Using a magical treasure required an investment?
Did "investment" mean paying a price?
Did every magical treasure come at a cost?
Then what was the cost of the bronze lotus?
Li Banfeng wanted to talk more, but the gramophone stopped answering; she was tired.
It wasn't that critical anyway—just a bit of makeup.
The critical thing was that he now possessed the first tier of Dwelling Cultivation. Not only had his strength greatly increased, but in the short term, he no longer had to worry about Journey Cultivation suppressing Dwelling Cultivation.
In high spirits, Li Banfeng refrained from disturbing his lady wife's rest; he still needed to visit Qin Xiaopang.
Leaving the Portable Abode, Li Banfeng first headed to the river, washing off the heavy makeup under the watchful eyes of a group of washerwomen.
The women gossiped among themselves:
"Is that person a man or a woman? Why are they dressed up like that?"
"Couldn't be a rabbit from Fengwo Alley, could he?"
"Look how perky his peach is! He's definitely from Fengwo Alley!"
Fengwo Alley housed brothels for male courtesans.
"Rabbit" was slang for a male courtesan.
Li Banfeng couldn't be bothered to explain himself to such shallow people. He strode briskly toward the Yu Family Cloth Shop, but half a street away, before he even reached it, a carriage pulled up to block his way.
The driver asked, "Sir, did you hail a carriage?"
Li Banfeng started. "No, I didn't."
Paying no heed to how Li Banfeng answered, the driver carried on, "For the place you mentioned, the fare is twenty."
Li Banfeng couldn't make heads or tails of it.
*I'm not riding in your carriage, so why are you telling me the fare?*
Giving no thought to Li Banfeng's confusion, the driver lifted the curtain to the carriage door. "Please step inside."
Li Banfeng glanced up and saw someone sitting inside.
The person wore a black Western suit and a black flat-topped fedora pulled down very low. Although the face was hidden, Li Banfeng could tell this was a person with a good deal of conscience.
Despite their best efforts to conceal it, that conscience was somewhat swollen, unable to escape Li Banfeng's sharp eyes.
It was a woman.
The woman looked up, and Li Banfeng recognized her immediately—it was Yu Nan, the owner of the cloth shop.
No wonder everyone called her the Mannish Woman. When she dressed in men's clothing, anyone lacking a sharp eye truly couldn't tell the difference.
Li Banfeng climbed aboard, and the driver lowered the curtain, setting off at once.
"Boss Yu, where are you headed?"
Yu Nan lit a cigarette. "To visit Boss Qin with Seventh Master."
Li Banfeng asked in all seriousness, "Dressed like that, are you looking to go on the run?"
Yu Nan choked on the smoke and coughed several times. "The rules of the jianghu call for tit for tat. Yesterday we made a move on Rong Jin'an, and now it's the Geng Family Medicine Shop's turn to hit back."
Li Banfeng asked, "Are they certain it was you? Do they have proof?"
Yu Nan shook her head. "Proof isn't needed. I have a feud with Rong Jin'an, and the Geng family knows it very well. Even if it wasn't me, in their eyes, it was me. That's the jianghu for you. We struck Rong Jin'an from the shadows, so the Geng Family Medicine Shop is bound to strike at us from the shadows too. Arrows from the dark are too hard to dodge, so I have to lay low in my home village of Baixiang Village for a few days."
"Until when?"
"Until the Geng Family Medicine Shop is willing to bring things out into the open and sit down to talk with me properly."
Li Banfeng was quite surprised. "There's room to negotiate on this?"
Yu Nan took a deep drag of her cigarette. "We're all doing business in Ligou; the Geng family can't afford to make this a fight to the death either. Hidden arrows meet hidden arrows, open spears meet open spears. You respect me by a foot, and I respect you by ten. Give and take—those are the rules of the jianghu."
Speaking of jianghu rules, Yu Nan always carried a natural air of superiority.
Yet to this day, Li Banfeng still didn't understand what this jianghu of hers was really supposed to be.
"Since it can be negotiated, why didn't you talk things over with the Geng family earlier?"
Yu Nan sighed. "The Geng family flies a strong banner—they carry serious weight. I invited them for tea to clear the air, but they wouldn't give me face. In that case, dirty tricks were my only option."
Curious about just how powerful the Geng Family Medicine Shop was, Li Banfeng asked, "Does the Geng family call the shots in all of Yaowanggou?"
Yu Nan sneered disdainfully. "The Geng family is far from it. In Yaowanggou, the He family's banner was originally the strongest. In recent years, the He family declined while the Lu family rose, and most of the business in Yaowanggou was seized by the Lu family. I heard the Eldest Young Master of the He family is going to marry the young mistress of the Lu family. In the end, Yaowanggou will still belong to one family."
The He and Lu families marrying?
Couldn't be He Jiaqing and Lu Xiaolan, could it?
He Jiaqing was bedridden.
Lu Xiaolan was locked up in a manor.
Given their current circumstances, getting married might prove rather difficult.
"In Yaowanggou, besides the He and Lu families, is the Geng family next?"
Yu Nan puffed out a ring of smoke. "Beyond those two great families, there are the Han, Bai, Huang, Lu, and Liu families—all prominent banners in Yaowanggou. Compared to them, the Geng family is merely a newcomer. It was only last year, after they got involved with the Jiangxiang Gang, that they started acting so rampant."
"And which family does the Jiangxiang Gang belong to?"
Hearing this, Yu Nan chuckled. "The families you speak of are banners of the legitimate world. The Jiangxiang Gang is a banner of the underworld, and the underworld is the jianghu."
Li Banfeng tried his best to sort through the logic. "In other words, in the underworld, the Jiangxiang Gang is the most powerful."
Yu Nan gave Li Banfeng a look. "Seventh Master, what line of work were you in before? You strike ruthlessly enough, yet you don't know the first thing about the rules of the underworld."
Li Banfeng replied, "I used to run an honest business. And I'm still quite honest now."
To help Li Banfeng understand, Yu Nan offered a vivid analogy: "The Sanying Alliance, the Qingyun Association, the Baihua Sect—those are the truly great factions. Those factions are towering giants, while the Jiangxiang Gang is at best a dog. When cornered, a dog can still bite, but when a person gets angry, they can crush the dog underfoot with a single stomp."
Li Banfeng was puzzled. "Since they're just a dog, why are you still afraid of them?"
Yu Nan was left speechless.
By normal logic, she would have had to admit she was less than a dog.
Why was this Li Qi so tactless?
Was he truly oblivious, or doing it on purpose?
"Boss Qin is in Baixiang Village. It'll probably take half a day's journey," Yu Nan said, changing the subject.
In Yuezhou, there was a Baixiang Hall that sold medicine. From the name, Li Banfeng assumed Baixiang Village must also be a place that produced medicinal herbs.
Since Yu Nan's ancestral home was in Baixiang Village, she probably knew a bit about pharmacology.
Li Banfeng took out a red pill and asked, "Boss Yu, do you recognize this pill?"
Yu Nan took the pill, inspected it for a moment, and her eyes went wide and round. "Seventh Master, where did this pill come from?"
Li Banfeng smiled. "A friend gave it to me, but didn't say what it was used for."
The excuse was a bit flimsy; who gave away such a valuable pill without explaining its purpose?
Yu Nan didn't press the matter, staring at the pill a moment longer before saying, "If I'm not mistaken, this is a Xuanzhi Pill. A single pill is worth ten days of cultivation."
"Boss Yu has keen eyes!" Li Banfeng praised in a measured tone, acting as though he recognized the pill all along and had merely been testing her.
Yu Nan shook her head. "My eyes aren't anything special. When it comes to identifying pills, I'm far behind Shopkeeper Feng. The only reason I recognized it as a Xuanzhi Pill is because I once saw someone selling one. The going rate back then was a hundred and fifty thousand a pill. Who knows what the price is now."
With that, Yu Nan handed the pill back to Li Banfeng.
Li Banfeng stashed it away immediately.
A hundred and fifty thousand a pill?
He had originally intended to give her one, but now he couldn't just hand it out carelessly.
Were these pills really that expensive?
Li Banfeng asked, "I recall a snake-spot pill costs ten thousand and buys one day of cultivation. A Xuanzhi Pill is worth ten days, so by rights, it should sell for a hundred thousand. Why does it go for a hundred and fifty thousand?"
Yu Nan froze, wondering if this man was testing her again.
She explained, "All medicine carries some toxicity, and pills are no exception—in fact, their toxicity is even greater. Even Poison Cultivators, who fear poisons least of all, dare not consume pills carelessly. Taking ten snake-spot pills means enduring ten times the toxicity, while taking one Xuanzhi Pill means enduring only a single dose of toxicity. Calculated that way, a Xuanzhi Pill is naturally far more precious."
Taking pills came at a price.
A Xuanzhi Pill was ten times as potent as a snake-spot pill, yet swallowing one only equaled ten days of cultivation.
A hundred pills would be a thousand days; a thousand pills would be ten thousand days.
Ten thousand days was less than thirty years, and in terms of cultivation, it would only reach the fourth tier.
At a hundred and fifty thousand apiece, a thousand pills would cost a hundred and fifty million.
A hundred and fifty million in exchange for a fourth-tier cultivation, and you'd still have to endure the side effects.
Only reaching the tenth tier would grant triple the lifespan. The path of cultivation was simply too grueling!
Forget it. Better to earn more money, figure out a way to get a travel permit, and return to Yuezhou to live in comfort.
"Boss Yu, do you have connections with the Garrison Commissioner?"
Yu Nan pondered for a moment. "I wouldn't call them connections, but there's some interaction. If you need a travel permit, there are channels, though it will take some expenditure."
"Expense is no problem," Li Banfeng said, quite confident in his current financial situation. "I'll truly have to trouble Boss Yu to help with this."
Yu Nan nodded. "Let's wait until the dust settles, then I'll make the introduction for Seventh Master. Where exactly do you plan to go? If it's Lüshuiwan, it's very easy to arrange. Kudaikan isn't hard either. But if you want to go to Haichiling, things won't be quite so simple."
Even getting to Haichiling wouldn't be easy?
Li Banfeng realized he had viewed the matter a bit too optimistically.
Seeing Li Banfeng fall silent for a while, Yu Nan tested the waters. "Seventh Master wants to spend a few days amusing yourself in Kudaikan, doesn't he?"
She had plenty of confidence regarding Kudaikan, but Li Banfeng had no interest in the place.
"What if I want to go to the Outer States?" Li Banfeng asked directly.
Yu Nan shook her head immediately. "That's beyond me. Never mind the Outer States—even Santoucha isn't a place ordinary people can go. I can't help you with that."
Li Banfeng smiled. "No worries, I was just asking offhand."
After half a day, the driver brought the carriage to Baixiang Village.
Li Banfeng had thought Baixiang Village was a home of herbal medicine, but he had been mistaken.
It was called Baixiang Village because most of the villagers grew tobacco, and every household carried the aroma of tobacco leaves.
This was a gathering place for Smoke Cultivators.
Li Banfeng stepped down from the carriage and followed Yu Nan into a small courtyard.
In the courtyard stood three tile-roofed rooms and a storehouse. In his pursuit of cultivation, Li Banfeng had traveled to many places in Yaowanggou; across the villages, such a compound was standard for a middle-class household.
A middle-class family wouldn't keep crowds of maids and servants, but they would hire long-term and short-term laborers, and perhaps a domestic servant or two.
Yu Nan didn't usually live in this outer residence, so there were no servants present. The rooms had only just been swept clean by the cloth shop's clerks.
Qin Xiaopang was staying in the east wing, attended by a clerk. The spell on him had not yet been undone; he lay in bed with his lower body still frozen in a kneeling posture.
Yu Nan asked the clerk, "Did a doctor examine him?"
The clerk replied, "Yes, ma'am. The doctor said he was placed under a curse, and medicine won't do any good."
Yu Nan continued, "I'll go invite Mr. Yao to break the curse tomorrow."
The clerk answered, "Boss, I went to fetch Mr. Yao this afternoon. Mr. Yao came and took a look. He said without two hundred thousand, it can't be done!"
Yu Nan looked toward Li Banfeng.
The meaning was clear: the two were partners in collaboration. Yu Nan wanted revenge, Li Banfeng wanted to rescue a friend. Each got what they needed, neither owing the other.
Now that the deed was done, Yu Nan had already shown more than enough loyalty by providing a place to shelter Qin Xiaopang. As for paying for Xiaopang's treatment, there was no way Yu Nan would foot the bill.
Qin Xiaopang lifted his head, looking at Li Banfeng, and squeezed out a faint smile on his pale face. "Brother Li, you saved my life. I can never repay this debt of gratitude. I don't want to be a cripple for the rest of my days either. Just give me a clean end. In the next life, I'll work like an ox and a horse to repay you."
"The next life isn't out of the question," Li Banfeng said, smacking his lips. "But even if you're reincarnated right away, I'd still have to wait eighteen years for you to pay me back. That's dragging it out too long, and calculating the interest would be tricky. How about this—write me an IOU first."
Chapter 59