Deception Cultivator

No wonder Li Banfeng found that man so familiar. No wonder Li Banfeng felt such an overwhelming sense of affinity toward the entire village. Tiemenbao was a gathering place for Dwelling Cultivators. Li Banfeng couldn't quite fathom how such a settlement had come to be in the first place. Dwelling Cultivators were averse to human contact; the very word "gather" presented immense difficulty for them. Moreover, each Dwelling Cultivator had their own fixed dwelling and wouldn't easily relocate. Getting them to live clustered together was practically unimaginable. Yet it was an undeniable reality in Tiemenbao. The Dwelling Cultivators living here were quite numerous. Casting his gaze across the area, Li Banfeng saw house pressed against house, stretching on without an end in sight. A spat interrupted Li Banfeng's train of thought. A young woman had come out to buy rice. Sifting through the rice sack, she found quite a bit of grit. She confronted the old man driving the donkey cart. "Every time I buy rice from you, there's sand in it, and it keeps getting worse. You're taking this way too far!" The old man gave a cold scoff. "Grain gets hauled from halfway across the world. What's so strange about picking up some mud and sand along the way? If you're so delicate, don't eat rice! Eat meat every day—meat doesn't have sand in it!" The old man was shameless and unreasonable, but the woman didn't argue with him. Lowering her head, she simply walked away. Dwelling Cultivators, it seemed, were inept at arguing. Gritting their teeth, they would just refuse to buy from him and let the matter drop. Yet would buying from someone else be any better? It was all the same. There was another grain vendor pushing a cart in the settlement, and his rice and flour were cut with filler as well. On top of that, their prices were steep. In Puluo Province, thanks to the existence of Tillage Cultivators, grain was never expensive; even in Lüshui City, a jin of rice went for around one dollar eighty cents. Yet here, it actually sold for two dollars fifty. And it wasn't just rice—other goods were being sold too. There were vendors selling raw cotton, fabrics, rouge, books and newspapers, paper and writing supplies, and daily sundries. There were barbers providing home visits. They didn't enter the houses; they stayed right at the doorway. The Dwelling Cultivators would bring out their own stools, sit at the door, and the barber would drape a large cloth around them and get to work. Once shaved, they settled the bill—no hair washing included; the cultivators would deal with that themselves back inside. There were also nightsoil collectors who came to each door, hauling away last night's chamber pots and replacing them with clean ones, charging a fee for each swap. Everything was doorstep service. If these Dwelling Cultivators never left their homes, how did they make a living? Li Banfeng quickly caught on. The merchants and vendors coming into Tiemenbao didn't just sell goods; they also bought them. The middle-aged woman selling fabrics bought up plenty of tailored clothes and embroidery, all exhibiting fine craftsmanship. The man selling sundries took in a good deal of pottery and porcelain, every piece delicately made. One Dwelling Cultivator was exceptionally skilled at crafting tobacco pipes. Several vendors queued at his doorstep waiting to pick up his wares, and business was booming. The vendor selling books and newspapers had a sharp eye. He purchased paintings, collecting over a dozen scrolls, each brushstroke masterful. This pointed to one conclusion: the Dwelling Cultivators selling those paintings had likely reached Tier 4 in cultivation. Influenced by their techniques, a Tier 4 Dwelling Cultivator was bound to possess exquisite painting skills. There were exceptions, of course; Li Banfeng's painting was a touch lacking... Before he realized it, Li Banfeng had wandered around Tiemenbao for over an hour, reluctant to leave. This place made him feel comfortable—indescribably comfortable. Naturally, there were also things he couldn't stand. The merchants coming here to do business sold their wares far above market price and purchased goods well below market value. This left the Dwelling Cultivators with razor-thin margins. Of course, for doorstep convenience, earning a bit more margin was to be expected. But practices like cutting grain with sand struck Li Banfeng as going entirely too far. Just as he was thinking of teaching those grain peddlers a lesson, a cry rang out behind him. "Aiya~" A young woman had tumbled to the ground. Fresh flowers and a cane lay scattered across the dirt around her. It wasn't an ordinary cane; it was a bamboo guide cane that blind people used to find their way. Old Lady Wu at the welfare home had poor eyesight and had used one in her later years. This young woman was blind and seemed to be a flower seller. From the looks of it, someone had just bumped into her, sending flowers flying everywhere. Who had knocked her down? Li Banfeng looked up, only to find he actually knew the culprit: it was the young man who had given him directions earlier. Having sold two paintings, he was rushing after the cloth vendor to buy some fabric and had accidentally knocked the girl over. "My flowers..." The girl groped blindly across the ground, blood smearing her hands. The young man hurried to help her pick up the blooms, sweating profusely with anxiety. Dwelling Cultivators feared trouble, but they feared causing trouble for others even more. Dwelling Cultivators feared being harmed by others, but they feared accidentally harming someone else far worse. Especially a girl this pitiable. Of the blossoms scattered on the dirt, some were stained with mud, some had snapped stems, and some had lost their leaves. The young man picked them up stem by stem and placed them in her hands, apologizing over and over. "It's all right, it's fine..." The girl brushed away the tears on her cheeks, struggled to her feet, and limped forward to resume peddling her flowers. "Flowers for sale... Who wants fresh flowers~" Those two frail calls, laced with helplessness, sorrow, and trembling sobs, completely shattered the young man's composure. "Miss, wait, I'll buy your flowers!" The young man rushed after her. "How many... do you want?" the girl asked timidly. "I'll buy all of them!" There were over a hundred stalks of flowers, big and small, that the girl was carrying, and he bought every single one. Some were three dollars, some five; several hundred dollars vanished just like that. He had just sold his paintings and earned several hundred dollars, and now the entire sum was gone. To say it didn't hurt would be a lie—the young man's cheeks twitched. Yet he paid anyway, or else he wouldn't be able to live with himself. Taking the money, the girl showed a faint smile, and a spark of life seemed to return to her vacant eyes. "Thank you, older brother. You're a good man." The young man shook his head. "I... Well, watch your step. Be careful on the road." Tapping with her bamboo cane, the girl made her way off. The young man stood watching after her until her figure completely vanished. Only then, holding the bouquet of flowers, did he head back into his home. What a romantic encounter. Yet Li Banfeng didn't find it romantic in the slightest. He had noticed three things. First, most of the flowers the girl was selling were common wildflowers found along the roadside. As a journey cultivator, Li Banfeng was familiar with them all. Anyone could pick a whole bunch in any grassy patch. Selling flowers like that—and at such extortionate prices—was truly underhanded. Second, her flowers hadn't been ruined by the fall; many were already wilted or broken beforehand. The young man's attention had been entirely on the girl, so he hadn't noticed the state of the blooms, but Li Banfeng had. Third, the girl didn't know how to use a bamboo guide cane. When Li Banfeng had cared for Old Lady Wu, he had paid special attention to how a guide cane worked. A guide cane swept left and right across the ground; it wasn't poked aimlessly like she was doing. Li Banfeng knitted his brows. Beside him, a woman selling sundries chuckled. "You noticed, didn't you? She's a fake. Little wench, wasting her prime years learning tricks like this instead of doing something decent." Li Banfeng looked at the woman and asked, "You know her?" The woman nodded. "That wench is named Sui Donglan. She's educated and literate. They say she used to have a job in the city, but then she got hooked on gambling. She lost everything she owned at the tables, ran up a mountain of debt, and fled here to Tiemenbao to hide from creditors and swindle folks for cash. Today she's a flower girl preying on naive young lads; tomorrow she'll play a beggar to fleece soft-hearted souls. Yesterday she dressed up all provocative and claimed she was selling herself. An old bachelor fell for it and handed over nearly ten thousand dollars without even grazing her hand. How shameless can you get?" Li Banfeng nodded slightly. "Shameless indeed." A man selling rolled cigarettes nearby snorted. "Zhou Yu beating Huang Gai—one willing to hit, the other willing to take it. Who told this bunch of Dwelling Cultivators to be so easy to con?" The woman didn't care for that. "What do you mean 'easy to con'? They just don't have wicked thoughts in their heads! If it came down to a real fight, how many pathways could take them on? And this is right on their doorsteps. If they really wanted to turn ruthless, what swindler could get away?" The man shook his head. "They don't have the heart for underhanded violence." "Says who? How did that band of Deception Cultivators die back then? Did you forget already?" The man lit a cigarette. "That lot of Deception Cultivators were utter bastards. They had it coming." Li Banfeng stared in astonishment for a long while before asking, "What is a Deception Cultivator?" "A pathway!" the sundries woman replied. "Don't tell me you've never heard of Deception Cultivators? A Deception Cultivator can act like anyone and play any role to perfection—it looks so real you can't tell the difference at all." Weren't there supposed to be no living Fool Cultivators in the world? How could there be Deception Cultivators? Fooling was fooling, deceiving was deceiving... Could the two really be different pathways? Li Banfeng asked, "Play any role to perfection? Is that Sui Donglan a Deception Cultivator too?" The sundries woman sneered. "She wishes! But for some reason, she never manages to run into the peddler. The time before last when the peddler came to Tiemenbao, she arrived late and missed him. Last time he came, she was actually around, but the peddler didn't enter the fortress, and there weren't any other customers around. Sui Donglan didn't recognize him and thought he was just an ordinary sundries peddler, so she didn't even spare him a glance and walked right past. She was so furious afterward! That's why they say her luck is just rotten." The cigarette vendor shook his head. "It's not luck. I reckon the peddler was dodging her on purpose. A girl this cunning—if she entered the Deception pathway, she'd turn into an absolute monster!" Li Banfeng asked the woman, "You said Sui Donglan didn't recognize the peddler last time?" She nodded. Li Banfeng picked up a pellet drum from her stall. "Who buys something like this? The children of Dwelling Cultivators?" The woman laughed. "No need for children; the Dwelling Cultivators themselves like playing with this stuff." Li Banfeng glanced at the feather duster beside the drum. "It really is quite entertaining. I'll take this entire cart. Tally up the price." The woman froze, not quite catching his meaning. "You're saying you want the whole cart of goods?" Li Banfeng nodded. "Cart included." ... Once out of Tiemenbao, Sui Donglan dropped the blind act. Reaching a deserted spot, she set down the bamboo cane, wiped the blood from her hands, and began counting the cash. The blood on her hands was fake, the scrape from the fall was fake, and the flowers she sold had been plucked at random from the roadside weeds. Flowers like that couldn't be sold to women; even female Dwelling Cultivators could tell they were low-grade junk. Selling to men, however, was far easier—men only looked at her face, never the flowers. Having sold half the flowers, she couldn't be bothered to sell the rest and sought out an easy mark to dump them on. The Dwelling Cultivator who had given Li Banfeng directions was the dupe she had chosen. She bumped into him, took a dive, smeared some red ink on her hands, and the act was complete. Dwelling Cultivators were gullible. Even after getting duped, they didn't realize it; even if they realized it, they would never tell anyone. Sui Donglan had pulled this trick many times. Still, she couldn't play blind tomorrow. It was too conspicuous. What should she play tomorrow? While she was deliberating, the rattle of a drum reached her ears. *Clatter-rattle, clatter-rattle.* "Foreign soap, vanishing cream, foreign matches, foreign candles, foreign shovels! A cart full of fine goods under a time-honored brand; when costs are cleared, I'll slash the price, pick whatever you like!" "The peddler!" Sui Donglan's eyes lit up. She rushed to the roadside, where she saw a man pushing a handcart, a felt hat pulled extremely low over his brow, shaking a pellet drum as he called out. Was this really the peddler? The hawker's cry was unmistakable, identical to what Old Yu, the scrap-cloth seller, had described. Yet the timing was off! Why had he come at this hour? Doubt stirred within her, but then she remembered something else. Old Zhang, who sold charcoal, had once mentioned that the peddler sometimes didn't stick to a schedule—running into him simply came down to luck. It seemed her fortunes had finally turned. Sui Donglan stepped up before the peddler. With a shy expression and a meek, gentle voice, she asked, "Are you the peddler?" Li Banfeng nodded. "Need you even ask?" Lowering her voice, Sui Donglan inquired, "Do you have medicine powders?" "I do!" Li Banfeng produced two pickle crocks. "Gold Cultivator is a hundred dollars, Deception Cultivator is three hundred thousand. Which one do you want?" PS: Without a cabinet fitted with drawers, pickle crocks will just have to do. One just wonders whether the peddler will be angry.