Volume One: Days in the Shantytown - Our Shop (Part One)

"Old Luo..." Du Lengning burst in as if he had wind-and-fire wheels strapped to his feet and threw his arms around Luo Qian. "Ha! You're a real genius!" Luo Qian shoved him away. "Why are my ideas always either devilish schemes or rotten ideas, and my talent always some freakish gift? Can't I just be a genius?"

"Heh, fine, a genius! You're a genius!" Du Lengning winked mysteriously. "Guess what the appraisal found this time?" One look at him told Luo Qian there was good news. His spirits, dampened by his failure to work out the Three-Color Pill's formula, lifted at once. "What?"

"Poison-Repelling Obstacle-Expelling Pill." "Spirit-Accumulating Pill." Du Lengning held one pill in each hand as he told Luo Qian the results.

Luo Qian stared, abandoned Du Lengning, and plunged into the storeroom. "Damn it, they're both good stuff! If I can't work out their formulas, I'll regret it until my guts twist in knots..."

Du Lengning's father had quite a circle of acquaintances in the Immortal Realm. His reputation, though, was another matter: he was the Third Cheapskate of the Immortal Realm. Du Lengning was different from his father. Luo Qian had already convinced him that without "giving," there would never be any "getting."

Carrying ten beautifully packaged Spirit-Accumulating Pills, Du Lengning stood in the front hall and called out with a smile, "Uncle!"

"Oh, Zhongping's boy! Ha ha, sit down, sit down. Make yourself at home." An elderly man with a jade hairpin and a rosy complexion sat in the seat of honor. He was the old acquaintance at the People-Benefiting Institute whom Du Lengning had mentioned: Qi Rongwei, a supervisory commandant of the institute's Oversight Office.

Du Lengning presented his gift with both hands and sat properly to one side. For all Qi Rongwei's polite words, he thought little of the son of the Third Cheapskate of the Immortal Realm. It was not that the Du family lacked money. Quite the opposite: Far Garment Hall was, after all, the finest ready-made clothing workshop in the Immortal Realm, and even a mat-sized patch of land on Ningyao Mountain could fetch thirty million standard Immortal Jade. The Du family could afford gifts. Du Zhongping was simply too stingy to give them.

So in Qi Rongwei's eyes, Old Miser Du's son had naturally become "Little Miser Du."

The Jade Casket looked exquisitely decorated, but Qi Rongwei held out little hope that it contained anything valuable. Madam Qi's expression soon seemed to confirm his guess.

Hmph. He had the nerve to give us ten high-grade Spirit Pills? Madam Qi sighed inwardly. The Third Cheapskate of the Immortal Realm had certainly passed down the family tradition!

Madam Qi took excellent care of herself. Just as her white-jade fingers were about to close the Jade Casket, her gaze happened to sweep across the words engraved inside. Spirit-Accumulating Pill? Why had I never heard that name before...

As she read on, her expression changed slightly. If the description was true, this was no small gift. The Spirit-Accumulating Pill worked through steady accumulation. Taking one produced no obvious effect; it was only a Spirit Elixir, after all, and its potency was mild. But with continued use, the taker would accumulate a little more Immortal Spirit Energy than an ordinary person with every breath. Given enough time, the difference would show.

An Immortal who had just reached Foundation Establishment could pull ahead of his peers from the very start. For an Immortal with profound Immortal Art, the effect was calculated as a percentage. Such a person drew in far more Immortal Spirit Energy with each breath than an Immortal at Foundation Establishment, so the extra energy he accumulated would be far greater as well. In other words, the higher an Immortal's level, the more pronounced the effect!

Madam Qi thought of how her husband was competing for a deputy Constabulary Director's post that had recently opened at the People-Benefiting Institute. He was evenly matched with the other two Immortal officials. If his Immortal Art cultivation could pull ahead of theirs now, his chances would rise sharply!

Madam Qi carefully picked up a Spirit-Accumulating Pill. Her heart thumped, and she could not help nodding.

Qi Rongwei found it strange. At first, his wife's expression had led him to think the gift was worthless. Then her face had changed; clearly, the contents of the Jade Casket were no ordinary trinkets. A moment later, she had even taken one out to examine in front of their guest—and nodded at him!

No one knew his wife better than he did. In his position as supervisory commandant, gift-givers came like carp crossing the river. What sort of gift had she not seen? Yet he had never seen her lose her composure like this. Curious to know what Little Miser Du had brought, Qi Rongwei casually picked up his teacup.

Du Lengning saw the signal and hurriedly rose. With a bow, he said, "In that case, I'll take my leave. Please give my matter your attention, Uncle." "Mm, of course..."

No sooner had Du Lengning gone out than Madam Qi, without waiting to be asked, held the Jade Casket before Qi Rongwei in trembling hands. "Husband, you have a chance at the deputy Constabulary Director's post!" "Quiet!" Qi Rongwei glared at her in irritation. This was the front hall, after all, not their private rooms. Some things could not be said aloud here.

Madam Qi hurriedly thrust the Jade Casket close to him, as though he were nearsighted.

Qi Rongwei read through the inscription, and his neatly groomed beard began to tremble. "Ha ha ha..." After a long laugh, he snapped the box shut. "You're right, my dear. Who would have thought Old Miser Du's son would part with such a lavish gift!"

Madam Qi said, "Husband, there are only ten Spirit-Accumulating Pills here—one month's supply. Clearly, Little Du... Young Master Du intends to present you with more after you settle his matter. What did he ask of you?"

Qi Rongwei frowned. "Oh no. I was so focused on your expression that I didn't hear what he said... For Old Miser Du's son to give a gift this valuable, he must want something substantial!" Qi Rongwei found himself caught between two horns.

Outside the Qi Residence, Du Lengning turned back and bowed to the steward who had seen him out. "Ha ha, I'll be on my way." He took a document written on silk from his robe, placed a piece of High-Grade Immortal Jade beneath it, and put both into the steward's hand. "These are the documents for our Medicine Shop. Sorry for the trouble, but please pass them to Lord Qi." With a flick of his fingers, the steward slipped the Immortal Jade into his sleeve and laughed heartily. "Of course!"

Du Lengning was thoroughly frustrated. He had delivered ten precious Spirit-Accumulating Pills, but before his seat had even grown warm, he had been sent away without explaining his business or submitting the Medicine Shop application. He had made such bold promises to Luo Qian. If he botched this, how could he face Luo Qian as a partner? Luo Qian did all the work while he tagged along, ate his fill, and collected money. His handsome face flushed, and he hurried back to Ningyuan Mountain to think of another way.

Luo Qian still could not work out where the problem lay. The Spirit-Accumulating Pill formula was correct. When he combined the ingredients according to its proportions, six batches out of ten yielded pills. Why, then, would the Three-Color Pill not work?

Luo Qian had tried seven times, following the original formula, yet not a single batch had succeeded. He sat on the floor amid rows of rice cookers, looking ridiculous. "Something must be wrong somewhere!"

An idea flashed through his mind: The proportions! That had to be it. He had measured them in the simplest possible way—one scoop with a jade bowl counted as one portion. But the Three-Color Pill formula called for two half-portions. The problem was probably in those two halves.

Having found a likely answer, Luo Qian scrambled up from the floor, let out a tiger-like roar, and vanished with a bang.

At his base in City X, Luo Qian reclined comfortably on his S-shaped lounge chair and dialed Pei Sefei's number on his new phone. Whatever that girl was plotting, he paid her five thousand yuan a month. He might as well put her to work.

"Hello, it's me. Buy me a precision electronic scale... Mm, make it two."

Less than an hour later, a knock sounded at the door. Pei Sefei came in, her slender arms wrapped around two large cardboard boxes.

Luo Qian did not help. He pulled the door open with one hand, rested the other on his hip, and watched the visibly overburdened Pei Sefei with a smile. The girl frowned. "Even if you're my boss, you shouldn't just stand there watching. You haven't got a shred of chivalry. Girls these days won't like someone like you. No wonder you're still single."

Luo Qian shut the door. "I'm just curious why the hottest new star in entertainment—a future diva—is working for me. You're usually so busy." As he spoke, he walked over and pulled a strip of silver fabric from beneath her skirt.

Startled, Pei Sefei jumped away. "Pervert! What are you doing?" Luo Qian smiled faintly. "Don't be ridiculous. Even if I were going to grope someone, I'd choose someone who interested me. You rushed here straight from the photo studio. You were in such a hurry you didn't even check your clothes after changing."

What Luo Qian meant was that if he were going to molest anyone, he would at least choose an immortal maiden. But that was not how his words sounded to Pei Sefei. She glared at him in anger, and a tiny seed of defiance inside her began growing as fast as a thorny vine.

Pei Sefei was a rising star. Less than a year after her debut, she was already a young diva, and her agency had assigned her three personal assistants to look after her daily needs. That afternoon, she really had been rushing through a print-ad shoot. When Luo Qian called, she had immediately stripped off the elaborate costume that had taken an hour and a half to put on. She sent an assistant to buy the electronic scales, hurried through removing her makeup and changing, then raced to Luo Qian's base. When she arrived, the assistant was just unloading the scales from the car.

(Luo Qian's Medicine Shop was finally about to open. But that was only a sideline. He would still focus on his great smuggling enterprise; after all, his dream was to become a "smuggling kingpin.")

(Open your jaws wide like a crocodile and ask for votes...)

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