An Unfriendly Visitor
Two months flew by in the blink of an eye. In that time, Yi Xuan finally experienced what it was like to count money until his hands went numb, taking in an average of 3,300 Spirit Stones a day. In just two months, he earned as much as Fatty Lin had made for him over all those years.
Yi Xuan couldn't help exclaiming, "Cultivators' money really is easier to make!"
Over those two months, Liang Shi had become an important member of Yi Xuan's grenade-selling operation.
At first, he notified customers to come pick up the thirty grenades available each day. Later, the boy actually suggested that Yi Xuan deliver them to the customers' doors.
Yi Xuan thought the suggestion was excellent. It would save customers the time and trouble of coming to his little alley for every pickup, while also keeping a crowd from gathering outside his courtyard every morning.
Fortunately, this world had no urban management officers or neighborhood police. Otherwise, they would surely have come over to ask a few questions when they saw such a gathering.
If they asked what everyone was doing and the whole crowd said they were waiting to pick up goods, Yi Xuan wouldn't be able to explain himself even with a hundred mouths.
So Yi Xuan found a Storage Bag he didn't use and gave it to Liang Shi. He had the boy come to his home each morning to pick up the goods, deliver them to the customers' doors, and bring the Spirit Stones he received back to Yi Xuan in the Storage Bag.
After two months, Yi Xuan wasn't the only one rolling in riches. Liang Shi, who had been drinking the soup, had also filled the pouch at his waist. He had even bought the little courtyard at the entrance to Yi Xuan's alley, putting down roots in the city for good.
After observing Liang Shi for two months, Yi Xuan found that the boy really was someone he could make use of. At least, he hadn't found any major problems so far. If Liang Shi could keep it up, Yi Xuan didn't mind keeping him along for the ride.
During those two months, Junior Sister Mu had visited once. After emerging from seclusion, her cultivation had advanced another step, reaching the Foundation Establishment Late Stage.
Besides congratulating her, Yi Xuan put on a stern face and, for once, lost his temper with the junior sister he usually tried to avoid whenever they met. He demanded to know why she had risked using a grenade to attack when she encountered a danger she couldn't handle.
What if Yi Xuan's grenade hadn't been powerful enough to injure the Demon Beast and had only enraged it instead?
Mu Anqing watched the senior brother who usually ran whenever he saw her rebuke her with a stern face. She didn't dare raise her head, only keeping it lowered as she repeatedly admitted her mistake.
Only when Yi Xuan's voice gradually softened did Mu Anqing raise her head and look at him. "It wasn't the grenade's power I trusted. It was you, Senior Brother!"
His junior sister's words moved Yi Xuan deeply, but there wasn't the slightest smile on his face. He glared at her ingratiating smile, frightening Mu Anqing into lowering her head again and shrinking back.
Seeing his junior sister like that, Yi Xuan couldn't bring himself to scold her any further. Instead, he took five more grenades from his Storage Bag and handed them to Mu Anqing.
But she refused to take them no matter what he said, insisting that she couldn't afford them.
Yi Xuan understood then. It seemed his junior sister had learned all about the grenades and now knew their market price.
Shaking his head, Yi Xuan forced the grenades into Mu Anqing's Storage Bag. He looked at her and said, "What are you doing? Why would a senior brother charge his junior sister for something he gave her? Has cultivation addled your brain?"
Seeing that she still wanted to speak, Yi Xuan impatiently waved her away. It wasn't that he was afraid she would say something polite. Rather, if he didn't send her away now, she might recover her spirits in a while and come into his courtyard to cause trouble. This junior sister had already broken quite a few things Yi Xuan had made.
One day, not long after Liang Shi had taken the grenades from Yi Xuan's courtyard, Yi Xuan heard someone knocking at his courtyard gate. He hadn't yet entered the secret room to start making grenades.
Thinking Liang Shi had forgotten something and come back, Yi Xuan pushed open the gate, only to see more than ten people standing outside.
Liang Shi was being held in midair by the collar by the man in the lead, struggling nonstop.
Although Yi Xuan didn't know what had happened, he still asked with a smile, "Is there something I can help you fellow disciples with? Did this little brother of mine offend you? I apologize to you all on his behalf! Please, for the sake of our being fellow disciples, don't stoop to a child's level."
With that, Yi Xuan stepped forward, intending to get Liang Shi down from the leader's grasp. The man didn't make things difficult for him. When he saw Yi Xuan approach, he put Liang Shi down of his own accord.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, Liang Shi hurried behind Yi Xuan and clung to him, afraid to let go. From the way Liang Shi's body trembled, Yi Xuan knew the boy had been frightened.
The grenade sales had gone so smoothly for more than two months that no one had expected something like this to happen so suddenly.
Yi Xuan patted Liang Shi's hand and said with a smile, "All right, go wait inside the courtyard!"
Yi Xuan watched Liang Shi enter the courtyard, then turned back and met the leader's gaze without speaking.
The two stared at each other for a long while before the leader suddenly smiled. "As expected of the former heir to the sect master's position and the prospective sect master's personal disciple. You really are interesting!"
Hearing the man lay his past bare, Yi Xuan smiled in return. "That's all ancient history. Surely you didn't come here just to mock me?"
The man shook his head. "I'm not that bored!"
He waved to the people behind him, and one of them, half-bent at the waist with a fawning smile on his face, handed him something.
Watching the man fawn, Yi Xuan thought, Now that's a heavenly dogleg. Just look at his movements, his expression, those little shifts in his face. He's definitely a grandmaster among doglegs.
"You made this, didn't you?" the leader asked, interrupting Yi Xuan.
Looking at the grenade in the man's hand, Yi Xuan understood roughly why he had come. It seemed someone had grown jealous of the wealth the grenades brought in!
Yi Xuan showed no great reaction. He simply nodded and said, "That's right! I made it!"
Hearing Yi Xuan confirm it, the man nodded. "No wonder you became the sect master's heir. Even after becoming a Rootless Person, you still have exceptional talents!"
"Let me put it this way: I've taken a fancy to this thing of yours! Name your price and give me the method for making these grenades!"
Hearing this, Yi Xuan thought, Just as I expected!
He didn't answer, however, and instead asked, "May I ask who you are, young master?"
Before the young man could speak, the dogleg behind him took it upon himself to announce, "This is Young Master Li! The young master most favored by the Li Household's ancestor! A personal disciple of the sect!"
"Young Master Li?" The surname sounded very familiar to Yi Xuan. He suddenly remembered that the enforcement elder currently running the sect in the sect master's stead was also surnamed Li, so he asked tentatively, "May I ask how Young Master Li is related to the enforcement elder?"
"He's my grandfather!"
Yi Xuan finally understood why the man had opened his lion's jaws and demanded that he sell the grenade-making technique. It turned out he really did have the power to back it up.
Although the enforcement elder's breakthrough to the Nascent Soul realm hadn't yet been announced, it was an indisputable fact that he was in charge of the sect. That made the young master before him the most powerful second-generation scion in the Azure Cloud Sect.