Chapter 389 - 363: Wealth Qi

Chapter 389: Chapter 363: Wealth Qi

"Zhao Yuanhong?"

Gao Changhe scoffed, his tone filled with unconcealed coldness. "That man is stubbornly obtuse, constantly making excuses and insisting that Governor Zhou died at the hands of the Celestial Official of the Cyan Heaven Market. His story is full of holes. I’m afraid he has other motives and is trying to obscure the truth. Magistrate Luo would do well to distinguish right from wrong."

Luo Pingyuan hurriedly distanced himself. "I have only ever interacted with Captain Zhao on official business. We have no private relationship whatsoever."

Gao Changhe stared at him for a long moment before speaking slowly. "Luo Pingyuan, I would like to ask you for a favor."

Luo Pingyuan’s heart tightened. He had a bad feeling, but he had no choice but to brace himself and say, "Please, Your Excellency, give your command. I will do everything in my power."

A strange smile appeared on Gao Changhe’s face as he said slowly, "I... would like to borrow the Jiang Family from you."

Luo Pingyuan was stunned.

His face was filled with confusion, his mind racing, but he could not fathom the other man’s intentions.

Though the Jiang Family was one of the Noble Families, its power was a shadow of its former self.

’What does Gao Changhe want with the Jiang Family?’

Two years ago, he might have agreed.

But now, the entire Jiang Family was under his control, and Luo Pingyuan was absolutely unwilling to hand it over so easily.

This was the foundation he had painstakingly built, the very basis of his future security.

He tried to refuse. "Your Excellency the Governor, please understand. I am but a son-in-law with a different surname. The Jiang Family’s assets and personnel are decided by the clan elders. I have no say in the matter."

The smile on Gao Changhe’s face didn’t change in the slightest, as if he had long expected this answer.

But deep within that smile was a chilling coldness.

"No say in the matter?"

He said softly, "Magistrate Luo, you are too modest. I am well aware of who truly calls the shots in the Jiang Family now."

Luo Pingyuan’s heart sank.

He wanted to argue further, but Gao Changhe was already waving his hand dismissively.

"Forget it." He stood up. "Since I cannot borrow the Jiang Family, I will settle for the next best thing..."

He turned his head to look at Luo Pingyuan, his smile still gentle.

But the words that came out of his mouth plunged Luo Pingyuan into an icy abyss.

"How about I borrow Magistrate Luo’s head instead?"

"Your Excellency! You...!"

Luo Pingyuan was shocked, enraged, and terrified all at once, the blood rushing to his head.

He snapped his head up, his face devoid of any respect. In its place were shock and irrepressible fury.

He stood up straight, his burning gaze fixed on Gao Changhe. "I am a Seventh Grade Official of the Court. Even if I am guilty, my case must be reviewed by the Three Judicial Departments! Only after the evidence is conclusive and the Holy Emperor himself gives his approval with the vermilion brush can I be convicted and executed! Your Excellency, with these words today, do you intend to flout the laws of the Court and show contempt for imperial authority?!"

"Magistrate Luo, you misunderstand."

Gao Changhe, however, rose unhurriedly and stood with his hands behind his back. "The Duke of England has come south, bearing a royal decree and banner that grants him the authority to act at his own discretion. For any official below the Fourth Grade suspected of colluding with the enemy, plotting rebellion, or causing chaos, he can execute them first and report it later."

He paused, his gaze as cold as a blade. "You can go on your way with peace of mind, Magistrate Luo. I will apply for your death benefits on your behalf."

"You dare!"

Luo Pingyuan was overwhelmed with shock and fury, knowing that the other man was resolved to kill him and there was no room for negotiation.

His Inner Qi erupted, and his figure shot outward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

’As long as I escape this County Magistrate’s Office and get to the street, I refuse to believe he’ll dare to openly kill a Court official in front of everyone.’

Escape? Heh, could he really get away?

Gao Changhe sneered, not moving a single step to pursue him. He simply stood in place, hands clasped behind his back, watching as Luo Pingyuan easily cleared the high walls of the County Magistrate’s Office.

’What is he doing? Why isn’t he giving chase?’

’Is this some kind of trap?’

A flicker of alarm and suspicion flashed through Luo Pingyuan’s mind.

However, just as the thought arose...

A hand, as if it had long since calculated his escape route and speed, appeared soundlessly out of thin air and landed on his shoulder.

The five fingers, like hooks, pressed down gently.

Luo Pingyuan felt the rushing Inner Qi in his body freeze in an instant. His surging blood and qi abruptly calmed, and his entire body went rigid in mid-air as if he had been struck by an Immobilization Spell.

No matter how he struggled, all his strength and all his techniques seemed laughable and futile beneath this hand.

He couldn’t even turn his head to see his captor’s face.

The terrifying power coming from his shoulder, a power sufficient to easily crush every bone and meridian in his body, sent his soul scattering in terror.

The next moment, the world spun around him.

The hand grabbed his shoulder and, as if lifting a weightless object, carried him back to the center of the small courtyard with an effortless grace.

THUD!

Luo Pingyuan was thrown to the ground, his body limp. He couldn’t even move a finger.

Gao Changhe bowed slightly to the figure who had captured Luo Pingyuan, showing a measure of respect. "Greetings, Shen Shui Star Monarch."

’Shen Shui... Star Monarch?!’

Those words struck Luo Pingyuan’s mind like a clap of thunder.

He struggled to look at the owner of the hand.

It was a middle-aged man in a common black cloth robe. His face was ordinary; he was the sort of person you wouldn’t look at twice in a crowd.

But at this moment, as he stood there silently, he seemed like an insurmountable mountain.

The last trace of color drained from Luo Pingyuan’s face.

Only ashen despair remained.

That name, in all the world, could only belong to one person!

Of the Garrison Command’s White Tiger Seven Stars, the Star Monarch... Water-Participating Ape!

The last glimmer of hope in Luo Pingyuan’s eyes was extinguished completely.

’A Star Monarch from the Garrison Command acted personally. I’m afraid... there’s no escape for me now.’

...

「Lingxi, in the study.」

Summer had arrived, and the noisy chirping of cicadas filled the air outside the window.

Chen Li was not meditating and refining his qi as usual. Instead, he sat cross-legged before an open wooden chest.

Inside the chest were not neatly stacked Yuanbao or official silver, but a pile of scattered, variously sized silver ingots and silver coins with rough edges, some even bearing the clear marks of being clipped or chiseled.

The purity of the silver varied. Some pieces were still stained with grime, giving off a somewhat dull, white gleam.

This was the March revenue from the Mirror Mountain Silk Shop, just delivered by Qian Laibao, totaling 16,800 taels.

Unlike the neat silver ingots from before, the silver sent this time was almost exactly as it had been received by the shop.

The sale of three hundred eighty bolts of silk in one month had brought in this chest of silver.

In previous years, selling three hundred bolts of silk over an entire year in all of Mirror Mountain would have been considered a great market.

But now, they had earned this much in just a single month.

Furthermore, according to Qian Laibao, this was the result of him deliberately restricting the supply. If he let sales run freely, selling a thousand bolts a month would not be difficult.

This was a clear indication of just how good the silk market was.

But Chen Li had not piled these scattered silver taels before him to take stock of his assets, much less to celebrate his burgeoning fortune.

Never mind these ten-thousand-odd taels of silver; even the several million taels buried beneath Hidden Emperor Castle back then had failed to stir his heart in the slightest.

He was observing.

With his Innate Qi Gathering Technique quietly circulating, his vision was vastly different from that of an ordinary person.

He was looking at the "qi"—formless and intangible, yet undeniably real—that clung to the silver, something that even ordinary Martial Artists, and perhaps even Grandmasters, would find impossible to perceive.

Ever since comprehending the notes of the Seven Kills Ancestor and gaining enlightenment on the path of Law, he had been deep in thought, searching for his own path.

The Ancestor Seven Kills used "evil" as his foundation to glimpse a corner of the Destiny Law.

His own manifested Life Chart, however, was most deeply connected to the stars of wealth.

But this ethereal concept of "wealth"—what exactly was it?

And how could it, like Evil Qi, become a resource for Cultivation, or even a manifestation of a Law?

This question had troubled him for a long time.

It wasn’t until today, when Qian Laibao carried this chest of scattered silver—varied in form and saturated with the aura of the marketplace—into his study, that a crack finally seemed to appear in the fog clouding his mind.

With his current Cultivation in the Guiyuan Realm and his profound understanding of the Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, creating a decent Inner Qi Heart Method would not be difficult.

All Inner Strength techniques in the world, whether they were orthodox methods of the Xuan Sect, Zen Skills of the Buddhist Family, or even the deviant path of the Seven Kills Heart Scripture, were, in the end, all about the cultivation and application of "qi."

The Five Grains Spirit Nurturing Technique he himself practiced nourished the five viscera with the essence of the five grains, generating the Five Elements Qi. It was a solid, balanced, and gentle foundation.

The Yin Yang Unity Scripture focused on absorbing the Yin and Yang Qi of heaven and earth, causing the dragon and tiger to couple within the body, and ultimately unifying them into one. It was exceptionally profound.

His eldest son Shouheng’s Dragon Suppressing and Tiger Subduing True Skill and his second son Shouye’s Immovable Vajra Bright King Technique both belonged to the Buddhist Sect. They focused on using qi, blood, and spirit as a catalyst to unlock the body’s potential, refining either an extremely yang and firm demon-subduing qi or an indestructible Bright King True Qi. Both were domineering and powerful.

Even techniques like the Seven Kills Heart Scripture, which plundered Evil Qi, or the Celestial Fragrance Scripture, which used Absorption and Replenishment of Primordial Qi, followed different paths, but their core never strayed from the concept of "Qi Refining."

Before the Spirit Realm Third Level, it was all just a process of Sensing Qi, Qi Cultivation, Meridian Passage, Opening Acupoints, consolidating the Inner Mansion, and constructing the Divine Hall.

But Chen Li’s ambition did not lie there.

What he sought was not another exquisite Inner Qi Cultivation Technique, but a Supreme Technique that pointed directly to the Origin of the Great Dao and manifested the rules of heaven and earth.

Chen Li leaned over, not touching the larger silver ingots, but instead picking up a few of the smallest pieces of broken silver from the corner of the chest. They were worth less than one mace each, with crookedly clipped edges, and were even stained with a bit of black grime.

It was upon this broken silver, the most unsightly and unremarkable pieces, that the purest and most condensed halo of qi lingered, tightly enveloping the silver fragments.

In contrast, the qi on the five-tael and ten-tael silver ingots was mottled and impure, even mixed with a dark red, violent energy or entwined with a gray, stagnant feeling, and it was much thinner.

"So that’s how it is..."

A flash of understanding crossed Chen Li’s eyes as he recalled the Sixteen-Character Plate Book’s explanation of the Ten Gods.

Wealth is divided into True and Side. True Wealth is obtained through diligent work and by following the rules.

Side Fortune is speculative, lucky, and sudden wealth.

And Looted Wealth comes from trickery, plunder, and profiting at the expense of others.

Silver coins themselves are inanimate objects, but the people who handle them, the methods by which the wealth is obtained, and even the karma involved all leave an invisible mark on the currency as it circulates.

This was Wealth Qi.

The neatly smelted gold and silver in his own treasury had either lost their qi over time or had a qi so pure it was nearly nonexistent because it had circulated within a narrow sphere and passed through few hands.

But these scattered silver taels before him, which had circulated among the common people of the marketplace, had gone through countless transactions. They were saturated with the heart and sweat of countless ordinary folk struggling to make a living. What had condensed upon them was precisely the most fundamental Righteous Wealth Qi.

The smaller and more broken the silver, and the more frequently it circulated, the denser the Righteous Wealth Qi attached to it.

’If the Seven Kills Evil Qi can be seized, can this Righteous Wealth Qi also be used by me?’

With this thought, Chen Li hesitated no longer.

His gaze burned as he carefully placed a few pieces of broken silver in his palm. He cast aside all distracting thoughts and tried to slowly circulate his Heart Method according to his own understanding.

At first, there was no reaction. The Wealth Qi seemed completely different from Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, and even from his own Inner Qi. It was difficult to grasp.

Chen Li remained calm and patient, his Heart Spirit becoming increasingly clear and empty. He no longer forced himself to absorb it, but instead tried to resonate with it, to understand the unique meanings of circulation, equivalent value, and accumulation contained within this qi.

Gradually, an extremely faint warmth spread from his palm.

Wisps of qi from the broken silver began to detach from the metal fragments and slowly seeped into the Laogong acupoint in his palm.

The process was incredibly slow. After entering his meridians, it formed only a warm current, thinner than a strand of hair and almost imperceptible, that drifted within his Hand Shaoyang Sanjiao Meridian.

The amount was less than one-hundredth of the first wisp of Inner Qi he had cultivated all those years ago.

Chen Li was not disappointed. On the contrary, he became even more focused.

He used his Divine Thought to guide this undetectable sliver of Wealth Qi. At the same time, he drew a wisp of pure Primordial Qi from his Primordial Spirit and slowly enveloped the Wealth Qi, attempting to analyze and refine it.

The Primordial Qi and the sliver of Wealth Qi gently touched, merged, and wore each other down...

A moment later, Chen Li slowly opened his eyes, his brow slightly furrowed.

There were no runes.

Under the refining effect of the Primordial Qi, that sliver of Wealth Qi had silently melted away like ice and snow, leaving no runes behind.

’It seems to be a purer, yet completely different from all other worldly qi... a vessel?’

’It seems it’s not that simple. I seem to have found the right path, but this Wealth Qi... how exactly am I supposed to cultivate it?’

Chen Li looked down at the few pieces of broken silver in his palm, which had now become "ordinary," and fell into even deeper thought.