Locals

Li Banfeng held Gold Coin and practiced manipulating copper coins. This practice session went on for more than three hours. Throughout those three hours, his Taking Stock of Family Heirlooms technique remained continuously active. Li Banfeng's physical strength was thoroughly drained, leaving his face deathly pale and sweat pouring down like rain. The gramophone ached with sympathy, yet she did not stop him. Li Banfeng rarely spent time honing his techniques. Taking Stock of Family Heirlooms was the pillar technique of Homestead Cultivators and the one he excelled at most, but even so, the gramophone still felt his mastery fell slightly short. After these three hours, while one could not claim Li Banfeng had brought the technique to perfection, at least in the gramophone's eyes, it was now worthy of cultivation at the third tier above the clouds. Gold Coin had yielded completely. It no longer required Li Banfeng to employ any special tricks; simply speaking to it directly, it could now understand. "Stand up!" Gold Coin stood upright on Li Banfeng's palm. "Dance!" Gold Coin spun around several times on his palm. "Smile!" Gold Coin dragged the copper coin over, stacking the two coins together. Gold Coin served as the upper lip while the copper coin formed the lower lip, and the two coins clattered and chuckled for quite a while. Li Banfeng tapped Gold Coin lightly. "Good fellow!" Gold Coin nuzzled Li Banfeng's fingertip, then slipped into his pocket. One copper coin remained, and Li Banfeng handed it to his lady. The lady sealed it with steam and said to Li Banfeng, "Husband, this copper coin is a good thing. If you come across any in the future, by no means throw them away. Hand them all over to this humble servant for safekeeping." Li Banfeng was taken aback. "This counts as a good thing?" "A genuine treasure. However many Husband can find, this humble servant will help Husband keep them." "All right, I'll go scout around outside." Li Banfeng rose to leave. The gramophone tenderly stopped him. "Precious Husband, take this person away first. No one in the house is hungry." Li Banfeng had nearly forgotten: Zhu Yugui was still alive. Earlier, when the glove fished two coins from his body, Zhu Yugui had suffered injuries and passed out from the pain. Li Banfeng glanced at Zhu Yugui. "Lady, now that this guest has entered our home, there's no reason to let him leave. How about you eat his soul, and I'll carry the corpse outside?" The lady gave a wry laugh. "If I suffer through eating him, then the others won't have to lift their chopsticks at all? Husband, that logic makes no sense!" "Then what does my lady think we should do?" The gramophone pondered for a moment, then said to Li Banfeng, "Husband, leave Hanxue behind and let this humble servant handle the rest." Li Banfeng left, handing the Hanxue pendulum over to the gramophone. The pendulum trembled all over in terror. The gramophone poked the pendulum's cheek with her stylus. "Sister, fancy a bite of soul?" The pendulum shrank into a corner of the main room. "How would I dare fight with the mistress for food?" "You wouldn't dare? Then I shall lend you some courage! Eat with peace of mind!" Zhu Yugui still gave off a pungent stench. Dew covered the pendulum as she said with a trembling voice, "Mistress, I cannot eat souls." *Pssssht!* A plume of steam struck, and the pendulum let out a shrill scream, scalded bright red all over. The gramophone chuckled. "Back in that old manor in the desolate mountains, you controlled dozens, even hundreds of deceased spirits. Now you tell me you don't eat souls—do you even believe that yourself?" The pendulum looked at Zhu Yugui again. "Mistress, I truly cannot stomach this." The gramophone softened her tone. "Sister, you're on the verge of getting a body. If you're so picky, how will you ever grow plump?" Hearing that her secret had been exposed, the pendulum hurriedly begged for mercy. "Mistress, I know my mistake! Spare me this once, Mistress..." The gramophone caressed the pendulum's cheek, speaking softly, "Silly girl, if you want a body, why didn't you just tell me? Would I stop you? And could you really keep it hidden? I'm telling you to eat this soul for your own good. Your soul isn't complete right now; even if you got a body, you wouldn't be able to control it. Hurry up and eat this soul!" Another blast of steam rushed out, nearly melting the pendulum. With the gramophone having laid things bare to this point, the pendulum felt ashamed and dared not argue another word. Sobbing, she swallowed the soul. The gramophone was quite pleased. "Good girl. Chew carefully, eat slowly, and savor the flavor. Once you're done, it's the red lotus's turn." *Rustle!* The red lotus closed its petals and leaves in the second room, looking just like an ornament, sitting motionless on the floor. Seeing that the pendulum had finished the soul, the gramophone gave a cold snort. "If the red lotus won't eat, then you two split it. Choose for yourselves!" Hearing this, Hong Ying exchanged a glance with Lady Nine. Lady Nine stepped forward and pinned down the red lotus, while Hong Ying pried open its petals. *** Leaving the companion dwelling, Li Banfeng sought out Tan Jinxiao. "Old Tan, I know you never back down from anything. Today, I'm going to help you remove your mark. Are you game or not?" "What is there to fear?" Tan Jinxiao didn't hesitate in the least. "Seventh Master, if this thing can be taken out, even if I die right here, I'll have died clean! When I walk the Yellow Springs, my back will be straight!" He was truly a stout fellow. Li Banfeng took out the music box and played a tune for Tan Jinxiao. With Tan Jinxiao's cultivation, the music box couldn't knock him out on its own, but Li Banfeng told him, "Old Tan, you need to sleep. If you don't sleep, I can't take this mark out." Tan Jinxiao followed Li Banfeng's advice, lay down on the bed, and listened to the ditty from the music box until he fell sound asleep. Li Banfeng used the alms bowl to reach into the dark-dimension space and had the glove pull out the copper coin. Out of curiosity, Li Banfeng probed for a while longer with the bowl, only to discover that the dark-dimension space inside Tan Jinxiao's body had vanished. A dark-dimension space would not simply disappear into thin air. Why couldn't he sense it once the copper coin was removed? After pondering for quite a while, Li Banfeng arrived at a reasonably plausible deduction. This dark-dimension space hadn't originally been on Old Tan. After Old Tan received the mark, the dark-dimension space moved to Old Tan of its own accord and stored the copper coin inside. This process was rather hard to comprehend. Was it an engineering technique, or some other method? Li Banfeng twirled the copper coin on his fingertips. This thing really needed to be handed over to his lady for a thorough study. The building, the copper coins, the dark-dimension space... Mister Kongfang wasn't just a powerful fighter; his occult methods were extraordinary. *** When Tan Jinxiao woke up, he looked at the copper coin in Li Banfeng's hand and asked in astonishment, "This is the mark?" Li Banfeng gave a slight nod. Tan Jinxiao looked at the copper coin, his hand trembling slightly. He thought he would never shake this mark off for the rest of his life. He had never imagined the day would come when someone could actually take it out. "Seventh Master, can we throw this away..." Tan Jinxiao didn't dare hold it for too long, terrified that the copper coin might burrow back into his body. He was genuinely terrified. "Don't throw it away. I still have a use for it." Li Banfeng stowed the copper coin away. "Seventh Master, many of my brothers have marks on them too. Could you..." Tan Jinxiao knew this couldn't be easy, and it was hard to ask; halfway through, he almost swallowed his words back. Li Banfeng nodded. "I can help them take the marks out, but we need to find the right time. They can't know about this, or word will definitely reach the Boss's ears." Tan Jinxiao nodded repeatedly. He trusted his brothers, but with a matter this big, any slip-up would leak the news. He sat there in front of Li Banfeng, fidgeting with unease, at a loss for how to express his gratitude. Kowtow to him? Seventh Master forbade kneeling and kowtowing. Treat Seventh Master to drinks? How could a round of drinks ever repay such a debt? Or should I just... Before Tan Jinxiao could think of an idea, he saw Li Banfeng walking off with the coin. "Scout the Boss's movements carefully. Tell me the moment you have any news." *** They waited three full days, but there was no movement from the Boss; he did not come to the Human Market. Tan Jinxiao also found this unusual. "Strange. Has the Boss changed his temperament? He lost the entire Human Market, yet he still hasn't shown his face? But I reckon he can't hold out for long. The Human Market is the most profitable place; there's no way he'll let go of this business. Let's wait a couple more days." Li Banfeng looked at the railway tracks on the road. "No more waiting. We're going straight to the Soil Market." The tracks had been empty for a whole day. Today, no little train came to collect goods. This meant the Boss had already taken action: he had severed the economic lifeline of the Human Market. Without shipments going out, the factories had no source of revenue. If the factories went under, the workers would have no livelihood left. As for Zhu Yugui's vault, it indeed held a lot of money, and handing out funds alone could sustain things for a while. Wait a bit longer? They really couldn't afford to wait. A treasury could support finances, but it couldn't sustain people's hearts. Quite a few factory owners were already standing outside their factory gates alongside the workers, craning their necks as they waited for the little train to appear. Tan Jinxiao looked troubled. "Seventh Master, I'm not chickening out. I just want to offer a word of caution. Could we go to the Sea Market first instead of the Soil Market?" "Why not the Soil Market?" "The chief of the Soil Market, Bai Miaosheng, isn't someone easy to deal with. You've surely heard that once a Farming Cultivator reaches above the clouds, they're practically spirits—they can grow anything under the sun. What's more, the people living in the Soil Market don't dare cross the Boss. Their livelihood is clutched firmly in his hands. We have to take the Sea Market first before we can carve out a way to live for the Soil Market." Li Banfeng didn't understand what Tan Jinxiao meant, and Tan Jinxiao couldn't explain it clearly either. "Seventh Master, come with me to the Sea Market to have a look, and you'll understand." The Sea Market wasn't close to the Human Market, with a stretch of road in between separated by the Soil Market. The roads were packed with ox carts and horse carriages hauling soil, congested to the point of gridlock. Had it been anywhere else, Li Banfeng would have taken a detour long ago. But the underground city was peculiar: most paths connecting the Soil Market to the Sea Market were long, narrow caves with no detours possible. Li Banfeng observed the cart drivers; judging by their clothes, they were mostly farmers. This was within Li Banfeng's expectations. The Human Market lived on manpower, so most residents there were workers; the Soil Market lived on land, so naturally its residents were farmers. Yet why were these farmers hauling so much soil to the Sea Market? "They're going for the soil exchange," Tan Jinxiao explained. "The soil in the Soil Market is scraped out from the cracks in the rock. For daylight crops, it just barely gets by, but for dark crops, the soil lacks the fertility." "Daylight crops" referred to ordinary crops—in the words of the Outer States, plants that grew using photosynthesis. "Dark crops" either did not undergo photosynthesis or performed photosynthesis of a special nature; they were unlike conventional plants. Plants growing in the newland were dark crops. The growth of such plants relied on the fertility of the soil, and this so-called fertility was quite different from the definition used in the Outer States. As for where the exact differences lay, hardly anyone could explain clearly. Tan Jinxiao pointed at the horse carts hauling soil. "This soil was farmed for a year and has been completely sucked dry. Now that spring is here, farmers have to hurry and exchange the soil, or nothing will grow in the fields this coming year." Where would they exchange this soil? Just as Li Banfeng was about to ask, Xiao Yeci suddenly said, "Benefactor, that donkey eats coal!" The donkey Xiao Yeci mentioned wasn't far from Li Banfeng: gray coat, long ears, large face—externally, it was indeed a donkey. The old man driving the donkey shoveled a scoop of coal from a burlap sack on the cart and offered it to the donkey's mouth. The donkey chewed and swallowed it down, and after finishing, it brayed a few times: "Hee-haw, hee-haw!" Outside, early spring still held a chill in the air, but inside the cave it was packed with people and somewhat sweltering. With every bray, this donkey puffed out dense billows of steam. It wasn't just this donkey; the other draft animals shared the same trait. With every breath, they exhaled massive clouds of white steam. This clearly wasn't an animal breathing—it was a steam engine venting steam. "Are these Inner State beasts? They look like livestock, but they're actually machines." Tan Jinxiao shook his head. "They can't really be called imports from the Inner States. Like Old Chen's wife, nobody can say for sure where they came from. Some say they grew from the ground, some say they were born from the water, others say they transformed from insects, and some say they've been here ever since there were people in Santoucha. When the Inner States invaded, they had no dealings with the Inner States. When people came from Puluo Province, they weren't close to Puluo people either. People from the Outer States wanted to take them outside to study, but once they leave Santoucha, they fall apart before getting very far—their bodies shatter to pieces, and their souls vanish without a trace." Li Banfeng reached out and touched an ox beside him. The ox glanced at Li Banfeng, looking somewhat annoyed, wary, and fearful. It gave a low moo and shrank toward its master's side. Seeing the ox's disdainful glare, Li Banfeng gave a dry laugh. "They have quite a peculiar temperament." Tan Jinxiao nodded. "They really are different. They only take to people from Santoucha. For anyone with a home in Santoucha, as long as they catch each other's eye, they're willing to settle down and live together." Li Banfeng asked, "Did any ever catch your eye?" Tan Jinxiao hung his head and mumbled under his breath, "If there were one, my kid would already be old enough to run errands." Li Banfeng tilted up his hat brim, dumbfounded. "What the devil did you just say? They can even have children?" Tan Jinxiao nodded. "Sure can! Some are born human, some turn out like them, and some branch off into something else entirely, resembling neither side!" Li Banfeng was struck speechless. He looked at the ox again, unsure of how to refer to this kind of being. Calling them machines was definitely inappropriate. Calling them robots? That didn't seem right either. "What do you usually call them?" Tan Jinxiao said, "We usually call them locals, because they never leave Santoucha." Locals? Where did these locals come from? This name stirred a few thoughts in Li Banfeng's mind. "Hasn't a single local ever left Santoucha?" Tan Jinxiao thought for a good long while. "There were some, though I can't recall anything too distant. Speaking of more recent times, a few years ago a young fellow who dug herbs in the mountains saved up a tidy sum and left Santoucha. Supposedly, a local who was close to him like a brother left along with him. As for what that local looked like, there are all sorts of stories. Some say it was a cat, some a bird, some a horse, and some even say it was a gun he often used. That's how the rumor goes, but whether it's true or not, I can't say for sure." The two chatted as they followed the flow of people forward. After walking for an entire day, Li Banfeng smelled a damp air carrying a brackish freshness. It was the faint smell unique to rivers and lakes. Li Banfeng walked a bit further, and he heard the sound of waves crashing against rock! The sound of the tide! Li Banfeng advanced with the crowd. Their steps quickened, and the crowd moved faster and faster. Before long, the long, cramped tunnel came to an end, and the converging stream of people spread out, for the space ahead was vastly open, giving the weary farmers ample room to maneuver. Li Banfeng stood upon a sandy shore, gazing into the distance. He saw stone pillars descending from the ceiling down to the water's surface, and stalagmites rising from beneath the water toward the roof. He saw hazy, ethereal mist swirling and tangling in the darkness. The scenery was truly magnificent, but none of this was the focus. The focus was that Li Banfeng saw a sea. Inside an intensely oppressive cave, he was looking upon a boundless expanse of sea. There was no explaining this. The cave walls had vanished here, or perhaps extended beyond the reach of Li Banfeng's sight. Yet Li Banfeng could still clearly see the mottled stone ceiling above, and beneath it, a surging, tempestuous sea. *Whoosh!* Waves surged up the shore, the deafening roar of the tide echoing endlessly through the cavern. Li Banfeng cupped some seawater in his palms. The water was icy and clear, and crucially lacked the salty taste of Outer State seawater. He turned back and asked Tan Jinxiao, "Can you drink it?" "You can!" Tan Jinxiao nodded. "This isn't like the Outer States. This seawater is fresh, and far cleaner than the water outside!" Just as Li Banfeng was about to take a sip and taste it, he heard a fight break out nearby. "You didn't give me enough soil! I just unloaded my cart, and the mound is sitting right there. How much did you actually exchange for me? Let's compare right here and see which pile is taller!" "Nothing you say matters. We go by the scale, not the pile. One jin for one jin. If you don't like it, haul it away!" "Your scales are definitely rigged! Soil prices went up this year, and you still cheat on weight—you're ripping people off!" A farmer and a boat master had started brawling. Tan Jinxiao lowered his voice. "Seventh Master, that's the soil exchange. Trading old soil for new soil, and you still have to pay extra money on top of it. Farmers have a hard time earning a couple coins. Sixty percent of their grain goes to rent, and out of the remaining forty percent, twenty is kept for themselves to eat, ten is sold at the market, and the final ten goes entirely into exchanging for new soil." Li Banfeng asked, "Where does this new soil come from?" Tan Jinxiao gazed into the distance. "From Soil-Nurturing Island. It's quite far out. Taking a boat there and back takes three to five days. The farmers of the Soil Market bring their old soil to the Sea Market, pay the fee, exchange it for new soil, and haul it back. Boats from the Sea Market take the old soil to Soil-Nurturing Island, unload it, load up new soil, and return. That's the annual soil exchange. Whether for the Soil Market or the Sea Market, this is a major undertaking." It was indeed a massive undertaking, especially for the Soil Market's farmers. An elderly farmer had just loaded a cart of soil. Li Banfeng looked at the amount and asked, "How much land can this even cover? Half a mu?" "Half a mu?" Tan Jinxiao shook his head. "Seventh Master, you jest. Ten cartloads wouldn't even cover one mu! The soil exchange isn't done in a day or two. From the moment the autumn harvest wraps up, they have to start exchanging soil. Apart from resting two days for New Year's, they run back and forth the entire winter. Even working themselves half to death like that, come spring, they still haven't finished exchanging it all!" Li Banfeng looked into the distance, where many more people were driving draft animals and hauling soil toward the shore. The crowd flowed ceaselessly through the narrow cave, just like... like a train moving through a tunnel. "Why not use trains to haul the soil?" Li Banfeng mused. "Using a train to haul the old soil over would be far faster than ox carts and horse carriages, wouldn't it? And you wouldn't need all these farmers trekking all the way here—just hiring a crew of stevedores would do!" Tan Jinxiao sighed. "The logic makes sense, but the Boss said too many railways can't be built." "Why can't they? Doesn't the Human Market have railways everywhere?" "Seventh Master, the railways in the Human Market are for hauling cargo! Hauling cargo is for the underground city's business; that's an urgent priority!" Li Qi felt there was an even bigger problem with that statement. "Exchanging soil is for farming, and farming is for eating. Isn't eating an urgent priority?" Tan Jinxiao was at a loss for words; after all, it wasn't his call. Li Banfeng, however, saw through it. "Spring planting, autumn harvest, and winter soil exchange—this keeps everyone busy all year round without a moment's rest, doesn't it?" Tan Jinxiao nodded. "Exactly, they won't let people be idle. If people are idle, they fear people will start thinking. Seventh Master, my advising you against going to the Soil Market earlier was for this very reason. Soil is a farmer's lifeblood. During the soil exchange, if we went to the Soil Market and the Boss blocked off the route to the Sea Market, preventing the soil from being exchanged, there would be no harvest for a year. How would the farmers survive? So to take the Soil Market, we must first secure the Sea Market." "You think the Sea Market is so easy to take?" A nearby boatman wearing black trousers, a blue jacket, and a bamboo conical hat smiled at the two of them. Tan Jinxiao glanced at the boatman. "Guan Huodong, what a coincidence you're here." Guan Huodong shook his head. "Hardly a coincidence. You two were making far too much noise talking; I've had my eyes on you for a while." This was the chief of the Sea Market, Guan Huodong. He was a Scrying Cultivator above the clouds; from the seashore to the open sea, his hooks were everywhere. Even though Homestead Cultivators possessed the trait of being difficult to notice, slipping past his ears was nearly impossible. Li Banfeng looked Guan Huodong up and down and asked very seriously, "Is there some story behind your name?" Guan Huodong frowned. "What does that have to do with you?" Tan Jinxiao explained from the side, "He chose this name himself—it means having insight as clear as seeing a blazing fire!" Li Banfeng blinked in surprise. "I hadn't thought of that!" Tan Jinxiao praised, "Ordinary folks would never think of it! Guan Huodong is a literary name—the man is educated!" The two bantered back and forth with smiles, as if there was nothing serious going on. Guan Huodong laughed. "Old Tan, on the brink of death and you're still clowning around with me. Let me give you a piece of advice: in your next life, when you come to the Sea Market, don't talk so loudly. It makes you look foolish, clumsy, and completely incapable of learning a lesson!" As soon as the words left his mouth, Guan Huodong's gaze shifted to lock onto Li Qi, and his right hand clenched into a fist. His words had been aimed at Tan Jinxiao, but his strike was directed at Li Qi. With this move, he poured in all his strength; even if it didn't kill Li Qi, it would cripple him. Before Tan Jinxiao could even react, Li Qi clutched his chest and collapsed to the ground, looking as if he were having a heart attack. What's going on...? Tan Jinxiao was stunned. Li Qi could help him take out his mark—could it be that Li Qi hadn't removed the mark from his own body? "Don't worry on his behalf. It's your turn now." Guan Huodong chuckled as he turned his gaze to Tan Jinxiao. Just as he was about to clench his fist again, he suddenly sensed someone standing behind him. Li Banfeng stood behind his back, smiling faintly. "Seems to me you're the one in a hurry. Right now it's just your turn—it's not his turn yet."