When Cheng Zongyang rushed to the County Magistrate’s Office, he found out that Li Lu had also fallen into a deep sleep.

When Zhao the Seventh saw Cheng Zongyang arrive, he quickly said,

"This stuff is terrifying. Lord Li ingested it and collapsed just moments later. He ground them all into a powder and mixed it into the wine. They first drank the untainted stuff, then the doctored batch. After that, they all passed out."

Cheng Zongyang’s brow furrowed. Ignoring Zhao the Seventh’s rambling, nonsensical explanation, he walked to the table and picked up the wine jug.

’Ground into a powder?’

’That makes it a bit harder to gauge the timing.’

He picked up the wine jug and poured some into a cup. It was a bit cloudy, but most wine these days was like that, so it wasn’t noticeable.

Besides, the wine they had now was all old stock, making it even harder to spot anything unusual in the cloudy liquid.

And with Li Lu drinking alongside them, they naturally wouldn’t have been suspicious. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

But Cheng Zongyang wasn’t concerned with the details. All that mattered was that they were asleep.

He immediately instructed Zhao the Seventh, "Take all six of these men to the warehouse in South City. I’ll handle things from here.

"As for Brother Li, get him home and make sure he’s settled in safely. Don’t let anything happen to him. For everything else, proceed according to my plan. No mistakes. Report back to me when you’re done."

With a serious expression, Zhao the Seventh nodded in agreement.

He didn’t understand the initial talk of complex stratagems, but he understood the part about finding six men to put on the prisoners’ clothes and ride out of town on horseback tomorrow, in broad daylight.

If anyone came to investigate in the future, the townspeople they questioned would only know that six men had left the East City Gate on horseback.

The common folk wouldn’t know what these men looked like. As long as "eyewitnesses" could guide the narrative, the danger to the people in charge—like themselves—would naturally be reduced.

Zhao the Seventh didn’t understand all the intricate details, but he knew he just had to follow orders.

As far as Cheng Zongyang was concerned, if a problem could be solved with a simple method, there was no need to resort to force.

He had already broken through to the Sixth Grade, and his strength had grown. With his weapon, he would have had no problem taking on all six of them. However, he was afraid of causing too large a commotion and attracting the attention of the townspeople.

He had to consider the possibility of future investigators and what their inquiries might uncover.

This method was, therefore, the most efficient.

Zhao the Seventh quickly took the six men to Cheng Zongyang’s place. Li Lu was sent back to his home, and his family was informed of the situation.

Everything proceeded as usual afterward. There were no changes, and no one knew that six people had vanished.

「South Pond Sixth Lane, inside Cheng Zongyang’s private warehouse.」

The warehouse was actually a small, unoccupied residence. Ever since he had hired a few servants for his home, he had stopped sending sensitive items there. So, he found this vacant house near the city gate to use as a place for his private affairs.

In the main hall, six Martial Artists, stripped down to their undergarments, lay unconscious on the floor.

Cheng Zongyang wasted no time. He sent all six men into the Wilderness World.

Ma San and the others were busy, so Cheng Zongyang didn’t call for them.

He worked alone, gagging all six of them with cloth and binding them. Then he severed the tendons in their hands and feet, finally using White Medicine to stanch the bleeding.

He didn’t need them to be able to fight. He just needed them to stay alive and maintain their Realm until he could acquire Soul Crystal Stones.

The County Town’s Jail was now empty.

Among the commoners, Li Lu had executed those with serious crimes and released those with minor ones. As for the Martial Artists, Li Lu had killed them all to prevent them from becoming a threat to public safety.

Therefore, these six were the only Martial Artists he could find at the moment! And they had been delivered right to his doorstep.

’I thought I’d only be able to use the Soul Crystal Stones to reshape ordinary people. Now I can reshape three Martial Artists, and they might even be the three strongest ones.’

After dealing with them, Cheng Zongyang went to the market hut.

The previous purchase request had already been taken down from the acquisition board.

This time, he wasn’t going to request Low Tier ones. Instead, he would try for Middle Tier.

He had succeeded in acquiring Wilderness Beans after trying before, so there was no reason Soul Crystal Stones would be impossible.

And so, a new purchase request was posted:

—

[Item Name]: Middle Tier Soul Crystal Stone

[Quantity]: 3

[Points]: 1200

Note: Long-term partnership available.

[Post] [Cancel]

—

This time, Cheng Zongyang tried adding a note. If this worked, he wouldn’t have to worry about acquiring Soul Crystal Stones in the future, only about finding good corpses or places to collect Souls.

Although he could collect Souls from the Chaotic Burial Mound, the collection rate had already slowed. This meant the number of Souls there had dwindled, and it couldn’t be a long-term source.

As for the price, it was an experiment.

As 4,258 Points were deducted, Cheng Zongyang sighed inwardly.

’So, I have to keep expanding my farming operations in the Wilderness World, but my business ventures in the outside world can’t be rushed.’

The former was for Points; the latter was for silver!

Silver was what he needed to expand his territory in the Wilderness World. He didn’t know why silver was required, but that wasn’t something he needed to dwell on.

It was just like how people had designated Gold and silver as currency; there was always a reason.

Once the post was successful, Cheng Zongyang went out, checked the time, and gave Ma San some instructions, telling him to keep an eye on when the six men woke up.

As soon as they woke up, they would be expelled from the Wilderness World and return to the real world.

He needed to know the exact time they woke up. His goal was to compare the effects of the Wilderness Bean Powder versus whole Wilderness Beans!

He had never thought of grinding the Wilderness Beans into a powder before. He just never imagined that Li Lu would not only do it, but that it would actually work!

This gave him an idea. He realized he had been too narrow-minded about the uses of certain items and hadn’t tried to develop their full potential.

While the high cost and limited quantity of materials were partly to blame, he knew the main reason was his own lack of imagination.