Immortality begins with inheriting the myriad arts of cultivation.

The group had just left Xiantao Mountain.

Cheng Yao quickly called out, "Hanmo, Baiqing, wait a moment, I need your help with something."

Hearing Cheng Yao's words, the two smiled and nodded, but at the same time they were a little confused, wondering what kind of help Cheng Yao wanted them to do.

……

Fishing Village Herbal Medicine Garden.

Cheng Yao pointed to Wang Xingwei lying on the bed and said, "Several months ago, for some reason, he suddenly fainted while walking on the street and hasn't woken up since. Can you help me figure out what happened?"

"She suddenly fainted and hasn't woken up yet?" Upon hearing this, both Qi Hanmo and Bai Qing couldn't help but feel curious.

Logically speaking, cultivators have magical powers protecting their bodies, making them immune to all diseases, and their constitutions are different from ordinary people. How could they faint and not wake up?

The two exchanged a glance. Because of their relatively young age, experience, and skills, Bai Qing went forward first to check on Wang Xingwei's condition.

After carefully examining Wang Xingwei's physical condition, he shook his head in confusion: "His body is perfectly healthy, there's nothing wrong with him. As for why he hasn't woken up, I can't find a reason."

Seeing that Bai Qing couldn't find the cause, Cheng Yao turned her gaze to Qi Hanmo.

Qi Hanmo nodded: "If it's not a physical problem, then it's very likely a mental one. Perhaps he's fallen into a mental trance. I'll try to see if I can awaken him."

After saying that, he took out his flute and began to play a piece of music with the skills of a first-class superior musician, trying to wake Wang Xingwei from his slumber.

The melodious flute music soothes the listener and washes away all worries.

To Cheng Yao's disappointment, after Qi Hanmo finished playing the piece, Wang Xingwei showed no signs of waking up at all, not even the slightest reaction.

"Why!"

The three went to the outer room. Cheng Yao sighed, took out spirit stones from her storage bag, and paid for Qi Hanmo and Bai Qing's treatment.

The two hurriedly declined, but Cheng Yao forcibly stuffed the spirit stones into their hands.

If it were her own spirit stone, she might be reluctant to part with it.

However, during the time Wang Xingwei was unconscious, Cheng Yao took his identity jade token to the salary office every month to collect his monthly salary.

Wang Xingwei, who was in a coma, had very low expenses. He only needed one Bigu Pill per month, and the rest of the spirit stones went into Cheng Yao's pocket.

The spirit stones given to Qi Hanmo and Bai Qing actually belonged to Wang Xingwei.

After seeing Qi Hanmo and Bai Qing off, Cheng Yao returned to the room. She glanced at Wang Xingwei, who was lying motionless on the bed, and couldn't help but sigh, "What sins have I committed? Oh well, I'll go collect my monthly salary first."

……

But when Cheng Yao arrived at the Immortal City's salary office to collect Wang Xingwei's monthly salary, she received devastating news: "What? Manager Wang's monthly salary has been suspended?"

The steward in charge of distributing salaries said, "Yes, Wang Xingwei neglected his duties and was absent from his post for a long time. The Immortal City has dismissed him from his post, and he will no longer be able to receive a monthly salary."

Hearing that there were no more spirit stones to collect, Cheng Yao felt as if struck by lightning.

For the past six months or so, Wang Xingwei hadn't gone to work and was receiving his monthly salary just fine. How come he was suddenly fired and stopped receiving his salary?

She hurriedly asked the steward for the real reason, and the steward who was in charge of distributing salaries couldn't stand her nagging and had no choice but to tell her.

They hadn't pursued the matter before out of respect for the Wang family. But now that the Wang family had committed a grave crime and might be expelled from the Immortal City, they naturally wouldn't turn a blind eye anymore.

……

Cheng Yao left the pay office dejectedly and headed towards the spirit herb garden.

She was willing to take care of Wang Xingwei because she could receive his monthly salary. If the salary stopped, would she support him?

Are you kidding me?

With her meager salary, after deducting her share of the Foundation Fund, she could barely support herself.

Where would you find the money to support a man?

But she couldn't bring herself to completely ignore Wang Xingwei's life or death and abandon him, given her nature.

For a moment, Cheng Yao was caught in a dilemma.

Suddenly, an idea struck her: "That's right, the payee said he's a member of the Wang family. I can go to the Wang family and ask them to take Wang Xingwei home and take care of him."

Thinking of this, Cheng Yao immediately turned around and headed towards the Wang family's ancestral home.

To her surprise, when she arrived at the Wang family's ancestral land, she found a large group of cultivators who looked like rogue cultivators blocking the entrance to the Wang family's ancestral land, cursing loudly.

However, the Wang family kept their doors tightly shut and activated all their protective formations, seemingly unwilling to send anyone out.

"What happened?" Cheng Yao asked a rogue cultivator.

She learned from the other party that these rogue cultivators had been tricked out of their spirit stones by the Wang family and were now here to demand compensation from the Wang family.

"Huh? This?" After figuring out what had happened, Cheng Yao was dumbfounded.

……

At Master Hu's cave on Xiantao Mountain, Li Ping was chatting with Master Hu.

After serving tea to the two, Feng Qufeng withdrew. As for Master Hu's other disciple, Liu Yuan, Master Hu explained that he was worried about the safety of the Immortal City, so he left Liu Yuan in the Yue Kingdom.

He came to Immortal City first to check the situation. Only if the situation in Immortal City stabilized would Liu Yuan set off to come to Immortal City.

Li Ping had to admit that Master Hu was indeed quite good to his young disciple.

As they chatted, the conversation quickly turned to a major piece of gossip that had recently surfaced in the Immortal City.

"I never imagined that Fellow Daoist Wang would be this kind of person!" Master Hu exclaimed repeatedly. "Using the lure of selecting secret techniques from the Immortal City's Secret Technique Pavilion to swindle spirit stones from rogue cultivators—his actions not only damage the reputation of his Wang family but also bring shame upon the entire Immortal City!"

Li Ping nodded in deep agreement. Even he had been tricked out of 100 spirit stones by that old man without realizing it.

He thought that the Wang family would do this quietly and secretly, and wouldn't dare to cheat too many people.

Unexpectedly, more than a hundred people were cheated by them. Now that the Wang family patriarch is dead, some people are leading the trouble. The hundreds of rogue cultivators who were cheated are blocking the Wang family ancestral land every day and cursing loudly.

They appealed to the authorities of the Immortal City to punish the Wang family and return their spirit stones!

The situation escalated, and after a clansman was brutally beaten when he went out, the Wang family cultivators retreated into the ancestral land's magic array, too afraid to come out.

Although Li Ping was also deceived, he did not participate in the demonstrations to demand repayment of the debt.

During his visit to the Wang Family Secret Techniques Pavilion, he obtained the Health Preservation Technique, which was actually a huge profit compared to the 100 spirit stones he had been cheated out of.

Of course, the main reason was that he didn't want anyone to know that he had been scammed.

It's truly shameful for a Foundation Establishment cultivator to fall into a scam because of greed for petty gains.

"However, I find it rather strange that those rogue cultivators are so arrogantly besieging the Wang family's ancestral land, damaging the reputation of the Immortal City, yet the Immortal City officials are turning a blind eye." Li Ping asked with some doubt, "When did the Immortal City officials become so accommodating?"

In this world of cultivation, the strong are respected, and there is no concept of "the law does not punish the masses."

The independent cultivators gathered together, seemingly blocking the Wang family's gate, but in reality, their influence extended far beyond the Wang family.

In Li Ping's opinion, a rogue cultivator who dares to do this is no ordinary rogue cultivator.

At this point, the authorities of the Immortal City should have struck hard, delivering six blows in a second, and branding these rogue cultivators as members of a demonic cult who were disrupting the order of the Immortal City.

How could we allow them to block the Wang family's gate and damage the glorious image of the Immortal City?

"Fellow Daoist Li, you don't understand," Master Hu chuckled. "The cultivators of Immortal City aren't a unified group. Some stand on the Wang family's side, and naturally, some stand on the opposite side. Otherwise, the Wang family's swindling of spirit stones from rogue cultivators happened several years ago, so why would it only come to light now that Fellow Daoist Wang is dead?"

Li Ping suddenly realized that this matter involved internal strife among the cultivators of the Immortal City.

Those on the Wang family's side naturally wanted to cover it up and eliminate the impact of the incident as soon as possible. But the Wang family's enemies hoped to use this incident to completely destroy the Wang family and drive them out of the Immortal City.

Li Ping even speculated that the people from the Immortal City might be the ones who organized these hundreds of rogue cultivators to block the gate of the Wang family's ancestral land and escalate the situation.

He thought to himself, "Indeed, wherever there are people, there is a martial world. Fortunately, we are in an immortal city, with a Core Formation cultivator like True Person Fenglan in charge, so everyone has to follow the rules."

"Otherwise, why go through all this trouble? Once the Wang family patriarch dies, those Foundation Establishment cultivators he offended will come knocking on his door with their swords and wipe out the entire Wang family!"

……

The ancestral home of the Meng family.

Upon seeing the Meng family patriarch, Wang Quyan knelt heavily and cried out, "Senior Meng, please save my family! Our patriarch's body is barely cold, and they're already blocking our door! This is utterly outrageous!"

The patriarch of the Meng family was usually all smiles, but at this moment his expression was unusually serious.

He stared at Wang Quyan kneeling on the ground, not telling him to stand up, but said calmly, "There are rumors that your family set up a scheme to swindle spirit stones from rogue cultivators. Is that true?"

"Ancestor, you've ruined the Wang family!"

Wang Quyan was not a fool; he knew that the only person who could save the Wang family at this moment was the person in front of him.

He dared not deceive the Meng family patriarch, and immediately gritted his teeth and said, "This matter is true, but the patriarch only deceived thirty-four cultivators at that time, for a total of 3400 spirit stones, which is definitely not as many as the hundreds of people now."

"To do something like this for 3400 spirit stones?" The Meng family patriarch's eyes were filled with disbelief and exasperation.

His old friend really does some outrageous things.

Even if we're short of spirit stones, we could at least borrow some from them. Is it really necessary to do something like this?

He left behind such a huge threat before he died, practically pushing the Wang family into a fire pit!

But before his old friend died, he entrusted the Wang family to him, and he really couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

"This is the only way." The Meng family patriarch sighed inwardly. He hadn't expected that the favor he had gained in exchange for his old friend's death would be used so soon.

He looked at Wang Quyan, his expression solemn, and said, "Your family has done such a thing, I can't help you. There is only one person in the entire Immortal City who can save your family."

Wang Quyan looked up in astonishment at the Meng family patriarch, only to hear the patriarch say calmly, "Get up. Kneeling here won't do you any good. You must go to Qinglong Mountain to kneel. Your entire clan must go to the foot of Qinglong Mountain and kneel before the True Person to beg for forgiveness."

"If the real person speaks, you'll escape this calamity; otherwise... good luck!"

The Meng family patriarch stared at Wang Quyan and continued, "By the way, the matter of swindling the rogue cultivators was done by Wang Li alone. None of you knew about it, understand?"

Wang Quyan nodded repeatedly: "It was done by the old ancestor; we were all kept in the dark."

Dead people don't come out to confront others.