The spirit grass Bai Ruyue had given him lasted three days.
Lu Chen rationed it carefully, brewing thin teas in the dead of night and cycling the diluted qi through his meridians during the hours when the compound was darkest and quietest.
It was not enough.
Qi Gathering Stage 2 cultivation required a steady intake of spiritual herbs to maintain the energy density in his dantian, and a single bundle of common spirit grass could not sustain the accelerated growth rate that the Chaos Origin Pearl demanded.
By the fourth morning, his cultivation progress had stalled.
[Cultivation status: Stagnant.]
[Qi Gathering Stage 2 consolidation: 41% (unchanged for 72 hours).]
[Cause: Insufficient spiritual resource intake.]
[Recommendation: Secure alternative herb supply within 10 days or risk meridian regression.]
Meridian regression.
The words sat in Lu Chen’s mind like a stone in his stomach.
If his meridians began to contract from lack of nourishment, the three years of careful cultivation he had hidden from the world would unravel in weeks.
He needed a solution.
He needed it fast.
And the Han Family had made sure there was none to be found in Cloudmist City.
Mo Lin arrived at the Lu Family compound shortly after noon, slipping through the back gate with the practiced ease of someone who had been doing it since childhood.
He was sixteen, the same age as Lu Chen, and he was the second son of the Mo Family patriarch, which made him either a minor noble or a major nuisance depending on who was asked.
He was lean and quick, with sharp eyes and quicker hands, and his Qi Gathering Stage 3 cultivation was unremarkable by kingdom standards but respectable for a frontier merchant’s son.
His real talent was not cultivation.
It was information.
I’ve been to every market stall, every back-alley trader, and every traveling merchant camp within twenty li of the city, Mo Lin said, dropping onto the bench in the practice yard and wiping sweat from his forehead.
The Han Family bought them all out.
All of them?
Lu Chen asked.
Every single one.
Mo Lin pulled a folded piece of paper from his sleeve and spread it on the bench between them.
It was a hand-drawn map of Cloudmist City’s trade routes, annotated with Mo Lin’s cramped, meticulous handwriting.
Red ink marked every herb supplier that had been acquired by the Han Family in the past week.
The map was almost entirely red.
They paid triple market price, Mo Lin said, tapping the red marks.
Triple.
No merchant in their right mind would refuse that kind of money.
They’re not trying to make a profit.
They’re trying to starve you out.
Lu Chen studied the map in silence.
The Han Family’s economic strategy was crude but effective.
By monopolizing the city’s entire herb supply, they could cut off the Lu Clan’s cultivation resources without throwing a single punch.
No herbs meant no medicine for Lu Yuan’s qi deficiency.
No medicine meant Lu Yuan’s health would deteriorate.
And a sick clan patriarch was a clan patriarch who could not lead.
How long until Elder Lu Mu’s stores run dry?
Mo Lin asked quietly.
Lu Chen did not answer immediately.
He was thinking about the underground cavern, where the qi density was ten times the surface and the air itself could substitute for low-grade herbs.
But he could not tell Mo Lin about the cavern.
Not yet.
Ten days, Lu Chen said.
Maybe twelve if we ration.
Mo Lin’s jaw tightened.
I have an idea.
He tapped a small blue circle on the far edge of the map, well outside the city walls, near the base of the Mistfall Mountains.
There’s a traveling merchant caravan that passes through the western mountain pass every two weeks.
They come from the Blackstone interior and they carry mid-grade herbs that the Han Family hasn’t bothered to buy because the prices are too high for the local market.
Can you reach them?
I can try.
Mo Lin folded the map and tucked it back into his sleeve.
But I’ll need spirit stones for the purchase, and your family’s treasury is .
Empty, Lu Chen finished.
I was going to say ‘strained.’
It’s empty, Mo Lin.
We both know it.
Mo Lin sighed.
I’ll front the cost from my personal savings.
Consider it an investment.
Lu Chen looked at him.
Why?
Mo Lin met his gaze with an expression that was unusually serious for a boy who usually treated everything as a negotiation.
Because you cracked Han Yuze’s saber with your bare fist, and anyone who can do that is worth betting on.
He stood and brushed the dust from his merchant’s robes.
I leave for the mountain pass tomorrow morning.
I’ll be back in three days.
Be careful, Lu Chen said.
The Han Family has scouts on the western road.
Mo Lin grinned.
I’m a merchant’s son, Lu Chen.
Avoiding scouts is what I do best.
He slipped out through the back gate and vanished into the mist.
[Trade intelligence acquired.]
[New supply route identified: Western mountain pass caravan.]
[Family Luck Points: +5.]
[Current total: 160/100 base.]
[Note: Luck gain triggered by ally initiative and resource diversification.]
Lu Chen watched the gate close behind his friend and felt a flicker of something warm in his chest that had nothing to do with cultivation.
That night, Lu Chen woke to the sound of footsteps outside his door.
They were soft, deliberate, and far too controlled to belong to a mortal servant.
He lay still and slowed his breathing, letting his Qi Gathering Stage 2 senses extend through the wooden door and into the hallway beyond.
Elder Lu Mu stood outside his room.
The medicine elder’s qi presence was faint but unmistakable, a thin, careful thread of Foundation Establishment Stage 4 energy that probed the air around Lu Chen’s door like a physician’s fingers pressing against a patient’s wrist.
Lu Chen’s blood went cold.
The Cloudmist Jade Pendant suppressed his aura to Body Tempering Stage 3, but Elder Lu Mu was not scanning his aura.
He was scanning his meridians.
The old man’s medical qi slipped through the gap beneath the door and brushed against Lu Chen’s body with the gentlest possible touch, tracing the pathways of his twelve primary meridians and the eight extraordinary vessels.
Lu Chen clenched his teeth and forced his qi into stillness.
He could not let Elder Lu Mu feel the Qi Gathering energy.
He compressed every drop of it into the Chaos Origin Pearl and held his breath.
The medical probe lingered for ten heartbeats.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then it withdrew.
Elder Lu Mu’s footsteps retreated down the hallway, slow and thoughtful, and a moment later the medicine room door creaked open and closed.
Lu Chen exhaled.
His shirt was soaked with sweat.
[Alert: Internal clan surveillance detected.]
[Scanner: Elder Lu Mu, Medicine Elder.]
[Realm: Foundation Establishment Stage 4.]
[Scan target: Host’s meridian network and seal integrity.]
[Result: Pendant suppression held.
True realm concealed.]
[Warning: Elder Lu Mu detected minor seal fluctuation during scan.]
[Fluctuation source: Chaos Origin Pearl residual energy leak.]
[Risk assessment: Low for now.
Repeated scans may compromise concealment.]
Lu Chen stared at the ceiling in the darkness.
Elder Lu Mu was checking his seal.
Not his cultivation.
His seal.
The old man knew about the Ninefold Chaos Suppression Seal.
He knew it was there, he knew it was fluctuating, and he was monitoring it in secret, in the dead of night, without telling anyone.
Including Lu Chen.
The question was why.
And the answer, Lu Chen suspected, was buried in the same underground cavern that Elder Lu Han had been seen walking out of four days ago.
The Lu Family was hiding something from him.
Something enormous.
Something that involved ancient seals, underground passages, and medicine elders who checked his body while he slept.
Lu Chen closed his eyes and pulled the Chaos Origin Pearl’s energy tighter around his dantian.
He would find the truth.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he needed to survive.
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