Early the next morning, Jack Young headed out. As he left, four men dressed in lowly servant garb were busy scrubbing away dust, their butts sticking up in the air. Dust is one of those things—no matter how much you wipe, it never truly gets clean. If you don’t believe me, just go clean the kitchen grease; even with an extractor fan, everything still ends up greasy.
That grand hall, all that smoke—who knows how long it’ll take these four to finish cleaning. Right now, the Four Vagabond Knights are penniless. Until they get the dust sorted, they’re not allowed out, so their assets are locked at zero. Even their shabby servant outfits are rented, and Madam Dai charges them high interest daily. Basically, the four are practically indentured here.
Huh? Why doesn’t Jack Young pay their debt for them?
Hey, everyone’s gotta handle their own mess—wipe your own butt, right? That’s the pride of the Four Vagabond Knights! At least, that’s how our resident schemer interprets those eight resentful stares shooting his way, even if a few are already tearing up. Jack just coolly turns his back and waves: “Gentlemen, my condolences.” And with that, he ditches the four guys mired in labor disputes and strolls off into the bustling Eight Directions City.
It’s only been one night, but everything’s changed. Now Jack’s got a super fancy place to stay, some silver in his pocket, and he’s even settled his two female disciples in a brothel (wait, does that sound kinda sketchy?). No more freeloaders—walking down the street alone feels genuinely relaxing.
“Let me count—one, two, three... Wow, over twenty thousand silver notes. Those four jokers really were loaded.” Not to mention all the other perks Jack got from yesterday’s contest—just talking about the cash, it’s a pretty hefty haul. With all the silver notes combined, plus what he already had, it’s close to thirty thousand taels—enough to buy a ship.
But honestly, the most valuable things those four jokers have aren’t the cash, but all their knick-knacks. Calligraphy, antiques, all sorts of weird little trinkets—they’re worth way more than money. Like that ink-black lin fat they burned last night—just one burn cost hundreds of taels. Talk about extravagance. If he sold off all those curios, his assets would probably double.
Doubling his assets sounds awesome, but honestly, it still might not be enough—for one reason: that Herb House the Eastern Youth mentioned at the end.
“Herb House—sounds like a place that sells bubble tea.” Jack strolls along, asking around to see where this Herb House is.
After ten years of internal energy cultivation, Jack’s noticed the difficulty keeps doubling. At first, he could train at a freakish pace—one day for a year’s progress. After five years, it slowed: about three days for a year. Once he hit ten years, it got even tougher—now it’s about eight or nine days for a year’s worth.
This rate of progress is wild—if word got out, people would be scared out of their wits. But what about after that? What happens when you reach fifteen, twenty years of cultivation? If your constitution isn't compatible, things get tricky. Yang Qi isn't one to just sit and wait for trouble, so he's come up with two solutions. The first is the Herb Boutique.
Speaking of the Herb Boutique, it's legendary in the martial world. Last night, after chatting with the Four Goofballs, Yang Qi finally understood: if the martial world were an online game, then some places would be like pay-to-win shops for rich players. The Herb Boutique is one of those. Eat this, and your cultivation skyrockets; eat that, and your training efficiency multiplies; eat another thing, and you'll be an iron man in the bedroom all night long—basically, it's every nerd's dream cheat code turned real.
Of course, the prices are enough to turn a rich martial artist into a penniless shut-in.
But the Herb Boutique isn't a physical shop with a set location. It has no fixed storefront—it pops up wherever it wants. Rumor has it, it's linked to a place called Herb Valley, and run by a mysterious woman known as the Herb Maiden. She shows up from time to time to peddle rare and exotic herbs. And wouldn't you know it? With the Sword Saint Ou Yezi making a splash in town, the Herb Maiden is about to appear in Eight Directions City too.
“Where exactly do you buy these rare herbs?” Yang Qi wandered all over Eight Directions City, which is packed with businesses and possible sellers. As he strolled, he mulled over the martial arts manuals he’d scored from the Four Goofballs. Beating those clowns was like defeating a video game boss—loot everywhere, martial arts manuals from all sorts of sects, seven or eight in total.
There were sword techniques, saber techniques, fist and palm skills, lightness techniques, hidden weapons, one internal energy method, and the most interesting—a unique body protection skill called "Iron Palm Turning to Blade." All these came from people who’d challenged the Four Goofballs and lost so badly they ran away in their underwear. In terms of skill level, these manuals were even better than the Free Spirit Technique. If you want a token in the big leagues, you’ve got to have some real chops.
And, of course, the real prize was the Four Goofballs’ own martial arts. Last night, after a long chat and exchange of training tips, everyone walked away with new insights. Turns out, all four of them are war orphans who grew up scavenging, then swore brotherhood and roamed the land learning martial arts—if they couldn’t find a master, they’d steal or trick their way into learning. Total jacks-of-all-trades. Usually, people like that don’t amount to much, but these four have talent and luck, and actually carved out their own path. Their martial arts are great material—plenty of inspiration to be found there.
Yang Qi is currently breaking down all these martial arts, turning them into raw materials—not just for martial techniques, but for internal energy methods too. Yep, he’s not only refining his martial arts, but also upgrading and transforming his internal energy skills.
He’s not the type to just copy whatever the predecessors did. If martial arts can blaze a new trail, why not internal energy too?
People are born with both yin and yang. Sure, men and women lean one way or the other, but not so much that men can’t practice the cold-type internal energy. I don’t buy that! It’s just that the founder of Bright Moon Divine Skill was a woman, so men have a tougher time training it. Same way, Supreme Skill was created by a man, so women hit more roadblocks trying to master it.
How many acupoints does the human body have? Every different way to circulate energy brings a different effect. It’s a crazy complex process—like decoding the human genome. But if you crack the code, you’re the king of the geeks, able to program the wildest martial arts ever.
By workload, it’s gonna take ages. But hey, a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step—might as well start collecting materials now.
He was running his internal 'decryption program' while absent-mindedly wandering the street, when suddenly a familiar figure flashed by. Yang Qi paused his mental hacking and looked up—right at a group of guys in fancy robes and on tall horses strutting down the street. Normally, nothing special—there are show-offs everywhere. But one guy caught Yang Qi’s eye.
That guy, waving his fan left and right like he was auditioning for a drama—wasn’t that the Golden Fan Young Master? Yang Qi and Golden Fan Young Master were less than ten meters apart on the street. But the guy just rode by, all smug, not giving Yang Qi a second glance. His heartbeat, eyes, movements, even his aura—totally normal, like he hadn’t even seen the guy who broke his arm.
Yang Qi sniffed. Huh, something’s off—the scent isn’t right. This isn’t the guy whose arm I smashed.
This was the third time Yang Qi had run into Golden Fan Young Master. The first time was at the Alien Slave Auction—he vaguely remembered it, but it was all fuzzy, like recalling a fever dream. The second time was much clearer—he’d observed Golden Fan Young Master from every angle and remembered all the details.
So Yang Qi could say for sure: this Golden Fan Young Master wasn’t the same guy from Yihua Village. Even without any signs of disguise, everything except his face was totally different. Most obvious of all, last time Golden Fan Young Master had forty years of cultivation, but this one only had a bit over thirty. Definitely not the same.
“Look, that’s the Golden Fan Young Master from the Tienjin Pavilion. He came to Eight Directions City with Master Jin himself—something big’s gotta be going down.”
“You didn’t hear? Master Jin from Tienjin Pavilion is about to gamble with Qian Wanliang, the King of Gamblers. Two rich guys facing off—it’s gonna be huge!”
Yang Qi overheard whispers all around, people swapping intel about Golden Fan Young Master, Master Jin, and the Tienjin Pavilion. Without missing a beat, Yang Qi started tailing them, blending right in. Whether Golden Fan Young Master recognized him or not—maybe he didn’t even know Yang Qi existed—there might still be clues about the Yihua Village incident. After all, Embroidered Jade was poisoned by the Ten Evil Soul-Scattering Powder. It wasn’t fatal, but it was a pain. If Yang Qi could trace it back and find an antidote, that’d be perfect.
Golden Fan Young Master galloped toward the east city gate, and Yang Qi followed quietly behind. His stride looked casual, like he was just strolling, but he was lightning fast.
Just then, another convoy came in through the east gate. Nothing flashy—no banners, not luxurious, just huge. There was one especially unusual carriage, pulled by eight horses. It had eight wheels and carried a giant rectangular object covered by a tarp, about 1.7 meters high, 2.5 meters wide, and nearly four meters long. Whatever it was, it was so heavy the wagon creaked under the weight.
That one big wagon took up more than half the whole road.
(No further action needed—end of chapter content.)
(No further action needed—end of chapter content.)
(No further action needed—end of chapter content.)