The Lamps Went Out

When Li Fan arrived at Jiang's Firm, he saw a bunch of oxcarts blocking the entrance, obstructing three nearby streets. It turned out that several caravans had come together to pick up goods. Judging from the merchants' attire, they weren't just from Li Country; some even seemed to be from foreign tribes. The manager and staff of Jiang's were extremely busy, delivering the magical treasures and specialties from Ink Bamboo Mountain and counting and exchanging the money brought in by the other party. It was noisy and chaotic, much more troublesome than scanning a QR code.

However, it seems that with the trade routes to the Central Plains reopened and a large-scale logging operation of monsters in Lei Marsh, Jiang's Firm has overcome its temporary difficulties and begun to operate normally again.

As soon as Li Fan landed in the courtyard, the shopkeeper came over to greet him. After all, he was a powerful figure in Jiang's business, and the people in the shop naturally recognized him. "Master Li, please just tell me what you would like to purchase."

The old shopkeeper who came up to pay his respects was named Jiang Jian. He was quite old and couldn't travel far. He was now considered the one who stayed behind at the Ink Bamboo Mountain Trading Company. Having lived for so long, he could recognize a few magical treasures. Usually, he was the one who appraised the things brought by the rogue cultivators.

"Old shopkeeper, I have some Lei Marsh I picked up here... cough cough, old stuff I found. Please exchange it for some Divine Astral Coin. Also, I'd like to buy a mechanical flying boat, just a small boat for transportation. I wonder what the approximate price would be? A second-hand one is fine too."

Jiang Jian beamed with joy when she saw Li Fan bring so much wealth. "Master, you've come at just the right time. As you can see, the shop is almost empty. The goods you brought are all top-quality, so there's no worry about sales. The trading company will just buy them up now."

There's no need to worry about the flying boat; I know many skilled craftsmen, and ordering a good one for you is more than enough. However, I don't recommend exchanging the remaining amount for Divine Astral Coin now. The market is always flooded with inferior currency, and now there are even privately minted counterfeit coins."

"Counterfeit money?" Li Fan was taken aback.

Jiang Jian beckoned to him and led him into the inner room, placing two coins on the tea table. "Look," she said, "One was minted by the Sanyuan family, and the other by the Nangong Family."

Why is it the Nangong Family again? These people are so annoying...

Li Fan looked at it from left to right for a while, then asked, "... Is the one on the left fake?"

To the naked eye, it was hard to tell the difference. They were all gleaming bronze coins, nurtured by the Divine Astral Coin, so they wouldn't develop patina. They were also almost identical in size and weight, and the lettering showed no flaws. At most, some coins might have worn down over time, resulting in slight differences in age. However, Li Fan carefully examined them with his Divine Sense and could tell that the Divine Hardness attached to the coins on the right was more even and thick, while the Divine Hardness on the coins on the left was slightly thinner and unevenly distributed, barely protecting the coins. They couldn't really be considered inferior coins.

"That one is a new coin from Sanyuan. The other one is the one Nangong Family."

Wait, isn't the one on the right better?

Jiang Jian took out a brocade box from inside the room. Inside were two coins, but the one on the left was clearly different. It even shimmered for a moment when the box was opened and the light shone on it, its golden light dazzling, like a magical artifact, with a very beautiful luster. The one on the right, although it didn't have the same brilliance as the left, had its Divine Hardness evenly and thickly distributed, and its quality looked superior to the two on the table. The characters and patterns were clearer, and the material was more substantial, probably using more copper.

Jiang Jian laid out the four copper coins in order. "In the past, the Divine Astral Coin minted by the Three Palaces were naturally the best, but now the Three Palaces are also minting and issuing them indiscriminately. The molds have not been updated for a long time, and the princes and nobles will also privately mint inferior coins, which are mixed with the official molds and attached with Divine Hardness. Although they are all coins released by the Immortal Palace, their quality is actually the worst."

Back when the Nangong Family was planning a rebellion, Ink Bamboo Mountain helped the Immortal King create a replica mold to mint military funds. Look at the quality of this fake coin; it's even better than the Sanyuan ones. It's likely that the Nangong Family dug out the old mold and started minting again."

Li Fan was speechless. This counterfeit money was actually of slightly better quality than the official, inferior currency. Was this disrupting the market economy?

"The quality of the Divine Astral Coin flowing from the Central Plains has been declining over the years. The Three Realms' financial resources are clearly failing. The Nangong Family must have also noticed the large-scale minting of coins in the Central Plains and has been forced to mine and mint coins privately." Jiang Jian shook his head and sighed. "Originally, the Immortal Palace was minting coins indiscriminately, and the Divine Astral Coin had already depreciated significantly. It's just that Ink Bamboo Mountain is remote, so we didn't feel it for a while. Now that the Nangong Family has also started private minting, copper coins are flooding the market, and the prices of goods in Li Country have started to skyrocket."

The most typical example is the current price of silk. Previously, the lowest quality silk cost ten strings of cash per bolt, but now it has risen to fifty strings.

Holy crap... The Immortal Palace is flooding, and the Nangong Family is flooding too? I bet Twelve Countries are flooding... It's a flood! Holy crap...

Seeing Li Fan's unwell expression, Jiang Jian took out a small purse and a string of blood-red copper coins, saying, "Master, don't worry. We're all prepared. We'll prioritize making silk for you. If we can't get silk fabrics, we can exchange them for some Blood Coin."

Li Fan took it and looked at it. He recalled that Fuling had introduced it to him before. This Blood Coin was reddish-brown and slightly smaller than the Divine Astral Coin. It seemed to have been soaked in beast blood using a secret method. Li Fan could even smell a strange fishy smell when he sniffed it carefully.

"Blood Coin? Right, they were issued by the Divine Cult... But isn't the Divine Cult the enemy? And why don't they use the Spirit Coins minted by the Xuanmen?"

Jiang Jian said, "The Spirit Coins is of course the best, but the amount is too small, and it mostly circulates within the Xuanmen sect, so it is not used for transactions in the human world."

The Blood Coin of the Divine Cult are made using secret methods at their headquarters. Their authenticity can be detected using these methods. They are distributed to members as rewards for merit, and records are kept of who received how much. Unauthorized counterfeiting is punishable by death.

The countries west of Kunlun were all territories conquered by the religion, and many foreign merchants used this currency, which is now much more reliable than the Divine Astral Coin.

The influence of the Divine Cult has now penetrated deep into the Kun Country, and many merchants in the Li Country are also trading with the Divine Cult in secret. Smuggling is rampant in the northern Border Prefecture, and Blood Coin have already flowed into the Central Plains on a large scale.

Li Fan frowned. The shift in power between the Divine Astral Coin and the Blood Coin showed that the Divine Cult's influence was growing. Not only Jiang's Company, but also the major merchants who controlled resources probably saw that the Immortal Palace was going bankrupt and were gradually losing faith in the Divine Astral Coin. When the Three Palaces couldn't provide the funds and supplies to mobilize a large army, what kind of orthodoxy would they be? How would they deal with the aggressive Divine Cult?

However, Li Country is still within the sphere of influence of the Immortal Palace, and Blood Coin cannot circulate openly. At most, various merchants keep a small amount in reserve for emergencies. Ink Bamboo Mountain mainly uses barter, exchanging various magical treasures and materials based on the estimated value of silk. Now, the price of rice with Divine Astral Coin changes every day and is getting cheaper and cheaper... Oh, actually, there is one more item that can be bought with Divine Astral Coin.

A person, or rather, a slave.

"The market price for adult servants is 40,000 coins, and for underage children it's 20,000 coins. They are all selected for their strong and healthy bodies, free from illness or disease. If they are apprentices who can read and write, or pretty young girls, they can probably sell for more than 100,000 coins."

Just then, Jiang Ji was short-handed, so he bought a group of apprentices to work as helpers. Li Fan asked them about it. They all knew a few words and were bought to work as shop assistants. Each one cost about 50,000 coins, which is 50 strings of Divine Astral Coin.

In fact, there have been quite a few refugees coming from the north recently, and many of them are willing to sell themselves. If you're willing to give them a full meal, you can take them in. However, since we don't know their backgrounds, most merchants and families don't dare to hire them. So these refugees even have to line up at slave shops to sell themselves. Only if a slave shop vouches for them will someone buy them and give them a meal.

Oh, that wicked, cannibalistic feudal old society...

Li Fan certainly wouldn't actually buy a concubine; he would just ask about her when he saw her. But he also knew that human trafficking was a social reality of this era, and it not only couldn't be eradicated, but it even had a necessity to exist.

Because Ink Bamboo Mountain is actually located in the remote border region of South Border, beyond the Li River lies the towering mountains of Bamboo Mountain. Although there are many immortals here, apart from exiled prisoners, people from the Central Plains are unwilling to migrate here voluntarily. Therefore, Lou Guan, this 'landlord,' has always been purchasing people from various countries through the trade of servants to cultivate the land. The bustling towns near Lou Guan Tower today were also developed in this way. Even many of Ink Bamboo Mountain disciples, like Jiang Liuqing, were purchased as slaves.

Perhaps when war breaks out in the Central Plains, the South China Sea, Kunlun, and all directions, there will be no need to buy and sell people. Many refugees will be forced by the times to migrate to Ink Bamboo Mountain and open up new homes in the Ten-thousand-mountains to the south.

This might be an opportunity for Ink Bamboo Mountain, but it's hardly a blessing for the common people...

In short, Li Fan entrusted the sale of the garbage and the purchase of the flying boat to the manager of Jiang's shop, and then flew to Lou Guan Tower to confirm the identity of the fellow Qingting Peak.

This was also the first time he had ever seen the soul lamps of the disciples of Ink Bamboo Mountain. The place was quite easy to find; it was in a large courtyard resembling an ancestral hall behind the Lou Guandao Pagoda, where rows upon rows of Dao flames, all with blue cores and white flames, stretched as far as the eye could see.

Once you receive the Daoist certificate and talisman from Ink Bamboo Mountain Lou Guan Dao, you can have your name affixed to the bronze shelf inside, receive a celadon oil dish, and light a lamp on it—that's your soul lamp.

This soul lamp serves only to inform a disciple of their fate and to alert fellow disciples to come to their aid. If the lamp flickers or is about to go out, it indicates that the disciple is in grave danger. And when a person dies, the lamp goes out; if the disciple perishes, the soul lamp will naturally extinguish.

The one guarding the lamps here is a Golden Core cultivator. After all, the Soul Lamp isn't some particularly profound secret technique; it's just a reminder to the sect so that if your Soul Lamp is overturned, you won't be punished. If it's overturned, so be it; just relight it using the incantation.

Of course, if it wasn't officially registered under Lou Guan's name at all, then naturally no soul lamp would be specially made.

Li Fan gave the triangular yellow talisman to the judicial officer on duty at the lamp station, explained his purpose, and the officer wrapped the bone in the talisman, threw it into the brazier, and performed a ritual to examine it for a while. He found the true form of this fellow Daoist. He also brought Li Fan a copy of the Daoist certificate and the celadon lamp bowl used for lighting the soul lamp.

This person was Zhao Jingtai, the last leader of the Qingting Sect. Because the sect suffered too many losses in the battles against the Demon Race, the expansion of Ink Bamboo Mountain, and the fighting against the Black Lotus Sect, only he remained. Then, his soul lamp suddenly went out, and he disappeared without a trace. He had no disciples or family members, so the Qingting Sect Bamboo Mountain was cut off from its lineage. According to records, it has been more than two hundred years.

That makes sense. Qingting Sou mentioned that he was expelled from the Xuanmen sect two hundred years ago, but was later rescued by the mountain lord and temporarily resided on Qingting Peak. At that time, the Qingting Sect should have already disappeared, otherwise the mountain lord wouldn't have been in charge.

During that period, even Qingting Sou, a candidate disciple of the Nascent Soul Realm at the Nascent Shenxiao Sect stage, had his cultivation completely stripped and was banished to the mortal realm for the inexplicable reason of colluding with remnants of the Luo Sect. This was probably when the remnants of the Luo Sect and the Black Lotus Sect were causing the most trouble in Li Country. Ink Bamboo Mountain probably also thought that Zhao Jingtai was harmed by the remnants of the Black Lotus Sect.

After all, outsiders didn't know that the Qingting Sect had a secret cultivation chamber on the mountaintop. Zhao Jingtai was ambushed and killed inside, and the iron gate was sealed by the murderer with mountain rocks, so naturally there was no way to prove anything.

Li Fan frowned. They actually found someone, and it was the last generation of the Qingting Sect. They died out without any disciples or family members to carry on their legacy? The plight of rogue cultivators is truly pitiful...

He was Oldest One worried that the remains were from too ancient a time, lacking even a soul lamp. But they could be traced back to a specific name from two hundred years ago, and since the Qingting Sect had no disciples there, yet the murderer was able to enter the secret chamber, was he perhaps a close friend of Zhao Jingtai, a rogue cultivator? Or maybe, also a cultivator from Ink Bamboo Mountain?

Two hundred years is neither a long nor a short time for cultivators. On the bright side, the murderer may have died long ago; on the dark side, he may have already reached the Nascent Soul Realm. Moreover, it's possible that Liu Qing and the other members of the Southern Faction are acquainted with Zhao Jingtai.

But if the murderer is still alive, why hasn't he disposed of the murder weapon, the dagger, all these years? Could it be that the dagger has nothing to do with the murderer, and is just a smokescreen to frame someone? Or perhaps Zhao Jingtai simply committed suicide? And who sealed the door?

Regardless, Li Fan still took the identity certificate and remains of this fellow Daoist from Ink Bamboo Mountain to Lou Guan Tower to register them. One of the peaks in Bamboo Mountain was named Qingting Sect, and the disciples of this lineage must have made outstanding contributions to Ink Bamboo Mountain throughout the ages. At least the last sect leader would have an explanation. When a person dies, their light goes out, and they can be laid to rest in peace.

No sooner had he turned onto Lou Guan Tower and landed than he heard someone calling his name repeatedly, "Qingyue! Qingyue!" before he even entered the gate.

"Who?"

Li Fan subconsciously turned his head and suddenly saw a bald-headed monk in yellow robes with a large string of Buddhist beads around his neck striding towards him. The monk grinned, as if he were an old friend of Li Fan's, but there was an inexplicable eeriness to the smile.

Upon closer inspection, it was no monk at all, but merely a shell, with its mouth and eyes curved like crescent moons, as if it were smiling, but without a trace of flesh or blood inside.

Those weren't Buddhist prayer beads, but rather fleshy growths on the neck of this humanoid creature, piled together like beads. Each growth bore a smiling face, just <Honoring the Same>'s, all grinning at Li Fan.

Qingyue kept calling out "Qingyue"Qingyue repeatedly.

Li Fan's mood dropped a little.

Li Fan's mood dropped a little.

Li Fan's mood dropped a little.

There were twenty-eight sarcomas resembling prayer beads. Every time he shouted, the system would pop up an alarm, and all twenty-eight of them would say "decrease a little," filling Li Fan's field of vision.

Then Li Fan watched as the monk walked towards him with a smile, reaching out his fat hand to reach into his chest, as if he wanted to rip his heart out.

But the chubby hand didn't touch Li Fan; it was grasped by someone else.

Real Person Liang, with a blade of grass dangling from his mouth, frowned deeply, glaring at the fat man. "Fellow Daoist, how many battles have you fought? What characters are above and below you? Where is the direct bloodline of the Three Mountains?"

The bald-headed monk turned his large face towards Real Person Liang and smiled, while the fleshy growth on his neck suddenly shrieked, "Qingyue--!!"

Li Fan's mood dropped a little.

Then Li Fan found his hands moving. He reached into his robes, pulled out the stone box, and handed it to the other person. But just before he was about to hand it over, Li Fan's hands suddenly stopped.

"So that's what you came for, you bastard."

The bald-headed monk was stunned for a moment, then suddenly turned to look at Li Fan, twisting his neck violently, "Qingyue!"

"What the hell!" Li Fan opened his eyes as well.

A beam of red light swept out from between his eyebrows, cleaving his skin open along the midline like a laser.

"Eeya--!"

A sharp cry pierced the sky, startling crows into flight and causing all the cats and dogs in the town to bark.

The skin and yellow clothes fell to the ground, like a punctured balloon.

This scoundrel... causing trouble in broad daylight at the entrance of Lou Guan Tower, isn't that incredibly disrespectful!?

Real Person Liang, carrying half of the leather bag, turned to look at Li Fan, then took out a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to him.

"I'm fine..." Li Fan was stunned for a moment, then suddenly felt a stinging pain on his face. He took the handkerchief and wiped his face, only to find that the handkerchief was stained with blood!

In the short time it took to say those two sentences, blood had already been gushing from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, soaking the front of his Daoist robe!

Real Person Liang frowned, looking at the stone box in Li Fan's hand. "What is this thing that actually attracted a divine lord to send his soul to curse and kill you in broad daylight?"

Li Fan said coldly, "... It's nothing, just trash I picked up in the mountains."