran immediately released his Spiritual Sense and concentrated on the source of the voices.

The middle-aged constable who had spoken first quickly warned him, "This is the capital of Shangxuan Kingdom. If there are even orphans wandering around the capital, wouldn't that be a disgrace to His Majesty? Careful, or you'll lose your head!"

"Keep your voice down!"

"The problem is, with things as they are, not many families in the city are willing to lend out their children to follow His Majesty to the ritual grounds for the Heaven Worship Ceremony."

"Hm?"

The speakers were two middle-aged men at a table downstairs. Judging by their clothes, they seemed to be mid-ranking constables in Shangxuan Kingdom.

The other constable hurriedly raised his wine cup.

Lost in thought, Bai Qiuran arrived at a high-end restaurant in the capital. He tossed out several dozen taels of silver, found a window-side private room on the top floor, and began listening to the patrons with his superhuman hearing. At the same time, he spread out his Spiritual Sense, sweeping across the entire capital of Shangxuan Kingdom.

On occasion, luck would be on his side, and he would find some unfinished dry rations on the bodies of soldiers. Then he would stuff the food into his bodice until it bulged.

The materials commonly used by Demonic Cultivators produced medicines with powerful effects, but they also brought severe side effects. Aside from the freak Bai Qiuran, even Demonic Cultivators—whose bodies could generally take more punishment than orthodox cultivators—couldn't withstand them. So when the time came, they used their demonic techniques to help their bodies digest the medicine.

"Come on, come on. Drink up!"

After scanning the area with his Spiritual Sense and making sure no one was around, Bai Qiuran's body suddenly crackled like popping beans. He shrank, his features gradually changed, and his white hair and beard turned black. In the end, Bai Qiuran vanished, replaced by a little boy with black hair, a youthful face, and an adorable appearance.

But since ordinary cultivators also had uses for those materials, Bai Qiuran had tested things further. Besides those ingredients, he had added the remaining ingredients for a pill formula commonly used by Demonic Cultivators—and those were out of stock in the shop too.

"Interesting. Very interesting."

After leaving the materials shop, Bai Qiuran looked up at the sun and murmured to himself.

For instance, the major Demonic Cultivator sects each had their own way of handling the effects when they could no longer bear the medicine's potency. Hehuan Sect members would go out to drain others; Yin Ling Sect members would head to mass graves or battlefields to absorb lingering souls; Heavenly Demon Sect members would seize the earth's spiritual energy from a sacred site. And the most extreme of them all, the Blood God Sect, chose to kill people for Blood Sacrifices.

Seeing the two men clink cups and begin discussing other matters of romance, Bai Qiuran withdrew his Spiritual Sense and rubbed his chin.

Could Shangxuan Kingdom really be so poor? That couldn't be right...

"Ah, this Heaven Worship Ceremony is such a hassle. The ceremonies in the past were all royal family affairs. Why are we suddenly being told to encourage families to send their boys and girls along to the Heaven Worship Ceremony?"

He laughed at himself for entertaining such an impossible idea and withdrew his Spiritual Sense, paying the imperial palace no further attention.

A moment later, he smiled, polished off the dishes and wine on the table in no time, left some silver behind, and walked out of the restaurant. Then he headed to a nearby deserted corner.

"Maybe they want to borrow the children's fortune to turn the country's fortunes around. I expect they'll just have the little ones stand around and make the place look lively. Things really haven't been going well in the country lately."

But he couldn't figure out what Tang Ruowei was stuffing into her bodice.