Jiufeng City wasn’t very far from the Water Cloud Sect, however, Wen Xuan rarely stopped here in the past. Now that he had arrived with investigative intentions, this was the first time he looked so carefully at the city’s scenery and state.
In comparison to the Anfeng City that he just left, Jiufeng city was slightly smaller. The amount of people didn’t decrease though. The streets were similarly bustling with noise and excitement. There were street vendors every two steps, with shopkeepers loudly promoting their wares. There was a sense of liveliness and activity all over. Even at the inn that Wen Xuan passed, there was a waiter grabbing customers at the door and saying: “This cultivator sir, you look like you’re new. Do you need a place to stay for the night? Our Large Gathering Inn has the best suites in the city!”
Wen Xuan felt his interest pique and asked the waiter with a smile: “How do you know I’m new? Are you saying you recognize all of the faces in Jiufeng City?”
“No way, no way. There’s so many people in this city.” The waiter hastily explained: “But for people with such extraordinary presence like you, cultivator sir, I definitely wouldn’t forget.”
Extraordinary presence? Clearly the only difference was perhaps a higher cultivation level, right?
Although Jiufeng City was a spiritual city, the mortals took up most of the population. The number of cultivators entering the city was probably only 30% of the count. In this 30% of cultivators, about 90% were still qi refining. As for foundation building, Wen Xuan only saw a few on his way here. He could count the number with one hand.
At this moment, Wen Xuan was not wearing the disciple uniform of a mystical sword sect. Also he was only foundation building. The waiter most likely thought he was a traveling lone cultivator, no wonder the man was in such a rush to make money.
However, at least this person seemed to have good eyesight. Wen Xuan thought briefly as he took out a few spiritual stones and placed them in the waiter’s hand. After the other happily accepted it, Wen Xuan didn’t mention anything about lodging, instead, he only asked: “Do you know of any family named Jian that lived in this city before?”
“Jian?” The waiter weighed the spiritual stones in his hand: “To be quite honest, the number of people with Jian as a surname, even if there aren’t 100, there’s at least 50.”
Wen Xuan thought for a moment: “They sold spiritual medicine as a business for many generations.”
Holding the spiritual stones without moving, the waiter revealed a thinking expression. A moment later, his expression changed subtly, as if he recalled something. Then his expression turned unsightly.
“They should have had a shop open last year. I think it’s called…… Yunling Shop.” Wen Xuan continued to say.
The waiter instantly looked like he was stung by an insect, and abruptly jumped: “Yunling shop?”
Immediately, he dumped all of the spiritual stones back into Wen Xuan’s hand. After that, he felt rather pained, and snatched the spiritual stones back again, then said with a face full of unease: “Cultivator sir, you you you……why are you looking for this family?”
Wen Xuan saw his strange reaction and felt bewildered: “Because Jian Yi from this family is my good friend so I suddenly feel like coming to visit. Is there something wrong?”
Jian Yi? The waiter instantly jumped again: “That idiot who’s the star of calamity is your good friend?”
These words were rather unpleasant. Wen Xuan furrowed his brows in discontent.
Wen Xuan didn’t have a chance to say anything else when that waiter dumped all of those spiritual stones back into Wen Xuan’s hands again. This time, he was resolute, without any second thoughts or take backs, and completely without the hesitation he had just now: “I don’t know any Yunling shop. I don’t know anyone named Jian Yi. Cultivator sir, please find some other place!”
Saying these, the waiter even backed up two steps, looking like he was afraid he couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. He even stopped trying to pull Wen Xuan in as a customer. If he wasn’t so afraid of Wen Xuan’s foundation building cultivation, he would have directly ushered the other away.
Wen Xuan felt utterly confused by this occurrence, the suspicion in his heart crashing like waves. Nevertheless, since the other didn’t welcome him, he didn’t plan to insist. Jiufeng City was huge anyways. It’s not like he couldn’t ask elsewhere.
Therefore, Wen Xuan continued walking down the streets and alleys. Whenever he found the chance, he’d ask someone by the roadside. However, in the end, after asking around in almost a big circle, there really was no one who was willing to tell him the information he needed. No matter who he asked, the others would either shake their heads and say they didn’t know, or act just like the waiter, and avoid Wen Xuan like the plague, terrified they’d have even the slightest contact.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Just what was going on? Under this rising bewilderment, Wen Xuan had no choice but to abandon honestly admitting that he was acquainted with Jian Yi. Instead, when others asked him why he was searching for the Jian family, he replied rather shamefully: “Two years ago, I ordered some spiritual medicine from Yunling shop. I have some issues with it so I came to take a look.”
After explaining with this pretext, the people he asked finally didn’t run away. Instead, they gave a long sigh: “Problems with your spiritual medicine? If I were you, I’d just order another batch and forget it. It’s better than dealing with that family’s calamity star again.”
“Calamity star?” Wen Xuan’s expression changed: “What do you mean?”
That person first looked around at the surroundings once, like trying to check if anyone was listening to him. Then, he raised a hand and pointed upwards, expressing rather seriously: “That family… offended the Will of Heaven.”
Wen Xuan’s expression instantly changed subtly. For cultivators to defy the natural order of things was a rather common thing. For example, Jian Yi reading the Will of the Heaven was something that offended the Will of the Heaven. But the Will of the Heaven was formless and intangible, mysterious and unexplainable, not something normal people can fathom. Yet the attitudes these Jiufeng city residents had towards the Jian family was blamed on the Will of the Heaven. This seemed rather very unreasonable.
“Don’t be in disbelief.” That person saw Wen Xuan’s expression and said hastily: “I’m warning you out of the goodness of my heart. Anyone and anything related to that family all ends in disaster!”
That was even more unreasonable. He’s never heard of the Will of the Heaven judging by association as well. Wen Xuan asked with a conflicted expression: “How did they offend the Will of Heaven?”
“Who knows.” The other replied without hesitation.
Wen Xuan’s cheek twitched.
This person didn’t plan to say anymore. Shaking his head and then leaving a few more words of persuasion, he walked away in a hurry.
Standing where he was, Wen Xuan gave a silent sigh. Originally he thought Jian Yi’s family background would be as clean and simple as it looked on paper, but who would have thought as soon as he started investigating, it’d be this kind of strange situation. At this moment, he still felt like his head was covered by mountain fog. He can only continue asking other people.
However, asking back and forth, everyone else’s statements were pretty much the same. It was really hard to find anything else.
After wasting an entire hour, he finally heard something new from a peddler on the side of the road: “Oh that family. Only Qin niangzi is fine. Everyone else was unlucky. It’s not enough they experienced the wrath of heaven themselves, they even caused trouble for everyone related to them.”
Qin niangzi?
Wen Xuan asked in detail and finally found out that this so-called Qin niangzi was Jian Yi’s father’s eldest sister, Jian Yi’s aunt. But everything else was a mystery, the peddler was unwilling to say anymore.
Then where else could he go to ask? Just as he pondered, Wen Xuan suddenly heard a ruckus not far away.
Lifting his eyes, he saw outside the entrance of an inn, several people were shoving a dirty old man outward: “Get lost, you old beggar! Don’t stay here shamelessly. There’s nothing for you to eat here!”
Cursing fervently, one of the people even raised his foot and kicked the old man viciously on the butt. The old man instantly staggered forward. Two white clean mantou fell out of his arms.
“Oh wow!” Those people instantly blew up: “Here we were wondering what you were hanging around inside for. So you were stealing!”
Cursing, these people completely lost all sense of courtesy and started to punch and kick the old man all over. The old man could only protect the two mantou in his arms, trembling all over while mumbling: “I was hungry…… I was just hungry…… ”
There were plenty of observers all over, but they only stood around pointing and whispering: “Look. It’s that old lazy bum again.”
Occasionally there’d be someone who couldn’t bear watching and wanted to step forward, but they were all blocked by the other observers: “Don’t pity this guy. If you help him once, he’ll hang onto you for years.”
These words barely completed when the speaker saw a white sleeve breeze pass before his eyes. Someone marched past his side and directly stopped those people from hitting and kicking: “This person is an elderly, can’t you show leniency?”
Was there really someone dumb enough to get involved in other people’s business? The crowd instantly turned sympathetic gazes towards that white clothed young man– of course this was our Wen shixiong.
The people from the inn examined Wen Xuan briefly and said with furrowed brows: “What do you know? This is a thief!”
Wen Xuan looked down, and looked at the two white mantou shielded in the old man’s arms: “Did he steal anything else?”
The people from the inn were stunned by this question. After a while, someone finally answered: “That’s because right now he’s been beaten scared! Before, whenever people even walked past him, he’d steal their moneybags!”
Many of the viewers in the crowd all nodded their heads. Clearly these words weren’t on empty bases.
Wen Xuan furrowed his brows, and felt rather helpless inside.
“Understand now?” The inner person yelled: “If you understand then get out of the way. Mind your own business!”
However, not only did Wen Xuan not walk away, he even took out a spiritual stone: “No matter what he’s done in the past, since he only stole these at the moment, I will pay for him. Can you let him go this once?”
The crowd was in uproar as the people heard these words. Most were exclaiming how can such a proper looking foundation building cultivator be so stupid.
The inn people were also stunned. Then a person accepted the spiritual stone, tested its genuineness, then said with a sneer: “Since someone is willing to squander this money, then naturally we won’t bother with him” Then this person waved at the others, turned and started returning to the inn.
At this time, Wen Xuan stopped these people, and handed them some more spiritual stones: “I’d like a table of good food.”
The audience viewing the scene all revealed strange looks.
Then they saw Wen Xuan give the messy old man who was still hugging the floor a friendly smile: “Aren’t you hungry? I’ll invite you to a meal.”
The people from the inn felt their cheeks twitch. However, since the business walked in, they won’t go as far as to reject it. They only specifically chose a table at the most remote corner, away from anything else. Not long afterwards, the food was placed on the table, nothing more, nothing less, scrumptious and tasty.
The old man didn’t hold back and stuffed himself vigorously. As his mouth was stuffed with food, he mumbled indistinctly: “Benefactor, you’re really a life saver!”
With a smile, Wen Xuan watched him eat, occasionally reminding him to not choke. After a while, the old man finally felt like he could eat no longer. The speed at which he shoved food into his mouth slowed. Wen Xuan finally expressed: “If you really consider me your benefactor, then I have a few questions. Can you help answer them?”
That’s right. Wen Xuan’s decision to help this person wasn’t completely for free. For a person to gain such infamy, it indicated he stayed in this place for quite some time and had caused trouble to a large area in the surrounding area. Although he was unwelcomed, the person that Wen Xuan needed right now, was just this kind of person.
“Benefactor, ask away!” The old man patted his chest and guaranteed his usefulness.
Once again, Wen Xuan brought up the Jian family that opened the Yunling shop.
The old man’s expression changed, clearly also aware of the Jian family’s matters. However, he didn’t immediately answer but looked rather hesitant.
“What is it?” Wen Xuan felt like he didn’t know if he should laugh or cry: “Don’t tell me, you’re also afraid of receiving the wrath of Heaven?”
The old man shook his head: “Since you know about the wrath of Heaven, then why are you still……”
He didn’t finish speaking when Wen Xuan abruptly threw down a spiritual stone in front of him. The old man’s eyes widened and focused with great difficulty. Then with another sound, Wen Xuan threw down another spiritual stone in front of him.
Wen Xuan placed these stones in front of him one by one, a total of 20-30 stones. The old man’s gaze was fixed, not turning at all. But still, he still didn’t answer.
Then, Wen Xuan swept these spiritual stones into his arms: “If you’re not willing to say it, then forget it.”
“Ai!” The old man hastily said: “Benefactor, wait, wait! Since the benefactor asked, how can I not answer. I was only thinking just now! Just thinking!”
Wen Xuan shook his head, amused: “Then are you done thinking?”
The old man nodded his head like he was pounding garlic and quickly said everything he knew like pouring out beans.
“A difficult birth?” Wen Xuan’s brows furrowed.
The old man started speaking from when Jian Yi was born. Apparently, many years ago, on the night that Jian Yi was born, the inside of Jiufeng City was suddenly covered densely by dark clouds, wind and rain were both present. A tree on the roadside was even stuck down by lightning. Under this kind of situation, Jian Yi’s mother gave birth to this son, but she herself closed her eyes forever.
“At that time, a rumor started saying this child was a calamity star that descended from the heavens.” The old man said: “But not many people believed this back then. Until this child slowly grew up and actually turned out to be a dimwit at birth.”
“A dimwit at birth?” Wen Xuan was stunned again.
He immediately recalled when the two of them faced off against Qin Shiyu in the ancient mausoleum. At that time, Qin Shiyu said these words before. Back then, Wen Xuan only thought that it was purely to sow discord and didn’t take it to heart. But now it looked like Jian Yi was really a dimwit at birth? Then the intelligence that he showed currently, was it really because his father found someone to treat him?
“But even if he was dimwitted,” Wen Xuan asked: “What does that have anything to do with a calamity star?”
“I’m not finished yet.” The old man blew his beard: “This calamity star caused his mother’s death as soon as he was born. Later, when he was two years old, he also caused his grandmother’s death.”
This so-called ‘caused his grandmother’s death’ in detail was just a story about how Jian Yi inexplicably fell into the water that year. His grandmother jumped in to save him, but ended up drowning herself.
If someone wanted to resent Jian Yi for this and blamed him for this, it’s not hard to understand. However, for an entire city to believe Jian Yi was a calamity star because of this, it’s rather outrageous. Wen Xuan couldn’t help but frown deeper.
“Benefactor, don’t fret.” The old man said unhurriedly: “These little things didn’t really prove anything. There’s still much more to follow. Let me tell them to you slowly.”
Thank You for the new chapter (∩˃o˂∩)♡
Acho nojento e burro culpar uma criança de dois anos pela morte do vô
The old man is an info mine
I love the cliffhangers the author leaves us with at the end of some chapters