“Crow Bro,” Song Ying Jie said. “This is my wife-to-be, Wang Jin Lian. Wang Jin Lian, Crow Bro- I mean, sir Daoist Wayseeker Crow had done a divination in my house last night and sees nothing but success for our marriage!”
“Really?!” Wang Jian Jun said, appearing by their side. Yin Na had almost forgotten that the Wang family head was still there.
“Yes,” Song Ying Jie said. “Crow Bro summoned an owl that magically produced Silver coins for him, which he used to arrange in some mysterious formation on our kitchen table, then saw that our marriage is to take place a year from now (minus one day)!”
“Sir Daoist, you being skilled at divination is a good thing, indeed!” Wang Jian Jun praised.
“Yes, that is most fortunate,” Wang Jin Lian agreed.
“Sir Daoist,” Wang Jin Lian said. “I am curious about the methods behind your divination. Song Ying Jie said that you used silver coins. May I ask how it works?”
“Yes, yes, I am curious as to how it works as well!”
Wang Jian Jun seemed more enthusiastic than Wang Jin Lian, which annoyed Yin Na.
“It takes many years,” Yin Na said vaguely. “Many years of studying the classics; the way of Heaven.”
Exchange is the way of Heaven and Earth. Supposing Yin Na performed an actual divination technique earlier (he didn’t), how could he just state the secrets behind it for free?
“What books would those be?” Wang Jin Lian asked. Her tone was genuinely of curiosity, and Yin Na could detect no glimmer of condescension in her eyes during this question.
“Book of Changes; Book of Constellations and Money; Book of Miserly Immortals; Li Yi Jing, Book of Austrio-Economic Theory…”
“Of all these titles, I’ve only heard of the Book of Changes,” sighed Wang Jian Jun out loud.
“No one asked you,” thought Yin Na.
Wang Jin Lian appeared timid and nervous when she said:
“Sir Daoist, I would be honored if you’d answer my request for another divination. Since hearing that you used silver coins for your divination, I will provide you as much silver coins as you need for the process.”
Wang Jian Jun said, “Wang Jin Lian! Is that from your dowry?! Oh but-” He stopped himself from making a scene. What would a few coins mean to have a blessing from such an awesome Daoist? At this moment, winning the favor of the Daoist meant more than material savings!
The whole situation put Yin Na on the spot. He could refuse and make the future bride of Song Ying Jie lose face in front of the entire Wang Family, or he could accept and pocket the silver coins which were pretty much implied by Wang Jin Lian’s foxy smile that they would be his anyway after the deed.
Yin Na’s eyes displayed stillness as water even with a face mask on, but mentally he was in fiery rage.
“How dare she tempt me with benefits!”
This brat was somehow recognizing that he was a martial artist who lived for benefits…or maybe she even recognized that he was a fake Daoist. Was she trying to expose him, or genuinely trying to sacrifice a benefit for another? Either way, she was courting death by teasing him with her offering of silver coins. Couldn’t she infer that a Daoist would be able to conjure rare metals like silver or gold out of thin air? Yin Na even had a shipment of tael mailed to him via owl multiple times a week, does she seriously think that a few measly coins would satisfy him?!
Bitch!
Take my benefits? Nevermind that right now.
Tease me with benefits? Try to trap me using benefits?! I take your life!
“As I have informed Song Ying Jie and his Grandmother the night before,” Yin Na bowed. “The Divination using the ‘Art of the Deal’ has a long cool down period…”
“...which you said can be sped up by certain means, right?” Song Ying Jie quoted.
He did not mean any harm and was genuinely recalling something out of the desire to help. In most ordinary circumstances, this would result in the comedic effect of impeding the hero, but for Yin Na, it helped him!
Wang Jin Lian, and evidently Wang Jian Jun both understood the meaning of “certain means.”
“Sir Daoist… my daughter’s dowry…oh, you can judge however much you see necessary to refuel your qi for a second divination,” Wang Jian Jun said.
Yin Na wanted so badly to harumph, but instead, he kept it down as he stifled a cough.
“It is probably not in the Wang family’s best interests to attempt to break through the cool down period just for a second divination. It requires considerable silver or gold to repair or substitute lost qi, as well as karma and the invisible Dao during the process.”
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Yin Na bowed his head humbly as if showing genuine concern for the family’s financial future. However well they were doing for themselves, they were still villagers after all.
“No, no,” Wang Jin Lian insisted. “It is okay. Would fifty silver coins and a gold tael be enough?”
All mouths in the house gaped in shock. A gold tael was a fortune for a mortal villager, and Wang Jin Lian was willing to give it away. Wasn’t this a little too much to impress a Daoist?
Seriously, wasn’t this such a strange predicament for Yin Na to be in? Never in a million years, not even in the local folktales about good Daoists in the Southern region did a scenario where villagers begged to give away their worldly materialistic wealth to a Daoist unless he were a Demonic practitioner in disguise.
“Is she looking to expose me?” Yin Na kept an expression of unreadable stone.
The various beliefs held; experiences created and people met during one’s lifetime engender the split second judgment for our instant like or dislike of strangers.
After the time it takes two incense sticks to burn, which was the duration of this entire strange conversation within the Wang family house, Yin Na concluded that he did not like Wang Jin Lian.
Her mysterious smile caused Yin Na to instantly distrust her. Her delicate slender figure and lightly-tanned complexion was too pretty and non-farmer-like in her appearance to be the youngest daughter of some small ambitious family in a tiny village. Song Ying Jie told Yin Na before that he was certain that Wang Jin Lian and him shared mutual love, how could such a scheming smile belong to an innocent, “shy” maiden?
Also, not once did Yin Na witness the pair evince the behavior of a couple in love. He expected to see them hug or even share a kiss in front of him, behavior that lacked the refined restraint of city mortals or Cultivators.
Song Ying Jie was rather cold and distant from Wang Jin Lie, and she seemed too fixated on the appearance of the new stranger Daoist within their house.
Many legends center around a hero reborn or transmigrated into a younger version of themselves or even into a new body. Then such heroes deploy their wit and knowledge accumulated from hundreds of years to defeat rivals and enemies with the greatest of ease on their journey to the top.
While Yin Na could be considered a ruthless miser whose speciality was in the accumulation of wealth, he was actually secretly paranoid of meeting such aforementioned special individuals. By “special individuals,” we are not referring to just super prodigies, such as Dao Chosen, but also the reincarnated and those who are the special clones of Immortals.
Such people were incredibly dangerous to Yin Na, as they were born with or actively enjoy completely unfair advantages. If they were to ever cross paths with Yin Na, their invisibly large portion of luck; experience; innate aptitude and skill would ensure they would gain the upper hand during a confrontation. They could threaten him with replacing the role of the main character!
There were many schools of thought in Cultivation. The thought that any interaction with a sentient being of the world can secretly be interaction with a possible “chosen” individual is not popularized enough to warrant its own name, but if Yin Na could name it something, he would call it “Chosenism.”
Chosenism is a very tiring mentality that would wear down ordinary individuals’ hearts in a short time, since normal people desire the company of close friends and confidants to confide in. Under Chosenism you would never be able to completely trust your resources in the hands of someone else, unless you created a lot of contingencies and back up plans. And of course, you would never be able to trust anyone in this world other than yourself.
But Yin Na’s heart was special. His last confidant in this world, his father, had died before he was ten. In fact, even after emerging from the strange realm of Soul Orbs, Yin Na had meditated on his Dao of Benefits and never dismissed the possibility that his own father’s soul itself could be a candidate for Chosenism! Ever since youth, all of Yin Na’s internal thoughts have been filtered through the Dao of Benefits, and even more so after rebirth. His greed and resourcefulness soars to the Heavens. He does not possess the debilitating desire of normal people, especially martial artists of the Jiang Hu to spill their guts and feelings to every passerby who smiled or showed an inkling of kindness to him!
Thus Yin Na always spoke and operated on the basis that new acquaintances could secretly be the clone of some Immortal plotting his exploitation, or a spy sent back in time to plot his demise.
Now, how could Wang Jin Lian be a possible Chosen? Was she really a simple girl who hadn’t mastered cloaking one’s expression yet? She could be the reincarnation of a Demonic Fairy who was too arrogant. She could be the reborn soul of a cultivator that he swindled or even killed in the future, who got transmigrated into the body of a village girl to take an opportunity at a second life or revenge. Better to be safe than sorry!
“I have a plan,” Yin Na announced. “Since you really want to hear the words of a Daoist, I’ll offer an alternative. This alternative is far less costly, the only problem is that it is not instantaneous.”
Everyone including the Wang family head Wang Jian Jun breathed easier at Wayseeker Crow’s generosity, but Wang Jin Lian appeared unsatisfied as her strange smile twitched.
“How much would it cost?” she asked.
“It is less costly, but it is not cheap,” said Yin Na, and it was his turn to smile beneath his face mask. “Every day, thirty silver.”
“This!” Wang Jian Jun cried. “H-how many days would it take for this alternate method?” This was indeed cheaper, but thirty silver per day would extend the debt of Wang Jin Lian’s dowry to their own family’s savings by a week
Yin Na bowed: “I do not know. That is why I said it will be thirty silver per day.”
Wang Jin Lian asked, “May I ask, how exactly does Sir Daoist allocate the silver coins towards the divination?”
“Excuse me?” Yin Na said. He already understood her meaning, but he just couldn’t believe that a village girl was brazenly asking a Daoist for a breakdown of his service fee!
“Forgive my brazenness, but how much of the silver is going towards the divination ‘recharging,’ and how much of it is for Sir Daoist’s… labor fee?”
Wang Jian Jun shouted: “Little brat! I didn’t raise you to talk like this to strangers, much less a benevolent, almighty Daoist!”
He was obliged to scold her, but he was secretly happy that his wife gave birth to such a clever girl. He too, wanted to know of Yin Na’s service fee breakdown!
Yin Na’s eyes narrowed like swords.
“Twenty of the silver coins will go towards the reserve stock needed to power the divination,” Yin Na said. “Ten of them will be for the inconvenience fee.”
What Wang Jian Jun said next shocked even Yin Na: “Is there anything my Wang family can provide for you to lower the…’inconvenience fee’ for you? We can offer you food and a bed to sleep in during these nights.”
Yin Na felt a stirring beneath his robes.
Imperceptible to everyone else, Wang Jin Lian winked one eye at Yin Na!