Having promised Tianyu, Wei Yuan naturally had to see it through. He summoned Perfected Chuhe, instructing him to survey the acreage and hydrology of the entire oasis and research how to plant mulberries and raise silkworms.
Upon hearing this, Perfected Chuhe was instantly invigorated. He had never seen a terrain like this before—scorching and arid above, yet blessed with abundant groundwater below. Evidently, it promised quite a few new species. Right away, he led over a hundred assistants and disciples, dispersing in all directions to throw themselves into the work with fiery enthusiasm.
Wei Yuan inadvertently noticed that Perfected Chuhe's following had grown considerably. These disciples did not meet the standards for entering the Palace of Grand Beginning; they were essentially the old Daoist's personal apprentices.
Wei Yuan looked closely into the backgrounds and cultivation methods of these apprentices. Most of them were cultivating the Dao Foundation techniques created by the old Daoist, such as the Six Paths Jiayi Divine Wood Qi and the Yuan Heaven Spirit-Nurturing True Immortal Water.
The old Daoist had also created an additional Dao Foundation called Profound Heaven Spirit-Governing Vitality Soil, which only two people had mastered so far. Not only was this Dao Foundation adept at communicating with spirit beasts, but it also made tilling soil remarkably effortless.
These two were put in charge of raising guinea pigs, ensuring the old Daoist's dining table never lacked ingredients. At the same time, they were first-rate hands at land reclamation; with several hundred guinea pigs under their lead, they could till over a thousand mu of land in a single day.
Wei Yuan felt rather helpless at the sight, but promptly ordered that the three Dao Foundations created by the old Daoist be heavily promoted, offering extra incentives in an effort to get over a hundred people to choose these three foundation templates in the upcoming Dao Foundation training.
Having settled matters on the old Daoist's end, Wei Yuan went to find Tianyu. He found Tianyu wearing a mournful expression, sprawled on the bed with Xu Wenwu, the two of them drinking away their sorrows in silence.
The moment Wei Yuan stepped through the door and took in the atmosphere, he paused in surprise, truly baffled as to what had plunged the pair into such misery. Back in the day, when Xu Wenwu had failed five out of six courses in a single semester, he hadn't seemed nearly this devastated.
Spotting Wei Yuan, Tianyu waved eagerly. "Come, have a few cups with me! If we're brothers today, we've got to drink to our hearts' content and be carried out horizontal!"
A headache instantly seized Wei Yuan. With his formidable dharma body, chugging several barrels of ordinary hard liquor wouldn't produce the slightest buzz; only spiritual wine imbued with Dao power would do. Thus, Wei Yuan wasn't afraid of a drinking contest with a Power Shaman—he just begrudged wasting good wine.
"I've got a contract for you to sign. What happened to you? Why the sudden sour mood?"
Tianyu pointed down toward his lower body. Wei Yuan looked and saw a patch of flesh budding outward at an excruciatingly sluggish pace.
Tianyu sighed. "Sigh, don't even ask. Without the pressure of life and death, my flesh has started slacking off, and its growth has slowed to a crawl. On top of that, once it's finished growing, I still have to temper it all over again. During this period, I can only keep an empty bed."
Wei Yuan was rather astonished. Only after detailed probing did he learn that the pretty young shamans Tianyu had picked in the past were all brawny and built like iron. Given how fragile his newly regrown flesh was, any intimacy with them risked excessive crushing, which could lead to a catastrophic mishap.
There was nothing Wei Yuan could do to help with that, however, so he turned to ask Xu Wenwu instead.
The fat man wore a profoundly melancholy look as he said, "Whenever I drink, I think of the white moonlight in my heart. I wonder how she's doing since I left..."
Familiar with Xu Wenwu's romantic history, Wei Yuan had no idea which one he was referring to. That fellow had accumulated quite a generous collection of 'white moonlights'—virtually any woman with a shred of good looks had qualified at some point. Furthermore, no matter which one it was, Xu Wenwu's departure likely had had zero impact on her life; in all probability, she wouldn't even realize he was gone for a very long time.
Left utterly speechless by the two, Wei Yuan pulled out a contract and handed it to Tianyu, saying, "Come on, be good, sign this."
Tianyu pressed his hand against the jade paper. "I have another headache..."
Wei Yuan had no choice but to listen patiently.
It turned out the guy had taken a fancy to another pretty young shaman. Unfortunately, she only fancied young men, not money. Fiercely principled and utterly refusing to curry favor with the wealthy and powerful, she had cursed Tianyu up and down until he was soaked in dog's blood. Feeling that he had nothing left except money, Tianyu had fallen into a deep slump.
Wei Yuan tossed the problem to the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World. Who knew which budding genius among them came up with an idea, but Wei Yuan didn't think twice and simply read it aloud:
"...Isn't this simple? Go find her best childhood friends, close confidantes, and the like, and shower them with heaps of immortal silver so their lives are vastly better than hers. Before long, that pretty shaman's sense of balance will shatter, and she'll throw herself into your arms willingly—and then demand that you drive those wretched sluts away."
Hearing this, Tianyu was so shocked his entire physical body shivered. "Wei Yuan, turns out you're no saint either! An insidious scheme like that—I never could've dreamed it up..."
Only after reading it aloud did Wei Yuan realize how sinister it sounded, thinking to himself that he'd have to strike whoever proposed that idea with a heavenly bolt later. But with real business at hand, he nudged Tianyu's hand aside and said, "Come, sign the contract first."
Only then did Tianyu look down at the jade paper. "One million taels of immortal silver in exchange for ninety-nine years of mining rights in the Red Sand Oasis???"
Then Tianyu looked up, staring at Wei Yuan in bewilderment. "Are you stupid?"
Wei Yuan remained expressionless, and within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the grand sacrificial ceremony that Tianyu's cultists had spent so long preparing was finally granted permission to commence.
Tianyu let out a blood-curdling screech and frantically yelled, "Stop, stop, stop! You're not stupid!"
Once Wei Yuan called a halt to the sacrifice, Tianyu felt that his lie from a moment ago was somewhat improper, so he clumsily patched it over: "What I mean is, you're not exceptionally stupid."
Wei Yuan snapped in exasperation, "You don't even want immortal silver?"
Tianyu said, "This place is practically yours anyway. Mine whatever you want, whenever you want! Why waste immortal silver?"
Wei Yuan said, "You are a shaman destined to lead the tribe in the future; you can't act so whimsically. If you go tossing away mines and land just because of personal ties, no ancestral inheritance in the world will be enough for you to squander."
Tianyu looked at the jade paper again and proposed, "How about asking for less—ten thousand?"
Wei Yuan was caught between laughter and tears. "Ten thousand? Do you want your name dragged through the mud? One million, period!"
"And you still claim you aren't stupid?" Tianyu grumbled as he signed his name.
Wei Yuan added, "Remember to show it to those ancestors of yours."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the gruff voice of the Sun of the Great Desolation boomed from behind Wei Yuan: "I've already looked at it. It can be signed. But on two conditions: first, swap a portion of the immortal silver for wine; second, those storybooks that woman in red reads—each of us elders wants ten volumes."
Wei Yuan was suddenly in a bind. "I have the storybooks, but could you elders perhaps ask for something else?"
"No! We want the exact batch she's reading right now! What, think I don't deserve them? Or why don't you call her out and I'll spar with her right here and now!" the Sun of the Great Desolation's voice boomed like a bronze bell.
The Sun of the Great Desolation appeared rough and uncouth, but he harbored his own shrewd calculations. Zhu Yuanjin excelled at ambushes and never engaged in direct combat. If they were truly to spar head-on, she would definitely be at a disadvantage.
Helpless, Wei Yuan could only take out fifty volumes of storybooks and hand them over to the Sun of the Great Desolation, guaranteeing that these were all books Zhu Yuanjin had read and that every one of them had been adapted into a Shaman edition.
Seeing the Sun of the Great Desolation about to leave with the books, Tianyu urgently called out to him, "Ancestor, can we really sign this pact? It's for ninety-nine years!"
The Sun of the Great Desolation replied impatiently, "A few centuries pass in the blink of an eye; what's ninety-nine years? We originally intended to give him this land to use anyway. Since he insists on paying, if you feel uneasy about it, just find some ancient immortal plant seeds later and give them as a return gift.
"Besides, even if there are good things underground, how much can he possibly dig up in such a short time? If what he digs up amounts to too little, I will naturally make it up to him. Just make sure there's no shortage of storybooks!"
"The storybooks..." Wei Yuan started, then held his tongue.
Half a day later, colossal roars erupted one after another, reverberating across the entire Red Sand Oasis.
Reading the storybooks, several Desolate Shamans grew so incensed that smoke practically billowed from their heads. Raging to the extreme, their Dao hearts were on the verge of collapsing, yet they couldn't bear to put the books down. And so, reading while cursing and cursing while reading, their thunderous bellows persisted for an entire day.
The next day, the Sun of the Great Desolation sought out Wei Yuan again and got straight to the point: "Give me fifty more storybooks, and I'll add another hundred years to the term of that pact!"
Chapter 626