Inherited 100 Million - Chapter 20

After a brief conversation with Cheng Da, Zhong Meng turned to Old Li and said, “Mr. Li, Cheng Da and I are going to go over and ask if they’ve seen Miss Xue.”

Old Li’s gaze was still fixed on the lotus lanterns. He nodded absentmindedly at the sound of Zhong Meng’s voice, not even seeming to have heard him.

With Old Li’s permission, Zhong Meng and Cheng Da walked toward the tall tower. The others stayed behind to protect Old Li just in case. The closer they got, the clearer the singing became. Men and women were singing and beating hand drums. It was a melody Zhong Meng was not familiar with.

Zhong Meng thought with uncertainty, It doesn’t sound like the music from Wukin Kingdom, or the Great Yan Dynasty on the other side of the desert. It’s more similar to the folk songs of the Desert People.

The Desert People was a collective term for the people living in the Yangsuo Desert. After the fall of Guque, they didn’t form a country and only had tribes. Over the past hundred years, the environment in the Yangsuo Desert had been getting worse, and large parts of the oases had disappeared. The Desert People were becoming fewer and fewer. They either moved to the Great Yan Dynasty or to Wuqin Kingdom.

However, the wagons parked outside were gorgeously decorated. Zhong Meng was familiar with all the tribes in the desert, and none of them could afford such wagons.

Zhong Meng became more cautious. He gestured to Cheng Da, who nodded and held the short sword hidden in his sleeve.

The doors and windows of the tall tower had long since turned to dust from the wind and sand. The people inside had hung a curtain where the door used to be to block the cold wind from outside. The number of curtains was likely limited, so they used their outer robes to cover the windows. The coverage was not complete, and Zhong Meng could see at least ten people inside.

Zhong Meng stood outside the curtain and called out a greeting.

A brief moment of silence passed inside. A woman’s voice made a low exclamation. Zhong Meng heard footsteps and then a delicate, fair hand lifted the curtain, revealing a pair of affectionate eyes.

The beautiful woman with flushed cheeks saw them standing outside. She smiled and turned to the man surrounded by the others. “Li He, we have guests.”

The woman then invited them in, but Zhong Meng quickly declined. “No need to trouble yourselves. We just came to ask if you’ve seen a little girl in her early teens, wearing a white cloak and a light green dress underneath?”

The woman shook her head and looked back at the people sitting inside. They all shook their heads blankly.

The man called Li He spoke in a loud voice, “Did you get separated from your companions? If you got separated nearby, we can help you look for her!”

The others all agreed.

The people in the tall tower were exceptionally friendly. Their clothes suggested they were wealthy merchants, and their faces showed no signs of malice. For some reason, however, Zhong Meng felt a strong sense of unease. He subtly looked past the woman to observe the people in the room. Five lanterns clearly illuminated their faces.

Including the woman, there were thirteen people in this caravan: nine men and four women. The men wore exquisite patterned cloth robes, and the women were dressed in light silk. The youngest one seemed to be about the same age as Xue Yizhuo, and the oldest was only a middle-aged person in their forties or fifties. A fire pit was burning in the center of the room with a grill on top. The slices of meat on it had been grilled to a golden brown and basted with sauce. These people were sitting around the bonfire. Some held drums, a few women wore dancing clothes, and others had half-eaten pieces of grilled meat on wooden skewers.

They seemed like a normal caravan.

Zhong Meng hesitated about whether to accept Li He’s offer. Once a person got lost in the desert, it was very difficult to find them. With more people to help, there would be more hope of finding Xue Yizhuo.

The woman suddenly gasped.

Zhong Meng and Cheng Da also heard the soft sound of feet stepping into the sand behind them.

“Hurry and come in!” The woman grabbed Zhong Meng’s hand and said anxiously. “The sandstorm is coming!”

Zhong Meng was pulled into the tall tower by the woman. He turned his head and saw Cheng Er and the others running toward them. Behind them, the dark wind and sand of the night were already higher than the crumbling walls of Moon City.

Cheng San, carrying Old Li on his back, was the last to run into the room. As soon as he entered, a young man at the door expertly took out nails and fastened the curtain to the wall. The other members of the caravan silently used their goods to block the doors and windows. In the blink of an eye, the howling of the wind became muffled. The only clear sound in the tall tower was the dull thud of the curtain being billowed by the wind.

Neither Zhong Meng nor the caravan were worried about the wagons and carriages they had brought. As long as the things inside didn’t fall out, even if the wagons were blown away, they wouldn’t be blown far, and it wouldn’t be hard to find them.

Cheng San put Old Li down and thanked the caravan members, panting.

Old Li didn’t say anything. He limped to a corner and sat down, quietly staying in the shadows of the room. Cheng Sao hurried over to take care of him.

Li He’s gaze lingered on Cheng Er’s waist for a moment.

Cheng Er looked down at the knife on his waist. He decisively took it off and threw it aside. The smile on Li He’s face became more genuine. The woman sitting next to him beckoned the group to sit by the bonfire.

“You should stay here until the sandstorm passes,” Li He said.

Zhong Meng and the others had no objections. This tall tower had remained so well-preserved after the fall of Guque, proving its sturdiness. It was indeed the best place nearby to take shelter from the sandstorm.

“You must be tired from your journey. Have something to eat.” The woman put some grilled meat on a wooden skewer and walked over to hand it to Zhong Meng and the others. The group felt too embarrassed to refuse. They thanked her and took the skewers.

When the woman offered the skewer to Old Li, he shook his head, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes.

Cheng Sao said apologetically, “The old man is probably tired.”

The woman smiled understandingly and lowered her voice. “It’s not easy to travel such a long way. The old man should get some rest.”

After giving out the last skewer of meat, the woman sat back next to Li He and leaned against him. It was clear that they were a couple.

She didn’t notice that Old Li had opened his eyes after she left. Old Li was sitting by the window. The window was not completely covered, leaving a small crack through which he could see outside the tower.

Old Li turned his head and looked out the window. The lotus lanterns were swaying violently in the strong wind. The candle flames, carefully protected by the petals, looked as if they would be extinguished at any moment.

Li He took a sip of his wine and asked Zhong Meng, who was sitting across from him, “Are you a caravan too? You seem to be missing a few people.”

Zhong Meng shook his head. “We’re going to the Great Yan Dynasty.”

He said this and took a bite of the meat. The taste made him look surprised.

“It’s delicious, isn’t it?” Li He said with a hint of pride. “This sauce is a specialty of Lotus City!”

Lotus City.

Zhong Meng’s heart skipped a beat, but he wasn’t too suspicious. After the fall of Guque, many of its people fled to Wuqin Kingdom, and most of the refugees settled in Jiangcheng. Many things in Jiangcheng originated from Guque and were influenced by it, but this was the first time he had tasted this kind of sauce.

Zhong Meng praised, “If this sauce were to be brought to Jingcheng, it would definitely become a sensation.”

Li He was pleased with Zhong Meng’s compliment. He laughed heartily. “This sauce is not easy to make. We can’t bear to sell it in Jingcheng.”

The woman leaning against him nodded with a smile. “One of its ingredients is a lotus flower near the royal palace of Lotus City. It can’t be picked casually, and the method of making it is only known to the royal palace. We are from the Li family of Lotus City, and we don’t get more than a hundred bottles a year.”

Zhong Meng was stunned. “Lotus flowers near the… royal palace?”

“Yes, the lotus flowers near the royal palace never wither all year round. The palace is on a small island surrounded by them,” the woman said, her eyes full of longing. “Our first monarch, Xiangjun, was an immortal from the west. With a wave of her hand, the desert became an oasis, and with a single thought, an immortal palace appeared out of thin air. It’s a place where only Xiangjun and her descendants can live. Without her permission, no one can enter the royal palace. They will only get lost in the lotus flowers and never be able to leave.”

Zhong Meng suddenly stood up, his expression grave.

The woman looked at him, astonished and confused. “Huh?”

Zhong Meng felt his throat become dry. He asked with difficulty, “Are you… a caravan from the country of Guque?”

The woman hugged Li He’s arm and nodded with an innocent expression.

The bonfire and the five lanterns around it made the tower brightly lit, but the top of the tower and some of the corners were still dim.

Only a few people were in the dark corners. The faces of most of the people Zhong Meng saw were clearly visible in the light of the lanterns. Their expressions were lively, and their shadows overlapped, shifting vaguely.

Zhong Meng could feel the warmth of the bonfire, but cold sweat was breaking out on his back.

Cheng San subtly gripped the hilt of the short sword in his sleeve and asked, “What is this place?”

The people from the caravan looked at each other, confused. Li He frowned, not understanding why Zhong Meng and the others were suddenly reacting so strongly.

“This… is the ruins of an ancient city, right?” Li He asked. “Did you go to the wrong place?”

Zhong Meng neither nodded nor shook his head. Instead, he asked, “Do you know where Moon City is?”

“Moon City is nearby,” Li He said. “If you walk around, you should be able to get there soon enough, right?”

The woman tilted her head. “Are you going to Moon City?”

The people in the caravan all looked at them. Zhong Meng could feel thirteen pairs of eyes staring at his face.

It felt as if an invisible hand had gripped Zhong Meng’s heart. He suddenly found it hard to breathe, as if he were being watched by a group of ghosts.

Zhong Meng suddenly remembered what the old guide who had taught him had said.

—During the sandstorm season, don’t enter the Yangsuo Desert unless absolutely necessary… No, it’s not just because of the sandstorms. Legend has it that the people of Guque who couldn’t escape became lost souls. If you come to the old site of Guque at night, you can see the lost souls wandering in the city.

Zhong Meng didn’t believe in ghosts or spirits. He had only treated the old guide’s words as a legend and didn’t take them seriously. He had never crossed the Yangsuo Desert during the sandstorm season before because no caravans would travel during that time, and Zhong Meng had never taken on a job during this period.

That was until a few days ago, when an agent came to him and told him that someone wanted to cross the Yangsuo Desert to the Great Yan Dynasty during the sandstorm season.

The reward offered by the client made Zhong Meng completely forget the old guide’s warning.

“Ugh.” Someone made a soft sound. Zhong Meng, startled, instinctively looked over and was shocked to find that the person who had made the sound was Old Li.

In Old Li’s eyes, the lotus lantern in the strong wind was like a small boat in a raging sea. Finally, a huge wave came crashing down, and the small boat was swallowed up in the blink of an eye.

The candle flame went out.

Darkness instantly swallowed the tall tower.

A few gasps rang out in the tower. Cheng San immediately drew his short sword and held it in front of him, wary of any movement around him. Cheng Er, relying on his memory, lunged toward the door, found the long knife he had thrown on the ground, and drew it from its sheath.

Cheng Sao also spread her arms to shield Old Li.

Click.

A flame lit up behind her.

Cheng Sao turned her head in astonishment. She saw that Old Li, whom she was protecting, had lit a fire starter. Old Li’s gaze finally moved away from the window. With the light from the fire, he calmly looked at the wary group.

Zhong Meng opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but he couldn’t. It was as if he had lost the ability to speak for a moment.

“They are lost souls bound here by Soul-Catcher Lanterns,” Old Li said in a hoarse voice. “When the lantern goes out, they disappear.”

Old Li looked at Zhong Meng. “Look at your hand.”

My hand?

Zhong Meng suddenly realized that he had not put down the wooden skewer with the meat on it.

However, when he looked down, his hand was empty. There was no wooden skewer.

Old Li leaned his head back against the wall wearily. “We’re lucky. Eating air is better than eating sand.”

••••

In the royal palace.

Xue Yizhuo looked at the girl for a long time before asking with uncertainty, “You’re dead?”

The girl looked at her speechlessly. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Her body was transparent. It was clear that she was a soul.

Xue Yizhuo tried to recall the history of the country of Guque that she had heard from Zhong Meng. Guque had over a dozen monarchs, but there was no legend of any monarch living for an exceptionally long time.

Xue Yizhuo was a little disappointed. “So cultivators don’t live for very long either?”

“Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator can live for at least three hundred years. There are many old monsters in the cultivation world who are thousands of years old. If you ascend and become an immortal, you’ll live as long as the heavens and have an endless lifespan.” The girl rolled her eyes. “I was already close to death when I came here—otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to come to the Eastern Continent.”

She saw Xue Yizhuo’s blank expression and said in disbelief, “You don’t think cultivators can just come to the Eastern Continent whenever they want, do you?”

Xue Yizhuo nodded honestly.

The girl was now certain that the person in front of her knew nothing about the cultivation world.

She looked exasperated. “If cultivators could just come to the Eastern Continent as they pleased, this place would have descended into chaos long ago. Ordinary people can travel freely between the Eastern and Western Continents and stay on either continent for as long as they want, but cultivators have many restrictions when they come to the Eastern Continent.”

The girl held up her index finger. “All the restrictions can be summarized in one sentence: you cannot interfere with karma. You should know that you have to undergo a tribulation when you pass each major realm, right?”

Xue Yizhuo nodded. She had read novels and was familiar with this common trope.

“The more karma you have, the more difficult the tribulation becomes. The consequences of interfering with an ordinary person’s karma are much more severe than interfering with a cultivator’s. For example, if you kill a cultivator for no reason, you might get one extra bolt of lightning during your tribulation. But if you kill an ordinary person for no reason, you might get ten extra bolts of lightning. Only demon cultivators can ignore karma to a certain extent.”

Xue Yizhuo raised her hand. “Then why don’t people cultivate the demon path?”

She thought the girl would list the disadvantages of cultivating the demon path, but the girl looked wistful. “I’d like to know that myself. I wanted to cultivate the demon path, but the old folks in my clan wouldn’t let me.”

Xue Yizhuo: “…”

“However,” the girl suddenly changed her tone, “there are very few experts among demon cultivators. They often succumb to their inner demons for various reasons before they can even undergo tribulation. The cultivation techniques of the demon path require a strong mind, but people with strong minds wouldn’t choose to cultivate the demon path. After all, no demon cultivator has ever ascended. We think it’s possible that they can’t ascend at all.”

Xue Yizhuo suddenly realized that it seemed she couldn’t ascend either.

The levels in the game were the same as the realms in the cultivation world—if the legends in the Eastern Continent were to be believed. Cultivators had six major realms: Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Transformation, and Mahayana. Each major realm could be divided into four stages: Early, Mid, Late, and Great Perfection. The level cap for players in Huangquan Mirror was Mahayana Great Perfection. After reaching it, they could not gain any more experience.

Xue Yizhuo’s current realm was… well, she hadn’t even successfully introduced Qi into her body yet. She wasn’t even a Qi Condensation cultivator.

The experience required to reach the Qi Condensation realm was very little, but Xue Yizhuo hadn’t done many main quests, meditated, or fought monsters. And quests from chance encounters didn’t provide experience. As a result, the experience bar required to introduce Qi into her body still wasn’t full.

However, her stats were solidly maxed out. This created a very interesting situation where, based on her stats alone, Xue Yizhuo was the strongest person in this world, but she had no cultivation base whatsoever.

The girl continued with her original topic. “To avoid karma, cultivators rarely go to the Eastern Continent. Even if they do, they’ll pretend to be ordinary people and act like ordinary people. Those who cause strange phenomena or play tricks in the Eastern Continent are mostly low-level cultivators who know that they have no hope of breaking through. They can at least live a prosperous life in the Eastern Continent. But they can’t go too far, or they’ll be asking for death. They won’t even have to wait for their tribulation. Heavenly lightning will strike them on the spot.”

“The rules are much stricter for cultivators in the Eastern Continent than in the Western Continent. In the Eastern Continent, even high-level cultivators in the Mahayana realm don’t dare to use their spiritual energy.”

Xue Yizhuo nodded. Jun Yu had been very low-key in Qingping Town. The only time Xue Yizhuo had seen her use her power was when she was dealing with the twin demons.

The girl pointed at herself. “Someone in my situation doesn’t really care about the rules. One, the Heavenly Dao is more lenient with me. Two, under the circumstances, I was going to die sooner or later anyway. Since Heavenly lightning can’t scatter my soul, it doesn’t matter.”

Xue Yizhuo eagerly asked, “Why is the Heavenly Dao more lenient with you?”

The girl looked into her eyes and said, “The Desert People call me Xiangjun, but my real name is Di Xiang.”

Xue Yizhuo quietly waited for the rest of the story.

But the girl didn’t continue. She just stared at Xue Yizhuo.

Xue Yizhuo: “…”

Is she waiting for me to say something?

Xue Yizhuo hesitated, then praised her with uncertainty, “…That’s a nice name?”

Di Xiang asked softly, “You’ve never heard of my name?”

Xue Yizhuo: “…I, I’ll try to think harder?”

Xue Yizhuo desperately rummaged through her memories, but she really had never seen the name Di Xiang before. There was no important character named Di Xiang in the plot that had been revealed in Huangquan Mirror so far!

“Don’t bother,” Di Xiang said, giving her a subtle smile. “This is perfect.”

Xue Yizhuo suddenly had a bad feeling.

Author’s Note:

I was having too much fun during the day and had to rush the draft at night. So, there was no time to write about their daily lives.

Jun Yu: “…”