"Good sir, please take all the gold and silver and jewels—just spare this lowly one's life. I have an eighty-year-old mother at home and a nursing child. I beg of you, have mercy." The carriage owner pleaded desperately, seemingly unsure whether to count Andy among the bandits as well. But he had heard clearly enough that Andy had frightened off those seven or eight robbers—and if a whole gang of bandits had turned tail and fled, he himself had no hope of resistance whatsoever. Having worked this out, he kept both knees pressed to the ground, not daring even to lift his head, and continued begging without pause.
"Get up. I have questions for you." Andy's brow creased slightly—he was not accustomed to speaking to someone on their knees.
"This lowly one will answer every question truthfully, but please allow me to remain kneeling with my head down. That way I won't see your face, and you'll have no need to silence me."
The man was quick-witted. Andy found nothing to fault in his reasoning.
"Very well. Stay as you are. Tell me—where did you get these things?"
"This lowly one stumbled upon an ancient tomb, thousands of years old by the look of it. All these jewels and treasures came from inside. I was overcome by greed and took the lot."
"An ancient tomb. Where is it? And does anyone else know of this?"
"No one else knows, my lord—only myself. The tomb is in the hills eighty li north of Xuanyuan City, on a stretch of desolate mountain. Specifically, it is at…" The carriage owner dared not conceal anything and gave a full account of how he had discovered the tomb—but even as he spoke, a cold dread crept over him. I just said no one else knows. That was a terrible mistake. What if he wants to keep it secret and decides to silence me precisely because of that?
"By your account, the tomb is genuinely well hidden. You would never have found it if not for sheer chance." Andy had heard the man out and found himself mostly convinced. But given the mysterious origins of the little bowl, he naturally wanted to press for as clear a picture as possible. Unfortunately, his cultivation was still too low for him to attempt a Soul Search—once he reached the tenth layer of Qi Refinement and above, he would be able to cast that technique and settle the truth of the matter with ease.
To avoid drawing too much attention to the bowl, Andy picked out a few other pieces of jewelry and jade from the scattered goods and said: "As payment for saving your life just now, I'll be taking these. The rest is yours to keep. I trust you won't be spreading word of this tomb to anyone?"
"I thank the great sir for saving my life, and for your mercy in sparing it! I would never dare, my lord—I am no fool. The more people who know of this tomb, the less safe my family becomes. I have told no one, not even my own parents, wife, or children. Besides, every last treasure from inside is right here before you—I want nothing more to do with that tomb, ever." The carriage owner seemed to sense that Andy was particularly concerned about the tomb, and made every effort to reassure him. He had originally intended to transport the goods home and enjoy them at his leisure, but now his mind was made up: once he survived this ordeal, he would find some hidden place known only to himself and stow the remaining valuables away, drawing on them little by little as the need arose.
"Very well. Farewell." Andy climbed back into his own carriage and drove off. The kneeling man waited until the carriage was a good dozen-odd zhang away before slowly raising his head and getting to his feet.
……
Apart from the mysterious little bowl, everything else had been ordinary worldly goods—gold, silver, jewels—with no other objects bearing the ancient characters from his past life. None of it was of any interest to Andy. The question of why the tomb's owner had come to possess a little bowl inscribed with the characters for "heaven and earth" was worth turning over in his mind, but the most likely explanation was simply coincidence—it had found its way among ordinary burial goods by chance, collected by the tomb's owner and interred alongside them.
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Still, Andy felt that if he ever happened to pass through Xuanyuan City again, it might be worth paying the tomb a visit—though there was every possibility it was already empty, just as the carriage owner had said.
Seated in the carriage, Andy kept his expression calm as his hand rested over the beast-hide pouch at his chest, feeling the outline of the mysterious little bowl within. Inside, however, his thoughts were far from still.
If his memory served him, he had seen this bowl once before—in his past life. He had come across an illustrated compendium of ancient curiosities, a book of strange and obscure lore, and among its entries on remarkable relics of antiquity, there had been a drawing of a small bowl that matched this one. That was why the moment he laid eyes on it, something had felt familiar.
He had examined it carefully. The bowl in his pouch was not bronze—what material it actually was, or whether it was metal at all, he could not say with certainty. It felt unlike any metal or wood he knew, and gave the impression of something wholly natural, as if it had simply come into being that way. The lid lifted easily. Inside, it was empty. Andy noticed that the interior was perfectly smooth, with no ancient characters or inscribed patterns of any kind.
Was this something cultivators used, or an object from the mortal world? He tried channeling a thread of spiritual power into the bowl—and felt it vanish instantly, like a stone dropped into a vast ocean, disappearing without a trace. He cut off the flow at once in alarm. If this was a cultivator's artifact, it was clearly something beyond his current ability to use. Could I really have stumbled onto a spirit treasure? Can this actually be one of those spirit treasures that only Core Formation cultivators can forge and wield?
Strictly speaking, a spirit treasure was a category of high-grade magical artifact—but the materials required to forge one, and the spiritual power required to use one, were of an entirely different order. Only cultivators at Core Formation and above could possess and employ them. Spirit treasures also had one defining characteristic that set them apart: they could recognize their owner, becoming a cultivator's life-bound treasure, linked to their very mind and spirit. Andy knew all of this from texts he had read. What an actual spirit treasure looked like in person, he had no idea whatsoever.
……
Andy drove the carriage himself for the next several days before finally arriving at Luan City. Compared to the imposing grandeur of Xuanyuan City, calling Luan City a city was something of a stretch—it was more accurately described as a small town. To the north of Luan City rose the Liuyun Mountains, stretching over three thousand li. Liuyun Market lay somewhere within them.
About two hours after leaving through Luan City's north gate, the carriage reached a village at the foot of the mountains—a sparse settlement of perhaps a hundred households. Beyond the village lay nothing but mountain paths; the carriage could go no further. Andy climbed down and decided to ask an elderly farmer working in the fields nearby about conditions in the mountains.
He knew from the texts he had read roughly where in the Liuyun Mountains the market was located, but the range was vast, and actually finding the entrance could easily take a great deal of time and effort. Asking another cultivator would of course have been ideal—but after several passes with the Spiritual Eye Art, Andy had confirmed that there were no other cultivators in this village. He would have to make do with questioning some of the older locals.
Generally speaking, to prevent ordinary mortals and wild animals from wandering into places frequented by cultivators, various restrictions and barriers were set in place wherever there was any chance of such intrusion. The perpetual dense fog of the Nanhua Mountain valley was one example—a barrier laid by the Jian clan to keep mortals out. Anyone bold enough to venture into the mist would immediately lose all sense of direction, and after wandering for a time would inevitably find themselves back at the outer edge of the fog. If local folk who regularly went into the mountains happened to be aware of such unusual spots, those spots were very likely to be where cultivators could be found.
Sure enough, the old farmer mentioned a peculiar place he had come across in the mountains. As he told it, he had gone there more than once, always drawn in by what sounded like the roar of a waterfall. But each time he drew close, there was nothing to see but ordinary green hills and trees. He had spent the better part of a day searching the area without ever finding where the waterfall sound was coming from.
Andy asked the old man for the precise location of this mysterious "waterfall." It was not far from the position the texts had marked for Liuyun Market. Could the waterfall be the entrance to the market? He decided to go and investigate. Since the carriage was now useless, he gave it to the old farmer on the spot.
The old man had answered a few casual questions and found himself rewarded with four horses and a carriage. He was so stunned he couldn't find words for quite some time. He didn't dare actually make use of the horses and carriage, tending to them carefully and keeping them in good order—half-expecting that young wealthy gentleman to come back one day and ask for them. Only when another two years had passed with no sign of him did the old farmer finally allow himself to think of them as his own, and distributed them among his children and grandchildren.