One Person: I, the Dragon Tiger Stall King! I Won!

70: I don’t save the world, I only help in emergenciesDawn broke, and roosters crowed across the land.

The Yuanli Market, usually bustling and lively, was shrouded in a deathly silence today.

“Bang!”

A crisp crack, like a clap of thunder, shattered the pre-dawn stillness.

Immediately after, a chorus of explosions erupted, as if someone had lit a long string of firecrackers in the market.

“Ah!”

A piercing scream followed.

A stall owner selling “Lucky Biscuits” rolled his eyes back, falling straight backward, foaming at the mouth and convulsing.

The moment he fell, the Yuanli Crystal on his stall, which contained his life’s work, suddenly shattered into countless fragments.

In the splashing crystal light, a terrifyingly twisted man’s face eerily appeared, its resentful gaze seemingly wanting to devour people from the illusion.

This was just the beginning.

One, two, ten... dozens of stall owners fainted without cause at the same time, and without exception, the Yuanli Crystals on their stalls all burst.

Each shattered crystal reflected the face of an old enemy filled with resentment, their Yin Qi (yin qi) chilling, causing the temperature of the entire market to plummet.

Panic spread like a plague.

“Run! It’s haunted!”

“A curse! This is a curse!”

The surviving stall owners and early morning customers scrambled, and the market instantly descended into chaos.

“Everyone stop! Law Enforcement Department at work!”

A deep shout, like a great bell, resonated through the entire scene.

Cui Wujiu, clad in a black trench coat, his face ashen, led a team of enforcers to seal off the entire area with lightning speed.

He walked up to a fainted stall owner, squatted down, picked up a crystal fragment shimmering with a resentful face, joined his two fingers, and a wisp of spiritual power probed into it.

A moment later, he slowly stood up, his expression growing even more solemn, and said in a deep voice to the anxious Su Qingzhu beside him: “It’s not a curse. A curse has a caster, a medium, and a clear causal line. But these…” He paused, a hint of difficulty in his voice, “are ‘Yuan Debt Backlash’.”

“Yuan Debt Backlash?” Su Qingzhu frowned.

“Yes.” Cui Wujiu’s gaze swept over the suffering, fainted stall owners, “Some people used the rules of the Yuanli Market to atone, offering Yuanli to gain peace of mind, but they never truly repented. They just wanted to use this method to buy themselves the self-comfort of ‘I have already atoned.’ But the Heavenly Dao is clear, and resentment does not extinguish. When their self-proclaimed ‘merit’ accumulates to a certain extent, but they cannot suppress the unextinguished sins deep within their hearts, the obsession will backlash. This power is more malicious than any curse, because it originates from themselves!”

Upon hearing this, Su Qingzhu’s face turned pale, and she immediately flipped through the law enforcement files in her hand.

Page after page, her fingers moved faster and faster, and her heart sank deeper and deeper.

Indeed, all the stall owners who had problems were, without exception, people from old cases who had committed serious crimes back then, but eventually escaped the final judgment of the Law Enforcement Department by using ”photocopy yellow paper” in street stall transactions!

She suddenly looked up, piercing through the chaotic crowd, and stared intently at the figure who was still leisurely sitting behind his stall, as if everything had nothing to do with him.

Su Qingzhu rushed over, pressed down on his stall, and urgently questioned: “Zhang Xuanyi! You knew this would happen, didn’t you?”

Zhang Xuanyi was pinching a few green bean sprouts, slowly arranging a divination on his stall.

Hearing Su Qingzhu’s question, he didn’t even bother to lift his eyelids, just grinned, revealing a mouthful of white teeth: “I knew.”

These three understated words almost made Su Qingzhu faint from anger.

“You knew, so why didn’t you stop it?!”

Zhang Xuanyi finally looked up, and in his seemingly casual eyes, a hint of world-weary wisdom flashed.

He retorted: “How could I stop it? Can I prevent people from coming to atone? No. Can I judge for the Heavenly Dao whether they are truly repentant? Even less so. I’m just a street vendor, not a judge of the underworld.”

He casually sprinkled a handful of spirit-filled heavenly eye mung beans into a sizzling frying pan nearby, and the bean sprouts instantly burst with a peculiar aroma in the hot oil.

“But—” He changed his tone, a familiar, shrewd merchant-like smile playing on his lips, “I can treat emergencies.”

He pulled out a small blackboard from under his stall, wrote a few large characters with a flourish, and then placed it with a “bang” in front of his stall.

“Street Stall Emergency Aid, Limited Time Offer! ‘Atonement Backlash Emergency Kit’: Contains three heavenly eye mung beans, one soul- Soul-Suppressing Yellow Paper (soul- Soul-Suppressing Yellow Paper), and one Pure Heart Mantra! Resolves resentment on the spot, guaranteed to cure! Today’s special, limited to thirty kits, first come, first served!”

As soon as the news broke, the crowd, which had been immersed in panic, instantly erupted.

The relatives and friends of those stall owners, as well as some Stranger ( Stranger) who hadn’t fainted but felt a tightness in their chests and considered themselves deeply sinful, swarmed forward, instantly forming a long queue in front of the small stall, stretching as far as the eye could see.

Cui Wujiu’s mouth twitched as he watched this scene, but he ultimately said nothing, only waving his hand to have people maintain order.

He knew very well that while Zhang Xuanyi’s method was vulgar, it was often the most effective at the moment.

He then presided over a temporary “Resentment Confrontation Platform,” inviting the relatives of the victims to confront the still-conscious atonement seekers face-to-face, attempting to resolve the problem from its root.

“Wang Laosan! Do you still have the nerve to burn incense and kowtow here for peace of mind?” A white-haired old mother pointed at a trembling man, her voice hoarse, every word filled with tears of blood, “You burned down my family’s shop with a single fire, killing my only son! Do you think that by setting up a stall here every day and earning some Yuanli, you can pretend my son never died?!”

The man named Wang Laosan, under the old mother’s heart-wrenching accusation, his face turned from white to green, and then from green to purple.

He looked at the yellow paper from the “Emergency Kit” he bought from Zhang Xuanyi in his hand, the talismans on it seemed to be mocking his hypocrisy.

With a “thud,” he fell to his knees, kowtowing heavily to the old mother.

“Auntie… I’m sorry…” He wept profusely, his voice choked, “I… I don’t ask for forgiveness anymore…”

With that, he tremblingly tore the yellow paper, worth a thousand gold, into pieces in front of everyone!

“I won’t atone anymore… I won’t seek peace of mind anymore!” He cried out to the sky, “I don’t ask for your forgiveness, I only ask that you allow me to sweep your doorstep every day for ten years! Rain or shine! If I break this vow, may I be struck by lightning!”

Upon finishing his words, the black aura emanating from the resentment backlash on his body miraculously dissipated by more than half.

Zhang Xuanyi, in the distance, silently watched this scene, swallowing the half-eaten fried dough stick in his mouth, saying nothing.

Only when he packed up his stall that evening, he quietly walked to Wang Laosan’s stall and placed a new yellow paper under it.

There was no price on that yellow paper, only three ancient characters— “Pure Heart Talisman.”

Night fell.

The market returned to calm, with only Zhang Xuanyi left to pack up his stall.

Suddenly, the old dog, a translucent phantom that had been dozing in the corner, suddenly stood up, let out a low whimper, and then transformed into a phantom, crashing violently into Zhang Xuanyi’s back.

This collision was not an attack, but an urgent guidance.

Zhang Xuanyi stumbled from the impact, his gaze instantly becoming sharp.

Following the direction where the old dog’s phantom disappeared, he walked to the deepest part of the stall, the core area that was never shown to others on weekdays.

He stretched out his hand, gently swiping through the void, and a system log composed of light and shadow appeared before his eyes.

Opening the log, a line of glaring small characters, like a sharp knife, pierced into his pupils:

“Warning: Yuanli overload, imbalance of yin and yang. The foundation of the stall will transform into a The Cave of Resentment ( The Cave of Resentment), expected to completely collapse within seven days.”

Zhang Xuanyi’s breathing paused for a moment.

He was silent for a long time, the surrounding air seemingly solidified.

He knew that the “Yuan Debt Backlash” during the day was just the beginning, a warning that the entire stall system was overwhelmed.

The true calamity was the stall itself.

He slowly took out a small jade bottle from his embrace; inside, only the last half-bottle of “Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid” emitting a misty purple aura remained.

This was the original energy of the stall, the core that maintained everything’s operation.

Logically, at this moment, he should immediately inject it into the core of the stall to prolong its life.

However, he made a move that no one could understand.

Holding the jade bottle, he turned and walked out of the stall, arriving at an inconspicuous old well in the corner of the market.

This well was a communal well where all the stall owners of the market dumped leftover food and washed filth; the well water was murky and emitted an unpleasant sour smell.

Su Qingzhu, having finished her official duties, was worried about him and came looking for him late at night, just in time to see this scene.

“Zhang Xuanyi! What are you doing?!” She cried out in surprise, seeing him twist open the bottle cap.

Zhang Xuanyi did not turn back, but only aimed the bottle mouth at the murky old well, unhesitatingly pouring all of the precious last half-bottle of True Qi Liquid into it.

The purple True Qi Liquid fell into the sewage, not even a bubble emerged, instantly disappearing without a trace.

“Are you crazy?!” Su Qingzhu rushed forward, looking at him in disbelief, “That’s the last source of the stall! You poured it into a wastewater well?!”

Zhang Xuanyi capped the bottle and casually tucked it into his pocket, without a trace of distress on his face.

He turned around, looked at the astonished Su Qingzhu, and smiled faintly: “The stall is sick, and the root of the illness is in people, in the greed, anger, and ignorance in people’s hearts. Directly giving medicine to the stall is treating the symptoms, not the root cause.”

He pointed to the bottomless old well, a wise light flickering in his eyes: “True Qi is pure; when put into filth, it can turn turbidity into clarity. The illness of Yuanli, seemingly lofty, is actually rooted in the mundane world. To cure this illness, one must use the most down-to-earth ‘human touch’ as a medicinal primer.”

Three days later, a miracle happened.

The water in that old well was no longer murky and foul-smelling; instead, it became crystal clear, even emitting a faint golden halo under the sunlight.

Any stall owner who washed their hands with this well water was surprised to find that the Yuanli Crystals on their stalls, no matter how dim they were before, became as clear as new, with all distracting thoughts gone.

Even stranger, a mischievous child mixed some mud with the well water and molded a crooked little figure.

As soon as the mud figure was formed, it seemed to come to life, automatically kneeling towards the direction of Wang Laosan’s stall, who had committed a serious crime, and assumed a kowtowing posture of atonement.

Su Qingzhu stood by the well, watching this incredible scene, completely stunned.

She suddenly looked up at the man who was leaning back in a lounge chair, leisurely munching on skewers, and suddenly realized: “I understand… You broke down the ‘Dao’ of the stall, hiding it in this well, in everyone’s daily water, in this most ordinary human touch!”

Zhang Xuanyi took a big bite of roasted meat, mumbling indistinctly, and squinted at the cloudless sky: “What Dao or not Dao, I only know that one breath cannot save everyone, but being able to help neighbors in an emergency is also considered accumulating virtue and doing good.”

A gentle breeze swept by, and deep within the market’s ley lines, the old turtle that had been sleeping for a thousand years seemed to slightly curl its lips, letting out an almost imperceptible sigh in its dream:

“This way of life… is indeed correct.”

Inside the market, there was peace and harmony.

However, no one noticed that on the evening of the sixth day, the originally tranquil and harmonious aura above the market was like an invisible stone thrown into it, rippling out an extremely subtle wave.

Immediately after, an aura that was completely out of place with the Yuanli Market, yet incredibly majestic and profound, slowly pressed down from the distant horizon.

That aura was not directed at any one person, but rather like an boundless net, intending to envelop the entire market, along with its rules and secrets.

Zhang Xuanyi’s action of eating skewers stopped.

He looked up at the seemingly empty sky, his expression more solemn than ever before.

And what was coming this time was not the rule-abiding Law Enforcement Department, nor was it resentment that could be resolved with “human touch.”