After passing through the outskirts of the Market Ward, Jiang Yi found the scene before him transformed.
Buildings rose from the ground within, their flying eaves like wings, their bracket sets layered one above another.
Cultivators in Daoist robes of every color streamed back and forth, all bright-eyed and radiant, weaving through the prosperous streets to buy and sell. It was a truly bustling sight.
"Duty Officer Yang, Yi, go on and see to your business."
He Laohun knew his place and did not follow them any farther.
"I'll find somewhere affordable to settle in first, then come find you later.
"If you need any errands run, just say the word. I know my way around here too."
Jiang Yi nodded. He Laohun had just told him that although the outskirts of Three Harmonies Ward were shabby, the food and lodging were cheap.
Inside, however, most storefronts were run by Qi Refining Clans. Every inch of land was worth its weight in gold, and even an ordinary pot of spirit tea cost a fair amount of Talisman Money.
He Laohun knew perfectly well that Duty Officer Yang had brought Yi down the mountain to broaden his horizons. Merely catching a ride on their land boat was already a windfall.
If he failed to read the situation and tagged along for free food and drink, he would not only embarrass himself but leave Yi looking bad too.
"All right, Brother He. We'll meet up later."
Jiang Yi waved and parted ways with He Laohun.
Once he was gone, Yang Xun nodded slightly.
"I always thought He Laohun was a good-for-nothing, with a character like a lump of mud. Looking at him now, that isn't entirely true. He knows his boundaries."
Jiang Yi remained silent.
Duty Officers looked down on Mortal Laborers, and clans looked down on those beneath them like weeds. That was simply the way of things, and there was little he could say.
"Jiang Yi, go to Guanlan Trading House up ahead. Explain who you are, show them Crimson Flame Peak's token, and have them make arrangements."
Yang Xun gave his instructions unhurriedly.
"Since we belong to a Dharma Lineage, we needn't dine on wind and sleep under the stars. There are places for us to stay.
"Once that's settled, you can look around. Clans from seven or eight hundred li around come here to trade. There's a fair variety of goods."
Jiang Yi followed his instructions, cupping his hands before leaving.
It did not take him long to find Guanlan Trading House.
The elderly shopkeeper was an Inspection Officer from the Outer Sect's Four Peaks who had stepped down to work at Three Harmonies Ward.
He accepted the token Jiang Yi handed him, examined it, and listened to his explanation before saying with a smile:
"So a Duty Officer from Crimson Flame Peak has come down the mountain to make purchases."
He immediately summoned two assistants and instructed them:
"Take this young fellow to Dai Tower and prepare two superior rooms, with Spirit Cuisine supplied morning and evening.
"Remember that well. No mistakes!"
Then the elderly shopkeeper turned back to Jiang Yi.
"With the year drawing to a close, we have to clear out our stock, so I can't get away just now. Please forgive any shortcomings in our hospitality, Inspection Officer."
Jiang Yi smiled amiably.
"You're too kind. I'm the one troubling you."
With that, he followed the two assistants straight to Dai Tower.
"Inspection Officer, this is Dai Tower, one of the finest places to stay in Three Harmonies Ward."
The assistants were very quick-witted. While one led the way, the other had already gone ahead to arrange the superior rooms.
The spacious lobby was paved with blue bricks, glossy as jade.
Looking up, he could see six stories rising along the mountainside, with a hundred guest rooms surrounding the central courtyard.
A bamboo curtain hung before each door, inscribed with elegant names such as "Listening to the Pines" and "Watching the Clouds."
"This is the superior room prepared for you, Inspection Officer. If you wish to dine, the kitchen has purple ginseng rice and jade-grain soup, both made from spiritual ingredients gathered in the mountains."
Jiang Yi accepted the wooden token inscribed with "Enjoying the Breeze" and thought:
There's a reason even great clans with over a dozen generations of history yearn to join a Dharma Lineage. This status certainly brings many conveniences.
After the assistant left, he pushed open the carved wooden door. The furnishings inside were simple and classical, with ink landscapes hanging on the walls and the four treasures of the study laid out on a table.
"This feels a little like traveling on official business."
Jiang Yi chuckled, sat cross-legged where he was, and began his breathing cultivation.
A short while later, he knew his guess had been right. Outside Three Harmonies Ward, turbid Qi lay thick, like a pool of stagnant water.
Only inside did thin wisps of Spirit Chance circulate like mist.
Although it could not compare with the Qianji Sect's Wavelooking Peak, it was far better than other places.
"Looking at it this way, a cultivator's food and lodging all hinge on the word 'spiritual.'
"With it, things flourish; without it, they decline. That's roughly how it works."
Jiang Yi quieted his mind and meditated for a while, so as not to waste this superior room at Dai Tower's Upper Room, which cost five hundred in Talisman Money a day.
As dusk gradually gathered, lamps began lighting up throughout the tower, illuminating it inside and out.
Though Yang Xun still had not returned, Jiang Yi was not worried.
With Grandpa's cultivation at the Fifth Level of Qi Refining and his opened Inner Mansion of the Origin Gate, he might not be able to swagger unchallenged through Three Harmonies Ward, but few people here could hurt him.
He pulled the thin cord in his room, and a servant arrived at his door moments later.
"Would you like dinner, honored guest? Today we have several dishes of Spirit Cuisine, including purple ginseng stewed with snow dove and stir-fried jade bamboo shoots..."
After a little thought, Jiang Yi selected the most ordinary polygonatum and Spirit Rice porridge, along with two simple side dishes.
The food arrived shortly afterward.
All these comforts left him having to admit that money was never spent for nothing.
After a tasty, filling dinner of Spirit Cuisine, Jiang Yi felt like going out.
He headed for the meeting place he had previously agreed upon with He Laohun: Double Abundance Street, between the inner and outer sections of Three Harmonies Ward.
"Whoa, how lively!"
No sooner had Jiang Yi entered the street than the bustling press of humanity nearly bowled him over.
Vendors and customers were everywhere. A wonton seller's carrying pole had barely passed before an old man selling flatbread squeezed his way over.
The cloth shop banners on either side almost touched. Coarse pottery bowls clinked in the tea stalls, and the scent of fermented black beans from the sauce shop thrust straight into his nose.
There was a chaotic yet vividly alive bustle of everyday life!
Squatting at a noodle stall, the sharp-eyed He Laohun spotted Jiang Yi first and shouted:
"Yi!"
Jiang Yi went over. Before he could sit down, He Laohun, who liked to squat while eating, hastily hopped down and vigorously wiped the long bench.
"I was just thinking I'd come find you after a bowl of noodles..."
Jiang Yi stopped him and said with a smile:
"I'm not some clan heir. My body isn't that precious. This place is pretty lively, with people coming and going. I remember you saying you stayed here for a while, Brother He?"
He Laohun said ruefully:
"After finishing my first work term, I actually considered leaving the mountain. I came to Three Harmonies Ward at year's end and stayed for half a month. After seeing all sorts of down-and-out people, I gave up the idea and stayed on at Crimson Flame Peak to work honestly.
"There are pits everywhere outside. Without ability, you either get bullied or tricked."
He tapped his noodle bowl with his chopsticks and said:
"Actually, I could scrape by if I really lived in Three Harmonies Ward. Look, Yi, this bowl of noodles costs only five in Talisman Money and is enough to fill your belly. Do a few days of hard labor and earn seventy or eighty, and you can lie around for days."
Jiang Yi looked over. The enormous bowl was heaped with noodles, certainly enough to leave someone stuffed.
There was simply no sign of oil or meat, making it look rather bland.
He glanced at the huge characters prominently displayed on the noodle stall's banner-"One bowl of spirit noodles, only five coins"-with some doubt.
"They buy old spirit grain, grind it into flour, and make noodles. There's almost no nourishing effect left, but it fills your belly. It's a shade better than ordinary grains."
He Laohun smiled.
"Plenty of cultivators at the first level of Qi Refining in Three Harmonies Ward live on this."
Jiang Yi nodded. Everyone had their own way of living; it was not for others to point fingers.
When he first entered the Dao Academy, the body's original owner had also imagined that his future path of cultivation would mean dwelling deep among famous mountains and great rivers, living in grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands, associating only with true cultivators and Dao Talents, and playing at sword duels and spellcasting...
Only when he went to work in Crimson Flame Peak's Quenching Room had cold water finally jolted him awake.
He Laohun slurped down the last of his noodles and wiped his mouth clean.
"What are you planning to buy, Yi? Or is there somewhere you want to look around? Double Abundance Street mostly sells food, none of it particularly nourishing."
Jiang Yi stood and said:
"Spring will be here soon. I'd like to buy some good medicine to nourish my body."
He Laohun pondered for a long while before saying carefully:
"All right! I know a few medicinal ingredient shops, but they don't have much good stuff. If you want properly aged ingredients, preferably with a little Spiritual Qi, you'll have to go to Benevolence Street. The True Gu Sect has a storefront there."
Jiang Yi smiled in satisfaction. Bringing He Laohun along had indeed been the right choice.
Yang Xun certainly would not bother with these trifles. For that, a veteran among Crimson Flame Peak's Mortal Laborers was the reliable choice.
Benevolence Street lay inside Three Harmonies Ward and lacked Double Abundance Street's noisy clamor. The cultivators willing to come here all wore bright, fine clothes and looked as though their purses were bulging.
"Over seventy percent of Northern Mang Ridge's pills and medicinal ingredients come from the True Gu Sect."
He Laohun spoke as they walked.
"This Sect-tier Dharma Lineage also recruits the most Outer Sect Mortal Laborers each year. I was originally going to be sent there. Luckily, I was clever enough to slip the steward a gift and get transferred to the Qianji Sect."
Jiang Yi was somewhat puzzled. The True Gu Sect stood a whole rank above the Qianji Sect.
The gap between them was like the difference between the inside and outside of Three Harmonies Ward.
Why did He Laohun feel fortunate to have missed out on the True Gu Sect and been dispatched to the Qianji Sect instead?
"Ah! Yi, you'll understand in a moment."
He Laohun hesitated, as though unsure how to explain it.
Before long.
The two walked onto Benevolence Street, and He Laohun pointed at the tallest building.
"There. That's the True Gu Sect's storefront. It's called Five Solitary Hall."
Jiang Yi looked over. Seven stories high, it loomed darkly over the street corner. Three fired-clay toads crouched on its eave tiles, and bats, snakes, and insects were carved into its ebony doors. It looked thoroughly sinister.
Night had already fallen, but Five Solitary Hall's entrance remained bustling, packed with a dense crowd.
Jiang Yi and He Laohun drew closer and heard an old man who looked like a steward sorting through people like a dealer choosing mules and horses.
"Open your mouth. Good, good. Eight teeth have fallen out. That means you haven't been slacking. Make sure you finish taking it! Come back late next month!"
"Has your appetite increased lately? Eating more? Ten bowls of rice? Not enough. Add another two. You can claim reimbursement."
"You won't do! I told you to sleep in a mass graveyard and absorb more Yin Qi! Look, you've raised this insect to death. Get out, get out..."
Jiang Yi's brows drew tighter and tighter. At last, he understood why He Laohun feared the True Gu Sect like snakes and scorpions.
As it turned out, Five Solitary Hall on Benevolence Street distributed medicine free of charge every month, and even had human traffickers find cultivators to test medicine.
"Human Body Nourishing Pill? Blood Embryo Tendon-Tempering Pill? Neither sounds like it comes from anywhere good."
Jiang Yi glanced at Five Solitary Hall's advertised signboard. Every pill seemed sinister.
"Now you understand, Yi. Of Northern Mang Ridge's two great sects and three lesser sects, only our Qianji Sect and the Illuminating Nether Sect above us offer a somewhat tolerable life.
"Take the True Gu Sect. Their workshops are the Insect Pit, Poison Basin, and Poison Chalice. They send Mortal Laborers inside to nourish insects with their blood and cultivate poison in their bodies."
He Laohun still felt lingering dread. If he gritted his teeth and endured, he could work at Crimson Flame Peak for over twenty years. In the True Gu Sect's Outer Sect, he would probably be dead in three to five.
"Look, these Lower Cultivators from Three Harmonies Ward gathered outside Five Solitary Hall either got greedy for a bargain, took the free medicine, and developed bodily problems, or were tricked into testing medicine..."
A chill ran through Jiang Yi's heart. Comparison really was the most frightening thing. Seen this way, starting as a laborer in Crimson Flame Peak's Quenching Room was actually not so bad.
"Let's go inside, Yi. Five Solitary Hall may have a bad name, but its reputation in business is rock-solid. You get what you pay for, never watered-down goods! They're renowned throughout Three Harmonies Ward!"
He Laohun said.
"Fellow Daoists, please come inside!"
A servant welcomed them warmly, serving tea and offering seats. This fine treatment was mainly directed at Jiang Yi.
Although both wore Daoist robes and seemed little different at first glance.
Having worked at Five Solitary Hall for so long, the servant had an exceptionally keen eye.
He Laohun's temples were gray and his flesh was worn, yet his face did not bear the weathering of age. One glance showed that hard labor had worn him down with every kind of strain and injury-a thoroughly mortal pauper.
Jiang Yi, however, was entirely different. His brow held spirit, his eyes were clear and bright, and especially the vigorous vitality radiating from him, like masses of gentle warmth, had left him without the slightest trace of "mortality."
"All the pills at Five Solitary Hall are secretly prepared according to ancient methods."
The servant greeted them with a smiling face, bending slightly at the waist as he vigorously pitched his wares.
"This Human Body Nourishing Pill is the best for replenishing vital Qi. After three days, your complexion will be rosy; after ten, your beard and hair will turn black... The Blood Embryo Tendon-Tempering Pill is finer still. It tempers tendons and bones until they're as hard as refined iron!"
These so-called "secret ancient methods" of yours, using people for refinement-could they be methods of demonic cultivators from High Antiquity, even older than ancient times?
Jiang Yi grumbled inwardly, then asked:
"Do you have anything to strengthen Primordial Essence?"
"Ah... well..."
The servant was at a loss. He had not expected this young customer with hardly a trace of "mortality" to be at the Fourth Level of Qi Refining.
Everyone knew that most of Five Solitary Hall's pills were intended for the second and third levels of Qi Refining.
After all, Tiger-Wolf Medicine burned like fire and was best at tempering tendons, bones, and Qi and Blood. Its effects could be called immediate.
But coordinating the organs and viscera at the Fourth Level of Qi Refining could not be treated carelessly.
Five Solitary Hall's golden reputation stood firm: its medicine had crippled people, but had never killed anyone!
"Qi'er, you may leave. I'll attend to this honored guest."
The steward who had just been selecting "medicinal ingredients" at the entrance came in and waved the servant away.
"There are many kinds of things that strengthen Primordial Essence. Some nourish the five organs, some refine the six viscera, and others specifically act on a single one.
"Having reached the Fourth Level of Qi Refining, honored guest, you surely understand that the key to Organ Tempering and Viscera Refining lies in 'coordination and harmony.'
"Our hall has the Silver Silkworm Molting Pupa, which can strengthen kidney Qi. Taken by men, it increases primal Yang; taken by women, it generates Primordial Yin..."
The elderly steward, black-haired and weathered-faced, rattled off seven or eight varieties in one breath, as familiar with them as the treasures of his own household.
Jiang Yi listened with satisfaction, then asked with apparent curiosity:
"You mentioned just now that the Five Solitary Hall stocks not only medicinal herbs and pills, but live insects and live Gu as well?"
The elderly steward showed not the slightest impatience and replied with a smile:
"Indeed. Mainly the likes of Breath-Swallowing Insects, Sound-Concealing Insects, and Trace-Seeking Insects. As for Gu, those are treasures of our sect, worth a fortune, and are not lightly passed on.
"If you are interested, honored guest, put up something of equivalent value as security, and this old man can send word to have them brought over.
"But only two varieties are available: Fish-Dragon Gu and Snake Flood Dragon Gu..."
The elderly steward paused, held out a hand, and turned it back and forth:
"They each cost a million in Talisman Money, and the price is absolutely nonnegotiable!"
The corner of Jiang Yi's eye twitched slightly. A Sect-tier Dharma Lineage certainly had the backbone to match its standing, with unique products and outstanding effects.
Even at such steep prices, they had no fear of finding no takers.
"Sorry for troubling you to explain so much. Several of those items interest me quite a bit."
Jiang Yi had come down the mountain with ample Talisman Money in his pockets. His back straight and his confidence brimming, he said slowly:
"It is just that I have a few matters to attend to shortly. I would like to wait until everything is settled before making my purchases.
"Would this arrangement be acceptable? I could leave a deposit so that the Five Solitary Hall would hold these goods for me for ten days.
"If I fail to complete the transaction within those ten days, there will be no need to return the deposit."
The steward narrowed his eyes as he looked him over. Had it been anyone else, he would already have taken them for someone wasting his time.
But the other party had reached the fourth level of Qi Refining at such a young age, and there was not the slightest trace of the mundane about him. One glance was enough to tell that he was a cultivator.
"Might you tell me your origins, honored guest? Which Dharma Lineage, and which sect?"
Jiang Yi cupped his hands and replied:
"Northern Mang Ridge, Qianji Sect, Crimson Flame Peak."
The elderly steward felt greatly reassured. Since this was someone with an established Dharma Lineage affiliation, he could make a little accommodation.
"Certainly, certainly. The goods you want come to a total of one hundred and sixty thousand in Talisman Money. How about the Five Solitary Hall takes twenty thousand in Talisman Money as your deposit?"
Jiang Yi nodded slightly.
What he was waiting for over these ten days was precisely the Heavenly Book's guidance.
Once I have verified the fortuitous encounter concerning my master-inheritance, I will purchase the supplies I need.
Let the walls of those Dharma Lineages rise ten thousand fathoms high-I will tread a Dao Path of my own!
Before you continue