"What?"
"My family in bed with rchants?"
"And people being frad and thrown in jail?"
Xu Qing had drunk quite a bit the previous night, and when he hauled himself out of a young woman's bed at noon the next day, his head was still in a fog.
He had barely splashed water on his face when he was hit with news this explosive.
"What year are we talking about?"
"This year? Just now? That can't be right. How would I not know about this?"
"Golden Valley Trading Company? What the blazes is the Golden Valley Trading Comp... oh."
The na Golden Valley Trading Company finally penetrated the murkiness in Xu Qing's head and cleared so of it away.
"The Golden Valley Trading Company used to be extrely powerful. I heard my father say that back in the day, grain prices across the entire Blackwater were set between them and two other companies. They've co to Yun County? How do I not know about this?"
"What do you an their young master died in Yun County?"
"Oh, the head manager's son. That doesn't make him any kind of young master worth ntioning."
"Diamond sand was found in the great mine pit?"
One piece of explosive news after another arrived in rapid succession, and Xu Qing's head began to pound.
What was any of this? Was he still half-asleep?
Bai Ke said carefully, "I heard people outside saying our Xu family and the Golden Valley Trading Company were all wearing the sa trousers..."
"Both selling grain ans we're the sa family? Has no one told you that rivals in the sa trade are natural enemies? If the relationship was really that solid, why didn't I know they'd been in Yun County for several days already?"
Xu Qing got up and put his clothes on. "Co on, let's go ho and ask my father."
He had just reached the door when he stopped and asked quietly, "Did the Golden Valley Trading Company bring any cultivators with them?"
Bai Ke shook his head. "Nothing I've heard suggests so. Perhaps whoever it was didn't show their abilities, and ordinary people wouldn't be able to tell either way."
"Definitely not."
Xu Qing smiled. "If it were as you described, with that head manager's disposition and the way he apparently disrespected even Sheriff Ma, if he'd had a cultivator with him and caught the killer, why would he send anyone to the county office at all? He'd have settled the score on the spot."
anwhile, on the other side of the city, the mont Li Qiuchen walked back into the school, he felt nurous pairs of eyes fixing on him from multiple directions.
What now?
Li Qiuchen instinctively checked himself over and found nothing obviously out of the ordinary.
Chen Nangsheng ca over and asked carefully, "Brother Li, have you gone and stirred up trouble again outside?"
What do you an, again? Speak clearly!
Li Qiuchen said with genuine puzzlent, "What are you referring to, Brother Chen? I was escorting Miss Hu for her illusory realm trial. What trouble could I possibly have caused?"
"A few days ago, so people from a Golden Valley Trading Company ca to the county school and demanded it hand you over within three days."
"What?"
Li Qiuchen was genuinely shocked.
So they hadn't let it go after all.
What breed of mad dog was the Golden Valley Trading Company, biting at anything that moved?
"What did the master say?"
"The master didn't pay them any attention. You could go and ask?"
Li Qiuchen hurried to find Master Qin.
Master Qin was organizing teaching materials. When he saw Li Qiuchen return, he didn't so much as lift his eyes.
"Master, I heard that..."
"Since you're back, go to class. Make up the lessons you missed as quickly as possible."
All right. Master Qin having said that much, Li Qiuchen felt considerably more settled.
Following Master Qin back to the classroom, at midday he saw the freshly posted rankings.
Chen Nangsheng, two first-class ratings.
Tang Xiaoxue, two first-class ratings.
Hu Caiyi, two first-class ratings.
Zeng Mingming, first class then second class.
Zeng Mingming had been unable to maintain his earlier montum and encountered problems in the second round. But the gap between second and first class was really just a matter of effort and a little more care. Nothing insurmountable.
Beyond this, ten more students had achieved first-class ratings in the first round.
The first two rounds of first-grade illusory realms were genuinely not that difficult. Once you understood the rules, earning a first-class rating wasn't especially demanding.
Fail once, try again. You could keep attempting.
The atmosphere among the students was lively with discussion. Nobody seed particularly worried about the third round's difficulty. The real concern on everyone's mind was the entry fee now that the introductory free rounds were used up.
Spirit stones were unavailable on the open market.
Treasure Pavilion had given a reply that new stock couldn't arrive for at least another month.
Were they all supposed to sit here for a month doing nothing?
So of the sharper students had already found upper-year students and traded for a batch of lower-grade spirit stones. The upper-year students did have so stock on hand, though not a great deal, since this lowest-grade variety had little practical use for them beyond serving as entry fees.
Predictably, spirit stone prices began to climb sharply.
Liu Huai'an had found so channel or other and had a well-stocked supply, but he was gouging the price rcilessly. What had been twenty taels on the market was now coming out of his hands at fifty taels a stone, a price that defied any reasonable explanation.
Under ordinary circumstances nobody would willingly play the fool at these prices.
But the timing was precisely right, and most of the students ca from well-off backgrounds and were not especially price-sensitive.
He actually managed to sell a considerable number that day, turning a handso profit.
Chen Nangsheng sat expressionless, head down in his books.
His family circumstances were poor. Saving up even one spirit stone had cost him considerable effort.
Now that the price had been driven to fifty taels a stone, there was simply no way he could afford it.
Given that, he might as well give up for now, wait a month until prices normalized, and tackle it then.
He had complete confidence that even with a month's delay, he could still achieve excellent results.
Li Qiuchen sat down beside him and placed a spirit stone in front of him.
Chen Nangsheng's face imdiately went red, and he quickly tried to decline. "Brother Li, spirit stones are extrely valuable right now..."
"Do you rember that ti at Blue Stone Platform?"
"Of course."
"Those two senior brothers knew your family circumstances were modest. They would never have actually expected you to pay."
"What? But at the ti they said..."
"They were teasing you."
Li Qiuchen opened his storage pouch and let Chen Nangsheng see the contents. "These are being kept for my two young misses' personal use, and they can't go through them all at once. If you need any, just ask
directly. You can return them once prices co back down in a month. That's plenty of ti."
Chen Nangsheng said with so awkwardness, "Thank you for the kindness, Brother Li. Honestly, I don't mind waiting a bit longer."
Li Qiuchen shook his head. "On the cultivation path, fall behind one step and you fall behind every step. When an opportunity to advance presents itself, don't hesitate. We are classmates with similar backgrounds, and looking out for each other is only natural. As for Liu Huai'an, his thods leave sothing to be desired. That one's character isn't particularly admirable."
Chen Nangsheng nodded emphatically in agreent.
"Brother Li, the third round... I've heard it's sowhat difficult, so my confidence is not exactly high at the mont."
"The third round isn't really a question of difficulty."
Even thinking about the third round made Li Qiuchen's teeth ache.
"My last attempt was simply bad luck, drawing the worst possible slip. If you draw Embracing Stone Academy, exchange it. That slip is allowed to be exchanged."
"That terrifying?"
"Terrifying isn't quite the right word. Infuriating would be closer."
So things were better not revisited.
Li Qiuchen patted Chen Nangsheng's shoulder with a smile. "Keep at it. Try to get through in one attempt. I'm planning to challenge it again in the next day or two. You might end up a step ahead of
this ti."
"I'll take that, Brother Li. I'll do my best."
Li Qiuchen returned to his seat and began reviewing his lessons.
He genuinely was planning to make another attempt in the next day or two, but the Golden Valley Trading Company business still wasn't resolved.
Like a toad sitting on your foot, it couldn't bite but it was thoroughly unpleasant.
Who knew what that fat corpse thought he had behind him, that he could go around offending everyone without consequence.
If you wanted to mine, then mine properly. If you didn't have the ability, find your own way through it. Why keep fixating on him?
If the man continued to refuse to let it go, he would need to find a way to deal with him.
As long as this person kept jumping around in front of his eyes, Li Qiuchen genuinely could not maintain the composure needed to challenge the third round.
The afternoon session was still Master Wang teaching history.
Halfway through the lesson, a voice suddenly ca resonating from outside, transmitting through the air with deliberate force. "Hired cultivator of the Golden Valley Trading Company, Ge Xiuxian, arrives to present his challenge to this school!"
The sound rang out like a great bell, instantly filling every corner of both the inner and outer hall of the county school.
Li Qiuchen had his brush in hand and was writing. The tip gave a faint tremor, and a surge of anger rose in his chest.
You actually ca.
Everyone present now knew that the Golden Valley Trading Company had co to collect him. Every pair of eyes in the classroom turned in his direction.
"Silence!"
Master Wang picked up his discipline ruler and struck the desk, and the noise in the classroom was instantly suppressed.
Li Qiuchen was just about to stand when an invisible force pressed down on his shoulder, preventing him from rising.
He looked up directly into Master Wang's gaze.
"Pay attention to class. Pay no mind to the commotion outside."
Outside the county school gates, the middle-aged man standing with his hands clasped behind his back waited for a mont. Receiving no response from within, he moved to step through the gate, and suddenly felt a faint chill from behind him.
He turned instantly to find a young scholar walking over from the street at an unhurried pace, with slightly darkened eyes and an expression showing the unmistakable fatigue of soone who had been up all night until midday and had just barely fallen asleep before being woken.
"What are you shouting about? Do you think this is a place for that kind of noise?"
The middle-aged man took a quiet half-step back, his hands behind him closing around several golden pellets.
"And you are?"
"Acting chief senior brother of the Yun County School Inner Hall, Yang Wenping."
Senior Brother Yang let out a wide yawn, his face radiating the grievances of soone who had stayed up cultivating through the night until noon, and then been dragged awake by all the commotion.
"Did you never go to school? Or did whoever taught you forget to cover basic courtesy? At the gates of a county school, what gives you the right to shout like that?"
The middle-aged man gave a cold smile and clasped his hands in a minimal bow. "This one indeed never had the fortune to enter a county school to study, but that hasn't stopped
from developing a full set of abilities. I wouldn't say I'm inferior to any student who only knows how to talk while sitting on their hands."
"Oh, never went to school, is that right. Well, that explains it."
Yang Wenping gave a short laugh, his gaze cold as ice.
"A country bumpkin who's never seen the world. What exactly are you posturing for in front of ?"
A streak of blue light shot from his hand, flying toward the middle-aged man with the speed of thunder.
The middle-aged man felt a sharp wariness and imdiately fired three golden pellets with a raise of his hand, sending them directly at the incoming light.
Three rapid explosive booms rang out in succession. All three golden pellets detonated one after another, and in doing so forced the true form of the blue light into the open.
It was a jade ruler, and it was blue.
[NEXT CHAPTER]
Reviews
All reviews (0)