"Wow—is that the legendary thirty-thousand-a-day guy?"
"Empty bragging, that's all. When did he ever not talk big by day, then squeeze out four thousand characters at night like wringing a towel?"
"I heard he still owes Senior Shen lots and lots of manuscripts."
"He looks so young..."
"And who knows whether Fairy Manbo ever beat Chess Saint Ke's four-star Ember and seized the Fire Seed Source, so her beloved Demon Lord Voldemort could grow a nose..."
"...."
Beyond a single curtain, in the quiet room,
listening to the chirping of that gaggle of young women outside the door, Lin Yi felt his mouth twitch despite himself. He looked across the table, utterly speechless:
"Tower Master Shen, it's been a while. So this is the reputation I enjoy at your Drunken Moon Tower—a flake?"
"A flake? Hardly."
The one sitting across from Lin Yi raised her teacup, took a leisurely sip, and added a soft, cutting line: "Compared to being a flake, your name as a hundred-year virgin carries far more weight."
Lin Yi: "..."
"Now personal attacks are really going too far," he said, rolling his eyes despite himself. "The Drunken Moon Tower got to where it is today—don't I deserve at least a share of the credit behind the scenes? And this is how the tower's own boss persecutes me?"
The person opposite only gave a light laugh and made no reply.
Instead, with a wave of her hand, the lights in the quiet room surged bright, and inside and out were completely sealed off by some array.
In that light, the woman's appearance grew clearer and clearer.
She was a young woman in her early twenties, in a plain white gown—features like a painting, black hair falling to her shoulders, her figure tall and dignified.
With a voice that rang clear when she spoke, she looked every bit a woman in the springtime of youth.
But look closely,
and one would find her aura somewhat scattered—only a shade better than Lin Yi's own.
"..."
At that sight, the teasing look on Lin Yi's face faded at once, and his brows drew together: "Tower Master Shen, you..."
"My lifespan has simply run out. Birth, age, sickness, death—it's the natural way of things." The woman poured a cup of tea and pushed it in front of Lin Yi, her tone calm. "I can hold out another two or three years. Either way, I ought to manage to burn a stick of New Year incense at your grave."
Lin Yi was silent for a moment, then sighed helplessly.
The woman sitting across from him bore a very lovely name: Shen Danruo.
Apart from that batch of transmigrators, she was one of the few friends Lin Yi had who were native to the Tianling Realm.
Truth be told, judged purely by background, Shen Danruo's origins were anything but small—she was the biological daughter of the previous-generation head of the Shen Family, one of the three great families of Jiuwu City.
Of course,
just like Lin Yi's fourth-rank guest elder wooden token,
Shen Danruo belonged to the sort whose background sounded impressive but fell short of the name.
For the previous Shen Family head had been an ultimate breeding machine—the kind who, dropped into Palworld, would qualify at the very least for the "Philanthropist" trait (egg-laying efficiency doubled)—and his daughters alone numbered nineteen.
Shen Danruo ranked second to last in birth order, and she herself possessed nothing more than an ordinary set of six spiritual roots.
And since her mother was merely a concubine married in from a minor clan as part of an alliance, her standing within the family had never been high.
Not long after his transmigration,
Lin Yi first met Shen Danruo—who had left home to flee an arranged marriage—in a certain secret realm, and along the way did her a great favor.
But the moment the two stepped out of the secret realm, the girl was hauled off by her own father.
Fortunately, she was, after all, the Shen Family head's biological daughter; the seized Shen Danruo was not instantly refined away.
What exchanges passed between father and daughter, or among the family's higher-ups, no one could say.
In any case, afterward Shen Danruo was dispatched to the Drunken Moon Tower and put in charge of that shady side business under the Shen family's name.
Honestly speaking,
putting an unwed young lady in charge of the family's gray trade would count as a humiliating arrangement even in the Tianling Realm.
But Shen Danruo bore no grudge at all and quickly settled into the role.
At the time, Lin Yi happened to be looking for a place to take on a part-time storytelling gig. The two ran into each other again by chance and struck up a partnership on the spot.
Decades of working together followed.
Besides telling stories part-time, Lin Yi supplied the Drunken Moon Tower with operation ideas big and small.
For instance, that idea of selling foot-washing image-recording pearls he had run into before coming—it came from Lin Yi's own hand, courtesy of those "zhou pi" fans from before his transmigration.
The image-recording pearls didn't actually bring in much total profit, but they advertised the Drunken Moon Tower's name enormously.
Add Shen Danruo's skillful management,
and the once utterly ordinary Drunken Moon Tower became an entertainment complex with no small fame even in Jiuwu City—one that had abandoned the sleazy services of its lowbrow days early on.
Nowadays, dining and resource trading made up the bulk of the Drunken Moon Tower's main revenue.
The latter, split off on its own, would rank in the top fifty among all the merchant houses in Jiuwu City.
And in return,
Shen Danruo was exceptionally generous every time she settled Lin Yi's storytelling pay: she never delayed it, and now and then she even paid him a bonus by way of thanks.
To put it without exaggeration,
beyond the tireless efforts of Lin Yi, Wu Xiangnan, and the others, the Guihua Sect's laborious, inch-by-inch crawl to the present day also owed much to Shen Danruo's support behind the scenes.
Sadly, her aptitude was, in the end, only six spiritual roots; barely pushed into Qi Condensation Late Stage by piled-up resources, she had not advanced a single step since.
Decades flashed past, and now this old friend too had reached the end of her lifespan.
"Forget it, let's not talk about that."
Shen Danruo swept a strand of hair back behind her head, studied Lin Yi for a moment, and lowered her eyes: "And you, old fellow—why aren't you loafing at the Guihua Sect nursing your last two breaths? What brings you all the way to Jiuwu City?"
"I've got something I need your help with, that's all." Lin Yi shrugged; in front of an old acquaintance he looked quite at ease. "It's like this. Two days ago, two Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beasts appeared outside the Guihua Sect..."
Then he gave a simple rundown of the whole business, cause to effect.
Apart from the light ring and the specific way the kills were made, he held nothing else back.
After all, those two Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beasts radiated a strong demon aura, and although the Guihua Sect sat in the borderlands of Qingzhou, the surrounding country was not so desolate that not one outsider was to be found.
Flying the whole way, the two demon beasts were bound to run into witnesses of every stripe.
So even if Lin Yi said nothing, word of the attack on the Guihua Sect would, after a time, spread as street gossip.
A while later.
Shen Danruo listened quietly to the end of Lin Yi's account, a flash of concern and astonishment crossing her eyes: "You can't be serious. A man practically in his grave actually had it in him to wipe out two late-second-rank Golden-Eyed Crimson-Scale Beasts? One against two, at that?"
"No, no, no—where would I get that kind of skill?" Lin Yi waved a hand in mock modesty and said with a smile. "It's just the sect foundation laid down in the early years. Mere sect foundation."
Mm, well—the Fengling Yueying Sect is a sect too...
Shen Danruo shot him a glance and did not press further.
Curious as she was about what this "sect foundation" of Lin Yi's actually was,
such a topic plainly touched on Guihua Sect secrets; however close their friendship, it was not hers to pry into.
Then Lin Yi coughed lightly and pressed his grin back down:
"In any case, that's about the size of it. This trip to Jiuwu City, I wanted to ask you to help me process some demon beast materials, and to pick up a few things while I'm at it..."
With that,
he took out his storage pouch and set it, together with a list, in front of Shen Danruo.
...",
Chapter 39