Chapter 39

The sound of the Xi Qin suddenly stopped, and Yuan Ye stood up, patting off the nonexistent dust. “Oh, this bone was pressing painfully on my butt.”

“Let’s go,” Lin Du called out to them.

“Where are we going, Uncle Junior Master?”

“To pick up scraps, of course.”

The four of them left first, walking briskly and leisurely, looking as if they were out for a casual stroll.

As soon as they turned a corner, Lin Du started running.

The remaining three were momentarily stunned but soon followed, running as well.

“Uncle Junior Master, why are we running?”

“If we’re late, we won’t get any good stuff. Let’s first sweep the stores selling spiritual weapons and rare materials.”

Lin Du directed, “I estimate there are quite a few treasures in the large mansions. We should split up and move quickly. Otherwise, by the time they all react, we won’t get anything.”

The three of them brightened up, glanced around, and headed toward the large mansion.

As soon as the people from the Supreme Sect left, a few cultivators, still shaken, seemed to awaken from a dream. “Let’s go, Lin Du said this is a city. There must be something to pick up in the city.”

The group dispersed in all directions.

“Which way did the Supreme Sect people go?”

“That way.”

“Okay, then I’ll head in the opposite direction.”

They really didn’t want to confront the Supreme Sect people.

Their elders acted as if they had never been taught morals, and their methods were horrifically cruel.

Someone looked at the scattered skulls on the ground, curiously stomped on one, and yelped in pain.

“How could Lin Du crush these skulls with his bare hands? They’re so hard!”

Who knows?

The crowd dispersed with chuckles.

On the surface of the earth, the howling wind roared like a rampaging dragon, carrying apocalyptic force as it swept across the desert. The ground trembled and mourned, and the city buried under the yellow sand was completely uncovered.

The cruel, naked truths, like the stark white bones, were fully revealed to everyone.

The vendors’ wooden carts were decayed and fallen apart. Strange postures of bones, resembling puppets, were visible everywhere. Some stood rigidly, others seemed to be bent over choosing goods. There were even bones in a position with their fingers interlocked, and some were holding a tiny skeleton with a gold lock necklace.

When the strong wind passed and the city was fully exposed to the light, these bones, each holding their final posture from their lifetimes, finally collapsed into a meaningless heap of white bones.

The cultivators from Zhong Zhou, watching the collapsing bones, stopped their search.

In that moment, it seemed they heard a gentle sigh.

The world collapsed, and time passed, but humans were the most fragile things in this world.

The earth remained, plants continued to grow, birds and beasts were reborn, but only the cultivators left behind the most tragic remnants.

This was their Lan Gu Realm; humans considered themselves the masters of the world.

But when the world collapsed, it was only humans who lost their lives first.

The world didn’t care about these accumulated bones. Whether it would eventually collapse into a negligible speck in the void was merely evolution, death, and rebirth. What humans sought was not what the world sought.

Lin Du stood inside a shop, her eyelashes fluttering as she performed a Dust Clearing Spell.

“Excuse the disturbance.”

She spoke softly, and the bones behind the counter no longer heard her.

The spirits of these ordinary low-level cultivators had been completely eliminated when she set up the Ghost Gate Formation.

In the collapsed area, there was no connection to the underworld, nor could there be any salvation.

She bowed her head in silent mourning for three seconds, and the next moment, she began clearing the shelves.

Some items had lost their spiritual energy due to the long passage of time, turning into scrap metal, but the things sealed in boxes were still useful.

Lin Du expertly began rummaging. She would reach out, discard what needed to be discarded, and swiftly put useful items into her storage ring.

The four from the Supreme Sect were like locusts, leaving no drawer or warehouse untouched.

Later cultivators who found the shops completely cleaned out of even a speck of dust quietly withdrew their feet and turned to leave.

The Supreme Sect people, who had earlier seemed like uneducated savages, managed to clear out all the valuable items, even considering dragging away the stone lions at the entrance.

One cultivator, grumbling internally, suddenly heard a heavy sound of something being moved. He turned around to see the slender and frail young man in green moving an iron lion from the entrance of a large mansion.

“? No way, Friend Lin… isn’t this a bit much?”

Lin Du glanced back at the cultivator. “What’s too much? Didn’t you see?”

The cultivator was puzzled. “What?”

“This iron lion is made of meteorite iron and black gold. Do you know how much black gold is worth now?”

The cultivator shook his head. “I’m a Dharma practitioner.”

What would a Dharma practitioner do with black gold?

Lin Du said, “Not to mention elsewhere, just in Zhong Zhou, one tael of black gold is worth this much.”

She extended two fingers and bent them casually.

The Fa Xiu was still dazed. “Two hundred spiritual stones?”

Lin Du clicked her tongue. “You Fa Xius really don’t understand materials at all.”

“How much is it, then? Please enlighten me, Lin Taoismist,” the Fa Xiu asked, not angry, just curious.

“Two high-grade spiritual stones.”

The Fa Xiu’s eyes widened. “What? That’s twenty thousand spiritual stones per tael?”

He slowly shifted his gaze to the other iron lion.

Lin Du quickly tossed the item she was holding into her storage ring, and with a slight shift of her body, blocked the other iron lion. “Hey, Taoismist, you’re a Fa Xiu. What do you need black gold for?”

“… And what do you need black gold for? You don’t seem to be a weapon cultivator, either.”

Lin Du casually looked up. “I’m not talented, I’m an apprentice of the esteemed Yan Ye.”

“Yan Ye… Yan Ye??” The Fa Xiu’s eyes widened in disbelief. “The Yan Ye who can seal and freeze all of Zhong Zhou with a single sword strike?”

Lin Du put the other iron lion into her storage ring, clapped her hands, and nodded with satisfaction. “That’s my master.”

Although… that old fellow probably couldn’t actually freeze all of Zhong Zhou with a single sword.

“Well then, Taoismist, I’ll take my leave,” she said, kicking open the mansion’s door and smiling brightly as she walked out about fifteen minutes later.

Indeed, prestigious families and great clans had plenty of good things.

Different worlds have different specialties, and this time, she definitely made a profit.

People shouldn’t just read books; they should also know how to shop.

Understanding both astronomy and geography, and the market trends for buying goods.

Suddenly, her disciple token emitted an urgent voice: “Uncle Junior Master, come to the City Lord’s Mansion quickly. There’s an formation in the inner treasury.”

It was Yuan Ye.

They had just entered the sect less than a year ago, and apart from Lin Du, who specialized in formations, the others had only minimal knowledge about them.

Lin Du glanced at the direction indicated by the disciple token. It was inconvenient to take a detour, so she decided to take the shortcut.

Dressed in a green cloak with white fox fur, she soared up to the top of the courtyard wall and flew across gracefully, like a soaring goose.

Just as a Fa Xiu entered a courtyard, he looked up to see a green shadow fly by, and a few pristine white hairs drifted down from the sky.

The Fa Xiu paused in silence. Who exactly said Lin Du was a sickly weakling?