My Golden Finger Had Finally Arrived?

For three or five days straight, Xiang Yuan was so immersed in cultivation that he couldn't tear himself away.

Whenever Old Liu came looking for him, he claimed he'd been poisoned and needed to recuperate.

Every day, he practiced saber techniques for two hours, incorporating his imitation of Liu Jingsheng into the Five Tigers Severing Gate Saber. He spent the rest of his time circulating his energy to practice the Formless Seal Method. His progress was astonishingly fast; he nearly opened one acupoint a day.

In a few more days, once his Ren Meridian was fully opened and his Qi Refining reached Great Accomplishment, he could smoothly step into the Acupoint Opening Stage.

To be safe, he needed to get a pill before breaking through, ensuring he succeeded in one attempt.

The world's Vital Energy was deficient, the world incomplete, and cultivators likewise incomplete. Pills that supplemented what was lacking were essential.

The Formless Seal Method could turn decay into wonder. Xiang Yuan had only just begun practicing it, yet it was as if he had divine help. The reason he opened his Ren Meridian as easily as eating and drinking was entirely due to this technique's special properties.

It washed his marrow and reshaped his bones, reversing his meridians and altering his acupoints.

On top of that, the strengthening of his primordial spirit through Candle Yin Casting God had also played a vital role. It made up for Xiang Yuan's lack of spiritual strength, allowing him to match his current body.

He felt terrifyingly strong!

That was what happened when someone suddenly obtained a divine technique. Go out and take a beating, and once you calmed down, you'd be fine.

What brought Xiang Yuan back to his senses wasn't a beating, but a headache. His head pains had grown worse over the past few days. He vaguely felt that his primordial spirit was slipping out of his control, as if it were about to split into three.

It wasn't impossible for a primordial spirit to split. There were relevant examples among the fragmented memories of Lingguang, but it was a feat only those with great divine powers could control. He had never heard of a junior at the Qi Refining Stage splitting their primordial spirit in three.

At its root, the headache had been caused by his transmigration. Xiang Yuan had asked Old Daoist Quexin about it, and the latter had called it a great blessing and a good thing.

Unable to suppress the hidden danger behind the headache, Xiang Yuan could only trust Old Daoist Quexin and let his primordial spirit run wild, like an untethered horse galloping off in three directions.

It wasn't a complete cure, but at least it didn't hurt as much.

Besides, his primordial spirit hadn't split in three as he'd expected. It was more like three tentacles, each reaching out in a different direction.

He couldn't say what other people's primordial spirits looked like, but Xiang Yuan's looked like a car logo.

After his primordial spirit mutated, Xiang Yuan's consciousness also ranged across three places. He was only at the Qi Refining Stage; how much mental energy could he have, even with a divine technique? He grew drowsy and lethargic, so he activated the method of Candle Yin Casting God to strengthen his primordial spirit.

As he practiced, he really felt as if he'd split into three. All three tentacles were cultivating, and he'd also gained the ability to switch between them at will.

"Not a split. It's more like doing three things at once. Is this an illness, or..."

Has my Golden Finger finally arrived?

Xiang Yuan marveled at the wonder of it. He silently thought, Senior Master, help me, then opened a search engine and once again confirmed that he was one of a kind.

Of course, perhaps it wasn't unique. The river of memories belonging to Spiritual Light Old Devil was incomplete, and this part might simply have been lost.

But whatever the case, this was the only way Xiang Yuan could deal with his headaches.

He tried switching between his primordial spirits. Each time the three tentacles changed which one was dominant, he changed along with them. After trying several times, he summed up what he'd learned and gave them names: Steady, Cold Blood, and Doubi.

Steady was the version of him who'd transmigrated: low-key, cautious, and as ordinary as a passerby. Cold Blood was overbearing, with a heart as cold as iron, unmoved by external things. Doubi...

There wasn't much to say about that one. At first glance, it was just like Old Daoist Quexin in Lingguang's memories. Look closer, and it shared interests and plenty of common ground with Xiao He, who had painted so many murals.

Although all three were his true self, Doubi's style was just too cringe-inducing. It was nowhere near as heroic and handsome as Cold Blood.

Looking handsome was a lifelong matter!

The more Xiang Yuan thought about it, the more he disliked Doubi. He figured that the day his divine technique reached Great Accomplishment would be the day the Doubi thing left home for good.

He had to cut it out. He absolutely had to.

But not now. He didn't have the ability. Candle Yin Casting God was making his primordial spirit grow stronger by the day, and the car logo was growing more solid. The car doors had been welded shut; he couldn't get out.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

"Xiang Yuan, are you better yet?" Old Liu pushed open the door and came in, his tone thoroughly displeased.

First, Xiang Yuan had taken paid leave under the pretext of being poisoned. Old Liu had been running around handling everything without so much as an assistant. Second, after losing their bet, Xiang Yuan no longer had to repay the money he owed him for the meal.

Why had it rained out of nowhere?

Old Liu couldn't figure it out. For someone as thrifty as him, losing the cost of a meal was worse than being killed. It had been days, and he still couldn't stop thinking about it.

"I'm more or less better."

Xiang Yuan jumped off the bed and sighed. The yamen had too many people coming and going, and he was constantly interrupted. It wasn't a good place to cultivate.

There were alternatives. He could be like Old Liu, with a family and a home, and never stay overnight at the yamen. Or he could rent a quiet room at a martial arts school and have all three meals provided without even needing to step outside.

But all those options had one prerequisite.

He needed money.

Literary pursuits were for the poor, martial pursuits for the rich. Practicing martial arts took a fortune to spend. Famous teachers, pills, manuals, and the right environment were all indispensable, and all of them cost money.

Youngsters like Xiang Yuan either had it good and joined the Six Doors, where their resources couldn't compare to those of the great sects and Noble Families but were still adequate, or had it bad and ended up at a local yamen. The treatment looked decent, but in reality, they had nothing. The resources allocated to martial artists were extremely limited.

It made sense. The great sects and Noble Families had taken all the money, and the imperial court was short on funds too. The promising dogs received more resources; the average ones got a little food. As long as they didn't starve to death, that was enough.

"If you're better, come out with me and take a walk. You're cooped up all day. I never see hide nor hair of you."

Hearing the displeasure in Old Liu's words, Xiang Yuan didn't dare refuse. He strapped on his saber and followed him out of the county yamen to begin his daily patrol.

On the way, Xiang Yuan asked about the case. Old Liu told him everything he'd learned from Liu Jingsheng.

The zombie man had been caught and given a luxurious single cell at the Six Doors. He was currently undergoing an intensive memory-recovery treatment, but after several rounds, he still stubbornly refused to confess.

Since Liu Jingsheng had captured the zombie man, the Six Doors had been spared the humiliation of taking the blame for him. That was a great achievement, and when the rewards were handed out, all the constables on duty that night would receive a cash bonus.

That was the imperial court's reward. The yamen had another reward of its own.

For example, Xiang Yuan had killed a vicious criminal from the Five Poisons Cult, so the imperial court would reward him with a pill to recognize his bravery and loyalty. He'd also rescued his colleagues from the poisonous miasma, saving the Fengxian Office two sets of funeral and compensation expenses. No matter what, they had to show their appreciation.

"Old Liu, how much money will we get?" Xiang Yuan's eyes lit up.

"Fifty taels, I'd say. This was a major case, so it'll probably be about that much." Old Liu was grinning.

Xiang Yuan lacked common knowledge and had no clear idea of what things cost these days. He asked, "Would fifty taels be enough to buy a pill for breaking into the Acupoint Opening Stage?"

"Enough, but only for a mid-grade one. White Cloud Manor has them."

"Mid-grade... That'll do. It's still better than a low-grade pill."

"No, there aren't any low-grade pills. What you call mid-grade is the low-grade pill."

Old Liu gestured with his hands. "When you go to White Cloud Manor, they'll tell you that this is mid-grade, this is high-grade, and this is top-grade."

He'd transmigrated, yet somehow it felt like he hadn't.

Xiang Yuan fell silent for a moment, then asked Old Liu to skip this upsetting topic and continue talking about the case.

In a sense, Xiang Yuan had inherited Lingguang's legacy and wasn't short on money. He just didn't have the means to access it yet.

It was all buried in the Southern Border!

"Remember that Scarface we met at the Lesser Morality Temple? They caught quite a few people this time, but he was the only one who got away. I suspected something was up, so I reported it to Captain Liu. There's an eighty percent chance he's from the Five Poisons Cult. The Six Doors has already issued a wanted notice."

"They seized a huge amount of stolen goods, including a weapon from Forget Sword Manor and pills from White Cloud Manor. Both manors regularly do business in the martial world and take money to do jobs, no matter who the client is. The Six Doors can't do much, even after investigating shops belonging to the two manors..."

"In my years of handling cases, I've learned that this case is just the tip of the iceberg. We only stumbled across it by chance. There's a mess underneath!"

"Old Liu, will the Six Doors keep investigating?"

"Hard to say. The Six Doors isn't clean either. Those two manors are definitely involved in dirty work, and Scarface got away. Nine times out of ten, that'll be the end of it."

Old Liu shook his head again and again, then summed up, "They caught the zombie-faced man and seized a huge amount of stolen goods. They've got something to report to their superiors, and everyone's satisfied. It wouldn't be good to investigate further."