The instant Lin Mu recognized that face, a flash of surprise passed through the depths of his eyes — deeply concealed, gone almost before it appeared. It was replaced at once by the gleam of a hunter who had just spotted his prey.
He did not need to think hard to read the other man's state of mind.
Without hesitation, Lin Mu changed course. He slipped into a narrow, hidden alley and took a roundabout path into the Grey Street Market ahead of Lin Feng.
A moment later, the wooden door of Old Ma's dim and cluttered sundry shop was pushed open.
Old Ma was sprawled in his rocking chair, idly puffing on his dry pipe with nothing better to do. When someone barged in without so much as a knock, he was about to snap — then he recognized the cold, composed face of the visitor.
"We have business, Old Ma."
Lin Mu strode to the counter and rapped his knuckles twice against the grimy tabletop. His voice was low and certain.
He had sensed it clearly — the opportunity he had been waiting over a month for had finally arrived.
In less than half an incense stick's time, Old Ma's shop — previously a chaotic, impoverished-looking den — had been swiftly transformed.
Several unnamed artifacts radiating faint spiritual light were arranged in prominent positions. The worn cloth curtain was replaced with a deep crimson drape that carried an air of mystery. The entire shop took on the feel of a place with hidden depths.
Lin Mu, meanwhile, changed into a coarse short-sleeved work outfit, picked up a rag, and slipped naturally into the role of a shop hand — eyes downcast, standing to one side of the counter.
Another quarter of an hour passed.
At the far end of the Grey Street Market's perpetual, pallid mist, Lin Feng's figure finally emerged.
He walked slowly. His expensive boots squelched against the muddy ground — a surface mixed with indeterminate filth — producing a deeply unpleasant, sticky sound with every step.
His pace was hesitant, even carrying a kind of instinctive resistance.
Before today, he had never deigned to set foot in a place like this — a murky underground market crawling with all manner of unsavory characters.
But today, he had no choice.
For Lin Feng, the greatest pride of his life — the very capital upon which his identity rested — had always been the reverence and flattery of those around him, orbiting him like stars around the moon.
But since Lin Xingyuan had appeared out of nowhere, all of that had collapsed in barely a month, leaving not a single fragment standing.
To fall from the clouds to the dirt. From a gate thronged with visitors to one that no one bothered to approach. The sheer magnitude of that reversal was a humiliation he could not accept under any circumstances.
Lin Xingyuan's terrifying A-grade aptitude — ninety-five percent Aperture capacity — had become an insurmountable mountain pressing down on his head.
Deep within him, the mad impulse to strike first — to have that boy assassinated before he could grow — had surged up countless times.
But reason told him he could not afford the consequences.
Even setting aside whether he could actually kill a genius surrounded by layers of protection, if he somehow succeeded, what followed would be Lin Cang's earth-shattering, heaven-destroying wrath. It would drag his father down with him. It would be the end of everything.
Caught between the desire to act and the fear of the consequences, with no way forward and no way back, Lin Feng — consumed by a desperate hunger for power — had placed his last remaining hope in the Grey Street Market, that den of filth and vice, said to harbor every manner of crooked and unorthodox method.
The dim surroundings and poor visibility of the Grey Street Market only deepened the irritation festering in Lin Feng's chest.
He was frowning, uncertain where to even begin looking, when a warm and unexpectedly bright light spilled from a dark corner of the alley ahead.
A shop sat tucked into the corner — clean-windowed and oddly out of place amid the Grey Street Market's general squalor.
Hanging outside were two conspicuous wooden plaques forming a couplet:
"Wealth — no questions asked of its origins. Heroes — no questions asked of their past."
The horizontal banner above read: "Your heart's desire, delivered."
That brazen couplet, striking directly at the rawest nerve, made Lin Feng's footsteps slow involuntarily.
He was still hesitating over whether to go in and test the waters when the shop's curtain was swept aside. Old Ma — playing the role of a mysterious proprietor — stepped out with a face full of beaming, chrysanthemum-bright smiles, greeting him with exuberant warmth.
"Well now! My honored guest!"
Old Ma looked Lin Feng up and down once, then exclaimed with theatrical admiration:
"What a radiant complexion! What a full and noble brow! The way you carry yourself — there's a hidden aura of distinction about you. Surely a man of great fortune!"
"My shop may not look like much, but as long as you can meet the price, we have whatever you need — and I guarantee your satisfaction!"
Faced with Old Ma's fawning, the arrogance buried in Lin Feng's bones was rather gratified. He let out a cold snort, his tone carrying a measure of contempt and skepticism.
"Bold words. You truly have whatever I need?"
"We do, we do! Whatever you name, honored guest, even if it's a star from the sky, this old man will find a ladder to fetch it for you! Please, come inside!"
Old Ma's tone grew even more obsequious as he ushered Lin Feng into the shop.
Then he turned, and with a perfectly natural motion, drove his foot squarely into the backside of the "shop hand" who was bent over wiping the table nearby.
"Useless wretch with no eyes in your head! Get to the back and brew proper tea for our honored guest!" Old Ma bellowed.
The kick landed solidly. It was theater, meant to sell the act — but it was also unmistakably tinged with Old Ma settling a few personal scores from all the times Lin Mu had squeezed him.
Lin Mu stumbled from the kick, but his sallow face showed not a flicker of expression. He stayed perfectly in character — head bowed, murmuring a meek acknowledgment — and shuffled off to the back room to prepare the tea.
A moment later, the hot tea was served.
Lin Feng settled into the grand chair. He did not touch the cup. Instead, he cast a sharp, wary glance at the shop hand standing to one side with downcast eyes — Lin Mu — and a faint undercurrent of displeasure and suspicion crossed his gaze.
Old Ma caught on immediately.
He waved his hand at Lin Mu as though shooing away a fly.
"Off with you, off with you. The honored guest has private business to discuss. What are you hovering around for, you worthless thing? Get to the back courtyard and stay there until you're called!"
Lin Mu put on a suitably flustered and deferential expression, retreated from the front room in haste, and pulled the heavy curtain shut behind him.
On the surface, he had been chased off to do odd jobs in the back.
In reality, guided by Old Ma's signal, Lin Mu slipped directly into a dim side room that had been prepared in advance.
The wall there was fitted with a specially placed sound-transmitting Gu. Lin Mu leaned against it and listened to every word exchanged between the two men in the front room with perfect clarity.
In the front room, with no one else in sight, Lin Feng drew a slow breath. The restlessness he had been suppressing finally broke through. He lowered his voice and went straight to the point.
"Proprietor. I have no interest in pleasantries. Let me ask you plainly — do you have any method or rare Gu worm here that can rapidly advance one's cultivation and break through to the next stage?"
Old Ma's fawning smile faded slightly at that. He let a beat of well-timed surprise show on his face — then a look of quiet understanding passed over it just as quickly.
"Heh heh... there is no need for concern, honored guest."
Old Ma unhurriedly lifted his teacup, blew the foam from the surface, and took a slow sip.
"This old man has run a shop on this street for many years. Helping people solve their problems is precisely what I do. Looking at you — a man of such fine bearing and exceptional presence, yet so urgently pressed on the matter of cultivation..."
Old Ma paused deliberately, his gaze driving straight into Lin Feng's eyes.
"I would venture to guess that our honored guest is a top-tier figure from one of the nearby stockades?"
At those words — Lin Feng's pupils contracted sharply. His eyes turned ice-cold in an instant. A faint but unmistakable killing intent seeped out from him, unrestrained, locking onto Old Ma across the table.
The one thing he feared most was having his identity exposed.
Yet faced with that killing intent, Old Ma continued to sip his tea with complete and utter ease.
"Honored guest, please calm yourself. There is truly no need for this."
Old Ma set down his cup and pointed toward the couplet hanging outside the door. His voice was steady.
"As I said just now — the motto of this establishment is: 'Wealth — no questions asked of its origins. Heroes — no questions asked of their past.'"
"Whether the person who walks through that door today is a lord or a commoner, once they step inside this room, they receive the same treatment and the highest standard of confidentiality. Your identity, honored guest — this old man has no interest in knowing it, and no third person will ever hear of it."
Hearing that assurance, Lin Feng weighed his options. In the end, he slowly let the killing intent recede. He was, after all, truly out of options.
"Fine. I'll trust you once." Lin Feng spoke through gritted teeth, his voice urgent and pressing. "Since you know how things work, then tell me — is there actually a method or not?"
Of course, every word Old Ma was speaking — every calculated pause, every precisely timed beat that chipped away at Lin Feng's psychological defenses — had been rehearsed and transmitted to Old Ma by Lin Mu in advance, from the shadows.
In the front room — faced with Lin Feng's impatient urging, Old Ma did the opposite and slowed his pace further, entirely unhurried.
"Shortcuts — naturally, there are some. Even within the Righteous Path, there are a few recognized methods."
Old Ma recited them with the air of a man listing familiar wares.
"For instance, the extraordinarily rare Relic Gu — capable of unconditionally elevating one's cultivation by a minor stage. Or the more unorthodox methods that borrow external force, such as the Empowerment Gu and the Affection Gu. Given sufficient price, all of them can rapidly elevate one's cultivation."
"But looking at your situation, honored guest..."
Old Ma's tone shifted abruptly. He raised his drooping eyelids, his gaze deep and fixed, boring straight into Lin Feng's eyes.
"These ordinary Righteous Path methods can only treat the symptoms. They cannot cure the root."
"You are a perceptive man, honored guest."
Old Ma's voice dropped to something very low — like the murmur of a devil.
"The gap in cultivation can be bridged by piling on Primeval Stones. But what of the gap in talent? When another person is A-grade and you are B-grade or C-grade — even if you force yourself up one stage today with the help of a Gu worm, what about tomorrow? The day after?"
"To truly address it at the root — to close that chasm of talent that stands between you like an uncrossable abyss..."
Old Ma leaned forward slightly, like a predator watching prey that had already walked into the net.
"What must be paid is far more than mere money."
Old Ma set down his teacup. The dim yellow lamplight fell across his deeply lined face, making it look shadowed and unsettling.
That hoarse voice of his carried a bone-chilling, yet utterly irresistible temptation as it rose slowly in the quiet of the room:
"This manner of defying fate and rewriting one's destiny — it is something the Righteous Path will never permit. The world calls it by one name."
"The Demonic Path."
"I wonder, honored guest..."
"Do you have the courage to walk it?"