When There's Trouble, Go to the Shop

That really is a human tragedy, Chen Xuan thought to himself. No wonder she was so emotional during the argument earlier.

It was true that catastrophes could turn people into things far more terrifying than monsters... but after all, they had been human beings not long ago. If Liu Shuyue were forced to draw her sword against them, slaughtering thousands or tens of thousands, it was truly hard to say what would happen to her state of mind.

To ensure his client's psychological well-being, it was necessary for him to lend a hand.

"I see. I have a second question... can you take me to see the gathering place of these refugees?"

Liu Shuyue hesitated for a moment. "I suppose I can, but..."

"The more detailed my understanding of the situation, the greater the effect the Ability Transaction can produce."

"I understand..." She had no choice but to agree. "I'll go get a carriage ready for you."

Half an hour later, the two of them arrived outside the city.

This was Chen Xuan's first comprehensive look at Liu Shuyue's world. Zhangwei City was undoubtedly a large city; going from the prefectural yamen to the outskirts required passing through two city walls, and the ground was not muddy dirt roads, but uniform flagstones. Shops lined both sides of the street one after another, hawking cries rose and fell in succession, and pedestrians, porters, and pack mules were endless. If he had to use one word to describe it, that word would be bustling, and the sight of the road made him involuntarily think of the painting Along the River During the Qingming Festival.

Yet Along the River During the Qingming Festival depicted Bianjing, the capital of the Northern Song, while Zhangwei City was not the royal capital of Great Qi. This showed that although the sects remained aloof from the secular world, various magical arts and cultivation methods still exerted a profound influence on this place.

Once outside the city gates, the scenery was different.

Patrolling guards could be seen everywhere along the official road, and whenever refugees drew near, they were driven away and beaten by them. On the muddy ground four or five hundred meters from the city wall, numerous tents had been erected, looking from a distance like crowded hills. Countless human figures shifted among the tents, and the din of noisy quarrels, curses, and wails could be heard from far away.

"That's the gathering place of the refugees," Liu Shuyue said. "Two days ago there were only a little over three thousand people, but now it's approaching seven thousand. Yet this is far from the limit. Zhangwei City is located at the northern bottleneck, flanked by the Nine-Bend River and swamps, so the vast majority of disaster-stricken refugees converge here."

Chen Xuan wanted to get closer to take a look, but she pulled him back.

"Are you really going over there?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?"

...Then stay behind me. Liu Shuyue finished speaking, bypassed him, and then drew the longsword from her back.

Seeing outsiders approach, the shifting heads clustered closer, staring fixedly at the two of them with burning gazes. For a fraction of a second, Chen Xuan had the illusion that they were not refugees, but wolves with drooling mouths. Yet the ferocious gleam and restlessness in these people's eyes were checked by the dark-steel blade in Liu Shuyue's hand; their feet shuffled for a long while, but in the end, none dared to cross within five paces.

"These people don't represent all the refugees..." The young woman softly defended them. "They've been starving for too long."

"Milord... give us a bite to eat!"

"Two officials, can you take in my child? Just a few flatbreads will do, I beg of you!"

"When on earth can we enter the city?"

"That's right, my relatives are in Cheng Prefecture, why won't you let us pass!?"

Compared to those who wanted to rush forward and grab things directly, there were far more people pleading and questioning. Their voices merged into one continuous wall of sound, making it almost impossible to tell who was speaking.

Suddenly, a heart-rending scream drowned out the general clamor.

Liu Shuyue's brow tightened, and she immediately turned to walk toward a tent. The people around her did not dare to block her path, hastily making way.

The place the sound came from was only ten-odd meters away from them. A middle-aged man lay dead in a pool of blood with a short knife stuck in his waist, the wife kneeling and sitting beside him was as pale as paper, and several other young people were flurriedly squeezing into the crowd.

Liu Shuyue shouted, "Stop right there!"

In an instant, everyone froze in place, unable to move.

This time Chen Xuan found that he was not included. He followed Liu Shuyue forward and discovered that those few people were clutching a cloth bag tightly in their hands.

She snatched the cloth bag away and opened it to find a few strings of copper coins and a small amount of fragmented silver inside.

"Let me go! That's mine!" the ringleader of the robbers shouted with a ferocious expression.

"Please spare me, I know I was wrong!" his accomplice chimed in, frightened into kowtowing and begging for mercy.

Liu Shuyue had no desire to look at them anymore; she directly summoned the guards and briefly recounted the incident. The guards pulled out ropes, immediately bound the people, and dragged them back into the city after a flurry of fists and kicks. Only then did she return to the tent with the money pouch, intending to return the plundered silver and cash to the woman.

Yet when the two of them returned to the tent, they saw the woman resting quietly atop the man, her breathing already stopped. Her hands grasped that short knife, the blade reversed and driven straight into her chest.

"Without her man, she can't go on living."

"That's right, the money is useless to her anyway... Might as well split it among us! At least we can go buy a few flatbreads!"

The people around chattered all at once.

Liu Shuyue glanced toward Chen Xuan, seemingly wanting to say something, but she delayed speaking for a long time.

It was Chen Xuan who took the money pouch. "I've seen enough, let's go back."

Seated inside the jolting carriage, Liu Shuyue could not help speaking up. "If there were sufficient grain, those people wouldn't have been driven to this..."

Watching her flickering gaze, Chen Xuan suddenly understood her initial hesitation, as well as why she had repeatedly defended the refugees. It was not today that she had first learned of the situation in the camp; what she feared was that, after witnessing the ugly states of these people, she would view them as hopeless thugs and become unwilling to provide any more help.

"Isn't Shen Fang distributing relief grain? Why hasn't the refugees' situation improved in the slightest?"

Chen Xuan had seen a temporary wooden platform erected in front of the tent area, with several large cauldrons set up on it. That should have been the porridge and grain distribution point arranged by the Prefect.

"The quantity is far too small... They're still distributing portions based on the previous three thousand people, and moreover, they only supply a single bowl of thin porridge per person each day. But the refugees gathering here over the past few days are rapidly increasing, and this little bit of porridge simply isn't enough." Liu Shuyue said helplessly, "I've already brought this matter up with Shen Fang, and he also promised to increase the alms-giving volume as soon as possible, it's just that..."

It was just that plans could never keep up with changes.

Chen Xuan knew what she wanted to say: by the time the relief porridge was increased to accommodate the share of seven thousand people, the refugees arriving here would probably have already broken past ten thousand.

"Since they begrudge giving porridge, why not simply let them march north? Allowing these refugees to pass through Zhangwei City in batches would still be better than concentrating all the pressure outside the city gates."

"Perhaps to the Prefect, that also counts as a dereliction of duty—without travel permits, if he lets the people of Qingzhou wander about everywhere, black marks will appear on his official record, which might affect his official career in the future." Liu Shuyue looked quite indignant. "Yet even so, he is still the Prefect of Zhangwei, a revered Prefect, already far more well-off than the vast majority of people. Even for such a tiny cost, he's unwilling to pay it."

Back at the shop, the young woman asked impatiently, "You've seen the situation. When can we trade for abilities?"

Chen Xuan motioned for the other party to calm down and not be impetuous.

Could the famine problem be solved?

Of course it could.

However, the method to solve it did not rely primarily on abilities... but rather on money.

Yet he could not tell the other party so bluntly.

After all, what he ran was an Ability Store.

Pondering for a moment, Chen Xuan picked up the scanner gun and aimed it at Liu Shuyue.

"Reporting to the Prefect, the Immortal Master just took that man to the west side outside the city." His subordinate faithfully reported this news to Shen Fang.

"What is she taking her paramour to a place like that for?" County Lieutenant Tang at the side asked in considerable surprise. He had also been inside Wei Wu Hall just now, and had seen with his own eyes the Immortal Master leading a young man away to her temporary quarters. Although the guards claimed the two had not returned to the room and had disappeared without a trace halfway there, this shocking discovery immediately made everyone's attitude toward the Immortal Master do a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.

One had to know that usually she spoke with a coldness that kept people at a distance, making no one dare approach within three paces.

"Those servants have loose tongues, you didn't take them seriously, did you?" Shen Fang smiled and shook his head. "If there were still such suspicions about him before, now I can be certain this person is not a paramour."

"Then who could he be?" The County Lieutenant recalled the strange attire the man had worn when he appeared; by no means could he be a local. "Could it be he also came out from a sect?"

"It's said the Lotus Cloud Sect only dispatches a single disciple to the various states once every hundred years, so that possibility isn't high." Shen Fang dismissed this conjecture. "But I can be certain of one point: the Immortal Master probably doesn't want to let this matter rest. That person's status should be on par with hers, which is why she doesn't reject getting close to him. She has no way of settling this matter by herself, so she needs a helper."

"Someone capable of helping a sect disciple... must be an outsider of the unorthodox paths." County Lieutenant Tang wore a look of disgust.

In this world, it was not only the Lotus Cloud Sect that produced cultivators; the number of people who attempted to peek into the heavenly secrets was countless, but unfortunately most of them had embarked on evil paths and were unrecognized by the secular world.

Sometimes they were even targets jointly eliminated by Lotus Cloud disciples and the official government.

"Hard to say. When the time comes for reckoning, that'll be another crime." Reaching this point, Shen Fang sighed. "Still, it's a pity..."

"What is the Prefect pitying?"

"I pity Immortal Master Liu. One can tell she truly wants to help those disaster-stricken refugees."

County Lieutenant Tang looked to the left and right, then suddenly lowered his voice and asked, "Does His Majesty truly intend to discipline the Immortal Master?"

"It has already been five years... She still drifts outside the central government, and no one can set their mind at ease," Shen Fang said indifferently. This actually didn't count as much of a secret; as long as they paid attention to politics and were officials who understood how to divine the imperial will, they had more or less heard relevant rumors. Take the Yue Kingdom to the north, for instance: male Immortal Masters had all become honored guests by the queen's couch, and the immortal arts they offered were already capable of equipping an elite force; the rest of the kings were much the same, all trying their utmost to squeeze out the abilities of the immortal families, with Liu Shuyue being the sole exception.

He had heard from his teacher, the current Prime Minister, that His Majesty had more than once cursed the Immortal Master for not knowing what was good for her and failing to fulfill her duty of assisting the state. Coupled with some gossip from neighboring countries, the King of Qi probably wouldn't let things go unchecked any longer.

"So that's why the Prefect didn't agree to those proposals of hers?"

"At a time like this, not getting entangled in any relationship with her is the wise course of action; otherwise, if His Majesty places blame, both you and I will meet with disaster."

"Can saving the people also become a crime?" County Lieutenant Tang suddenly hesitated somewhat.

"You've served as County Lieutenant by my side for two years, and you still don't understand the logic in this?" Shen Fang gave a scoff of derision, while simultaneously feeling a sense of sorrow for others of his kind. "As long as they want to pick a fault, there is no fault they cannot find. Saving the people is a good thing, but once it goes against the imperial will, a good thing will also turn into a bad thing. When all is said and done, the Immortal Master remains a subject; as long as she is a subject, there is always a way to keep her in check. After all, royal orders cannot be disobeyed—these are all ironclad rules written on the Pact between Sects and Kings."

Saying this, he paused. "Speaking of which, do you know how those secret magical arts of the unorthodox paths came about?"

The County Lieutenant shook his head. "I ask the Prefect to enlighten me."

"Enlightenment is out of the question; I heard a rumor, just listen to it for what it's worth," Shen Fang said nonchalantly. "Some people say they are all derivatives of the Lotus Cloud Sect's immortal arts."

County Lieutenant Tang pondered the connection within this, and his eyes widened involuntarily.

The Prefect let out a long breath.

"Do you think now... whether saving the people is a crime matters anymore?"

To a king, sect disciples were treasures encountered once a century.

This was not a figure of speech, but a fact—their whole bodies were treasures, their hands and feet could be used as weapons, immortal arts could expand their own strength, and the offspring they produced were also smarter and healthier than ordinary people.

Assisting the state meant assisting the king.

Regarding this matter, the only thing he could do was to preserve himself and stay as far away from this whirlpool as possible.