Master of Guiling Mountain

The sunlight was warm, and the autumn scenery pleasant.

In Yangquan County, southeast of Linjiang Prefecture, on a long bluestone street riddled with potholes.

Hong Yuan wore a bamboo hat and a neat set of gray martial clothes. He stood tall, his back straight as a spear. His face and hands had been smeared with turmeric to conceal his true appearance as he strolled unhurriedly through the clamorous, bustling crowd.

Listening to the rising and falling cries of street vendors, Hong Yuan walked along while taking in the shops and homes lining the street with great interest, secretly comparing them to Qingxu County.

The two counties bordered one another, and their county seats were roughly the same size. Yet Qingxu County benefited from convenient canal transport, with more docks and more developed salt and iron industries. It had attracted great numbers of merchants to settle there, so both its urban construction and market prosperity surpassed Yangquan County's.

Though the two county seats were only forty or fifty li apart, Hong Yuan had studied since childhood, steeped in poetry and classics, with his ears deaf to matters beyond the window. The few times he had left the city had been to accompany his father into the countryside to collect rent. This was therefore his first time arriving in Yangquan County.

As he looked about, he suddenly spotted a flatbread stall by the roadside. The owner was a woman of about thirty. Her round, smiling face had been steamed red by the curling heat, and though her clothes were patched, they were not dirty. Her fingers were clean as well. He immediately took out some money and bought two flatbreads.

He bit into a steaming hot flatbread. The texture was somewhat coarse, but it had just come out of the oven, and its wheat fragrance was still rich. Hong Yuan was not fussy; he swallowed one flatbread in a few bites, then took out the other and slowly chewed on it.

Before he knew it, he recalled the events of the previous night.

Not long after touching the gray-white stone door, that skinny little old man had brought him clean clothes. Hong Yuan changed into them and slept fully dressed. He did not know how long had passed when, half-asleep, he suddenly heard Wu Duxiong, Yang Erhu, and the little old man talking upstairs.

The three were staying in a room on the second floor of the inn, not the one directly above Hong Yuan. Their voices were very low, but Hong Yuan's hearing was astonishing, so he still caught their conversation.

During their discussion, Wu Duxiong and Yang Erhu gave a detailed account of what they had experienced after entering the "Jade Wutong Immortal Realm." The little old man was very dissatisfied that they had failed to catch even a single large fish, and even berated them a few times.

Wu Duxiong immediately cursed back and retorted, "We're not your subordinates, so don't pull that act on us."

The little old man hurriedly apologized, changed the subject, and asked about Hong Yuan's identity.

Their conversation revealed the existence of an organization called the "Dragon King Society," and this skinny old man was one of its contacts.

Yang Erhu and Wu Duxiong had gotten in touch with the Dragon King Society and borrowed its power to discover that Qin Ziyue was trapped in the "Jade Wutong Immortal Realm." Even many of their arrangements for storming the "Jade Wutong Immortal Realm" had been secretly planned by the Dragon King Society.

"The Dragon King Society..."

"Yang and Wu aren't underlings of the Dragon King Society. The society must have some bad blood with Wei Zhenzhu's side, or perhaps they're outright enemies. Somehow, they learned that Yang and Wu were investigating Qin Ziyue, so they went with the current and lent them a hand, intending to use the two as blades."

"Yang Erhu and Wu Duxiong clearly understand that, but since it benefits their own plans, they don't care about being used."

"But the Dragon King Society expended such great effort and failed to achieve its goal. Will they really let it go?"

Hong Yuan pondered inwardly.

He was now heading for the Yang Family Martial Arts Hall on Spring Water Lane.

After breakfast that morning, the group had not delayed. They left the small town directly and hurried to Yangquan County.

At the county gate, Hong Yuan, Wu Duxiong, Yang Lie, and Master Qin had all made slight alterations to their appearances before entering the city in separate batches.

According to Wu Duxiong, this was purely superfluous, at most delaying Wei Zhenzhu's investigation.

Moreover, now that they had left that so-called "immortal realm" and no longer held the home-field advantage, they might not need to fear Wei Zhenzhu all that much.

For one thing, Wei Zhenzhu had been seriously injured this time and would need time to recuperate. For another, Yangquan County had its own local powers. It would not be easy for Wei Zhenzhu to extend her influence here, at least not in the short term.

At most, she could send a small group of thugs to infiltrate in secret.

Wei Zhenzhu could certainly ask that salt-and-iron magistrate, Zhou Wenjie, for help. The forces under Zhou Wenjie's command were indeed not weak, but how should one put it?

He had already turned a blind eye while she was playing around. Now that she had played herself into a corner, she wanted Zhou Wenjie to wipe her ass? Wasn't that treating him far too little like a human being?

Though Wei Zhenzhu was a fat pig, the ownership of that pig was still under Zhou Wenjie's name, after all!

Hong Yuan suddenly found himself unable to eat any more.

He casually tossed half the flatbread to a yellow dog lazily basking in the sun at the street corner. Then his gaze shifted and settled on an imposing-looking pharmacy.

The pharmacy was called Guiling Hall. It stood right at the busiest crossroads in Yangquan County, facing south with its back to the north, its frontage broad and spacious.

Two burly men stood to either side before the shop, languidly sunning themselves. Yet whenever a shouting peddler, beggar, or refugee came near, they immediately bellowed vicious curses and drove them away.

Hong Yuan glanced inside and saw a lofty, spacious front hall, where a massive medicine cabinet nearly reached the ceiling.

Behind the counter, more than a dozen physicians wore proper dark-blue fine-cloth robes. Some held medical books as they sipped tea and read aloud, while others chatted and laughed with people. Only one or two were consulting with patients; they were not particularly busy.

The reason Hong Yuan had noticed this Guiling Hall was simple: it belonged to his good brother.

The good brother who had sold him was named Huang Shaotang. His father, Huang Yihe, had another title: the Master of Guiling Mountain.

The Huang Family itself had been a prominent clan rooted in Qingxu County for generations, possessing extensive land, shops, and connections. By Huang Yihe's generation, thanks to his skill at business, the Huang Family's fortunes had soared like a bird taking flight, nearly monopolizing seventy or eighty percent of the county's medicinal herb trade.

How much money could merely seeing patients and writing prescriptions bring in?

Back when the original owner had attended the academy, he had often heard that the Huang Family acted tyrannically. Not only did they coerce renowned physicians into joining Guiling Hall, they also colluded with officials to suppress herb farmers and force down prices. The slightest resistance meant broken arms and legs; whether one was beaten to death or crippled was of no consequence.

But at the time, he had been close with Huang Shaotang. That fat man's honest-looking face was quite deceptive, so he had not taken such rumors to heart.

Now that he thought about it, Huang Shaotang had deliberately befriended Hong Yuan because he had been one of the academy's outstanding students. Once he no longer had any value to exploit, Huang Shaotang had simply sold him off to squeeze out one final sum.

What sincere love for kin and friends!

"The Huang Family truly is wealthy. Who would have thought Guiling Hall had opened all the way in Yangquan County..."

Hong Yuan clicked his tongue, smiling as he walked straight ahead.

"Back at the academy, Huang Shaotang and I were as close as father and son—everyone knew it, and over a hundred academy students witnessed it together. The Huang Family's property naturally deserves to have a share for me."

"I hear Huang Guiling is almost seventy. At such an age, it would be perfectly normal for a sudden illness to take his life, wouldn't it? And if my good brother were overcome with grief and died young in the prime of life, that would be perfectly normal too..."