Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel Incense (4k)

Yun Jian Workshop.

The oldest incense shop in Qingxu County.

Someone had come to buy incense.

Before Hong Yuan even stepped into the shop, he called loudly from the doorway, "Shopkeeper Yun, bring out the best incense recipe you have, that 'Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel' stuff. I'll take as much as you have."

After leaving Flagstone Alley, Hong Yuan had intended to leave Qingxu County altogether, but suddenly remembered the incense he had smelled in the Jade Wutong Immortal Realm. It had cleared his mind the moment he breathed it in.

Hong Yuan had already noticed that relying on training alone would only make improvements to his root bone and comprehension increasingly slow, so he had decided to turn to technology and brutal measures.

The facts proved that brutal measures really worked. Killing Yan San at the docks, along with Huang Guiling, Huang Shaotang, and the others, had raised his root bone and comprehension by a thread and a wisp respectively.

Brutal measures worked, but what about technology?

If he burned a brazier of good incense while settling into meditation, would it also help improve his comprehension?

He did not know the name of the incense recipe used in the Jade Wutong Immortal Realm, but Yun Jian Workshop had a superior recipe called Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel. Though it could not compare to the former's rich, refreshing fragrance, it was worth a try.

The two assistants sweeping and dusting inside the incense shop hurried forward to welcome him when they heard his call. Behind the counter, Shopkeeper Yun raised his head to look at Hong Yuan as he entered, rubbed the corners of his eyes, and hesitated.

Back when Hong Yuan had been an academy student, his family had been reasonably well-off, and he had often come to buy incense. Over time, he had become acquainted with the old shopkeeper.

But Shopkeeper Yun was getting on in years. His hair had gone white, and his eyesight had long since deteriorated. With Hong Yuan's physique and bearing now greatly changed, he felt a vague familiarity but did not dare acknowledge him.

Setting aside his doubts, Shopkeeper Yun put on a smile. "Welcome, honored customer. Our humble shop does indeed have Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel, but this incense is rather costly. Might I ask..."

Hong Yuan took out a hundred-tael banknote from Baoji Zhenji and slapped it onto the counter with a smack.

Shopkeeper Yun squinted at it with his old eyes. Without even touching it, he waved a hand and smiled. "Please don't tease an old man, honored customer. That banknote's denomination is too large for our little shop to change. Please exchange it for silver and come back."

"Are you afraid I'm trying to fool you with a counterfeit banknote, Shopkeeper Yun?"

Hong Yuan chuckled.

Shopkeeper Yun shook his head repeatedly. "What are you saying, honored customer? This old man wouldn't dare think such a thing."

"All right!" Hong Yuan stopped teasing the little old man. He tucked the banknote into his robe, then took several silver ingots he had prepared earlier from his sleeve and lined them up on the counter. There were seven in all.

"Freshly exchanged silver. Ten taels per ingot. Is that enough?"

"Enough, enough! More than enough! Please wait a moment, sir. This old man will fetch the incense box." With that, Shopkeeper Yun turned, lifted the little curtain beside the counter, and went into the back room.

A short while later, Shopkeeper Yun carefully brought out a palm-sized rosewood box. He set it reverently on the counter and smiled. "This weighs six taels in total, including four taels of Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel incense at nine taels of silver per tael. The wooden box weighs two taels and comes free of charge. The total is thirty-six taels."

All smiles, Shopkeeper Yun raised a hand toward Hong Yuan. "Would you like to inspect it and check the weight, honored customer?"

Hong Yuan raised an eyebrow.

One tael of incense cost nine taels of silver!

The stuff was outrageously expensive, practically worth its weight in gold.

Only because some kind souls had helped him become wealthy overnight could he buy it without a frown.

No wonder, even after he had become familiar with the old shopkeeper, it had taken endless persuasion to get him to burn a fingernail-sized pinch of incense powder—and his face had still been full of anguish.

Because he really had been burning silver.

With a slight sigh, Hong Yuan smiled. "No need. I trust Yun Jian Workshop's reputation. But does a shop this large really have only one box of incense?"

"You may not know this, honored customer, but not all incense grows mellower the longer it is stored. Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel is exceptionally precious. Once made, even a slight lapse in storage will let its fragrance escape. Our business is small, so we only dare make one box at a time."

Shopkeeper Yun spoke with a beaming smile.

"I see." Hong Yuan chuckled, not believing a word of the old man's nonsense. He reckoned there were at least another box or two in stock.

After all, there were always wealthy households in Qingxu County that needed it, so the shop would keep some on hand.

Not bothering to argue, Hong Yuan took back three silver ingots, grabbed the rosewood box, and turned to leave.

"Please wait, honored customer! I still owe you four taels in change..." Shopkeeper Yun hurriedly called after him.

"Keep the change." Without looking back, Hong Yuan waved a hand behind him and strode away.

The old shopkeeper opened his mouth. Watching Hong Yuan's receding figure, he kept feeling there was something familiar about him. He muttered to himself but could not place him even after a long while. Then he put it out of his mind, happily collected the four silver ingots, and began humming a tune.

After shopping around town, Hong Yuan picked up his large bundle and bought a black-canopied boat from a fishing business. By the time he had finished ambling about, it was already afternoon.

The daylight gradually dimmed, and the sun slipped behind the clouds.

The autumn wind swept over the Yudai River, carrying withered yellow leaves along its banks.

The black-canopied boat rocked on the river, drifting with the current, yet no one was aboard. Some time passed.

Suddenly, a wave surged up, and a head emerged from the water. Swift as a swimming fish, Hong Yuan caught up with the drifting boat, reached out, and hauled himself aboard.

Wearing only a pair of shorts, his upper body bare, Hong Yuan stood by the gunwale. The chilly wind swept over him from head to toe, but a smile appeared on his face.

Besides observing the underwater eddies and hidden currents to gain insight into Spiral Force, he had gone into the water to test the limits of his underwater swimming.

Compared with other martial artists, Hong Yuan's greatest advantage was his ability to continuously improve his root bone and comprehension.

After his comprehension had increased by six wisps, that mysterious sense for danger had become increasingly acute.

Though he was nowhere near the realm of foreknowing through perfect sincerity, sensing and avoiding danger without seeing or hearing it, if someone tried to ambush him or launch a sneak attack from behind with a bow or crossbow, he might notice before stepping into the trap, or feel something when they aimed a crossbow bolt at him.

Five threads and five wisps marked a threshold.

Hong Yuan reckoned that once his root bone rose by another thread, his physical capabilities would probably leap forward across the board.

Even now, the advantages of his all-round physical improvement had already become apparent.

Putting aside how firmly he had martial arts in hand, how quickly he picked up different techniques, and how easily he trained in them, his endurance during his earlier dive alone had been astonishing.

Hong Yuan had swum underwater while resisting the hidden currents for at least half an hour.

The breath-holding record in his previous life had also reached roughly half an hour, but that had been static breath-holding. Underwater swimming lasted only a few minutes.

In this world, martial artists who had attained force could naturally swim underwater longer, but not by much.

Their muscles and bones were certainly strong, and they could control their own qi and blood, but compared to the human body as a whole, only a tiny part of them had "evolved."

If the human body's attributes were broken down in detail, there would probably be hundreds or thousands, if not more. Martial artists who had attained force had "evolved" in only a few or a few dozen at most.

For Hong Yuan, however, an increase in root bone meant every attribute rose in unison.

After letting the wind dry the water from his body, Hong Yuan dressed and lay comfortably inside the cabin, one leg crossed over the other. Watching the clouds shift across the sky, he reached into his large bundle and took out an oilpaper package.

Another reach brought a flask of wine into his hand.

Inside the oilpaper was a roast chicken Hong Yuan had ordered to take away from a restaurant in town. It had gone completely cold by now, but he did not mind. He tore off a drumstick and took a bite.

The meat was a little dry, cold, and tough, but having meat and wine at a moment like this was already wonderfully comfortable.

Taking a sip of wine with each bite of meat, Hong Yuan let his thoughts wander. Suppose his enemies surrounded him now with dozens of light boats, each packed with archers. He could jump straight into the river, leaving them wide-eyed, bows drawn and arrows nocked, scanning the water and waiting for him to surface so they could unleash hundreds upon thousands of arrows!

Meanwhile, he would already have swum more than a dozen li away on a single breath. After catching his breath, he could even swim another dozen li!

"Water escape—that's my escape route!"

County Magistrate Zhang should have figured out Hong Yuan's identity by now. Hong Yuan had not concealed himself when buying the boat, either. If the man wanted revenge, he ought to be mobilizing several hundred men to encircle him from upstream and downstream right now.

Yet even thinking of that, Hong Yuan simply could not bring himself to worry.

Once he had eaten and drunk his fill, Hong Yuan washed up briefly and took out the little wooden box. Inside were nearly twenty incense cakes, each pressed in a mold into the shape of the character for "cloud."

Wisps of faint, refreshing fragrance immediately drifted out and lingered inside the cabin.

Hong Yuan picked one up and brought it close to his nose. Its fragrance was richer, with an inexplicable crispness.

He weighed it lightly in his hand. It felt almost weightless. He could not help sighing. Just one of these things cost nearly two taels of silver. Forget ordinary people—even most wealthy households could not afford to use it.

With several thousand taels in banknotes tucked into his robe, he had thought he possessed a fortune. Now, it seemed that might not be enough.

Fortunately, the world had plenty of kind souls. Whenever he ran short of silver, he could seek their support. Hong Yuan had never planned to amass wealth through business anyway.

After eight hundred years of Great Yin, what business had not been claimed by powerful clans, hereditary nobles, local gentry, and wealthy households? What room was there for an outsider to get involved?

After he placed one Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel cake in the little incense burner and lit it, a fragrance spread. Hong Yuan immediately felt a refreshing sensation well up, drifting and swaying like white clouds, like a clear breeze!

His brows lifted. It could not match the invigorating effect of the incense recipe used in the Jade Wutong Immortal Realm, but it certainly had something to it.

Without further delay, he gathered his mind and focused on meditation.

Everything grew hazy.

His mind at peace, Hong Yuan observed through his meditation method and guided the flow of qi and blood within his body.

In this world's martial arts, controlling qi and blood was crucial. Even after attaining force, one could not abandon meditation and guiding exercises. They had to be practiced constantly.

Otherwise, while it would not quite be a case of one day without practice wasting ten days' work, or a hundred days without practice reducing everything to nothing, there would still be something lacking when a true fight to the death came.

And even the slightest discrepancy could cost a life!

Time passed.

Hong Yuan suddenly opened his eyes. The incense cake in the burner had long since burned away, and even the burner had gone cold. Outside, night had fallen. A heavy curtain of darkness shrouded the whole world, with only a few fishing lights flickering on the distant river!

At least a little over two hours had passed, yet despite the river wind blowing through, Hong Yuan could still catch a faint, delicate fragrance when he took a deep breath.

A trace of delight appeared on his face.

It worked!

There had been no floating-text notification, but that was because the smallest increments displayed for root bone and comprehension were a thread and a wisp.

He could feel for himself whether there had been any benefit. Meditation could promote the improvement of comprehension, and using Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel had increased that efficiency a little.

Little by little, it would add up. What he saved was time.

Besides, if incense recipes worked, there were naturally other methods he could try.

Hong Yuan picked up several more cloud-shaped incense cakes and tossed them into the burner to light them. As wisps of fragrance spread, he resumed practicing his meditation method.

Two days later.

Having used up all the Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel incense, Hong Yuan finally went ashore.

In truth, he had not spent the entire two days drifting on the river. He still had to find food. Now, he abandoned the black-canopied boat and entered the nearest county town with no belongings beyond the saber at his side.

The destination of this journey was naturally Lanyue Garden, where he would kill Wei Zhenzhu, both venting his anger and eliminating a future threat.

But there was no need to hurry.

After all, according to the information he had forced out of Scarface, the Hero Arena at Lanyue Garden would last a month. It might only just have begun.

Security would be tightest right now. There was no need to rush straight over when he could improve himself further first.

Even once he arrived, he could not simply charge in. He would first investigate for several days, then act when an opportunity arose.

Besides, he did not necessarily have to storm in to kill anyone. He could easily ambush her on the road after the so-called Hero Arena ended and the various parties dispersed!

There was still plenty of time.

Linjiang Prefecture was only two or three hundred li from Hong Yuan's current location. Lanyue Garden lay beyond its eastern outskirts. Such an enormous estate, gathering so many powerful clans and martial artists, would not be hard to find.

Hong Yuan was currently in Wushan County.

After entering town, Hong Yuan first sought out the incense shops. But after searching around, he was rather disappointed. None of their incense could match Yun Jian Workshop's Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel. There was not even anything a single grade below it.

Hong Yuan naturally would not use such muddled, impure incense.

Remembering Shopkeeper Yun's boast that Ten Thousand Miles Cloud Travel was a rare first-grade incense recipe, uncommon even in a provincial capital, he could not help agreeing now.

Having failed to find incense, Hong Yuan turned to the major medicine shops.

The Tiger-Subduing Sect's martial arts naturally had corresponding secret medicines. As Yang Erhu's personal disciple, Hong Yuan had long since obtained their formulas.

There were three secret medicines in all.

Compared with Yangquan County and Qingxu County, Wushan County was rather rundown, and its town was much smaller. But because it backed onto the mountains, it had a greater variety of mountain produce and rare treasures.

After visiting several medicine shops, Hong Yuan gathered all the ingredients for Tiger Bone Meridian-Clearing Paste in less than an hour. Most of the ingredients for another secret medicine, Iron Lung Nourishing Powder, were also available, and the remaining portion could be brought in that afternoon.

Only the third medicine, Tiger-Subduing Force Wine, required several rare ingredients that were difficult to obtain.

Wandering into the county town's most prosperous commercial district, Hong Yuan went upstairs in its busiest restaurant, ordered a tableful of good food and wine, and began eating and drinking at leisure.

Since he had to wait for the ingredients to arrive, he was in no hurry at all.

Restaurants were gathering places for people from every creed and walk of life. Sitting there, Hong Yuan heard a piece of news.

Recently, a mighty dragon had crossed into Wushan County. The newcomer's martial skills were remarkable. In little more than half a month, he had defeated the masters of two Martial Arts Halls in the county.

Having made a name for himself in one stroke, the man began gathering numerous "stalwarts" under his command. This soon displeased Wushan County's local snakes. Two gangs joined forces to attack him, only for him to sneak into one of them and take their leader's head under cover of night.

That had made his name ring even louder throughout the county town.

Hmm?

Listening to this news, Hong Yuan suddenly felt something stir in his mind.