A Windfall

Chen Jue took his tagalong straight to Emerald Lake Street in Kaiyang Community.

Walking through the teeming crowds, Chen Jue suddenly turned back and asked Wu Nanyuan, "Have we met at the college before? You look awfully familiar."

"..." Wu Nanyuan answered with silence.

Her student registration was certainly genuine, but she had never spent a single day studying at Linjiang Martial Arts College.

"So you're a socially anxious little mute..."

Chen Jue turned back and gave the girl a thorough once-over.

Her raven-black hair cascaded like a waterfall. Wispy air bangs parted to either side, while loose strands fell casually over her cheeks, lending her a somewhat rough, fragmented air of coldness and fragility.

"Familiar... far too familiar."

Frowning, Chen Jue circled the girl three times like some debauched rogue teasing a respectable woman. Then his gaze abruptly settled on her narrow fox eyes, their outer corners flushed red.

Fox eyes?

It suddenly dawned on Chen Jue. He remembered the aloof girl from that day in the old black-market alley, the one who had fought him to a standstill.

The same narrow fox eyes, the same gaunt frame...

Swish!

Chen Jue struck without warning, reaching for the thin cord beside the girl's ear.

Wu Nanyuan's expression changed sharply. She twisted aside, nimble as a fish, narrowly evading Chen Jue's improper move.

"Oh~~~"

Seeing that, Chen Jue understood at once. So she really was that Wu Clan girl who had been peddling secret manuals.

That made Director Wu's intentions obvious.

He wanted to prop up someone from the Wu Clan to replace Zhang Wei—and perhaps, in the future, even succeed him as the director of Kaiyang Station.

No wonder Director Wu recruited a university student who had only just finished her second year into the guard...

"Tut, with talent this good, it would be such a pity not to attend Riverside Martial University."

Chen Jue feigned both realization and regret, muddling through with that little performance as he led Wu Nanyuan past Atractylodes Street.

"Wait outside for a few minutes."

Seeing that Divine Physician Jiao's clinic was empty, Chen Jue rang the bell and walked straight in.

"Tut! Isn't this our Alchemist Chen? Have you eaten your fill of spirit grain and come to buy a few more pounds for a snack?"

Jiao Fengchun had been dozing in the shop. Seeing Chen Jue enter after ringing the bell, dressed in a black inspector's uniform and looking refreshed and alert, he could not help teasing him.

"Old man, are you looking down on me?"

Chen Jue shot him a mocking look, then jerked his head toward the treatment room behind the medicine shelves, signaling for the old man to talk inside.

"Hiss!"

Seeing how serious Chen Jue looked, Jiao Fengchun jolted all over and sprang up from his grandmaster's chair.

He went to the clinic entrance and glanced around. His gaze paused only briefly when it landed on Wu Nanyuan, before he quickly returned inside.

The old man hung up the "Closed" sign, locked the glass door from within, and only then pulled Chen Jue behind the medicine shelves.

"Don't tell me you're trying to fool me? You refined Spirit Sprout Pills from a mere twenty pounds of spirit grain?"

Jiao Fengchun looked utterly incredulous. The "five-element balancing" of spirit grain and spirit sprouts was exceptionally difficult; the slightest misstep could result in "the five elements falling out of balance and the spirit ingredients being ruined."

"Actually, it wasn't just twenty pounds. A beautiful, kind-hearted little rich girl also sponsored me with another twenty pounds..."

Chen Jue did not want to make himself seem too earth-shattering, so he modestly toned down his true alchemy talent.

"Forty pounds is still terrifying, all right?!"

"Do you know how difficult the five-element balancing of Spirit Sprout Pills is—"

Jiao Fengchun had just begun correcting Chen Jue's mistaken understanding of alchemy when his words caught in his throat.

The old man suddenly realized that Chen Jue cultivated the Little Five-Element Art. If he could not even balance the five elements, what was the point of cultivating five-element true qi?

"You brat really have absurdly good luck..."

Jiao Fengchun was now more than half convinced that Chen Jue had truly refined Spirit Sprout Pills.

He dragged Chen Jue straight into the more private consultation room and said, "Take them out and let me see. Let's be clear beforehand—if they're inferior or impure pills, I'll be cutting the price..."

"Don't worry. I already ate all the inferior and impure pills."

Chen Jue was referring to that first experimental batch of Yellow-Sprout Pills. After that, he had refined pills three more times, and every batch had produced transparent pills, pure and flawless.

Jiao Fengchun was so shocked he nearly fainted.

From the sound of it, Chen Jue had refined more than one batch of Spirit Sprout Pills in just ten or twenty days?

Such heaven-defying alchemy talent was practically being wasted on the Little Five-Element Art.

"There. Forty Spirit Sprout Pills. Fair dealing, whether old or young."

Chen Jue casually tossed a palm-sized, exquisitely packaged pill box onto the table before Divine Physician Jiao.

Jiao Fengchun's heartbeat skipped half a beat along with the pill box as it landed.

"You little brat! Don't you know Spirit Sprout Pills have a very brittle texture? If you've damaged their appearance, I'll slash the price hard!"

Old Jiao glared at Chen Jue, but the instant he opened the pill box, he sucked in a sharp breath.

Inside, the pill box was packed densely like a box of pearls with plump, round Spirit Sprout Pills, each no bigger than the tip of a little finger.

Every pill gave off a sweet, fresh fragrance. Crystal-clear and translucent, they resembled frost-condensed glass.

Within the limpid pill cores, countless tiny grains of golden sand slowly flowed. A faint glow lay concealed inside them; they looked transparent and warm, yet held rich, abundant spirit qi.

Jiao Fengchun had a discerning eye. At a glance, he could tell that whoever had refined these pills had already achieved minor mastery in technique, with a pill completion rate approaching one hundred percent.

"Well, old man?" Chen Jue folded his arms, looking immensely pleased with himself. "Hurry up and name a price."

"Good boy! You really are an alchemy genius seen once in a hundred years..."

Jiao Fengchun somehow produced a black bank card and handed it to Chen Jue.

"Large transfers draw the authorities' attention."

"This is an unregistered Royal Black Card. Just bind it to your phone, and I can transfer the money into it."

"However, whenever you use the Royal Black Card, Royal Bank will automatically deduct a fifteen-percent gray tax as its fee. In return, no one may question or trace the source of your funds—not even the authorities themselves."

"Holy shit, the Great Ming Divine Dynasty has something like this?"

Chen Jue was utterly stunned.

Wasn't this a downright money-laundering artifact?

For the sake of raking in money, the Divine Dynasty even dared sell the noose that could hang itself!

He scanned the black card's chip against the back of his phone. In less than a minute, a Royal Bank app appeared on his phone.

When he opened it, an anonymous virtual account had already been generated.

Jiao Fengchun deftly entered that string of virtual account numbers and directly transferred three hundred thousand dollars into Chen Jue's card.

Three hundred thousand dollars!

That was far beyond Chen Jue's expectations.

Excited, he reached out and shook Divine Physician Jiao's hand, saying that from then on, he would trade with him at a delivery rate of forty Spirit Sprout Pills per week, and hoped the old man could handle it.

What he got in return, however, was Jiao Fengchun's snort of laughter.

"You brat, you're underestimating Linjiang's pill market far too much..."

"With the amount you're putting out, forget the inner city—even at Riverside Martial University, you wouldn't make a single splash."

"Just refine them. No matter how many you make, I can take them all."

"You said it!" Chen Jue had not expected Old Jiao to have such deep pockets, and he immediately rubbed his hands together in excitement.

Since Old Jiao said he could take however many Spirit Sprout Pills Chen Jue made, there was no need for Chen Jue to hide anything any longer.

Within a month, he would get Mother and Aunt settled in the inner city!