Highway Robbery

Liang Shi proved through his actions that Yi Xuan had a good eye for people.

Yi Xuan had just finished breakfast and returned to the entrance of the alley where his courtyard stood when he saw that quite a few people were already gathered outside his home.

Most of them were the people who had come to place orders the day after Tang Haoqian's visit. When they saw Yi Xuan return, their faces were full of anticipation.

"Senior Brother Yi! You're finally back. Your employee said we could get what we wanted today?"

Yi Xuan nodded at him. "That's right! Making them all by myself would have taken too much time, so I hired some help from outside and made a few improvements to the manufacturing process. Even then, I only just managed to finish a batch. As soon as they were ready, I had someone notify you! Oh, and that young fellow isn't my employee!"

The crowd nodded repeatedly, but one look at their faces told Yi Xuan that everything he had just said had gone in one ear and out the other. There was nothing in their heads but grenades.

Shaking his head, Yi Xuan asked everyone to wait outside his home for a little while. He would fetch the grenades and hand them over shortly.

Before long, Yi Xuan came back out of the courtyard, carrying the same cloth bundle he had used to wrap his weapons when he ran his stall before.

Yi Xuan went over to the stall and spread the bundle out on it, but the cloth was completely empty.

Some of the more impatient people were about to ask when they saw Yi Xuan calmly begin taking grenades, one by one, from the Storage Bag at his waist. Before long, the stall was covered with them.

The crowd stared at the grenades on Yi Xuan's stall, practically drooling. If Yi Xuan had not been standing there, they might have rushed forward together and started grabbing them.

Yi Xuan took another slip of paper from his robes and began reading from it. "Tu Yingyan, two grenades!"

"I'm here!"

A short fellow stepped forward and spoke, his face full of excitement.

Yi Xuan nodded and asked, "Tell me the address you left."

"Why do I have to give my address too?" the man muttered. He glanced guiltily up at Yi Xuan, then quickly gave his address.

Yi Xuan checked the address, and finding nothing wrong, handed him the grenades he had ordered, completing the transaction.

Everything went smoothly after that. With the first person's example to follow, things moved faster, and in less than ten minutes, all thirty grenades had been collected.

The customers hurried away once they had their grenades. In the blink of an eye, the stall that had been packed so tightly not even water could get through was deserted enough to catch sparrows at its door.

Only after seeing that there were no customers at Yi Xuan's stall did Liang Shi, who had been waiting nearby, carefully step forward. "Immortal Master! This is the slip of paper you gave me this morning. There are still quite a few people on it I haven't notified. Today, I stopped once I'd notified enough people for thirty grenades, just as you instructed!"

Yi Xuan nodded, but instead of taking the slip Liang Shi offered, he took an ingot of silver from the Storage Bag at his waist.

Cultivators rarely used silver, relying instead on Spirit Stones as currency. Yi Xuan lived at the foot of the Azure Cloud Sect's mountain and rarely had occasion to use silver. He had no idea what year of the monkey or month of the horse he had kept this ingot from, but it was just right for rewarding Liang Shi now.

When Yi Xuan placed such a large piece of silver in his hand, Liang Shi was so startled that he nearly dropped it.

Liang Shi stared at the silver in his hand, his mouth hanging open, at a loss for words. Before fleeing to this city, his family had been somewhat well-off, and as their only son, he had never been short of money. Even so, he had never seen such a large piece of silver.

Or rather, the ingot was absurdly large. Liang Shi estimated that it weighed forty or fifty taels. Ordinary people would never carry such a large ingot around, let alone give it to a stranger like him.

"Imm... Immortal Master! Th... this...?"

Before Liang Shi could finish, Yi Xuan frowned deeply.

Seeing Yi Xuan's expression, Liang Shi felt that he must have displeased the Immortal Master and hurriedly tried to explain.

To his surprise, Yi Xuan spoke first. "This is the only silver I have left. If you don't think it's enough, I can give you some Spirit Stone fragments too. What do you say?"

Liang Shi hurriedly shook his head. "Immortal Master! It's not that you haven't given me enough. You've given me too much!"

He raised the silver in his hand and held it out to Yi Xuan. "This ingot weighs a good forty or fifty taels. All I did was pass on a message for you. That isn't worth so much!"

Seeing Liang Shi offer back the silver he had already received, Yi Xuan nodded in satisfaction. "Very good! You understand what's right, and you're not greedy. Then tell me, how much silver do you think I should give you?"

From Yi Xuan's words, Liang Shi understood that what had just happened was a test. After thinking for a moment, he answered, "There are people in the city who run errands for others. I've never done it myself, but I've heard they can earn a tael of silver a day. I spent less than two hours running errands just now, even counting every last moment. If those people work ten hours a day, I should get 200 copper coins!"

Yi Xuan just looked at him. The boy glanced at the Immortal Master before him again and said, "But I was working for an Immortal Master! 200 copper coins is too cheap, and it wouldn't show how generous you are, so I think I should get one tael of silver!"

Yi Xuan burst out laughing. "You've got a bit of cunning too. All right! The whole ingot is yours, and you can keep that paper too. Starting tomorrow, continue notifying the rest of the people the same way you did today, still enough for thirty grenades a day. That silver is your payment for notifying everyone on the paper."

Liang Shi glanced over the names on the paper and knew he had struck it rich. He hurriedly kowtowed to Yi Xuan in thanks.

Yi Xuan, meanwhile, sauntered back home.

From that day on, with Liang Shi notifying the customers, Yi Xuan brought thirty grenades to his little stall to sell each day.

Before long, the previous orders had all been filled, and word that Yi Xuan had begun selling grenades spread like wildfire.

New orders began piling up like mad, while Yi Xuan kept selling thirty grenades a day. For some reason, though, the orders on hand kept increasing.

Looking at the Spirit Stones that were nearly overflowing from his Storage Bag, Yi Xuan could not help exclaiming, "This isn't making money at all. It's highway robbery!"

And because Yi Xuan's orders kept increasing, Liang Shi did not leave after handling the orders on the first sheet. Instead, he continued helping Yi Xuan notify the customers on the order list to come collect their goods.