The merchants were an integral part of the village’s income. They would come through during the rainy season and camp out at the village for a few days at a time, and some had started to use the area as a temporary market between the two divided parts of the region.

There wasn’t much reason to use the village as a central trading post. As wide as The Great Desert Strip was, all of the merchants had some method of crossing it. Most had pack beetles, some had beasts, and many just ran across the distance over a few days.

After all, the desert lacked qi and spirit beasts, making it arguably the safest place in the region, if you discounted the baking heat. The village was generally treated like a trucker’s stop rather than a trading hub.

But this rainy season was different. This rainy season, there were rumors of a strong and ancient cultivator living in this valley and that the mortals within this region were protected under his rule.

I sighed.

I knew the sects had promised to keep their mouth shut, but I also knew leakage of this secret was inevitable. It had been a strategic play on their end from the start. They’d brought in nearly a hundred different cultivators and an entourage of servants during their little trip.

They probably had a list of heads ready to be chopped off to appease me if I brought it up with them.

Oh well, I expected that.

But Rin Wi’s smacking that one guy had also encouraged the rumors. There had been a drastic increase in the quality of behavior after that public beating and Rin Wi was now rumored to be one of the many students of the Honored Grand Master who called the forest his home.

A few cultivators had even tried to sneak into the forest, and though none of them had died, they did witness a few of the beasts clashing against one another. And though there was no death, the aura of something seven ranks beyond your own did cause an indescribable feeling of dread and insignificance.

That made me think back to Sun Wukong.

I pushed the thought away. I didn’t like thinking about the Monkey King, he scared me. Regardless of how kind he seemed to be, the man… no, the being was just too much.

I imagined that was how the cultivators who had snuck into the forest felt.

The camp was a dot under the horizon from the distance. Even a mortal’s eyes could make out the gleam of the village and camp from deep within the forest. I walked towards it, wrapping myself in common cultivator clothing.

Nothing new, just a more tight-fitting robe and a simple blade by my side. I lowered my aura to that of a third rank, before strolling into the camp.

There were tents and goods all gathered up and around one another and several large bonfires in between them. Tonight was a true night, meaning the sky was black all around, but the camp didn’t seem to know that.

Everything was lit up, and everyone seemed to be awake. There was also a whole lot more food, cold meat, and still boiling stew, stuff the merchants could serve to themselves.

Along with a lot of bargaining. Yells shouted over the campfires and angry curses were thrown around from one merchant to another. Different types of music played as well, some sang, others played an instrument, and around a few spots, there were even groups of musicians all strumming along to their different audiences.

I frowned. I didn’t frown. That was Chin’s thing, not mine.

This was new. This group, in its entirety, was over ten times larger than the regular groups that would come through this area. And more importantly, a lot of them seemed to have brought in their own food, meaning they weren’t the regular migratory merchants that would walk through this area.

I had expected that to be the case as the rumors got around, a lot of small sects and clans would surely send their groups over to investigate. There were a lot more rank threes and rank fours, even a few rank fives.

But the problem wasn’t any of that. The problem, if it could even be called a problem, was that everyone was getting along.

That might not sound like a big deal but it was. Peaceful areas where merchants could do their business untaxed and unbothered were a great draw for trade, and with trade came jobs, and with jobs came infrastructure, and with infrastructure came… a city.

This was a valley where a great immortal resided and the rumors stated he wanted nothing but to be left alone and have no conflict. There was recently a fifth-ranked cultivator who enforced that peace without losing a sweat. The immortal wouldn’t hurt you as long as you didn’t hurt anyone else and treated the mortals nicely.

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Yeah, this was a great draw for most of these people, and this lively market was like a practice run made by some merchant sects to see if this type of thing would be okay with the immortal.

“Man,” I mumbled. “Chin has his work cut out for him.”

The poor bastard would have to farm harder to keep up with the soon-to-be-boosted population.

That was if he wanted the sudden growth. He could always ask me to kick them out, but I doubted the old man would say no to that much money, especially when the solution to his problem would only be for him to farm harder.

I walked through the area, navigating my way through the tents and campfires. A few merchants tried to get me to buy stuff, some of them even blatantly asking for information about the “locals and their practices.”

Subterfuge was dead with those guys.

I kept going through till eventually I reached a very distinct tent. It was a large tent, easily one of the biggest in the camp, but it was situated at the edge of the group and even separated by about a hundred feet from any other tent. Its top was colored yellow and grey and there was a distinct smell of urine and feces wafting out of the place.

I walked in, flapping past the weathered entrance and into the animal-filled den.

Inside was a man sleeping on a straw-covered floor. He was a portly fella, and his gut managed to show through his tunic and spill out of his waistline and onto the floor.

“Dai Heng.”

The man didn’t wake up.

“Dai Heng!” I yelled.

And he still didn’t move. I walked up and bent over, putting myself right next to his ear.

“DAI HENG!” I exclaimed pushing a bit of qi into my throat.

The man jumped onto his feet and spun around, qi funneling to his fist.

“WHO DARE- oh. Mister Bill, it's you!” The man said with a relieved smile on his face. “I was just having this wonderful dream about the Hidden Viper. You know they have a scion, Young Master Yu Xuefeng? Anyways I dreamed that she was trying to buy a pack beetle from my uncle, but as you know we don’t sell-”

“Dai Heng,” I interrupted. “Where is your uncle?”

“Oh, my uncle? He’s out tonight, surveying the surroundings and the merchants or something. I don’t know why though. There’s never been any problems in this area, not since we’ve been using it. But we heard rumors about a secret immortal living in the woods, but who-”

I let the man ramble on while I turned to look at the animals. Dai Heng and his uncle Lee Heng were beast breeders by trade. Not spirit beasts, qi beasts. While spirit beasts had a human level of intelligence and their own understanding of the world, qi beasts were just really strong animals.

Chin had bought a few of them over the years, only a few because they were an expensive purchase for mortals, even for village chiefs, but they were a necessity, especially for this village.

Since the next village was one thousand and five hundred miles away, fast rideable qi beasts were a must in case of emergencies. The village alchemist always tried to keep enough medicine on hand at all times, but there were moments when they needed to send someone out to get materials from another village, and in those cases having pack animals that could run a hundred miles per hour for fourteen hours straight was quite literally a lifesaver.

A couple of Chin’s grandkids manned the beasts, training them and taking them out of the desert for trade trips, picking up news and rare goods along the way.

Most of Chin’s beasts had been bought directly through Lee Heng.

“Lee Heng,” I spoke. “Get in here already!”

“Ah!” Lee Heng said from outside of the tent. “Bill Ter Rance, how have you been? It’s been a while, fellow Daoist!”

Lee Heng was a skinny fellow. His clothes dangled from his stick-like frame and his fingers came together like mismatched chopsticks, the exact opposite of his nephew.

“Uncle! He was just talking about how he was looking for you before we got sidetracked discussing the rumors about the immortal! I told him I didn’t believe it but there might be some strong cultivators camped out in the forest. Some of the other people were talking about getting a strange feeling from there-”

“Mhm,” Lee Heng interrupted with a nod. “I’ve heard about that too.”

Both men looked at me in inquisition.

“What?”

“Well,” Lee Heng asked. “Is it true?”

I’d made a few cultivator acquaintances over the years and the Heng family were the ones I’d associated with the most. I’d met Lee Heng several decades ago and was surprised to find the man had connections that spanned outside of the region.

He was only at the third rank of course, but he had been full of news about the region and the grander empire as a whole. And even aside from that, Lee was a pleasant fellow and had more spine and morals than most cultivators. His technique wasn’t suitable for building a clan. It was more of a master disciple thing, passed from one master to another so a few years later, he picked up Dai and gave him his surname.

“Yes,” I answered.

Lee Heng let out a sigh and his Dai Heng audiblely gasped.

“But Mister Bill, you’ve lived here all this time? How did you not know about it all-”

“He did know,” Lee Heng interrupted.

“Then why didn’t he-”

“Probably because this immortal didn’t want him spilling his business to outsiders. Is that right Bill?” He asked frowning.

I nodded. None of what they said was wrong per se.

“Not like you’ve never lied to me before you old weasel.”

Lee Heng smiled.

“Well, call us even then,” the man muttered. “Dai Heng, fetch us some cups and clean yourself up before you do.”

“Yes master,” the boy bowed before running off into the other sectioned-off parts of the tent.

“That boy is a mess,” Lee Heng commented.

“He likes animals,” I replied. “Probably why he likes you.”

Lee Heng chuckled lightly.

“I think he likes talking to the beasts more than he likes people.”

“Maybe it’s because they listen better,” I replied.

“I doubt it,” Lee Heng commented with a shake of his head. “I think he talks so much because he doesn’t know what to say. But he doesn’t have to worry about that with the beasts.”

“Mhm. Does that still bother him?”

“Yes,” Lee Heng.

“Well he is just a kid,” I muttered.

“He’s twenty-five.”

“Still just a kid,” I replied.

“Maybe to us, but he’s a man by mortal standards. I think it’s time he acts like one.”

I looked towards the separating curtains in the tent. I could see Dai Heng’s shadows waving through the cloth walls as he scrubbed his body clean in a bathing troth, singing loudly as he did so. The boy was socially troubled, which wouldn’t be a big deal in any other trade, but being a merchant required a knack for that sort of thing.

“It just takes time is all,” I replied. “And you’ve got a lot of that.”

“I suppose,” Dai Heng said with a sigh. “Now, about that immortal.”