The Lu Family

After a round of haggling.

Wang Ba bought out the lot and returned, satisfied, with forty-six sick chickens.

With Spirit Cuisine such as Precious Chickens now in desperately short supply, even sick chickens fetched no small price, as much as male Precious Chickens had before prices rose.

But sick hens and roosters cost the same, and the goateed old man had been willing to sell at a discount, so Wang Ba felt he had made a tidy profit.

"Keep the hens. Once the roosters break through, extract their lifespan and eat them!"

That had always been his policy.

At the Mountain Manor entrance, after making sure no one was nearby, he hurriedly deposited lifespan into each Precious Chicken in turn.

Only after confirming he had missed none did he enter the Mountain Manor, set aside a separate patch of ground for them, and fence it off to keep them from coming into contact with the healthy Precious Chickens.

Then he gave the newly arrived sick chickens Chicken Feed, discarded spirit insects, and so on.

Not daring to touch the healthy Precious Chickens again, he went down to a spring below the Mountain Manor and took a bath.

Come to think of it, he had not bathed in a long time. Dealing with these animals every day, he had grown used to the stench on his body and no longer found it foul.

So when he returned to the Mountain Manor after his bath, he actually felt a little unaccustomed to it.

But he still had plenty to do, such as repairing the house.

He had already tidied up the roof that the Sect disciple Ye Lingyu had torn off. Fortunately, there had been no rain lately, sparing Wang Ba from having to move into Old Sun's room.

Because Wang Ba had hidden quite a few Spirit Chickens there, that room was littered with old chicken droppings.

That smell...

The next day, Old Hou delivered chicken feed to the Mountain Manor again.

Ever since revealing the secret of the Body-Strengthening Scripture, he had done his utmost to avoid chatting with Wang Ba. Every time he delivered Chicken Feed, he left as soon as he was done, never lingering a second longer.

Clearly, he greatly feared Wang Ba's "money power."

After repeatedly trying to draw him out without much success, Wang Ba had stopped pestering him, and the two had grown used to interacting this way.

This time, however, Wang Ba called out to stop Old Hou.

"Old Hou, how much do you know about Immortal Lu, the leading outer sect disciple?"

"Lu Yuansheng?"

At the name, Old Hou's gossiping soul began to stir. In the end, he could not hold himself back. But perhaps he also felt this had little to do with the Immortal Ascension Society, so he lowered his voice.

"He was a ruthless one! I heard none of the outer sect disciples could match him in a fight. But not long ago, after he left the Sect, it seems some formidable figure cut him down. They didn't even leave his body whole!"

"Even the Department Elders of the Six Great Departments were alerted!"

"The Department Elders?"

Wang Ba was somewhat startled to hear this.

The Department Elders were elders with real authority, their power extending across both the inner and outer sects. Handling the Sect's miscellaneous affairs also brought them considerable resources, so these six Department Elders were said to be second in strength only to the lofty Sect Master.

"That's right. Didn't you see? Around noon that day, six streaks of light suddenly appeared in the sky. That was them!"

Old Hou seemed to recall the scene that day, a trace of awe still lingering in his eyes.

Wang Ba suddenly remembered as well. There had indeed seemed to be a day when he saw several streaks of radiant light fill the sky, magnificent and vast, with Spiritual Qi so dense it beggared belief.

Precisely because of that, he had been terrified and immediately hidden inside the house, not daring to look any longer.

Thinking back now, Lu Yuansheng had probably fallen that very day.

"Come to think of it, even in death, Lu Yuansheng probably couldn't close his eyes in peace!"

Old Hou suddenly sighed.

"What makes you say that?"

Wang Ba asked curiously.

"Hah! Does anyone even need to tell you? Lu Yuansheng fought his whole life and got his money's worth, but to this day, not one person in his lineage has a Spiritual Root. With him dead, even if the Sect remembers old ties, they've already been reduced to a mortal lineage. What difference is there between them and us?"

"Not to mention, Lu Yuansheng held the position of leading outer sect disciple for years. He probably offended plenty of people. If even one of them is ruthless enough, heh, the Lu family won't have an easy time of it!"

"That... surely it wouldn't go that far?"

Though Wang Ba said this, inwardly he agreed with Old Hou.

Old Hou glared. "Wouldn't go that far? You've been to West Garden Market, haven't you? You should remember a shop there called the Lu Family Grain Shop, right? That belonged to Lu Yuansheng's lineage. Guess what happened to it? Hah! The day after Lu Yuansheng died, the shop was auctioned off. Now it's in the hands of another of the Top Ten Outer Sect Disciples!"

"If you don't believe me, go have a look once you finish work today! See whether I got anything wrong."

Wang Ba said nothing. He had already been there and naturally knew Old Hou was right.

"I also heard the Lu family originally lived in a lane near North Pine Market, where the Spiritual Qi is best. Later, they moved to East Mountain Market, and lately I've heard they've moved again, to South Lake Village... Ah! Once the guest is gone, the tea turns cold! Before long, I reckon they probably won't even be able to stay in South Lake Village. They'll have to move outside the Sect!"

"All right, that's enough chatting. That bastard at Ninety-Two Manor curses me out every time I deliver late. Son of a bitch! I'm off!"

With that, Old Hou cracked his whip, still cursing, and drove his donkey cart away until he gradually disappeared into the distance.

"South Lake Village?"

Wang Ba knew the village. Not far from South Lake Market, it had formed naturally as stewards, Servant Disciples, and the families of Sect disciples settled nearby.

South Lake Market was farthest from the Sect's core and had the thinnest Spiritual Qi.

Accordingly, South Lake Village was a place where almost only the most down-and-out families of Sect disciples would live.

The Lu family had plunged straight down from North Pine Market to their present home in South Lake Village. Their rise and fall could only be called fleeting.

But Wang Ba could do nothing about it.

He was only a lowly Servant Disciple.

Even if he wanted to lend his friend Shopkeeper Lu a hand, he lacked the ability.

Besides, a starved camel was still bigger than a horse. Even in decline, the Lu family had far greater resources than a Servant Disciple like him.

Most likely, they had no need of help from a Servant Disciple either.

Several more days passed before he finally finished repairing the roof. He also put the room in order again, making it somewhat brighter and more spacious than before. Living there became markedly more pleasant.

The house, at least, had turned misfortune into a blessing.

Finally, one evening after finishing all his work, he sat beneath the setting sun and suddenly felt an impulse well up within him that even he found inexplicable.

It was a thoroughly senseless impulse, entirely at odds with his principle of wisely keeping himself out of harm's way, yet it vaguely accorded with his wishes.

He even had a feeling that if he did not follow this inclination and go, perhaps he would truly lose something.

Those things might not be important.

But neither were they necessarily unimportant.

At last, he gritted his teeth.

He looked around, picked out a chicken, tucked it into a bamboo basket, and headed straight for South Lake Village.

Yes, South Lake Village.

The place where the Lu family now lived.

Wang Ba was not going to visit the Lu family, but simply to see Shopkeeper Lu himself.

A man whose name he did not even really know.

But after Wang Ba passed through streets that stank to high heaven and reached the courtyard where the Lu family lived, he discovered that their situation was even worse than he had imagined.