The forest road dropped into a silence so total that the rustle of falling yellow pine needles sounded like rattling parchment. Across the limestone clearing, sixty Red-Scar Bandits remained firmly pinned to tree trunks and weathered boulders, their sleeves and trouser cuffs impaled by two hundred and forty barbed iron arrows. Not a single drop of blood stained the gravel path. But none of the outlaws dared twitch an eyelid, scared that any sudden movement might provoke the huge black glass wolves standing guard beneath the canopy.
Patriarch Lu Feng remained frozen on his hands and knees beside the heavy hardwood wheel of his lead wagon. His silk robes, stitched with the silver scales of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, were covered in yellow grit. In fifty years of crossing the trade roads between the southern merchant cities and the royal commanderies, he had negotiated with cutthroat tax collectors, bribed greedy outer sect elders. Then he fled from blood-maddened beasts.
Never in his wildest nightmares had he witnessed an ambush conclude in such a fashion.
He stared at his chief bodyguard. Captain Zhao, who only moments earlier had been writhing in painful torment from black scorpion venom, was now standing upright. The veteran soldier touched his calf with calloused fingers, blinking at the healthy bronze flesh where weeping black sores had festered breaths before.
Before Lu Feng could retrieve his fallen counting frame, a gentle, rubbery sound approached across the gravel.
Squelch. Boing. Squelch.
A two-foot-wide sphere of semi-clear sapphire jelly rolled to a gentle halt three paces in front of the merchant patriarch. Inside the azure orb, specks of golden starlight swirled lazily, revolving around a calm center. Two curved white line-marks formed upon the surface, crinkling into what appeared to be an extremely cheerful, kind smile.
Lu Feng’s breath caught in his throat. His knees refused to straighten, his forehead pressing instinctively toward the limestone dust. In the training world, strange entities possessing deep supernatural power were invariably ancient eccentrics who skinned trespassers for minor breaches of etiquette.
“M-Mercy, Venerable Senior!” Lu Feng quavered, his voice thin as a thread. “This humble merchant is Lu Feng of the Hundred Treasures Guild! We meant no offense by crossing the southern fringe! We sought only to bypass the extortionate tolls of the border defile! If our presence has disturbed Your Eminence’s seclusion, take the wagons, take the iron, take our gold—only spare the lives of my wagon drivers!”
“Uncle, please get off the dirt,” a clear, youthful voice rang directly inside Lu Feng’s mindscape. It carried the refreshing warmth of spring rain washing over sunlit river stones. “You’re going to ruin that lovely stitched silk coat. Besides, nobody is taking your wagons. Highway robbery is terrible for regional commerce.”
Lu Feng blinked, his eyelids fluttering. Slowly, cautiously, he raised his head.
The blue sphere had not transformed into a multi-headed demon beast or an ancient daoist in floating sky silks. It simply sat there, wobbling gently in the mountain breeze. A small, semi-clear blue slime arm extended from its upper flank. It held a palm-sized package neatly wrapped in fresh, aromatic green lotus leaf.
The leaf unfolded on its own, revealing a golden, steaming roasted mountain sweet potato. The sugary skin was split down the middle, caramelized juices bubbling with faint golden spiritual soft glow.
“You look terribly pale,” Lin Xiao’s mental signal continued, sounding genuinely sympathetic. “Your pulse is fluttering and your stomach has been rumbling for ten minutes. Fighting off outlaws on an empty belly is awful for the digestion. Here, have a roasted yam. It’s freshly dug from our terraced gardens this morning.”
Patriarch Lu Feng stared at the roasted yam. His merchant brain, usually calculating profit margins and currency weights at lightning speed, ground to a complete dead halt.
He was being offered warm street food by a talking blue puddle of jelly that had just swallowed a storm of iron javelins.
“I... I...” Lu Feng looked between the steaming sweet potato and the huge shadow wolf king standing ten paces away.
Xiao Hei was currently resting on his haunches. His ruby eyes watched the scene with calm dignity. Even so, his coal-black tail gave a single, quiet thump against the turf whenever Lin Xiao spoke.
“Take it, Elder Lu,” Captain Zhao whispered hoarsely. He stepped forward and bowing from the waist with total respectful awe. “The Grand Sovereign has just cleared the lethal venom from my veins with a single touch. There’s no deceit here. Only supreme heavenly benevolence.”
Trembling, Lu Feng reached out with both hands and accepted the lotus leaf. The warmth seeped through the leaf into his frozen palms, instantly easing the painful tension in his forearms. Compelled by reflex and overwhelming tiredness, he raised the yam to his lips. Then he took a small, hesitant bite.
The flavor blossomed across his tongue. It was velvety, naturally sweet, and free of any bitter grit. More remarkably, the moment the warm morsel slid down his gullet, a gentle wave of warm life-force radiated into his chest. The heavy, choking constriction around his lungs—the lingering leftover piece of an old cold-iron wound sustained thirty years ago in the border wars—dissolved like morning mist under a clear sun.
Lu Feng gasped, his eyes widening to the size of tea saucers. He took a second bite, then a third, chewing rapidly as warmth flooded his stiff joints and cleared his clouded eyesight.
“Vital signs steadied, Host,” the Dao Spirit’s sweet-sounding voice echoed coolly in Lin Xiao’s core. “The subject’s raised stress poison levels have dropped by seventy-four percent. Blood tension normalized. Gastronomic diplomacy continues to display an exceptional success rate across all organic species.”
Lin Xiao felt rather pleased with himself. Nothing brought people back to reality quite like good hot food. In his past life, every tense business meeting always went smoother once the lunch platters were brought into the conference room. Fighters might spend hundreds of years thinking about the eternal void. But their stomachs still ran on basic biology.
“How is it?” Lin Xiao asked warmly. “The soil in our southern valley has a high stone balance. The sweet potatoes come out with a natural honey glaze if you roast them over fruitwood coals.”
Lu Feng swallowed the last sweet bite, wiping his mouth with a trembling sleeve. He dropped to his knees once more, but this time his stance held no terror. Only the deep, humbled respect of a mortal who had touched the hem of true divinity.
“Heavenly Sovereign... Grand Master...” Lu Feng choked out, his voice thick with emotion. “This old merchant has wandered the five continents for half a century. I have met sect masters who demanded whole carts of spirit jade just to grant an audience, and local judges who would flay an honest carter for five copper coins. Never have I met an immortal who offers warm food to a stranger in the dust.”
“Oh, please don’t call me an immortal,” Lin Xiao chuckled, his blue body jiggling. “I’m just Lin Xiao. Around here, folks usually call me the Sanctuary Master or Lord Xiao. And as you can see, I’m quite round and rather squishy.”
Lu Feng looked at the sixty bandits still dangling from the pines. “And... And these men, Lord Xiao? What shall be done with them? The Red-Scar Bandits have raided the southern passes for years. Usually, captured brigands are either decapitated on the roadside or sold into the demonic salt mines.”
Lin Xiao glanced at the dangling scarecrows. The bandit chieftain was weeping quietly into his beard, his bladder having given out twenty minutes ago.
“Killing people makes a terrible mess of the highway,” Lin Xiao said with a light sigh. “And blood attracts corpse-flies, which ruin the wild berry patches. Xiao Hei, have your pack strip their weapons and cut down their belts. Confiscate their stolen coin bags for the wagon drivers’ medical expenses, then march them twenty miles south toward the border guard posts. If they ever show their faces near our valley again, tell them Tie Shan needs new laborers to dig septic trenches for the lower latrines.”
Xiao Hei let out a low, rumbling growl that shook the tree branches. “By your divine will, Sovereign.”
With swift, terrifying smooth speed, the six shadow wolves bounded through the clearing. Their claws cut the cloth bindings without touching skin, dropping the trembling bandits into the dirt. Stripped of their weapons, armor, and boots, the outlaws scrambled south on all fours, crying prayers of deliverance as they sprinted toward great realm as fast as their bare feet could carry them.
Captain Zhao and the twenty caravan guards watched the outlaws vanish into the dust, fully dumbfounded. Sixty hardened killers had been routed, disarmed, and expelled without a single casualty.
Lu Feng turned back toward Lin Xiao, his sharp merchant instincts reawakening through the haze of shock. He looked past the blue slime toward the overgrown forest path behind him. Deep within the tree line, he caught glimpses of smooth river-slate roadways, distant wooden watchtowers, and tidy timber dwellings framed by the amazing boughs of an ancient spirit willow.
“Lord Xiao,” Lu Feng began, choosing his words with huge care, “you spoke of a safe hall? In the royal records, this southern forest is chosen as an untamed wasteland inhabited solely by bloodthirsty fiends.”
“Office maps are always twenty years out of date,” Lin Xiao replied, bouncing lightly on the balls of his jelly-like base. “This is the Myriad Spirit Safe hall. We have about a thousand residents now—foxfolk, earth-bears, shadow wolves, river otters, and various spirits. We farm grain, brew wine, forge tools, and enjoy the hot springs.”
Lin Xiao hopped onto the rim of Lu Feng’s lead wagon, peering into the cargo bed. His curved eyes brightened as he examined the tightly bound wooden crates.
“Heavy iron metal bars, refined hard coal forging coal, stacks of white mulberry paper, and... Oh, are those tea seeds?” Lin Xiao sniffed the air, detecting the crisp, tannic aroma of dried southern tea leaves. “Our blacksmith, Tie Shan, has been complaining for weeks that mountain bog iron is too brittle for plowshares. And our foxes have been wanting proper paper to write down their herbal recipes. You brought wonderful goods, Patriarch Lu.”
Lu Feng felt a thrill run down his spine. The panic that had gripped him throughout the morning was entirely supplanted by the clear scent of a never seen before commercial breakthrough.
A hidden valley of a thousand peaceful beastfolk, ruled by an enlightened, sovereign entity of boundless power, possessing clean spiritual land and an appetite for made human goods.
“Lord Xiao,” Lu Feng said, his merchant voice regaining its characteristic warmth and poise, “if the Safe hall has need of iron, coal, and paper, the Hundred Treasures Guild would consider it the greatest honor under heaven to provide them. But my men are weary, our oxen are winded, and two wagons have cracked their axles on the mountain rocks.”
“Then what are we standing in the dust for?” Lin Xiao laughed, hopping off the wagon and turning toward the emerald forest trail. “Come into the valley. We have spacious guest pavilions, clean spring water for your men, sweet clover for the oxen, and plenty of hot stew. Let’s get your wagons patched up, uncork a jar of wine, and talk business like civilized folks.”
Patriarch Lu Feng bowed deeply once more, a brilliant, genuine smile spreading across his face.
“Lead the way, Lord Xiao,” the merchant patriarch replied. “The Hundred Treasures Guild follows your banner.”