The southern commercial hub of Qianyuan City was enclosed by towering walls of black dark rock, its streets paved with worn river stones and always jammed with mule trains, mercenary guards, and shouting peddlers. The southern gateway connecting the civilized agricultural plains with the untamed mountain frontiers. Then, it was a city that thrived on gossip, trade, and violence.
The sixty hardwood wagons of the Hundred Treasures Guild rumbled back through the city’s southern gate. Then, a stunned hush fell over the crowded thoroughfare.
The city guard post guards, who had taken bets on whether Lu Feng’s caravan would be slaughtered within three days, stood on the low roof walls with their jaws hanging slack. Not only had all sixty wagons returned intact. But the draft oxen were sleek and well-rested, their harnesses polished and free of mud. Even more shocking was the manner of the wagon drivers. The rough wagon drivers and hired blades who normally returned from border expeditions haggard and hollow-eyed were laughing loudly, tossing dried persimmons to street urchins and humming unfamiliar, cheerful folk tunes.
By nightfall, every wine house, tea parlor, and gambling den across Qianyuan City was ablaze with wild rumors.
In the bustling main hall of the Drunken Phoenix Tavern, Chen Er stood atop a heavy wooden bench. He was surrounded by three dozen wide-eyed wagon drivers, guards, and rogue fighters. In his hand, the young wagon driver held an earthen jar filled with jade-tinted balm. It tapped his healed knee with emphatic zeal.
“I swear it upon my ancestors’ graves!” Chen Er shouted, his voice cracking with passion. “Sixty Red-Scar Bandits ambushed us at the yellow pine defile! They loosed two hundred and forty poisoned javelins! And then, from the high heavens, dropped the Divine Azure Patriarch!”
The tavern patrons leaned forward, holding their breath. A rogue fighter in a patched daoist robe squinted suspiciously. “What manner of immortal is this patriarch? An ancient sword master from the Central Plains? A hidden Nascent Soul hermit?”
“He’s an ancient Sovereign of Ancient Chaos!” Chen Er declared, throwing his arms wide in an expansive gesture. “His physical avatar is a flawless orb of purest sky sapphire, glowing with the ancient starlight of creation itself! He doesn’t walk upon the profane dust of this earth. He glides upon clouds of spiritual dew! The two hundred bandits let loose their rain of iron death. Then, the Divine Azure Patriarch merely swelled his sky domain. The arrows stopped dead in the air, reversed their flight by his omnipotent will, and pinned the bandits to the trees by their clothes without spilling a single drop of blood!”
Gasps of superstitious awe rippled through the tavern.
“And his guardians!” Chen Er continued, his eyes shining with fervor. “A Shadow Wolf King twelve feet long, born from the dark void between the stars, who can cleave mountain ridges with a single paw! An Earth-Bear Titan nine arm-lengths tall, possessing an arm forged from living golden marrow, who can lift a mountain with one hand! Yet despite this world-destroying might, the Divine Azure Patriarch is a paragon of supreme saintly benevolence. When Patriarch Lu was fainting from terror, the Patriarch didn’t demand kowtows or sky tribute. He bestowed upon him a sacred golden tuber from the orchards of heaven, dispelling thirty years of hidden illness in three breaths!”
Across the room, veteran caravan guards nodded vigorously, chiming in with their own embellished accounts.
Before long, the stories took on a mythical life of their own. In the taverns, the blue slime had become an ancient deity who had slept for ten thousand years beneath the ancient spirit willow, awakening now to establish a grand commonwealth of harmony, where beasts spoke like scholars and humans were treated as brothers.
Meanwhile, at the main branch of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion, the commercial reality was even more explosive than the tavern myths.
Patriarch Lu Feng had placed twelve flagons of Jade-Dew Spirit Wine on auction, alongside fifty jars of bone-mending salve. Within two hours, the pavilion’s trading floor was in a total frenzy. Wealthy clan patriarchs, merchant princes, and Foundation Establishment elders from local training sects bid against each other with wild desperation.
A flagon of Jade-Dew Wine that Lin Xiao had brewed from wild peaches and spring water ended up selling for six hundred and eighty mid-tier spirit stones. A Foundation Establishment elder who had been stuck at the early bottleneck for fifteen years drank a single cup on the auction floor. Thirty seconds later, his congested spirit veins shattered open with a loud pop, advancing him to mid-Foundation Establishment on the spot. The elder dropped to his knees in the middle of the trade hall, weeping with thanks and shouting praise to the “Divine Azure Patriarch.”
More astonishing was the fate of the Spirit Bamboo Tokens.
Lu Feng’s wagon drivers, who had been paid ten to twenty tokens each for their labor, quickly discovered that local merchant shops and pawn houses were desperate to get them. The tokens were guaranteed by the Hundred Treasures Guild to be redeemable for pure spirit rice. Because of that, and because the ancient deep ring seal proved fully impossible to counterfeit, wealthy families began hoarding the bamboo slips not merely as currency, but as auspicious protective amulets.
Within forty-eight hours, the backup market price of a single Spirit Bamboo Token surged to more than double its grain-equivalent value in silver.
Yet in the Azure Cloud Realm, wealth and divine miracles never failed to attract wolves.
High on the third floor of the Commandery Judge’s Manor, overlooking the lantern-lit streets of Qianyuan City, Magistrate Qian Bo sat behind a massive blackwood desk. He was an obese, greasy-faced man of late Foundation Establishment training, wearing the stitched robes of a royal official. Even so, his fingers were adorned with bone-carved rings that reeked of malignant blood qi.
Standing before the desk was a dark, hooded figure whose face was obscured beneath a cowl of dark crimson silk.
“A Divine Azure Patriarch?” Qian Bo sneered, rolling a pair of polished iron walnuts in his sweaty palm. “A talking blue jelly who cures diseases with roasted yams? The rabble in the taverns are more foolish than pigs. Lu Feng has clearly stumbled upon an uncultivated spiritual vein in the Grand Desolate Forest. Thousands of unbranded beastfolk, ancient fruit orchards, and repositories of sky wine... All protected by a handful of wild animals.”
“Elder Han Gu’s grand ritual needs a huge quantity of spiritual blood and refined souls,” the hooded cultist hissed, his voice sounding like dry scales scraping over slate. “If this hidden valley possesses such packed spiritual life-force, it’s not merely a trading post. It’s an ideal offering fire to nourish the Nine-Ghost Blood Soul Cauldron.”
Magistrate Qian Bo tapped his desk with a heavy iron ring, his eyes gleaming with rapacious greed. “The Grand Desolate Forest lies outside royal turf. Any goods or land seized from wild monsters are legally considered ownerless booty. Mobilize your forward scouts. Infiltrate their border defenses, map their granaries and wine cellars, and locate this so-called ‘Patriarch.’ Once Elder Han Gu marches his beast horde south, we’ll strip that volcano bowl down to the bedrock.”
“It shall be done,” the crimson-hooded cultist whispered, dissolving into a pool of dark blood-mist that slithered beneath the window frame into the night.
***
One hundred miles to the south, beneath the sprawling emerald boughs of the ancient spirit willow, a cool night breeze drifted through the Myriad Spirit Safe hall.
Lin Xiao was resting in a broad cedar basin filled with warm stone water, happily munching on sweet, chilled yellow melon slices. A plate of freshly steamed rice cakes sat on the stone ledge beside him. Meanwhile, Su Ling’er gently brushed out her snowy fox tails under the soft glow of the hanging lanterns.
“Ah, life is good,” Lin Xiao sighed mentally, taking a contented bite of sweet melon. “The river water chutes are running smoothly, Tie Shan is hammering out plowshares, and Lu Feng’s iron has made our construction twice as fast. If things keep going like this, we can build that communal library by next month.”
“Ding.”
A soft, crystal-clear chime echoed in Lin Xiao’s core as the Omniscient Dao Spirit projected its screen.
“Host, territorial monitoring wards in Southern Sector Two have registered a sharp spike in hostile deep ring,” the Dao Spirit reported calmly. “Information scattering from Qianyuan City has started backup geopolitical threat vectors. Sneaking units belonging to the Blood Sea Demonic Sect are currently maneuvering toward our border outer edge.”
Lin Xiao paused mid-chew, his curved eyes blinking in mild frustration.
“Demonic cultists again?” Lin Xiao sighed, letting his blue body sink slightly deeper into the warm water. “We just finished paving the roads and setting up the tea stalls. Why is it that whenever someone sets up a nice, peaceful business, a bunch of gloomy weirdos in blood-robes show up wanting to ruin everyone’s dinner?”
Su Ling’er’s fox ears twitched, her amber eyes narrowing with sharp intelligence. “Master? Has trouble arisen at the border?”
“Nothing to lose sleep over, Ling’er,” Lin Xiao chuckled, bobbing back to the surface with a small splash. “Just some uninvited guests heading toward our bamboo groves. Tell Xiao Hei and the scout patrols not to draw any blades. We have that batch of high-thickness sticky gel we tested last week, don’t we? Let’s prepare a proper forest welcome.”
Su Ling’er’s lips curved into a delightful, mischievous smile as she bowed gracefully. “I shall ready the silk nets right away, Master.”