Wang Yonghao’s head was hurting. First he was run off from the Golden Rabbit Bay city, then he had once again fell head first into some secret ruins, and now it turned out that someone was following him all this time?

His luck really was the worst.

“Who do you think I am?” the woman said. How was he supposed to answer that? He didn’t even know her name.

He scowled at her. This bullshit toying was really getting on his nerves. He had enough of that in his life.

“It’s my turn to be asking questions,” he said.

She shrugged. “Look, if you don’t want to answer then don’t - just don’t blame me if I tell you something you already know.”

He stared at her for a while, then sighed. That was honestly fair.

“You are a ring grandma, sentient weapon that can assume human form, ancient ghost cultivator, time-traveling blacksmith from ancient times, reincarnated shard of the personality of a ten-thousand year old cultivator, or something else in a long line of bullshit that keeps making my life a living hell,” he said, not bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice, “here to either try to kill me, or bestow an inheritance on me, or try to take over my body, or tell me that I am your bastard child, or something else of that nature.”

The woman blinked and hummed at him.

“I don’t really want to teach you anything, no,” she said, “mostly I was just curious about your inner world, and how you accumulated so many treasures.”

“I am just that lucky,” he threw back, sitting down on the ground opposite to her.

“That wasn’t a question, but thanks for volunteering,” she smiled.

“Oh cut this bullshit,” he said, getting more annoyed, “You haven’t followed the rules yourself. Just talk like a normal person.”

She hummed again. “Alright then,” she said, “You’ve met me in person in the Northern Sky Salmon while very drunk. You stumbled, spilled my noodle soup all over my robes, and then got into a fight with me for no reason. Because of the limitations of my current body, you beat me up and threw me into your inner world.”

“That’s a lie,” he scoffed, “I don’t care how drunk I was, I hate fighting, and wouldn’t start it on a dime. I am a good person.”

“It isn’t,” she rolled her eyes at him, sitting up and crossing her arms. “It’s what happened. You even refused to apologize for the soup.”

“You liar!” he sneered, “I absolutely would apologize. If you are going to lie, at least say something more plausible.”

“Oh, you said you apologized alright,” she rolled her eyes at him again, “but then you told me you had no money. Talk about liars.”

His response froze on his lips and he covered his face with a groan.

“I really don’t have money,” he said.

“Who do you think you are fooling? I’ve seen your treasury,” she said.

“No, it’s - you don’t understand,” he sighed. “It’s my luck.”

She stared at him, with one eyebrow raised.

“Look, I am very lucky,” he started explaining, “I can’t walk through a forest without hitting my toe on a pile of heavenly materials and earthly treasures. If I visit a technique expert, chances are I will happen to be their ten thousandth client, and they will teach me their secrets for free. I keep stumbling on ruins and secret realms all the bloody time. As far as cultivation resources, techniques, weapons, or anything like that goes, I can get it as easily as turning over my hand.”

He paused to draw breath.

“But not money,” he continued. “Never money. I am as poor as a pauper. When I walk into town, I don’t know whether I will be sleeping on the street or in the guest room of the mayor, because they saw something in me. I eat either unsalted rice or like a king, with little in between, depending on how my luck feels that day.”

His stomach growled to punctuate his point. He hadn’t eaten since he left the Golden Rabbit Bay three days ago.

“Worse, this luck doesn’t stop,” he continued, ”I can’t just…relax. The longest I’ve been able to stay in any one place in the last three years was three weeks - some bullshit always happens making me set off again. This time, I won a tournament, and a young master of some sect I don’t even remember the name of swore revenge on me, because apparently he needed to win it in order to get married. This was three days after I arrived in the city. I wanted to go to a theater there, but apparently, no luck. Luckily enough a cousin of the owner of Northern Sky Salmon heard that and offered to at least feed me for free. I guess that’s when I started drinking. I don’t remember much more afterwards.”

“Uh huh,” she said, clearly unconvinced.

“You don’t believe me.”

“Not really, no,” she said, ”Everyone knows that some cultivators are more lucky than others, but what you describe is completely ridiculous. It violates all basic principles.”

He sighed. “Fine. Do you have a die? I’ll just show you.”

----------------------------------------

Qing Shanyi didn’t have a die, but she did have some coins. She played a very simple game with Wang Yonghao: each of them would flip two coins, with two heads losing to head and tail, head and tail losing to two tails, and two tails losing to two heads. It should have been completely fair.

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Wang Yonghao won four fifths of the time. It didn’t matter who flipped first, which coins they used, or even wherever he was flipping with his eyes closed.

Luck was a well-known force in the world of cultivation. Some things about luck were well known - for example, good feng shui would improve luck - but most of it remained a mystery.

It was definitely true that some cultivators were naturally more lucky than others. However, Wang Yonghao was breaking all known limits of luck - this was more than lucky, this was heaven-defying.

“Alright,” she sighed, “Maybe you are more lucky than Buddha. Why don’t you sell some of your treasures then?”

“You don’t think I tried?” he sighed, “It’s not so simple. Even if I can find a way to sell something, I lose all the money just as quickly.”

“Hm,” she rubbed her chin, “I suppose that explains why you started a fight after I called you a penniless bastard.”

He scowled at her again. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned it.

She raised her hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Well, sorry about that, but the idea of a loose cultivator going to Northern Sky Salmon without money was ridiculous.”

The scowl slowly faded from his face. “It’s fine, I guess,” he said, “I wouldn’t believe it either if it wasn’t my life.”

He rubbed his face. “Look, I’ll compensate you for the fight. I would have offered for you to take some of the treasures, but they went missing somehow.”

He threw a glare at her.

“They aren’t missing,” she said, “I simply sorted everything and put it away. Your treasury was a complete mess - I don’t know how you managed to find anything here.”

He ruffled his hair ruefully. “Yeah, I guess I never got around to going through it properly.”

“On top of being hard to search,” she continued, “it also produced a dangerous amount of ominous feng shui. It should have been pretty obvious.”

“I guess I don’t really enter here that much,” he said, “only makes me feel worse. At this point I only throw new treasures in because it would feel like a shame to leave them.”

With your luck, maybe you didn’t come here much because it was fucking dangerous, she thought.

She didn’t voice her opinion. His luck story was strange, and didn’t add up in multiple ways. For example, great luck would make a cultivator more likely to get what they wanted - but if she were to believe Wang Yonghao, then his luck was actively working against his interests. She had never heard of anything like that. Until she could verify his story, it was best to keep her cards close to her chest.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, an idea slowly forming in her mind. “I have some omelett here, if you want it.”

Whatever she was going to decide, she needed more time to think alone, without any watching eyes.

She walked over to the chiclotron trench, popped the cover open, and got the wine bottles storing the omelett out. Bringing a bottle of spirit wine along with her, she came back to Wang Yonghao and offered the omelett to him. He eyed her warily, not taking the bottles, though she could see his eyes widen at the sight of actual food.

“What, do you think it’s poisoned?” She rolled her eyes, and ate a small clump to demonstrate. “It’s safe. Makes you drunk if you eat too much though.”

She frowned, deliberately exaggerating her expression.

“Actually, given what happened last time you were drunk… Maybe it’s a bad idea,” she said, moving the omelett away and stepping back towards the trench.

“Wait, no!” he blurted out, snatching the omelett bottle out of her hands. She raised her eye at him.

“You sure? You seem to be a bit of a lightweight.”

“I’ll be fine,” he narrowed his eyes at her, as if expecting her to take away his food. She shrugged, and went back to the chiclotron, heading directly to where she stored the various weaponry.

“You said you came here for a fly whisk?” she called out to him, and saw that the hungry fool was already devouring the omelett, “You own two.”

She brought them over and Wang Yonghao pointed to one of them. She handed it over.

“Alright, now that you aren’t dying of hunger, why don’t we talk about how you can compensate me,” she said, looking him over, with her hands on her hips. She had perhaps ten minutes to iron everything out before he’d knock himself out, so she had to work quickly. This was her golden ticket into the higher realms.

There should have been no way for her to leech off Wang Yonghao’s luck directly. This was an absolute law: the luck of a cultivator was not transferable, and would only draw in events that they would benefit from, not someone else. His luck might be a little strange, but there was no reason to expect it to violate this principle.

That left benefitting indirectly. Her cultivation had already soared from simply being within the Inner World, and even if she could only use one percent of the treasures he found, it would shoot her straight into Heaven.

“First of all, if you think you’ll get rid of me, tough luck,” she said, “Your inner world is too good for cultivation. As compensation for the fight, you’ll let me stay and train here for as long as I like. Also, I’ll get to use anything and everything you put in here however I like.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Do I get a choice in the matter?” he muttered.

“Ha, good joke,” she laughed, “To placate you somewhat, I’m not just going to train, I’ll also take care of the world fragment, as you clearly aren’t going to do it yourself. You say you eat unsalted rice? If you planted a garden, you could eat proper food. There are a dozen things you can do here that would help make your life more pleasant.”

He still seemed unhappy, but quieted down. Did he not think of starting a garden before?

“Deal?” she asked, stretching her hand.

“You still haven’t told me your name,” he complained.

“Qing Shanyi,” she smiled.

“Sure, it’s a deal, fellow cultivator Qing,” he sighed, shaking her hand, “If that’s even your real name.”

“Excellent,” she nodded, sitting down opposite him, “Now tell me about this underground secret realm.”

About ten minutes later, as he was telling her about the secret realm, Wang Yonghao slumped over, with white foam coming out of his mouth. Qing Shanyi waited for a while, put some clothes under his head as a pillow, grabbed the fly whisk, and prepared to leave the world fragment.

Her proposal was honest. Her subpar cultivation law was holding her back, and so she needed all the help she could get in her cultivation. This world fragment would let her advance by leaps and bounds.

But just because she was being honest, that didn’t mean she would rely on Wang Yonghao, or trust him on his word.

It took her ten tries to get her rope spear lodged against the opening of the world fragment. She put the fly whisk into her robes and started to carefully climb up the silk line, doing her best to avoid dislodging the spear.

“I’m going to get out of here with my own power,” she said, looking down on the circular island of the world fragment from thirty meters up in the air, “and then we’ll see if I’ll truly feel like coming back.”