Sitting inside the spacious carriage, Lan Jin looks around and feels a little overwhelmed. Lavish is the best way he has of describing the carriage’s interior, as there is enough golden trim on the walls, doors, benches, and window frames that Lan Jin feels as though he could melt it all down and get several large bars out of it.

Not only that, but there is also an unlit, carved ivory lamp hanging from the roof, the two long benches have plush, burgundy cushions embroidered with gold leaf, and everything is so pristine that Lan Jin can’t help but feel the driver is also responsible for detailing everything every time they come to a stop.

When he realizes how much gold leaf the cushion has stitched into it, he thinks about how much a few bolts of nice fabric cost him and how he might not even be able to afford the cushion he is sitting on right now. Yet, from the corner of his eye, he can see Qiang Yu and Lulu casually shifting on their cushion at the opposite corner of the carriage, and they don’t seem to care at all that they might be damaging the expensive material with their movements. They’re even whispering to each other while kicking their feet back and forth beneath the bench, unburdened by the knowledge that their dresses are rubbing up against enough gold to buy several compounds in the outer regions of the city.

While they act freely, Lan Jin does his best not to damage anything as he waits for Sun Meirong to finish speaking with Old Man Xing outside. He imagines this is what people feel like when they enter a million-dollar sports car for the first time, and that comparison does little to make him feel better as it instead causes him to inflate the value of the carriage further.

He also starts to wish he had ignored the Great Physician’s advice and just stayed home today instead of going out to buy new clothes. If he hadn’t bothered with the clothes, he could have focused on raising his cultivation level or fusing more purple mist into his soul so he could use the Omega Browser more often. Now, not only was he stuck waiting to find out what life would be like staying at the City Lord’s estate, but he also realizes that he had left his spirit stone inside of his dresser back in the Great Physician’s compound because he hadn’t wanted to lose it somewhere.

And though he doesn’t want Sun Meirong, Qiang Yu, or even Lulu to figure out that he technically stole the Stone Prophet’s arm, it still makes things inconvenient for him because he will have to find something else to meet his cultivation needs for the foreseeable future.

For a while, all Lan Jin can do is wonder what the future has on hold for him while waiting for Sun Meirong to enter the carriage. He never thought that he’d be so anxious waiting for an older adult to come to mediate things for him, but with Qiang Yu and Lulu casting glares at him every few seconds, he’s pretty sure he can guess what they’re whispering about and he can already tell that his future is looking a little bleak. The only good thing about it is that he’s pretty sure Sun Meirong will reign them in quite a bit, but whether that means she will completely stop them from messing with him is another story entirely.

Thankfully, Sun Meirong was evidently serious when she said she wanted to leave, as she finishes talking with Old Man Xing after just a few minutes and ascends into the carriage with a quick, graceful movement before closing the door behind her and sitting across from Lan Jin. Then, with a single rap on the carriage’s wall, the driver up front cracks his leads and the horses take off down the road toward the Central District of the city.

With a glance at the now-silent Qiang Yu and Lulu, Sun Meirong shakes her head slowly and lets out a soft sigh. And when they both turn their heads downward in what Lan Jin thinks is a practiced move rather than a sincere demonstration of guilt, she turns toward him and begins scrutinizing him for a few seconds before reaching up and rubbing the bridge of her nose with one hand.

“Well,” she sighs. “Let’s start figuring this out. I need to know who you are, your family’s status, and anything that might make you stand out amongst your peers. I need a reason for why I’m not punishing you… Oh, and eat this.” She says before a small, round white pill appears in her hand and she holds it in front of Lan Jin.

Looking down at the pill, Lan Jin notices that it is jam-packed full of Qi and he immediately grows suspicious.

“What is it?” He asks, ignoring Sun Meirong’s questions while wondering if she is trying to poison him or control his mind somehow.

“Medicine.” She responds. “It will rid you of your bruises before we descend from the carriage.”

Looking at her doubtfully, Lan Jin doesn’t take the pill. “Why would you care about my bruises?”

“Because it is better for me and my family that my daughter is not some vicious shrew who pins young men to the ground by force.” Sun Meirong glares at him and Lan Jin can’t help but swallow a mouthful of saliva. And off to the side, Qiang Yu huffs quietly, but she is silenced by her mother giving her an even more vicious glare than she had given Lan Jin. “Now hurry up and take the pill or it won’t have the time it needs to take effect before we descend from the carriage.”

Lan Jin thinks that her argument is reasonable, but remembering what happened when he met Moxian in the River of Fate, Lan Jin immediately rejects her order.

“Yeah, no. Not happening. I don’t know if that medicine is going to do something harmful to my body or my mind so there’s no way I’m putting it in my mouth.”

Sun Meirong immediately looks frustrated, but she says nothing to him. Instead, she turns to her daughter and says, “Trinket, eat this.”

Qiang Yu’s mouth drops open and she starts complaining, “But, Mama! I’ll have to spend hours removing the pill toxins from my body later!”

“I don’t care. This is your fault, now eat it.”

Qiang Yu frowns at her mother, but then she shoots an angry scowl at Lan Jin before snatching the small white pill from her mother’s hand and throwing it into her mouth. And though she has a bitter look on her face, she ultimately ends up swallowing the pill and giving Lan Jin another scowl before she leans back in her seat again.

“Are you satisfied?” Sun Meirong asks him while taking out another pill. “That one pill was worth fifteen gold coins, so I sure hope you don’t plan on refusing this one.”

Grimacing, Lan Jin looks down at the pill and gingerly takes it from Sun Meirong’s hand before bringing it up to his nose and sniffing it. It doesn’t smell like any medicine he had taken before, and inside the pill is a mixture of pure and impure Qi. About eighty percent of the pill looks to be impure Qi, and that part is a mixture of light-blue and light-green energies that surround the pure Qi nucleus of the pill.

Lan Jin feels as though the impure Qi is something bad for him, but with how frantic Sun Meirong was when she ripped her daughter off of his chest a few minutes ago, Lan Jin doesn’t think she would risk harming her daughter now just to poison him somehow.

But even still, if this medicine is supposed to heal him quickly enough that his bruises will be gone before they descend from the carriage, then he thinks there has to be something strange about it so he summons the Auspicious Tri-Colored Flame and places it in his stomach in case he needs to use it quickly. Then, still feeling a great deal of distrust toward the small white pill, Lan Jin puts it into his mouth and immediately begins grimacing.

The only thing he could liken the pill’s flavor to is the bitter chemical game companies put on their cartridges to keep kids from swallowing them. It’s so disgusting that Lan Jin nearly spits it right out, but when he remembers how Qiang Yu also grimaced when she put it in her mouth, he thinks that it is probably normal. And it might even be intentional because it would keep people from becoming addicted to different medicines.

In the end, he has to force himself to swallow the pill whole as his mouth seems to reject the very idea of trying to chew it, and the pill’s size, though small, makes him want to drink a glass of water to chase it down as he constantly feels as though it is going to get stuck in his throat. Ignoring that feeling, he turns his gaze inside his body as he watches the pill slowly travel down his esophagus. Not sure what is supposed to happen, he doesn’t take his attention off of it for a second, but, in the end, all of his focus amounts to nothing as the pill doesn’t even get very far before it bursts open inside of his chest and sends a wave of chilling energy through his body.

It’s so strong that Lan Jin feels as though he may as well have submerged himself in a bathtub full of muscle-relaxing cream, and though he thought himself prepared to deal with any potential consequences of swallowing the pill, the result goes against his expectations as the energy quickly fills every inch of his body and all of the various aches and pains he had collected over the course of the last few days disappear over the course of a few seconds.

His eyes flickering open, Lan Jin looks at his wrist and watches in amazement as the bruise covering it begins to fade and he realizes it will only be a few minutes before it is gone completely. Wanting to see if the pill is only affecting things on the surface, he begins stretching his hand and rotating his wrist to see is there is any stiffness, but he finds that whatever stiffness was there before quickly fades to nothing, and even his bruised eye is feeling much better as the seconds pass.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Astounded by the effects of the pill, Lan Jin looks inside his body again and notices that there is a lot of extra energy floating around doing nothing. And while some of it seems to be pure Qi, the vast majority of it is the light-green and light-blue Qi.

“What does the rest of the pill’s energy do?” He asks Sun Meirong. “Will it just stay in my body and heal me when I get injured next? Or is this what the toxins are made of?”

“Country bumpkin,” Qiang Yu and Lulu hiss at him simultaneously, but Lan Jin ignores them.

Rolling her eyes, Sun Meirong says, “Of course not. If you don’t refine away those energies they will become pill toxins which can harm your body and damage your cultivation. But that is not important right now. What is important is the question I asked you.”

“About my family and stuff?” Lan Jin asks while wondering what he should say.

“Yes,” Sun Meirong confirms irritably.

Shrugging his shoulders, Lan Jin doesn’t really know what to say so he decides to give her a very general overview of his family and his recent history.

“My dad used to be a soldier, but he lost his leg stateside when he tried to help out a guy having a seizure on the side of a road and a distracted driver crashed into the vehicle next to him and caused it to land on him. Nowadays, he does a bunch of youth support group stuff and charity work. As for my mom, she is a businesswoman and she has both her MBA and a Doctorate, so she’s pretty impressive and I guess you can say she has a decent amount of status. I don’t know a single thing about my mom’s parents other than the fact that they’re assholes who my mom no longer wants to associate with because they refused to acknowledge her marriage with my dad. And my dad’s parents died long before I was born, so I never got to know them but I’ve heard they were very nice people.

“As for myself, I had just entered college about a week ago and before I could even attend my first class I got caught up in something and punished for somebody else’s crimes. As for what happened next, I’m not really sure, but I was… told, I guess, that the people who committed the crime were killed and turned into dust. I was considered innocent, though, so I wasn’t killed. But apparently, just being wrapped up in their crime was a good enough reason to effectively exile me from my home because someone or something very, very powerful grabbed me and moved me to just a few dozen miles outside of the city and left me there with the message that I wasn’t guilty of any crimes and that I could live my own life.

“I ended up learning how to cultivate after that, and I also learned how to use my spiritual flame. But, that’s about it for me.”

Finished speaking, Lan Jin wonders what Sun Meirong will make of what he said.

At first, he didn’t want to tell the truth, but then he realized that lying would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. Not only was there a trail of cut and broken bamboo showing the exact path he had taken through the bamboo forest, but Hu Shentian, Hu Gongniu, and Hu Qiuping have no reason to lie for him, and they would be able to tell anyone who asked that he had been consuming pears along the journey. That means that anyone who was curious would be able to find the pear tree he had lived under for a short while, and given that it hadn’t rained in the last few days, he imagines that any half-competent scout would be able to find exactly where he landed when he was bounced out of his bed by the edge of the ravine.

And since any explanation he could give about how he suddenly appeared there would be equally or even more absurd than the truth, Lan Jin decides that he might as well give Sun Meirong a version of the truth that painted him in a neutral light.

“You stupid pig head,” Lulu scoffs at him. “Do you actually think anyone is naive enough to fall for that?”

“Dewdrop, be quiet.” Sun Meirong says impatiently.

Lulu’s mouth shuts with an audible click and she gives Sun Meirong an aggrieved look.

Reaching out with her hand, Qiang Yu tugs on her mother’s sleeve softly. “Mama, Lulu is just trying to help and she is being offended on your behalf. Why are you turning your face against her for a stranger’s sake?”

Sun Meirong pats her daughter’s hand and says, “Your father already sent scouts to follow this young man’s path through the bamboo forest, and the missive I received last night informed me that the path they followed ended abruptly at the Immortal Slaying Ravine. Now, I don’t know that this young man’s story is true, but I do find that it would be incredibly difficult for anyone to cross the Immortal Slaying Ravine. In fact, there are many people who believe the ravine still contains the lingering resentment of the immortals who are known to have died there, so very few people, and even fewer vicious beasts, have the guts to approach that area.

“So, when Dewdrop claims that only a naive person would believe his story, all she is doing is proving her ignorance and insulting my intelligence. Because not only do I believe this young man’s story, but I had even suspected the interference of a powerful figure based on what I had already known.”

Lan Jin blinks, surprised both that the City Lord had already done that much in such a short period of time and also that Sun Meirong had already guessed how he got here. And as he looks at Sun Meirong again, he remembers that Qiang Yu had called her much more terrifying than her father. He hadn’t believed it before because all he had seen was how domineering her father is, but now, he thinks Qiang Yu might have been right.

Realizing that he would have gotten caught in a lie from the moment it left his lips, Lan Jin starts feeling anxious and wonders if he lied about something else that might come back to bite him in the ass in the future. He was used to people being upfront with him, and the fact that Sun Meirong let him decide whether or not he was going to dig his own grave without even mentioning it scared him.

Noticing his nervousness, Sun Meirong turns back to him and gives him a soft and beautiful smile. But that smile does nothing to calm his nerves and instead, he feels cold sweat collecting on his back.

With her eyes still trained on him, Sun Meirong says, “Over the next few hours, a large number of things will begin happening wave after wave. Thankfully, we are ahead of things now so we have enough time to talk things over.

“First, people are going to start hearing about what happened between you and my daughter. Unfortunately, there will be no hiding that my daughter fell on top of you as there were too many people who saw it. So instead of wasting our time trying, we are going to offer up a plausible alternative. That is, you,” she waves her hand at Lan Jin, “are a soul cultivator, and because you were infuriated by my daughter assaulting you, you overreacted and used a soul attack on her. Thankfully, though my daughter is nowhere near as capable as you are when it comes to soul cultivation and spiritual energy, she managed to suffer through your attack and counterattack while she was at it. You had not expected this to happen, and because of your lapse, you lost temporary control over your body at the same time as my daughter’s consciousness briefly fled her which caused you two to collapse on top of each other.”

After listening to her mother’s version of the truth, Qiang Yu turns up her nose when she hears that she is meant to be less capable than Lan Jin in this version of events. And when her mother asks, “Well? What do you think?” Qiang Yu is the first to speak up.

“Mama, I don’t think it works,” she says while shaking her head. “People are going to want to test him, and even though your explanation might be close to the truth, it relies on his purple energy being debilitating. But that means that the first person to experience it will understand exactly what happened to me! It’s placing too much faith on a single variable.”

Shaking her head, Sun Meirong says, “In theory, it might be a fatal flaw for this plan, but the thing that makes it a fatal flaw is also what makes it beneficial for our use— and that is the fact that it requires him to use his energy on others for them to understand. And given that I intend to forbid him from engaging in duels after his little fiasco with you, that will be a non-issue.”

With a large pout on her face, Qiang Yu pulls on her mother’s sleeve. “But Mama! That means that we have to trust this person to have our own interests in mind when he acts! And I don’t have that kind of faith in him!”

“I know,” Sun Meirong says while patting Qiang Yu’s head. “But even if we change the plan, he will be a key variable in anything we come up with. At least in this way, the lie is hidden in the truth, and even if somebody suspects something is wrong with our explanation, they can only suspect and they cannot claim that you are guilty of any wrong-doing.”

Qiang Yu pouts further, but while Sun Meirong continues comforting her daughter, Lan Jin has an alternative thought. “If the whole point is the fact that it needs to be debilitating, then I could just show them what happens if I use my flame. Not only would that act as a deterrent to keep them away from me, but if I used it on a rat or something, then I’m pretty sure most people would be too afraid to try it out personally.”

Narrowing her eyes at Lan Jin, Sun Meirong says, “Absolutely not. I saw what your flame did to that poor bird. Pain like that would not cause my daughter to be temporarily incapacitated, it would shatter her mind. Rather than helping out, people would be whipped up into a frenzy if they realized what you were capable of doing to them. So, no. We will not be demonstrating your flame to anybody, and unless either of you has something workable to add, we will be going with my idea.”

Several seconds pass in silence and Lan Jin feels a little forlorn. His little flame is so amazing and it can purify Qi into a substance that is supposedly extremely beneficial. But when the flame itself comes into contact with living creatures, it becomes something almost evil.

“Mistress, I have a thought,” Lulu speaks up from the side.

“What is it, Dewdrop?” Sun Meirong asks her.

“Well, Sister Yu hit her head on the stupid pig head’s chin when she fell, and the stupid pig head fell and hit his own head on the ground. Rather than trying to make the stupid pig head seem more capable than he actually is, or make Sister Yu out as being less capable than she actually is, wouldn’t it make more sense to just say they were both knocked unconscious?”

When no one speaks, she continues, “It solves all of the problems at once, and we don’t need any sort of elaborate explanation for why she couldn’t be moved from his body until you arrived because most people wouldn’t risk moving a person who fell unconscious after striking their head. Plus, people would have seen how they fell, and from my point of view, it looked like Sister Yu jumped on the stupid pig head and caused him to fall. Her jumping on him doesn’t make sense if she received a soul attack because she shouldn’t have been able to control her body enough to do that. But if she tripped and people start claiming that she jumped, then to me it seems like people are making a mountain out of a molehill in order to stir up trouble and I think that most people would think that also.”

When she falls silent, Lulu notices that everyone in the carriage is looking at her and she begins to blush. And other than calling him a stupid pig head more times than he thinks reasonable, Lan Jin can’t help but feel as though the dumb donkey isn’t as dumb as he had first thought.