Volume One: Days in the Shantytown - Nine Realms Misty Turmoil (Part One)

Du Lengning flicked the beads of a golden abacus, making them clack.

"Old Luo, between the gifts and the day's takings, we brought in 831 pieces of High-Grade Immortal Jade for the grand opening. I didn't bother counting the change. The banquet and other costs came to 260 pieces of High-Grade Immortal Jade. That leaves a net profit of 571 pieces—571 million standard Immortal Jade!"

Du Lengning's voice trembled with excitement. "Old Luo, I never knew opening a shop could make so much money. Why don't we open a few more?" Luo Qian laughed and cursed. "That was a one-shot deal. How many times do you think you can swing the hammer? If you keep trying to make money like that, you'll drive every merchant off Ningyao Mountain before long."

Luo Qian paced across the office, looking every inch a man overseeing the grand scheme. "Let's review our recent work. Comrades, the effort has been great, the results remarkable, the returns outstanding, and the gains enormous. The Luo Family Medicine Shop has opened, our smuggling business has climbed another hundred feet from the top of the pole, and we now have a VP clientele..."

Du Lengning refused to play along. "VP clientele?" "Ahem. Ling Xiaose's mysterious cousin." "One person counts as a clientele?" Luo Qian frowned, and Du Lengning promptly raised his hands in surrender. "Fine, go on. I'm listening."

"Next, we need to expand production. We can't rest on our laurels, my comrade. We need to enlarge the underground medicine workshop. Besides bringing in rice cookers from the lower realm, I'll have to order a large batch of Power Generators from Xiao Xiangzi. Our own needs aside, my customers are lining up to buy them."

"No problem," Du Lengning said. "I'll go order fifty right away. Will that be enough?" Luo Qian had something else in mind. "Do you think Xiao Xiangzi can be trusted?" Du Lengning paused. "What, you want to bring him in too?" Luo Qian shook his head. "No. I want to make him one of our customers."

"That's easy. We can sell him our pills at a twenty percent discount. He'd jump at that," Du Lengning said.

Luo Qian shook his head. "That's not what I mean..." Du Lengning stared at him, then suddenly understood. "You're not thinking of selling him contraband, are you?" "That's why I asked whether he could be trusted."

Du Lengning lowered his head and thought for a while. "Hard to say. But..." "I'll approach him," Luo Qian said. "If something goes wrong, you won't be implicated." After some thought, Du Lengning reluctantly agreed. "All right. If something does happen, I'll still be outside to find a way to get you out. But what do you have that would tempt him?"

Luo Qian smiled with complete confidence and took something out. "What do you think of this?"

At Beautiful Water Cliff, Luo Qian stood outside Xiao Xiangzi's courtyard with a bundle on his back and called out, "Little Bear! Little Bear!" Hearing someone call "Brother Xiao," Xiao Xiangzi came out beaming. "Oh, Brother Luo! We've been neighbors for a while now. You finally remembered to come see me."

They had grown familiar enough to joke with each other.

Luo Qian gave him a sly grin. "Heh, that's right, Little Bear. I came to see you. These past few days, I've been so busy my heels have been kicking the back of my head."

Though Xiao Xiangzi found Luo Qian's pronunciation a little odd today, he gave it no further thought and warmly ushered him in. "Come in, Brother Luo."

The room looked just as it always had. As Luo Qian sat down, Xiao Xiangzi set a cup of hot tea before him. "Did you come to see me about something?" He eyed the bulging bundle on Luo Qian's back. Immortal Jade? That's quite a load. Looks like a big deal has come knocking!

Luo Qian chuckled and set down the bundle. "I did. We've known each other long enough. I have a big deal for you, Little Bear, if you dare take it."

Xiao Xiangzi perked up. "Of course I dare. I'm a Ghost Cultivator—what do I have to fear? What wouldn't I dare..." Luo Qian smiled strangely and swept an apparently casual glance around the room. "Little Bear, ordinary people can't enter this residence without your permission, can they?" Xiao Xiangzi nodded confidently. "Unless they're an Immortal above the sixth rank, I'll know if anyone comes in."

But Luo Qian merely chuckled again. "Heh. Still not safe enough."

Xiao Xiangzi grew serious. Evidently, the big deal Luo Qian wanted to discuss was no simple matter. After a moment's consideration, he rose. "Brother Luo, this way."

A cliff rose behind the house, with a stone cave at its foot. Luo Qian followed Xiao Xiangzi inside. His vision went dark, wind rushed past his ears, and the ground seemed to drop away beneath his feet. He was about to use Sky-Leaping Vault when his feet touched solid ground again.

"Brother Luo, this is where I usually craft artifacts. Without my permission, even the Immortal Emperor himself couldn't get in." An ever-burning lamp hung on each of the stone chamber's four walls. A stone bed stood opposite them, and there was nothing else.

Luo Qian nodded in satisfaction. "Little Bear, don't get upset at what I'm about to ask." Xiao Xiangzi made a show of magnanimity. "Ask away, Brother Luo." "What's your success rate when crafting artifacts?"

Xiao Xiangzi frowned, but he had already agreed to answer. "Not high. Around fifty percent." "Fifty percent isn't low. From what I know, many Artifact Cultivators manage only around thirty. But have you ever thought about raising your success rate?"

Xiao Xiangzi had no idea what Luo Qian was getting at. "What exactly are you trying to say, Brother Luo?" Luo Qian smiled. "Why is the success rate so low?" A touch of displeasure crossed Xiao Xiangzi's face. "Because my cultivation isn't sufficient, of course. Hmph." Luo Qian ignored his tone. "What else?"

Xiao Xiangzi snapped, "Luo Qian, why are you beating around the bush? Just say what you want to say!" Luo Qian remained unruffled. "Heh. When my shop refines medicine, the proportions of the ingredients matter. Add just a little too much of one ingredient to a recipe, and the whole batch of pills is ruined. I imagine crafting artifacts works the same way?"

Naturally, Xiao Xiangzi knew more about artifact crafting than Luo Qian, and he knew Luo Qian was right. It was indeed one reason the failure rate stayed so high. Scales in the Immortal Realm had limited accuracy; sometimes a crafter had to rely entirely on experience. Young Artifact Cultivators were bound to make more mistakes.

"What solution do you have?" Xiao Xiangzi asked. "I have a high-precision measuring Immortal Artifact," Luo Qian said. He opened the bundle. Xiao Xiangzi immediately felt a wave of worldly aura wash over him. "Contraband! You—you..." He pointed at Luo Qian in shock. Without answering, Luo Qian took out one of the Power Generators Xiao Xiangzi had made and gently connected it to the Electronic Scale's power socket. Xiao Xiangzi's legs went weak. He collapsed to the floor, his face ashen, and muttered, "I thought there was something fishy about that thing from the start. Sure enough..."

Luo Qian had not uttered a single threat, but Xiao Xiangzi understood at once. He had made that Power Generator with his own hands. If he exposed Luo Qian, he could not keep himself out of it.

"I have a big deal for you," Luo Qian said evenly. "This high-precision Electronic Scale in exchange for two hundred Power Generators." A murderous glint appeared in Xiao Xiangzi's eyes. Luo Qian deliberately turned his back, as though he had not seen it.

"I've been in this business for years. If I hadn't taken a few precautions, my Primordial Spirit would have been destroyed long ago," he remarked, seemingly offhand. Behind him, Xiao Xiangzi trembled slightly. His left hand, charged with power, hesitated before lowering again.

"You're asking too much," Xiao Xiangzi said bitterly. "I couldn't make two hundred even if I sold everything I own." Luo Qian considered it. "Fine. One hundred and eighty." Xiao Xiangzi gritted his teeth. "One hundred! That's my limit. This thing is extremely useful to me, but it isn't worth that much." He hurriedly put the Electronic Scale away, afraid the slightest trace of its worldly aura might escape and bring death down on him.

Luo Qian chuckled. "For an old acquaintance, one hundred it is. When can I collect them?" "With this, I can make fifteen in three days. Come by every three days." "Done."

As soon as Luo Qian left, Xiao Xiangzi hastily set up a Seven Luminaries Desert-Heaven Formation to conceal the Electronic Scale's aura. Then he brought his thumb and middle finger together. A speck of azure light rose from behind him, circled in front of him, and turned into the Azure Jade Bowl. Xiao Xiangzi murmured an incantation, and the bowl spilled a sheet of azure light over the formation. Only after finishing all of this without pause did he breathe a sigh of relief. In his mind, he had already cursed every female relative Luo Qian had—direct, distant, and so distantly related they might as well have been strangers—one by one.

Luo Qian left Beautiful Water Cliff but did not return to his cave dwelling on Toad Mountain. He changed direction in midair and went to Ningyao Mountain. He was not looking for Du Lengning; he had something to buy.

Twenty-one rice cookers sat inside the Toad Mountain Underground Palace. If they were discovered, the entire Immortal Realm would be shaken. He could not afford to be careless. The palace entrance was well hidden, but that did not guarantee no one would find it. He felt he needed to place something there to screen it from view.

With his current wealth, Luo Qian could buy an Immortal Artifact-grade magical tool to guard the entrance, but it would ruin him. Anything of the artifact-control grade could be broken by anyone with a little ability. In the end, he settled on an illusion formation.

He browsed several Immortal shops. The artifact businesses were doing well: figures shifted before their cloth banners, and flash after flash transported customers to the shops farther away. The stream never stopped, nor did the light. It made Luo Qian's eyes ache—not because the teleportation flashes dazzled him, but because he envied their business. With this many customers, even closing a sale with one in ten would fill their coffers to the brim. When will my shop be this busy?

He wandered beneath one of the cloth banners. The goods offered were listed on its back: Immortal Artifacts, artifact-control tools, Treasure Artifacts, and all kinds of Flag-Gate Formations. Luo Qian nodded and stepped beneath it. After a flash of light, he found himself in a spacious room. Supermarket-like shelves lined all four walls, filled with Magical Artifacts of every kind. They were only models, of course. Without paying, he could forget about seeing the real goods. Better safe than sorry: the Immortal Realm was full of powerful people, and a shop had to be careful.

(Someone predicted that typo-hunting heroes would run rampant and Shi San would be drained to death... It seemed entirely possible!)

(Votes, votes! Typo-hunting calls for votes.)