After a fierce round of haggling.

Wang Ba swept the inventory clean, returning in high spirits with forty-six sick chickens in tow.

Due to the extreme scarcity of spirit food like Rare Fowl, the price for these diseased birds was far from cheap. In fact, it was comparable to the cost of a healthy male Rare Fowl before the market prices spiked.

However, the seller—a bearded old man—priced the hens and roosters equally and was willing to offer a bulk discount. Wang Ba calculated the margins and felt he had come out on top.

“Keep the hens for breeding. As for the roosters… once they break through and I extract their Lifespan, they go into the pot!”

This was his ironclad policy.

Upon arriving at the gate of his manor, Wang Ba scanned the surroundings. Confirming not a soul was in sight, he worked quickly, depositing Lifespan into each of the Rare Fowl one by one.

Only after verifying that no bird had been overlooked did he enter the manor proper. He immediately cordoned off a separate plot of land, erecting a fence to strictly quarantine the sick birds from his healthy flock.

He filled their troughs with feed and Discarded Spirit Worms.

Taking no chances, he avoided the healthy Rare Fowl entirely for the rest of the day. Instead, he made his way down to a natural spring at the foot of the manor grounds to scrub himself clean.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t bathed properly in a long time. Spending every waking hour dealing with livestock, he had become nose-blind to the stench clinging to his body. To him, the reek of coop filth had ceased to be offensive.

So, when he stepped out of the water and returned to the manor, fresh and clean, he actually felt a strange sense of discomfort. The air felt too sterile.

But there was no time to dwell on it; he had chores to finish. Specifically, house repairs.

The roof that had been torn off by the clumsy disciple, Ye Lingyu, required his attention. He had patched it up temporarily, and fortunately, the weather had held. There had been no rain, sparing Wang Ba the indignity of moving into Old Man Sun’s abandoned quarters.

He shuddered at the thought. That room was currently serving as a clandestine coop for his stash of Spirit Poultry. It was caked in layers of aged chicken droppings.

The smell in there… it was something else entirely.

The next day, Old Hou drove his cart up the mountain to deliver chicken feed.

Ever since Old Hou had accidentally revealed the secret of the Physique Strengthening Scripture, he had done his best to avoid idle chatter. He would drop off the sacks and leave immediately, not staying a second longer than necessary.

Clearly, he was terrified of Wang Ba’s “financial leverage” and the potential trouble it could bring.

After a few failed attempts to bait him into conversation, Wang Ba had stopped harassing him, and they had settled into a silent, transactional routine.

But today, Wang Ba actively called out to him.

“Old Hou, wait a moment. How much do you know about the Outer Sect’s Great Disciple, Immortal Lu?”

“Lu Yuansheng?”

Hearing the name, the gossip-mongering spirit deep within Old Hou stirred. He tried to suppress it, but the urge to share a scandal was too strong. Likely reasoning that this topic had nothing to do with the Ascension Society, he leaned in and lowered his voice.

“That man was a ruthless character! I heard that among the Outer Sect disciples, no one could touch him in a fight. But not long ago, he left the Sect and was apparently cut down by some powerful figure. Didn’t even leave a whole corpse behind!”

“It was a huge incident. Even the six Head Chamber Elders were alarmed!”

“The Head Chamber Elders?”

Wang Ba was genuinely surprised.

Head Chamber Elders held real, terrifying power. Their authority spanned both the Inner and Outer Sects. While they managed the mundane affairs of the Sect, they also controlled vast resources. It was rumored that these six Elders were second in strength only to the lofty Sect Master himself.

“That’s right. Didn’t you see it?” Old Hou’s eyes widened, reflecting a lingering shock as he recalled the memory. “That day, around noon, six beams of light suddenly shot into the sky. That was them!”

The memory clicked for Wang Ba. He did recall a day recently when several magnificent rays of light had paved the sky, vast and imposing. The density of Spiritual Qi in the air that day had been suffocatingly heavy.

He had been terrified at the time, immediately bolting into his house and refusing to look out the window.

Thinking back now, that must have been the day Lu Yuansheng perished.

“Speaking of which, Lu Yuansheng probably can’t rest in peace even in death,” Old Hou suddenly sighed.

“Why do you say that?” Wang Ba asked, his curiosity piqued.

“Hah! Is it not obvious? Lu Yuansheng fought and schemed his whole life to get where he was, but his family? Not a single one of them has spiritual roots. Now that he’s dead, even if the Sect honors old sentiments, they’ve fallen back to being a mere mortal family. What difference is there between them and us now?”

Old Hou shook his head. “Not to mention, Lu Yuansheng sat on the throne of the Outer Sect Great Disciple for years. He must have offended countless people. If even one of his old enemies decides to be ruthless… heh. The Lu family’s days are numbered.”

“Surely… it wouldn’t go that far?” Wang Ba said tentatively.

Internally, however, he completely agreed with Old Hou’s assessment.

Old Hou glared at him. “Wouldn’t go that far? You’ve been to the West Garden Market, right? You remember ‘Lu’s Grain Depot’? That was his family’s business. Guess what? The day after Lu Yuansheng died, that shop was auctioned off. It’s now in the hands of another top-ten Outer Sect disciple!”

“If you don’t believe me, go take a look after you finish your work today. See if I’m lying.”

Wang Ba remained silent. He had already been there; he knew Old Hou was telling the truth.

“I also heard the Lu family originally lived in the prime alley near the North Pine Market, where the Spiritual Qi is thickest. Later, they were pushed to the East Mountain Market. And recently? I heard they’ve moved all the way to South Lake Village… Sigh! When the person leaves, the tea cools. Before long, they probably won’t even be able to stay in South Lake Village. They’ll be kicked out of the Sect entirely!”

“Alright, that’s enough yapping. That bastard in Manor 92 curses my mother every time I’m late. Son of a bitch… I’m off!”

Old Hou muttered a stream of profanities, cracked his whip, and drove his donkey cart away, slowly disappearing into the distance.

“South Lake Village?”

Wang Ba knew the place. It was located not far from the South Lake Market. It was a slum that had naturally formed from the clustering of families belonging to low-level stewards, Laborer Disciples, and destitute relatives.

The South Lake Market was the farthest from the Sect’s core, possessing the thinnest Spiritual Qi.

Correspondingly, South Lake Village was where the most desperate and fallen families resided.

From the prestigious North Pine Market to the squalor of South Lake Village—the Lu family’s trajectory had been a sheer vertical drop. A rapid rise and an even faster fall.

But there was nothing Wang Ba could do about it.

He was just a lowly Laborer Disciple.

Even if he wanted to help Shopkeeper Lu, whom he considered a friend, he lacked the power.

Besides, as the saying goes, a starved camel is still bigger than a horse. Even in their decline, the Lu family possessed resources far stripping anything a humble laborer like him could offer.

They likely didn’t need, or want, his help.

Several days passed.

Wang Ba finally finished the repairs on his roof. He took the opportunity to reorganize the interior, making the space brighter and more open than before. His living conditions had improved drastically.

In a way, the damage to his house had been a blessing in disguise.

Finally, on an evening after all his chores were done, Wang Ba sat under the glow of the setting sun. Suddenly, an impulse welled up in his heart—an urge so strong and inexplicable it surprised him.

It was a reckless impulse. It ran completely contrary to his philosophy of self-preservation. Yet, faintly, it resonated with his inner self.

He had a gut feeling that if he ignored this urge, if he didn’t follow through, he might truly lose something.

Perhaps that something wasn’t important.

But then again, perhaps it was.

Finally, he grit his teeth.

Scanning his surroundings to ensure he was unobserved, he selected a chicken, tucked it securely into a bamboo basket, and headed straight for South Lake Village.

Yes, South Lake Village.

The place where the Lu family had been exiled.

Wang Ba wasn’t going to visit the Lu family as a whole. He was going to visit Shopkeeper Lu, the individual.

A man whose full name he didn’t even truly know.

When Wang Ba navigated through the winding streets, the air thick with the stench of sewage and decay, he finally arrived at the courtyard occupied by the Lu family.

What he saw made him realize that their situation was far worse than he had imagined.