The large wheels of the carriage slowly rumbled along the dirt road.
Sunlight streamed between the leaves of the giant trees surrounding them, flickering across the carriage window as they travelled.
Su Yan was getting sick of travelling.
The better carriage certainly helped. The suspension was far smoother than what they had used before, and the seats were actually padded enough that he didn't feel every stone beneath the wheels, but he still missed when travelling somewhere didn't mean spending several days trapped on the road.
He refocused on the book in his hands.
Another cultivation manual.
Over the last few days, Su Yan had Pod work through the books one by one, cataloguing each as it went. Once enough had been sorted, he had asked Pod to pull out everything related to cultivation.
He was glad he had.
There were far more cultivation methods amongst the collection than he had expected, and some of them directly contradicted what Teacher Lin had taught him.
It hadn't taken long to discover why.
One of the first methods he tried drew spiritual energy into his body at almost twice the rate of Teacher Lin's method.
For the first hour, Su Yan had seriously considered switching to it immediately.
Then he stopped cultivating.
The difference wasn't obvious. If this had been the first cultivation method he had ever learnt, he doubted he would have noticed anything wrong at all.
There was nothing obviously wrong with it, but compared to the Spirit Power he was used to, it felt muddier, less refined, like the method had cared more about dragging energy into his body than what state it was in when it got there.
Looking more closely at the method made the reason obvious.
It dragged spiritual energy into his body at an impressive rate but barely seemed to refine it before incorporating it into his Spirit Power.
At least in the short term, his Spirit Power would accumulate much faster.
The problem was that the refinement still had to happen eventually.
If he continued using the method, Su Yan suspected he would simply reach a point where he had to stop advancing and spend time refining everything he had accumulated. At best, that would eat into the advantage the method appeared to give him. At worst...
He wasn't particularly interested in finding out.
What surprised him most was that the manual itself barely seemed to acknowledge the problem.
Whether the author considered it an acceptable trade, expected the user to refine their Spirit Power separately later, or simply hadn't recognised the problem, Su Yan couldn't tell.
So he abandoned it and tried another.
After testing several more methods, Su Yan gradually began to understand just how differently each approached cultivation.
Some, like the first, drew in spiritual energy incredibly quickly. Others progressed at an almost glacial pace, but the Spirit Power they produced felt completely different in his meridians—denser and heavier, flowing more like liquid than the almost gaseous sensation he was accustomed to.
Then there were methods closer to the one Teacher Lin had taught him, sacrificing both extremes to strike some kind of balance between speed and refinement.
At that point, Su Yan had started looking deeper into how the methods actually worked.
With so many different references in front of him, he had been certain he could Frankenstein something better together from the best parts of each.
That confidence lasted until he actually got into the details.
Different manuals described routes in different ways. Some placed importance on channels others barely mentioned, while several directly contradicted one another on where Spirit Power should pass and when.
Su Yan tried recalling what he remembered about Tang San's cultivation method and cross-referencing it against the books. Unfortunately, what he remembered were mostly the broad strokes—the dantian, meridians, circulation cycles and the importance of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians—not how Mysterious Heaven Skill actually moved Spirit Power through any of them.
Some of the terminology in the manuals was familiar, but recognising the words meant very little when he still didn't understand what the different routes actually did.
Worse, knowing that two methods used similar routes did not tell him why one refined Spirit Power better, or what would happen if he took part of one circulation pattern and forced it into another.
Eventually, he gave up trying to understand the theory.
Instead, he went with the brute-force approach.
It was probably the worst idea he'd had in a while.
Trying to stitch together the parts of different methods that seemed useful did not work remotely the way he had expected.
He had at least been sensible enough to make small changes and stop the moment something felt wrong. Unfortunately, some combinations went wrong much faster than he expected.
In one attempt, the Spirit Power surged through his meridians so violently that it felt as though it had started boiling beneath his skin. In another, the flow slowed until it almost seemed to clog inside him, forcing him to stop and carefully unwind the circulation before it became any worse.
Then there was one particularly dramatic attempt that ended with Su Yan coughing a mouthful of blood into his hand.
2B and Nihilister had not been happy about that.
Afterward, 2B and Nihilister assigned Pod as his overseer, and Su Yan was no longer allowed to experiment with a new circulation pattern unless it had first been checked and monitored.
Pod suggested a far more methodical approach.
It had Su Yan cultivate using each method separately, reporting what he felt throughout the process while Pod recorded the benefits and drawbacks before scanning the manual itself.
They repeated this throughout the journey.
After a couple of days, Su Yan finally realised what Pod had been doing when it began giving him altered routes to circulate his Spirit Power through.
Unlike his own attempts, the circulation patterns Pod gave him produced no obvious immediate problems.
They were not complete cultivation methods, though.
Pod explained that it was still trying to map out what each individual path, sequence and change in circulation actually did before attempting to combine any of them into a complete method.
It couldn't guarantee that whatever it eventually produced would work, but there was already enough material for Pod to believe something usable could be made.
More reference material would improve the chances considerably.
Whether the final result would be something tailored specifically to Su Yan, or a cultivation method that could be used by others, was another question entirely.
For now, they hadn't even reached the point where that mattered.
Su Yan turned another page.
Across from him, 2B's gaze briefly shifted from the passing trees outside to the cultivation manual in his hands.
He pretended not to notice.
Another long stretch of silence passed before the driver suddenly called out from the front.
"Young Master, Young Misses, you might want to take a look ahead. Heaven Dou should be coming into view."
Su Yan closed the book and placed it beside him before moving towards the window.
Nihilister immediately leaned over to look past him while 2B shifted towards the window on the opposite side.
The trees had grown steadily sparser around them, opening into broad stretches of farmland broken up by roads, scattered buildings and patches of woodland.
As the carriage crested a low hill, Su Yan leaned farther out of the window.
For a moment, he thought the enormous grey shape stretching across the distant horizon was some kind of ridge.
Then he saw the banners.
Towering walls of grey stone rose from the farmland ahead, stretching so far in either direction that Su Yan couldn't immediately make out where they ended.
He remembered reading that Heaven Dou City's walls were a hundred metres tall.
Knowing that and actually seeing a hundred-metre wall were two very different things. It looked as though someone had taken the height of a thirty-storey building and decided that was perfectly reasonable for a city wall.
From this distance, it was less like looking at a fortification and more like staring at a man-made cliff.
Nihilister gave an appreciative whistle beside him.
"So that's where we're going next." Her eyes remained fixed on the distant walls. "I have to admit, it certainly looks impressive."
"I wasn't expecting that either." Su Yan stared for another moment. "The description really doesn't do it justice."
The driver laughed from the front.
"Everyone says that the first time they see it. Just wait until you're inside. Streets wide enough for several carriages to travel abreast, shops selling just about anything you could think of..." He sounded almost proud despite not being from the city himself. "If you can't find something in Heaven Dou, chances are you aren't finding it anywhere nearby."
As they drew closer, the traffic on the road thickened as well. More carriages, carts and travellers gradually joined the flow heading toward the capital, though most still gave their large luxurious carriage plenty of room. By the time they neared the walls, part of the road ahead had fallen beneath their enormous shadow, and Su Yan was more grateful for the sudden shade than he wanted to admit. He certainly missed the convenience of air conditioning.
When they finally reached one of the smaller side gates used for ordinary traffic, they only had to wait a short while before being waved through.
Then they entered Heaven Dou City.
If the walls had been impressive from the outside, the city beyond them was somehow even more so.
Su Yan had expected something larger than the other cities he had seen, but not this. Broad roads paved in neat blue-grey brick stretched out before them, branching again and again through the capital. The streets were wide and clean, and despite the crowds there was none of the overwhelming stench he had expected from so many people packed into one place.
Shops of every size and purpose lined both sides of the road, their fronts open to the street as merchants called out to passing customers. People moved everywhere—on foot, in carts, in carriages—and the sheer volume of them made the city feel almost overwhelming.
Su Yan could only hope the crowds thinned once they left the main road.
As he slowly took in the city around him, the driver's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
"Young Master, as impressive as the city is, I do still need somewhere to take you. Did you have a destination in mind?"
Su Yan considered it for a moment before answering.
"For now, take us to a good hotel where we can rest and leave the carriage. Price isn't a problem."
The driver nodded.
"I know one nearby. The area is quieter than most of the city, and the shops around it cater to nobles and wealthier customers. Even the auction house is not too far away." He glanced back towards the carriage. "Would somewhere like that suit the Young Master's needs?"
"Yes, that sounds wonderful."
"Understood."
The driver urged the horses onward, and before long a large and colourful hotel came into view. Much of the surrounding area was filled with flowers and trees, and even a small ornamental moat encircled the property. It gave the entire place a rather peaceful feeling.
A broad stone bridge crossed the water towards the entrance, wide enough for two carriages to pass one another comfortably.
As soon as their carriage crossed onto the hotel grounds, several attendants dressed in matching uniforms approached.
One moved towards the driver while another opened the carriage door before Su Yan could even reach for it.
"Young Master. Young Misses."
Su Yan stepped down from the carriage and stretched, enjoying the chance to properly stand after spending so long sitting.
Nihilister followed immediately behind him, rolling her shoulders before looking around the grounds with obvious approval.
"This is more like it."
2B stepped down last, her gaze briefly travelling across the attendants and entrances before settling back on Su Yan.
Behind them, the driver was already speaking with one of the hotel staff about the horses and carriage.
Su Yan glanced back.
"Can they keep the carriage here?"
The attendant nearest him bowed slightly.
"Of course, Young Master. We have private stables at the rear of the property. Your horses will be fed and cared for, and the carriage can be brought around whenever you require it."
That was one less thing to worry about.
"Perfect."
Su Yan turned towards the driver.
"And I suppose this is where we part ways."
The driver nodded.
"Unless the Young Master wishes to retain my services."
Su Yan considered it briefly before shaking his head.
"No. We don't know how long we'll be staying yet. Thank you for getting us here safely."
After settling what he still owed the man, Su Yan watched him head back towards the street before following the attendant into the hotel.
With the carriage handled, another attendant led them towards the main building.
The interior was every bit as extravagant as the outside suggested.
Polished stone covered much of the floor, broken up by thick carpets that muffled their footsteps. Decorative screens separated parts of the large entrance hall while paintings and flowering plants filled the spaces between them. Several groups of well-dressed guests were scattered around the room, though there was enough space between everything that it never felt crowded.
Su Yan immediately preferred it to the streets outside.
A woman standing behind a long wooden counter greeted them as they approached.
"Welcome. Will the three of you be staying with us?"
"For a while," Su Yan replied. "We're not certain how long yet."
"That will not be a problem. Would you prefer separate rooms or one of our larger suites?"
Su Yan looked towards 2B and Nihilister.
Nihilister answered first.
"Largest one."
Su Yan stared at her.
She stared back.
"Price isn't a problem, remember?"
He opened his mouth before slowly closing it again.
He had, unfortunately, said exactly that.
The woman behind the counter maintained her professional smile.
"We do have several larger suites available. They include multiple bedrooms, a private sitting room and bathing facilities. Meals can also be brought directly to the suite if you prefer."
"That one," Nihilister said immediately.
"You don't even know how much it costs."
"You said price isn't a problem."
Su Yan sighed.
"Fine. The suite."
"Excellent choice, Young Master."
She quickly produced the key to the suite, almost as if afraid Su Yan might change his mind, before motioning to one of the nearby attendants.
"Please have the suite prepared for our guests."
The attendant bowed and disappeared through a side corridor.
The final price was every bit as painful as Su Yan had expected, though still comfortably within their means.
When they finally reached the suite, Su Yan had to admit that the price at least showed.
The rooms were spacious, with pale silk drapes hanging over the windows. A gentle breeze slipped through the openings and sent them fluttering, softening the sunlight that spilled across the interior.
Even the furniture looked immaculate, from the polished tables to the carefully arranged chairs, and there were more than enough separate rooms for all of them.
Then Su Yan reached the master bedroom.
He stopped in the doorway.
Someone had clearly put a little too much thought into preparing it.
Deep red sheets covered the enormous bed, with rose petals scattered carefully across them. Scented candles burned around the room, their warm light filling the space with an unmistakably intimate atmosphere.
Su Yan stared at it for several seconds.
Behind him, Nihilister gave a low whistle.
"Well, well..."
He glanced back.
She was staring directly at him.
"Didn't know you had the balls to be this direct."
Su Yan's eye twitched.
"I did not ask for this."
"Oh? Don't tell me you're going to pretend you wouldn't want to."
A smirk slowly spread across her face.
"I've seen where your gaze lands often enough."
Heat immediately rose to Su Yan's face.
He turned around and walked away.
Nihilister laughed behind him.
"Where are you going?"
"You can have the master bedroom. I'll take one of the smaller ones."
"Ha. Coward."
Su Yan swore that one day he was going to make her eat those words.
He unpacked his things and placed Ah Yin near one of the windows, where the sunlight could reach her.
Almost immediately, several of her leaves shifted towards the light.
Su Yan paused.
He knew plants naturally turned towards sunlight, but with Ah Yin he couldn't help wondering whether there was something more deliberate behind the movement.
He watched her for a while longer.
Nothing else happened.
Eventually, Su Yan left her alone.
They ordered food directly to the suite, and before long a large spread had been arranged across the table.
As they ate, Su Yan began going over his plans.
He had come to Heaven Dou for Dugu Bo.
More specifically, he had come because he still remembered the so-called cheat code surrounding him.
Dugu Bo was poisoned by his own cultivation.
Tang San had recognised it almost immediately and proved that he knew what he was talking about by identifying symptoms that should have been impossible for an outsider to know.
Su Yan remembered the broad strokes well enough.
The exact wording was another matter.
That wasn't necessarily a problem. He didn't need to reproduce Tang San's conversation word for word. He only needed enough to convince Dugu Bo that he genuinely understood what was wrong with him.
Actually surviving long enough to explain himself would probably be the harder part.
Su Yan took another bite of food as he considered it.
First, though, he needed to find the man.
That was the part he had assumed would be easy.
Dugu Bo was a Titled Douluo, closely connected to the Heaven Dou Imperial Family, and if Su Yan remembered correctly, there should be a Dugu residence somewhere in the capital.
He wasn't foolish enough to simply march up to the front door and start shouting about secret poisoning symptoms, but finding the residence would at least give him somewhere to begin.
Tomorrow, he would start asking around.
Reality, however, had a nasty habit of crashing down around him.
Once Su Yan actually began searching, nobody seemed to know what he was talking about.
There was no Dugu residence in Heaven Dou City.
The problem was that Su Yan could distinctly remember there being one.
Or at least, he thought he could.
The more he tried to trace the memory back, the less certain he became.
A Dugu residence in Heaven Dou. Dugu Bo appearing there. Transmigrators visiting it...
Su Yan's expression slowly darkened.
Had he mixed up fanon and canon?
Even Dugu Yan, who was somewhat famous in her own right, was based at Heaven Dou Imperial Academy rather than some known family residence within the capital.
After wasting the better part of two days asking increasingly specific questions and getting nowhere, a frustrated Su Yan eventually found his way to an information broker.
The broker worked from a cramped room above one of the smaller shops, with ledgers stacked against one wall and a narrow window overlooking the street below. Su Yan sat across from him at a scarred wooden table.
"You're looking for Senior Dugu Bo?"
"Yes. I need to meet him."
The broker stared at him.
"What possible business could you have with that old monster?" His voice dropped slightly. "If you piss him off, wiping out your whole family wouldn't be beyond him."
"I know."
That only seemed to make the man more suspicious.
"But I still need to find him. Do you have anything?"
The broker studied Su Yan for another moment before finally nodding.
"I do. But I'll warn you in advance, it isn't much. If you still want it, you're paying either way."
Su Yan nodded.
"Fine."
"Fifty gold soul coins."
Su Yan unceremoniously dumped fifty coins onto the table.
The broker stared at the pile.
"If I'd known you were going to pay that easily, I should have asked for more."
Su Yan glared at him.
"Alright, alright."
The man raised his hands before sweeping the coins towards himself and dropping them into a drawer beneath the table.
"Senior Dugu Bo doesn't normally live in Heaven Dou City. As far as anyone I've spoken to can tell, he stays somewhere inside Sunset Forest."
"Where?"
"If I knew that, I'd have charged you a lot more than fifty."
Su Yan's expression flattened.
The broker gave a helpless shrug.
"We know there's likely some kind of residence or retreat on one of the mountains inside the forest. Which mountain? No idea. Frankly, that's probably for the best. If Senior Dugu discovered people were keeping track of exactly where he slept, I'd rather not be among them."
That was considerably less useful than Su Yan had hoped.
"He does come into the capital occasionally," the broker continued. "Usually people assume he's here to visit his granddaughter or deal with the Imperial Family, but no one I've spoken to knows how often."
Su Yan frowned.
"Anything predictable?"
"Not really."
The broker hesitated.
"There is one thing, but I wouldn't put much faith in it."
Su Yan immediately focused on him.
"Go on."
"We've recorded a handful of sightings at the Heaven Dou Auction House over the years. On more than one of those occasions, there happened to be rare medicinal plants or unusual poison-related material being sold."
"More than one?"
"A few. Not enough for me to tell you there's a pattern."
The broker tapped a finger against the table.
"He doesn't appear to watch the auctions regularly, and I've never heard of him reserving anything in advance. Maybe somebody tells him when something interesting appears. Maybe he happened to be in the city already. Maybe it's coincidence."
He shrugged.
"If you're asking whether you can sit at the auction house and wait for him to eventually walk through the doors, then yes, I suppose you could. I just wouldn't rely on it."
"So, my options are to wait around the auction house and pray he eventually appears, or head into Sunset Forest and start searching."
"I mean, you could also try getting close to his granddaughter."
The broker paused.
"Though I wouldn't recommend it. She's rather close with Yu Tianheng."
He stopped talking and waited.
Su Yan waited.
Several seconds passed.
The information broker sighed.
"I was waiting for you to ask who he was so I could charge you for that too."
"I know who he is."
"Right."
The broker looked mildly disappointed.
"Well, with those two as close as they are, suddenly trying to insert yourself into Dugu Yan's life would probably draw attention on its own. And if she ever discovered that the only reason you approached her was to get access to her grandfather..."
He grimaced.
"That seems like an excellent way to offend both Dugu Yan and Senior Dugu Bo at the same time."
"So in the end, I'm back to my original two options."
The information broker shook his head.
"Honestly, of the two, the auction is the only one I'd recommend. That, or praying you happen to run into him somewhere."
"Why?"
The broker stared at him as though the answer should have been obvious.
"Think about it. Senior Dugu hides himself somewhere inside Sunset Forest, and almost nobody knows exactly where."
He leaned back slightly.
"Now imagine you're him. Some stranger suddenly walks up to your secret home in the middle of the forest, completely unannounced."
Su Yan fell silent.
"With that old monster's temperament?" The broker shook his head. "You'd be lucky if he bothered asking how you found him before attacking."
He paused before adding,
"And Senior Dugu isn't exactly known for being reluctant to use poison when someone gets on his bad side."
Su Yan considered that for a moment.
"How long can he disappear for?"
The information broker shrugged.
"We don't know. We've heard neither hide nor hair of him for months at a time. Once, almost an entire year passed before anyone we trusted reported seeing him again."
He spread his hands.
"It really comes down to luck."
A cart rattled past somewhere on the street below while Su Yan stared at the tabletop.
"So I guess I'm stuck here for the long haul."
He placed another hundred gold soul coins on the table.
"I want you to inform me as soon as you receive anything credible. Can you do that?"
The broker quickly counted the coins.
"For that much? Of course. If we hear something worth bringing to you, we'll send someone immediately."
He swept the coins towards himself.
"I'll need an address."
Su Yan gave him the name of the hotel.
The broker immediately shook his head.
"No. It has to be a fixed address."
Su Yan frowned.
"What? Why?"
"You're asking us to keep an eye on a Titled Douluo." The broker leaned back in his chair. "If something goes wrong and you decide to disappear from the city, I don't particularly want to be left dealing with the consequences while the only address you gave me leads to an empty hotel room."
"So?"
"So it's policy for ongoing work involving people like this. You need a residence in the city that we can verify. Owned or leased, we don't care, but hotels don't count. Somewhere tied to you that we can reliably reach if this comes back on us."
Su Yan stared at him.
"Where the hell am I suddenly supposed to find a house?"
The information broker grinned.
"Well, lucky for you, I deal in information."
Su Yan narrowed his eyes.
"And, as it happens, I know a few people who handle property in the city. Would the Young Master like an introduction?"
"This is going to cost me more money, isn't it?"
"Absolutely."
The information broker said it with entirely too much enthusiasm.