Chapter 584: Chapter 14: Opportunities (2)
Forced fruit won’t be sweet; to prevent another mad dash for freedom, he opted for long-distance surveillance.
The female student, who attended the special-level course, seemed to work for the material center. Every morning, precisely at ten o’clock, she would transport the cut cattails to the material center and receive a pitifully low heaven-defying value.
She appeared to find this pointless act enjoyable.
Compared with Zhu Xiaoxian, that baozi-faced girl was even more peculiar. In the scorching heat of the afternoon, she would lie down in the desert, motionless, staying like that for half a day, day after day.
That he would actually consider taking these two under his wing...
No, to be precise, it was the grass cutter he was interested in collecting; as for baozi-face... well, she was a rather entertaining pastime.
Why haven’t those two shown up today? Wang Shuai came every other day, at irregular times, sometimes watching Xiao Xian cut grass up close, sometimes observing Zhang Yiyi ’playing dead’ from afar.
A cushion made of grass rolled to his feet, the robot Romeo One, after almost short-circuiting in thought, attempted to move the cushion to another place.
Wang Shuai, with the elegance of kicking a soccer ball, scooped up a cushion with the tip of his boot, then with a light flick of his finger, he spun the cushion leisurely in his hand, "What a rarity, the shop has got a new item. Looks pretty decent too, Romeo One, give me two, they’ll be useful for Grandma during her vegetarian Buddhist rituals."
"Two cushions, a total of 800 heaven-defying value," Romeo One immediately announced the price.
Hearing the price, Wang Shuai raised his eyebrows, "I’m an advanced VIP, I’m supposed to enjoy a 20% discount. Romeo One, when was your last maintenance? You’ve forgotten this already?" Although it was just over a hundred heaven-defying value, there was no reason to waste it needlessly.
"C area material center’s new-style cushions are special supply items and do not accept VIP discounts," who says robots don’t bear grudges; dare to look down on C area’s goods, if you don’t love to buy, I’m not selling.
"Fine, never seen such stinginess, 800 it is then. Juliet One is much more generous than you," Wang Shuai took the two cushions, patting them with his hands, very sturdy. But one could hardly tell what kind of grass they were made from just by looking at them. "Better to take them back for Great Grandma to look at, it’s such a headache to identify these kinds of worthless wild grass creations."
The words Wang Shuai was saying at the moment were the main reason he had targeted Xiao Xian.
Many students who skipped the basic class and went directly to the intermediate and advanced classes all suffer from the same problem: overestimating their skills while underestimating others. They’ve been trained only in the elite methods since childhood; they may know a thing or two about hundreds or thousands of years old spirit wood but when it comes to some seemingly insignificant items they see every day, they can’t be bothered to identify them. Wang Shuai was no different.
Accumulated over time, they grow accustomed to standing at the pinnacle of the pyramid, using the best cultivation resources, becoming the leading figures in the Cultivation World, and thereby losing the most fundamental part.
Not having seen today’s observation targets, Wang Shuai took the cushions he had purchased and left the school directly for Fanyin Temple, located in a Beijing Suburb.
Among the ancient temples in Beijing, Fanyin Temple is not famous.
Fanyin Temple can be better described as the private temple of the Wang Family. Funded and built by the Wang Family, all the big and small Daoist practices of the Wang family, from getting a promotion to starting school, are conducted here.
Wang Shuai’s great-grandmother, Zhang Lvxiao, is the mother of Wang Zhonghe, the head of the Wang family for this generation. She bore three sons and one daughter, and also adopted the father of Wang Lu, who is said to be the illegitimate child of the Wang family’s great-grandfather. She has a quite positive reputation in the outside world.
Only the Wang family’s younger and grandchild generations truly understand the true nature of the old matriarch, who made a name for herself in the Cultivation World at the age of eighteen.
People say the old lady, though advanced in years, has a calm heart, like still water, especially since she separated from the infamous ancestor of the Wang family at the age of sixty.
Zhang Lvxiao has always lived in Fanyin Temple. But whenever something happens at home, the two sons and daughter, who command respect both at home and abroad, will personally go to Fanyin Temple to ask for Zhang Lvxiao’s opinion.
Wang Shuai’s first real understanding of his great-grandmother’s fierceness came twenty years ago when he was still a snotty-nosed kid among the younger generation of the Wang family.
The patriarchal great-grandfather of the Wang family abandoned the family business to wander the world.
At that time, a superpower user from Europe came to China, declaring that superpowers were stronger than Cultivators, and began to hunt and kill various Cultivators nationwide. Wang family members also suffered significant consequences because of this.
Wang Zhonghe, with his family in tow, went to Fanyin Temple in person to ask Zhang Lvxiao for help. Zhang Lvxiao just sat inside the temple, hitting the solid wooden fish, reciting scriptures, and saying nothing.
The day after the disappointed father led the others away from the temple, the superpower user from Europe disappeared, never to be heard from again.
Later, around six or seven years ago, for some unknown reason, Wang Shuai’s second uncle, Wang Peng, angered Zhang Lvxiao. Wang Shuai’s father and his third uncle and aunt knelt outside Fanyin Temple pleading for Zhang Lvxiao’s forgiveness for their second brother.
However, Zhang Lvxiao still removed Wang You’s spiritual marrow. For a Cultivator, the spiritual marrow is like the human spine; once it is removed, years of cultivation are lost overnight, and one becomes as ordinary as any other person.
At the time, Wang Peng, who was around forty years old and looked like he was in his twenties thanks to his cultivation, began to age rapidly after Zhang Lvxiao removed his spiritual marrow. In just five or six years, Wang You visibly aged.
At the family reunion dinner earlier this year, Wang Peng appeared much older than his peers in their forties or fifties, even more aged than his father, and now he suffered from a severe heart condition, fearing he might not have many years left.
Capable of adopting and treating kindly the family of her husband’s illegitimate child outside, yet unable to forgive her own son’s offenses, such Zhang Lvxiao undoubtedly had a great deterrent effect in the eyes of the Wang family’s grandchild generation. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to Qidian () to cast your recommendation ticket, monthly ticket. Your support is my biggest motivation.)