"Open the door, open the door quickly!"
A series of urgent knocks rang out outside a very dilapidated wooden shack.
Standing outside the shack were two cultivators wearing yellow dharma robes and looking displeased.
Seeing no movement inside the house, the slightly younger cultivator, who had a rather hot temper, lifted a foot and prepared to kick the door open.
The older, middle-aged cultivator was more level-headed. He grabbed him by the arm and whispered in his ear:
"Don't act recklessly. The market town has rules. These wooden shacks rented out to cultivators are jointly owned by the Liu Family, the Tiangang Sect, and our Rogues Alliance. They must not be damaged except under special circumstances.
You and I are merely members of the patrol guard, and we are only here today to inform the resident that it is time to pay the rent.
We cannot afford to violate the rules and damage the wooden shack. If you kick it to pieces, we will have to pay for the repairs out of our own spirit stones.
Don't assume the glowing protective barrier outside these wooden shacks has any real defensive power. It's just there for show.
Aside from preventing outsiders from using Divine Sense to spy on what's happening inside, the barrier is practically useless.
The only reason every wooden shack is fitted with one is to give the cultivators living inside a bit more privacy and peace of mind."
Listening to the older cultivator's smooth speech beside him, the younger cultivator put away his arrogant attitude and asked with a flattering smile:
"Then, according to your esteemed advice, how should we handle this matter?"
The old man before him not only had a higher cultivation level than his own, but he had also served on the patrol guard much longer.
The friend who had recommended him to the patrol guard had specifically instructed him to learn more from others when facing situations and not to be impulsive.
Because this was his first time executing a rent-collection task, and because every rogue cultivator had looked at him with awe and reverence ever since he joined the patrol guard, he had gradually grown a bit full of himself over time.
The old man looked at the young man, whose attitude had changed so abruptly, was stunned for a moment, then stroked his beard with a smile and said:
"You brat actually have some potential!"
After the praise, he patted his storage bag, took out a thick ledger, and quickly flipped through it. As he flipped, he muttered to himself:
"Zi district? No. Chou district? Still not right... Si district, this is it. Let's see... the number of this wooden shack is '301', and the registered tenant is Liu Changsheng.
The last time rent was paid was in March of last year, covering the entire year in one lump sum.
Now it's mid-February. If the rent isn't paid in another half-month, the wooden shack will be forcibly repossessed, and the person living inside will be driven out."
After reading this aloud, he took a piece of white paper from his storage bag, dipped a brush in ink, and wrote on the spot.
He wrote down everything he had just read, and then used telekinesis to paste it neatly onto the door.
Finally, the two of them exchanged a glance, struck out with both palms at the same time, and left the patrol guard's unique seal on the blank space of the white paper.
As long as the two of them had not left, the small alley remained completely silent. Only after sensing that they had gone far away did the sound of many doors opening begin to drift over.
"Creak!" The sounds rang out one after another.
From the houses lining both sides of the alley, quite a few people poked their heads out.
First, they looked at the two distant patrol guard members, and then they cast their gaze toward the wooden shack with the notice pasted on it. Seeing that there was still no movement from within, these people could not help but start talking amongst themselves.
"Sigh, you could say this Fellow Daoist Liu really has a bitter fate. Originally, he was living quite well on his own, with the skill of Amulet-Making to fall back on and decent cultivation. If he just kept cultivating step by step, reaching the Qi Refining 9th Layer wouldn't have been out of the question.
Yet who would have thought that ten years ago, he suddenly picked up a wild child to take on as an apprentice? Now, look—he's even thrown his life away for the boy!"
The first to speak was a cultivator living directly across from '301'. He looked to be over seventy years old, but the hair on his head was pitch-black and lustrous, losing nothing to a young man's.
"Who's to say otherwise? Ever since he took on this apprentice, he grudged himself every bite of food and every penny of expenditure, saving up every single spirit stone just to cultivate his disciple.
Yet who could have expected that this brat has abysmal talent, whether in cultivation or in Amulet-Making.
Over ten years, his cultivation still hasn't broken through the bottleneck of the Mid Qi Condensation, and even for the simplest cleansing amulet, his success rate is less than ten percent. He's simply trash!"
The second to speak was a female cultivator living to the left of '301'. She had slanted eyebrows and triangular eyes, and her eyes darted about restlessly as she spoke. At a single glance, one could tell she was no easy person to deal with.
"So true! At the time, I even advised him to kick that clumsy brat out and take my son as an apprentice instead.
But he flatly refused, and even told me that his apprentice was a supreme talent of heaven-sent genius who would surely achieve great things in the future. Don't you think he lost his mind?"
This person lived in the wooden shack to the left of '301', and she still seemed to harbor resentment because Liu Changsheng had refused to take her son as a disciple.
"All right, the two of you need to talk less. Instead of having this idle time, you'd better figure out how to pay your own rent! Whom Fellow Daoist Liu chooses to take in or not is his own decision—what business is it of yours?
Besides, ever since his apprentice was attacked three months ago, Fellow Daoist Liu has been taking care of him until he woke up.
Then he went into the mountains to gather spiritual medicines needed by the alchemist to refine pills, and he hasn't returned to this day. You've all received help from him at some point, so making such sarcastic remarks now hardly seems proper, does it?"
The final person to speak up with a sense of justice lived to the right of '301'. She was a young and beautiful woman with very delicate features, and a pair of peach-blossom eyes that were exceptionally captivating.
"Oh, isn't this Fellow Daoist Bai? Knowing that you and Fellow Daoist Liu are on good terms, I can understand you speaking up for him.
However, when those two patrol guards came just now, weren't you hiding in your house just like the rest of us, refusing to come out? Why are you suddenly lecturing us now that they've left?
If you truly cared about Fellow Daoist Liu and that apprentice of his, you haven't even visited to take care of him once since Fellow Daoist Liu left three months ago. Where do you get the face to point fingers at us now?"
The woman with triangular eyes snapped back. Among the nearby residents, the one she despised the most was the young beauty who had just spoken. Others might not know her background, but she knew it crystal clear.
This person made a living through swindling and deception, and her primary targets were all kinds of single, wealthy male cultivators.
Therefore, hearing her put on a hypocritical act of speaking up for Liu Changsheng while implicitly belittling them, the woman flew into a rage and immediately fired back.
The crowd, who had previously kept their doors half-open, now pushed their doors all the way open upon seeing that there was a good show to watch, and stood about watching the two female cultivators launch into a war of words.
From the outside, '301', with its posted notice, seemed to have remained completely quiet all along, but the cultivator inside heard every single word of this chatter without missing a syllable.