Chương 78: An Iron Gate (2/3) [Bonus 4/6]

Soon, a literal mountain of wrapped food sat on the tables directly in front of Shi Yan, emitting a chaotic, wonderful blend of spices and woodsmoke—the sharp bite of star anise and Sichuan peppercorns mingling with the mellow warmth of charred oak and the faintly sweet undertone of lotus leaves that had been scorched at their edges. The terracotta jars gleamed dully in the brazier light, their crude wooden corks sealed with thick amber beads of beeswax that still held the faint honeyed scent of their origin.

The hemp twine binding the lotus-wrapped parcels creaked softly under the weight of the dense, oil-rich meat within.

Then the stall owner, delivering the food on weak, trembling legs that threatened to buckle with each shuffling step, his mind agonizing over how much capital he was going to lose today, gulped down his fear—his throat clicking audibly, adam's apple bobbing twice in rapid succession—and asked in a weak, cracking voice that barely rose above the hiss of the braziers,

"Was... was the mortal food satisfactory to the Venerable?"

"It was excellent," Shi Yan said, his tone flat but genuine, the words falling like stones into still water. He reached a scarred hand toward his hip, the faint scar at the corner of his mouth catching the firelight as his expression remained utterly neutral.

"How much do I owe you?"

The stall owner physically recoiled as though struck, his barrel chest heaving backward, spine pressing hard against the edge of the wooden counter behind him. He waved both hands frantically in the air—palms outward, fingers splayed and trembling—as if Shi Yan had just offered him a live grenade. Sweat flew from his fingertips in tiny droplets that caught the amber glow of the flames.

"No! No, no, absolutely not!" the owner cried, his eyes wide with horror at the very concept of demanding coin from a cultivator, the whites of his eyes visible all around his dilated pupils. His thick fingers curled inward reflexively, knuckles white as though gripping an invisible lifeline.

"Great Venerable, your presence here is a blessing! A divine grace! The meat was a tribute! To ask for copper from an Immortal would invite the wrath of the Heavens! This lowly one could never accept your coin!" The words tumbled out in a breathless rush, his jowls quivering with each syllable, fresh rivulets of sweat carving clean tracks through the soot and grease smudged across his round face.

Shi Yan paused, his hand hovering over the spatial pouch hidden beneath his coat, fingers mere inches from the concealed fabric. The motion froze with the eerie stillness of a predator deciding whether to strike.

He tilted his head slightly, the shadow of his bamboo hat shifting to reveal his cold, dark, unblinking eyes that caught and reflected nothing—two pools of lightless void beneath the brim. He stared directly into the stall owner's soul, his gaze cutting through the smoky haze like a blade through silk.

"Do not make me ask twice," Shi Yan said, his voice dropping slightly in pitch, entirely devoid of warmth, each word enunciated with surgical precision. The temperature around the table seemed to plummet.

"The price. For all of it."

The sheer, oppressive weight of that flat command broke the stall owner's polite refusal instantly, shattering it like thin ice beneath a boot heel.

The man's knees wobbled, knocking hard against the inner wooden cabinets of his prep station with a hollow thunk-thunk that echoed through the suddenly silent stall. His breath came in short, ragged gasps, misting faintly in air that had grown inexplicably colder.

"T-two thousand!" the owner blurted out, squeezing his eyes shut as if bracing for a physical blow, his entire face scrunching inward, deep creases forming around his mouth and brow. His yellowed teeth clenched together, jaw muscles bunching visibly beneath the sagging skin of his cheeks.

"T-two thousand copper pieces! Roughly two silver taels, Great Venerable! For the meat, the roots, the cakes, the baskets, and the lotus wrapping... that is the cost of my entire stall!"

In the local economy of the Outer Wards, two silver taels was a staggering sum for a mortal. It was enough to feed a family of four for two months, to repair a roof before winter, to purchase medicine for a dying elder. To the owner, demanding such a price from an Immortal was tantamount to extortion—a sin that might call down retribution not just upon himself, but upon his ancestors' graves and his children's futures.

Shi Yan didn't carry copper. Furthermore, thanks to the spatial pouches he had looted from the dead Cloud-Mirror Sect elites, he didn't care about a measly two silver taels.

He reached inside the lapel of his dark coat, the oiled fabric whispering softly as his hand disappeared beneath it. Subtly, he ran his thumb over the bio-locked spatial pouch fastened at his hip, feeling the faint warmth of the array responding to his unique vascular signature, the pulse of his blood acting as the key.

He bypassed the spirit stones—those glowing fragments of compressed Qi that would mark him immediately as a cultivator of means—and accessed the pile of mundane currency he had claimed from the senior disciple's stash. He pinched three solid, unblemished silver taels between his thumb and forefinger, feeling their cool weight and the faint texture of the stamped characters on their surfaces.

He pulled his hand out and tossed them lightly, a casual flick of the wrist that sent them spinning through the smoky air in shallow arcs.

They landed on the scarred wooden table with three distinct, heavy clinks—tink, tink, tink—the pure metallic ring of quality silver cutting through the ambient noise like temple bells. The taels wobbled briefly before settling flat, their polished surfaces gleaming like small moons against the dark, grease-stained wood.

"Three taels," Shi Yan said flatly, his dark eyes never leaving the owner's face.

"Keep the change. Use the extra to buy better twine for your packaging next time." The critique was delivered without mockery or malice, merely a factual observation delivered in the same tone he might use to report wind direction. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Before the stall owner could even process the ridiculous overpayment—fifty percent more than demanded, enough to purchase premium hemp rope by the coil, enough to replace half his cooking implements—Shi Yan stood up. The wooden bench beneath him scraped against the packed earth floor with a low grinding sound.

He adjusted the brim of his bamboo hat with one hand, settling it precisely into place, his massive frame blocking out the light of the braziers for a fleeting second and casting the entire table into sudden shadow.

Without waiting for a response, without acknowledging the owner's slack-jawed expression of disbelief, he grabbed the thick, braided hemp ropes that bound the mountain of packaged food together. His fingers closed around the coarse fibers, and he felt the rough texture bite slightly into his calloused palms.

Lifting a burden that would have broken a normal man's back—eighty pounds of dead weight distributed unevenly across wrapped parcels and sealed jars—with effortless ease, courtesy of his [Physique: 55], Shi Yan stepped out from beneath the sagging awning. His boots pressed firmly into the packed earth, leaving faint impressions, and he merged instantly back into the gray, freezing mist of the Outer Wards.

The cold drizzle immediately began to bead on his oiled cloak, sliding off in tiny rivulets as he disappeared into the haze like a ghost dissolving into fog.

Inside the stall, a heavy, agonizing silence hung in the air for five full seconds—five heartbeats during which no one dared move, no one dared breathe, as though the very act of drawing air might shatter some fragile spell.

Then, exactly as Shi Yan crossed into the next street and his oppressive fake cultivator aura faded from range—the invisible pressure lifting like a massive weight removed from every chest simultaneously—the entire room collectively gasped.

It was the sound of twenty mortals exhaling breaths they hadn't realized they were holding, a ragged chorus of relief that bordered on sobs. A mercenary slumped forward, burying his face in his hands, his broad shoulders heaving as he trembled with the violent aftershocks of adrenaline. The scar across his jaw stood out starkly white against his flushed skin. His calloused fingers dug into his scalp, nails scraping against skin as though to confirm he was still alive, still whole.

Another laborer let his chopsticks clatter to the table, the bamboo rolling across scarred wood before falling to the floor with a hollow clack. His hands shook so badly he had to clasp them together, squeezing until the knuckles went bone-white.

The stall owner stared at the three pieces of gleaming silver resting next to the empty clay bowl, the metal catching and reflecting the brazier light in warm, golden pulses. His legs finally gave out completely, muscles turning to water.

He collapsed backward against the stone counter, the cool damp surface shocking against his sweat-soaked tunic. He slid down until his rear hit the mud with a wet squelch, legs splaying out before him, arms hanging limp at his sides. He clutched his chest with one trembling hand, feeling his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird, as he stared out into the rain with unseeing eyes that glistened with moisture.

"Ancestors preserve us," he whispered, a hysterical, disbelieving tear escaping his eye and cutting a clean path through the grime on his cheek before dripping from his jaw. His voice cracked on the final word.

"I lived. We lived."

The adolescent boy, still frozen near the back alley entrance, let out a choked sound that might have been a laugh or a sob, his thin chest heaving as hollow cheeks sucked inward with each desperate breath.

…

Two streets away, hidden in the narrow shadow of a collapsed brick shrine—its once-proud incense altar now nothing but rubble overtaken by creeping moss and pale fungi that glowed faintly in the gloom—Shi Yan halted.

He was carrying roughly eighty pounds of packaged food, the hemp ropes biting into his left palm, the weight distributed across his shoulder and back. The scent of roasted meat and spices clung to him, mingling with the petrichor of wet stone and the faint mineral tang of the drizzle.

He shifted the heavy bundles to his left hand, adjusting his grip to distribute the load more evenly, and with his right, he touched the black fabric of his hijacked spatial pouch. The material was cool beneath his fingertips, woven from some thread that felt simultaneously like silk and steel.

Because the System had forcefully overridden the Daoist array and bio-locked it to his physical vascular system, it didn't require a surge of Qi to open. It required only his precise body heat and the unique signature of his pulse—the rhythm of living blood moving through living veins.

A silent, lightless ripple warped the air at his hip, like a tear in the fabric of reality—a subtle distortion visible only as a faint shimmer, like heat haze but cold, unnaturally still. The edges of the anomaly seemed to bend light inward, swallowing it.

Shi Yan shoved the massive bundles of wrapped meat, clay jars, and bamboo baskets directly into the void. The sheer mass of the objects vanished the instant they crossed the threshold, their physical weight erased as though they had never existed. The hemp ropes passed through the ripple and simply ceased, leaving his hand empty and suddenly light. No sound marked their passage. No flash of light. Only absence.

Perfect, Shi Yan thought, adjusting his dark waxed-canvas cloak with a quick roll of his shoulders, settling the heavy fabric back into place over his frame. The silver-hilted sword at his side shifted slightly with the motion, the wrapped hilt pressing against his ribs.

A spatial pouch was merely a folded pocket of isolated dimensions—a self-contained bubble of non-space carved out from the membrane between material reality and the void beyond.

Because there was no air, no moisture, and no linear flow of natural elements within the void, entropy itself was effectively halted. Time, in the conventional sense, did not exist within that sealed pocket. Without a medium for thermal energy to transfer into, the hot roasted meat would remain piping hot—still crackling with residual heat, fat still sizzling beneath the lotus wrapping—and the cold pickled roots would remain perfectly cold, their brine still sharp and crisp, seemingly forever.

That was how the logic should work, or so he hoped. He had no time to check, no way to verify the theory without retrieving the food and risking exposure. As Shi Yan turned his attention back to his primary objective: armor.

He recalled the words of that bamboo hat vendor, the old man's raspy voice echoing in his memory as clearly as if spoken moments ago.

"Follow this road south until you see a forge bearing the sign of a shattered anvil. The smith there is rough-tongued... but when it comes to common steel, no one in the Outer Wards surpasses him."

Hmmm... Shi Yan adjusted his waxed-canvas cloak to ensure his silver-hilted sword was partially concealed but accessible—the pommel hidden beneath fabric, but the hilt positioned so his right hand could reach it in less than half a second—and began the trek southward. His boots pressed into the mud with soft, rhythmic squelches, each step deliberate and measured.

As he advanced deeper into the Outer Wards, the surrounding scene gradually changed, the transition subtle at first, then undeniable.

The sour reek of cheap incense—sandalwood mixed with sawdust to stretch the supply—and damp mire faded bit by bit, replaced by the scorching scent of sulfur, coal smoke, and melted iron. The air grew acrid, sharp enough to sting the back of the throat, carrying with it the metallic taste of heated ore and the bitter edge of flux powder burned away in the forging process.

The farther south he went, the hotter the air became, a gradual but relentless increase that pressed against his skin like an invisible hand. The cold drizzle still fell, but each droplet that touched his cloak or hat seemed to evaporate more quickly, hissing faintly against the heated fabric. Even the cold drizzle drifting down from the ashen heavens—those perpetually gray skies choked with smoke and spiritual pollution—could no longer suppress the rising waves of heat radiating upward from the district below.

He was nearing the southern aqueduct.

There, dark waters surged through broad stone channels, black as ink and thick as oil, carrying forge ash, alchemical waste, and every turbid impurity washed down from the city above. The water moved with sluggish purpose, its surface disturbed by slow, oily eddies that reflected no light. Occasionally, a bubble would rise and burst with a soft plop, releasing a brief puff of acrid vapor.

Pale mist coiled above the canals, low and serpentine, clinging to the water's surface like ghostly hands. Yet what spread through it was no refreshing chill, but a dry, searing breath, as though earth-fire slumbered beneath the ground—primordial heat trapped in stone veins, slowly cooking the district from below. The mist carried with it the scent of hot stone and charcoal, and something else—something faintly sulfurous and sharp, like the air before a lightning strike.

From within the haze came the relentless peals of metal striking metal.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

The sound rolled through the district without cease, deep and heavy, resonating through the very bones of the earth.