A Little More Training

The next day, at noon.

Deep in the mountains outside town.

With a long saber hanging from his waist, Chen Guan came to the Dilapidated Temple and collected a bag of slime.

Then he headed deeper into the mountains.

On this trip,

Chen Guan planned to stick to his original plan: hone his combat skills in the wilderness and, while he was at it, encounter some demons whose cultivation might be higher than his own.

That way, if he worked hard in his next life and caught up to one of them, killing it might let him inherit its talents.

In fact, if not for the fact that gaining a talent through the Karma of Killing Tribulation required one's average attributes to exceed the opponent's,

Chen Guan would have been ready to leave a note in a letter, informing his grandson where to find Tiger Immortal.

He would even have tried to get his grandson to invite experts from the Immortal Sect to slay Tiger Immortal.

And since Tiger Immortal could command Chang Ghosts,

at the very least, he had to possess a Yin Attribute spiritual root.

Of course, this all depended on whether the Scroll would judge someone else killing his enemy to count as an "inheritance."

Chen Guan had never tested that.

But if one day his opponent's average attributes were lower than his own, he couldn't find the opponent, and someone else killed him, then he would find out.

Before that happened, though, Chen Guan didn't want to waste the other party's inheritance.

In a sense, it was his talent too.

Over the next two days,

Chen Guan did his best to avoid the mountain where Tiger Immortal lived and headed straight for a nearby mountain range.

He'd heard there was a Black Market there.

Many Knight-Errants and bandits who'd looted and destroyed households liked to take their stolen goods there to trade in private.

Some of the manuals Chen Guan usually had people collect had also been picked up there.

Though the wares at that sort of Black Market were mostly fake, with only three in ten being genuine,

since he was traveling, he might as well take a look.

Chen Guan had read plenty of manuals and considered himself fairly discerning. He wouldn't be easily cheated.

And along the way, he might run into Xiao Qing in the mountains and see if he could find her.

Of course, if he got unlucky and ran into Tiger Immortal again, he could always close his eyes and make a heart with his hands for him one more time.

The place Chen Guan was now was about nine hundred li from the Black Market.

The Black Market lay within Qing City's territory.

Compared with Little Liuzi Town near the border, it was a little more prosperous and had more experts.

Chen Guan was looking forward to it, though he was also being very cautious.

Another day passed.

Morning.

In the Zhao Family's reception hall in Little Liuzi Town.

"Shopkeeper Zhao, are you saying... Young Hero Chen still hasn't returned?"

Constable Yan held his teacup and looked at Patriarch Zhao, who sat beside him with a worried frown. He ventured to ask, "He's been gone for three days now. Do you know about when your son might return?"

"I don't know. I can't even make a guess."

Patriarch Zhao sighed at his son's sudden departure.

But he never mentioned the letter. Instead, he cupped his fists and said,

"Constable Yan, once my son returns, I'll have someone from the household notify you at once."

"Then..." Seeing that he wouldn't get anything out of him, Constable Yan set down his teacup, stood, and took his leave. "Sorry for the trouble, Shopkeeper Zhao."

As he spoke, he looked toward the entrance to the residence.

At that moment, two constables came in carrying a chest full of martial arts manuals.

Thump—

Once they'd set it down,

Constable Yan cupped his fists toward Patriarch Zhao. "These are manuals that Official Liu of the Martial Bureau had people transcribe overnight over the past few days. They're meant as an apology, and he asked me to deliver them on his behalf."

Even as he spoke, Constable Yan still didn't know what Official Liu had done to offend Young Hero Chen.

But a higher rank could crush a lower one, and he didn't know how he could refuse.

Besides, the County Magistrate was about to step down, and the yamen was bound to be swept up in unpredictable changes.

So it might not be a bad idea to build a good relationship with a superior ahead of time.

And in the end, Young Hero Chen hadn't killed Official Liu.

Constable Yan had also dealt with Chen Guan several times over the manuals and knew Young Hero Chen was a decent man.

So,

Constable Yan felt the matter probably wasn't too serious and thought he could deliver the gift on Liu's behalf.

However, after handing over the apology gift,

Constable Yan added, to make sure he was in the clear, "I don't know what happened between Young Hero Chen and Official Liu.

"But one is my superior, and these manuals seem to be things Young Hero Chen needs, so I took the liberty of delivering them on his behalf.

"I don't know whether they'll meet with Young Hero Chen's approval."

Constable Yan had become quite shrewd with age. His usual martial-world manner now carried a great deal more tact and social savvy.

He made it clear that he couldn't refuse Official Liu, while also pointing out that the manuals would benefit Young Hero Chen. Unless the matter was something serious, accepting them could only be a good thing.

"Thank you, Constable Yan." Patriarch Zhao knew what had happened, and he also knew his son had asked him to contact Official Liu.

Now, this gift could serve as a red thread from Yue Lao, binding the two sides together.

"Shopkeeper Zhao, there's no need to see me out..."

By evening,

many people had come to the Zhao Family bearing gifts over the past few days.

This time, Patriarch Zhao was seeing out his twenty-ninth visitor.

But just as Patriarch Zhao had escorted him out of the reception hall and was about to ask the steward to invite the next guest in,

tap—

A faint footstep sounded as if it were very far away, yet also very close.

By the time Patriarch Zhao came back to himself, a handsome man who looked about twenty had appeared before the reception hall.

He held a letter in his hand—the very one Chen Guan had left behind.

"You..." Seeing this uncanny scene, Patriarch Zhao first felt inside his breast pocket and realized that the letter Chen Guan had left was gone.

"I already know what happened."

The man's eyes flashed like lightning as he quickly scanned the letter.

His voice was calm, but his brows couldn't hide his disappointment.

"I'm Chen Changhong, the cultivator who... who had a connection with Hero Chen."

As he spoke, Chen Changhong ignored Patriarch Zhao's astonishment. "Mm... mm... Farewell, Senior Zhao..."

With that, Chen Changhong felt so awkward that he fled as if his life depended on it.

But in Patriarch Zhao's eyes, the man was a figure worthy of envy.

"Coming and going without a trace... Just as you'd expect of an immortal!"

Pitter-patter—

At the foot of a mountain, five hundred li away.

"There sure is a lot of rain in these mountains..."

Chen Guan sat at the entrance of a small cave, gazing out at the fine drizzle.

It had been raining all day.

There was no sign that it would stop anytime soon.

"If I had another twenty years of cultivation, I could ignore the rain and keep going."

After watching for a while, Chen Guan opened a manual from inside his clothes.

It contained a technique from his grandson's sect, a minor art called the "Water-Avoidance Technique."

Once cast, it could form a barrier of spiritual energy around the body on land and keep the rain out.

In the sea, it could push back the water around the caster to some extent.

That was why the technique was called the "Water-Avoidance Technique."

But after reading for a while, Chen Guan realized he didn't meet the minimum requirements.

It required twenty streams of spiritual energy to work together, forming a balance of spiritual energy around the body to keep water away.

"With this body, I'd need twenty years of cultivation?"

Chen Guan glanced over himself. "Impossible.

"Now I understand what it means to say that cultivation is harder than climbing to heaven.

"Like right now, I have all these manuals, but I can't cultivate. It's truly maddening to look at them."