NOVEL NEXT Ch. 51
Chapter 51: He Who Fell from the Sky
Anyi County, Hotel.
Chen Beiwu opened his eyes, an uncontrollable smile appearing on his face.
Plans could never keep up with change. Now, simply by selling Jade Scale Fish, he could gather enough spirit stones to fully purchase the All Laws Converge, Heaven Book of the Divine Tree: Qi Refining Volume.
However, in order to maintain a stable and legitimate laundering channel, Chen Beiwu decided to proceed with his original plan.
He only needed to slightly modify the process of selling Phoenix Yellow Dendrobium and adjust a few details.
Thinking this, Chen Beiwu got up and left the room, waiting for the elevator at the hotel hallway.
“Ding!” The elevator doors opened.
Chen Beiwu stepped in, accompanied by the familiar sound of high heels.
He held the door open. The woman he met on the Fuxi Train yesterday stepped in, carrying a waft of fragrance.
Her outfit was different from yesterday.
Her long black hair was tied into a low bun, with a few loose strands at the temples. Her brows were sharply defined, her expression languid with a touch of refinement, giving off an aloof aura that kept people at a distance.
Upon seeing Chen Beiwu, Ming Xue was slightly surprised and nodded in greeting.
She wouldn’t normally care about ordinary people, much less remember them. However, Chen Beiwu’s unique aura left a deep impression on her at first glance, even stirring a slight flutter in her heart.
Only, she had long since passed the age of pursuing love—it wouldn’t do for an older woman to prey on the young.
“Ding.”
The elevator arrived at the first floor, the doors opened, and Ming Xue quickly stepped out.
Chen Beiwu, meanwhile, pulled out his phone, opened the map, and followed the navigation toward the depths of the mountains where semi-wild cultivation was practiced.
There, he could find farmers who leased mountains to cultivate medicinal herbs and purchase a batch of semi-wild Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium at a very low price.
This way, he could cleanly resell the Phoenix Yellow Dendrobium he had bought from Biyan Market.
‘What’s going on?’
Sensing someone following her, Ming Xue furrowed her brows slightly.
It wasn’t unusual that they rode the same Fuxi Train, got off at the same station, and stayed at the same hotel, so she hadn’t thought much of it before.
But now she was heading deep into the mountains, where it was deserted except for the occasional herb-gathering mountain folk.
Could all of this really be a coincidence?
With that thought, Ming Xue stopped, gracefully raised her hand to reveal a sleek silver phone on her wrist, and turned back to walk up to Chen Beiwu.
She feigned coolness and took the initiative. “You’ve been following me. May I ask what you want?”
Snapped out of his thoughts, Chen Beiwu looked up at her. The confusion that flashed in his eyes caused Ming Xue’s movements to stiffen, and a faint sense of dread surfaced in her mind.
“Sorry, you’re mistaken.”
Chen Beiwu furrowed his brows slightly, urged Wind Control, and walked past her, using his actions to show that it had all been a coincidence.
Watching Chen Beiwu’s silhouette growing more distant—as if afraid of being clung to—Ming Xue’s delicate face froze slightly.
Damn it, how embarrassing!
Had she misunderstood?
Would he think she was some kind of weirdo?
...
The Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium sold at the Anyi County medicinal herb wholesale market might be cheap and abundant, but the quality was generally average.
Even if one occasionally found decent-looking Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium, profit-driven merchants would sort them out, making it rare to find top-quality Dragon Head Dendrobium.
Thus, Chen Beiwu had only one goal for this trip: the more scattered cultivators deep in the mountains who practiced semi-wild planting.
Though these small-scale cultivators offered limited quantities of Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium, the quality varied, and occasionally high-grade Dragon Head Dendrobium would appear.
Chen Beiwu crushed the stem of the Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium and brought it to his nose for a light sniff. “These Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium are of good quality. How much per jin?”
By now, he had ventured far from the center of Anyi County and reached a remote village deep in the mountains.
After a moment’s hesitation, the old man extended two thin fingers. “Two low-grade spirit stones per jin.”
After speaking, fearing the customer might find it too expensive, he quickly retracted one finger. “If you buy more than eighty jin, I can offer a discount—one spirit stone per jin.”
“All right, I’ll take a hundred jin.” Chen Beiwu didn’t haggle.
Though the quality of this Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium was far inferior to the Phoenix Yellow Dendrobium he purchased from Biyan Market, he could still sell it for ten spirit stones per jin on the Immortal Alliance Official Website—equivalent to one top-grade First-Tier Exotic Pill.
Upon hearing this, the old man grinned, revealing a missing front tooth, and said happily, “There’s one hundred and nine jin here. I’ll throw in the extra nine jin as a bonus. If you like it, come again.”
“Sure, I’ll cover the taxes.” Chen Beiwu nodded, ensuring the old man didn’t suffer a loss.
In the Immortal Alliance, all purchases required taxes.
For example, this purchase of one hundred and nine jin of Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium totaled one hundred spirit yuan. He needed to pay the Immortal Alliance a 10% material tax—ten spirit yuan.
Tax responsibility was shared by both parties, though some cultivators occasionally volunteered to shoulder all the taxes to gain extra fortune.
Fortune was a special currency that ranked above spirit yuan.
Cultivators couldn’t trade fortune among themselves—it could only be earned by paying taxes, converting tax contributions into fortune.
The more fortune a cultivator had, the greater their contributions to the Immortal Alliance, and the more privileges they would enjoy.
Moreover, some special cultivation methods, pills, magical artifacts, formations, talismans, and materials on the Immortal Alliance Official Website required a certain amount of fortune to exchange.
Such as the extremely precious Five Foundation-Establishment Spirits, Tribulation-Breaking Golden Core, and Legendary-Grade Cultivation Method (Foundation Establishment Volume and beyond), among others.
Chen Beiwu normally also paid taxes when purchasing from the Immortal Alliance Official Website, but those taxes were already included in the price, so he didn’t have to pay extra—hence he had accumulated some fortune.
In short, this transaction allowed both Chen Beiwu and the old medicinal farmer to earn five fortune each.
Leaving the village, Chen Beiwu continued deeper into the semi-wild cultivated natural mountains, seeking more scattered cultivators to purchase better-quality Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium.
During this time, Chen Beiwu ran into that woman again in a small remote mountain village.
This time, neither of them exchanged greetings—they simply looked at each other from afar and then went their separate ways.
A day later, Chen Beiwu stood atop a high mountain, stretching contentedly.
Over the past two days, he had combed through the entire mountain range, spending five hundred and thirty spirit yuan to purchase over five hundred jin of Yellow-Tailed Dendrobium, at the cost of reducing his phone balance to just over a hundred yuan.
Now that his work was done, he could descend and go home to begin the next phase of his spirit stone-earning plan.
Feeling invigorated, Chen Beiwu urged Wind Control, leapt from the mountain peak, and relished the wind howling past his ears.
Elsewhere, Ming Xue, who was repairing a mountain formation, sensed something was wrong and looked up toward the sky.
The next moment, a black dot appeared in the azure sky. The dot grew larger and gradually revealed a human figure.
‘Which fool is it this time, bored enough to leap off a cliff with Wind Control?’
Ming Xue frowned slightly, stepped back two paces, and moved aside from the falling figure’s landing spot.
These days, there were always cultivators unafraid of death who liked to use extreme sports to temper their minds. She was long used to it.