The Journey of Immortal Cultivation-Chapter 544 - 313: Time to Add Some Help
The cultivator’s calm face suddenly distorted, his body started to convulse like he was having a fit. But just after a few moments, his expression returned to calm, and the moment he opened his eyes, a flash of purple light passed by and his pupils turned back to black.
Tu Jin’s avatar had successfully occupied this body, suppressing the original owner’s soul to the bottom of the Sea of Consciousness. He stretched his limbs, trying to adapt to the new body, when someone pushed the door open and saw his movements, pausing to ask, "What are you doing?"
"Nothing, just stretching after not moving for several days." He collected his arms and legs without panic, "What’s up?"
"We’ve run out of talismans, Boss Fu instructed us to refine some more. Get on it quickly, we’ll be leaving in half an hour, we don’t want the Xuanji Sect coming after us."
"Got it." Imitating the body’s original owner, he lazily replied.
Outside the camp, Tu Jin, his aura concealed, flashed a smile and turned to leave. When he was in Divinity Transformation Stage, he could only create two avatars, but now that he has advanced to the Mahayana Realm, he can form three soul avatars, and suppressing a Golden Core cultivator’s Divine Soul with one of them did not require much effort.
Once the avatar had collected enough information, it would report back to Tu Jin’s main body.
In the God Demon Prison, Ning Xiaoxian was discussing the newly obtained information with Changtian and others. The message had come from Wutuo City’s Fatty Qi via an Earth Yin Child.
Ever since she left Wutuo City, Qi San’s business had grown bigger. Through several exchanges of messages, he had reported to Ning Xiaoxian that before dealing with external threats, he had securely handled internal matters, not only did he kill his eldest uncle and Qi Er, but he also used various means to firmly control the Qi Family in his hands. At the same time, he bought large areas of paddy fields, planning to replicate the mulberry fish pond model. The original hilltops would be converted to cultivate other crops. 𝚏𝕣𝐞𝗲𝐰𝕖𝐛𝐧𝕠𝕧𝚎𝚕.𝐜𝚘𝗺
Ning Xiaoxian was not afraid of others copying this model, as she had handed over some mulberry seeds to the soil for improvement. With the divine traits of the Divine Soil, plants grown from it generally have ten times the efficacy of the original. She had already tested it; feeding the new mulberry leaves to the silkworm babies resulted in each fiber of the cocoons showing a faint glow, yet still as light as feather. Without further testing, she knew that the silk spun from it would definitely be of an extraordinary quality. She ordered Fatty Qi to call the silk woven from it "Heavenly Silk," meant to be a treasure crafted by Heaven.
The best part was, these mulberry trees could neither be grafted nor bear seeds. After these mulberry trees perish, only the Divine Soil can cultivate new seeds. Even if others could see the benefits of the mulberry fish ponds, how could the silk they produce compare to the silk from Fatty Qi?
Fatty Qi was also busy. He had established contact with Deng Hao, formerly of the Cloud Tiger Trading Team. The two agreed to meet in Wutuo City this winter. Deng Hao would make the westward route to Wutuo City a mandatory path for his merchant team, and when the new Heavenly Silk was produced, it would be transported to various locations by his team.
Next were reports about the epidemic spreading across various places. Wutuo City, being a medium-sized city, was not affected this time, but Fatty Qi had his own channels for receiving information, and the described symptoms matched those mentioned by Fu Yunzhang.
However, Fatty Qi’s urgent message was actually a plea for help:
The first matter was that Qi San’s caravan had encountered bandits twice within this state, suffering significant losses. Usually, for intra-state trade like this, merchants send their own teams without involving large merchant teams. Although the caravans usually employ a number of capable hands, the nature of trade always involves great risks. Qi San could be said to have exceptionally bad luck, having lost four or five lives and, with the cargo theft plus compensation for the victims, over 70,000 taels of silver had vanished without a trace, and now he had to repay several thousand taels of silver out of his own pocket.
Upon receiving these two pieces of news, Fatty Qi was so angry he lost his appetite, developing a string of large blisters around his mouth, and his round figure slimmed down by a few pounds instantly.
The second matter was that the improved mulberry trees were growing very quickly, and in about two months they would be fully grown, and then operations of the sericulture and fish farming outside Wutuo City could resume normally. During this time, Fatty Qi wanted to open ten fabric stores in six nearby cities. He had already selected the locations and was only waiting for the silver to pay the deposits. Operating fabric shops was the Qi Family’s traditional business, so he knew what he was doing, but the cost of opening ten shops at once was not low. Now that he had also taken on large areas of paddy fields, with silver flowing out rapidly yet no profits coming in, he was in a crucial period without any cash on hand.
