Chapter 22: The Largest Ticking Time Bomb

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

After explaining to the three Yu Sisters that this was the size for Mortal Grade rooms and that the inn did not provide services such as sending dressing tables to one’s doorstep, as well as other common-sense issues, Jiang Beiran finally got the five Sisters settled in their rooms. Although this time around, all five of them were 100 percent reluctant.

“Bang.”

Closing the door of his room, Jiang Beiran felt slightly relieved. These five rich young ladies had even less common sense than he had when he had just crossed over to this world. In their world, inns provided silk quilts, Purple Forest Grass incense, and baths filled with flower petals, as well as other services.

This made Jiang Beiran very curious about what kind of inns they used to stay in because as far as he knew, even the Heaven Grade rooms of some county inns wouldn’t offer these luxuries.

‘Is it indeed true that you can do whatever you want if you have the money?’ he thought to himself.

After resting for a while, Jiang Beiran took off the Suit of Blending In and changed into a set of inconspicuous coarse clothing. He then left the inn. It was rare for him to descend the mountain, so of course he had to go out to trigger a few more options.

…

“Eh! Master Wu, you’re here. What do you want today?” a voice called.

“Get me two pieces of fatty meat, finely chopped. The finer the better,” someone answered.

“Okay! Just watch.”

Passing by a meat stall, Jiang Beiran, who heard the conversation, watched as the butcher finely chopped two pieces of good foreleg meat. The butcher then carefully pulled out two sheets of bamboo and linen paper and wrapped them up separately, then tied them up with string.

“Master Wu, your meat is ready. It’s 20 pence in total,” the butcher said.

The burly man whom the meat stall owner called Master Wu took the meat and casually said, “As usual, put it down on my account first. At the end of the month, I’ll pay everything together.”

After hearing this, the meat stall owner’s face fell and he said in a nervous, flattering tone, “Master Wu… Since last month, you…”

“Eh!?”

The meat stall boss had only finished half of his sentence when the burly man referred to as Master Wu glared at him fiercely.

“What, you don’t trust me, Wu Kui?” Master Wu asked.

The courage that the meat stall owner had finally managed to muster up had now instantly disappeared, and he repeatedly attempted to pacify the man with a smile. “How dare I, how dare I. I just asked casually, only casually. Have a good day,” he said.

At the same time, three options popped up in front of Jiang Beiran’s eyes.

[Option One: Approach and help the meat stall owner by administering justice. Completion Reward: Sword of Sirius (Yellow Grade High Tier)]

[Option Two: Take action in secret and teach Wu Kui a lesson. Completion Reward: Helmet of Vishnu (Yellow Grade Middle Tier)]

[Option Three: Stay where you are. Completion reward: Random basic attribute point +1]

After choosing Option Three, Jiang Beiran watched as Wu Kui said, “That’s sensible,” before leaving without a worry, disappearing around the corner of the street.

“Alas… How am I to survive such circumstances?” The meat stall owner sighed and wore a melancholic look. Finally, he could not help but pick up the rag on the counter, draping it in front of his eyes and wiping hard.

“Boss, give me two pounds of pork,” someone said.

The meat stall owner, who was upset, hurriedly put down the rag, gave a big smile, and asked, “Okay. Which part do you want?”

“Neck and some pig ears would be good.”

“You sound like a connoisseur. Do you need help cutting it up?” the butcher asked.

“No need. Just wrap it up for me.”

“One part neck, one part pig’s ears! Come, keep it well. The pig ears are cheaper, so that’ll just be 18 pence,” the butcher told the man.

“I’ll leave the money here.”

“Okay, hang on, let me count… Hey, sir, where are you going!? Hey! Come back! I haven’t counted it yet! Come back! You godd*mn piece of sh*t!!!”

The meat stall owner had exited the stall and chased after the man with his knife when he realized that the young customer had disappeared into the crowd. He couldn’t find the young man no matter how hard he looked.

“Son of a b*tch! Don’t let me catch you! If I catch you, I’ll skin you!” he yelled.

Right after he finished yelling, the meat stall owner saw a crowd of townspeople surrounding him. He waved his kitchen knife around in anger and shouted, “What are you looking at? Go your own way!”

Seeing that the meat stall owner was behaving like a madman, the townspeople who were yelled at scattered without daring to respond.

“Alas…”

When all the onlookers had left, the meat stall boss finally sighed long and hard, and his body seemed to have lost all its strength.

His gaze was listless as he returned to the front of the meat stall. The owner looked at the small cloth bag that the godd*mn piece of sh*t had left in the corner of the stall.

“Motherf*cker!”

The meat stall owner roared and took the cloth bag, about to throw it to the ground, but found that there seemed to be some weight inside. Although he thought it was unlikely to be money, the meat stall owner still held a sliver of hope as he pulled the cloth bag open.

“This!?”

The meat stall owner’s eyes shot wide open because what was inside the bag was actually three pieces of silver.

“Three… three silver coins!?”

The meat stall owner whispered loudly in a state of disbelief.

Jerking his head up again in the direction the young man just disappeared in, the meat stall owner’s mouth hung open.

Finally, he came back to his senses. “Bang! Bang! Bang!” He kowtowed loudly three times and fiercely slapped himself in the mouth.

“You godd*mn piece of sh*t, kicking up a fuss for no good reason! You didn’t even utter a word of thanks to your benefactor!” he said.

After scolding himself, the meat stall owner swore in his heart that if he saw his benefactor the next time, he would thank him properly. However, in his heart, he could not recall the young man’s appearance.

‘Strange… usually I can remember the face of every customer. How could I forget the benefactor’s appearance!? Alas! Wang Fugui, Wang Fugui! You piece of sh*t. You’re really incredibly dumb! You’re f*cking useless in important situations!’ he thought to himself.

After thinking that, he gave himself another fierce slap.

At this time, Jiang Beiran, carrying two bags of meat, had reached the end of the street. He was thinking about what the owner’s expression would be when he went back and saw that the cloth bag had three pieces of silver inside.

‘Alas, in this chaotic world, no one has an easy time surviving. That is all I can help.’

Although the various miserable encounters he had just after crossing over to this world made Jiang Beiran determined to be a sophisticated egoist, after seeing the people’s misery countless times, in the end, he still could not maintain a heart of stone.

For this reason, after carefully studying the various meanings of the options offered by the system, he developed a complete set of rules for helping people.

Simply put, provided that his own safety could be ensured, there were certain situations in which he could help in a roundabout way.

Firstly, he couldn’t help the people that he would often have the opportunity to be in touch with, such as the Brothers in the Sect of Returning Hearts. Regardless of whether he knew them or not, Jiang Beiran would not bypass the options of the system to help, because it was easy to trigger subsequent events.

For example, the way Liu Zijin found him this time was most probably a result of Jiang Beiran’s constant inability to harden his heart when serving as an Iron Seal.

Most of the time, Jiang Beiran would do his best to make himself look very ordinary in everything that he was doing, as he knew that he must keep a low profile. So, he had thought about deliberately doing nothing several times when he was serving as an Iron Seal, which would cause the new disciples to fail the trial quest. That way he would lower the 100% success rate he had as an Iron Seal so that it would not be so eye-catching.

But whenever those young junior Brothers looked at him helplessly and asked, “Brother, what should I do?” Jiang Beiran could never bear to harden his heart. In the end, he could only think, ‘After all, the system did not pop up with any options to tell me that keeping this success rate would be dangerous,’ in order to comfort himself.

This was what led to his much higher than average reputation as an Iron Seal. Although Jiang Beiran told them not to promote him, inevitably there would be a few accidents such as with Liu Zijin.

Secondly, when phrases like [Stay away from here] [Pass by] [Do nothing] appeared in the options the system offered, Jiang Beiran would not help either. He would promptly leave as he should, without the slightest bit of hesitation.

If it followed these two rules that he absolutely had to uphold, sometimes Jiang Beiran would also help the people who were oppressed. It was as if it was a bit of payment for an attribute or skill point.

…

Two hours later, Jiang Beiran, who had triggered nearly a dozen options, was satisfied and did not intend to continue his walk around the streets of the town.

It was not that he felt that he had too many points, but once he had triggered the options more than 30 times in a row in a single day, he felt like he had made a fortune. When he went out the next day, he found that there suddenly weren’t that many options being triggered anymore.

It made Jiang Beiran, who had gotten used to relying on the options to avoid disaster, feel very insecure. He stayed in the room and did not go out the whole day. The options only returned to their normal state on the third day. On top of making him feel uneasy, this also made Jiang Beiran understand that he must not trigger the options of the system excessively, or the latter would go on strike.

In addition, not only had he gained a large number of points from his night walk, but he had also gained a preliminary understanding of the dark and evil forces in Luoxia Town.

Before crossing over, when Jiang Beiran read wuxia novels, he had always admired the great heroes who upheld righteousness and punished evil. However, after crossing over to this world, he suddenly found that these heroes were sometimes no different from the triads.

Were there really heroes who served the country and the people without expecting anything in return? Of course there were, but they were very, very few.

Many rogue heroes naturally grouped into various gangs, often also becoming sworn brothers, forming forces one after another. These forces had no regard for the country’s laws, only the rules of the triad. If someone dared to violate these rules, then some other person would act as a judge and attempt to resolve matters the triad way.

And when such forces expanded until they were large enough, they would become an extremely powerful force.

Some of them developed into cults in the eyes of the government and the righteous, while others had formed large warrior clans with strong tribal and familial flavors.

In such a clan, the patriarch would be the boss, and the family rules would be the rules of the gang. All the gang members were like a family, sharing honor and shame together.

Be it a cult or a warrior clan, there was never a lack of talent. After all, not every cultivator only had swords and music in their mind, nor were they all practicing their skills just to give back to society for the benefit of mankind.

Most of them were only in this for their personal desires.

So even if it seemed as if someone was only a small-town gangster with a small amount of strength, it was common for someone to find out after beating that gangster up in an attempt at upholding justice that he was actually a minor member of a specific religion or gang.

These kinds of people would, out of nowhere, take out a firecracker and shout at you, “As this arrow is fired and passes through the clouds, a thousand troops will gather!”

These gangs valued their prestige the most. So, even if the minor member you hit had almost zero connection with them, they would still swarm out for no reason other than you not respecting a member of their gang.

So, every new place Jiang Beiran visited, he would check whose territory it was while triggering the options to take precautions.

The investigation process was also very simple. He only had to go to some random restaurants or small shops. It would not take long to hear a few gangsters shouting, “Today we, XX Gang, are booking this whole place!” or, “In this region, who would dare to disrespect our XX Association?”

For example, when Jiang Beiran passed a tavern just now, he heard a drunken man shout, “Brother, don’t worry. In Luoxia Town, you just need to tell them my name, Bigfoot Ma of the Yellow Gang, and everyone will have to show you some respect.”

Jiang Beiran had heard the name Yellow Gang mentioned many times when he descended the mountain. It was a gang that had emerged in recent years. He heard that this gang had a skilled warrior of the rank of Great Mystic Practitioner, so they had developed and grown rather quickly.

After earning enough points and learning the information he needed to know, Jiang Beiran walked back to the inn and went into his room.

He closed the door, lit the oil lamp on the square table, sat down, and drew out a few strands of sedge from the storage ring.

Throughout the day, the Suits of Blending In had performed very well, causing the five Sisters to not attract any attention at all. So, Jiang Beiran decided to continue to improve the suits and further strengthen their hidden features.

This research went late into the night. Jiang Beiran was deep in thought as he looked at the dozens of straw hats with different shapes sitting on the table. He sat thinking about what other features could be added to it.

“Ah!”

Jiang Beiran yawned, feeling a wave of drowsiness hit him. He put all the straw hats into the storage ring, deciding to think about it tomorrow.

Chewing one of the breath-freshening pills that he made himself with the Heart-Clearing Grass, Jiang Beiran, who had completed his oral hygiene routine, was just about to fall into bed when he saw three options pop up.

[Option One: Go straight to sleep. Completion reward: Moving Stars (Earth Grade Middle Tier)]

[Option Two: Go and instruct the Sisters not to run around again. Completion reward: Golden Snake Crane-Catching Fist (Black Grade Middle Tier)]

[Option Three: Go to the entrance of the inn and observe secretly. Completion reward: Random basic skill point +1]

The reward of the Earth Grade Middle Tier scared Jiang Beiran wide awake. How could he still sleep? After quickly choosing Option Three, Jiang Beiran took out a set of his specially-made clothes for night travel from the storage ring and put them on. He jumped out of the window and came to the inn door.

Then, in less than ten minutes, Jiang Beiran saw a figure leave the inn. It was none other than Fang Qiuyao, who should have been staying in her room at the moment. But, fortunately, she was still wearing the Suit of Blending In.

‘Ugh… This girl is really the biggest ticking time bomb,’ Jiang Beiran thought to himself.

He had originally thought that his words in the afternoon could help wake her up, so he had still wanted to let her digest them slowly by herself. However, now it seemed as though she had digested nothing…

After poking her head out and looking around a few times, finding that no one was paying attention to her, Fang Qiuyao boldly walked out of the inn. She went toward the place where the bean curd stall had been overturned when they first arrived.

At the same time, three more options appeared in front of Jiang Beiran’s eyes.

[Option One: Capture Fang Qiuyao and take her back into the inn. Completion reward: Dance of the Clouds (Black Grade High Tier)]

[Option Two: Make Fang Qiuyao aware of your presence and go back to her room out of self-awareness. Completion reward: Swallowtail Divine Spear (Black Grade Low Tier)]

[Option Three: Follow her quietly. Completion reward: Random basic skill point +1]

Seeing these three options, Jiang Beiran understood the system’s intention after giving it a little thought.

“The intention is to let this girl face the cruelty of society once?” he said to himself.

Jiang Beiran thought it was a good idea so, shrugging his shoulders, he chose Option Three and jumped onto the roof, quietly following Fang Qiuyao.