The two girls didn’t seem as if they were going to wake up any time soon, so Jin Shu found a relatively clean-looking home with two bedrooms and moved them into a bedroom. He gave Su Bing her own bedroom, and he slept with Yin’er in the other.
Before sleeping, he thought of the events that had happened over the course of their journey. One thing that concerned him was that the Living Metal seemed to have lost the ability to parasitize things like the Martian Metal had. Jin Shu never did know how the Martian Metal worked, and he had barely figured out a few features of the new Living Metal.
---
The next morning, he got up early and scavenged the village homes for supplies. When he got back, the two girls were still sound asleep, so he started making breakfast. He used some bread he found in the home they were currently staying in and some butter he found in another home to make buttered toast. Then he fried some eggs he found in a chicken coop with some vegetables he found in various gardens to make omelets. After he finished cooking the omelets, he heard some movement in the room he had stayed in the previous night. Yin’er seemed to be waking up.
And sure enough, Yin’er soon came slowly flying out of the room. While rubbing her eyes with her paws, she asked, “What’s that smell? It smells super yummy!”
“I made breakfast. Go wake Su Bing up. She’s in that room over there,” Jin Shu said as he turned and went back to cooking.
He used some fruits and sugar to make a sort of fruit jam for the toast as Yin’er slowly flew over to the other room.
A few seconds after she entered, there was a loud shout. “Big Sister Bing-Bing! Wake up!”
“Aah! Ghosts!” came another shout.
Jin Shu, hearing this, sighed and shook his head in exasperation.
Soon after those shouts, there was some rustling, a few crashes, and some muffled exclamations that Jin Shu couldn’t quite make out.
A few more moments passed, and Su Bing came out with Yin’er in her arms, both of their hair messy. Su Bing’s chest was rising and falling as if she had just done some kind of exercise.
Jin Shu stared at the two for a moment, chuckled slightly, and shook his head. “Sit down and eat.”
Su Bing placed Yin’er down on the table and then took a seat. “What happened?” she asked curiously.
“There was an evil lich controlling the ghost. I fought him, just barely losing, and Yin’er saved me by killing him. Oh! Also, I found a Space Ring on his corpse,” he explained succinctly.
Su Bing stared at Jin Shu in shock, the toast she had been about to take a bite out of falling from her hands, which Yin’er quickly dove and caught in her mouth. “Hehehe!” Yin’er giggled in triumph, having just scored an extra piece of toast.
Jin Shu handed Su Bing an extra piece of toast.
---
After breakfast, they collected their things and the supplies Jin Shu had scavenged and put everything in Jin Shu’s new Space Ring.
“Alright, let’s get the hell out of here,” said Jin Shu.
---
They traveled for a few hours, and by noon they made it to a large lake. There was a boat docked at its western shore with a fishing pole inside. They decided to borrow the boat and rod to do some fishing, as Jin Shu had promised Yin’er that she could eat some fish before they entered the ghost village.
Jin Shu rowed the boat out to the middle of the lake, placed some bait on the hook of the fishing rod, and cast it out into the lake. As they waited for a fish to take the bait, Jin Shu took out the treasure map he had found in the skeleton’s ring and asked Su Bing if she recognized the place depicted on it.
“Hmm...? I also don’t recognize this place. It could be somewhere in the south or north?” she replied.
“Hm, well, that’s fine. I’m not too interested in going treasure hunting now anyways,” he replied indifferently.
Splash!
“Ah!” Su Bing yelped in surprise as some water splashed on her, thrown up by Yin’er.
“Hehe!” Yin’er giggled in delight.
“Hmph!” Su Bing pouted.
Splash!
“Aah!” This time it was Yin’er yelping in surprise as Jin Shu tossed some water on her.
“Ahaha!” Su Bing laughed happily, seeing Yin’er being hit with water this time.
Swoosh!
A sudden gust of wind blew by the boat. As it did, it lifted Su Bing’s veil. Jin Shu happened to be looking at her as the veil blew up, and he was instantly mesmerized by the beautiful visage underneath.
Splash! Splash!
Jin Shu was awoken from his stupor by two splashes of water hitting him.
“Ahaha!”
“Ehehe!”
Su Bing and Yin’er laughed simultaneously. They were the culprits behind the sudden water attacks.
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Splish!
The fishing rod suddenly tugged; a fish had taken the bait.
Jin Shu quickly reeled the line in. The tension on the line was heavy—it must be a giant fish.
---
After a fierce fight with the fish, Jin Shu managed to reel it in. He pulled the line out of the water to see his catch... it was about three inches long.
Splash!
A giant five-foot-long fish leapt from the water and attempted to grab the little fish in Jin Shu’s hands. He pulled his hand back, and the fish landed inside the boat. Yin’er jumped on it and bit its head.
“Ehehehe! Daddy caught a little fish; Yin’er is the better fisher!”
---
Crackle!
A campfire was crackling by the shore of the lake. A five-foot-long fish was roasting over the fire, along with a pot of rice.
Jin Shu waved his hand, and a table appeared on the ground in front of himself. He waved his hand a few more times, and bowls and utensils appeared on the table. “It sure is convenient having a Space Ring,” he remarked.
“Can I see it for a moment?” asked Su Bing.
“Sure, here you go.” Jin Shu removed the ring from his little finger—it was too small to fit any other finger—and handed it over to Su Bing.
“How do I see what’s inside?” Su Bing asked as she turned the ring around, looking at it from every angle.
“You just need to inject a small amount of Qi into the ring, and an image will appear in your mind,” Jin Shu explained.
Su Bing injected her Qi into the Space Ring and exclaimed, “Ah! It’s so magical!”
“Let Yin’er see! Big Sister Bing-Bing, let Yin’er see!” Yin’er begged from the side.
“Okay, okay, give me a second.” Su Bing placed the ring on the table so that Yin’er could see it.
“Ooh! So cool! Yin’er wants a Space Ring too! Daddy, get Yin’er a Space Ring, pleeease?” Yin’er tilted her head cutely and begged.
“As soon as I learn to craft Space Rings, I’ll give you both one,” Jin Shu promised.
“Yay! Daddy is the bestest!” Yin’er cheered happily and flew up to Jin Shu’s cheek to affectionately rub her head against him.
Su Bing blushed slightly. Although it was hidden under her veil, you could still see her ears turn red. “Hm, thank you...” she whispered in embarrassment.
---
“Stop! One bronze coin to enter per person, and one gold coin for a Demonic Beast.”
A gate guard stopped Jin Shu and his company from crossing the border between dynasties.
They had just arrived at the border between the Qi Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty. The two dynasties would rotate out guards at the border checkpoint every few years and enforce a fee on those crossing.
Jin Shu handed over the fee, and they crossed the border without any trouble.
Jin Shu spoke to one of the guards for a moment, then caught up with Su Bing, who was walking ahead. “The guard said there is a city a few days' travel from here that has a runic weapons shop. Let’s stop there and see if they know anything about the Concealment Rune.”
“Um, thank you!” Su Bing said with a smile that reached her eyes.
---
“The runic weaponry store is down that street there.”
“OK, thank you, sir.” Jin Shu thanked the old man he had stopped to ask directions from.
Then he and Su Bing turned down the street the man had pointed out.
---
“Welcome to Wild Weaponry! What can I help you find today?” a shop attendant asked as Jin Shu stepped into the store.
Jin Shu walked up to the counter and asked, “Is there a Runesmith here? I have a question about a specific rune.”
“Hmm... we do. Hold on a moment while I go and check to see if he wants to speak with you,” said the attendant.
The attendant came back a few minutes later, following behind a skinny middle-aged man.
“Hm, what question do you have? If it’s about becoming my apprentice, then the answer is no, and you can leave now,” the skinny man declared with an arrogant tone.
“Uh, no, I don’t want to be your apprentice. I have a question about a specific rune. It is called the Concealment Rune. Have you heard of it?”
The skinny man frowned slightly when he heard the question. “Why are you asking about that rune?” he asked cautiously.
“We need to find a way to fix a tool with a damaged Concealment Rune,” Jin Shu explained.
“What!? You have something with the Concealment Rune!? Get out! Get out of this shop now!! Wait, no, where did you get the tool from, and what is it exactly!? Answer honestly, or you may not like the outcome!” The skinny man’s Qi suddenly burst out of his body, causing the weapons on the shelves against the walls to shake. It seems this man was at the Core Forging Realm at least.
Jin Shu contemplated whether to answer the man or to leave. He decided to answer for now, not because he was afraid of the man, but quite the opposite—the skinny man seemed weaker than the skeleton he fought previously. So he decided that he could get more useful information if he answered the man’s question.
“The tool is a mask. It was left to us by our relative,” Jin Shu answered.
“Your relative? And what was this relative’s occupation?” the skinny man continued asking.
“What does their occupation matter?” Jin Shu asked curiously.
“There is only one job that requires a mask with a Concealment Rune. If your relative doesn’t have that job, then they probably stole it or killed for it. In which case, I will take that mask from you. So, what is their occupation?” the skinny man explained.
“They were a righteous assassin. Is that the correct answer?” Jin Shu responded warily.
The skinny man thought for a moment before demanding, “Hmm... alright, show me the mask.”
Jin Shu waved his hand and pulled the mask out from the Space Ring. Su Bing had asked Jin Shu to put it inside the ring for safekeeping.
The skinny man’s eyes widened in surprise slightly when he saw the mask appear in Jin Shu’s hand. He didn’t expect the young man before him to be in possession of a Space Ring. Even someone as important as himself, an elder runesmith of the Wild Weaponry chain store, didn’t possess a Space Ring.
The skinny man reached for the mask; however, Jin Shu pulled his hand back, not allowing the man to grab it. “You don’t need to touch it. Just tell me if you can fix the rune,” Jin Shu said calmly.
“You!?” The skinny man shouted in a fluster from missing his grab and embarrassing himself.
“So, can you fix it or not?” Jin Shu asked again.
The skinny man’s face turned red in anger. He was about to get violent with the insolent young man; however, when he thought of how Jin Shu possessed a rare Space Ring and that mask, he calmed himself down. “I cannot, and even if I could, I would not.”
Jin Shu frowned slightly. “You can’t fix it? But you recognize it, so you must know something about it. Could you tell us what you know?”
“I can’t tell you anything. Now please leave,” the skinny man pointed to the door behind them.
“What if I pay you? Will you tell us then?” Jin Shu asked curiously.
“Ahahaha! Pay me? No amount of gold in the world could buy you that information!” The skinny man burst into uproarious laughter.
“What about this?” Jin Shu produced a Qi Stone from his Space Ring.
The skinny man stopped laughing, shocked after seeing the Qi Stone. “I didn’t expect you to have a Qi Stone. But still, no, one Qi Stone is not enough. And I doubt your family sent such a young man out with more than one Qi St—Cough!”
As the skinny man was talking, Jin Shu pulled another Qi Stone out of the ring, causing the man to choke on his saliva. “Will this be enough?”
The ring Jin Shu looted from the skeleton had twenty-eight Qi Stones inside, which is a small fortune for one person to possess. Even the Great Sects, which monopolized most of the Qi Stones, only mined about fifty per year, and that was barely enough for themselves.
The skinny man visibly struggled, trying to decide whether to take the Qi Stone or steer clear of this dangerous topic. In the end, his greed won out. “You, get out!” The skinny man turned to the attendant, who had been silently watching from behind him, to leave.
“Yes, sir!” The attendant quickly left the shop, afraid to lose his job over information that he had no need to hear.
“Give me the Qi Stones, and I’ll answer your questions,” the skinny man said.
“Here, let’s start with one, and I’ll pay the other after we get the information.” Jin Shu handed the man only one stone.
“You...! Argh...! Fine!” The skinny man was going to argue; however, he didn’t want to anger this rich young man. Who knows what kind of power was backing him up.