Cen Yue looked him up and down and said nothing more.
He really had seen it. In three days, the boy looked as though he had been reforged from head to toe. After so many years of forging, Cen Yue still had an eye for these things.
Mu Chen was direct. "Go ahead. What are they?"
"Thousand-Year Earth Dragon Tendon, Thousand-Year Azure Tendon Vine, Thousand-year Sea Dragon Marrow, and Thousand-year Dragon Scale Fruit."
Mu Chen fell silent.
He folded his arms and paced a couple of steps around the room, his brow furrowing slightly.
"The Thousand-year Dragon Scale Fruit is the easiest. I can probably get it for three million federation coins."
"The Thousand-Year Earth Dragon Tendon, Thousand-year Sea Dragon Marrow, and Thousand-Year Azure Tendon Vine are a tier more precious. Even if I find a source, each one will cost no less than five million."
He stopped in front of Tang Wulin.
"All four together will come to about twenty million federation coins."
"Are you sure?"
When Tang Wulin heard they were very expensive, he had already started calculating how many years he would have to spend forging to earn enough.
But after Mu Chen quoted the figure of twenty million, he breathed a sigh of relief instead.
Twenty million.
At three hundred thousand a day, he could earn it back in two months. It was only a little over two months' pay. That was acceptable.
"I'm sure." Tang Wulin nodded. "Sorry for the trouble, President."
Mu Chen stared at him for two seconds. Seeing that he showed no hesitation whatsoever, he said, "I can help you find these things, but I'll need a deposit of five million."
"No problem."
Tang Wulin took out his card and tapped it a few times.
Mu Chen's communicator chimed. He glanced down at it, and his expression changed slightly.
"You must have misheard me." Mu Chen looked up.
"I said five million, not six million."
Tang Wulin smiled slightly. "President, finding these things certainly won't be easy, and you'll have to call in favors too."
"I, Tang Wulin, am not the kind of person who takes advantage of others for nothing."
Mu Chen looked at him and said nothing for a long moment.
An eight-year-old child spoke and acted with more insight than many adults.
He wasn't stingy with money that needed spending, and he didn't take favors lightly. He knew exactly where to draw the line.
Anyone who didn't know better would have taken him for an old hand.
He looked down and tapped his communicator, returning the one million.
"With me, you don't need to do that." Mu Chen put his communicator away.
"Consider this million a benefit from the association. It's only right for the association to nurture a genius like you."
Tang Wulin opened his mouth to say something more, but Mu Chen shot him a look, and he immediately swallowed his words.
"Then sorry for the trouble, President." Tang Wulin bowed.
"My family's getting worried waiting for me, so I need to hurry back to Aolai City."
Mu Chen nodded. "Go on. I'll contact you when there's news about the spiritual items."
Tang Wulin turned and left the office, walking briskly toward the elevator.
Cen Yue stood at the door and watched his retreating figure disappear behind the elevator doors before turning to Mu Chen.
"President, Tang Wulin really can be considered exceptionally blessed. Luckily, he's one of our association's people. He's bound to astonish everyone at the headquarters someday."
Cen Yue made the remark with a sigh, then added,
"If it were anyone else, even if they could use these four spiritual items to improve themselves, they wouldn't be able to produce such an enormous sum of federation coins."
"At three hundred thousand a day, he probably already has more than a hundred million federation coins to his name. And he's only eight years old."
Mu Chen walked over to the window and watched the small figure emerge from the association's front doors and merge into the crowd on the street below.
"Heaven itself is chasing after him to feed him."
Mu Chen spoke with a trace of something even he couldn't quite describe in his voice. "Maybe this is what they call a child of destiny."
He turned, went back to his desk, and sat down. Picking up his soul communicator, he dialed an internal number.
"Help me find sources for Thousand-Year Earth Dragon Tendon, Thousand-Year Azure Tendon Vine, Thousand-year Sea Dragon Marrow, and Thousand-year Dragon Scale Fruit. Yes, all four. Notify me as soon as there's news."
After leaving the Blacksmith Association, Tang Wulin spent another half day in Eastsea City.
He first went to the shopping street and bought Na'er a large bag of snacks. He also picked out several unusual pastries that couldn't be bought in Aolai City, wrapped them in oiled paper, and tucked them into his storage bracelet.
When he passed a soul communicator specialty store, he went inside and picked out three basic-model communicators.
He planned to take them back and give one each to Tang Ziran, Lang Yue, and Na'er, so they could keep in touch more easily.
After finishing his shopping, he headed straight for the Soul Guidance Train station.
Nothing went wrong on the train ride back, and it made a smooth journey to Aolai City.
Tang Wulin meditated the whole way, only opening his eyes when the station announcement sounded.
Outside the window, the bustling streets of Eastsea City had given way to the simplicity of Aolai City. There weren't many people on the platform. Carrying his things, he got off the train and jogged all the way home.
When he pushed open the door, Lang Yue was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. She poked her head out at the sound, still clutching a kitchen knife. When she saw Tang Wulin, she put the knife down on the chopping board and rushed over.
"You're finally back!"
She pulled Tang Wulin into a hug, squeezing him so hard he could barely breathe.
Tang Ziran came out of the inner room. He didn't say anything, but his expression visibly relaxed. He walked over and patted Tang Wulin on the head.
"You've lost weight." Lang Yue let him go and cupped his face, looking him over from side to side before reaching a conclusion.
"You haven't been eating properly in Eastsea City."
"Mom, I've been eating really well." Tang Wulin pulled the things out of his storage bracelet and first stuffed several bags of snacks and pastries into Na'er's arms when she came over. "Here, specialties from Eastsea City. They taste better than the ones in Aolai City."
Na'er hugged the bags of snacks, her purple eyes shining like stars as she nodded her little silver-white head again and again. "Thank you, Brother!"
Tang Wulin then took out the three communicators and gave each of them one.
"If anything comes up, just call. It's convenient."
Lang Yue turned her communicator over and over in her hands.
"This must have cost quite a bit."
Tang Ziran smiled. "Our son has plenty of money. He's much more promising than his useless old dad."
Na'er held the communicator to her ear and pretended to make a call, saying in a soft little voice,
"Hello, is Brother there?"
Everyone in the room burst out laughing.
After eating a hot meal at home,
Tang Wulin headed straight for Mang Tian's forging workshop.
The furnace fire was blazing inside.
Tang Wulin bent down and ducked in.
"You're back?"
"Uncle Mang Tian, I'm back."
Mang Tian looked him up and down a few times.
"You've changed."
"You're different from before you left."
Tang Wulin nodded. "I ate two kinds of spiritual fruit, and my body changed quite a bit."
"It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say I was reborn."
Mang Tian was silent for a moment.
"Why did you want to absorb those spiritual fruits?"
His voice grew somewhat deeper.
"Things like that have incredibly potent medicinal properties. If you lost control, you could have damaged your meridians at best, or lost your life at worst."
"You're only eight years old. You've got far too much nerve."