Chapter 5: Moving Into the "Mansion"

"One tael of silver per day?!"

Lin Chuan stood before a dilapidated wooden shack at the base of the Tianyun City wall, his voice cracking in disbelief. "A piece of junk like this costs a tael of silver? If this were back on Earth, you’d be strung up from a lamppost as a capitalist!"

The landlord, a wizened old man with a face like a crumpled paper bag, puffed away on a long-stemmed pipe. "I don’t know what kind of backwater village your 'Earth' is, but this is the going rate for the west side of Tianyun City. Take it or leave it. Think it’s too expensive? The communal sleeping mats in the market outside the city walls are five copper coins a night."

Lin Chuan’s mouth twitched as he surveyed this so-called "affordable rental." The walls were made of planks no wider than a finger, the roof was so riddled with holes he could count the stars, and the door hung so crookedly it looked ready to quit at any moment. The pièce de résistance was the "bed"—simply a mound of dirt topped with a few rotting boards, covered in straw that looked older than Lin Chuan’s grandfather.

"Little Fatty," Lin Chuan wailed in his mind, "when you founded the 'Dao Court,' did you really allow such unscrupulous landlords to exist?"

Little Fatty’s voice was full of innocence. "I was busy setting up the grand formation to 'drag' you here, wasn't I? Who had time to worry about such trifles?"

"If it comes to that," Lin Chuan’s eyes lit up, "I’ll just dig my own cave to live in!"

"Wake up," Little Fatty mercilessly shattered his fantasy. "All the hills within the reach of the major cultivation cities have been carved up by the local powers. If you dig a private cave, the enforcement team will blast you into dust."

Helpless, Lin Chuan despairingly pulled out four taels of gold and handed them to the landlord. "Rent it for a month... and by the way, you owe me two taels of silver in change."

The old man took the gold, tossed a wooden tag at Lin Chuan, and had no intention of offering change. "Small business, no refunds or change. Four taels of gold covers exactly thirty-two days. I’ll be back to collect rent after that. Your door number is Wu-250. Go find it yourself."

"Two-fifty..." Lin Chuan gripped the wooden tag, feeling a subtle, lingering insult.

After walking along the base of the wall for about a quarter of an hour, Lin Chuan finally found his "mansion"—a rotting wooden shed squeezed between two equally derelict structures. The tag hung crookedly, the numbers "250" seemingly grinning in mockery. Pushing the door open, a wave of musty air hit him. Lin Chuan covered his nose and stepped inside, finding the space pitifully small. Once the "bed" was placed, there wasn't even room for a decent-sized table.

"There isn't even a toilet here?" Lin Chuan gasped.

"The public outhouse is at the end of the alley," Little Fatty said with a hint of schadenfreude. "Friendly tip: go during the day. You might encounter some 'surprises' at night."

Lin Chuan collapsed onto the bed in despair, only for the dirt mound to collapse with a loud *thud*. "I swear..."

He scrambled up from the floor, brushing off the dust. "Little Fatty, we have to find a way to make money. I’ll go insane if I live in this place for a month!"

"You should have thought of that sooner," Little Fatty replied. Though he lacked a physical body and didn't need to live in this "outhouse," he wasn't a rock in a latrine; he had no desire for his consciousness to reach out from the Blood Spirit Ring only to be greeted by such filth.

For the next half-hour, Lin Chuan scouted the housing market in Tianyun City. Due to the gradual depletion of spiritual energy, areas with high concentrations of it were becoming increasingly scarce, causing housing prices to skyrocket. Just as Wang Tie-zhu had said, the cheapest house available for sale inside the city cost five thousand taels of gold, and one had to own a property to obtain city residency.

"Five thousand taels..." Lin Chuan counted on his fingers. "I have one hundred now, so I’m still short four thousand nine hundred..."

"To be precise, ninety-six," Little Fatty corrected. "You just paid four taels for rent."

Lin Chuan clutched his chest. "Say no more, I’m having a heart attack..."

"And," Little Fatty added, twisting the knife, "you have to raise that money within eighty-four days, or once your twelve annual city entry opportunities are used up, you'll be kicked back outside the walls to starve."

Lin Chuan lay on the newly repaired bed, staring blankly at the leaky roof.

"Five thousand taels in eighty-four days... Based on the gold price before I left Earth, a gram is a thousand yuan. One tael is fifty grams, so five thousand taels is two hundred and fifty thousand grams... That means I need to make two hundred and fifty million yuan in eighty-four days. This is way harder than buying a house in Beijing..."

"Actually, there’s a shortcut," Little Fatty said mysteriously. "Tianyun City has an industry for 'getting rich quick'."

Lin Chuan sprang up. "What industry?"

"Appraising treasures!" Little Fatty said, sounding frustrated. "You possess the credentials of a fifth-rank appraiser!"

Lin Chuan rolled his eyes. "Forget it. That swindler Li Ming only gave me one hundred taels for a star core fragment..."

"That’s because you were at the market outside the city," Little Fatty explained. "The Tianyun Pavilion there is nothing but a tiny branch. The main branch inside the city is where the real treasures are. Plus, with stricter surveillance inside the city, the appraisal prices are far higher than outside."

Lin Chuan’s eyes lit up. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"

"Hold on," Little Fatty stopped him. "Before that, you need to solve another problem."

"What problem?"

"Your cultivation," Little Fatty said gravely. "You aren't even at the first stage of Body Refining. In this city, you’re just a fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered."

Lin Chuan realized he had been so focused on money that he hadn't started cultivating yet. "Then what are we waiting for? Teach me!" He rubbed his hands excitedly. "How about a Foundation Establishment Pill to start?"

Little Fatty was speechless. "I already told you, I can only chat with you; I’m hiding in the Blood Spirit Ring. Where would I get a Foundation Establishment Pill?"

For the rest of the time, Little Fatty gave Lin Chuan a crash course in the cultivation system of the Cangxuan Continent—nine great realms, from Body Refining to Divine Martial. Each realm was divided into nine stages, with each breakthrough becoming progressively harder.

"You aren't even at the first stage of Body Refining," Little Fatty pointed out mercilessly. "In Tianyun City, even the woman sweeping the streets could knock you out with one punch."

Lin Chuan was indignant. "Then what do I do?"

"Buy some basic body-refining herbs," Little Fatty said. "Even though the spiritual energy here is thin, with a medicinal bath, you can barely begin."

Lin Chuan counted his remaining money, wanting to cry. "More spending..."

"Investing in yourself is the most cost-effective," Little Fatty comforted. "Once you have cultivation, making money will be much easier."

The next morning, Lin Chuan took his remaining gold to "Hundred Herbs Hall" in the West Market. "Boss, I need one portion of everything on this list."

The middle-aged man behind the counter looked him over, then scanned the list. "You're doing body refining? But why is your formula different from the usual ones? Whatever. Five taels of gold."

"Five taels?!" Lin Chuan almost bit his tongue. "So expensive?"

The boss was unfazed. "Take it or leave it. The 'Spirit Medicine Pavilion' in the East City sells them for eight."

Lin Chuan heart-achingly handed over five taels of gold for a small cloth bag. Just as he was leaving, Little Fatty shouted in his head, "Wait! Ask the price of that pile of dusty rocks in the corner!"

Lin Chuan turned to see a few unremarkable grey stones stacked in the corner, looking like mining waste. "Boss, are those stones for sale?"

The boss didn't even look up. "Waste. One tael of gold for the lot."

"I'll take them!" Lin Chuan paid immediately.

Once outside, Lin Chuan asked, "Little Fatty, what’s special about those?"

"Good luck," Little Fatty chuckled. "These are associated minerals of 'Grey Crystal.' They might contain 'Stardust Sand,' an essential material for crafting spatial artifacts."

Lin Chuan’s eyes lit up. "How much is it worth?"

"Depends on the purity," Little Fatty said. "If you can extract more than ten grams, it’s worth at least fifty taels of gold."

"Fifty taels!" Lin Chuan was so excited he almost dropped the bag. "What are we waiting for? Let's refine it!"

"Don't be impatient," Little Fatty said. "Go back and cultivate first. I’ll teach you the extraction method tonight."

Back in his "mansion," Lin Chuan followed Little Fatty’s instructions, boiling a huge bucket of water and dumping in the medicinal herbs. A pungent odor filled the room.

"Strip and get in," Little Fatty commanded. "It might hurt a little the first time."

Lin Chuan, skeptical, stripped and sat in the barrel. The next second—

"AWOOOO!!" A blood-curdling scream echoed through the C-zone. "You call this 'hurting a little'?! It feels like being doused in sulfuric acid!"

An angry pounding came from the wall next door. "It's noon, why are you killing pigs?! Keep it down!"

Lin Chuan bit into a towel, tears streaming down his face as he endured the bath. Little Fatty continued to talk trash: "Just grit your teeth. When I was refining my body..."

"Shut up!" Lin Chuan squeezed out between his teeth. "What would an old monster like you know about human suffering?"

An hour later, Lin Chuan crawled out like a dead fish, his entire body bright red like a boiled shrimp.

"How do you feel?" Little Fatty asked.

Lin Chuan stretched, surprised to find that despite the agony, his body felt much lighter and his muscles firmer. "It... actually works?"

"Of course it works," Little Fatty said smugly. "This is a formula I improved. It’s three times as effective as a normal bath."

Lin Chuan suddenly wondered, "Wait, if your formula is so good and only costs five taels, why does Hundred Herbs Hall charge ten?"

"Because your 'daddy' here is one of the top alchemists in the entire universe. Why would it be strange for my improved formula to be cheaper and more effective?" Little Fatty explained triumphantly.

That night, ignoring his soreness, Lin Chuan began extracting the Stardust Sand under Little Fatty’s guidance.

"Crack the outer shell... yes, just like that... be careful not to damage the crystal inside..."

After an hour of work, Lin Chuan extracted about thirty grams of shimmering silver sand.

"I'm rich!" Lin Chuan cradled the sand, his eyes shining. "How much is this worth?"

"About one hundred and fifty taels of gold," Little Fatty estimated. "Go sell it at the main Tianyun Pavilion tomorrow, then buy better resources."

Lin Chuan happily wrapped up the sand and lay down on his dirt-mound bed, already dreaming of mansions and fast cars... no, of riding celestial maidens and sitting on spirit beasts.

"Little Fatty," Lin Chuan asked before falling asleep, "you said there’s a treasure in the core secret realm of Tianyun City that can turn me into the number one person in Cangxuan. What exactly is it?"

Little Fatty was silent for a moment. "It’s too early to tell you. Wait until you reach the Earth Martial Realm."

"So mysterious..." Lin Chuan muttered, soon drifting into a dream where he lived in a mansion in the center of Beijing, waking up every day on a five-hundred-square-meter bed...

*BANG!*

A loud crash jolted Lin Chuan awake. He watched in horror as his door was kicked open by three hulking men who stood at the entrance, glaring at him with malicious intent.

"Kid," the leader sneered, "you're the one who bought that stuff from Hundred Herbs Hall yesterday, aren't you?"