Dao of Money

Chen Ren kept wondering what Qing He meant even as he sat down to drink tea and eat the noodles Tang Xiulan had made for him.

What powerful person had he offended while he was gone?

At first, he thought it might have been connected to one of his businesses, but Qing He’s tone had not suggested that. From his short conversation with Tang Xiulan, he could also tell that the businesses were mostly fine. Even when problems appeared, the sect had enough experience now to handle them without waiting for him.

If anything, Chen Ren had become more famous in the outside world while he was gone.

Many climbers had left the pagoda after failing to survive its trials, and once they came out, they naturally talked about what had happened inside. Because of that, Chen Ren’s name appeared in conversation after conversation. The clans and businesses working with the Divine Coin Sect had heard those rumours too, which made them even more willing to cooperate.

On top of that, several of them had requested his help in getting their own cultivators through the pagoda. They were willing to offer resources and goodwill in exchange for information, guidance, and support.

That was not hard to arrange.

Some light information and a connection to Tau Liu in the pagoda would be enough for most of them. If handled properly, it could give Chen Ren long-term cooperation with several useful factions, which was exactly the kind of thing he wanted.

But that could wait until later.

In the larger picture, those business partners had become rather small compared to everything that had happened inside the pagoda. That did not mean Chen Ren planned to abandon them or demand better deals before their current contracts ended. Doing that would only damage trust, and trust was far more valuable than squeezing out a little more profit in the short term.

But he just didn’t care enough about them anymore.

Right now, Chen Ren only wanted to know what Qing He had meant. So once he had eaten a little, he immediately went to meet her alone, only taking Wang Jun with him who had slept on his side.

He also gave Yalan the responsibility of looking after Shrey and Yorren, who were both happily slurping down noodles as if they had discovered some rare treasure.

When Chen Ren reached Qing He’s room, she was sitting alone with Princess Yanyue, sipping tea. She looked over at him and gestured toward a seat.

“Sit down,” Qing He said. “Yanyue here was telling me what happened in the pagoda. I never thought those two you brought along were puppets. Hong Yi would die from shock if he knew.”

“I am not going to tell him,” Chen Ren said as he sat. “It is better if everyone thinks they are just normal human cultivators.”

Qing He nodded. “I think so too.”

Chen Ren looked at her. “So who is the person I apparently offended?”

Qing He’s expression changed.

She put down her cup, and even Princess Yanyue looked surprised at how quickly the old woman’s demeanour turned serious.

“Actually, I have very little idea,” Qing He said. “He was only within the range of the array I placed for three seconds, but he was certainly strong. Stronger than me, I would guess.”

Chen Ren paused.

For a moment, he did not know what to say.

He had no idea how someone like that had become interested in him. He didn’t even know exactly how strong Qing He was, but he knew she was stronger than Yalan, which already placed her close to the level below the domain manifestation realm.

If someone was stronger than that, then Chen Ren had no idea how he had managed to offend them.

As he thought about it, one person’s face suddenly came to mind. At the same time, his eyes met Princess Yanyue’s.

From her expression, she seemed to be thinking the same thing. Both of them turned to Qing He at once.

“Was he a man?” Chen Ren asked.

“Probably,” Qing He said. “But I did not get a proper look at him. He realised I had hidden arrays placed around the sect, the kind one cannot detect until they are already inside the range, and ran before I could come out to interrogate him.”

Her fingers tapped lightly against the teacup.

“That also means he has extensive knowledge of arrays. It is not easy to notice them so quickly.”

At those words, Chen Ren could only think of Jun.

The man definitely seemed like the type to know a little too much about everything. Older cultivators were always troublesome, and Jun had shown more than enough ability inside the pagoda to make Chen Ren believe it would not be easy to catch him off guard.

Chen Ren looked at Qing He. “Do you know someone named Jun?”

Qing He tilted her head. “That is a common name, you know. Many villagers have it.”

“I do not think he means someone ordinary,” Princess Yanyue said. “The cultivator who came here could be Jun, Elder Qing He.”

Qing He suddenly trembled.

It was small, but Chen Ren noticed it immediately. He doubted he had ever seen that kind of reaction from her before. Her eyes narrowed, and a faint thread of qi slipped out of her body before she pulled it back under control.

Chen Ren went still. There was history there. He could see it in the way Qing He’s face had changed.

“Just who is he, Qing He?” Chen Ren asked.

Qing He did not answer right away. Instead, she looked straight at him. “First, tell me where you heard of him. Even with your luck, there is no way you should have crossed paths with someone like that.”

Chen Ren was not sure how to tell her that his luck was actually worse than she expected.

For now, he simply explained what had happened in the pagoda. He told Qing He about meeting Jun, his disciples, and how the man had chased after them. He left out what needed to be left out, but he gave enough detail for her to understand the situation.

Once Qing He heard everything, she took another sip of tea.

“Like I thought,” she said. “He is the Jun I know.”

Chen Ren’s expression tightened.

“You really got yourself into a lot of trouble,” Qing He continued. “Making the Demon Sword your enemy is not something anyone wants.”

Princess Yanyue’s face went pale at the title. “He is the Demon Sword?

Chen Ren looked at her. “You know of him?”

“Some stories,” Princess Yanyue said. “He is famous, but we do not really refer to him by name. I did not even know his name was Jun. Most people just call him the demon or the Demon Sword.”

“That is not his only title,” Qing He said. “He has also been called the Harbinger of Doom, the Demon of Flames, Hellguard, and the Heavens Forsaken. If we dig deep enough, there are too many names to count, though I do not think he has gained a new one in the last decade.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Chen Ren sucked in a slow breath.

Those titles made Jun sound like one of the most terrifying demonic cultivators of all time. Maybe that was not far from the truth. The more Qing He spoke about him, with Princess Yanyue adding details from time to time, the more that feeling grew.

As it turned out, Jun had once been a righteous cultivator.

He had not belonged to one sect for long either. He had started by joining a branch of the Soaring Sword Sect centuries ago, but he left when he was still only an inner disciple.

After that, Jun moved from one Guardian sect to another, always under different names.

He did it to get his hands on their knowledge.

Chen Ren wondered how the security of the Guardian sects had been so lax, but Jun must have had ways to get around it. More than that, he had not been spying for another sect, which probably made him harder to detect. He joined, learned, stayed for decades, and then left when he grew bored or had nothing more to gain.

Then he moved to the next one.

By the time he was done, he had built an absurdly solid foundation.

When Jun finally revealed everything during a tournament in the capital which he won, he was regarded as a once-in-a-millennium genius. The Guardian sects were furious, of course. But before they could do anything to him, the emperor himself pardoned Jun and asked him to work for the imperial family.

Jun accepted.

For centuries, his name was spoken everywhere in the empire. He became one of the brightest geniuses of his era, someone praised by cultivators, nobles, and imperial officials alike.

Then, one day, he suddenly had a falling out with the emperor.

From that moment on, a black mark was placed on his name. The imperial family did everything it could to make sure Jun would no longer be remembered as a genius. His achievements were buried, his name was avoided, and the stories that remained slowly turned him into something far darker.

When they reached that part of the story, Chen Ren looked between Qing He and Princess Yanyue.

“What did Jun even do to the emperor?”

Princess Yanyue lowered her head slightly. “He tried to assassinate him.”

Chen Ren’s eyebrow shot up. “He tried to kill the emperor?”

Qing He nodded. “Yes. The emperor had started trusting him enough to let him come close. Then Jun tried to kill him, hoping to seize the throne for himself so he would have the power to do whatever he wanted.”

Qing He paused before continuing.

“But it obviously failed. Jun was chased out by every strong cultivator in the capital, and the whole thing was a mess for months after that. He laid low for a while, but the next time he returned, he was the Demon Sword.”

Chen Ren frowned. “So he sold himself to the demonic path sometime after that. He was not one when he tried to assassinate the emperor.”

“That was always the strange thing about the Demon Sword,” Princess Yanyue said. “No one could guess why he turned on the man who had given him so much. In the end, he was definitely not a demonic cultivator from the start. He only became one later, probably to create more havoc around the empire after losing everything he had.”

Chen Ren went quiet at that.

He thought through her words carefully. If Jun had fallen out with the emperor and wanted some way to take revenge, then turning into a demonic cultivator made sense. A righteous cultivator could be hated, but a demonic cultivator would be feared. And if Jun wanted the empire to remember him as something terrifying, then the demonic path would have given him exactly that.

Honestly, Chen Ren had never thought there was too much of a difference between righteous and demonic cultivators.

Both sides were fully capable of annihilating an entire town on a whim if they wanted to. Their techniques were different, and demonic cultivators had dantians that produced demonic qi, which was more aggressive and powerful than normal qi. But other than making the cultivator a little more violent, Chen Ren did not think it changed much else.

Jun was also smart.

If there was any serious disadvantage to demonic cultivation, he would not have taken that path. After all, he had already been such a genius that the emperor wanted him at his side. A man like that did not need to turn to demonic cultivation just to gain more power.

It would have only been a matter of time before he reached greater heights on his own. That made the question even harder to answer.

Why had Jun betrayed the emperor?

Princess Yanyue seemed to be thinking the same thing. If even she did not know the truth, then it would be difficult for anyone else to know it either.

In the end, Qing He was the one who spoke.

“You want to know why Jun did what he did?”

Both Chen Ren and Princess Yanyue looked at her.

The princess blinked. “I thought no one knew.”

“No one knows for certain,” Qing He said. “There are still many rumours and theories. But there is one I believe suits Jun’s personality the most.”

“What is it?” he asked.

Qing He turned toward him, and her expression grew serious.

“Cultivators always chase greater heights,” she said. “You know that, right?”

Chen Ren nodded.

“Then it could simply be that Jun realised he could not keep climbing. He reached a point where the road ahead was blocked, and that made him feel trapped. If even the emperor could not give him a way forward, then perhaps he lost his mind enough to attack him.”

Chen Ren paused. His thoughts connected in a matter of seconds. Jun’s obsession with the medallion. Yuren’s diary. The Gates of Immortal. The restrictions placed on their world.

All of it clicked together at once.

As it turned out, Jun was not chasing the medallion for nothing.

He was trying to ascend further.

And if opening the Gates of Immortal was the only way to do that, then there was a good chance he would do it even if it destroyed the world.

***

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