Gu An rushed back to the inn, cursing inwardly the whole way. He had only bought some Blood Moon Eels, yet he had to take such a huge risk.
What rotten luck!
After hesitating for a moment, he felt that no one else knew about this matter, and the black-clothed stall owner probably wouldn’t be insane enough to talk about it. In the end, he didn’t throw away the Image-Retaining Stone and hid it at the very bottom of his Storage Bag.
The Yun Kingdom Small Gathering would last for half a month.
The next day, Gu An composed himself and decided not to bother with it anymore.
I won’t provoke you anymore, isn’t that enough?
Gu An strolled all the way to the West Market and stopped in front of a stall. Seeing that this female stall owner was also selling Spirit Rice, he wanted to buy some Spirit Bran from her.
This female cultivator’s Spirit Bran was of poor quality, but her price was high-she wanted to sell two hundred and fifty jin for three spirit stones.
Two hundred and fifty jin of bran, and she wanted a complete idiot to buy it. Did he look the part? Gu An was silently cursing her greed when a commotion rose in the distance.
Not wanting to waste more words with this female cultivator, Gu An got up and left to see what the fuss was about and clear his mind.
When he got closer, Gu An realized that one of the people arguing was someone he knew-his fellow Senior Brother, Han Geng.
The other was a middle-aged woman, spraying spittle as she argued. An unwelcome memory surged back, and Gu An recoiled inwardly.
It reminded him, uncomfortably, of the woman who had tried to release a tortoise into the sea in his previous life.
“Pfft, what bad luck. I’d better skip this spectacle.” Gu An muttered to himself and turned around to leave.
Just then, a voice rang out, freezing Gu An in place. It was Han Geng, who had spotted Gu An and shouted loudly with bright eyes.
“Junior Brother Gu, settle this for us! Martial Uncle Wang inspected this Tu Clan Wine Manual himself. How can she claim it belongs to her?”
Huh?
Be the judge?
Me?
Gu An groaned inwardly. Why ask him? He was no judge.
“I’ve just remembered my laundry, Senior Brother Han. I left it hanging out. Carry on without me!”
Without looking back, Gu An threw out these words and quickened his pace to leave.
Han Geng caught his sleeve before he could escape. “Come on, Junior Brother Gu. We’re fellow disciples. Help me out,” he pleaded with a smile.
As he spoke, he dragged Gu An toward the center of the crowd.
He had come to watch a spectacle, not to become one!
Unfortunately, no one cared about Gu An’s inner cries.
Reluctantly pulled to the center of the crowd, Gu An looked at Han Geng and the middle-aged female cultivator, feeling quite displeased.
Neither of them is any good!
Han Geng was not to be outdone and retorted loudly, “You’ve already married out. What does the Tu family’s property have to do with you?”
“I’m the only cultivator left alive in the Tu family. Of course, the Tu family’s things belong to me.”
“Bullshit! Martial Uncle Wang knows I took the manual. You’re part of the Zhu family now. Do you even know where the Tu family lives?”
“Don’t try to intimidate me. Who knows if you made that up? My son is also a disciple of the Qingyuan Sect, so I’m not afraid of you.”
…
Listening to the two of them arguing more and more fiercely, Gu An roughly understood what was going on.
Han Geng, stationed in Yellow Wind Commandery, had been first to reach the ruined Tu estate. He had found the clan’s wine-making manual on a jade slip and brought it to the Yun Kingdom gathering to sell.
But a daughter of the Tu family, now married into the Zhu family, had recognized it. She wanted the manual for herself.
Spirit wine brewing was one of the Hundred Arts of Cultivation. It might rank below alchemy, artifact crafting, formations, and talismans, but a manual of its methods was no trifle.
This one Spirit Wine inheritance could support a small family!
Both had an argument, and neither would yield. Han Geng possessed the manual with the sect’s knowledge, but he had no connection to the Tu family.
With the clan presumed wiped out, no one had challenged his right to the find. Now a surviving daughter had appeared, and the Qingyuan Sect could not risk being seen to seize a subordinate family’s inheritance.
Her claim was hardly clear-cut either. Her parents were mortals, and the Tu family had considered her poor aptitude a drain on its resources. They had sold her to the Zhu family as a child bride. Blood ties aside, she had little connection to the Tus, making it difficult to insist the manual belonged to her.
As the saying goes, even an honest official finds it hard to settle family disputes, let alone Gu An, who was muddle-headed. It was better to slip away while they were still arguing fiercely!
As if things weren’t bad enough…
“Junior Brother Gu, you be the judge.”
It turned out that Han Geng was losing the argument and urgently sought Gu An’s help.
“My son is also in the Qingyuan Sect. You can’t take his side.” The middle-aged female cultivator pressed her advantage and shot Gu An a vicious glare as a warning.
“Uh, well, this… I think you could copy the jade slip and each take one copy.” Gu An racked his brains and had a flash of inspiration.
“No way!” The two retorted in unison.
Han Geng wanted to sell the manual. Give her a copy, and who would buy his? Even if he found a buyer, the price would plummet. Why should he accept that? Martial Uncle Wang had personally examined it.
The middle-aged female cultivator was also unhappy. Her son was cultivating at the Qingyuan Sect and was very short on spirit stones. She didn’t want to share a single Spirit Stone.
“Fine, fine, fine. You two disagree on everything when arguing, but you’re unanimous in opposing my suggestion, aren’t you?”
Gu An roared angrily, his face darkening as he flicked his sleeves and left.
This time, no one stopped him. Han Geng was resentful that Gu An hadn’t spoken up for him, and the middle-aged female cultivator was happy to see him go, afraid he might help Han Geng.
Once safely away, Gu An relaxed, privately pleased with himself. A little ingenuity, and he was free of those two bastards.
He had planned it all. Han Geng had dragged him in, assuming he would take his side. Who did Han Geng think he was?
Fellow disciple? What kind of fellow disciple are you?
Did they even know each other?
Pfft!
Daoist Gu could not tolerate moral blackmail.
So he deliberately proposed a suggestion that Han Geng couldn’t accept, just to get away.
But thinking about it still made him angry. He wasn’t close to Han Geng at all, yet Han Geng had dragged him into this. How infuriating! And that female cultivator had dared to threaten him. Truly detestable!
Did they think he was a pushover?
Their day would come. Fortunes changed—and when he got home, he was going to make those Black Spirit Fish work harder!
Gu An thought with no small amount of malice.
…
Just after Gu An had walked far away, the Yun family saw that the commotion had grown too big and involved the Qingyuan Sect. They quickly called out the Foundation Establishment cultivator, Yun Feilan.
Yun Feilan didn’t even show his face. A flying sword flew out from Tianyun Garden and hovered directly above the two people’s heads.
The sword body glinted with a cold light under the sunlight, dazzling the eyes.
A voice then exploded.
“Get out and argue.”
The two’s expressions changed. They hadn’t expected Flying Cloud Sword to show so little respect for the Qingyuan Sect.
Han Geng was more sensible and slunk out of the West Market immediately.
The woman failed to take the hint. She seemed to believe her son’s place in the Qingyuan Sect would carry weight even with a Foundation Establishment cultivator. She tried to argue for the manual once more.
With a soft whoosh, the flying sword descended, and a large, fat ear flew up.
“Ah!” The middle-aged female cultivator screamed and fell backward, fainting from the pain.
If one looked closely, they would see fine golden threads flickering at the root of her ear, burrowing through the flesh and blood.
A middle-aged man finally pushed through the crowd. Grim-faced, he hoisted the woman onto his back and carried her away, not daring to say a word.
If Gu An had been there, he would have recognized this middle-aged male cultivator as the one who had bought the Black-Pattern Iron earlier.
And so, this farce came to a temporary end.