"You don't mean that place that suddenly burst into flames, do you?" someone asked in surprise.
"Where else could it be? How come I heard that happened because earthfire surged up from below?" someone else chimed in.
"That was a lie to fool you. Haven't you noticed that more and more people have been coming to our Ping'an Town lately, yet business has been getting harder and harder for us?"
Only then did someone realize, "There really do seem to be more people, but they only stay in town for a while, ask for a bit of inconsequential information, and then leave."
Put that way, the others gradually caught on too.
The residents of Ping'an Town usually earned spirit stones by taking people out to train or serving as guides. There had been plenty of new faces in Ping'an Town lately, but their business had plummeted.
At first, they had only thought they were unlucky. Now that someone had brought it up, they realized they were not the only ones who had failed to earn any spirit stones. Everyone was in the same boat.
At that thought, anger could not help rising in their hearts.
But before that anger could go to their heads, someone threw a basin of cold water straight over them. "So what exactly are you telling us all this for? Even if we know the truth, can we really hold those people down and make them give us spirit stones? Any one of them could crush us to death."
Hearing this, the others came back to their senses from their anger. That was right. What did they have to be angry about? Whether in status or cultivation, they could not compare to those people. Could they really force them to hand over spirit stones?
If they