Li Tongya rode the wind westward, crossing Dayu Brook at the border between the Eastern Shanyue and the Li family, flying over Shamoli's palace, and penetrating ever deeper into Shanyue territory.
As he journeyed further west, the jungle grew denser, and the villages became desolate, gray, and dilapidated. Abandoned bones littered the dirt paths. The living, starved to skin and bone, crawled along the ground. They boiled those grayish-white bones in broken pots until they pulverized into a gray broth, while circles of jackals sat around them, howling as they waited for the humans to collapse.
Li Tongya watched in silence. From the peace and prosperity of Lijing Town, where ten thousand households renewed themselves, to the destitution of every home in the Eastern Shanyue where only the vermilion gates were richly adorned, and now to these Shanyue lands where bones carpeted the earth and beasts devoured men—he merely cast a glance, and the skeletal figures all around lifted their heads to look at him. Li Tongya rode the wind onward to the west.
After several dozen li to the west, signs of human habitation gradually grew more frequent, though the scenery remained just as ruined and bleak. At last, a dark, looming mountain came into view, atop which a temple had been erected in proper fashion.
Li Tongya landed before the mountain. Here, numerous blackened heads were impaled on wooden stakes. The moment he set foot on the ground, their pale, whitened eyes snapped open in unison to gaze upon him. A few heads whose mouths remained relatively intact wailed aloud, shrieking:
"A lowlander! A lowlander!"
Li Tongya waited in silence for a short while before a Shanyue tribesman dressed in plain robes walked down. His hair hung loose and disheveled, his eyes were clouded white, and he possessed a cultivation at the sixth level of Qi Refinement. Squinting at Li Tongya, he cupped his hands with reasonable courtesy and said:
"Senior, please follow me up the mountain."
Li Tongya smiled and shook his head, replying:
"Your master's incantation arts are truly uncanny. I dare not ascend the mountain; please ask him to come down instead."
The Shanyue man with clouded white eyes bared his teeth in a grin, yanked a head off a stake, and turned back up the mountain. The rest of the heads closed their eyes, turning as gloomy and still as dead objects once more.
Li Tongya waited for a few breaths. From up the mountain descended a man clad in splendid robes with a storage bag tied at his waist. He wore the attire of a cultivator, yet bore the features of a Shanyue man. Holding a pitch-black gourd in his hand, he took one look at Li Tongya and cried out in shock:
"Li Tongya? You have already achieved Foundation Establishment?"
"Greetings, Senior Fei Luoya!"
This man was none other than the Shanyue Foundation Establishment cultivator from when Mount Wu had fractured years ago, who under the Xiao family's pressure had ceded the territory of Eastern Shanyue to the Li family. Seeing that Li Tongya had successfully reached Foundation Establishment, he grew considerably more polite and remarked:
"As expected of a sword immortal family. It has only been a few years, yet you broke through to Foundation Establishment just like that. I am truly green with envy."
Though he said this, Fei Luoya clearly still brooded over past events. His expression was none too pleased, but constrained by Li Tongya's backing and strength, he held his temper in check, even forcing a smile onto his face.
"Senior overpraises me."
Li Tongya cupped his hands and replied, "It has been years since we last met. Tongya feels deeply ashamed of the offenses caused back then. That Senior chose not to take offense leaves the Li family endlessly grateful."
"Haha."
Fei Luoya let out a dry laugh. Li Tongya offered a few more polite pleasantries, giving him plenty of face. Fei Luoya then asked with continued courtesy:
"I wonder what brings Brother Tongya here?"
Li Tongya gave a slight nod and answered, "Our two families are next-door neighbors and ought to have lived on amicable terms. Yet due to past grievances, we have had no contact, which Tongya deeply regrets. Senior's strength is formidable, and I hold you in great esteem, so I have always wished to ease our relations."
"You are too kind, too kind."
Fei Luoya raised an eyebrow, looking far more pleased. Then Li Tongya continued:
"A good friend of mine needs a precious herb to extract its medicinal nature. He has offered a handsome sum for it, but has never found one to his liking. Tongya thought that spiritual essence gathers abundantly in Shanyue lands, and Senior must surely have collected many precious herbs. This seemed a fine chance for Senior to turn a tidy profit."
Fei Luoya laughed aloud, believing he had seen through Li Tongya's intentions, and remarked with a grin:
"I suspect that you, Brother Tongya, have your eye on that handsome bounty, intending to play middleman and take a cut for yourself."
Li Tongya smiled faintly and nodded. "Senior has a sharp eye; that is precisely it. In any case, it is a way for both of us to make money. Precious herbs abound on Mount Dali and Xunlin Plain, yet Tongya sought out Senior rather than anyone else—is that not also a gesture of goodwill toward you?"
As Fei Luoya turned it over in his mind, Li Tongya's words made good sense. He indeed had several precious herbs hoarded away with no use for them. Li Tongya then added:
"This is a long-term business, not a matter of a day or two. If Senior wishes to ease relations with my family and earn this money, our two families can cooperate from now on."
Fei Luoya burst into hearty laughter and replied:
"Since Brother Tongya has put it this way, how could Fei Luoya find any reason to refuse?"
Ever since driving Fei Luoya back the last time, Li Tongya had long seen that this man spent all his days cultivating atop Mount Wu without ever mingling in worldly affairs. He was fierce of countenance but faint of heart, gullible and easily swayed. Having been thoroughly frightened by the joint intimidation of the Xiao and Fei families, he was in truth terrified of Li Tongya. By conjuring something from nothing and twisting the narrative, Li Tongya had forcefully transformed a matter where he had to beg for aid into a win-win partnership and a path to easing tensions. He mused to himself:
'This man practices incantations through and through and is a Shanyue tribesman to boot; nine times out of ten, he does not even know the market price of precious herbs. Still, he is a Foundation Establishment cultivator after all, so it would not do to cheat him too brazenly. Precious herbs are virtually unobtainable at any price. Buying them from him at the going market rate in the future, then using them to curry favors or bestow upon our clan's juniors, will be a fine path indeed.'
Fei Luoya acted with brisk enthusiasm, already retrieving five or six wooden boxes to display to Li Tongya one by one. Li Tongya took them to look: each overflowed with aura, shimmering with iridescent light. Upon closer inspection, however, he could not recognize a single one. Keeping his composure nonetheless, he used an art to levitate the smallest fruit and examined it closely.
Fei Luoya immediately felt a bit embarrassed and said in a low voice:
"I fear Brother will laugh at me, but th-these... I don't know what they are either, which is why I never consumed them. They've been stored here for years, and their medicinal potency is on the verge of draining away. If Brother Tongya hadn't come, I wouldn't have had any lowlander around here I could trust. You've truly solved an urgent dilemma for me!"
Li Tongya cupped his hands and chuckled. "Since Brother is so candid, I will not mince words either. The condition of this fruit matches that person's requirements; it is just a bit on the small side, but it will barely suffice."
Fei Luoya nodded and gritted his teeth. "In Brother Tongya's judgment, could this fruit be worth a hundred spirit stones?"
"A hundred spirit stones?!"
Li Tongya laughed aloud despite himself. Even if he knew little about such things, he knew full well that a precious herb could never be bought for a mere hundred spirit stones. He answered frankly:
"I will first give Brother two hundred spirit stones and take this item. Once I ascertain its true price, I will refund the excess or make up the deficit, and bring the difference to Brother!"
"Two hundred spirit stones!"
Fei Luoya shuddered in shock. With Li Tongya speaking so forthrightly, his impression of Li Tongya shifted completely, and his trust deepened by leaps and bounds. Li Tongya, however, mused with a pleasant smile:
'As for when I ascertain the price, and when to refund or make up the difference, isn't that entirely up to me? Fei Luoya truly is an honest soul!'
Fei Luoya nodded repeatedly. Li Tongya counted out two hundred spirit stones and watched as he accepted them with unbridled joy. Only then did Li Tongya bring out the jade box retrieved from the ruins of the Lake Wangyue market to store the iridescent spirit fruit.
Fei Luoya cast a lingering, reluctant look at the fruit, only to suddenly startle in shock. He had studied formations and incantations extensively, and understood the exquisite subtlety of the patterns carved upon the jade box far better than Li Tongya did. His eyes widened, constantly darting toward the box.
How sharp was Li Tongya? His thoughts flashed like lightning, and he remarked casually:
"This jade box was bestowed by that good friend of mine, specifically for me to gather precious herbs on his behalf."
The more Fei Luoya looked, the more marvelous he found it. He murmured:
"I'm afraid this would be more than enough even to preserve a Purple Mansion precious herb... Brother, this good friend of yours..."
Li Tongya laughed heartily and replied:
"He is a Purple Mansion Zhenren introduced by the Sword Immortal!"
Chapter 225