Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 55: Business is Booming

Man Gu looked at Lu Yang, then shifted his gaze to Meng Jingzhou. His expression was a mask of polite bewilderment. “Did you two actually come up with these names?”

Lu Yang nodded with absolute sincerity. “Mine is the ‘One More Time Barbecue Shop.’”

Meng Jingzhou nodded just as proudly. “And mine is the ‘Thank You for Your Patronage Barbecue Shop.’”

Man Gu quietly decided that his own suggestion—’Yang Yang Yang Barbecue Shop’—was perhaps a bit too avant-garde for them.

Following the rules of their wager, Man Gu unfolded the first slip of paper. It was Lu Yang’s. Thus, the covert surveillance front was officially christened: One More Time.

“By the way, do either of you have a reliable method for concealing your aura?” Lu Yang asked, shifting to business.

Earlier, while walking the streets of the county, Lu Yang had observed the breathing rhythms and Spiritual Qi affinities of the passing crowds. They were definitely cultivators, yet when he swept the area with his Divine Sense, he couldn’t read a single person’s cultivation base.

It made sense for one or two hidden masters to outclass him, but an entire street of them? Impossible. Yanjiang County was a step up from Taiping Township, certainly, but it wasn’t some mythical utopia where every street peddler had reached Foundation Establishment.

It didn’t take long for Lu Yang to deduce the unspoken rule of the jianghu. In the martial world, cultivation dictated the food chain. To walk the streets without becoming prey, a cultivator needed either overwhelming, undeniable power, or a veil of absolute obscurity to keep potential predators second-guessing.

Strolling around with their auras completely unshielded was the equivalent of wearing a sign that read: Fresh Meat. If they wanted to infiltrate a demonic sect, they needed to project the weary, inscrutable aura of seasoned veterans.

“I have something. We use it for hunting back home,” Man Gu said, reaching into his robes and producing a weathered sheepskin scroll.

“The beasts in the deep wilderness are paranoid,” the towering scholar explained, his voice smooth but carrying the underlying weight of a predator. “They bolt at the shift of the wind. To secure a kill, you must erase your presence entirely and wait.”

Man Gu hailed from a major wilderness tribe, and his bloodline was the most exalted among them. In his clan, hunting wasn’t just a chore for the Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment youths. Even the Golden Core elders—who had long achieved Inedia and no longer needed mortal food—still stalked the wilds, hunting legendary beasts whose flesh rivaled the rarest natural treasures.

“There is a catch, however,” Man Gu added. “You cannot move a single muscle while channeling this secret art. The moment you shift your weight, the illusion shatters.”

In the world of cultivation, the harsher the restriction, the greater the payoff. In terms of pure, absolute stealth, the technique recorded on that sheepskin easily ranked in the top three of the known world.

“I’ve got a standard concealment spell right here. Someone would need to be a full major realm above you to see through it,” Meng Jingzhou chimed in. He casually withdrew a bamboo slip from his jade pendant. Despite being locked away for gods knew how long, the slip still exuded the crisp, refreshing scent of an ancient bamboo grove. The sheer quality of the material alone screamed premium.

Meng Jingzhou’s jade pendant was essentially a portable library of high-tier spells and divine abilities he had smuggled from his clan—so many, in fact, that he hadn’t even bothered to read half of them.

Lu Yang gave him a flat, deadpan stare. “Weren’t you a runaway? How do you have pockets deeper than a dragon’s hoard?”

Meng Jingzhou shrugged, entirely unashamed. “My little sister secretly packed my bags for me.”

“Right. Of course.”

The three immediately sat down to study the arts. As peerless geniuses of their generation, grasping these “minor” spells was child’s play. Within an hour, they had deconstructed and mastered the core principles of both techniques. The rest would simply come down to muscle memory.

Lu Yang clasped his fists, his expression earnest. “When I get my hands on some new spells, I’ll make sure to share them with you two.”

He wasn’t blind. Man Gu and Meng Jingzhou might have tossed these techniques around like loose change, but Lu Yang knew top-tier stealth arts were fiercely guarded secrets. Handing them over so casually was a profound display of trust.

Meng Jingzhou let out a booming laugh, waving off the sentiment, while Man Gu offered a warm, gentlemanly smile of agreement.

***

“Huh? I could have sworn this place was a teahouse yesterday. Since when is it a barbecue joint?”

Under the veil of night, two wandering martial artists paused in the street. The quiet teahouse they remembered had vanished, replaced by a brightly lit establishment with a rather peculiar name.

“One More Time Barbecue Shop.”

One of the warriors inhaled deeply. The heavy, intoxicating aroma of sizzling fat, roasted cumin, and searing charcoal hit him like a physical blow. His mouth instantly watered.

“Grab a bite?”

“Lead the way.”

The moment they crossed the threshold, the sheer volume of the place nearly knocked them backward. The dining room was a chaotic, roaring sea of humanity. Patrons were clinking heavy earthen jars of wine, tearing into meat skewers with feral enthusiasm, and shouting over each other with grease-stained grins. The noise was loud enough to rattle the roof tiles.

Cutting through the chaos was a waiter built like a siege engine, effortlessly balancing towering stacks of plates as he sprinted between tables.

The warriors exchanged a glance. With a bouncer-waiter that massive, nobody is dining and dashing here.

“A brand-new place is this packed?”

Their anticipation spiked. In the culinary world, a crowd this rabid meant the food was undeniable. They had to try it.

By sheer luck, they snagged the very last empty table in the corner.

Before they could even settle in, another waiter—Lu Yang—appeared at their side. He held a small notepad and wore the flawless, deadpan smile of a seasoned hospitality worker. “Good evening. What can I get started for you two?”

“Two jugs of your best wine, a plate of boiled peanuts, thirty lamb skewers, thirty beef skewers, and two orders of roasted potatoes. Oh, and keep it mildly spicy. We don’t have the stomachs for the heavy heat.”

“Right away,” Lu Yang said, nodding and scribbling on his pad.

Simultaneously, he opened a frantic telepathic link to the kitchen. ‘Man Gu! You need to nerf the recipe! The food is too good! We’re attracting half the city—how are we supposed to run a covert surveillance op on Qin Yuanhao with a line out the door?!’

Lu Yang was experiencing the terrifying suffering of accidental success. On their first night, they had a trickle of curious locals. By the second night, a few full tables. Night three? A packed house. Now, on night four, these two warriors had just claimed the final table, and a queue was already forming on the street outside.

Lu Yang’s mind raced with horrifying entrepreneurial projections. At this rate, we’ll be taking table reservations by tomorrow. Give it a month, and we’ll be franchising in the neighboring counties. In a year, we’ll have two hundred locations saturating the northern Central Continent. Three years, and we’ll have a continental monopoly. Five years, and we’ll be launching an Initial Public Offering—assuming the financial markets here even comprehend what an IPO is!

Is there contraband in the sauce? Lu Yang wondered wildly. Did Man Gu lace the cumin with addictive alchemy dust?

He knew that was a joke. He and Meng Jingzhou had taste-tested the inventory. There were no illegal substances—it was just genuinely, mind-bendingly delicious.

Lu Yang finally understood the terrifying truth. Back on Heavenly Gate Peak, he dined exclusively on premium spirit-beast cuisine prepared by master chefs. His palate was spoiled beyond salvation. If he thought Man Gu’s street food was “pretty good,” to these mortal martial artists, it was a Michelin-star revelation.

They had to kill the brand’s momentum. Immediately.

‘Looks pretty slammed down there. Need me to come down and bus some tables?’ Meng Jingzhou’s lazy, drawling voice echoed in both their minds.

Currently, Meng Jingzhou was stationed on the second floor, acting as the sole lookout monitoring their demonic target across the street.

‘You stay exactly where you are and keep your eyes on Qin Yuanhao!’ Lu Yang snapped back. ‘Do not come downstairs!’

Lu Yang knew exactly what would happen if Meng Jingzhou descended. The arrogant young master wouldn’t just serve food; he’d turn table service into a theatrical event, probably delivering a full stand-up comedy routine while pouring drinks.

Meng Jingzhou let out a massive, echoing yawn that made Lu Yang’s eyelids heavy just hearing it. ‘But it’s so boring up here. It’s been four days, and Qin Yuanhao hasn’t even looked at his front door. He just sits there. Meditating. Then he meditates some more. The man has zero work-life balance.’

‘Honestly,’ Meng Jingzhou continued, his tone brightening with a terrible idea, ‘we should just pivot. Let’s disguise ourselves as street performers. I’ll go to his courtyard and do a tight five minutes of comedy, you juggle some heavy water vats to distract him, and Man Gu can sneak in and plant a listening talisman.’

Lu Yang and Man Gu maintained a stony, telepathic silence.

The golden rule of dealing with Meng Jingzhou: Do not engage with the crazy.

Realizing his brilliant tactical pivot was being ignored, Meng Jingzhou sighed and changed the subject. ‘Man Gu, seriously, can you just burn the meat a little? Make it taste worse.’

From the kitchen, Man Gu’s telepathic voice returned—polite, scholarly, and utterly unyielding.

‘My family is a dynasty of pitmasters. Eighteen generations of the Man Tribe have perfected the sacred art of the grill. I will not be the one to drag the Barbecue Man Tribe’s name through the mud!’