Chapter 203: A Haunting? Just a Matter of One Sword
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“…Gold Recycling.”
Lu Xuan stood in front of the store, arms crossed.
What’s the first thing an alien should do upon arriving on a new planet?
Obviously, make some money.
For Lu Xuan, there were many ways to earn money.
He arrived at a gold recycling shop and craftily removed the ball from the mouth of the stone lion at the entrance.
Using a touch of alchemy, Lu Xuan transformed the ball into small gold bars and confidently walked into the shop.
This was a local gold shop in Ancheng. Although not part of a chain, it was fairly sizeable.
It was just past six in the morning, and the shop owner had just opened up, still yawning heavily, when he saw someone placing a small pile of gold bars on the counter.
A business opportunity had arrived.
However, the two customers had a specific request.
They wanted cash.
The owner was a bit puzzled. Not to mention the current popularity of mobile payments, even in the past, large amounts of gold recycling typically involved banks.
Lu Xuan mentioned he forgot his bank card.
The owner understood; it’s common to forget your bank card during such important transactions.
Then came the identity registration.
Lu Xuan claimed he had lost his identity talisman.
The owner found this reasonable and logically consistent. He used his own talisman to register for him and completed the process.
Fortunately, as a legitimate business and being family-owned, the shop had cash reserves.
The owner handed the customers a cloth bag containing one hundred thousand in cash and watched them leave.
After Lu Xuan and Cheng Lingzhu left, the gold shop owner furrowed his brow.
Something felt off, but upon reflection, there was nothing illogical.
The gentleman who had just visited exuded a trustworthy aura, more sanctified than any Buddha in temples, the Virgin Mary in churches, or immortals in Daoist temples, by a thousandfold.
Words from such a person must be enlightening maxims, truths governing the world, more reliable than heaven, earth, sovereign, parents, and teachers combined.
Why wouldn’t he trust him?
The shop owner thought to himself, reassured.
Carrying the bag, Lu Xuan and Cheng Lingzhu walked down the street. Cheng Lingzhu looked at Lu Xuan with an expression as if she had seen a ghost.
“Did you use some kind of mind-bewitching technique?” she asked.
“No, why would I do that?” Lu Xuan replied with an air of righteousness. “How could I use such a spell to deceive mortals?”
In his mind, Lu Xuan thought about the passive effects of the “Dao Evolution Scripture” – a legendary scripture by the founder of the Dao Evolution Sect, known as the master of disguise and espionage in the Archean Eon Realm.
If cultivation were a game where one could assign attribute points, the Sect’s founder had put all his points into charm, making him extraordinarily persuasive and trustworthy.
As a result, those who met him instinctively felt a sense of trust and admiration, feeling naturally drawn to him. The Sect’s founder had embedded these teachings into the “Dao Yan Xian Jing.”
As a diligent disciple of the Dao Evolution Sect, Lu Xuan had deeply studied this scripture and thus, when he stood before the gold shop owner, the latter was as if under a spell.
Lu Xuan insisted he was an honest person and had not used any hypnotic techniques.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Cheng Lingzhu questioned.
“You never asked,” Lu Xuan replied, blinking innocently.
Cheng Lingzhu became suspicious. “Wait… When we first met, did you use this secret technique on me?”
“How could that be possible?” Lu Xuan replied, exuding an aura of unimpeachable virtue that made him seem utterly reliable. “I never lie.”
Cheng Lingzhu narrowed her eyes, sensing something was amiss but unable to pin down any evidence.
“Let’s talk about this later tonight. For now, let’s enjoy our time on Yuan Xing. Let’s go have breakfast,” said Lu Xuan, leading Cheng Lingzhu towards a nearby snack street.
Cheng Lingzhu thought to herself that she needed to confront Lu Xuan that evening and extract the truth from him.
For breakfast, they had white porridge, steamed buns, and pickled vegetables at an old alley stall. The furniture was set outside as it was cooler than inside during the summer.
While eating, they overheard the other patrons chatting. The breakfast shop, named “Doorway Porridge Shop,” had been in business for over a hundred years and passed down through three generations.
The name came not because customers ate outside, but from a tradition of placing the freshly made porridge in wooden barrels outside during summer to cool and attract customers with its aroma.
However, fifty years ago, a drunken man stumbled upon the shop and accidentally sat in one of the porridge barrels, injuring himself and damaging the barrel. Since then, the shop stopped placing the barrels outside, but the name remained.
An old gourmand once commented to the media, “Being able to sit in what you can drink, such a waste of good porridge.”
Lu Xuan was on the phone, asking, “Hello, is this Du’s Agency?”
He had obtained the phone card from a newsstand. In the past, Dayan did not have a real-name registration system for phone cards, and many newsstands still had anonymous cards in stock..