"Why do I feel like someone’s staring at me?" The burly man who was reading wiped his tears; the plot in the story had moved him to the point of crying.

Then he put the book down and glanced to the side, only to see nothing but emptiness—no one there at all. Maybe he’d just imagined it. Who would have the guts to come into the Great Tang Prison anyway?

No way. Once Cultivators hear the name Great Tang Prison, they’re scared out of their minds. There’s no way anyone would deliberately make an enemy of the Great Tang Prison; that kind of thing just doesn’t happen.

"In the ninth year of Heaven, evil ghosts ran rampant. She sat quietly at her doorstep, she could not see, could not hear, could not feel, and then a fierce ghost once more appeared before her eyes."

"Its stinking fangs bared, cruelty on full display."

"Just then, a man appeared. With a single sword he fought the evil spirit. One-armed, he could barely hold his ground; the battle was evenly matched. After a dozen exchanges, he performed a blood sacrifice on the spot. A ray of sword light shot straight into the heavens, the evil spirit shattered, and the man’s face was covered in blood. He bared his teeth in a smile before the woman..."

"Is it you?"

"The man did not answer. With a smile still on his face, he slit his own throat with a sword and died in front of the woman..."

Yin Shuang: Next page, next page!

Yuchi: Next page my ass!

And what the hell kind of plot is this? A woman’s about to get killed by an evil spirit, and then a man shows up to save the damsel in distress. Fine, that part makes sense—classic hero-saves-beauty setup, totally normal. But why, after the man finally manages to hack the evil spirit to death, does he then just drop dead in front of the woman?

And by slitting his own throat, no less?

Why?

Why though? What happened afterward? What the hell did the pangolin say?

Yin Shuang, on her side, was way too worked up. Once she’d been taught how to read, she’d fallen into it completely. Just now the two of them had been standing behind the man, watching him read over his shoulder. Two heads, two pairs of eyes, staring intently at the way this guy turned pages.

Then at the end, Yin Shuang got too excited, and Yuchi had no choice but to grab her and drag her away. Otherwise, with Yin Shuang’s little explosive temper, she’d probably have taken a swing at the poor guy.

Now the two of them had come outside the Great Tang Prison. Yin Shuang was looking at Yuchi pitifully: "Brother Chi, why did that man self-kiss himself in front of the woman?"

"How did he kiss himself?"

Self-kiss, huh? Immortal, you read the character wrong. Since that was the case, Yuchi’s eyes rolled: "He chopped off his own mouth, then used his own mouth to kiss himself."

Hiss—Yin Shuang: "It was that bloody!?"

Yuchi: "Yup. Which is why you shouldn’t read too much of this kind of book. Just follow me around instead; that beats reading this kind of trashy story any day."

Yin Shuang: "Aww!"

Then the two of them quietly left the Great Tang Prison, walking farther and farther away, until at some unknown point they suddenly shouted in unison: "But why did he slit his throat / self-kiss himself!?"

The latest issue of the Jiangzhou City Imperial Gazette—Yuchi went and bought it anyway.

One look and he understood. Turned out that during the fight with the evil spirit, the guy started sweating, and his ear canal got a bit itchy. He used his thumb to dig at his ear, but forgot he was still gripping a sword in that hand. So he scratched his ear with the sword and accidentally killed himself.

Phew. Even though there were a ton of things to roast about this, at least it wasn’t something to obsess over anymore. Yuchi and Yin Shuang both let out a sigh of relief—now that felt better.

Yin Shuang lazily plopped herself down on Yuchi’s shoulder, the whole person like a traveler sitting under the setting sun. She wiped the fragrant sweat from her forehead and broke into a thoroughly carefree grin.

Yuchi: "..."

And although their trip to the Great Tang Prison had looked pretty noisy and chaotic on the surface, they’d actually gotten a lot of clues about the place. From the looks of it, the Great Tang Prison hadn’t been fully dealt with yet. They’d come back in three months and take another look. This time he probably wouldn’t forget—after all, next year he’d be starting construction of Xufu Town over there, so he could just swing by when the time came.

Right now, it was time to go make money.

The closest place at the moment was Xufu Town, but there were no casinos left in Xufu Town, and the surrounding towns had already been cleaned out. As a result, there was basically no fat to be scraped around Jiangzhou City. Yuchi decided to head to Canglan City—Canglan City was Canglan City, after all.

A type-B major city, and there were definitely a lot of towns around it. Yuchi took Yin Shuang and wandered around the area surrounding Canglan City for nearly half a month. They’d basically made a full circle of all the nearby towns. In the end, what they had in hand—aside from a fistful of silver notes—was only a pitiful two hundred thousand or so in cash silver taels.

Over thirty towns, and in the end just a bit over two hundred thousand in cash; everything else was silver notes. And the total number of silver notes was pretty shocking—over two million in all. But who knew when that two million could ever be laundered clean, so for now it could only be stored in the Immortal Stone.

Since there was no way to squeeze more money out of the towns, Yuchi could only turn his eyes to other sects. They were still short about two and a half million, and two and a half million was no small amount. Only sects could step in and carry the load at a critical moment.

But were there any sects left like the previous Yatian Sect?

...

In the skies over the Sixth Prefecture, a female Cultivator carried Lu Qingyin as they crossed mountains and ridges. She glanced with mild satisfaction at Lu Qingyin, who was sitting inside the carriage reading through dossiers, and commented, "Read more books—having more knowledge is never a bad thing. I suggest you learn more about Medicinal Herbs; it’s for your own good. Even if that power probably won’t take you in, if you understand Medicinal Herbs, there should still be other places willing to accept you."