NOVEL NEXT Chapter 310 Simulation: Meng Xiaolan
"We are not the kind to repay kindness with ingratitude, naturally, we wouldn't kick you to the curb..."
"I'll stick with you, and I don't want any other reward." Before Su Jie could finish speaking, Meng Xiaolan interrupted him, "I can pay for the expenses of seeking immortals and visiting paths."
Li Ziming said cheerfully, "No matter how much money you have, there will come a day when it's all spent. It won't last long with so many of us spending."
This was to make her back off knowing the difficulties.
But Meng Xiaolan retorted unabashedly, "Who says my money will be spent? I earned it all myself!"
As it turned out, after Meng Xiaolan and her maid ran away from home, they spent all their money. However, since she could write beautifully, she would find a bookstore, rent a desk and chair, borrow paper and pens, and earn her keep by writing letters for others.
"You don't believe me?"
Seeing the skeptical looks in Su Jie and the others' eyes, Meng Xiaolan was indignant, "Just sit here. Later, you can watch from the window how I make money down there."
With that said, Meng Xiaolan went downstairs with her maid.
Su Jie and the others looked out the window to see Meng Xiaolan borrowing a small table from a nearby vendor. Then she had her maid take out paper and ink from the bundle, began grinding the ink, took out a writing brush, and wrote two characters on the ground in front of the table, which roughly translated to "Ghostwriter" in Chinese.
Before long, someone approached Meng Xiaolan for letter writing.
After finishing, the person seemed satisfied and left ten crimson, square-hole coins before departing.
Then, another person came, and business was booming.
In just an hour, Meng Xiaolan helped twenty people write letters and earned two hundred square-hole coins.
After she stopped writing, she returned the table, looked up at the second floor of the restaurant, and waved her fist at Su Jie, her face beaming with a smile as if to say, "See, I can make money!"
Back in the private room of the restaurant, Meng Xiaolan said proudly, "How about that? It only took me half an hour to earn two hundred square-hole coins. You should know, ordinary people only make about fifty square-hole coins a day."
"Welcome to the team, Miss Meng Xiaolan." Su Jie realized this woman was determined to join and didn't refuse her. Besides, having an extra guide would be convenient.
"Humph!" Meng Xiaolan tilted her head up forty-five degrees, her spirit soaring.
Her maid was speechless at her side.
[Miss! You're just helping someone else make money! What's there to be happy about?]
"Where do you plan to go next?" Meng Xiaolan asked curiously.
"Our cultivation has reached a bottleneck. The most important thing right now is to break through, so we don't have a specific destination. The world is our home," said Su Jie, half truthfully.
"Are you about to break through in your martial arts?" Meng Xiaolan asked excitedly, "I heard from the guards at home that there are three realms in martial arts, namely third-rate, second-rate, and first-rate. Which level have you reached?"
Jiang Wudao was puzzled, "Since when did third-rate become a realm? Isn't that an insult?"
Third-rate and even lower were never compliments.
The culture of the feudal kingdoms in the Cultivation World is not much different from that of Huaxia's feudal era on Earth; calling someone third-rate usually comes with the additional words "piece of trash."
"It does seem like an insult." Meng Xiaolan immediately realized after being pointed out that the term "third-rate" was never a term of praise. How could it be used to describe a realm?
So!
That guard had deceived her!
"Perhaps, it's not exactly deceiving you," Su Jie said, "There are three realms in martial arts, and the so-called third-rate means entering the first realm. It's scorned by masters in the martial world, hence the term third-rate. Over time, it become a designation for a realm."
"So that's it!" Meng Xiaolan believed it again.
This woman was truly naive!
That thought popped up in everyone else's mind.
In the following two months, Su Jie and the others stayed in the county, gathering more detailed information and learned a lot about Kun Country.
But what moved Su Jie the most was that this county, as big as Jiangnan City, was just a minor city in Kun Country. The real metropolises were as big as the largest province in Huaxia on Earth!
From the way the locals described Kun Country's capital as "a thousand leagues away, vast and rich in resources, with a population of millions, all of whom are followers of the true God Dao," Su Jie could roughly confirm his suspicions.
Moreover, the capital was even larger, estimated to be as big as the whole Zhongzhou region.
But what was more astonishing was that Kun Country, in this mortal realm, was but a small nation among the numerous countries. The truly large nations had a scale equivalent to a thousand, ten thousand times that of Kun Country! Thi%s is a sa^mp!le fro.m My Vi&r.t&u#a%l L&ibr&ar$y@ Em%pire..@ Re%ad+ the rest on M&-V&L+EM@PYR.
This indicated just how vast the Cultivation World was!
"In such a vast world, it indeed needs liberation."
In these two months, Su Jie also learned about the living conditions of the people, discovering that the city dwellers and villagers had no fundamental difference. In fact, compared to the villagers, aside from dressing better, they were exploited even more by officials at all levels.
Because the villagers had no money, but the city dwellers were much wealthier than them!
Furthermore, in recent years, the emperor decided to forge a brand-new golden statue for the true God Dao, resulting in another increase in taxes, leading to frequent occurrences of refugees outside the city.
In regards to these refugees, the city guards wouldn't distribute food but gathered them together and took them to nearby barren mountains, leaving them to fend for themselves.
If they dared escape from the barren mountains, they would be killed without hesitation!