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The Yue family had been a thoroughly intellectual household. Yue Wen's parents were both professors at Jiangcheng University. His father specialized in ancient history; his mother, in the scripts of the otherworld. Before their disappearance, one of them explored ancient ruins left behind by the previous spiritual qi era while the other studied the writing of otherworldly beings. Their fields overlapped in many respects, they pursued many research topics together, and the pair had made a modest name for themselves in Tianbei Prefecture's academic circles. Before the spiritual qi calamity, legends all over the world were dismissed as nothing more than myths invented by the ancestors. Only in the centuries since the calamity did humanity gradually begin to understand that those ancient myths might be true accounts from the previous spiritual qi era, slowly warped in the course of being handed down. To take those myths and legends apart might yield the true history of the ancient age, deepen what people knew of cultivation — perhaps even uncover ruins left over from the previous spiritual qi era and unearth ancient immortal treasures. Snake Mountain Tiger Tomb was one of the topics his father explored. One of the four Immortal Treasure Forbidden Lands lay in the south, called the Hundred Thousand Mountains. It was a congregation of peaks made up of countless ranges, covering an immense expanse. After the spiritual qi calamity struck, space itself mutated there; numerous world realms converged on the region, and it evolved into a chaotic forbidden zone where monsters of the myriad worlds ran rampant. Yet precisely because its space was in such disorder, all sorts of otherworld treasures could be found within — and so it became an Immortal Treasure Forbidden Land as well. Every peak in the Hundred Thousand Mountains had its own evil entities, and in the most dangerous stretches, the odds of coming out alive were lower even than in the Whale-Devouring Demon Sea. Snake Mountain was one of its mysterious places. After years of visits and fieldwork, his father gathered a great many folk legends that circulated through the south, and at last reconstructed the historical background of Snake Mountain. It was a story from the very height of the previous spiritual qi era, nearly six thousand years ago. The Hundred Thousand Mountains may not yet have formed back then; the land was rich, fertile, and lush, in the region known in ancient times as the Southern Frontier. Then one day, an otherworld Snake Kingdom abruptly descended. Its ruler was a nine-headed demon snake with a cultivation level rivaling the Divine Realm, commanding countless snake demons beneath it. If that horde ever spread, it would bring tremendous calamity down upon the Southern Frontier. At the moment of crisis, a half-human, half-tiger hero of the Jiuli Clan made his move. Through a bitter, perilous battle, he finally suppressed the entire Snake Kingdom beneath a towering mountain peak. The people of the Southern Frontier afterward raised that hero to kingship, venerating him as the Jiuli Tiger Heavenly Emperor, and for a thousand years he guarded the Southern Frontier. When the Tiger Heavenly Emperor's own fall drew near, he feared that the demons sealed within Snake Mountain would break free once he was gone. So he built his tomb right on the mountain's summit, laid down a vast formation, and went on suppressing the Snake Kingdom with his own skeleton. The place came to be called Snake Mountain Tiger Tomb. The snake-and-tiger emblem — clustered snakes coiling around a tiger — was carved into the rock wall of the Tiger Tomb. In the ages that followed, the land of the Southern Frontier changed beyond all recognition, and the Hundred Thousand Mountains rose up as an Immortal Treasure Forbidden Land. The Tiger Heavenly Emperor's name, though, still circulated in the south; the Jiuli Emperor Lord enshrined in many places today to guard homes and ward off evil had evolved out of him. And yet... Just what mystery did this card printed with the Tiger Tomb's snake-and-tiger emblem hold? Perhaps only by carrying it into the Hundred Thousand Mountains in person would he ever know. His father had thought to mention the thing even in that moment of crisis — very likely, it was tied to their disappearance. Yet if the fourth realm was the threshold for entering and leaving the wasteland zones, then the threshold for entering an Immortal Treasure Forbidden Land was at least the seventh realm. Below that, stepping into such a forbidden zone was tantamount to seeking death. This was why Yue Wen craved strength so much. Every sword strike that cut down a Lantern Wraith carried his longing for his parents. But while his father's warnings had kept him from ever showing anyone the black card, the cloth-skin card carried no such burden. So then. Why not ask the amazing Dalong? ... In the black-gold hall lit by the blaze of golden flame, Yue Wen once more beheld the dragon coiled upon its enormous throne. Still enthroned on high. "King Dalong, here I am again!" he hailed it breezily. The dragon seemed to have resigned itself to him entirely; it couldn't be bothered to answer, and simply watched him with pupils seething with flame. "I came to ask you about something." Yue Wen held up the purple cloth-skin card. "Do you know what this thing is?" "A piece of stinking skin." Undisguised disgust filled the dragon's eyes. "It's from the demon race... smells like it came off an armpit — the kind that sweats the most. Look closely, there may still be hair follicles on it. Scrape at it, and who knows, you might have filth packed under your nails..." "All right, all right — you really don't have to be that detailed." Yue Wen hurriedly cut it off. He hadn't smelled anything himself, but if the dragon kept on like that, he'd soon be reluctant to pick the thing up at all. He simply couldn't work it out. Why had such a skin found its way to an antique shop, then into the hands of an ordinary employee like Zhang Wei — and drawn the covetous eyes of every party involved... He pressed on with his question. "Then do you know what this thing is for?" "Well, now." The dragon's eyes swiveled as it gave the matter a moment's thought, and then it answered, "Of course I know. Specific information costs five evil-suppressing coins. The method of use, ten." "You charge for everything?" Yue Wen stamped his foot. "We've known each other all this time — isn't there even a scrap of friendship between us?" "Goodbye." The dragon moved at once to shut its eyes. "Here, here, take it!" Yue Wen hastily produced five evil-suppressing coins and tossed them over. "Let me hear what it's for first, then I'll decide whether I want the method of use." The crimson flames in the dragon's eyes merely flickered, and the coins in midair ignited on the spot, dissolving into a wisp of golden smoke that it drew in through its nostrils. "Ahh..." Once it had accepted the payment, it spoke slowly. "Barriers lie between the world realms, and messages cannot pass. So certain demons, crude in method and low in cultivation, will tear skin from their own bodies and have someone carry it off. Even across a world-realm barrier, messages can go through at any time. On this skin, there is still an unread message." "So it's a tool the demon race uses to communicate across worlds?" Only now did Yue Wen understand. He mulled it over, then threw out ten more evil-suppressing coins. "There. I'll take the method of use." He did rather want to know what was written on the demon skin — and he had just made a rich haul at the East City Cemetery, so he wasn't about to be stingy now. "Hai—" The dragon uttered a single-character dragon word. It seemed to be one sound and one sound only, yet it also seemed to hold a wealth of intricate information, compressed into the form of Dao rhyme. A visualization diagram appeared in Yue Wen's mind in an instant — the incantation for using this demon skin. "Every demon that tears off its own skin has its own encrypted incantation, known only to those it shares communication with," the dragon went on. "The method is hopelessly crude, though. For this king, one glance is enough to crack it. Whether you can puzzle it out is your own affair." "Yes, yes, you're very impressive. You needn't trouble yourself over anything else." Yue Wen waved a hand impatiently. Since the dragon seemed to know everything, he took out the half black-gold skull. "Do you recognize this one?" "Garbage, but the harder kind." The dragon said it with a careless glance. "Oh." Yue Wen put it away, deflated. So there were things even it didn't recognize. Apparently only treasures of a certain class were worthy of a verdict of "crude" from the dragon. "Oh, right." The dragon suddenly recalled something. "That installment-plan request you made last time — I gave it some thought and decided I could still give you a chance. Only, you may not pay in installments however you please. I will be charging some interest." "Oh?" Yue Wen eyed it warily. "Just how much interest are we talking?" "The Gang Realm cultivation method worth 399 — paid in installments, you may repay me twenty evil-suppressing coins a month, over twenty months. How about it?" "You mean..." Yue Wen blinked. "A 399 cultivation method, paid back over twenty months at a total of four hundred coins — and the interest you're charging me comes to one whole evil-suppressing coin?" "If you find that unacceptable, then the matter is closed." The dragon said coldly, "I will not have you owing me a debt for nothing!" "I accept! You can transmit the cultivation method to me right now," Yue Wen agreed on the spot. "Charging interest is outrageous, but for the sake of our friendship, I'm willing to let you pocket the extra money!" He immediately produced twenty evil-suppressing coins and tossed them over. Unbelievable. The dragon might know cultivation well, but it clearly knew nothing at all about the human world. Pitch-black as this fellow looked, next to those capitalists it was practically Snow White. Another cold dragon word sounded — "Hai—" — stamping the visualization diagram into Yue Wen's mind. His savings were nearly spent, but twenty evil-suppressing coins a month was no great strain on him at present. Once the agency formally opened for business, it would hardly be a problem at all. That meant the moment he reached great perfection in the Union Realm, he could begin his breakthrough immediately. If he truly waited until he had scraped together all 399 coins — and breaking through to the Gang Realm would require gathering plenty of materials for the advance — there was no telling how much time it would cost him, start to finish. His cultivation would be delayed far too long. Looking at the dragon on its throne now, Yue Wen found it almost easy on the eyes. But the dragon clearly had no wish to return that ambiguous gaze. The instant business was concluded, it gave a cold snort. "Withdraw." The space went pitch-black on the spot. Click. Lights out. His divine sense returned, and Yue Wen opened his eyes to find an alert waiting on his phone. One unread message, from "Young Hero Qi, Wandering the Jianghu with His Sword."