In Jinglong District, Li Beichen finished a day of cultivation and returned home.
To his surprise, Wang Er was waiting for him at the gate.
"Brother Wang Er, why don't you come in?"
"Brother Beichen, I just got here too."
The dark-skinned butcher was now wearing the long robe fashionable among city folk. He took an invitation from his robes and personally handed it to Li Beichen.
"Tomorrow is my boy's one-month celebration. You have to come, Brother Beichen."
"Of course!"
Li Beichen readily agreed.
"Come on, Brother Wang Er. Let's go inside and have a drink."
"No, there's too much to do at home. I still have to get everything ready for tomorrow."
Wang Er cupped his hands and bid Li Beichen farewell. As Li Beichen watched, he disappeared around the street corner.
Li Beichen sighed ruefully. The days of cultivation flowed away like water.
In the blink of an eye, Wang Er's son was already a month old.
He went inside and prepared a generous gift.
Then he sent a maid out to buy some toys and clothes for the baby.
He could bring them along tomorrow.
Market Ward was bustling with activity in Wang Er's courtyard.
Li Beichen was a lone man with no family ties to weigh him down.
But Wang Er had plenty of relatives and acquaintances.
Most of them were from Clear Creek Village.
Now that Wang Er had prospered alongside Li Beichen, he hadn't forgotten his poor relatives back in the village.
He still kept up those ties.
When they heard that Li Beichen had arrived,
Wang Er immediately got up and came out with Sister-in-law Wang, carrying their son in their arms to welcome him.
"Brother Beichen!"
"Brother Wang Er, Sister-in-law Wang."
"This is my nephew. Look how sturdy he is! He's got the makings of a martial artist!"
Li Beichen's praise made the couple beam with delight. They hurriedly ushered him to the main table.
The others looked at him with admiration, too.
In Clear Creek Village, Li Beichen's story had become a household legend.
In less than a year, he had gone from a refugee fleeing disaster to a great martial master.
They all lamented that it had been Wang Er, not them, who had met Li Beichen back then.
Otherwise, they would be the ones living in Ram City now.
The birthday banquet began.
Most of the guests knew one another.
The atmosphere was lively.
After a few cups of strong liquor, everyone loosened their tongues.
At the table beside Li Beichen sat villagers from Clear Creek Village.
Among them was Zhao Si, the hunter who had once taken Li Beichen up the mountain to hunt.
He was puffing on a dry pipe and telling them about his recent experience on Small Gravel Mountain.
"I'm telling you, I barely escaped with my life."
"A fearsome Black Wolf has appeared on Small Gravel Mountain, roaming the deep forest with dozens of wolves."
"That day, I wasn't paying attention and went too deep into the woods. Then I heard howling all around me."
"I scrambled up a tree and saw a pack of wolves following a Black Wolf through the forest."
"Yellow Sheep, deer herds—none of them could escape. The Black Wolf didn't even have to lift a paw. One of the wolves, a One-Eyed Wolf, could handle the entire hunt."
"Then the Black Wolf would wait and feast."
Hearing this, Li Beichen remembered the wolf leader on Small Gravel Mountain whose eye he had smashed with a Locust Stone.
He turned and asked,
"Uncle Zhao, you said that Black Wolf had a One-Eyed Wolf following it. What did it look like?"
When Zhao Si saw that Li Beichen had asked him a question, he quickly put out his pipe.
"Master Li, you honor me too much. Just call me Zhao Si."
He spent much of his time in the mountains and occasionally ran into martial artists who ventured from Small Gravel Mountain into the Lingnan Mountains.
He knew just how great the difference was between these martial artists and ordinary people like him.
They were people he couldn't afford to offend.
Even though he knew Li Beichen, he wouldn't dare show him the slightest disrespect.
"Don't be nervous, Uncle Zhao. I'm just asking. I still owe you for teaching me some hunting techniques back then. They helped me save up enough silver to join a martial arts school so quickly."
Li Beichen's warm manner put Zhao Si at ease.
He began to describe the One-Eyed Wolf in detail.
After hearing a few words, Li Beichen knew it was the same wolf he had injured back then.
It was identical.
"That One-Eyed Wolf probably isn't an Exotic Beast, or Hu San couldn't have held out for so long."
"But even if it isn't an Exotic Beast, its physique is still unlike that of an ordinary jackal or wolf."
"For a beast that fierce to follow it, that Black Wolf is very likely an Exotic Beast."
As his thoughts turned, Li Beichen concluded that the Black Wolf was most likely a Ninth Grade Exotic Beast.
Small Gravel Mountain couldn't sustain an Eighth Rank Exotic Beast.
A carnivorous Exotic Beast like that would consume too much meat each day if it had no other Exotic Beasts to prey on.
Only the Lingnan Mountains could support one.
By then, Zhao Si had finished speaking. He rested his hands on his knees and waited for Li Beichen to respond.
"I understand. Thank you, Uncle Zhao."
"With such a fierce beast in the mountains, you and the other hunters from the village should avoid going deep into Small Gravel Mountain."
"Will do."
At the same time, Meng Juxiang had returned from the depths of the Lingnan Mountains.
He wrote a secret letter and sent it back to the Giant Elephant Sect through a covert channel.
After finishing, he gazed toward the Lingnan Mountains and murmured,
"A Third-Grade martial artist may have fallen to an Exotic Beast in the Lingnan Mountains. I hope this trouble doesn't spread to Ram City..."
Like him, the Sixth Grade heads of the martial arts schools—Thunderbolt, Cloud Crane, and the Wang Clan—were also concerned.
After leaving Wang Er's home, Li Beichen went straight to the blacksmith's shop.
He had paid a hundred taels of silver for the blacksmiths to make fifty identical shuriken out of refined iron, matching the small sword's size exactly.
They should be nearly finished today.
When he arrived at the shop, the order was indeed ready.
He hefted one. It was certainly made of refined iron.
But its feel was inferior to the small sword included with the Shuriken manual he had bought.
"Why don't these swords feel as good as the sample?"
"Sir, we only discovered it after heating the sword you brought us. Half of it was mixed with something else, most likely Meteorite Iron."
"One tael of Meteorite Iron costs ten taels of gold. It's far too rare a material for our little shop to stock."
Li Beichen raised an eyebrow. The ten small swords together weighed a full five jin.
If half of them really were made with Meteorite Iron, the raw material alone would be worth two hundred and fifty taels of gold.
That was two thousand five hundred taels of silver.
Yet he had paid only three hundred taels.
He hadn't expected to find such a bargain at the Black Market.
"All right. Pack up the other swords for me. I'll take them today."
"Certainly, sir."
Li Beichen carried the dozens of pounds of small swords as easily as if he were holding two scallions.
They weighed him down not at all.
He returned to Jinglong District with a light step.
Of the small swords that came with the Shuriken manual, Li Beichen carefully stored nine away and carried them with him in his Sword Pouch.
He kept one to practice with.
Though the Meteorite Iron swords and refined iron swords were identical in size and shape, they felt different in his hands.
He needed to get used to both kinds in practice.
Only then could he wield them to their full potential.
There were nine Meteorite Iron shuriken and nine refined iron shuriken in the Sword Pouch.
Against ordinary Eighth- or Ninth-Rank martial artists, Li Beichen only needed to use the refined iron shuriken.
He would use the Meteorite Iron shuriken only against Seventh-Grade skin-tempering martial artists.
In the cellar, Li Beichen took down a strip of dried Black-White Strange Pig meat.
He weighed what was left. There were probably only five or six jin, enough for just a few more days.
He still had plenty of Ninth Grade Exotic Beast meat that he had bought at the Black Market last time.
It was being kept frozen in ice made from saltpeter.
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