Ch. 47
Chapter 47: Biyuan Market
“Gulp.”
Watching the lively golden egg bounce on the table, Chen Dong and Huang Xiaoling both fell into silence.
After a long while, the couple exchanged glances and turned their eyes toward Chen Beiwu.
Huang Xiaoling gave a couple of light coughs and gently said, “Isn’t there a better Companion Beast in the Spirit Beast Pavilion?”
As a Water True Root cultivator, she knew all too well the flaws and difficulty of advancement for the Golden Scale. Saying it was disliked even by dogs wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
On the contrary, cultivators with Metal and Water dual roots might favor the Golden Scale more.
“Golden Egg is the most compatible Companion Beast for me,” Chen Beiwu said softly.
Huang Xiaoling paused in surprise. The words of advice she had been about to speak caught in her throat.
Chen Beiwu was not a child. Rather than doubt, perhaps what she should do was trust.
Chen Dong interrupted the conversation, saying, “Let’s eat first.”
Once a Companion Beast was contracted, it was hard to change. No matter what they said now, it couldn’t alter reality.
Besides, he didn’t believe his son would sever his own path. This Golden Scale might have its own unique qualities.
At the dining table, Chen Dong initiated conversation and began inquiring about Chen Beiwu’s cultivation progress.
Hearing that his son planned to cultivate at home, he did not object. Instead, he exchanged a glance with his wife and brought up another topic.
“The tile factory just happens to be on holiday. Your mom and I are planning to visit Fallen Dragon Mansion this month.”
“How long will you be gone?” Chen Beiwu suddenly recalled the recent financial difficulties at home.
“Roughly half a month,” Chen Dong said hesitantly.
The Heartfreezing Chill was hard to cure at its root, but the surgery itself wasn’t difficult—it was considered a minor procedure.
Normally, three days would suffice. But to prevent relapse, he planned to let his wife rest a few extra days in the Immortal Hospital and properly recuperate.
“Is the household still short on spirit stones? I still have some Spirit Yuan on me,” Chen Beiwu asked with concern.
“No need. That Bloodface Vine sold for nine hundred and fifty Spirit Yuan. You’ve just contracted your Companion Beast—you need Spirit Yuan now,” Huang Xiaoling firmly refused.
After the meal, Chen Beiwu returned to the second-floor Cultivation Room and vanished in an instant.
…
In the land of chaos, a colossal gate towered into the sky.
Fate was ever-changing and without trace. Ordinary cultivators couldn’t sense changes in their own fate. But Chen Beiwu was different—he could use Nine-Breath Chaos to perceive alterations in his fate.
Seeing a golden thread of light appear beneath the Nine-Breath Chaos, Chen Beiwu’s eyes lit up with joy.
His guess had been right.
After contracting the Golden Egg, his fate had indeed undergone a transformation. However, a scarlet thread of baleful fate had also quietly appeared on the right side of the Nine-Breath Chaos, dimming the joy on Chen Beiwu’s face.
Blessing and misfortune came hand in hand. With the emergence of golden fate, a thread of ominous scarlet baleful fate had also taken root in him. Its quality far surpassed the previously seen gray misfortune, as if a blood calamity was imminent.
‘Can’t let this scarlet baleful fate continue to brew, or it may turn from disaster to tribulation.’
With a thought, Chen Beiwu activated the Nine-Breath Chaos Divine Ability and directly initiated the fourth breath to guide fate and dispel calamity.
“Buzz!”
Under his control, a thread of blue fate clashed against the scarlet baleful fate with fearless momentum, dimming its glow slightly.
‘Still not enough.’ Chen Beiwu shifted his gaze to five threads of green fate.
“Buzz!”
As the five threads of green fate entwined with the scarlet baleful fate like serpents, the scarlet blood glow it emitted gradually faded, replaced by a hazy layer of gray misfortune.
Chen Beiwu exhaled a turbid breath and opened his eyes in satisfaction.
Gray misfortune didn’t count as calamity at all—it would merely bring some bad luck, like an empty hook while fishing, or stepping on an angry bird’s mess while walking. No need to waste fate on dissolving it.
‘This thread of golden fate can be preserved to suppress my personal fate. What matters most now is to leverage the disparity between the two realms and earn my first bucket of spirit stones quickly to purchase the All Laws Converge, Heaven Book of the Divine Tree.’
With this thought, Chen Beiwu looked toward the vast, indescribable colossal gate in the chaotic world.
…
One day later, a handsome figure suddenly appeared in the queue at the entrance of Biyuan Market.
‘Mostly Qi Refining cultivators,’ Chen Beiwu thought as he scanned the surrounding crowd.
Located at a crucial traffic hub between three nations, Biyuan Market had high traffic and large scale. With a decent reputation, it was considered the most well-known cultivator market near Ze Kingdom. Even Foundation Establishment rogue cultivators didn’t dare cause trouble here, attracting large numbers of Qi Refining mortals to settle.
Chen Beiwu had made the decision to come to Biyuan Market after reading the journals left behind by Lin Yu and others.
The reason was simple—high security.
The cultivator family that managed Biyuan Market was the Yunhai Shen Clan, a prestigious Foundation Establishment Family in Ze Kingdom. The clan had three Foundation Establishment experts guarding it, and surrounding cultivation families all feared their might.
What made Chen Beiwu even more interested was the exceptional background of the Yunhai Shen Clan—they were backed by Mirror Moon Palace, one of the Five Great Sects of Earth Proliferation Territory. Mirror Moon Palace recruited a batch of outer disciples from Biyuan Market every five years.
Following the flow of people, Chen Beiwu looked up and saw a grand, towering archway. The plaque above was inscribed with the four ancient characters “Biyuan Market”, radiating a presence impossible to ignore—it was clearly the work of a powerful cultivator.
At the gate beneath the archway, two cultivators in blue Daoist robes stood with solemn expressions. One was in charge of registering cultivators entering the market, and the other was responsible for distributing jade slips.
“Scram! Where did this beggar come from? Can’t even afford two spirit stones and still wants to enter the market,” one of the gatekeeping cultivators said unceremoniously.
“Fellow Daoist, could you please make an exception? I have an exotic herb here I can use as collateral…”
The shabbily dressed rogue cultivator hadn’t even finished his sentence before the gatekeeper snatched the herb from his hand and kicked him away.
“Rules are rules, no exceptions. If you don’t have spirit stones, get lost,” the other cultivator said coldly.
The rogue cultivator looked unwillingly at the herb in the gatekeeper’s hand, gritted his teeth, and stumbled away.
This scene was already familiar to the cultivators queued up to enter the market—no one even bothered to lift their head to glance.
‘Are guards this lawless, and they call it high security? Just how chaotic is South Wastes’ Earth Proliferation Territory!’ Chen Beiwu’s heart sank.
Gatekeepers openly robbing rogue cultivators of their spiritual materials—and no one even cared. It was as if it were completely normal.
In the Immortal Alliance, even Foundation Establishment rogues wouldn’t dare publicly seize items from Qi Refining mortals, let alone harm them.
“This way, senior. One spirit stone,” the Dao-robed cultivator slightly bowed, his tone respectful.
Chen Beiwu didn’t ask further. He simply handed over a spirit stone and accepted the market pass jade slip from the other gatekeeper.
He hadn’t walked far before angry curses erupted behind him.
“Scram! Trying to pass off spirit sand as spirit stones? You old thing looking to die?”
Without pausing, Chen Beiwu continued walking forward.
The law of the jungle was the rule of the world. It was simply more blatant, more brutal, and more thorough in the South Wastes.
He couldn’t control others. He could only control himself.