Unexpected Gains

Sun Wu had learned his lesson. From then on, no matter what Chen Xu asked him to do, he obeyed with utmost honesty.

Standing beside the oil lamp and flipping through the account books, Chen Xu suddenly asked casually, "Was that thing just now tasty?"

"T-Tasty?" Sun Wu was confused at first. As he hesitated, he stole a glance at Chen Xu's expression.

The young man did not even raise his eyes. Sun Wu's heart suddenly clenched, and he hastily burst into a string of exaggerated fawning laughter. "Tasty! Ah, incredibly tasty! This lowly one has never, in all his life, eaten such a world-shaking delicacy. I-I..."

Sun Wu smiled on the surface, but his heart was bleeding. He had already recalled that handful of strange powder that had been forcibly stuffed into his mouth earlier.

He guessed that it was precisely this powder that had placed him under Chen Xu's control, but what could he do even if he understood the reason now?

He never wanted to experience that agony of having his soul churned apart again. Sun Wu brought out the greatest cleverness of his life, reading Chen Xu's expression and offering careful flattery.

"Crisp and fragrant, sweet on the tongue—absolutely delicious. Hehe, Young Master Chen... um, is there, is there any more?"

[Likes +1+1+1...]

Six likes in a row. Sun Wu blurted them out in one breath.

Chen Xu raised an eyebrow slightly. This little test had not been in vain. Even bizarre spirit-food like Soul-Controlling Powder could indeed earn likes.

Sun Wu's likes had been beaten out of him by Chen Xu, but perhaps because his emotions were so intense, they had been forced to contain a few traces of sincerity. Thus, more than half of Sun Wu's likes were recorded by the Cauldron Scripture.

Very soon, Chen Xu discovered an even more interesting point.

Sun Wu was an ordinary mortal. None of his Three Essences of Spirit, Qi, and Body stood out in any way, yet his daily limit for likes was more than five points.

Chen Xu checked the Cauldron Scripture and immediately understood.

If the food fed to someone was spirit-food, then even if the recipient was a mortal, that mortal could possess a daily limit of one hundred likes after eating that bite of spirit-food!

Of course, according to the basic rule that passersby could accumulate likes simply by praising food made by Chen Xu, even without eating it, passersby also received preferential limits when liking spirit-food.

When the object of praise was spirit-food, an ordinary passerby's daily limit for likes was ten points.

Like a sailor discovering a new continent, Chen Xu's interest was instantly stirred.

He gave Sun Wu a simple command. "Continue."

Sun Wu had been trembling with fear, his nerves taut. The moment he heard Chen Xu tell him to continue, he hurriedly carefully spilled out the flattering words he had just racked his brains to scrape together. "That powder, that powder just now, was truly delicious beyond compare. Not only was it fragrant, crisp, moist, and sweet, it also, also melted the instant it entered the mouth..."

As he continued reading Chen Xu's expression, Sun Wu saw that his face remained calm and gradually began to put more effort into it.

"It was like jade crumbs and precious pearls, making the mouth brim with saliva.

"Hehehe, it was also like snow falling from the Jade Terrace—more elegant than the plum blossom pastries of Six Petals Hall, more soul-stirring than the Cold Food Powder of Golden Tribute Tower..."

[Likes +1+1+1...]

Sun Wu had been cautious at first, then forceful afterward. Once he opened his mouth, it never stopped. His words poured forth like a river breaking through its banks, endless and unstoppable.

Worthy indeed of being Boyazhai's head shopkeeper in Jichuan County—his tongue bloomed with lotus flowers!

[Likes +1+1+1...]

Likes continued without end. Sun Wu wanted to show Chen Xu his loyalty. So long as Chen Xu did not tell him to stop, he did not dare rest for even a moment.

Even when his lips began to turn pale and his face twisted bitterly, he kept going.

Later still, his face wore bitterness within a smile and green beneath the bitterness, so warped that even his mother would not have recognized him. Yet he was still praising it over and over.

"Such a thing should exist only in heaven—how could one taste it several times in this mortal world?!"

Wuwuwu...

Sun Wu cried in his heart.

[Likes +1+1+1...]

One hundred Accumulated Likes, ten Free Attribute Points, and another one hundred points of Firework Value—all of it went into his pocket.

Excellent!

Suddenly, Chen Xu said, "Tell me, where have you hidden all my silver?"

Sun Wu's torrent of words abruptly stalled. His mouth hung open, and he wished he could slap to death the version of himself that had been crying inwardly just moments ago!

Wasn't it just that he had praised that thing as delicious until he ran out of words?

Come on, let him keep praising it!

He could still fight for another three hundred rounds.

But Sun Wu did not dare defy Chen Xu, even though the bitterness in his heart had already soaked through his organs and entrails.

Yet even the greatest miser under heaven had to bow before terror at its limit.

With a bitter face, Sun Wu wiped away his tears and crawled across the floor to the bookshelf. From its very bottom shelf, he pulled out a row of books, then pried open a plank beneath them that looked perfectly seamless.

Once the plank was lifted, it revealed a wooden board shaped like a six-petaled flower.

Holding the wooden board, he crawled on his knees beneath the desk once again. After groping around the floor for a while, he pried up a square blue brick. Beneath it was a six-petaled flower-shaped groove.

Sun Wu placed the flower-shaped wooden board in his hand into the groove. A faint click sounded.

He opened a small low cabinet on the right side of the desk and drew out another board from within. Only then did he take a wooden box from the mechanism hidden beneath that board.

Chen Xu silently watched all this, secretly admiring Sun Wu's ability to hide things.

With traps and mechanisms layered upon mechanisms, if Sun Wu had not confessed on his own initiative, who would have imagined that the items were hidden like this?

Chen Xu realized a truth from this: Soul-Controlling Powder was simply too useful!

Unfortunately, he had only refined one portion so far, and the key ingredient for Soul-Controlling Powder—[one tael of joy, three qian of melancholy]—was equally strange in origin.

Chen Xu could not help pondering how he might obtain more [one tael of joy, three qian of melancholy].

Afterward, Chen Xu took a total of three hundred and sixty-seven taels of silver from Sun Wu.

His original intention had been to squeeze out even more, to strip him completely clean.

For this, Chen Xu repeatedly used his method of control afterward, making Sun Wu suffer until he collapsed several times.

Tears and snot streamed down his face. He smashed his head against the ground and explained with boundless remorse, "Mercy, Young Master Chen! This lowly one truly has no more! It is only because this lowly one once harbored wicked thoughts and urged Miao Chao to enter Black Dew Temple once. That temple, that temple..."

Sun Wu steeled his heart and finally revealed his greatest secret. "There is a Goat Head Mountain God inside Black Dew Temple. Ever since this lowly one saw it once, I dream every night of being gnawed and eaten by sheep. Only by offering incense on the first and fifteenth of each month, and presenting silver as an offering, can I escape the suffering of those nightmares.

"It is not that this lowly one insists on hoarding wealth and being miserly. I am truly constrained and have no choice, wuwuwu..."

As he spoke, Sun Wu finally broke down and cried aloud in grief.

The keyword Black Dew Temple immediately made Chen Xu think of the "Black Dew Mountain" he had once heard of, as well as the prized sheep mentioned by the sheep vendor on South Market Street!

That sheep had always made Chen Xu feel inexplicably uncomfortable, yet he had never understood why.

Now, hearing Sun Wu mention Black Dew Temple and speak of nightmares of "being eaten by sheep," then connecting it with the Art of Animal Husbandry Mr. Zhou had mentioned during the day, Chen Xu suddenly linked all the clues together.

Right. Yesterday morning, he had passed through South Market Street.

At that time, he had already awakened the Cauldron Scripture and gained the ability to see the descriptors of food. Yet when he looked at the sheep heads on the vendor's stall, no food descriptors appeared.

Why did the sheep heads have no descriptors?

The answer was ready to leap forth, and Chen Xu felt a chill crawl through his heart.

Please keep reading! Continued reading is crucial during the new book period. Thank you all for your support, fellow Daoists!