Chapter 62: Future Plans
Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Future Plans
"What brings you to see this old cripple, friend?" Zhao the Lame asked, pulling Lu Zhao from his thoughts.
"I was hoping you could introduce me to some established trade contacts, but it seems that’s no longer necessary." Lu Zhao paused briefly. "I wonder, would you be willing to purchase some Entry Tier Puppets to sell in the outer counties?"
Zhao the Lame mulled it over for a moment. "What tier and type of puppet? And at what price?"
Lu Zhao immediately took out one Ice Mouse Puppet and one Flowing Cloud Sparrow. He kept the more valuable Ironwood Guard hidden; at a value of eighty Spirit Stones, it was more than Zhao the Lame could afford at the moment.
"This is a Tier One Lower-Grade Ice Mouse Puppet, and this is a Tier One Lower-Grade Flowing Cloud Sparrow..." Lu Zhao briefly explained their functions.
When Lu Zhao finished, Zhao the Lame stroked his jaw. "Mr. Lu, your wares are certainly high-quality. It’s just, this old cripple has never dealt in Puppets before, so I’m not familiar with the market. How about this: I’ll take one of each to test the waters and gauge their value. What do you think?"
"Alright. What price are you offering?" Lu Zhao asked directly.
Zhao the Lame stated his price. "For the Ice Mouse Puppet... how about eight Spirit Stones? And for the Flowing Cloud Sparrow... fifteen Spirit Stones?"
The corner of Lu Zhao’s mouth twitched. The price was absurdly low. "My friend, do you take me for some greenhorn who doesn’t know the first thing about the market?"
Hearing this, Zhao the Lame chuckled. "Now now, Mr. Lu, don’t be hasty. Haggling is just part of the business. Your wares are good, it’s true, but this old cripple runs a small operation. I have to take on risks, pull strings, find sales channels, and grease palms. There are expenses at every turn! How about this... I’ll raise my offer a bit?"
What followed was a drawn-out, "Wanderer-style" negotiation over a few Spirit Stones. After a war of words and a great deal of haggling, Lu Zhao finally sold the puppets to Zhao the Lame at the "loss-making" price of ten Spirit Stones for the Ice Mouse Puppet and twenty for the Flowing Cloud Sparrow.
Stepping out of the black gate, Lu Zhao looked up at the sky and sighed. That was the best price he could get after arguing himself hoarse. How pathetic. But this was the daily life of a bottom-tier Cultivator. A single Spirit Stone or two was enough to make these Wanderers, who lived by licking blood from a blade’s edge, haggle over every last cent.
’So be it,’ Lu Zhao thought. ’I’ll just consider it an investment in a future escape route.’
After leaving Zhao the Lame’s stall, Lu Zhao tried several other shops, but the results were disappointing. One after another, the Shopkeepers politely informed him: the Puppet business was tough these days. The Nine Abyss Pavilion had an almost complete monopoly on the local market, and demand was already saturated.
In the end, Lu Zhao only managed to sell a single Ice Mouse Puppet at one shop, and only because the buyer planned to ship it to an Outer County to try his luck.
After making his rounds at the shops, Lu Zhao went to find the Demon Hunter, Wang Yun, asking him to keep an eye out for the complete corpse of a Tier One Middle-Grade Demon Wolf. But upon hearing the request, Wang Yun shook his head. "Little Zhao, Wolf Demons are already rare in the Celestial Cloud Mountain Range, and those that reach the Middle Stage are even rarer. Besides, after a successful hunt, most Demon Hunters butcher the carcass on the spot to make it easier to carry and sell. They very rarely bring back a whole corpse. In an entire year, we might not see more than a handful of complete Tier One Middle-Stage Demon Wolf corpses!"
Lu Zhao’s heart sank. He had no choice but to ask Wang Yun to put the word out among the Demon Hunter circles, promising a high price for a complete corpse.
He also thought of Zhou Hua. Since Zhou Hua had managed to procure three wolf corpses in under a month last time, he must have his own sources. Lu Zhao would have to ask him for help as well.
As night fell, Lu Zhao returned to the Cold Bamboo Garden, exhausted from a full day of running errands. He sat cross-legged on the cold bed, closed his eyes, and began circulating the Little Cloud Rain Technique, forcibly suppressing the chaotic thoughts racing through his mind.
After three hours of meditation, the Magical Power flowing gently through his meridians finally soothed his anxieties about Puppet Materials and sales, at least for a while.
However, while he could set aside his concerns about the Puppets, there was one thing he needed to plan for sooner rather than later—his future. What was he to do? Where was he to go?
With these heavy thoughts weighing on him, he began to strategize: with the Spirit Stones he had on hand, plus his monthly income from Puppet Making, purchasing the Pills necessary for Mid-stage Qi Cultivation wouldn’t be difficult.
Coupled with his Middle-Grade Spirit Root, his cultivation speed at the Qi Cultivation Sixth Layer was by no means slow. Even if he hit a bottleneck when pushing for the Late-stage Qi Cultivation, and even if he couldn’t find a Pill to break through it, it wouldn’t be too difficult for someone his age to succeed after a few years of patient cultivation.
But what would happen once he reached the Late-stage Qi Cultivation? Pills alone would be a massive problem. Tier One High-Grade Ice Marrow Pills were always in high demand in the Marketplace. The Zhou Family barely had enough for its own members, so grabbing one of the few that trickled into the open market was entirely a matter of chance.
What was worse were the future Puppet Materials. If finding a complete Tier One Middle-Grade Demon Wolf was already this difficult, was it even possible to gather the Spiritual Materials needed for a Tier One High-Grade puppet in a place as small as the Zhou Family Marketplace?
But what truly sent a chill to his core was something else entirely: in all of Changfeng County, he had never heard of a single Wanderer from outside the Zhou Family successfully achieving Foundation Establishment. It couldn’t be a coincidence. It had to be the Zhou Family’s deliberate suppression of Foreign Cultivators. If he stayed here, Late-stage Qi Cultivation might be the end of his road.
Each and every one of these issues demanded a decision, a solution. He even had to consider changing the Spirit Vein beneath his feet. If it weren’t for the Pills currently propping him up, his cultivation speed would have already plummeted.
But what made Lu Zhao most hesitant wasn’t *whether* to leave the Zhou Family Marketplace, but *where* to go.
Two paths lay before him:
The first option was to travel to the Bixia Marketplace, which was under the direct control of the Bixia Sect. This path had two advantages: first, the journey was relatively safe, and the large number of Wanderers passing through made it easy to gather information. Second, there was a slim chance of knocking on the doors of the Immortal Gate and joining the Golden Core Major Sect itself—the Bixia Sect.
Lu Zhao was sick of the hardships of life as a Wanderer. For years, he had endured the frustration of having no support, of having to do everything himself. If he could join a Major Sect and gain its backing, his cultivation path would undoubtedly become much smoother. The flaw in this plan, however, was that he was already past the age of sixteen, which made joining the Bixia Sect extremely difficult.
The second option was to journey far to the neighboring Yue Country, to a place of legend: the vast Xuan Yang Immortal City. It was said that in this city, you could buy anything, as long as you had enough Spirit Stones. If he could gain a foothold there, he might be able to use his skilled Puppetry Technique to secure a permanent place for himself.
However, the drawbacks of this path were also glaringly obvious: the journey spanned thousands of miles and was fraught with unpredictable dangers. Furthermore, everything he knew was merely hearsay. It was uncertain if a Late-stage Qi Cultivator could even survive the journey to the Immortal City.
Two paths, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
After sitting silently on his bed and pondering for the entire night, Lu Zhao reached a preliminary decision.
Before breaking through to the Late-stage Qi Cultivation, he would spare no effort to gather as much intelligence as possible. If the Xuan Yang Immortal City was truly as resource-rich as the legends said, and if the dangers of the journey were within a tolerable threshold, then he would take the gamble and head for Xuan Yang!
As for the Bixia Marketplace, that would be his fallback plan. If the path to Xuan Yang proved impossible, or if the risks were simply too great, he would head to the Bixia Marketplace instead.