Chapter 136 Plum Wine (a)

Translated by Gumihou

Edited by Gumihou

 

For the next few days, Shiyu loitered around various teahouses and restaurants inquiring after the Qi Clan. Since the whole of Wushan is under the protection of the Qi Clan, it was not difficult to get the locals to talk about their benefactors.

She found out that this Venerable Ancestor of the Qi Clan returned to the Ninth Realm over 70 years ago. No one was entirely sure what his Cultivation Stage was, but everyone agreed that it had to be at least Divine Transformation Stage. When the Qi Clan began to rise in power, Xuan Chu’s Imperial Family, along with some powerful aristocrats, joined forces to suppress them. In the end, however, the ones who were eliminated in this power struggle were the royal family’s faction.

After this triumphant success, the doors of the Qi Clan were thrown wide open and major recruitment of disciples began. Every year, 100 disciples were admitted into the Qi Clan for Cultivation training.

Nevertheless, entry was very strict, potential disciples had to be under 10 years old and possessed excellent talent root. Because the Qi Clan was famous throughout the entire Xuan Chu Empire, the selection of disciples turned into an annual spectacle. This is also why Shiyu was able to gain so much information without being noticed.

However, everything she heard made her a little uneasy. Is nothing sacred in this world? If the Venerable Ancestor is not the genuine article, why would he go through so much trouble? Surely there’s no advantage for him to impersonate Mister Qi?

However, Ocean Heart Flame continued to flare up angrily at every piece of news connected to the Ancestor. The Spirit Fire recognised Mister Qi as its true master. If it doesn’t believe the current Venerable ancestor to be the genuine thing, then it is almost certain their identity is false.

“The disciple selection thing would start in a few days. We can mix in with the crowd and have a look at that so-called Venerable Ancestor,” Shiyu soothed. Ocean Heart Flame settled down after a little grumble.

 

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Qi Clan Estate.

The girl in goose yellow clothes was the eldest daughter of the main Qi family. Her name was Qi Chuyun.

She had not been able to stop thinking about her jade pendant ever since she got back home. She had tried to chase after that little girl, but in the end, came back empty-handed. Try as she might, she could not imagine what could connect the girl and her special pendant.

“Eldest Miss, the Patriarch invites you to meet with him,” said Hong Yu as she walked in.

The Patriarch of the family was her grandfather and was in charge of family affairs. Her father had died young leaving three brothers, her uncles, behind.

In fact, one could say that their family was quite unfortunate. In the entirety of the Qi Clan, only their ancestors were powerful. Aside from their Venerable Ancestor, not a single one of them had broken through to Divine Transformation. After the ancestor, the person with the highest Cultivation Stage in their clan was her grandfather at 9th Level, Core Condensation Stage. Even then, he had great difficulty getting there.

She was now 24 years old but had been stuck at 9th Level, Core Condensation Stage for a long time now. Compared to the other disciples within the family, however, her Cultivation was considered relatively good. Most were stuck around 3rd or 4th level only.

In short, their ancestors were amazingly incredible and talented, but the younger generations are struggling. Because of this, the doors of their Clan was thrown open by the Venerable Ancestor to seek talented outsiders to inherit the Qi Clan martial arts. This move should create no loss to the clan. After all the Qi Clan could adopt this potentially powerful person for the purpose of reviving the Qi Clan.

Sighing lightly, Qi Chuyun got up and made her way to her grandfather’s estate.

Patriarch Qi was over 70 years old and his hair has more grey than black. Nevertheless, he still has a good head on his shoulders. At the sight of his granddaughter, he said, “You came back two days earlier than expected. Has everything been done?”

“Yes,” Qi Chu Yun gave her report respectfully. “I have sent word to the necessary people. The children should arrive at Wushan in another day or two. I expect more than 2,000 children to come. I’ve already informed the people to be prepared in terms of food and lodging until the 7th day of the Third Month.”

“Good,” Patriarch Qi nodded. “You must be tired from your travels. Go and rest up properly.”

“Yes,” Qi Chuyun turned to leave, but a few steps later she hesitated and returned to salute her grandfather again. “Grandfather, do you remember the jade pendant father left for this granddaughter?”

Patriarch Qi paused, “Did something happened with the pendant?”

“It suddenly heated up,” Qi Chuyun said, but for some reason, she did not say anything about seeing that odd girl in blue. “It happened the day before yesterday. I was on the road when it suddenly grew hot. However, nothing else happened. This granddaughter had been wearing this pendant for over 10 years and this is the first time it happened.”

When her grandfather said nothing, she continued, “This jade pendant is made by our Venerable Ancestor back then. Therefore, granddaughter thought I should bring it up.”

“No need to worry, perhaps it’s a reaction to a dangerous situation around you,” said the Patriarch at last. “The next time this happens, pay closer attention to your surroundings and find out who is nearby. Perhaps it is a warning against a person’s evil intention against you.”

Qi Chuyun nodded, “I see, thank you, grandfather, for your guidance. This granddaughter shall retire and rest now.”

Patriarch Qi nodded, “Go,”

It was only after she had left Patriarch Qi’s courtyard that the neutral expression disappeared from her face.

Grandfather is lying to her. If this jade pendant could really sense the evil intentions of people around her, why did it never react to the many assassins she had encountered in her life?

Moreover, just who is that little girl?

Due to the upcoming disciple selection event, she had already planned to drop the investigation. However, her grandfather’s reactions had piqued her curiosity again. In the end, she could not resist sending a few trusted people to investigate the whereabouts of that person.

 

Back at Patriarch Qi’s courtyard.

As soon as the eldest young miss left, Patriarch Qi’s face sank. He immediately sent people to follow after the eldest miss.

 

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Shiyu had no idea what was going on within the Qi Clan. However, her exact promise was to ‘bury Mister Qi’s bones in the Qi ancestral grave’. Therefore, the original plan was to find out where this ancestral grave is and bury a box full of bones in some unobtrusive corner of the grave but…

Qi Clan’s ancestral grave was situated in the mountains directly behind the Qi Estate. Which made it very difficult for regular people to get in. Anyway, since she was already here, perhaps she could still try to find a way to get to the ancestral grave under the cover of the disciple selection.

However, that Venerable Ancestor person was rumoured to be a Divine Transformation Master, so it’s better to hang around and gather more information before doing something as reckless as an infiltration. Let’s have a look at him on the day of the discipleship selection.

Having nothing better to do, she wandered around the streets of Wushan, sampling their local specialities and trawling through the market places.

The majority of the precious medicines here were mild in nature and could be used to neutralize violent reaction in powerful medicines. In the future, she could use them to make soups and teas, creating medicinal cooking suitable for weaker bodies without harming them. The idea was to purchase as many varieties as she could while she was here.

Only, there was one big problem.

She has no money.

After staring at her mostly flat purse, Shiyu sighed. Where had her all money gone to? Is she such as terrible money manager? She spends and spends, but just what did she spend her money on?

Fortunately, she has a secret space filled with medicinal herbs collected from a very grateful 12th Martial Uncle and Leisurely Cloud Sect. Not to mention all the young herbs she had bought at the Imperial Capital…

Moreover, this special space has the ability to advance the ages of the precious medicines and most of her herbs were now over 500 years old. Some had even gone beyond a thousand years old.

Shiyu had already checked the market places and discovered that herbs over a thousand years old were very rare in Wushan. This could be the best way to get lots of money quickly [1].

After pondering over the matter for a while, Shiyu finally settled on selling one of her Thousand Year Old Ice Lingzhi. Ice Lingzhi was unique to Eastern Martial Empire and should fetch an even higher price in the market.

Putting on a loose cloak to conceal her figure and a broad-brimmed hat with black gauze to cover her face, Shiyu made her way towards the largest trading market in Wushan.

 

[Gumihou: Shiyu must have hit her head too many times against trees. You should just stay low profile and sell a few 300-year-old herbs if you don’t want to attract too much attention. Then again, this could be the author’s plot device to attract attention.]

 

Gumihou is keeping track so that you don’t have to ~

 

Condensation Stage	Stage 1
Core Transformation	Stage 2
Core Condensation	Stage 3
Divine Transformation	Stage Amazing, lol

 

Pic from Matcha and Tofu

https://matchaandtofu.com/best-homemade-japanese-plum-wine-umeshu/

 

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