I took out the 5% vitality potion bottle and carefully poured its contents into a tea cup.
Setting the glowing cup on the table between us, I watched Grandfather's reaction.
"Yuan'er, what is that?" His eyes fixed on the faint green luminescence emanating from the cup, his nose catching the pleasant tea aroma. "That's not ordinary tea."
I looked at Mo Fan and Mo Ling, who are playing with their new storage pouches in the hall with some distance between us.
Good.
"This is medicinal tea I prepared using spirit herbs," I began, choosing my words carefully.
"Do you remember when the envoy visited the village previously after my spirit root testing? She then asked me to take a test and I passed her expectations, she asked if there was anything I needed as acknowledgment of my performance."
Grandfather's brow furrowed slightly, listening intently.
"I told her about your condition like the old injuries that never healed properly. She seemed... understanding. Said she would arrange for appropriate medicine to be delivered."
I gestured toward the glowing cup.
"Yesterday, on my way to the farm, I stopped by the chief's office. He said the envoy had sent the goods and asked him to pass them to me. He also conveyed her message that this spirit medicine, when mixed with tea and taken regularly, can heal old injuries and restore vitality."
Grandfather's expression shifted immediately, conflict washing over his weathered features.
"Yuan'er..." His voice carried both gratitude and regret. "Such medicine must be incredibly valuable. You should have asked for cultivation resources for yourself like techniques, pills, anything to help your advancement. Why waste such a rare opportunity on this old man?"
My chest tightened at his words.
"Grandfather," I said, my voice gentle but firm, "you are my family. You raised me when I had no one else. You protected me. You believed in me even when everyone dismissed me as five-element trash."
I met his eyes directly, letting him see the sincerity in my gaze.
"Let me do this. Please."
For a long moment, silence stretched between us, heavy with unspoken emotions, years of shared hardship, and quiet caring.
Then, slowly, I watched his resistance crumble like walls worn down by relentless waves.
"You foolish child," he said, his voice rough and thick with emotion. "Always so stubborn. Just like your father was."
His trembling hands reached out and lifted the cup with careful reverence.
"If you insist so strongly... then this old man won't refuse his grandson's filial piety."
He brought the cup to his lips and drank deeply, draining it in several long swallows.
The effect was immediate.
Grandfather's entire body went rigid, every muscle tensing as the vitality essence flooded his body. The empty cup slipped from his fingers, I caught it mid-fall with a strand of spiritual energy, guiding it safely to the table.
"Grandfather!" I was at his side in an instant, hands steadying his shoulders.
"I'm... I'm alright," he gasped out, though his face told a different story pale, then flushed deep red, then pale again as the medicine worked its way through his body, fighting some unknown entity that is causing his injuries to revert back.
I could only watch, maintaining my grip on his shoulders as the transformation occurred.
The process felt eternal, though my internal clock told me barely ten minutes had passed.
Gradually, painfully slowly, Grandfather's breathing steadied. His rigid muscles relaxed incrementally. Color returned to his face but not the sallow, unhealthy pallor I'd grown accustomed to seeing.
This was different.
Vibrant. Alive. The flush of genuine health and renewed vitality.
When he finally opened his eyes, I couldn't suppress my gasp.
The cloudiness that had been gradually forming in his eyes over the years was also starting to fade slowly. His eyes were now clear, sharp, brighter than before.
"Yuan'er," he said wonderingly, his voice stronger than I'd heard it in years. "I can... I can feel everything properly again."
He flexed his hands slowly, staring at them as if seeing them for the first time. No trembling. No stiffness. Just smooth, controlled movement.
"The pain..." His voice was filled with amazement. "The constant ache in my back, the stiffness in my legs, the pressure in my chest... it's all subsided. Everything feels lighter. Clearer."
I couldn't keep the smile from spreading across my face.
He looked up at me then, and I saw tears glistening in those newly-cleared eyes.
"What kind of medicine was that, Yuan'er?" His voice dropped to something almost reverent. "I've never felt anything so powerful in the last few years."
"I don't know the specifics, Grandfather," I said, keeping my tone deliberately vague. "The envoy didn't provide details. But..." I paused meaningfully. "I think it was worth the exchange trading a Foundation Establishment cultivator's favor to see you healthy again."
"I will find the medicine details later and try to see if I can buy it in future. So that we can control your injuries from worsening until we find a cure "
"Thank you," Grandfather whispered, reaching up to pat my shoulders with hands that no longer trembled. "Thank you, Yuan'er. You've given this old man a second chance at life."
I smiled back at him and covered his hands with mine, feeling the restored strength in his grip, the steady beat of his healthy heart.
Then we chatted for several minutes.
Eventually, I stood.
"I need to return to the city," I said quietly. "There's unfinished business I need to see through to the end."
"Also, there is a same medicinal potion bottle in the storage bag I'd given earlier. Take it regularly, a small cup each day. It will help the healing process and ensure your old injuries don't return. So that I can be at ease."
Grandfather opened his eyes and looked at me for a long moment. Then he closed them again.
"I will," he said simply. Then, after a pause, "Be careful out there, Yuan'er. Whatever you're planning..."
"I'll be careful," I promised.
He nodded slowly, accepting my words without demanding details he knew I couldn't or wouldn't share.
"Then go. Do what you must do."
"I'm going to prepare lunch and dinner for you before I leave. Don't wait for me if I'm late." I paused. "I left supplies in your bag. Check it afterwards."
He nodded once.
Grandfather and I ate our portions quietly while children are playing with their new gifts.
Afterwards I moved to the kitchen, the dishes floating behind me carried by spiritual threads.
While I prepared enough food for two days, just in case. Extra rice, cooked meat preserved properly, soups sealed in containers.
When everything was done, I spoke to Grandfather one last time.
"Don't worry If I am late, just know that I will be safe and careful."
He said nothing, but his expression told me he understood.
I left the house as the early morning light was just beginning to warm the air, following the same routine as before.
-----
I activated the cloaking function the moment I left my home home near a tree back and left the village boundary quietly, and this time I did not deactivate it until I was well inside the city walls.
As expected, guards were posted heavily at every entrance and exit, questioning every person who tried to pass. Their spiritual senses swept back and forth like invisible nets, searching for anything out of place.
I slipped through without drawing so much as a glance.
Only when I reached a dark alley tucked between two tall buildings did I finally stop and deactivate the cloaking effect. I changed out the appearance of my farmer's robe, into different set of clothes and pulling on my mask and a straw hat on my head before stepping back out into the crowd.
Just another person among thousands.
I made my way to the food district first, moving through the stalls.
Kitchen ingredients were my priority. I picked up what I needed spiritual vegetables, seasoning herbs, fresh spirit meat, and stored them efficiently in my spirit bag.
As I walked, my eyes caught a few things worth noting. A stall selling live chickens and cattle, the prices reasonable enough that I marked the location in my mind for a future purchase.
Then I passed a spirit fish stall.
Common spirit fish were displayed in shallow water-filled containers, their scales catching the light. I bought a few to try, noting the prices and the vendor's willingness to haggle.
If I succeed in fish farming, I thought, examining one of the fish carefully, I could sell them. The prices are decent.
I stored the fish and moved on, browsing through the remaining stalls without any particular goal.
I was about to head back when it happened.
A massive boom shook the ground beneath my feet.
The crowd around me erupted into chaos, people screaming and stumbling away from the source of the noise. Dust billowed outward in a thick cloud, obscuring everything within a hundred meters.
Like the bystanders around me, I was drawn toward the commotion, pushing against the flow of fleeing people until I reached the edge of the crowd.
The dust slowly settled, revealing the destruction.
A huge building had been reduced to rubble, its walls and roof crushed inward as if something impossibly powerful had simply squeezed it flat.
Wait.
I recognized it immediately. This was the building connected to the underground gambling den. The one I had exited from just yesterday.
Screams rose from the crowd gathered below.
"Spare us! Please let us live, lord! Show mercy!"
My eyes tracked upward.
A figure in black robes hovered in the air, standing on a sword that floated beneath his feet like a platform. In one hand, he held a cultivator by the neck, lifting him off the ground as easily as one might hold a rabbit.
The overseer.
His lips moved, speaking words that the crowd below could not hear. But I could.
The heightened senses from my physique transformation carried his voice to me clearly, every syllable sharp and cold.
"Where is your leader? And the accountant?"
The cultivator dangling in his grip was the bandit captain. The same one I had encountered earlier that day, the one who coordinated the bandits under the leader's orders.
The captain's face was drained of color, his legs kicking uselessly in the air. He spoke quickly, desperately.
"I don't know, overseer. The accountant was already missing when your men came to receive the goods. I don't know where he went." His voice cracked. "I only heard that the leader was heading to intercept the merchant caravan. Apart from that, I don't..."
The overseer's expression didn't change. He didn't let the captain finish.
A black communication token vibrated at his waist. He glanced at it with one eye, reading the message without releasing his grip on the captain.
The message appeared in his mind, and I could see the subtle shift in his expression, the way his jaw tightened.
[Lord, I found that scoundrel Wang Mu. He was hiding at the northern hills near the merchant passage. I just heard from my men that someone went there with healing pills and supplies. I sent my men to follow him, but it has been more than half an hour with no reply.]
[I think it was that scoundrel he should have killed my subordinate. He might flee knowing that we found his hideout. Lord, go there quickly and catch him.]
The overseer's eyes snapped back to the bandit captain.
He didn't let him finish his sentence.
Spiritual force compressed around the captain's body in an instant, crushing him into nothing but a fine mist of blood that dispersed silently into the air.
The crowd below erupted into horrified screams, stumbling backward, pressing against each other in blind panic.
The overseer looked down at them, his expression flat and unreadable.
"These scum have been sucking the blood and wealth of the people in this city like parasites for years," he said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the crowd. "Now they have fallen into the demon path. So I delivered justice today. Be careful of them."
Without another word, he turned his sword skyward and shot into the air like a black arrow, disappearing toward the northern hills in the blink of an eye.
I came out from a valley watched him vanish into the sky, my expression calm behind my mask.
I moved to the alley to avoid conflict when he was talking to the bandit captain and sent him a message and quickly placed the token into the inventory again just in case, even after erasing his spirit mark.
Northern hills. The merchant passage.
That's opposite to where the bandit leader is hiding. And the overseer is flying straight there like a idiot swayed by my bait.
A cold smile tugged at the corner of my lips.
I turned away from the chaos and disappeared back into the crowd.
The game is playing out exactly as planned.
-------
The City Lord's manor loomed before me, its walls high and imposing in the morning light.
Guards stood at attention at the main entrance, eyes sweeping the street in practiced patterns. Two at the gate. Two more on the parapet above and many more inside the manor. A rotation every quarter hour, based on my earlier observation.
For a city this size, the city lord manor's security was impressive. But just not enough to stop me.
At a nearby alley, I activated the concealment function of my robe, feeling the familiar sensation of qi wrapping around me like a second skin. Making me transparent.
I walked past the entrance guards without a second glance. They continued their patrol, completely unaware of my presence.
The defensive array built into this manor's walls is focused outward, not inward. They're worried about external threats, not someone who has already gotten past the perimeter. Typical.
I moved through the corridors with careful steps, avoiding the servants and guards who passed by.
The manor was larger than it appeared from outside. Three main wings, servant quarters connecting them, storage rooms along the east side. The kind of architecture that had grown organically over generations rather than being planned from the start.
Good for playing hid and seek. Inconvenient for infiltration.
But my destination was clear, the City Lord's personal office.
When I finally reached it, I paused at the door, listening carefully. Silence. No presence detected. Good.
The door was locked, but a small application of runes learned from talisman experience from system was enough to open it without triggering any alarms. I slipped inside and closed it behind me.
The office was spacious and well-appointed, with shelves full of scrolls and ledgers lining the walls. But my attention was focused on the large jade desk at the room's center.
I didn't waste time.
From my inventory, I withdrew three bottles the ones filled with blood that the bandit leader had collected. The sight of them made my stomach turn slightly, but I pushed the feeling aside.
This is necessary. For justice, or revenge, or whatever you want to call it.
I arranged the bottles carefully on the desk, then pulled out a piece of paper I'd prepared earlier. My handwriting was disguised angular and harsh, nothing like my usual script.
[There is a foundation-level demon cultivator in the city using virgin young girls' blood for cultivation. He is the sect overseer. You can check the overseer's residence to confirm this. Better prepare backup before confronting him.]
I placed the note prominently next to the bottles, then opened one of them. The metallic scent of blood immediately filled the air, thick and cloying.
That should be enough to catch his attention, I thought, already moving toward the corner of the room where the shadows were deepest. Waiting for the city lord arrival.
Just as I settled into position, I heard voices approaching loud, jovial conversation drawing nearer.
A male voice came first.
"...and I'm telling you, Elder, the yield from the southern territories alone could fund another defensive wall to decrease the pressure in the front line!" A man's voice, filled with laughter.
"I will accept the goodwill in your words, City Lord. It is reassuring to hear," the soft female voice said. "Tell me, does the city remain steady? Are there any hidden troubles I should be aware of?"
The door opened, and two figures entered, followed by two disciples in green robes.
The first one was a woman in blue robes.
I recognised her immediately.
Elder Mu Qingxue.
The memories flooded back unbidden.
She had come to our village presenting it as a routine visit. Grain collection. Tax adjustments. A warning to stay out of the forest.
But I had watched her eyes that day. The way they moved across the land, across the fields, across everything with that slow, methodical attention that had nothing to do with grain tallies.
She had been looking for something. The rest had been cover.
She had found nothing she acknowledged, collected her grain, delivered her warnings, and left with the children who are qualified to join the sect.
The second figure wore green robes of higher quality and bore himself with natural authority, clearly the City Lord himself.
They were deep in conversation, discussing taxes, the yao beast war, and promising young talents for recruitment. The City Lord gestured expansively as he spoke, clearly in good spirits.
Then they both stopped dead in their tracks.
The scent of blood had reached them.
The City Lord's expression shifted instantly from jovial to alert. He moved quickly to the desk, his spiritual sense sweeping over the bottles before he picked one up with careful hands.
His face darkened as he examined the contents, then he picked up the note. I watched his expression change from confusion to grim understanding to barely controlled fury.
Elder Mu Qingxue stepped closer, her brow lightly furrowed. "City Lord? What is it?"
Without a word, the City Lord passed both the bottle and the letter to her.
She received them with both hands, She read the note once and checked the content in the bottle. Then set them down carefully on the desk.
The room temperature seemed to drop like it was a cold freezer.
Her spiritual pressure did not explode outward the way a man's rage might. It rose like floodwater, quiet and total and filling every corner of the room before anyone realised it had started.
The disciples behind her took a step back without meaning to. The bottles on the desk trembled. The scrolls on the shelves pressed flat against their bindings.
When she spoke, her voice had not risen a single note. That made it worse.
"City Lord." She lifted her gaze from the note to his face with the unhurried deliberateness of someone who had already decided the weight of what they were about to say. "You are telling me that you had nothing to do with placing these items here."
Not a question. A test.
"I swear on my honour, Elder. I had nothing to do with this."
Her eyes did not leave his face. "Then how did they appear on your desk?"
"Elder, please hear me out." The City Lord took a steady breath. "This matter has been troubling me for nearly five years now."
She folded her hands in front of her, sleeves settling. Waiting.
"There have been dozens of cases. Young girls and children going missing throughout the city and surrounding villages. We investigated extensively, checked the bandit groups multiple times. They rob and threaten, yes, but kidnapping? We found no evidence of it."
He gestured to the bottles on his desk. "I even held back from punishing the bandits too harshly, fearing that if the real culprit saw us cracking down, they might flee before we could identify them."
Elder Mu Qingxue said nothing for a long moment. Her expression had not softened, but the pressure in the room had shifted from accusation to something closer to consideration.
"And you expect me to believe that one of my sect's overseers is responsible for this?" she said.
"I don't expect anything, Elder," the City Lord said carefully. "But I propose we investigate together. Check the overseer's residence, examine the evidence, or see if we can find any clues. If I'm wrong, I'll accept full responsibility."
"And what does full responsibility mean to you?" Her voice was measured, precise.
The City Lord straightened his shoulders and met her gaze directly. "If the evidence proves false, I will forfeit my third child's direct recruitment slot to the sect. He will enter as an ordinary disciple and undergo the standard assessment like any other normal candidate."
That is a significant sacrifice. Direct recruitment slots are incredibly valuable. He is putting real stakes on the table.
Elder Mu Qingxue studied the City Lord's face for a long moment, her gaze moving across his features the way a physician checked a pulse, quietly and without hurry, reading what was beneath the surface.
Then she reached out and picked up the note from the desk, reading it one more time.
She threw the letter to one of the green robe disciples to catch after reading.
"Fine," she said at last. "We will check. But City Lord, if you are playing games with me, forfeiting a recruitment slot will be the least of your concerns."
She turned toward the door, her robes settling around her with a soft sound, and walked out without looking back.
The City Lord and her green-robed disciples followed quickly.
I waited until their footsteps faded down the corridor, then slipped out of the shadows and followed at a safe distance, my concealment technique still active.
Now comes the final act.
....to be continued
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