Spirit Beast Pavilion

"Strangely enough, my father sent word in a letter that Lan Tianxiang, who had vanished without a trace, actually went to the Qiyun Mountain area and killed over a dozen members of the Bai Household, including three at the late Qi Refining stage."

A trace of worry flashed through Zhou Miaoyun's eyes when she mentioned her father. Shixia Town had become the boundary between the Yun and Bai Households.

That meant all the Qi Refining Aristocratic Clans in Shixia Town were in danger of being wiped out.

"That remnant of the Lan Household? Wasn't he already badly injured?" Gao Peiyao looked at Zhou Miaoyun in confusion.

Gao Peiyao and Chen Jianghe still remembered Lan Tianxiang vividly. Both had felt the oppressive aura of that powerful cultivator at the ninth level of Qi Refining at Port No. 2.

In an instant, he had destroyed Port No. 2 and taken the lives of dozens of cultivators. His brutality had been extreme.

"Even if Lan Tianxiang recovered, why would he go slaughter people from the Bai Household?" Chen Jianghe phrased it indirectly, but his meaning was clear.

The Lan Household and the Yun Household shared a deep blood feud.

Why would Lan Tianxiang help the Yun Household deal with the Bai Household?

It seemed to turn heaven's natural order on its head.

"My father didn't explain the reason in his letter, but Lan Tianxiang's attack on the Bai Household did make them stop their invasion of Shixia Town."

Zhou Miaoyun thought for a moment, then lowered her voice. "Could someone from the Yun Household have impersonated Lan Tianxiang to launch a surprise attack on the Bai Household?"

"That's possible."

Chen Jianghe and Gao Peiyao both nodded.

Lan Tianxiang's reputation as a murderous fiend had already spread throughout the Tian Nan Region, and his identity as a demonic cultivator had been firmly established.

It was not impossible that the Yun Household had impersonated Lan Tianxiang to ambush the Bai Household.

At that point, the three tacitly brought the subject to an end.

The wine and dishes arrived.

The three chatted about a few other things, then concluded their little year-end gathering.

Chen Jianghe bought some daily necessities at the market, then sailed back to the Inner Waters.

He was now a Senior Fisher-Farmer and had no need to attend the Fisher-Farmer Conference.

The day before New Year's Eve, Chen Jianghe received a letter from Yu Daniu.

"A boy. Looks like Daniu's had some good luck."

According to the letter, Yu Daniu's wife had given birth to a chubby baby boy. Whether he had a spiritual root would only be known six years later.

Spiritual roots manifested at six years of age, and only then could they be detected.

Still, Yu Daniu's first child being a boy was a blessing in itself.

The Yun Household had recruited men to marry into the family because it had suffered heavy losses among its men and urgently needed new blood to replenish its ranks.

Moreover, Yu Daniu had received a reward from the Yun Household.

Among the seven families with men who had married in, Yu Daniu was the first such husband to have a child. The Yun Household had rewarded him with five spirit stones and three Qi-Blood Pills.

At the end of the letter, Yu Daniu told Chen Jianghe where he lived and invited him over as a guest.

Yu Daniu also mentioned, whether deliberately or not, that he had written Gao Peiyao a letter as well, but he made no mention of Zhou Miaoyun.

The next day.

Dawn had barely broken, and the red sun had yet to show itself above the eastern horizon. Thick fog obscured the view, hiding everything more than thirty feet away.

Chen Jianghe rowed his fishing boat through the dense fog toward Heart of the Lake Island.

Boat silhouettes crowded the misty waterways, their bows and sterns stretching for a thousand miles. Some fishing boats belonged to Senior Fisher-Farmers, others to Retainers.

He had never been to Heart of the Lake Island, but he only needed to follow the boats ahead. No one wanted to miss this once-a-year chance to visit the island.

Half an hour later.

The morning mist had yet to disperse. Sky-blue ripples kissed the granite embankment mottled with moss, while the dew-covered bronze bell at the bow of a black-canopied boat chimed with the sound of the tide.

Chen Jianghe stepped off his fishing boat and onto the harbor of Heart of the Lake Island. The first thing he saw was the outline of a distant bell tower, edged in gold by the rising sun.

Suddenly, several streaks of light landed on the plank bridge beside him, revealing figures who then formed hand seals to gather in their spiritual energy. They were Retainers who had flown over by riding their energy. He watched the surging crowd head toward the bell tower.

Chen Jianghe did not linger either and followed the crowd.

On Heart of the Lake Island, Senior Fisher-Farmers and Retainers were not permitted to wander freely. Their movements were restricted to the harbor, the Cultivator Market, and the residential area along the shore.

He also discovered that the spiritual energy on Heart of the Lake Island was not as dense as he had imagined. It was only slightly stronger than in the Inner Waters.

He found that very strange.

Rumor had it that a low-grade second-tier spiritual vein lay beneath Heart of the Lake Island. In theory, its spiritual energy should not have been almost the same as that of the Inner Waters.

But he had only just arrived, and he had no acquaintances in the Inner Waters, so he could find no one to ask.

As they drew closer to the bell tower, they passed a large residential area made up of small, three-room courtyard homes, each occupying a fifth of a mu.

Yu Daniu lived here.

While passing through, he saw several Senior Fisher-Farmers and one Retainer turn toward the Riverside Residential Area.

They were probably visiting friends.

Chen Jianghe did not go straight to Yu Daniu. Instead, he continued following the crowd toward the bell tower.

This was his first visit to Heart of the Lake Island. He would familiarize himself with it first.

Besides, Yu Daniu had settled down on Heart of the Lake Island, and this was his first visit. With Yu Daniu's son just born, how could he go empty-handed?

He still had one spirit stone and five grains of spirit sand on him. That should have been enough to buy a first-meeting gift for the child.

A short while later, Chen Jianghe reached the bell tower district.

The three-hundred-foot-long street was paved with bluestone, with over a dozen shops on either side selling magical artifacts, pills, Spirit Talismans, materials, puppets, and medicinal meals. Each shop also bought back the same kinds of resources it sold.

The signs above all these shops shared the same prefix: "Yun Household."

That meant all these shops were exclusively owned by the Yun Household.

It was like a small Market Ward.

It had virtually every cultivation resource needed at the Qi Refining stage.

"Oh? Spirit Beast Pavilion? There's even a place selling spirit beasts."

Curious, Chen Jianghe walked inside. The shop covered over two hundred square meters, partitioned by crystal walls enclosing water-filled spaces. At a glance, he saw more than a dozen water-element spirit beasts.

There were even Black Crystal Mystic Tortoises and Small Blue Fish!

"Fellow Daoist, what would you like?"

An overweight middle-aged man approached. There was not the slightest fluctuation of spiritual energy from him, yet he appeared to be the shopkeeper.

Unless something was amiss, he was probably a member of the Yun Household without a spiritual root.

"How much is this Black Crystal Mystic Tortoise?" Chen Jianghe asked curiously.

"You must be looking to buy a spirit beast to help raise Small Blue Fish, fellow Daoist," the overweight man said with a chuckle.

"You have a good eye. Black Crystal Mystic Tortoises are highly intelligent. After becoming spirit beasts, their intelligence is even comparable to an adult's. They're the first choice of spirit beast for many Senior Fisher-Farmers."

"Since you're a Senior Fisher-Farmer, you're one of our Yun Household's own. Black Crystal Mystic Tortoises have one drawback: their bloodline purity is low. You could say they don't qualify for a grade at all. They're forcibly nurtured into spirit beasts and can't awaken divine abilities, so they can't possibly advance to become a Tier 2 Spirit Beast either."

The overweight middle-aged man looked Chen Jianghe up and down before finally naming his price.

"So it costs twelve spirit stones. We'll include a Heart-Linking Lock, which allows simple communication."

"Twelve spirit stones!"

Chen Jianghe froze. Xiao Hei was worth that much?

"What about the Black Crystal Mystic Tortoise's Inheritance Cultivation Art?" Chen Jianghe wanted to know whether his Xiao Hei's Inheritance Cultivation Art was the same as that of other Black Crystal Mystic Tortoises.

"Inheritance Cultivation Art?"

The overweight shopkeeper was visibly taken aback and stared at Chen Jianghe in disbelief.

"What Inheritance Cultivation Art? Spirit beasts can improve their cultivation just by consuming resources. What cultivation technique would they have?"

(End of chapter)