Three Rules

"Ah... hiss, gentle." "Sorry, I used a bit too much force." "It's fine. Continue, a bit lower." "Boss, is this ointment any good? It's not useless, is it?" "The effect will kick in soon. It's fine." "How about starting from the back? Your back looks like it needs it more; we can do the front later." "Works for me. Lighter on the front, heavier on the back." "..." Late at night in the agency, a young man and woman were making hissing and laughing sounds as they communicated. Yue Wen was shirtless, his body covered in bloodstains and bruises, purplish-black marks shocking to behold. In the battle against a horde of tiger demons, they had won a great victory, but he had sustained many injuries. There were scratches from tiger claws and wounds from tiger tail whips; the injuries in front were relatively light, but behind him were several wounds deep enough to nearly reach the bone, looking truly gruesome. Zhao Xing'er was holding a bottle of ointment, applying it to his body. And her martial spirit red glow should also have protective and healing effects; clearly she had taken more hits than Yue Wen in the fight, yet now her skin was still smooth and unblemished, without a single wound. Instead, Yue Wen, who had been fighting at long range, was more seriously injured than her, this front-line fighter. She was even angrier. However, cultivators had strong physiques; although these external injuries looked serious, with enough time and some expenditure of qi and blood they could heal on their own. As long as no residual true qi was eroding the wounds, it wasn't a big problem. Especially after reaching the Sixth Realm and forging a Dharma body, even if one's five limbs were severed they could be reborn, and even if the head was severed from the body one could be resurrected; vitality could become terrifyingly tenacious. As she applied the ointment, Zhao Xing'er's cheeks flushed slightly. Objectively speaking, Yue Wen's physique was indeed nice—the classic lean-muscled handsome type, well-proportioned and smooth. But the reason she was blushing was not out of shyness, but because she had seen a knife wound on Yue Wen's back. Obviously not done by the tiger demons. "It's fine. Given the situation back then, a bit of friendly fire is understandable." Yue Wen immediately guessed what she was thinking and spoke to comfort her. "Boss, you're not mad at me?" Zhao Xing'er asked, touched. "I'm not mad at you. All that happens is karmic fate; meeting you is my blessing." Yue Wen smiled. "You only worked one day today; calculated at the base rate that's a hundred yuan, plus a two-hundred-and-fifty commission on orders. I'll transfer you three hundred fifty later. Our lives have dreams, each of us living our own wonderful life..." "Boss, are you firing me?" Zhao Xing'er immediately stopped her hands. "How could that be called firing?" Yue Wen corrected. "It's optimization." "Why?" Zhao Xing'er asked. Yue Wen half-turned and showed her the knife wound on his back again; everything went without saying. "I'll pay more attention next time..." Zhao Xing'er lowered her head, her hands clasped together, and said softly. "I trust you, but this isn't something you can control yourself." Yue Wen sighed. "Xiao Zhao, my cultivation level isn't high enough; there are things I really can't suppress you for, so you should still find a larger institution..." "I've actually already looked for many jobs." Zhao Xing'er pouted, speaking softly: "It's just that I either hurt the boss or hurt a coworker; you know, bosses always have ten thousand ways to make people angry..." Yue Wen nodded in understanding. Although he had never worked a job, he had heard a thing or two: three-legged toads are hard to find, but idiot bosses are everywhere. Who hasn't had the urge to punch their boss's pig face while on the job? But Zhao Xing'er was different from everyone else. She couldn't control her temper. "This time I was thinking I definitely had to be very careful..." she continued muttering. "Never thought I'd still hurt you." "Mainly it's not because you hurt me, but because I'm worried you'll cause trouble in the future." Yue Wen explained: "Our place here..." "Waaah." Zhao Xing'er seemed not to hear what he was saying, getting sadder as she spoke, with a hint of a sob in her voice. "Finally found such a good boss after so long—not greedy for money, not lustful, a good person, and handsome too..." "Xiao Zhao, oh my." Yue Wen didn't know how to comfort her for a moment, and said anxiously: "Why say all these plain truths?" "If even you don't want me, maybe I really won't be able to work anymore, only able to sleep on the streets, suffering from hunger and cold, dying alone in a strange land..." Zhao Xing'er lifted her head, eyes full of tears. "Hope that before I die I have a few matches in my arms, so I still have a chance to see my grandmother one more time..." "Zhao Xing'er!" Yue Wen called out heavily, then helplessly said softly: "If you really don't want to leave, you can stay." "Yay!" Zhao Xing'er immediately showed a smile, her tears disappearing as if evaporated in an instant, leaving only a sweet smiling face. Yue Wen: "?" Vaguely feeling like he had been tricked. He quickly added: "You can stay, but I have to set three rules with you." "Okay." Zhao Xing'er obediently put away the ointment, smiling and nodding. "Boss, go ahead. I'll definitely behave and listen." "First, no hitting the boss." Yue Wen raised his fingers one by one, stating his conditions. "Second, no hitting customers. Third... if you really have to hit someone, no using weapons." "Huh?" Zhao Xing'er's face was slightly troubled. "The requirements are so high?" "Tch." Yue Wen suddenly laughed. "If you really find it difficult, I won't wrong you either." When people are speechless, they really can't hold back their laughter. "But I'll definitely try my best to do it!" Zhao Xing'er, as if making a great resolution, raised three fingers and nodded heavily. "Mm!" ... The two of them tossed about all night, and by the time they lay in bed to rest properly, the horizon was already turning white. Yue Wen was also used to this irregular schedule, and still followed his own rhythm, preparing to lie in bed and scroll on his phone for a while before sleeping. As soon as he opened Cult Chat, he found several new messages in the inbox, and quickly clicked to look. Among the four precious materials needed for Chaos Dragon Gang, Purple Jade Branch, Taiyi Mystic Blaze Cinnabar, and Dragon Breath Fire Seed were all natural treasures that couldn't be obtained by human effort. Only Blazing Flame Powder could be refined by cultivators, and was the easiest to obtain among them. This medicine's function was, after the spiritual fire in the sea of qi was ignited, to stoke the flames in the dantian; the refining had to be extremely precise, not a single hair's breadth of error allowed. Alchemists with such skill were rare, but searching all of Jiangcheng City, there should still be a few. So Yue Wen posted an anonymous thread on Cult Chat's local section, seeking to buy high-quality Blazing Flame Powder, hoping anyone with a source would contact him. On Cult Chat, such transaction requests generally involved posting to seek to buy or sell; after someone replied, they would contact each other to confirm, then both choose a relatively safe location in the city to inspect goods and trade—this was a fixed process. If cross-city transactions were possible, it would definitely be easier to find a source. But first, cross-city face-to-face inspection was very inconvenient; without inspection, private transactions had no platform guarantee, so he didn't dare take the risk. Second, in this day and age, cross-city transportation required added costs, and crossing the vast wasteland zones carried a huge cost, with transported goods basically needing their price doubled. So local transactions were still the priority. A whole day had passed by now, and the post already had several replies, but most were useless comments and "GG" posts. ["Spear Shit Pokes Whoever Dies": "Blazing Flame Powder? That's the highest-grade fire-assisting spiritual medicine, generally used for breaking through to the Gang Realm, right? Don't know which immortal sect's disciple."] ["Ziche Chenyu": "Are you serious about wanting it? If you're not serious, I don't have it... if you are serious, forget I said anything."] ["Please Heavenly Father Return Chen Bu to Me": "Envious. This old man is fifty-eight this year, still no hope of breaking through to Gang Realm."] ["Criminal Law Scholar Li Dakang": "Add me for watching porn."] ["Old Bai": "I have it. Unique top-grade Blazing Flame Powder."] ["momo": "I recently came across a new fire-assisting spiritual medicine that's not inferior to Blazing Flame Powder, and the price is dozens of times cheaper. Want to join in with me?"] "..." Yue Wen looked around, and the only reliable one seemed to be the user called "Old Bai". He opened the other's homepage and saw it was all videos of unique alchemy refinements of spiritual medicines; the person seemed really to be an alchemist, just with very low traffic and almost no business. He didn't know if they were reliable. With a "try your luck" mindset, Yue Wen sent a private message: "Hello, do you really have high-quality Blazing Flame Powder?" "Yes." A few minutes later, the other side replied; seemed they were also a night owl. "0.3 jin, 500,000." The price sounded enough to make one's hand tremble, but Yue Wen had searched before. Blazing Flame Powder on the market sold for 200,000 per 0.1 jin. His 0.3 jin for 500,000, though a large sum for him, was actually on the low side. "Is it convenient to meet offline tomorrow to inspect the goods?" Yue Wen immediately sent a message. He planned to first check if the other's goods were reliable, then sort out the money. The other's reply was direct: "No. 208, Building 167, Youai Road, Half-Mountain District, No. 6 City. At the gate, give my name and just come in." Yue Wen looked at this quite detailed address, slowly frowning. Going straight to someone's home for the first meeting? We're just online friends. Is this developing a bit too fast?