“Crow Bro,” Song Ying Jie would suddenly say. “Are you sure this is where the bandits headed off to?”
“Yes, Ying Jie,” Yin Na said.
“But the soil here isn’t even disturbed, I don’t think birds or even mice have been around this area for weeks!”
“Say, Ying Jie,” Yin Na said. “Tell me again, what exactly did you like about Wang Jin Lian?”
“Oh, she was great at explaining things to me and was always smart, her story-telling almost rivaled Grandma Peng Ling’s skills. And, ah… her laugh and her smile. And she had really beautiful lips. By the way, Bro Crow, I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen any footsteps since we started-”
“Did you ever kiss?” Yin Na asked.
“W-what?” Song Ying Jie did not expect such a question from a Daoist!
“N-no, we only hugged… Oh, where are we going, Bro Crow? I’m really not sure if we’re going the right way!”
“Nevermind that,” Yin Na snapped. “Just follow me.”
“What about my two brother-in-laws? Wang Hu Tian, the oldest, is training in the Purple Robe Sect, and Wang Meng Hao is still studying for the Imperial exam…how will I explain to them about what happened? They’ll blame me, even if I convince them that I tried my best they’ll think it’s my fault that I let everyone in the village die. Why, I sound like the villain who profited from this misfortune!”
Yin Na wanted to sigh loudly underneath his face mask. Occasionally, Song Ying Jie’s mind will think of something resembling critical thinking, and it was his job to guide his young companion’s mind off track into something else.
It was not easy to convince Song Ying Jie of the trace of non-existent bandits. Like Yin Na himself admitted, the young martial artist was a peasant who not only farmed but hunted with his bare hands as well, and possessed a natural talent for distinguishing footfalls from scattered pebbles and bramble, as well as a dog-like nose for scents.
Yin Na had to dismiss Song Ying Jie’s questions expressing doubt and skepticism regarding their path to Spring Wind Village, which popped up every other hour. His techniques ranged from distractions, to Daoist hocus pocus talk to even outright telling him to shut up.
“At last,” Yin Na said. “We are here.”
Song Ying Jie tore his eyes from the ground, still fervently looking for bandit footsteps, instead beholding a rather ordinary-looking village with the three characters on the gates.
“Spring Wind Village,” he read.
He had never been outside of his own village, but even he could tell that this was a larger and better-off village than his.
“Alright,” Yin Na said. “Let’s go.”
Yin Na’s heart was full of excitement. During the past two days, he had been eagerly looking forward to finally meeting the destination of his journey set so long ago. During the day he made food for Song Ying Jie and himself by regularly slipping in Ether grass and Crushed Emerald Orb Spiders into the young martial artist’s food and continually brainwashing him to cherish his new journey into the Jiang Hu as well as obedience and loyalty to Daoist Wayseeker Crow. During the night, while Song Ying Jie slept, Yin Na read the third and final manual from Grandma Peng Ling’s chest.
The third manual was an esoteric manual entitled “Iron Member.”
“It’s quite interesting,” thought Yin Na. “Am I to believe that this stinky whelp here has comprehended this manual fully and now possesses…”
Yin Na was reading on top of a tree overlooking their camp. They were less than a few couple of li from their destination, and he had insisted that they rest within the village’s outskirts before making it there by nightfall. On top of his reading location, Yin Na looked suspiciously at the sleeping Song Ying Jie.
“...An ‘iron member’ of his own?”
Yin Na’s eyes couldn’t help fixating down…there.
“!” He couldn’t believe the timing, as coincidentally, there was a pitched tent within Song Ying Jie’s pants.
Yin Na’s eyes returned to the pages of the manual.
“Very interesting, very interesting indeed!” Yin Na thought. “After skimming the poetry within the characters, the manual claims to bestow not only a mortal level of invulnerability regarding strikes to the testicles, but also increased but non-proven vitality! The sperm count of the male member shall be as fruitful as vermin, it’s quite promising.”
If these promises prove to not just be empty lies, had Yin Na mastered the Iron Member before he would have surely impregnated Wang Jin Lian earlier.
“The manual requires a paradigm shift of how one regards their male member not just in combat, but also in the art of reproduction. Hehehe, did Grandma Peng Ling expect Ying Jie here to breed her many grandchildren with this?”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Yin Na derived sadistic pleasure in realizing that he denied Grandma Peng Ling her ambitions further posthumously.
“One would consider that arts desensitizing the crotch by exposing it to endless exercises in pain and torture would render oneself as infertile instead…but why should I personally worry? I have no direct need for children right now. There are plenty of ‘recovery methods’ in the Cultivation world, if they are not already prolific and potent in the mortal Jiang Hu world!”
Yin Na lacked the medicinal ingredients necessary for creating the balm and oils required to immerse his male member in accordance with the manual, and thus was unable to carry out the exercises until he got to Spring Wind Village. He therefore spent the reading hours trying his best to completely analyze and commit the characters within the manual to memory.
He had little idea of what Mao Shiqi had done in his absence, and he really hoped that the treasure in the Bear Yao Guai cave was still left intact.
Come the morning, Song Ying Jie accepted Yin Na’s breakfast without a word upon waking up, like a conditioned dog. He slurped up Yin Na’s congee soup, made almost entirely from wild rice, Ether grass and ground Emerald Orb Spiders.
“Protect me with your life,” Yin Na said.
“Yes, I will protect Crow Brow with my life,” Song Ying Jie said with a blank look on his face, porridge spilling down the side of his chin.
“I will have to take it easy with the poison ingredients,” thought Yin Na. “Song Ying Jie should be thoroughly conditioned to be loyal and obedient by now. Too much and I’ll be concerned that it will start affecting his senses and combat ability.”
They entered the village, with their mule’s back dragging the heavy cargo of tael in a cart behind it.
Yin Na’s extortion deliveries have arrived less and less frequently. He had drained his victims to the last silver coin, and they had either had the courtesy to write a final farewell letter (like Merchant Li Hong) or rudely (but smartly) send a final delivery and then ghost Yin Na for weeks, clearly after making their escape from their home village.
“In total, over 200 individual units of Tael rivals the yearly Gross Domestic Product of a healthy town or even a small city,” thought Yin Na. “Not bad after traveling so long. However, this would just be barely enough to buy a single Spirit Stone, which is hopelessly rare and difficult to possess in the mortal realm. I may possess the wealth of a duke here, but in the Cultivation world I am still a pauper.”
Thus Yin Na did not let the wealth go to his head.
To say that the villagers were fascinated with the two outsiders’ entrance through the gates was an understatement.
Even though Yin Na’s face was rapidly being recovered by the healing passive effects of his Golden core, his face was still quite hideous even above the veil of the face mask. Song Ying Jie’s muscular, ragged appearance practically screamed “wanderer of the Jiang Hu,” despite it being the first time he had ever set foot in another village.
Yin Na wisely covered the mule’s cargo in large draped sheets of cloth and fiber. There was no sense in exposing their wealth to these mortals, not until he had figured out the right people to single out and interact with yet.
Talks and whispers sprouted and spread through the neighbors. The population of Spring Wind Village was large, at over a hundred and fifty families. It was almost a small town, and soon all of the village knew about the appearance of two mysterious strangers.
Yin Na had been here before, many weeks ago when he had befriended Deng Ping on his quest to avenge his Grandfather and retrieve the 9-yin Jade Block from the Yellow Fox sect. Due to his new appearance, none of the villagers recognized him.
However, Yin Na remembered the village. He remembered some of the locals that he interacted with Deng Peng, and he remembered several buildings that he had entered or patronized, including the two inns which competed with each other in the village.
They put the mule by the stables next to the Hu Xing Yin inn, and entered.
Yin Na’s purpose was to gather intel through the blabbering mouths of the villagers. Song Ying Jie himself had remembered spotting a shadow of a Spirit Beast through the sky over a week ago, that could have been the Spicy Oil Boar. Yin Na’s hope was for someone around the village to have seen something similar.
All of the residents at the inn looked at Yin Na and Song Ying Jie when they stepped through the doors. Their dull glares appeared like the stares of subhumans to Yin Na, who sneered beneath his face mask. They paid little attention to the basket that Yin Na slung over his shoulder, which was covered in cloth.
Song Ying Jie had not interacted with enough other humans in order to understand nor even experience the pain and discomfort caused by social anxiety, and thus appeared tall and confident. However, he followed Daoist Wayseeker Crow’s every footstep as they walked themselves to a table.
Hu Xing Yin inn was designed so that it had multiple doors to enter and leave, and thus a few courageous, if tactless villagers entered the inn after Yin Na and Song Ying Jie clearly to continue observing them.
“I want every dish on the menu,” said Yin Na to the innkeeper’s niece when she came over. He punctuated this request by taking a single silver tael out of the basket beside him and letting it thud heavily on the wooden table.
There was not a single individual whose eyes did not shrink to the size of pins at the sight of a shiny tael. This was such a display of force, but also could be a foolish invitation to get robbed!
“A drinking tavern or inn is a fundamental trope of the Jiang Hu,” thought Yin Na. “In a large village like this, running into a fellow denizen of the Jiang Hu or seeing some conflict of interest even at the mortal peasant level is common in establishments such as this. Especially when there’s alcohol involved. However, they would be foolish to mess with strangers in such a place, as they would be simply ruining their relationship with the innkeeper and locals.”
Knowing this, Yin Na said: “Don’t bother weighing it. Keep the change.”
The collective attitude of the inn shifted to awe and respect, but slight fear and suspicion remained towards the two strangers in Spring Wind village.
Yin Na also read Song Ying Jie’s peasant face and saw that his actions were giving birth to slow inspiration in his hick martial artist brain. Song Ying Jie had never seen so much wealth until the night he had rushed into the Wang family house and saw piles of silver coins and silver taels as abundant and scattered as profusely as snow on the bloodied floor. He didn’t have time to marvel at the material wealth that was overshadowed by the carnage that night, nor did he spend any time contemplating their gains which were covered and dragged by their mule during the journey to Spring Wind Village.
He vaguely understood the importance of treasures and money through the tales Grandma Peng Ling taught him, but this was the first time he experienced the immediate silencing and awe-inspiring effect a single silver tael can achieve once exposed to a crowd of people.
The owner of Hu Xing Yin personally paid a visit to Yin Na and Song Ying Jie’s table.
“Such a traveler with heavy funds requires a personal visit,” he thought. “I need to see if there was any way to have him part with more generous offerings of tael.”