Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 277 The Debt Keeps Growing
After chatting for a while, as they overheard people passing by who were attending the "Immortal's Fate Gathering" mentioning where they were going to do odd jobs to earn money, the three of them suddenly realized—

They worked hard for a whole day and night, but not only did they not earn any money, they also had to pay out three strings of cash!
"No, it's three strings and thirty cash."

Zhu Ye took out the Yin-Yang Bagua compass and calmly added.

"You..." Jiang Wanli swallowed hard and asked, "How much money do you have left?"

Shi Yizhi replied with a pained expression, "One hundred and thirty-six..."

Zhu Ye also took a deep breath: "One hundred and eighty-two coins."

This is after he's worked so hard during the day, telling stories until his throat is dry, that he earns this hard-earned money!
Jiang Wanli's expression grew increasingly bitter. He said heavily, "I only have 140 left. Even if we add up all our money, we're still more than 2 strings of cash short. I don't know if not being able to pay back the debt will count as failing the 'Trial Array'..."

Shi Yizhi also sighed, "Alas... mainly because of the mountain lord, I can't even hunt anymore... how about we go mining?"

Shi Yizhi was thinking of Wang Shanren's example from last night and had the idea of ​​making a fortune out of thin air.

Jiang Wanli said, "But I heard that if you're unlucky, you can only sell thirty or forty coins a day, which is less than what you can make in other shops!"

Zhu Ye pondered for a moment, then suddenly said, "If all else fails, we can sell information."

"Selling...information?"

Seeing the bewildered expressions on Jiang Wanli and Shi Yizhi's faces, Zhu Ye sighed, realizing that if she were to truly become their "elder brother" in the future, her prospects would be bleak...

“Well, what I mean is,” Zhu Ye quickly suppressed his random thoughts and got down to business, “In the past, we could use things like the underworld, the City God, or even things related to walking the underworld to trade with others. But now, we know much more than that, so why not sell this information out? That way, others will make money for us!”

This is actually Zhu Ye's original profession.

The so-called "know-it-all" does this job: profiting from information asymmetry between two parties and then selling it at a high price. To be honest, you can't do this job well if you're not corrupt. In some places, the group that buys and sells information is a brokerage firm, and these people are even more unscrupulous and act with extreme malice.

Zhu Ye's suggestion, while having some merit, however...

Shi Yi said, "Brother Zhu can surely handle this himself. There's no need for us to rely on this. Why don't we do some other work to earn more money and raise three strings of cash as soon as possible to pay off this debt!"

Zhu Ye nodded: "Alright, then I'll go to the tea shop and meet at the Peach Blossom Goddess Temple before sunset."

The three of them agreed on their plans and then hurriedly parted ways.

Zhu Ye went to the tea shop, Jiang Wanli went to the Peach Blossom Inn, and as for Shi Yizhi…

They then chose to gamble at the mine owned by Master Hu.

After a morning of hard mining, Shi Yizhi hastily made do with two hard meat patties for lunch and then continued mining.

But before they had dug for long, a thunderous shout suddenly rang out—

"Be bold!"

Immediately afterward, Shi Yizhi, who had hurriedly followed the crowd out to join the excitement, saw a figure fall from the sky and crash onto the distant rocks, turning into a pile of minced meat.

Then, a simply dressed, young-looking man in red robes slowly descended from the sky to the ground, carrying a figure that looked very familiar to Shi Yizhi—

It's Du Chongshan!

As soon as the man in red stepped onto the ground, he threw Du Chongshan away. It was unclear how much force he used, but Du Chongshan crashed into the rock next to the pile of minced meat, immediately spitting out blood. He could only barely support himself with his arms and lay on the ground.

"Master Hu, no, no, Master Hu, I really didn't mean it. I didn't know this person was so audacious. I, I, I..."

Du Chongshan was in tears, his voice filled with panic and fear.

I won't kill you; killing you would dirty my hands!

The man in red snorted coldly and said, "You have your own place to go!"

Before he finished speaking, another person suddenly flew over from the sky. It was the woman in scarlet clothes whom Shi Yizhi had met once after climbing the "Steps to Immortality"!

The woman landed lightly on the ground, looked coldly at Du Chongshan, and said, "Du Chongshan, you're out."

Du Chongshan's face flushed red as he shouted, "No! No! I didn't! I didn't do anything! I just... I just accidentally said a few words to him, I really didn't do anything! How could I be out! I didn't!"

“He was the one who caused your death, and you were just driven away. You should be grateful.”

The woman in crimson sneered as she spoke, then continued, "If you don't want to leave alive, that's fine too. You can be taken out after you've died!"

Upon hearing this, Du Chongshan was even more terrified, forgetting his earlier insistence, and shouted, "No! No, no! I don't want to die!"

The woman in scarlet ignored what Du Chongshan was saying, picked him up, and lifted him up like a dead pig, riding the wind.

"Immortal Master! Immortal Master, please wait!"

Shi Yizhi quickly gathered his energy and used his lightness skill to catch up a few steps.

He wanted to ask Du Chongshan why he had been taken away, but before he could speak, the woman in red coldly looked at him and said, "Anyone who says another word will be eliminated along with him!"

Upon hearing this, the crowd, who had been eager to try Shi Yizhi's actions, all stopped in their tracks, and the surroundings fell silent. Even Shi Yizhi dared not take any more risks and could only awkwardly take several steps back, not daring to utter another word.

"Humph!"

Seeing everyone cowering like quails, the woman in crimson snorted coldly again and left with Du Chongshan in her arms.

Although the woman in crimson didn't say it explicitly, everyone knew that Du Chongshan was about to be taken out of the "trial formation".

“I recognize that person, it looks like Wang Shanren…”

"What?! Wang Shanren?! He treated me to drinks and meat yesterday, how come he's like this today..."

"Isn't the saying 'Ten days of intoxication' meant staying intoxicated for ten days? My friend didn't even wake up this morning, so how come this Mr. Wang, who drank so much, is perfectly fine?"

"How do you know you're alright? If you were alright, how could you have ended up like this?"

"Judging from what was just said, it seems that this benevolent man Wang ended up in such a state because of that man surnamed Du..."

"By the way, who's that in red? She's really something!"

Are you referring to a man or a woman?

"Of course it's a man! Isn't that woman the Grand Princess of Xiao Kingdom? I've heard that the princess has a fearsome reputation, but she can stop children from crying at night. How could I not know that!"

"That man is Master Hu!"

"Haha, my friend, you must be joking! Master Hu's daughter is already so grown up, how could he be so young!"

"Are you stupid! Master Hu is a fox spirit! How can you judge his age by the appearance of an ordinary person!" "This..."

"Use your brain! Hua San Niang is over fifty years old, does she look like it? And how could Master Hu possibly look like that!"

The man in red had disappeared long before the woman in scarlet appeared. Shi Yizhi overheard the murmurs around him, which gave him quite a bit of gossip to keep him entertained.

"Steward Hu, please give us an answer. Why was this benevolent Wang..." Someone with sharp eyes spotted Steward Hu, who had come with people to deal with the pile of rotten flesh. They quickly stepped forward and asked in a low voice, "So that we can know the truth and avoid making a mistake!"

When someone boldly asked the question, everyone immediately fell silent and pricked up their ears. Shi Yizhi also listened intently to the conversation between the two, afraid of missing anything.

"Hehe, ordinary people don't need to be afraid. Our master is very kind-hearted. These two are just crooked. The one who was taken away instigated this one to get my master drunk so that he could cut out his heart and extract his elixir to enrich himself. That's why he ended up like this!"

As he spoke, Steward Hu looked at the rotten flesh hanging on the stone and shook his head, sighing, "I don't know what he was thinking. My master has cultivated for over eight hundred years, which is several hundred years longer than the mountain god in the mountains. Even the Peach Blossom Goddess and the City God have to treat our master with respect. How dare this mere mortal have such thoughts? He's incredibly stupid!"

The man was also utterly shocked and pressed for an answer: "To cut open the heart and extract the elixir?! What kind of saying is this?!"

"I've heard from somewhere that as long as a cultivator has condensed a core within their body, they can extract that core by cutting open their heart and gain all that cultivation power, thus becoming a cultivator themselves... Not to mention that this claim only applies to demon cultivators; humans cannot use demon cores, and even if they could, they would become demons themselves..."

"If I really did that, I could forget about cultivation for the rest of my life. I would only ever reach the level of the inner core I had stolen, and I would even gradually weaken because I couldn't refine it... Alas! What a waste!"

As he spoke, Butler Hu shook his head, put his hands behind his back, and left with the two servants who had already cleaned up the pile of blood and flesh.

No one knows what kind of magic they used, but in just a short while, the boulder returned to its blue color, becoming a seamless whole, with no trace of the terrifying appearance of the lump of blood and flesh that had just been hanging there.

After a long silence in the crowd, someone suddenly whispered, "Is what Steward Hu said true? As long as you seize a cultivator's inner core, you can gain hundreds of years of cultivation for nothing?"

"What? You want to try too?" Shi Yizhi sneered, pointing to the distant boulder, "Don't forget, one of your 'predecessors' just died there!"

"What nonsense are you spouting, you brat! I just don't know if what Butler Hu said is true or not, I didn't say I was going to do that!"

Enraged, the man suddenly shouted, "Besides, this is the 'Trial Array' of the White Stone Immortal Sect! Our every move might be being watched by the immortals! Not to mention that normal people would never do such a wicked thing, anyone who does such a thing is utterly stupid!"

Shi Yizhi snorted and looked at the other person with a mocking expression, saying, "Don't you also know the truth?"

The man grew increasingly angry: "You—"

"Okay, stop talking!"

It was Lu Mao'er who stopped the two from arguing.

After helping Jiang Wanli watch the incense burner for a while yesterday, this female knight went to the mine to mine before dawn.

Like Shi Yizhi, Lu Mao'er also wanted to get rich by digging up a good mine. Unfortunately, after digging all morning, he didn't get anything. He sold everything and only made about twenty coins, which was just enough for a meal.

After lunch, still unwilling to give up, she went back to mining.

Since they were all there to mine, Lu Mao'er had naturally witnessed the whole incident. Seeing that Shi Yizhi was being reckless and about to suffer a loss, she spoke up, seemingly attacking indiscriminately but actually taking sides: "Instead of arguing, why don't you mine a little longer? In this wretched place, you can't spend the money outside. Although there are many ways to make money, they all yield pitifully little. Mining is the only way to try your luck. You still have the leisure to argue!"

Lu Mao'er's words caused everyone to scatter and return to continue mining, including Shi Yizhi.

There was no way around it; all he and Jiang Wanli and Zhu Ye owed each other a debt of three strings of cash, not to mention the food and drink for the next few days. How could he not be anxious?

After another hard afternoon, plus the cartload of ore he had sold in the morning, he earned a total of 120 coins. Only then did Shi Yizhi manage to return to the Peach Blossom Goddess Temple before sunset—and that was only because he was lucky enough to have dug up a few relatively valuable pieces of ore!

When Shi Yizhi arrived, Zhu Ye and Jiang Wanli were already waiting.

Jiang Wanli's eyes lit up when he saw Shi Yizhi, and he couldn't wait to ask, "Senior brother, how was your luck today?"

Shi Yizhi shook his head and sighed, "Only one hundred and twenty coins."

Jiang Wanli comforted him, "Not bad, better than me. I only earned forty-three coins!"

Then he added, "It seems that mining is more profitable. I'll go mining with you tomorrow!"

Shi Yizhi turned to look at Zhu Ye: "Brother Zhu, how much did you earn?"

Zhu Ye replied, "A little more than you, six hundred and forty coins."

Shi Yizhi exclaimed with admiration, "Brother Zhu is truly remarkable!"

"I'm ashamed to say, I was just lucky. This morning I ran into a bit of a simpleton, the same Mr. Wang we met yesterday..."

Before Zhu Ye could finish speaking, Shi Yizhi exclaimed in shock, "Wang Shanren!?"

Jiang Wanli, puzzled, asked, "What's wrong?"

Zhu Ye also looked at Shi Yizhi with some doubt.

Shi Yizhi hurriedly recounted everything he had seen that afternoon, including Wang Shanren, who had been reduced to a pile of minced meat, and Du Chongshan, who had been taken away by the legendary Grand Princess of Xiao Kingdom.

“This is rather strange,” Zhu Ye frowned. “When he came to buy my information this afternoon, his demeanor was a bit off. He seemed very excited, but his reactions were somewhat sluggish. When I asked for five hundred coins, he didn’t even haggle and just agreed…”

Jiang Wanli guessed, "Could it be that the effects of the 'Ten-Day Intoxication' haven't worn off yet? Wasn't he quite drunk yesterday?"

Zhu Ye replied, "That's it. Hua San Niang said that an ordinary person would be drunk for several days after drinking this 'Ten Days of Intoxication,' and if someone has a poor alcohol tolerance, they could be drunk for ten days! Even if Wang Shanren has a good alcohol tolerance, he shouldn't be able to sober up first thing the next morning, right?"

Jiang Wanli said, "It's simple. We'll just ask Hua San Niang later. Anyway, Wang Shanren got drunk at the inn, so Hua San Niang will definitely know how he sobered up!"

Zhu Ye said with relief, "That makes sense. Let's hurry up and keep our appointment!"

So the three of them returned to the thatched mat in the backyard. The rough memorial tablet and incense burner were carefully put away. Although Huang the temple keeper was greedy, he was indeed reliable.

Soon, it was still Jiang Wanli guarding the incense burner, while Shi Yizhi and Zhu Ye were walking in the underworld.

This time, however, there was an additional Huang Temple Master who didn't travel through the underworld but instead physically followed the two to the Gates of Hell.

"After this trip, I'll need to rest for several days to recover my strength. Plus, I'll need to buy some roast chicken to replenish my energy, which will cost at least five strings of cash! Don't forget that you already owe me three strings of cash, plus the rental fee for the Yin-Yang Eight Trigrams Plate yesterday, which adds up to eight strings and thirty cash!"

As Huang the temple keeper walked, he kept muttering, "I don't know when you'll be able to pay back. Sigh, I'm still too kind. I'm willing to give you credit even though I don't know if you can pay back... In short, I won't haggle over a single penny!"

As Shi Yizhi listened to the ever-increasing debt, he became somewhat numb.

Even if he and Jiang Wanli worked hard mining every day, it would still take them a month to earn those eight strings of cash.

If you include the money Zhu Ye earns from "selling information," even if there were a fool like Wang Shanren willing to spend 500 coins to buy information every day, it would still take about ten days!

This doesn't even include the food and drinks for the three of them!
Huang, the temple keeper, was not affected by the silence between the three of them at all. He continued to mutter, "Let's make this clear first: when we dig up the Forget-Me-Not Grass, apart from the portion I make for you to cook soup, the rest is mine. As a temple keeper, I'm always short of these kinds of spiritual materials. If you buy anything from me next time, I'll give you a discount!"

Zhu Ye remained silent. Jiang Wanli had worked hard all day and was probably exhausted. Only Shi Yizhi seemed to be in relatively good spirits. He forced a smile and said perfunctorily, "Well, thank you so much..."

(End of this chapter)