"You killed him?"
Before Luo Chen could answer, Wang Yuan nodded to himself.
"Looks like you did."
As Luo Chen backed away with a nervous look, Wang Yuan walked over to the charred remains and swept his broadsword down.
The head, burned beyond recognition, was casually severed.
Wang Yuan glanced at the anxious Luo Chen and the storage bag in his hand, his eyes somewhat conflicted.
The night breeze was chilly; Luo Chen's bloodstained body felt even colder.
Luo Chen forced an awkward smile. "Brother Wang, I haven't finished reading that book yet."
As if reminded of something, the conflicted look in Wang Yuan's eyes gradually receded, and his eyelids drooped once more.
"Head home early. Dahe Market is very dangerous at night."
"Right, yes."
Luo Chen turned to leave, but after a moment's hesitation, he walked back over and struggled to hoist the snakeskin sack packed with medicinal herbs onto his back.
That was his entire livelihood.
Watching Luo Chen's retreating figure as he neared the alley mouth, Wang Yuan let out a sigh for reasons unknown.
"Take this. Consider it payment for this head."
A chopstick-length black nail landed at Luo Chen's feet, stained with bright red blood and clinging bits of minced flesh.
"Brother Wang, you're too kind."
"Get lost. Take the grove, stay off the main roads."
"Yeah."
Giving a heavy grunt of acknowledgment, Luo Chen plunged into the grove without looking back.
In the alley, Wang Yuan stood holding the three severed heads for a moment before gradually fading into the darkness.
...
"Ugh..."
*Clink!*
"Phew!"
Luo Chen leaned half-collapsed against the foot of his bed like a dead fish, drenched in sweat down to his shorts.
On the floor before his bed lay the other Soul Breaking Nail that had pierced his waist.
Enduring the agonizing pain, Luo Chen grabbed the bottles and jars beside him and poured their contents into the wound.
This was his homemade healing medicine, made specifically to treat injuries from cauldron explosions during alchemy, and it had helped him many times in the past.
Today, it found an even greater use!
As the powder entered the wound, a soothing cool sensation arose, followed immediately by a searing burn.
"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck..."
Low, growling curses escaped his lips now and then.
Never before had Luo Chen felt so furious.
Not at the harm his enemy had inflicted on him, but at his own weakness.
If he were as powerful as Wang Yuan, he never would have ended up in such a state today.
Only after binding the wound with cloth strips did Luo Chen finally breathe a sigh of relief.
Enduring the pain, he went to the front room, opened the snakeskin sack, and sorted the various herbs onto their respective shelves.
These low-grade medicinal herbs and spiritual materials could not remain jumbled together for long, or their potency would diminish drastically.
His limping steps looked pitiable under the bean-sized flame of the oil lamp.
Luo Chen even felt that this scene resembled his previous life, dragging himself to work sick right after surgery.
"No matter where I go, I can't escape a life of hard toil. No wonder I only lived to seventy-five in my past life."
Only after finishing all this did he finally have time to lie down on the bed.
The persistent ache in his waist kept him awake despite being utterly exhausted.
Helpless, he could only find something else to distract himself.
"Let's see what good things that guy had—the one who lived an even shorter life than me."
Storage bags of Qi Refinement cultivators had no restrictions on them; lacking divine sense, they naturally couldn't set up warding seals.
Once the owner died, the mana imprint on the bag dissipated on its own.
Mobilizing what little spiritual power he had left, Luo Chen opened the storage bag.
A mountain of items instantly cluttered his wooden bed.
"Today was a market day, and this fellow sure bought a whole pile of things."
A low-grade robe, a box of Spirit Calming Incense, five vials of Fasting Powder, a bottle of Qi-Nourishing Pills, a bottle of Golden Coffer Powder, and a stack of talismans.
There was also a bundle of dried spirit grass, which took up most of the bed.
Besides these items, there were the spirit stones Luo Chen cared about most.
"Ninety-two low-grade spirit stones. Damn it, what a pauper!"
Luo Chen cursed under his breath, then cheerfully packed everything back one by one.
The spirit stones were indeed sparse, hardly matching a fifth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator.
Yet the value of the other goods far exceeded those ninety-two low-grade spirit stones.
Not to mention the low-grade robe: though somewhat worn and clearly worn by that short-lived ghost before, selling it would fetch at least a hundred spirit stones.
The speed at which it could be activated surpassed even talismans.
That was why Luo Chen had been able to trigger his own robe so swiftly earlier, and when that short-lived ghost had a fireball hurled into his face, the defensive barrier built into his robe had flared up in an instant as well.
Had it been an undamaged mid-grade robe, it could have weathered six or seven fireballs easily. Unfortunately, Wang Yuan had already battered it before.
It hadn't even held against a third.
Three breaths of time had been too brief for the severely wounded Chen Xiao to deploy any other countermeasures.
Five vials of Fasting Powder weren't worth much, their quality inferior to what Luo Chen brewed himself, but they were still worth one spirit stone.
As for the rest, they were quite valuable.
Spirit Calming Incense was one of the finest external aids for low-grade cultivators in their cultivation.
One stick of Spirit Calming Incense a day was enough for a cultivator to circulate their core cultivation art five extra times; it was said to restore the fragile soul of low-grade cultivators.
A whole box held twelve sticks, worth a hundred and twenty spirit stones.
The Qi-Nourishing Pills went without saying; the pattern and insignia on the bottle indicated they came from the Spirit Herb Pavilion.
Fixed price: a hundred spirit stones per bottle!
Good stuff. Swallowing and refining them would boost spiritual power.
As for the stack of talismans, based on Luo Chen's experience, they were likely worth fifty or sixty spirit stones.
He didn't recognize the dried spirit grass crowding the bed, but going out of the way to buy such a large bundle to store in a bag meant it had to be useful.
Tallying it all up, the total came to around four hundred spirit stones!
A windfall!
Truly, a horse grows not fat without night grass, and a man grows not rich without windfalls.
In that brief span tonight, Luo Chen's net worth had quadrupled.
And his greatest gain wasn't even these items.
It was the storage bag itself!
Its capacity wasn't large—just one cubic meter, the smallest and cheapest kind of storage bag.
Yet at Wanbao Pavilion, even this would easily cost ten thousand!
Who knew whether that short-lived ghost had received it from someone else or looted it; either way, he certainly couldn't have afforded to buy it.
Or rather, the vast majority of low-grade cultivators couldn't afford even the smallest storage bag.
Such an item was standard issue for inner sect disciples of major sects, while outer sect disciples weren't even qualified to own one!
"Rich! I struck it rich!"
"Killing to seize treasure—no wonder it's such a classic trope in web novels, always finding a place regardless of the genre."
"The risk is just too high, though. One slip-up and you wreck yourself, burying a lifetime of effort."
Tonight, two instances of killing to seize treasure had played out before Luo Chen's eyes.
Li Zixiong of the Great River Gang had gathered three men to ambush Wang Yuan, only to get wrecked!
The fifth-layer Qi Refinement ghost had tried to kill Luo Chen in an instant, only to get wrecked!
"A business this dangerous is best left to the professionals. My heart can't take the scares."
Luo Chen's mind turned as he picked up the last jade bottle he hadn't packed into the storage bag.
Golden Coffer Powder, one of Spirit Herb Pavilion's signature medicines.
It boasted outstanding healing properties against any metal-element artifact wounds, and sold for just ten spirit stones.
Good quality at a fair price, it had long been favored by the rogue cultivators of Dahe Market.
He gave it a sniff; nothing wrong with the smell, not poison.
Besides, no one would put poison into a healing medicine bottle inside their own storage bag.
If you were severely injured and muddled in the head, grabbing the wrong medicine would be a fatal joke.
It just meant he'd have to go through the trouble of untying the cloth bandages again.
Sighing, Luo Chen had no choice but to get to work.
...
At noon the next day, Luo Chen woke in a daze.
It was a rare occasion for him to sleep in.
In the latter half of the night, he had ultimately succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep.
Opening his eyes wide, he lay blankly on the bed for a while before gritting his teeth and forcing himself up.
No matter how hard or bitter things got, that was no excuse to lie in bed and give up.
Coming to the front room, he took a handful of spirit herbs, spread them out evenly across a winnowing basket, and prepared to take them outside to dry.
Pushing open the door, the midday sun dazzled his eyes so brightly he couldn't keep them open for a moment. Once his vision adjusted, he was startled to find Wang Yuan standing outside.
Wang Yuan casually tossed an object, which landed in the basket full of spirit herbs.
"Take it. From now on, you're a member of the Mountain Breaker Gang."
"If anyone gives you trouble, tell them Wang Yuan has your back."
Luo Chen stared blankly at the iron token in the basket.
"Thanks, Brother Wang."
Wang Yuan waved his hand. "Thanks for what? Back when I was down on my luck, you lent me a few vials of Fasting Powder on credit, and I never thanked you once either."
"Alright, I've delivered the goods, so I'm heading back. Things might get turbulent in the outer city soon. Watch your step going in and out."
With that, he turned and walked away without the slightest hesitation.
Chapter 17