"Of course! Why wouldn't I?" Sun Tiecheng was very pleased with himself. "I was afraid Old Xu would try to cheat me, so I counted them right in front of him, one by one—exactly ten, not a single one missing!"
As he spoke, Sun Tiecheng took out the bamboo shoot, and Gui Jianchou stood to the side carefully counting.
The emerald green husk of the shoot was veined with strips of iron that gleamed with a metallic sheen; each strip of iron ran from the tip of the shoot all the way down to the base—ten strips in all.
Gui Jianchou exclaimed in admiration, "Really is not a single one missing."
Sun Tiecheng frowned. "No, something's missing—one."
Gui Jianchou shook his head. "I counted—ten iron veins, there really isn't a single one missing."
Sun Tiecheng shook his head. "Not an iron vein. A bamboo shoot. One bamboo shoot is missing."
Xu Han had given Sun Tiecheng two bamboo shoots; Sun Tiecheng had only brought one back.
"So where did the other bamboo shoot go?" Sun Tiecheng looked over at Gui Jianchou.
Gui Jianchou shook his head. "I really have no idea about that."
Gui Jianchou was very nervous, but Sun Tiecheng wasn't actually angry. He looked at Gui Jianchou very seriously. "I'm asking you to tell me: who stole this thing?"
Gui Jianchou thought for a moment. "Someone who can steal something off you… I'm afraid it can only be that ancestor of those Thief Cultivation folks."
Sun Tiecheng considered it. "You mean Xiao Qianshou? It should only be him. But as far as I remember, he was already beaten to death by the Peddler."
Gui Jianchou thought it over. "The way I see it, the Peddler taking him down is for sure, but whether he actually killed him—that's another question."
...
Greenwater City, Round Bamboo Square, deep inside an alley, a small courtyard.
There were two tiled rooms in the yard; an old man sat in the main room, drinking tea.
The old man's appearance was quite distinctive: his body was dry and thin, his back hunched; sitting in the chair, his feet just barely touched the ground, and when he stood on the floor he was only just a bit taller than the table.
As for his face, his high cheekbones were flushed red, his pointed chin was black, two thin eyebrows, a pair of narrow eyes, and from his thin lips, two sharp, slender front teeth would flash into view from time to time.
The old man took a sip of tea, set the cup down, and called toward the empty courtyard, "Come in!"
He Jiaqing revealed himself beside the old poplar tree in the courtyard, entered the main room, and paid the old man a proper bow.
The old man chuckled. "You little bastard, I told you to come, and you really did come!"
He Jiaqing said, "When Ancestor summons me, how would I dare not come?"
"How's the ring coming along?"
"Just a bit of ornamentation left; it'll be finished any moment."
"Bring it here and let me have a look."
He Jiaqing hurriedly set the ring on the table.
The old man glanced at it, then nodded. "To be honest, I'm not impressed with any of your other crafts, but this ring at least looks like something. Don't bother decorating it anymore—leave this one to me, and we'll call it even."
"Ancestor is magnanimous!" He Jiaqing bowed again.
The old man accepted the ring, though He Jiaqing didn't see how he did it.
One of the old man's hands was holding the teacup, the other held the lid, stirring the tea; the ring on the table suddenly vanished.
"Little Qingzi, I called you here today to show you something good." The old man's hands didn't move, yet a bamboo shoot appeared on the table. "Recognize this?"
He Jiaqing looked it over from top to bottom, then nodded. "I've seen this thing in photos—Iron Bamboo. It can heal internal injuries; counts as a rare medicinal ingredient."
"'Counts as' rare? You brat, what a big mouth you've got!" The old man bared his teeth in a grin. "Little Qingzi, do you know who I offended for the sake of this one bamboo shoot?"
He Jiaqing shook his head. "I truly wouldn't dare guess."
The old man asked again, "Do you know what this Iron Bamboo is used for?"
He Jiaqing thought for a bit, then shook his head. "Besides treating internal injuries, what else could it be used for?"
The old man said, "It can also be used to refine medicine powder. Iron Bamboo Shoots are the main ingredient the Peddler uses to refine entry-level medicine powder!"
"Refine entry-level medicine powder?" He Jiaqing was greatly shocked. "Isn't entry-level medicine powder all refined from cultivators' corpses?"
The old man laughed at that. "Refining medicine powder from corpses—what kind of skill is that supposed to be? Even that Bird Person Hua Manchun knows how to do it.
Corpses passed down from one generation to the next get fewer every time. If they relied on that method, wouldn't the cultivators of Puluo State just keep getting fewer and fewer?"
He Jiaqing's eyes went wide as he looked at the bamboo in his hand. "The Peddler can use medicinal herbs to refine entry-level medicine powder?"
"What did you think?" The old man took a sip of tea. "That's the capital that makes him the Lord of Puluo."
PS: The problem now is, having taken this bamboo shoot, how do we actually refine medicine?
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