Chapter Ninety-Two: The Affluent Ones
“Esteemed seniors, what is your judgment?”
“I am weary, so I shall take my disciples and return first.”
“I too.”
“If I am gone for even a moment, this household can be turned upside down... I shall also take my leave, everyone.”
...
“Hey, don’t all leave at once! What exactly happened? At least tell us first!”
“City Lord Chen is right here, isn’t he? If you have questions, ask him. There are matters within my sect as well, so I’ll be going ahead!”
...
In the blink of an eye, the dozen or so strongest experts who had gone deep into the Endless Forest all found excuses, took back their redeemed disciples, and rose into the air, heading straight home.
Only the other ninety-odd experts in the city lord’s manor hall remained, some at the Core Formation stage, some at the Nascent Soul stage, looking at one another in bewilderment.
“City Lord Chen, among the people who went this time, only you remain.”
“Could it be that you are also going to excuse yourself and leave?”
“How could that be? I am the city lord of this city. Besides remaining here to oversee matters, where else could I go?”
“That’s good then. Elder Chen, please tell us what happened. Those seniors all seem rather grim of face.”
“Yes, even their excuses were made so casually.”
“What on earth happened? The disciples they brought back also seem quite abnormal.”
“Ahem, everyone!”
“In this journey to the depths of the Endless Forest, the few of us along the way...”
...
As Chen Nanshan, surrounded by the crowd, slowly recounted what had taken place on this trip, everyone present drew in a sharp breath and fell into thought.
It was not for any other reason than sheer admiration for that elusive great thief, whose whereabouts were as hard to trace as a divine dragon, and who had offended the mystical beasts to the point of utter ruin; and also for the staggering cost of the ransoms, making one wonder whether it was truly worth paying such a price to retrieve a disciple.
Meanwhile, deep within the Endless Forest, in the territory of the Earth Demon Bear, the nine disciples who had met the same fate and been redeemed by their elders saw it with their own eyes. Ashamed as they were, they also felt hope rise in their hearts, as though they had glimpsed the dawn of life.
Yet what they did not know was that, in an instant, one third of the one hundred and forty or so people present had already been abandoned by their elders outside, on the basis of a single moment’s decision.
The cultivation world was so cruel.
When such cruelty does not happen to oneself, at most one can only laugh it off as none of one’s concern;
but when that cruelty truly falls upon one, only then does one deeply understand what it means when “if Heaven had feeling, Heaven too would grow old; the righteous path among men is an age of vicissitude.”
Every person is weighed in another’s heart by a price.
Even family of the same blood and origin, once they cross some bottom line of profit, can still be abandoned without mercy.
...
Within a mountain ravine where no mystical beasts had been seen for a thousand miles in any direction—indeed, not only were there no mystical beasts, there was not even a decent spiritual plant or herb to be found—it could almost be called a dead land.
At this moment, in an abandoned underground limestone cave within this dead land, two figures were tallying up something.
“Sister Ling’er, these medicinal herbs are separated by third, fourth, and fifth grade.”
“Right! Also, these piles of magical treasures and artifacts should be sorted separately too.”
“Got it!”
“And Sister Ling’er, if there’s anything that catches your eye, don’t be polite with your little brother. Take whatever you want.”
“Right now, your little brother here is a genuine rich man.”
...
In just this short while, the good-tempered Bai Ling’er had already glared at Gu Xiaopang countless times with her eyes, because he was simply being far too smug.
Yet she still could not help but be stunned again and again by the countless times Gu Xiaopang pulled out one storage bag after another, dumped out all kinds of bizarre treasures, and after finally finishing the tally, somehow fished out yet another one from nowhere and continued counting.
Bai Ling’er’s original intention had merely been to bring Gu Xiaopang into the Endless Forest to continue training and accumulate experience;
but now things had turned out quite well indeed. He had gained training and experience, yes—but what he had really grown more adept at was the use of spatial power, and the craft of theft.
...
To call Gu Xiaopang a rich man now would be no exaggeration at all.
Consider Song Wouji of South Crest Prefecture, a Nascent Soul cultivator, who guarded a vault of a hundred-odd piles of broken metal and rusting iron and called it a treasure repository for four people. And Gu Xiaopang now? He had no fewer than a thousand similar heaps of broken metal and rusting iron.
If all of it were converted into spirit stones, then saying that Gu Xiaopang’s net worth now reached tens of millions would not be impossible.
After all, while countless mystical beasts perish beneath the hands of human cultivators, countless human cultivators also die beneath the jaws of mystical beasts. Not to mention the depths of the Endless Forest itself, where high-grade spiritual herbs are naturally abundant.
Back at the imperial capital auction, an astonishingly beautiful young woman who could already take human form despite being only at the fourth grade’s later stage had been bought away for merely fifty-five thousand spirit stones by the lustful Murong Ying.
From that, one could imagine just how terrifying Gu Xiaopang’s current wealth was.
...
Yet he did not know that, because of his repeated actions, the Endless Forest of the southern realm, countless aristocratic clans, sects, beasts, and humans had been thrown completely into chaos.