Three to five days passed in a flash, and the cold grew ever more bitter.
The snow pellets gradually turned into cottony clumps, blanketing the outer sect's peaks.
Jiang Yi went straight to the Ice and Fire Cave after work, and the waiter came forward to greet him.
"Brother Yi, the usual?"
Jiang Yi nodded lightly.
"I'm tired of fish. Got anything else? I'd like a change."
The waiter answered:
"We caught some green shrimp today. They're raised in the Inner Peaks' spirit pools. Delicious and nourishing, too."
Jiang Yi asked:
"How much?"
The waiter bent halfway at the waist.
"Thirty talisman money apiece, about eight jin each. How many would you like, Brother Yi?"
Tsk, certainly not cheap!
Jiang Yi nodded.
"Ten shrimp, please, two bowls of rice, and a few good dishes besides."
The waiter wiped down the table and chairs, then brought over a pot of tea.
"Coming right up! Have a seat, Brother Yi. I'll tell the kitchen to prepare them properly! It's getting colder. Shall I warm some wine for you?"
"Sure."
Sure enough, money makes you a lord!
The service was much more attentive than on his previous visits.
The thought flashed through Jiang Yi's mind, and he let the waiter get on with his work.
With his finances, buying up all the eight-jin green shrimp would be no problem.
But a mere mortal laborer had no need to attract attention by flaunting his wealth and inviting covetous eyes.
"Eating and drinking, money flows away like water."
Seated in a corner, Jiang Yi calculated inwardly. With the guidance and examples provided by the Heavenly Book's golden pages, he had obtained those ownerless valuables without much effort.
Apart from the Lesser Forging Origin Fire-Control Art hidden by Duty Officer Yang's son, which he could not yet spare the time to go down the mountain and find, everything else had entered his pockets.
With this "startup capital," Jiang Yi had begun eating spirit cuisine to nourish his flesh and strengthen his physique.
Of his windfall of twenty-four thousand talisman money, only fifteen or sixteen thousand remained after all this spending.
"Money well spent never goes wrong. The results are as immediate as a pole casting its shadow."
A smile touched Jiang Yi's lips. How many days had it been since he reached Qi Refining Second Stage?
His cultivation was now fully consolidated, and his True Qi had grown enormously, condensing from wispy strands into a stream as thick as his thumb.
By He Laohun's reckoning, he had probably reached the "middle phase."
By the time he spent all twenty-four thousand talisman money, he should be able to break through to the third level of Qi Refining.
Jiang Yi made a rough calculation. That would be the beginning of winter.
"The wonder of cultivation lies in steady progress, in the satisfaction of climbing higher. It really draws you in!"
He thought:
My aptitude is nowhere near good. Barely below average, just enough to meet the sect's threshold, and a long way from qualifying to enter the Inner Sect directly as a disciple.
If I really had to work while cultivating painstakingly, who knows when I'd reach the fifth level of Qi Refining!
The Ice and Fire Cave was warm and bustling. Jiang Yi toyed with his wine cup.
Warmed over a little red-clay stove, the aged yellow wine smelled richer and tasted mellower.
His thoughts gradually drifted outward with the rising warmth.
Of the hundreds of mortal laborers on the Outer Sect's Four Peaks, at least a third are my equals. If they had no shortage of spirit rice and spirit cuisine, and were willing to work hard, they should all be able to approach the threshold of duty officer.
But the talisman money most mortal laborers earn is nowhere near enough to support spending like this.
Jiang Yi gradually gained a clearer understanding of demonic cultivation.
If the Immortal Dao meant certain people were born destined to become carefree, yellow-capped, feather-robed Daoists upon the mountains,
then the demonic path meant countless people charging across a single-log bridge together, to see who could seize the lead and who would stake their lives.
Before long, the spirit rice and green shrimp arrived, accompanied by two or three small dishes and a large bowl of bear paw.
Two days earlier, Jiang Yi had swept through his meals like a gale scattering clouds, as though he were a starving ghost reborn. Now that he had eaten more of it, he could savor the flavors at leisure, chewing slowly.
He even had the leisure to observe the diners coming and going from the Ice and Fire Cave.
Most mortal laborers who could frequently eat out on Crimson Flame Peak and afford spirit rice were no ordinary people.
They necessarily had either connections or backing.
Jiang Yi sipped the piping-hot aged yellow wine, ate a fresh, crisp, plainly poached green shrimp, and listened to the idle chatter inside the Ice and Fire Cave.
This mortal laborer's life of ox-and-horse drudgery had quite a bit of flavor to it.
"I heard Duty Officer Zhou on Sewing Peak flew into a terrible rage! This month's Hundred-Shadow Dharma Robe output fell short by two, and an Inner Sect senior brother reprimanded him. I reckon Sewing Peak's mortal laborers won't have an easy time of it for a while."
"You even know news only the Inner Sect hears, Brother Zheng?"
"Come on, think about who my brother-in-law is!"
"I nearly forgot. You're Duty Officer Luo of Soul-Nourishing Peak's brother-in-law."
Jiang Yi glanced unobtrusively at the nearby table. The young fat man at its head looked familiar.
Thinking it over, he had seen him while lining up for work early in the morning.
Was his name Zheng Dajiang?
A duty officer's brother-in-law counted as someone with connections.
No wonder he lived so comfortably.
"Brother Zheng, why don't you go to Soul-Nourishing Peak? The work on Crimson Flame Peak is so hard."
Someone asked.
"You lot don't know shit!"
Zheng Dajiang had been drinking, and his speech was somewhat slurred.
"Soul-Nourishing Peak is where they refine Hundred-Soul Banners. Mortal laborers have to draw 'life-and-death lots.' If you're unlucky enough to draw a death lot, you have to go to Soulfall Gorge and scout the way for Inner Sect disciples! Ten deaths and not one chance of survival!"
Whoa!
Not only were Zheng Dajiang's fellow workers at the table startled, but Jiang Yi's heart also gave a jolt.
This demonic sect had pitfalls everywhere.
Of the mortal laborers who served their full twelve years, would even half make it down the mountain in one piece?
"By comparison, Crimson Flame Peak may be hard, but you're not so likely to lose your life! Besides..."
Zheng Dajiang wanted to keep them guessing and whet their appetites, but unfortunately, he lacked patience. A few flattering words from his fellow workers had him spilling everything.
"Duty Officer Yang has reached retirement age. His son died in the Cave of Myriad Beasts six months ago. If my brother-in-law is willing to pull some strings, I might be 'Duty Officer Zheng' in the future!"
At these words, his fellow workers hurried to call him "Duty Officer Zheng" a few times.
They joined in the fun with remarks like, "You'll have to look after us."
Jiang Yi listened closely for a while, then left without lingering. His tolerance for alcohol was unremarkable, so he drank only half a pot of aged yellow wine and had the waiter keep the rest for him.
When he stepped out of the Ice and Fire Cave, cold wind blew straight against his neck. Fortunately, his strong Qi Refining Second Stage physique drove away that knife-scraping chill in an instant.
"All oxen and horses, yet their ways of living differ."
Jiang Yi sighed inwardly. The lowest cultivators on the Outer Sect's Four Peaks were mortal laborers like himself, working numbly day after day and struggling to survive.
Slightly better off were those like Zheng Dajiang, with someone behind them offering protection. If they cultivated diligently and muddled their way to the fourth or fifth level of Qi Refining, they could at least earn themselves some "financial prospects."
At the top were none other than the duty officers. They managed a workshop and dozens of mortal laborers, no longer needing to toil themselves, only to deal with the supervising senior brothers from the Inner Sect.
Going from mortal laborer to duty officer is roughly like going from an ordinary worker tightening screws to a workshop line leader. It really does count as a rise in status.
With the Heavenly Book, I'm slowly moving from the lowest way of living toward the middle tier.
Jiang Yi was neither greedy nor demanding. With the Heavenly Book in hand, he would sooner or later ascend the Twelve-Storied Qi Refining realm.
That was his ambition for now!
When he returned to the communal courtyard, everyone was already asleep, and it was very quiet.
Gulp.
Jiang Yi tipped his head back and finished the last mouthful of the bear-gall wine Widow Qin had given him.
The throat-burning heat of the wine surged through his chest and belly, then produced wisps of warmth.
With these days of "supplementing his nourishment," his physique grew stronger by the day, and the number of celestial circuits his True Qi could complete gradually increased.
He could now complete five Greater Celestial Circuits.
Jiang Yi had asked the Heavenly Book's golden pages: the condition for perfecting Qi Refining Second Stage and breaking through to the Third Level of Qi Refining was to circulate True Qi through his entire body, completing ten Greater Celestial Circuits within the time an incense stick took to burn.
The so-called Greater Celestial Circuit involved exhaling and sinking the breath, exerting force in the lower abdomen, descending to the perineum, then splitting into two streams that went straight down to the soles.
Then he inhaled, touching his tongue to his upper palate, and the streams traveled from the soles to the crown of his head, joining at the tip of his tongue.
The linking of True Qi through this exhalation and inhalation formed one complete cycle.
Jiang Yi remembered that the original owner had cultivated diligently for a full seven years, only just managing to complete one circuit.
"Ten celestial circuits, and the third level is in sight."
For now, he set this modest goal.
Before sleeping, he blinked out of habit.
The Heavenly Book's golden pages abruptly manifested.
[Heavenly Book, I humbly beseech you to show me what I must watch out for at work tomorrow, so that I may seek good fortune and avoid ill, inviting neither disaster nor trouble.]
After solving the problem of his empty purse, Jiang Yi had begun using the Heavenly Book to record information about everyone on Crimson Flame Peak.
He posed questions such as [Heavenly Book, I humbly beseech you to show me the life, temperament, and preferences of He Laohun, whom I know].
Over several days, he had gained a complete grasp of the temperaments, preferences, and unusual proclivities of several fellow workers in the communal courtyard and Yang Xun, the Quenching Room duty officer.
Yang Xun, for instance, had become moody and quick to anger after losing his son, yet was considerate toward youths and occasionally showed kindness.
Among them, Old He, Old Li, and the others required only six hours for results.
Widow Qin, however, required eight hours.
As for Yang Xun, the duty officer of Crimson Flame Peak's Quenching Room, he required twelve hours.
Jiang Yi guessed that the Heavenly Book probably made its judgment based on cultivation and realm.
After familiarizing himself with Crimson Flame Peak, his "base," he also used the Heavenly Book's ability to examine cause and effect to "divine" his own fortunes.
One question each day, seeking good fortune and avoiding ill, lest a day of bad luck bring him an undeserved beating or death.
This was a good habit Jiang Yi had maintained ever since learning that "accidents" often happened to mortal laborers on the Outer Sect's Four Peaks.
With a hum, golden light rippled.
[Matter examined: good and ill fortune] [Time required for deduction: six hours]
"I'll look tomorrow morning. In demonic cultivation, every step must be carefully secured. 'Prudence' comes first!"
Silently reciting his mantra of "steadiness," Jiang Yi drifted peacefully into dreams.
Before you continue