Making a Living

Sitting inside his Portable Abode, Li Banfeng conducted a thorough review of his recent string of mad actions. He had attacked someone from the Dark Star Bureau. Though he had no idea what kind of organization it was, anything with "bureau" in its name had to be connected to the government. He had arrived in an unfathomable place and inexplicably become a dark energy user. If he were an ordinary dark energy user, that would be one thing, but he had concurrently cultivated two completely incompatible pathways. What should his next step be? Go back to Yuezhou? Find He Jiaqing in his hospital bed? What would he use to buy a ticket? His wallet, dress shirt, suit trousers, and leather shoes were all back at the old residence, and there was no way Li Banfeng was going back for them. His entire worldly fortune right now consisted of a fedora, a hiking hat, a set of pajamas, a T-shirt, sweatpants, a pair of sneakers, two bowls of instant noodles, a canister of potato chips, a little over one pack of spicy strips, and He Jiaqing's bronze lotus. Sell the bronze lotus in exchange for a train ticket back to Yuezhou? The crucial question was how much it was worth. Flogging it as scrap bronze hardly seemed right. And if he didn't sell it, what would he eat next? He didn't have a single coin left on him. Li Banfeng slept the night in his Portable Abode. The Portable Abode was remarkably quiet, practically free of any outside noise. Though it had no windows, the air remained fresh, carrying no odor other than the dust accumulated over the years. What woke Li Banfeng from his sleep were hunger and thirst. He had eaten only a single packet of instant noodles yesterday and had barely drunk any water. Now, as Li Banfeng fished out another packet of instant noodles, he had no idea how he was supposed to choke it down. Chewing it dry was definitely out of the question. Li Banfeng stepped out of the Portable Abode, returned to the alley, pocketed the key, found a nearby home, and knocked on the front gate. Though he had grown up in a welfare home and endured plenty of hardship, begging for water... was still something he found hard to bring himself to do. "Excuse me, elder sister, could you spare a bowl of water? I don't need food, just a bowl of water." Li Banfeng repeatedly stressed that he didn't want food, and the woman indeed brought him a bowl of water. Yet the look in her eyes made Li Banfeng feel as though dozens of thorns were pricking his face. Begging for water now—how much further until he was begging for food? He only had two bowls of instant noodles left. He had to figure out a way to make a living. A journey cultivator had to walk at least twenty li a day. Li Banfeng ate one noodle cake and began wandering along the streets of Ligou. "Extra, extra! On her wedding night, the Chu family's second young lady attempted to murder her husband and fled to escape punishment! Her husband's family offers a three-million-yuan bounty! "Mister, care to buy a paper? Today's freshly printed extra, massive news, just fifty cents!" Fifty cents was fifty cents more than he had. Li Banfeng looked at the newsboy with a smile. Maybe I should just sell newspapers with you. Selling papers wasn't an easy job to land either; plenty of kids relied on it to survive. Besides, Li Banfeng knew nothing about newspaper market rates or the tricks of hawking them. To his memory, newspapers had faded from public view a decade ago. Li Banfeng found two shops in town hiring odd-job laborers: one was a furniture shop, the other a rice shop. Li Banfeng didn't ask for much—just a few days of temporary work to earn enough for a train ticket. Yet neither shop hired him, because his attire looked too strange. A short-sleeved T-shirt paired with a fedora didn't seem all that bizarre to Li Banfeng, but the shopkeepers felt he looked nothing like an honest man. By midday, his stomach was growling again. Li Banfeng begged another bowl of water and ate another noodle cake. By this point, his food supply was down to a single canister of potato chips. Tough. This was truly tough. Finding no work at all in Ligou, Li Banfeng walked all the way to the edge of town, heading toward Waigou. Waigou covered a vastly larger area than Ligou. The situation in Waigou was also far more complicated than in Ligou. Walking along the dirt road, Li Banfeng saw farmers at work, low-slung houses, and stretches of mountain forest where not a soul was visible for miles. He walked all the way until dusk. The last packet of instant noodles had long since digested, and the potato chips were finished too. The only good news was that Li Banfeng felt a series of tremors in his mind. This was a cultivator's distinct perception, reminding Li Banfeng that he had covered twenty li. His basic cultivation as a journey cultivator for the day was complete. A Dwelling Cultivator had a similar sensation, though relatively gentler. Every time he spent a full two hours in the Portable Abode, Li Banfeng would feel a refreshing wave of comfort. Ahead stood an eatery—a very small one. Inside the dark, tile-roofed building, five tables were set out, and a notice posted by the door said they were looking for a helper. Li Banfeng was about to go try his luck when he suddenly heard someone call out from inside, "Brother Li, is that you?" Li Banfeng turned his head and saw a stout youth slurping noodles. On the table before him sat three bowls of noodles alongside three empty ones he had already polished off. Qin Xiaopang! Li Banfeng froze in surprise. Qin Xiaopang called out, "Brother Li, come sit! It must be fate! You like this place too? I love it—the food here is cheap and substantial." Li Banfeng gave it to him straight. "Brother Qin, truth be told, I didn't come to eat. I saw their hiring notice and came looking for work." Qin Xiaopang was taken aback. "Looking for work at an eatery? What's going on with you?" Li Banfeng wore a bitter smile. "I have no choice. I don't have a copper to my name. I'm practically on the verge of begging on the street!" Qin Xiaopang was a generous soul. He thumped his chest and shouted, "Waiter, bring two more bowls of noodles! Brother Li, if you don't mind, let's eat first!" Li Banfeng felt embarrassed. They were merely chance acquaintances; how could he take food from him? "If you won't eat, you're looking down on me!" Qin Xiaopang dragged over a chair and pulled Li Banfeng down to sit. Before long, steaming bowls of Yangchun noodles were served. A Food Cultivator ate five jin of food a day; five bowls of noodles in a single meal was just a routine baseline for Qin Xiaopang. Li Banfeng was starving too. The Yangchun noodles had no meat—just half a bowl of broth, a splash of soy sauce, and two stalks of baby bok choy—yet Li Banfeng felt it was the most delicious meal he had ever tasted. In the blink of an eye, two bowls were down his gullet. Qin Xiaopang paid the bill and told Li Banfeng, "Brother Li, there are too many prying eyes here. Let's find somewhere quiet to talk." The two stepped out of the eatery and found a secluded spot by the edge of a grove. Qin Xiaopang asked in a low voice, "Brother, have you initiated yet?" "I have," Li Banfeng nodded. Qin Xiaopang dropped his voice even lower. "Which pathway did you enter?" Qin Xiaopang was an earnest person, and Li Banfeng already knew his pathway. Concealing the truth now would be poor form. "I entered the journey cultivator path." Li Banfeng said nothing about being a Dwelling Cultivator. That matter was impossible to explain and couldn't be divulged lightly. Qin Xiaopang scratched his cheek. "By all rights, a journey cultivator shouldn't lack a livelihood. Delivering letters, serving as a guard or an escort, or at the very least pulling a rickshaw." Li Banfeng smiled. He had actually considered pulling a rickshaw. He had asked around. As a journey cultivator, if he were to pull a rickshaw, he would count as a runner with fire wheels. Earning a few hundred yuan per run would be a breeze. His hiking hat, in particular, gave off a very authentic rickshaw-puller air! But to pull a rickshaw, one first had to own a rickshaw, and Li Banfeng didn't have one. He could rent one, but that required a deposit, and Li Banfeng couldn't scrape together a deposit. Moreover, rickshaw pullers required a license, which Li Banfeng couldn't obtain on short notice. Most importantly, pulling a rickshaw required knowing the roads, and Li Banfeng didn't know them. A journey cultivator had a knack for route-finding, but he didn't even know the most basic place names. That clearly failed the basic operational requirements of a puller. Seeing Li Banfeng remain silent, Qin Xiaopang chuckled. "Blame my loose tongue. What kind of men are we to stoop to pulling rickshaws? "Brother Li, I have a small venture here. It won't make a fortune, but it's enough to scrape together some quick cash for an emergency. It just depends on whether you're willing to lend a hand." "Brother, I was already looking to earn a meal at an eatery. What room do I have to be picky? But if you're talking business, I have no capital." "No capital needed. This is a venture with zero cost—the only capital is our lives. Have you ever heard of Bitter Mist Mountain?" Bitter Mist Mountain? Li Banfeng shook his head. "Never heard of it." Qin Xiaopang said, "In Yaowanggou, there isn't a soul who doesn't know Bitter Mist Mountain. That mountain is blanketed in thick fog all year round, and the mist is fiercely poisonous. Ordinary folks who go up are dead for sure." Li Banfeng frowned. That was practically an all-natural gas chamber. "What kind of business are we doing up there?" "Have you heard of the snake-spot chrysanthemum from Bitter Mist Mountain?" Li Banfeng shook his head. Of course he hadn't. Qin Xiaopang raised his voice slightly. "This snake-spot chrysanthemum blooms only once a year, and the flowering period lasts just a single day. "The snake-spot chrysanthemum is the main ingredient for refining snake-spot pills. One snake-spot pill can substitute for a full day of cultivation. "Didn't I tell you before? It takes ten years of cultivation to advance a single layer. If you take a snake-spot pill every day, that's equivalent to an extra day of cultivation. By that count, you can advance a layer in just five years. "The day after tomorrow is when the snake-spot chrysanthemum blooms. Several medicine firms have already put up their prices: eighty-five yuan per stalk. "Up on Bitter Mist Mountain, an ordinary person with decent luck can find two or three stalks in an hour. In ten hours, they could find twenty or thirty, earning a cool two thousand yuan. "You're a journey cultivator with excellent footwork. In ten hours, you could earn at least three thousand—some even pull in five thousand. So, how does that deal sound?" Three thousand yuan would easily cover a train ticket, and he could still live comfortably for a couple of days once back in Yuezhou. This deal was doable! Just as Li Banfeng was about to agree, another thought struck him. "Wait, that's not right. If the mist is lethally toxic, isn't going up to gather herbs just throwing our lives away?" Qin Xiaopang replied, "For ordinary people, it's suicide, but we're not ordinary! "We have cultivation; our physical constitutions are leagues ahead of common folks. A journey cultivator like you can easily last ten hours on the mountain, and if you grit your teeth, you can tough out fifteen. "Once you come down, you vomit for a day to clear it all out, rest for another two, and you'll be right as rain. "As for me, I'm a Food Cultivator. Well-fed and hydrated, lasting twenty hours up there is no trouble at all." This venture truly staked their very lives as capital! Li Banfeng weighed the returns and nodded. "Brother, count me in. I'll do this deal." Qin Xiaopang grinned. "You run fast, and I can tough it out. This venture is guaranteed profit for us brothers!"