With that, the matter of Yu Xiaogang and Tang San had come to a close for the time being.
As for the people in Dorm Seven, the teacher from the infirmary hurried over to treat them. After receiving treatment, they all woke up, but the thought of having been knocked unconscious by a fart brought tears streaming down their faces.
People would definitely laugh at them over this for eight or ten years.
They might as well have been blasted to death by that fart.
At least they wouldn't have to face this bleak life anymore.
Meanwhile.
After Yu Xiaogang's Soul Skill had wreaked havoc on Dorm Seven, the smell lingered for a long time, leaving Gu Chen and Xiao Wu homeless. As for Wang Sheng and the others, they had all suffered considerable injuries and were naturally resting in the infirmary. They wouldn't be able to return until they had mostly recovered.
But they could at least be considered to have escaped a calamity.
At least they wouldn't have to smell that lingering stench while they slept, with those painful memories playing over and over in their minds.
Gu Chen was definitely not going back unless he was given another dorm.
But Nuoding Academy couldn't possibly go to such lengths for one or two work-study students.
So if they didn't want to sleep in Dorm Seven that night, they would have to find their own solution. Thus, Gu Chen set out to earn some extra money.
Spirit Hall Branch.
At the entrance.
Gu Chen and Xiao Wu stood there. While the former was calm, the latter wore a look of aversion.
"Why did you bring me to Spirit Hall?"
Xiao Wu's feelings were plain to see; she made no attempt to hide them.
"Aren't you short on money? Spirit Hall has a rule: once a One-Ring Soul Master registers, they can collect one Gold Soul Coin a month. A Soul Grandmaster gets ten a month, and a Soul Elder gets a hundred!"
"I get it! A Soul Ancestor gets a thousand Gold Soul Coins a month. Then wouldn't a Titled Douluo get one... lots and lots of Gold Soul Coins?!"
Xiao Wu's eyes lit up at once. Having spent so long in the human world, she had learned that buying things cost money. She had been out for so long without getting to eat her beloved carrots that the poor child was craving them terribly.
But things were better now. She could collect free Gold Soul Coins every month, and that meant she could buy carrots.
Beside her.
Gu Chen's face darkened. By her way of calculating, Spirit Hall, which handed out the money, might be fine, but the two great empires footing the bill would probably go bankrupt.
"Stop daydreaming! Only those below Soul Ancestor get that benefit. Once your Soul Power Level reaches Soul Ancestor, you can't collect it anymore."
He made things clear to this rabbit after all.
"Huh? You can't collect it once you become a Soul Ancestor? Isn't Spirit Hall a bit too stingy?!"
The benefit of one Gold Soul Coin a month had briefly made Xiao Wu forget her hatred for Spirit Hall, but she was very displeased with its "stinginess."
"Whatever makes you happy."
Gu Chen rolled his eyes at her and said nothing more. He strode toward the Spirit Hall Branch, with Xiao Wu following close behind. He had brought her here partly because he had some questions for Su Yuntao, and partly because he had to take some responsibility for leaving Xiao Wu too afraid to return to Dorm Seven. So he had brought her along.
The Soul Master registration process didn't take much time, and the same went for him. Once they had quickly finished their business, they left the Spirit Hall Branch.
Seven Treasure Pavilion.
This was a shop run by the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect. Just as Spirit Hall had the Pope's Hall, sacred halls, main halls, subsidiary halls, and branch halls, buildings that could be found throughout the continent, the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, the only one of the Upper Three Sects focused on commerce, had shops all across the continent.
That was also why the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect was rich enough to rival a nation.
After learning from Su Yuntao that the Seven Treasure Pavilion was the most honest and reliable shop, Gu Chen came here, with a little tail trailing behind him: Xiao Wu, the hundred-thousand-year-old rogue rabbit.
For some reason, he couldn't help feeling that perhaps he had made a mistake by giving her a hand.
Sure enough, she had latched right onto him.
"Wow! Gu Chen, this place looks really high-class. The things they sell must be expensive too. Do you have any money? Do you need me to lend you some?"
Xiao Wu held a bag of carrots in her arms and was gnawing on a raw one as she spoke indistinctly around her mouthful.
"Just eat your carrot!"
Seeing her like this, Gu Chen couldn't be bothered with her. He walked up to the counter, took a wooden box from his clothes, and set it down.
"Shopkeeper, do you buy this sort of thing here?"
That was what he asked.
The shopkeeper said nothing and opened the box without much interest. But when he saw what was inside, his pupils contracted sharply and his expression changed.
"Th-this, this is... a hundred-year-old ganoderma!!!"
All the major powers had always been eager to buy up precious medicinal ingredients, but in a small place like Nuoding City, even medicinal ingredients several decades old were a rare sight, let alone a hundred-year-old ganoderma.
The Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well might have been full of Immortal Herbs, with even the lesser ones on the level of ten-thousand-year-old medicine kings like the Nine-Grade Purple Ganoderma. But take the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well away, and aside from the Immortal Herb held by the Speed Clan, there were no more Immortal Herbs. Even ten-thousand-year-old medicine kings were hard to come by, and thousand-year-old spirit medicines were rarely seen.
Thus, a hundred-year-old medicinal ingredient only seemed insignificant before those Immortal Herbs and medicine kings when one had the Ice and Fire Yin Yang Well to begin with.
At least, in the eyes of the Seven Treasure Pavilion's shopkeeper, this hundred-year-old medicinal ingredient was unimaginably precious.
"Are you really willing to sell this hundred-year-old ganoderma?"
The shopkeeper asked seriously.
"Of course. Brother Tao said the Seven Treasure Pavilion offers the fairest prices. You wouldn't cheat me, would you?"
Gu Chen smiled and casually invoked Su Yuntao as a shield.
"Brother Tao? Could you mean Su Yuntao?"
Countless figures flashed through the shopkeeper's mind before he settled on Su Yuntao of Spirit Hall. After so many years as a shopkeeper, how could he fail to see that Gu Chen was borrowing a tiger's skin to overawe him? But he didn't expose him.
Judging by how Gu Chen addressed Su Yuntao, even if they weren't that close, they should at least know each other. And his goal was to buy the hundred-year-old ganoderma, not to keep asking questions until he got to the bottom of their relationship.
If they fell out and the hundred-year-old ganoderma ended up in Spirit Hall's hands, it would instead count as a failure on his part.
"This hundred-year-old ganoderma was dug up recently, wasn't it? I could tell at a glance, and its appearance is also very good. Since you're willing to sell, I won't cheat you. How does two hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins sound?"
After examining it carefully for quite a while, the shopkeeper slowly named an astonishing figure.
"That price... works!"
Gu Chen pondered for a moment, then nodded in agreement.
Even before coming to Nuoding City, he had asked about the price of hundred-year-old medicinal ingredients. They started at a minimum of one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins. An exceptionally precious one could even fetch eight or nine hundred thousand, but the prices for more ordinary ones weren't nearly so outrageous.
The one he was selling was just an ordinary ganoderma and couldn't be considered an exceptionally precious medicinal ingredient. It was like the difference between the Nine-Grade Ginseng King and the Crystal Dragon Blood Ginseng. The price the shopkeeper had offered was already fairly reasonable.
"Straightforward!"
The shopkeeper beamed at the answer. This deal alone was enough to earn him a promotion in the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.
"N-no, wait, a single hundred-year-old ganoderma can sell for two hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins? That's way too profitable!"
Xiao Wu stood behind Gu Chen, stunned. Even her carrot-chewing mouth had stopped. If she had known this stuff was so valuable, she would have brought some along when she came out.
"Yes, it really is profitable!"
Hearing her, Gu Chen smiled and looked at the hundred-year-old ganoderma in the wooden box. An upgrade panel that only he could see was floating above it.
[Item: Hundred-year-old ganoderma...