Chương 62: 61. Even in Xianxia, Ticketmaster is the True Villain

"Go back to the inn," I say.

"Rest. I need to see Shen Qiao." Ling'er nods. Doesn't ask questions. She's learning when to speak and when not to. That's more valuable than most techniques. We part ways at the corner and she disappears into the crowd. I head east, toward the restaurant where a sweeper is waiting to expand an empire. Shen Qiao is outside the kitchen, ledger in hand, his scarred nose wrinkled in concentration. He sees me approaching and straightens. There's a lightness in his posture now, a confidence that wasn't there a week ago.

"Senior Cultivator," he says.

"I have three more prospects. A small kitchen in the northern district. A restaurant near the arena. They need—""Pause the meat business." His mouth stops moving. His face tightens.

"... Senior Cultivator, if I performed inadequately, I can—""You passed." He blinks.

"What?"

"You passed. That's why we're moving on." His ledger lowers slightly.

"I… I don't understand." I lean against the wall beside him. The alley is narrow, the light dim, the sounds of the kitchen muffled through the door.

"The meat business did what I needed it to do. It created visible income, built local relationships, and proved you could manage a network." Shen Qiao stares at me. The panic is fading, replaced by something more complicated. Perhaps he thinks I'm mad, for letting go of such a profitable business venture. He tucks the ledger under his arm.

"... Then what now?" I reach into my robe and produce a small pouch of silver.

"Now I need everything you can learn about the Silver Hall."

"The Silver Hall?" His brow furrows as he scrunches up his nose.

"That's a gambling house. I've never been inside."

"I don't need you to go inside. I need you to learn who runs it, who gambles there, who sets the odds, and who talks too much when they lose." Shen Qiao's eyes narrow. As though he's reassessing me.

"You're gambling."

"No. Gambling is what people call probability when they're bad at it." He stares at me as though the mysterious senior cultivator had suddenly revealed himself to be a degenerate gambler.

"That sounds like something gamblers say before losing everything." The words hang in the air. Shen Qiao's expression freezes. I watch the realization dawn on him, that he has just spoken to a Foundation Establishment cultivator the way he might speak to a fellow sweeper.

"Senior Cultivator, I didn't mean—""I know what you meant." I wave a hand.

"Most gamblers do talk that way. But I'm not gambling."

"What are you doing, then?"

"Investing in information." I push off from the wall.

"I need that information by tomorrow evening. Silver Hall. Just how it works, how it functions." Shen Qiao nods slowly. His ledger is already open again, his mind already calculating.

"I'll start tonight," he says. Then his brows knit together.

"But the restaurants will be annoyed."

"They'll survive."

"One of them ordered seventy pounds for tomorrow."

"Then they'll survive angrily." He looks pained in the way only a man watching stable revenue disappear can look pained.

"Senior Cultivator, with respect, this is a terrible way to run a business."

"Good," I say.

"It was never supposed to become one." I leave him in the alley. The inn is quiet when I return. Ling'er is meditating on her bed, her eyes closed, the heat of her cultivation contained behind her skin. She doesn't open her eyes as I pass. The ceiling is cracked. The paint is peeling. The room is ordinary and exactly the same as it was when we arrived. But something is missing. I lie there for what feels like hours, staring at the cracks, and realize I cannot sleep. I trust Wei Zheng. I think I do.

But trust does not quiet the part of my brain that calculates threats, that runs scenarios, that imagines the dozen ways this could go wrong. I do not sleep. The hours crawl. The street outside grows quiet, then noisy, then quiet again. Ling'er's breathing deepens into the rhythm of genuine rest. I watch the ceiling cracks shift in the moonlight. By the time the sky lightens, I have stopped calculating. I have simply accepted that sleep will not come. I rise. Wash my face, and straighten my robes.

Ling'er stirs but does not wake. I slip out into the grey morning. The Central Arena is not hard to find. It sits near the heart of the city, a district I rarely traverse because of how chaotic and crowded it usually is. But here, in the early morning, the streets are nearly empty. The stalls are shuttered. The crowds have not yet arrived. For a brief moment, the city holds its breath.

I have seen the arena only from a distance, a pale shape rising above the rooftops, a landmark I noted and then dismissed as irrelevant. But now, as I step within a hundred paces, I realize just how small I am. One li across, carved from white jade that glows faintly in the dawn light. A monument to scale that makes me feel like a flea on the leg of a marble elephant. The pillars around the entrance are thicker than redwoods, their surfaces covered in carvings so intricate they seem to move in the corner of my eye.

Dragons, phoenixes and beasts I cannot name, their forms twisted into scenes of battle and triumph. Some are so lifelike I wonder if they are captured spirit beasts, turned to stone and mounted here for eternity. I walk through the outer gates. The interior is worse. The moment I step inside, I feel a wrongness in the way the space expands around me. The exterior is massive, but the interior is larger. Far larger. Someone has folded the geometry of this place, stretching it beyond what reality should allow.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The main area opens before me. Exhibition rings, currently occupied by handlers and beasts. But in an arena like this, such exhibitions are not the kind of animals used for hunting or labor.

Armored Thunder Rhinoceros - Core Formation (First Stage) Age: 121 Spirit Root: Earth/Thunder (B-grade) Constitution: Thundering Hide (C-grade) Cultivation: Core Formation (First Stage) - Sedated, unstable Verdict: The handler is smiling because the sealing collar still works. If it stops working, he will become paste. I know roughly what size a rhinoceros is. What I know for certain is that monster is ten times the size one should be.

Wider than three trucks put side by side, with an exterior that looked closer to tank armor rather than skin. Its half-lidded eyes showed signs of intelligence and more importantly, rage. The collar around its neck glowed as the horn crackled with lightning. I glance at the others. A six-winged serpent coils around in a cage.

A jade-maned lion paced its cage, each step measured, each glance toward the crowd carrying the contempt of something that knows it could kill everyone in the room and is waiting for the right moment. A mountain ape sits shackled with chains as thick as bridge cables. I walk away as the doors to the main area are shut, breathing a sigh of relief as the pressure from those beasts disappear. Outside again, the scalpers are setting up.

They appear as the sun climbs, materializing from side streets and alleys, their arms full of tokens and their eyes full of greed. The Celestial Ascension Tournament is days away, and demand is still high. Tickets for the Qi Condensation seats available in the form of these tokens. At triple the price. Sometimes ten times. I watch one man sell a token, then another, then another. His stock never seems to diminish. I activate the Gaze. Ticket Scalper - Mortal Inventory: Mixed. Some genuine tokens. Some fakes.

He relies on buyers who are too excited to inspect their purchase carefully. Verdict: He has not been arrested because the guards find him useful. He pays a percentage. They look the other way. I do not buy from him. A woman near the western gate has fewer tokens, better quality, and a face that suggests she would rather be doing something else. I approach.

"Qi Condensation seats?" She looks at me.

"Three tokens. Fifty low-grade each." My face twists. That's a robbery.

"You want to watch the tournament, you pay the premium. Or you can wait outside and listen to the crowd cheer." I pay. One hundred fifty low-grade stones. Three tokens, genuine, confirmed by the Gaze before they leave her hand.

'One for me. One for Ling'er. One for Shen Qiao.' I ask around after the purchase. Quietly. Carefully.

"What about for the rest of the brackets?"

"The Crimson Dragon Alliance Guild Hall," A guard says.

"They handle distribution for the higher brackets. If you want Foundation Establishment and Core Formation seats, you go there." I thank him and walk away. But now, I'm groaning internally. The Crimson Dragon Alliance's Guild Hall is not far from the arena. Unfortunately, the line for it stretches around the building several times over, a serpent of impatient cultivators ranging from Qi Condensation to Foundation Establishment. I join the end of it. The line moves faster than I expect.

Every few seconds, someone steps out of the building, jade slip in hand, and the queue shuffles forward. I am not particularly near the front, but I am not near the back either. This is tolerable. This is fine. Then someone bumps into my shoulder.

"You're in my way." Turning, I see a young man in expensive robes, Qi Condensation 7th Stage, his face arranged in an expression that suggests he has never been told no. He is looking at me the way one looks at furniture that has been placed inconveniently. I do not say anything. I just look at him. He looks at me, and seemingly feels my cultivation base, which is not concealed because concealing it in a line full of Foundation Establishment cultivators would be its own kind of conspicuous. His expression shifts.

He steps back.

"My mistake, Senior." I nod and turn back around. The line shuffles forward. But for one moment, I allow myself a small moment of catharsis. It feels nice to actually be treated with some deference. But I don't linger on it, and focus my observations on the building itself. To start, the architecture is excessive. Red jade pillars. Gold-inlaid counters. Dragon imagery everywhere; carved into the walls, woven into the banners, stamped onto the uniforms of the clerks.

The building looks like a cathedral and a Swiss bank had a child and then dressed it in eastern aesthetics. I admire it while I wait. It is better than thinking about how many stones I am about to spend. The guards at the doors are Foundation Establishment peak, their auras heavy and bored. Inside, visible through the entrance, a Core Formation cultivator sits at a raised desk, overseeing the clerks. His face is carved from displeasure. A Foundation Establishment cultivator is arguing with one of the clerks.

His voice rises. His gestures become sharp, and his qi flickers wildly in agitation. The Core Formation elder does not look up. He simply raises his hand. The Foundation Establishment cultivator flies backward through the doors, a palm imprint half an inch deep embedded in his chest. He crashes onto the street, unmoving. Guards immediately surround him. The Core Formation elder returns to his work. I activate the Gaze.

Elder Yun - Core Formation (Sixth Stage) Name: Elder Yun Age: 95 Spirit Root: Water (B-grade) Constitution: None Cultivation: Core Formation (Sixth Stage) - Stable Verdict: Selected for this duty against his will. Wishes he was in seclusion. Do not piss him off. He is looking for an excuse. I look away, and the line keeps moving. When I finally reach the counter, the clerk barely glances at me, staring with dead eyes.

"General attendance or private booth?"

"General."

"Five mid-grade per ticket." I do not flinch, I just keep my face still as I reach into my storage ring and begin counting out the stones. Behind me, a cultivator sighs loudly.

"Some of us have places to be." I continue counting. Slowly and deliberately, because showing casualness when handling mid-grade stones is an easy way to be flagged as someone worth robbing. And because, if I am being honest, it physically hurts to spend them. I am getting ripped off the ass. Just like every concert I ever attended in my past life. The clerk's pen taps impatiently. The cultivator behind me mutters something about incompetence. I finish counting and push the stones across the counter.

"Two tickets." The clerk counts them. Nods. Produces two jade slips, pale green, unadorned.

"Drop blood on both. They will be tied to you. Used for verification." I prick my finger. Two drops. The jade flashes once, then settles. Jade Slip (Event Ticket) -- Grade: Low Function: Blood-locked. Verifies identity at entry. Non-transferable. Verdict: Legitimate. Overpriced. Non-refundable. I tuck them into my storage ring. The clerk's voice shifts into a monotone recitation.

"All who employ sound-transmission techniques or cultivation techniques to interfere with combatants and influence gambling odds will be captured and detained. By order of the sponsoring sects."

"Understood." He waves me aside. The next cultivator steps forward. I walk out of the Guild Hall. The line is still long. Two tickets. Five mid-grade each. Ten mid-grade total. One thousand low-grade stones. Enough to feed my sect for months. Gone in exchange for the right to sit in a crowded stadium and watch people fight. Inwardly, I am crying tears of blood. But I remember why I am doing this. Shen Qiao will gather information on the odds.

Ling'er will watch the fighters, learn their techniques, read their threads. We will bet. We will win. We will turn these stones into more stones, and those stones into resources, and those resources into a sect that can survive whatever comes.

'One thousand low-grade stones is nothing. I'll just make it back.' I repeat this to myself several times as I head back to meet with Shen Qiao and his findings.