Extortion

A silent bedchamber; four quiet figures. Luo Daofan held his pose, gazing up at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle, with no intention of budging. There were some pots of blame he could help the kid carry, but Luo Daofan absolutely refused to take this one. Knowing full well that his own sister might be trapped inside that underground palace, yet not going to look for her—how on earth was he supposed to explain that to Luo Xiran in a moment? In the end, the room's silence was broken by an utterly bewildered Xu Xinyao: "Third Brother, what's wrong with you all?" She didn't understand why the other three had suddenly fallen silent, nor why the two Senior Luos wore such expressions. Luo Xiran gave Xu Yuan a deep, lingering look, then cast an equally deep look at Old Man Luo, before offering Xu Xinyao a gentle smile: "It's nothing. Just some misunderstandings being cleared up all of a sudden, so I was a little surprised, that's all." Xu Xinyao looked thoughtful and responded half-comprehendingly, "Oh." "Ahem." Xu Yuan cleared his throat to interrupt the exchange. Glancing at Old Man Luo—who was still staring up at the ceiling—he said in a low voice, "Back to business. Old Man Luo, could you give Xinyao a copy of the soul ring's refinement method and materials list?" Hearing this, Xu Xinyao immediately cast her doubts aside and looked eagerly at the middle-aged scholar gazing at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle. Seeing that the matter had blown over for now, Old Man Luo resumed his poise as an expert. He glanced at Xu Xinyao and smiled faintly: "This old man finds your temperament quite pleasing, lass. I can give you the refinement method, the list of materials, and even the array runes upon it. It's just that many of those materials have likely gone extinct in the world today." "That doesn't matter," Xu Xinyao replied at once. "Xinyao isn't trying to duplicate an identical soul ring. Even if the materials are extinct, lower-grade substitutes can always be found." Old Man Luo chuckled. With a casual flick of his sleeve, a sheet of paper condensed from his intent-soul materialized before Xu Xinyao's eyes: "Since I'm giving it to you, what you do with it is your own business. However, once you've read it, this page will automatically destroy itself. Heh-heh, you're far more likable than this brat Xu Yuan." "Tsk." Xu Yuan clicked his tongue. "Hey, Old Man Luo, our sister was rescued by me—" Mid-sentence, his voice trailed off under Luo Xiran's cool, sharp gaze. Old Man Luo seized the moment to cast him a gloating look. Xu Yuan rolled his eyes and casually leaned back against the bed. He had already achieved his goal, so it didn't matter if he let this unseemly old man enjoy a laugh at his expense. As for having his story about the underground palace audited, it wasn't a big deal either; Luo Xiran wouldn't go telling his father or the others about it. After all, the one who had rescued her was him, Xu Yuan, and the reason she remained in the Prime Minister's Manor was also because of him. After a brief silence, Xu Xinyao rested the densely inscribed sheet onto the skirt over her lap. "Senior Luo, Xinyao has committed it to memory." Old Man Luo wasn't surprised in the least. Though geniuses with photographic memories were rare in this world, he had seen plenty across ten thousand years. With a wave of his hand, the page condensed from his intent-soul dissolved into specks of starlight and vanished into the air. With this matter settled, the four chatted idly for a while. The sun had long since set in the west, and a moonlit night once again blanketed the sky. Xu Xinyao slowly rose from Xu Yuan's bed and curtsied. "Senior Luo, Senior Xiran and I still need to expand the formation below, so please excuse us." Old Man Luo smiled faintly at her words. Perhaps because this girl Xu Xinyao resembled the Xiran of back then—just as gentle, but without that innate arrogance to her bones—the more he looked at her, the more fond of her he grew. After pondering briefly, he suddenly asked, "Lass, I have a cultivation art that suits you quite well. Would you like to switch to cultivating it?" Before Xu Xinyao could reply, Xu Yuan spoke up with great enthusiasm, "What cultivation art? Let's hear it." While Old Man Luo was rather unreliable as an old mentor figure at times, there was no denying he was a genuine treasure trove. Having lived for ten thousand years, even if he had spent a long time asleep inside the soul ring, the various cultivation arts at his disposal were still countless. After all, in pursuit of longevity ten thousand years ago, this old fossil had ransacked nearly every cultivation art and secret technique he could lay hands on to assimilate their strengths. Old Man Luo's face darkened instantly. "I wasn't asking you, brat." Xu Yuan chuckled. "As if I care about your lousy arts." "Then why are you asking?" "Can't I vet it for my sister? Who knows what kind of pitfalls you might have hidden in the art you're offering, you old coot." "How could this old man ever harm a child Xiran thinks so highly of?" "Then why won't you let me see it? Guilty conscience?" "..." Luo Daofan. "Brother, please stop talking." Xu Xinyao nudged Xu Yuan's waist, then bowed to Old Man Luo. "Senior Luo, Xinyao already has a primary cultivation art, and it aligns very well with my research into the path of formations." Old Man Luo waved his hand and smiled. "I can naturally see that. You formation script masters always expend vast amounts of time and energy on the path of formations, and your current art's cultivation speed is far too slow. Even with a lifetime of effort, you'll likely only reach the Body Integration realm. "Don't you think a single century of life is far too short? "Besides, this art of mine contains several secret techniques that complement your chosen path of formations remarkably well." At that, Luo Daofan waved his hand, casually condensing a thumb-thick book from his intent-soul and tossing it to Xu Xinyao. "Never mind, I'll give you the manual first. You can read it over before deciding whether to switch." Xu Xinyao hurriedly caught it. While it was flying through the air, Xu Yuan caught a glimpse of the characters on the cover: *Dual Clarity Blood Splendor Art*. No memory of it; this art likely never appeared in *Cangyuan*. Beside them, Luo Xiran let out an enigmatic snort upon seeing the manual, then led the now-grateful Xu Xinyao out of Xu Yuan's room. In an instant, only the old man and the youth remained in the room. They stared at each other in silence. After a long while, Xu Yuan suddenly said in a low voice, "Old Man Luo, how about we strike a deal?" Meeting his gaze, Old Man Luo immediately grew wary. "What for?" "You have such a vast collection. How about transcribing a few precious cultivation arts for me?" "..." After a moment of silence, Old Man Luo's soul form drifted up into midair. "It's getting late. This old man won't disturb you any longer." Seeing this, Xu Yuan immediately grabbed the floating soul ring and grinned shamelessly. "Old Man Luo—oh, no, Senior Luo—you know me. I possess a lot of information. I won't take advantage of you; how about we exchange what each other needs?" "The Dao cannot be lightly imparted; haven't you heard that before, brat?" Luo Daofan sneered, glancing at the insolent youth with a curling lip. "Besides, I'm not in the least bit curious about the information you know." "I did save your sister, you know," Xu Yuan brought up that reason once more. "I've already repaid that favor. You should know the value of this soul ring well enough." "I'm doing this to raise funds for Xinyao. Didn't you just say you found her pleasing?" "She is indeed pleasing to my eye, but that doesn't mean I must help her with everything I've got. Besides, I already gave her a cultivation art. It is exceedingly precious—out in the world, it could serve as a core foundational heritage for a sect." "..." After a moment of silence, the respectful look on Xu Yuan's face vanished. He stared at the chuckling middle-aged scholar. "No room for negotiation?" "None." "Really no room?" "What do you think?" "Sigh." Xu Yuan sighed softly, activated the sound-isolation formation, and under Old Man Luo's watchful gaze, said mournfully, "Old Man Luo, what you don't know is that unlike an old fossil like you, our sworn sister's physical body is actually preserved quite intact." Old Man Luo remained completely unbothered. "Xiran's current form is constructed from black death fungal carpet. The Silent Crypt specialized in researching immortal aberrant ghosts, so achieving that wasn't difficult." Xu Yuan nodded in agreement. "Right. You have no idea—the first time I laid eyes on our sister's body, I was stunned. A celestial beauty, skin like jade and bones like snow, with vitality still coursing through it..." As Xu Yuan went on, the more Old Man Luo listened, the more wrong it sounded. His eyes went wide. "Brat, what are you planning to do?!" "Hm?" Xu Yuan looked up, smiling amiably at Old Man Luo. "Well... in a little while, this brat plans to make a secret trip back there to carry our sworn sister's body back. The journey is so long and exhausting..." "Ten manuals," Old Man Luo interrupted through gritted teeth. "I'll give you ten top-tier cultivation arts if you tell me where it is... Tsk, forget it. You arrange for a powerful woman to personally bring my sister's body back." "Thirty," Xu Yuan made an outrageous demand on the spot, tripling it in one breath. "It's not like holding onto those manuals is going to hatch you any eggs." Old Man Luo's eye twitched. Even with his deep composure, he couldn't help cursing aloud, "You rotten brat, do you think top-tier arts are cabbages? Where am I supposed to get that many top-tier arts for you?!" Xu Yuan rubbed his chin, estimating the old fellow's stash, and offered a new number: "Twenty, then. Not a single one less. And they must be at least on the same level as the one you gave Xinyao." He had caught Luo Xiran's expression when she looked at that manual; she likely reacted that way because of its priceless worth. "..." Old Man Luo's soul form trembled slightly. In the end, he squeezed a single word from between his teeth: "Fine." With that, he raised a hand to condense the texts using his intent-soul, but Xu Yuan suddenly stopped him: "Wait, I want paper copies, not ones made from your intent-soul." Though his memory had improved drastically as his cultivation rose, it had not reached the level of photographic memory. Old Man Luo snapped back irritably, "I'm a soul form, where would I get paper and ink—" *Thump.* Xu Yuan casually took a massive stack of blank xuan paper, brushes, and ink out of his Sumeru ring and set them on the mahogany desk, which still bore a palm print. "Now you do." "..." Old Man Luo closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and directly manipulated several weasel-hair brushes at once with his intent-soul to transcribe from memory. He wrote at blinding speed, almost imperceptible to Xu Yuan's naked eye—leaps and bounds faster than Xu Yuan's own transcription speed as a Body Integration cultivator. In just half a quarter-hour, twenty manuals with wet ink lay upon the desk. Standing to the side, Old Man Luo watched coldly. "Satisfied?" Xu Yuan casually pulled one out, skimmed through it, set it back down, and smiled. "Naturally." As he spoke, Xu Yuan walked over to Old Man Luo, channeled his qi to pat the old man on the shoulder, and said softly, "Don't worry, I won't take these manuals for nothing. I will find a way to reverse-refine a spiritual essence spirit into an intent-soul so Xiran can return to her flesh and blood." Hearing this, Old Man Luo's expression softened slightly, but then he snorted coldly. "I hope you keep your word. This old man is going back to check on my disciple. Excuse me." With those words, Old Man Luo darted directly into the soul ring and flew out of the room without looking back, vanishing into the night. Watching him leave, Xu Yuan smiled and murmured under his breath, "Of course I won't lie to you. If Xiran can return to her fleshly body, it's equivalent to strapping the two of you Saints to my Prime Minister's Manor's war chariot." With that, Xu Yuan's eyes swept over the desk laden with manuals, and he eventually drew out the one titled *Dual Clarity Blood Splendor Art*. He clicked his tongue. "Tsk, that old man really refuses to take even the slightest loss. I could've just asked Xinyao for this one directly." As he spoke, Xu Yuan opened the book and began browsing. And as the pages turned, the look on his face grew stranger and stranger. He suddenly understood why Luo Xiran had worn that expression upon seeing this manual. It was indeed precious, but that wasn't why she had looked at it that way. Rather, it was because this *Dual Clarity Blood Splendor Art* was a dual cultivation method—a unilateral dual cultivation method—and according to the description inside, it yielded even better results when practiced between blood kin. Naturally, it was not the improper kind of dual cultivation method. Otherwise, with that sworn sister's sky-high moral standards, she probably would have smashed a hammer over Old Man Luo's skull the instant he took it out. While the formation was undergoing expansion, it could not be activated, nor could it be used for cultivation. Bored out of his mind, Xu Yuan took the secret passage down and entered the subterranean chamber beneath his room for the first time. The space here was vast—a cubic cavern roughly twenty zhang across, with lingering traces of Source Qi upon the surfaces. It had likely been blasted out directly through sheer might by his father or Xu Changge. Across the six stone walls were many honeycomb-like recesses; some were empty, while others already imprisoned yin ghosts and aberrant ghosts. As his spiritual vision sensed, intricate formations connected these recesses to the grand formation in the center. Inside, Xu Xinyao and Luo Xiran moved in mysterious footwork, modifying the entire grand formation. Watching the two women arrange the formation within the secret chamber, Xu Yuan, who had been standing in the passageway outside the array, spoke up to ask if there was anything he could help with. After all, they were toiling away on his behalf, so he naturally felt he should do whatever he could. Yet no sooner had the words left his mouth than he was kicked out by Xu Xinyao and Luo Xiran in unison. Formations were delicate and precise things where the slightest deviation would lead to a catastrophic error; they could not tolerate any interference from a layman. Faced with this, Xu Yuan could only return to his room to sleep and wait quietly for the two women to finish expanding the formation. But the expansion took even longer than he had anticipated. On the morning of the fourth day, after giving Xu Changge a heads-up, Xu Yuan put the human-skin mask of the Vice Minister of War's son back on and traveled along the Black Prison's secret passage toward the Tian'an Chamber of Commerce in Di'an City.