A mere three hundred taels left Qi Yuan quite disappointed.
Still, this was only normal.
People heading out to rob travelers naturally wouldn't carry too much money on them.
"Young Master, should we... go demand compensation?" Chen Kangbao suggested from the side. "Along the way... we might even attend a funeral feast."
Qi Yuan glanced at Chen Kangbao. "I'm starting to suspect you're my Divine Infant."
Back in the Mortal Heart Realm, he had often brought the villagers along to feast at funerals.
However, ever since leaving that realm, Qi Yuan had rarely heard the phrase again.
"My strength is currently insufficient. If I go demand compensation, I could easily get beaten to death," Qi Yuan said.
Those two Mystic-rank weapon wielders, along with the three Yellow-rank ones, had been able to learn his strength through the ghost market.
Evidently, they had ties to the upper-middle management there.
If beating up the small fry brought out the mid-level figures, beating the mid-level figures brought out the big shots, and beating the big shots brought out the old fogies in an endless nesting doll sequence, he might end up facing the master of the ghost market and suffering an ambush from an Earth-rank weapon wielder.
In terms of combat technique, Qi Yuan had approached perfection.
By rank, his physical constitution was merely comparable to that of a Yellow-rank weapon wielder, but his technique was sufficient to allow him to slay any Mystic-rank weapon wielder.
However... technique had its limits.
No matter how superb an ant's maneuvering was, it could never rely on footwork to defeat a J-20.
An Earth-rank weapon wielder's body was adamantine and indestructible; no matter how extraordinary Qi Yuan's technique was, he could not breach their defense.
To defeat an Earth-rank weapon wielder required another Earth-rank weapon wielder, or a Heaven-rank one.
Of course, the most important point was that it was simply too troublesome—he had to develop his strength first.
"The five of them only leveled me up by one. What useless trash."
The more Qi Yuan looked at the five, the more displeased he became.
Not only were they poor, but they had also provided so little experience on his bar.
"Old man, now's the time for you to make yourself useful. Help me look around for wherever guiling are plentiful. I want to go kill some." Qi Yuan was running low on experience.
Roleplaying as a matrilocal son-in-law and acting as Divine Descent yielded no experience.
Experience could only be earned by slaying bosses.
"As you command, Young Master!" Chen Kangbao agreed.
...
The morning sun rose, its light sluggish and warm.
A faint trace of melancholy hung on Qi Yuan's face.
"I'm so poor, and my storage implement is almost full.
"My silver is nearly spent as well.
"Why hasn't anyone recognized my talent and purchased my implements?"
So far, he had only sold a single lightsaber.
Aside from Third Young Master Tu dropping coins, no one else had dropped anything.
This left Qi Yuan quite disappointed.
Roleplaying a god required an astronomical amount of resources.
Drones, robots disguised as angels, and aerospace battleships—he had to forge all of them himself.
With the meager funds he had now, how was he supposed to forge them?
"Brother-in-law..." Shen Lingfeng hobbled over, looking somewhat frail.
"What happened? Bullied by a woman?" Qi Yuan narrowed his eyes.
If he had ended up teaching a simpering simp, he would be very heartbroken.
"N-no!" Shen Lingfeng denied hurriedly.
Naturally, he wouldn't admit that when he had asked his mother when she was taking a bath on his brother-in-law's behalf last time, she had strung him up by the roof beam and whipped him.
"Sigh, in the future, don't tell people outside that I taught you how to pick up women." Qi Yuan could naturally tell Shen Lingfeng was lying.
He really had been beaten by a woman.
"Brother-in-law, I've run into a dilemma lately and wanted to ask your advice," Shen Lingfeng said in distress.
"Speak."
"Didn't I write a letter? I sent one to the Zhao family, but who could've guessed that the one who wrote back wasn't Miss Zhao, but the Zhao family's Old Matron? Sigh... she asked to meet me. What do I do?" Shen Lingfeng's face twisted in conflict.
The Zhao family's Old Matron was a famous widow in Fengshan Commandery, and she was very wealthy.
She had been quite beautiful in her youth, but now, her beauty had long faded with age.
"What, you don't want to strive anymore and want to take a detour?" Qi Yuan asked.
"No, I want to reject her, but you know me, Brother-in-law—I have zero emotional intelligence when I speak." Shen Lingfeng looked deeply troubled.
"Tell her this: 'I like Miss Yang.
"'Miss Yang wears Valentino; you wear Zulejian walking shoes,'" Qi Yuan said nonchalantly.
Speaking of which, Qi Yuan pondered whether he should forge a pair of Valentinos for Jin Li to wear.
But thinking about how he lacked the copyright, he decided to drop the idea for now.
"Huh?" Shen Lingfeng was completely baffled, feeling only that his brother-in-law's words were unfathomably profound.
"Just write the letter as I said. A boy out in the world must protect himself and not let himself get pushed around."
"Also, Brother-in-law, Lin Qinghe sent me a message today. They captured Fang Shisan of the Radiant Society and asked when we could go over to have a look." At the mention of this, Shen Lingfeng's admiration for Qi Yuan swelled even further.
Determining the killer's identity from a single glance at a rotting corpse—that was nothing short of a divine detective.
"They found him?" Qi Yuan's eyes remained calm.
Such a coincidence?
Neither his left eye nor his right eye twitched.
"Let's go. We'll head over and see just what kind of sacred being this Fang Shisan is!"
...
Meanwhile, within the yamen's dungeon.
Lin Qinghe stared at the burly man in the cell, his expression fraught with confusion.
"There really was such a person... Just how did Qi Yuan know?" Lin Qinghe found it inconceivable.
The man in the cell bore a solemn expression, not the least bit flustered.
This Fang Shisan hadn't been captured by Lin Qinghe; rather, he had turned himself in.
In any case, this entire affair reeked of strangeness.
Just then, the sound of footsteps echoed over. Lin Qinghe perked up and hurried over. "Young Master Shen, Young Master Qi, you've arrived. The Radiant Society's Fang Shisan is right here."
Lin Qinghe led the way for the newly arrived Qi Yuan and Shen Lingfeng.
The smell in the dungeon was dreadful, reeking of a pungent foul stench mingled with the damp rot of decaying straw, much like walking past a pigsty.
Soon, Qi Yuan saw Fang Shisan locked inside the cell.
"This is Fang Shisan. He came to the yamen to surrender in person today. I intended to interrogate him, but he wouldn't say a word.
"He also claimed that he would only confess after meeting... Young Master Qi," Lin Qinghe said from the side.
Looking between Qi Yuan and Shen Lingfeng, he felt somewhat surprised.
Wasn't this Qi Yuan... just a matrilocal son-in-law?
Back in Ninghe County, he had displayed no ability whatsoever, appearing to be nothing more than a cowardly, incompetent fool.
Yet judging by the positions Shen Lingfeng and Qi Yuan took, Qi Yuan was faintly the one leading.
"You're the one who killed Lao Zhong?" Qi Yuan asked, his gaze calm.
Fang Shisan looked at Qi Yuan with serene eyes, showing no fear of death whatsoever.
"Yes," Fang Shisan replied, sizing up Qi Yuan in return.
"Why kill him? Did it have something to do with me?" Qi Yuan asked again.
Since he was roleplaying the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan, he had to settle all the grudges and entanglements bound to that identity.
Moreover, those people wanted to harm him; if he claimed he wasn't the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan, would they believe him?
"Yes." Fang Shisan answered directly without hesitation.
This gave the nearby Lin Qinghe an odd expression. The conversation before him was far too peculiar.
A question and an answer, with nothing hidden—it didn't resemble questioning a criminal at all, but rather questioning a subordinate.
"The reason? And... why did you turn yourself in?" Qi Yuan pressed.
"The reason..." At this mention, an eerie smile appeared in Fang Shisan's eyes. "Because you are not worthy of living."
Qi Yuan paused.
The other party sounded very sincere.
Then again, considering the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan's character, he indeed wasn't worthy of living.
"As for surrendering, I wanted to come and see you with my own eyes," Fang Shisan said calmly, a strange look in his eyes. "You are somewhat different from before."
"Well, I am a heavenly god descended to the mortal realm, so naturally I'm different from before," Qi Yuan said earnestly.
Chen Kangbao piped up from the side, "The young master is a heavenly god!"
Beside them, Lin Qinghe's expression grew even stranger.
Everything happening today was steeped in utter absurdity.
"From the moment you gave... to someone else, you deserved to die!" Fang Shisan said coolly.
Evidently, there was a specific object he left unsaid in the middle.
"Gave what to someone else?" Qi Yuan asked curiously.
Fang Shisan fell silent, offering no answer.
However, Qi Yuan could determine that everything Fang Shisan said was true.
The matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan... had once given a certain item to someone else, inciting the Radiant Society's retribution?
Still, why would the Radiant Society's revenge be so roundabout, requiring them to kill Lao Zhong first before plotting against him? Or were they... wary of something?
Suddenly, Qi Yuan was slightly taken aback.
Sorting through the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan's memories, he discovered that those memories were disjointed, with many parts seemingly erased by someone.
Of course, it was also possible that his roleplay completion wasn't high enough to fully awaken all the memories.
Facing Qi Yuan's question, Fang Shisan remained uncharacteristically silent.
Seeing this, Qi Yuan asked once more, "What kind of thing is the Radiant Society?"
A look of surprise surfaced in Fang Shisan's calm eyes. "You don't know the Radiant Society, yet you knew I was Fang Shisan of the Radiant Society?"
He looked at Qi Yuan, his expression turning fanatical at that moment. "The dark night descends, and all worlds are about to sink! Only the Radiant Society can guide the path ahead!"
The moment he finished speaking, blood suddenly spurted from his mouth, and the aura on his body plummeted.
"He... committed suicide?" Lin Qinghe was utterly shocked.
This Fang Shisan of the Radiant Society clearly hadn't been an ordinary man.
Such psychological fortitude, along with that swift sword technique that had slain Lao Zhong, all demonstrated his extraordinary caliber.
Yet he had turned himself in, and as they were speaking... he committed suicide.
This scene was utterly bizarre. He entered the cell to inspect Fang Shisan's body.
Fang Shisan had indeed died from shattering his own meridians.
"A madman! This guy is a madman!" Shen Lingfeng couldn't help but say.
To commit suicide—how painful must that be!
He certainly couldn't do it.
Qi Yuan stood in the dungeon, lost in thought. "It seems the waters here run very deep."
The identity of this matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan seemed far from simple.
Lin Qinghe stole a glance at Qi Yuan. For some reason, after this scene of Fang Shisan's suicide, he felt this matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan had grown increasingly mysterious and unfathomable.
Could he have misjudged him in the past?
After returning to the Shen Manor, Qi Yuan sat in his room, his thoughts a tangled web.
Today's events were shrouded in dense clouds that he couldn't see through all at once.
"The matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan gave a certain object to someone else, angering the Radiant Society."
Qi Yuan murmured to himself.
Hmm, his nose didn't grow longer.
That meant this statement was true.
Qi Yuan's nose could detect lies, so it could naturally test whether he himself was lying.
Right now, Qi Yuan was testing the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan.
Although he lacked some of the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan's memories, he could still be considered the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan; if he spoke a falsehood, he would know.
Of course, this test depended on his own cognition.
Everything he was stating now were things the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan had experienced.
Otherwise, by continuously judging true and false like this, he could even cheat his way directly into becoming a Dao Ancestor.
"I gave it away on the eleventh of the third month this year."
His nose grew longer—false.
"I gave it away on the sixteenth of the fifth month this year."
False.
...
"I gave it away on the twenty-first of the seventh month this year."
At this moment, his nose did not lengthen.
A complex emotion surfaced in Qi Yuan's eyes.
"That was a few days before the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan returned to his hometown to pay respects to the ancestors."
Naturally, Qi Yuan hadn't been guessing randomly; he had only tested the dates where the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan's memories had gaps.
"So, on the twenty-first of the seventh month, the matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan gave a certain object to someone, which angered Fang Shisan of the Radiant Society, driving him to take risks... to kill Qi Yuan?
"But why didn't he make a move in person? Could it be... he needed to avoid something?
"Ugh, it's too complicated. My brain is going to grow another wrinkle.
"Forget it, I can't be bothered to think about it. I'll just boost my strength. Once I'm strong enough, won't everything become clear?"
Qi Yuan decided not to waste any more mental energy on this.
"Young Master, a major discovery! I found... a spirit-nurturing ground!" Right at that moment, Chen Kangbao hurried back, his face flush with excitement.
"A spirit-nurturing ground? Like the one at Red Cloud Stockade?" Qi Yuan's eyes lit up.
During his time in Fengshan Commandery, Qi Yuan hadn't spent all his days swatting mosquitoes.
To him, knowledge was the primary productive force.
If he didn't grasp enough knowledge, how could he swiftly locate easy-to-kill white moonlight—no, identify high-quality white moonlight?
A spirit-nurturing ground like the one at Red Cloud Stockade clearly gave birth to white moonlight easily.
"Thorn Blood has a spirit-nurturing ground in Fengshan Commandery as well?" Qi Yuan was surprised.
Fengshan Commandery wasn't Ninghe County.
There were Earth-rank weapon wielders here. How could an Earth-rank weapon wielder allow such a spirit-nurturing ground to exist?
"They do!" Chen Kangbao said hastily. "This old servant expended enormous effort just to uncover this news!"
As Chen Kangbao spoke, he held his head high and stuck his chin out, looking as if he were waiting for Qi Yuan to reward him with steamed buns.
"If even you could find this information, couldn't the other people in Fengshan Commandery find it?"
"Others can find it, but they can't get in! The perimeter of that spirit-nurturing ground has an absolute formation; even an Earth-rank weapon wielder cannot enter!" Chen Kangbao shared the intelligence he had gathered with Qi Yuan.
"If that's the case, it makes sense." Qi Yuan stretched lazily. "Let's go. We'll check out this spirit-nurturing ground. I hope it won't disappoint me—give me plenty of white moonlight."
He was eager to level up.
Seeing Fang Shisan today had made him catch a whiff of danger.
The past matrilocal son-in-law Qi Yuan had clearly lived under the watchful gaze of certain people.
Whatever he did was likely monitored.
Qi Yuan's current strength was far too weak. He didn't want someone peeping on him while he took a bath without him even noticing.
For all he knew, someone might be secretly watching him right now.
"Today, I set a magnificent goal!
"Grow stronger so I'm not peeped on in the bath without knowing!"
...
Inside the Tu Manor, the lamplight flickered dimly.
Third Young Master Tu held the lightsaber in his hand, an admiring look involuntarily showing in his eyes. "Truly... not bad at all. Definitely worth a thousand taels."
Every time he brandished this lightsaber, he felt as though he had become much more handsome.
However, at the thought of spending ten thousand taels just to obtain three uses of a special ability, his heart ached again.
To be honest, he somewhat doubted whether it was real.
Yet he didn't dare test it recklessly either—after all, a single attempt cost over three thousand taels.
Right then, Third Young Master Tu suddenly sensed something, and his expression turned grave.
Roughly a quarter of an hour later, Third Young Master Tu changed into a black robe and appeared in an alley.
The alley was pitch-black, devoid of any human figures.
Suddenly, a crow flew past and landed in front of Third Young Master Tu.
Seeing this crow, a look of reverence appeared in Third Young Master Tu's eyes.
"Greetings, Elder!"
This crow was none other than the incarnation of an elder of Thorn Blood—a mysterious Earth-rank weapon wielder.
He hadn't expected this elder to summon him.
"In a few days, this old man will leave the State of Ning and requires certain items. Help me gather them... and I shall credit you with contribution points."
The crow spoke in a raspy voice.
Immediately, it rattled off a string of names of resources and materials.
Third Young Master Tu's expression changed repeatedly. "Elder, these things are far too precious. I might not be able to afford them."
"Hmph!" The crow sneered coldly. "Could it be you think... you've hidden yourself very well, Third Young Master Tu?"
Third Young Master Tu's face drained of color once more. He hadn't expected his identity to have been exposed.
"I want to see these items the day after tomorrow!"
Having said its piece, the crow spoke no more. It departed overbearingly, giving Third Young Master Tu no chance to object.
Chapter 500