Vital Blood Soars

South Market Street was packed with people.

Madam Rong's wonderfully strange metaphor made everyone around them burst into laughter.

Some slapped their thighs and shouted, while others hurriedly egged him on. "What kind of pancake could possibly taste better than the one Fourth Master Rong snatched for his wife? How good would that have to be? Young Master Chen, don't be stingy—let us have a taste too!"

"Yes, let us all try it! We'll trade you some side dishes for it."

"That's right, I'll trade you this handful of shepherd's purse for a pancake. But let's be clear: if the pancake isn't good, you don't get my shepherd's purse."

"Get lost, get lost! You can't even bear to part with a handful of shepherd's purse—you're so miserly. Why don't you scrape the dust out of the cracks beneath your feet and scatter it in your fields?" Fourth Daughter Rong scolded with her hands on her hips, drawing another round of laughter.

Standing at the street corner, Chen Xu kept his expression steady as he handed out pieces of egg pancake. More and more people tasted it, and cries of amazement soon followed.

"It's actually delicious! Good heavens, this scholar really knows how to cook."

"Didn't the scholar say something? The five flavors in the cauldron were like that... something about life. What was it again?"

"It's the Five Flavors of Life! Oh my, it smells so good!"

[Likes +1]

[Likes +1]

One like notification after another popped up. Only then did the heart Chen Xu had kept hanging finally settle.

His first battle had ended in victory. Excellent!

[Firework Value: 30]

When his total Firework Value reached 30, Chen Xu received another round of Vital Blood +1.

And that was not all. There were countless vendors on both sides of South Market Street.

Chen Xu did not even need to travel far. Simply trading egg pancakes for goods at this street corner was enough for him to find twenty or thirty exchange partners at once.

Each person gave five likes. Before long, Chen Xu's total likes broke through 100 in one breath.

His Vital Blood increased by 1 for every ten likes gained. In this short while, his Vital Blood had risen by a full eight points, and soon, new notifications appeared.

[Total likes have reached 100. Essence Gate unlocked. Spirit Gate unlocked.]

[Attribute monitoring unlocked.]

On the street, Chen Xu could not inspect his exact attributes closely.

He only felt currents of heat surging through his entire body. Gradually, even every breath seemed to exhale scorching air.

His body felt swollen, while the wound on his right leg itched and hurt at once. It was as though a hundred thousand ants were crawling, burrowing, gnawing, and biting there.

Fuck!

Chen Xu nearly cursed aloud in the middle of the street.

But seeing the likes still climbing, he forcibly suppressed the urge to curse, afraid of disrupting the fervent mood among the people in the market.

Chen Xu knew full well that the reason he had gained so many likes so easily today was not actually because his egg pancakes were so delicious.

Perhaps they were tasty, but were they truly tasty enough to make everyone sing their praises without end?

Not quite. Not quite.

The reason people were praising him so enthusiastically was mainly the sense of contrast and novelty.

After all, what scholar would take food he had cooked himself into the street and trade it with vendors for ingredients?

And with this first exchange, backed by the reasoning of "words of the sages," how could people not be excited?

But such things might happen once or twice, but never a third time.

If he did it several more times, it would not be nearly so easy.

Chen Xu would have to put in more effort and expend more thought.

Opportunity did not come twice once lost. Chen Xu had to seize today's auspicious opening and strive to make his initial accumulation faster and fiercer!

Fuck—

But it really hurt too much. It was unbearable.

Chen Xu's expression twisted slightly beyond his control. He devoted nearly all his attention to suppressing the pain, so he failed to notice a gray-clothed, cap-wearing youth at the roadside, who was pursing his lips and craning his neck to examine him.

A moment later, the servant-dressed youth slipped out of the crowd and ran into the second floor of a teahouse by the street.

Sitting by the window was a young scholar dressed in a robe of lake-blue silk.

With a grin on his face, the servant leaned close and quietly reported, "Young master, that fellow is probably mad. He actually sold those stinking lowborn people some egg pancakes he made himself. When the lowborn praised them as tasty, he was delighted like an idiot..."

"Shut up!"

The servant froze, only to meet a face gone iron-blue the next instant.

"That is my fellow student and dear friend, yet you insult him so disgracefully. Do you look down on him, or do you look down on your young master?"

Lin Qi rose angrily and flicked his sleeve as he left.

In the end, Chen Xu returned home laden with a full 183 likes and Firework Value.

Later on, some of the likes had actually come from passersby on the road, while others came from vendors farther down the street.

Not every one of those people had even tasted Chen Xu's egg pancakes. Some had merely sampled a bite, while others had only watched from the side.

But whether out of herd mentality or curiosity, even those who had only smelled it could not help saying a word or two. "It does smell good. How novel. Heh, this scholar isn't mad, is he..."

That was right. Some people praised the fragrant egg pancakes even as they secretly wagged their tongues and criticized Chen Xu.

Nor had Chen Xu received the maximum five likes from everyone. Likewise, after the egg pancakes were handed out, some vendors clearly ate them but pretended they had not, while others stubbornly declared that they did not taste good.

In short, they simply could not bear to trade anything from their stalls to Chen Xu.

With so many people and so much bustle, Chen Xu did not fuss over such trifles.

From the beginning, he had proposed trading food for ingredients. His intention was not stinginess, nor was it that he had to make a profit this way. He simply did not want people to assume from the outset that his things ought to be given to everyone for free.

One could not open the door to giving things away for free. Once it was opened, not only would people be more likely to look down on him, they would also more easily breed malicious thoughts.

There had also been a small incident. Chen Xu passed a sheep stall and saw the sheep seller snatch a small piece of egg pancake from someone else's hand, stuff it into his mouth for a taste, then spit and say, "Heh, it tastes awful!"

A nearby vendor looked at him disdainfully. "It's obviously delicious. Black Sixth, Black Sixth—don't tell me you deliberately said it was bad just because you can't bear to spare our Young Master Chen some mutton?"

Black Sixth chuckled. "A lousy pancake wants to trade for my mutton? You're so generous, so why don't you give him your whole stall?"

The vendor next door sold pork, yet he immediately gave Chen Xu a chunk of pork bone with meat on it. Thumping his chest with loud bangs, he said, "Let Young Master Chen know that not everyone making a living on South Market Street is a petty man. Only this Black Sixth is stingy!

"Next time you have something tasty, come trade with me again. In the jianghu, I am known as Zhao Yiliang—I never short anyone by even an ounce. Not like certain black-hearted people..."

Zhao Yiliang pointed directly at Black Sixth, and Black Sixth refused to yield.

The two traded barbs back and forth, leaving Chen Xu behind them as they began bickering with a crackle and pop.

As Chen Xu passed by the meat stalls, he felt that Black Sixth's mutton smelled countless times more rank and gamey than Zhao Yiliang's pork.

A white sheep's head hung upside down from a glossy black iron hook. A chilling stench of blood rushed at him, faintly mixed with an indescribable rotten, nauseating odor.

Strangely enough, Chen Xu had merely glanced at that sheep's head, yet its appearance seemed branded into his heart.

Its blood-red eye sockets, bulging pupils, and the dried matter at the corners of its eyes, like tear tracks... every detail was incomparably clear.

Even the swarms of flies buzzing around the sheep's eyes seemed to have flown into Chen Xu's heart, impossible to forget.

Bzzzz—

The sound of rot clung to him like a shadow.

What was there to think about in a sheep's head?

After returning home, Chen Xu forcibly drove away the discomfort in his heart and summoned the Cauldron Scripture.

He needed to quickly see what new changes the Cauldron Scripture would have after unlocking the Essence Gate and Spirit Gate.