"Are you sure?"
"Mn, naturally. A yearās worth should be enough for me to train the Jiao-Dragon Rage to the entry level. If Iām not at that level yet, Iāll just get another year."
Upon hearing this, Wen Ping involuntarily shouted in his heart.
(Tycoon!)
"The fee for a year will be 18,250 gold coins."
Wen Ping used the multiplication formula in his heart and gave the accurate number.
Huai Ye was shocked. "Sect leader, your math is so good, you donāt even need an abacus."
Wen Ping secretly smiled with pride in his heart.
Thatās true! He depended on the multiplication formula.
After receiving the stack of banknotes from Huai Yeās hands, Wen Ping did a count. "18,250 indeed."
After adding what Yang Lele and Zhao Qing paid...
"19,250."
Lastly, Yun Liaoās 5,000 gold was added in.
"24,250."
"Over 20,000 gold has just entered our accounts, it should be sufficient for us to spend for quite a while." Wen Ping, who had never touched so many banknotes before, left the dormitory area happily. As he walked, he pondered over how to spend this money.
The Immortal Sect was so big, was it time to recruit a few odd-jobs workers?
In the past, the path leading up the Cloudmist Mountain had tidy-looking plants on both sides. But now, it felt like walking through an abandoned garden.
Vines were like cold-blooded animals, absorbing warmth as they crawled on the stone floor. The tree branches on both sides resembled arms, causing people who saw them to see an extremely ugly sight. In the past, Wen Ping didnāt feel like this, but after having so much spare money, this feeling immediately struck him deeply.
Actually, he also didnāt know what kind of psychological state this was. If there were psychologists in this world, he really didnāt mind paying them a visit.
All of a sudden, he suddenly felt the pathway was an extremely unpleasant sight. He might really be mentally ill!
"System. If I remodel the servant quarters, will an automatic cleaning ability be generated?"
The system replied, "The unique abilities of such small buildings are very simple. So what even if thereās an automatic cleaning function? From my understanding, buying 100 servants in Cangwu City will only cost you around 1,000 gold coins. I suggest the host not to waste the system upgrades so recklessly."
"100 servants only cost 1,000 gold? How do you even know of this? But honestly, it sounds really cheap."
"Actually, even if the Immortal Sect doesnāt give out salaries, many people will still be willing to come and work here. Everyone understood the logic that future accomplishments largely lie in what sort of people you are acquainted with. In the Immortal Sect, if they can learn the slightest bit of knowledge on cultivation, it will be sufficient to change their destinies."
"Thatās true, even for someone at the first level of Body Refinement, if they work as a coolie in the Cangwu City, they can do the work of three to five ordinary people."
"Woof! Woof!"
The mountain dog Haha, who was at the side, suddenly barked.
It was as though it was saying, "Stop mumbling to yourself. Now that you are rich, can I have better meals? I want meat, those large pieces of uncut thighs!"
"Hehe, Iāll buy you a little female dog tomorrow." Wen Ping revealed a smile filled with deep meaning.
...
Time slowly passed.
At the foot of the Cloudmist Mountain.
A black carriage stopped before the sword monument and a girl wearing purple walked out of it.
Her black hair cascaded down like a waterfall and the expression on her face was as cold as frost. Her long willow-like brows were also painted light purple.
Her brown eyes that were covered by her long eyelashes shone with a light that held people at a thousand miles distance, yet it also contained a hard-to-detect gloominess that was masked by her cold attitude.
Her nose bridge was high and narrow, invoking a sense of indifference. Right now, she was biting her bloodless lips a little, and her snow-like face was also somewhat pale.
Her lips were parted slightly and revealed an unharmonious air. "Do we really have to go up the mountain?"
At this moment, Shi Hua also got down the carriage. She replied, "Naturally, if not, why did I bring you here?"
"Let me tell you this, if it wasnāt for you, even if the people of the Immortal Sect begged me to come back, I would never have returned here. As humans, shouldnāt we know how to bid farewell to our pasts? Look at you, you kept wanting to entangle your past with your current situation."
As she spoke, her gaze involuntarily turned to the sword monument.
The words āImmortal Sectā actually had quite a heavy weightage in her heart. Naturally, this was in the past.
Right now, the Reliance Sect was her home.
Shi Hua smiled lightly. After that, she tugged on the girlās hand and said, "Isnāt this something Elder Jiang requested?"
"Donāt use this tactic. Donāt think I donāt know that you are always thinking about that fellow Wen Ping. Otherwise, a matter like this could have been handed over to anyone, but you insisted on coming to the Cloudmist Mountain personally. If everyone knows of this, I want to see how you will explain to them."
"Li Yuemi!" Shi Hua suddenly called this girlās name loudly. However, when their gazes matched, Shi Huaās expression immediately softened. "Good sister, why donāt you help me conceal this from them? By doing so, they wouldnāt know."
"Consider me as unlucky, having to keep such a secret for you for nothing. You can take the lead and Iāll follow behind you. However, letās make things clear first. I will wait for you at the stairs, and I absolutely wonāt head to the main hall," Li Yuemi spoke with resolve.
"Alright."
After speaking, Shi Hua began heading up the Cloudmist Mountain. After skimming through the path, they came to the start of the thousand-layer stairs.
Li Yuemi paused and glanced at the surroundings. She then spoke, "Back then, we really made the right choice when we chose to leave the Immortal Sect."
"Mn?" Shi Hua turned her head.
"Look at the stone stairs. There are fallen leaves everywhere. Thereās no one cleaning the sides, and even the moss growing on the stone stairs arenāt scrapped. If someone stood here and you told him this was once a 2-stars sect, probably no one would believe you. I knew that this would happen when Wen Ping became the sect leader. See, Iām really correct."
"Wen Ping is different now, he has changed from then. In fact, he even started wearing the sectās uniform. Do you remember back then when he refused to wear the uniform, and the old sect leader tossed him into the martial grounds for a month until he was beaten up so badly that he couldnāt even get down from his bed for an entire month?"
"So what? Itās just wearing a uniform. In the past, he could wear it, but he didnāt want to. However, right now, he had no choice but to wear it."
"Enough, letās stop talking. If Wen Ping heard this, how could the two of us face him? In addition, we were once his friends."
"You were, but I never was. In the past, his position was so lofty. I was just an ordinary disciple and was not qualified to interact with him. Only you would be so silly as to believe that Yang Lele from the Yang Clan has joined the Immortal Sect to cultivate. Have you seen any businessmen who would sell fans during winter?"
Li Yuemi truly wanted to pull Shi Hua away from Wen Ping.
Everyone knew that the friends around you were a great factor that would affect who you would become in the future.
Just like the saying, those who handled cinnabar would be stained red and those who worked with ink would be stained black.
She actually kept interacting with Wen Ping again and again, doing things for the sake of this second-generation sect leader that knew nothing. Was it worth it?
"Iām going up."
"Go on, Iāll wait here for you."
After speaking, Li Yuemi looked around the surroundings, wanting to find a place where she could sit. Sadly, the places she saw were all filled with tree leaves, weeds, or broken twigs. Hence, the only place to sit was the bluestone stairway, a place where it was unknown how long it had been since someone last cleaned it.