Where Immortals Once Walked

He Lingchuan tested the waters. “Juju doesn’t usually eat that much, does it?”

“Of course not. Otherwise, even the Ke Family’s profound crystal mine would be eaten into poverty.” Fang Canran continued, “Even a family as wealthy as the Ke Family wouldn’t feed Juju solely with boundless gold. They would have to mix in other ingredients and coax it into eating until it was only half full. So if you follow the list I gave earlier, it will only cost about 1.2 million taels.”

“Only?” He Lingchuan smiled bitterly. If he scraped together everything he owned, he could barely cover a fraction of that.

Fine. The plan to feed Juju until it fell asleep had officially been shot down.

No money meant no money. Even if he sold himself, he could not raise 1.2 million taels. A man had to bow to reality. He would have to think of a Plan B.

“Now you know why the Lord Emperor assigned this duty to the Ke Family, yes? Juju is not something just anyone can afford to worship.”

He Lingchuan nodded repeatedly. “Then can I stand in Star-Plucking Tower and throw ore into the lava pool?”

“You can.” Why is this young man so interested in Juju?

Could this be the “friend’s request” he mentioned?

He Lingchuan’s eyes shifted. “Right, I remember Brother Fang once said that in recent years, the amount of unusual ore the Ke Family has bought through Dun Garden has been declining.”

“Young Master He has a good memory.”

“Did the Ke Family find another supplier?”

“No.” Fang Canran shook his head. “Dun Garden has cooperated with the Ke Family for many years. Our supply has always been the most stable in both price and quality.” A faint pride entered his voice as he added, “Young Master He may not know this, but in long-term cooperation of this sort, stable quality is most important, and price actually comes second.”

“Then why has the Ke Family purchased less?” He Lingchuan stroked his chin. “Could they be daring enough to cut back on Juju’s offerings?”

Fang Canran considered his words. “Actually, Juju’s offerings are split proportionally between the Heavenly Palace and the Ke Family. The Heavenly Palace provides about seventy percent, while the Ke Family supplies the rest. As far as I know, this proportion has been in place for a century and has never changed.”

He Lingchuan understood.

The gods had assigned the profound crystal mine to the Ke Family. Though this was an incomparable honor, the Ke Family also had plenty of obligations to shoulder. The offerings alone—in plain words, feeding the guardian spirit—were an enormous expense.

It was so enormous, in fact, that even the Heavenly Palace was unwilling to bear it alone.

But if the accounts were divided seventy-thirty, the Ke Family could not secretly withhold Juju’s rations.

The problem, thus, must lie with the Heavenly Palace.

In recent years, the treatment Juju received from the Heavenly Palace had declined overall.

He Lingchuan could easily work out the reason. After the Grand Spirit-Gathering Array was put into operation, it exerted immense pressure over Juju, preventing the ancient rock-fire aberrant creature from acting as freely as it once had. The Heavenly Palace also resented it for causing the great Lingxu City earthquake over a decade ago, which had badly damaged the heavenly gods’ prestige. Since this watchdog had already been chained up, the Heavenly Palace naturally wanted to teach it a lesson, keeping it hungry, but not starving it to death.

Of course, the objective reason was that heaven and earth spirit qi had declined even further over the past decade, reducing the output of profound crystal mines. Juju’s offerings could no longer be as abundant as before.

He Lingchuan smiled. “Poor guardian spirit, it must be starving. Mm, Brother Fang wouldn’t happen to have these two ores, would you?”

He named the two that seemed cheapest on the list. “Spirit-surging ore and thousand-gold rock?”

Fang Canran also had an excellent memory. After taking a mental inventory for a while, he nodded. “I do. I have both.”

Before He Lingchuan could smile, Fang Canran continued, “Unrefined spirit-surging ore costs 50 taels per kilogram. You need to bring at least 180 kilograms to Star-Plucking Tower. Any less and it’s like throwing water into the river. Juju won’t even bother looking at you. The thousand-gold rock is cheaper at about 33 taels per kilogram, but the guardian spirit doesn’t seem to like it much.”

He Lingchuan felt a stabbing pain in his chest. “180 kilograms?”

Mother of—that amount of spirit-surging ore means about 9,000 taels! Add another 180 kilograms of thousand-gold rock, and the total comes out to about 15,000 taels!

He had not even done anything yet. Just to greet Juju, the meeting fee alone would cost 15,000 taels.

That was equivalent to 15 million copper coins.

No wonder the Heavenly Palace wanted to cut its rations. This thing could eat too damn much, and it only picked expensive goods.

Seeing the vein jumping at He Lingchuan’s temple, Fang Canran kindly said, “I can give you a ten percent discount.”

“Can you make it twenty?” He Lingchuan smiled bitterly. “We had such a pleasant talk today. Give me a friendship price.”

“Indeed...” Talking friendship always wounded the purse. “Fifteen percent. No lower.”

“Fine. When can I pick it up?”

“Tomorrow.” Fang Canran reminded him, “But this little bit is only a snack to it. Whether it’s willing to come out is hard to say. You see people throwing offerings into the lava pool from Star-Plucking Tower’s stone bridge every day, but the guardian spirit never appears. It isn’t a koi in a lotus pond that will surface just because you give it a mouthful of food.”

“...” Is he playing with me? I might throw 15,000 taels into lava and not even hear a splash?

“You had better add some spirit wood as well to balance its taste.”

In other words, he had to spend more money. Just as He Lingchuan felt his scalp prickling, he suddenly remembered something. “Right, would seabed wood work?”

“You have some?” Fang Canran thought about it. “It will work, but the age has to be good, or the flavor has to be special.”

“There are differences?”

“Of course. Spirit wood has life, and living things vary wildly from one another. They are not as stable as ores.”

He Lingchuan took a deep breath. “Many thanks for the guidance, Brother Fang. Oh, right—” He suddenly remembered something else. “Can you get frost pellets?”

“Frost pellets?” Fang Canran thought for a long while. “That sounds a little familiar. What are they used for?”

“They’re a kind of crystal produced by a certain type of duonao beast, a specialty that can only be obtained during the event in the Grass Sea.”

Fang Canran drew out an “oh” as he recalled what it was. “I remember now. No frost pellet was hunted out during the last Grass Sea event. If you want one, you’ll probably have to wait for the event to open in a few days. I can help you collect them, but they’re very rare. I may not necessarily be able to obtain any.”

He Lingchuan now had a sense of the situation. He took out 7,700 taels in banknotes. “Here. For the spirit-surging ore. Forget the thousand-gold rock.” Saving even a little is still saving. Damn it all. The silver notes he had just gotten from Fang Canran had not even warmed in his hand before going right back!

Fang Canran took the silver notes at once and did not give any change. “It will be delivered tomorrow.”

He Lingchuan left. Fang Canran saw him to the manor gate, and the two parted with smiles.

This round of mutual probing could be considered over.

* * *

Fang Canran returned to Dun Garden.

Within that vast estate, he lived in a small two-story building with its own gate and courtyard on the western side. Among Dun Garden’s brilliant, exquisite buildings, it was unremarkable, but very quiet.

Fang Canran went up to the second-floor bedroom. After the servants prepared hot water, they quickly withdrew. Everyone in Dun Garden knew Chief Steward Fang disliked being disturbed when he rested here.

As he cupped water to wash his face, there came the soft flap of wings overhead. Then a slightly coarse voice asked, “You went to test that kid, right? How did it go?”

A large parrot with a red back and blue wings landed on the washstand. Fine lines covered its cheeks.

“I didn’t get a clear result.” Fang Canran casually cast a barrier, then checked the room carefully before recounting everything that had happened at Fleeting Thoughts Manor from start to finish.

When the parrot heard the tense parts, its wings began flapping. “I told you long ago you shouldn’t have acted personally! Planning from behind the curtain is your strength!”

“The strong hands haven’t returned yet, and the rest couldn’t deal with He Xiao.” That was why he had acted for himself. “This involved the signet ring, and I didn’t want a third party to know.”

However, the parrot was right. He should not have taken that risk.

“Where did this man come from? How does he know so much about Old Shao’s past?” The parrot shook out its feathers. “Could you have come under suspicion? Could this man have been sent to test you?”

“The prophetic line he recited should not be known by any outsider.” Fang Canran shook his head. “Right now, only you and I know it. Not even the Fang branch families know. As for Lingxu City? Impossible.”

“How much of what he said do you think was true? When he talked about his own origins, that was pure nonsense.” The parrot cried, “A completely insincere evasion.”

“If someone else had come to me, I would think they were trying to extort or threaten me. That would actually be easier to handle.” Fang Canran wiped his face with a towel. “The troublesome ones are those whose motives you cannot see clearly.”

The parrot grew anxious. It paced back and forth on the stand with both feet. “Then what do you plan to do? Just leave him alone?”

“Today, he actually asked about Juju’s offerings. I told him as well.”

“Offerings? He asked about offerings!” The parrot tensed. Its feathers stood up, making one bird seem to swell into two. “Has he discovered something?”

“Not necessarily.” Fang Canran rubbed his chin. “Did this man come for Juju? What exactly is he planning?”

“It can’t be the same thing as you, can it?” the parrot said irritably. “You know Lingxu City inside and out, and even you failed.”

“The heavenly gods will not sit by and watch the volcano beneath their seats erupt again, so this matter was never easy to begin with.” Fang Canran thought for a moment. “But speaking of the elixir of youth case, there is another strange point.”

“What? What is it?”

“When the case report submitted by the State of Chiyan shook the imperial court, because it implicated the Minister of Finance and the Tongxin Guard, I heard several elders rushed to Star-Plucking Tower in the middle of the night to block the Lord Emperor and discuss who should be sent to Baishajue as the special envoy. Normally, there should have been a long power struggle over the choice, but the Lord Emperor said Bai Ziqi was already in the State of Chiyan and could be directly transferred over to handle it. The elders were caught off guard and were quite unhappy.”

“So what?”

“Bai Ziqi is a Deputy Cloud Envoy, trusted by the heavenly gods and valued by the Lord Emperor. He was indeed the ideal person to handle the case. But...”