94: Chapter 94 The Legendary Lucky One?

Long before escorting the grain, Pei Qingyun had already planned a rough route.

Incorporating the suggestions of the escort agency's masters, Pei Qingyun made a certain degree of adjustments.

There were two counties that were mandatory stops on the way to the prefectural capital; one was Jinhe County near Wuyang County, and the other was Jinling County, which was closest to the prefectural capital.

The situation within Jinhe County was actually similar to Wuyang County, with three third-rate Noble Families present.

However, the strength of the three third-rate families in Jinhe County was significantly greater than those in Wuyang County.

Unlike the three major families in Wuyang County, each of the three major families in Jinhe County had two Five-Viscera Martial Artists.

Although the Five-Viscera Martial Artists of these three families were only at the Early stage of Five Viscera Realm, this alone made Jinhe County's overall strength a notch higher than Wuyang County's.

Beyond that, there were more than just three families in Jinhe County that possessed Five-Viscera Martial Artists. It was just that the overall strength of these other families didn't meet the requirements for promotion to a Noble Family.

The reason for this was naturally due to the interference of the three major families of Jinhe County.

After all, every additional Noble Family meant one more competitor for the original three.

Jinhe County.

The Liu Family Compound.

As the head of the Liu Family, one of the third-rate Noble Families in Jinhe County, Liu Qingyuan had also heard the news about the Pei Family escorting grain.

His first reaction was one of disbelief.

Because the trade routes were blockaded, the news of the Li Family's destruction had not yet reached other counties.

In his memory, the Li Family was the largest grain merchant in Wuyang County; he had even met with Patriarch Li Wu several times.

His impression was that the Pei Family's main business was mining.

How could the Pei Family have such a large batch of grain to escort to the prefectural capital?

No matter how he looked at it, it didn't seem real.

Could it be that someone was spreading rumors on purpose?

But what would be the purpose of intentionally spreading such a false message?

After much thought, he felt this false news was most likely released by the Li Family.

If the Li Family released it, there were only two possibilities for their motive: one was that the Li Family deliberately spread it to strike at the Pei Family.

The second was that the Li Family intended to escort grain themselves but would slightly offset the timing, using the Pei Family as a decoy to attract the attention of the various forces in Jinhe County while they moved covertly.

These two possibilities had one thing in common: the Pei Family would definitely be escorting a batch of goods tonight, and the quantity would not be small.

Otherwise, the lie would be exposed instantly.

Liu Qingyuan believed the Li Family wouldn't do something so foolish as to purely annoy people.

However, Liu Qingyuan thought the first possibility was more likely.

If the Li Family wanted to move covertly and play a 'kill two birds with one stone' game, the risk seemed a bit high.

He had met Li Wu several times.

He didn't seem like such a reckless person.

Therefore, Liu Qingyuan thought more about what this batch of goods actually was.

If it wasn't grain, then what could the Pei Family be escorting?

Was it Ore?

That was Liu Qingyuan's first thought, but—

He soon shook his head.

It was true that mining was the Pei Family's main business.

But the Pei Family couldn't be escorting Ore; using only horse carriages as transportation, escorting Ore was clearly a losing business.

Escorting metal after the Ore had been smelted was a possibility.

But to escort hundreds of carriages of metal would be utterly absurd.

Hundreds of carriages of metal—even if the metal was all the cheapest Refined Iron—was absolutely impossible.

In the Great Jing Dynasty, the price of Refined Iron was roughly a hundred copper coins per catty. But Refined Iron wasn't like grain; a small piece of Refined Iron could weigh several catties.

Setting aside whether the Pei Family even had that many specialized carriages for Refined Iron, the value of hundreds of carriages of Refined Iron would likely reach several million taels.

Even if the Pei Family had that much Refined Iron, they wouldn't dare do this. Moreover, Liu Qingyuan could never believe the Pei Family possessed so much Refined Iron.

But there was one thing he had to admit: the news had piqued his interest. If he didn't confirm whether it was true or false, he would feel unsettled.

After some deliberation, Liu Qingyuan decided it was necessary to test the truth, but the one doing the testing couldn't be the Liu Family.

Suddenly.

Liu Qingyuan's eyes lit up.

Since the Liu Family had received this news, the other forces in Jinhe County must have as well.

It wasn't that Liu Qingyuan thought his own intelligence network was just for show, but in places like taverns, how could such news be kept secret?

However, he didn't pin his hopes on the other two major Noble Families. In his view, their reactions would be similar to the Liu Family's—skeptical.

As for whether their speculations coincided with the Liu Family's, it didn't matter at all.

It was clearly too late to go to Wuyang County now to investigate the truth.

Without a doubt, this was also part of the Li Family's scheme.

He was confident about one thing: the other two families were definitely like the Liu Family, wanting to play the role of the oriole behind the mantis stalking the cicada.

If it turned out to be unfeasible or the news was fake, the most they would lose was a bit of time.

Trading a little time to verify the truth of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver was clearly a worthwhile deal.

Liu Qingyuan looked at the butler beside him and said softly, "Old Xu, go and invite Commander Liu over now. Do not let anyone else know about this."

The butler nodded and said with understanding, "This old servant understands and will see to it immediately."

As the butler left, Liu Qingyuan's gaze gradually became profound.

...

Jinhe County.

The Bai Family Compound.

As a Family that possessed a Five-Viscera Martial Artist but was not a third-rate Noble Family,

The Bai Family's status in Jinhe County was very awkward.

Calling the Bai Family an unranked Family was technically correct. After all, without recognition from the Great Jing Dynasty, even if a Family had a Six Viscera Grandmaster, they were not formally a Noble Family.

The Bai Family was in exactly this position.

In the Great Jing Dynasty, Opportunities were not scarce.

For example, finding the carcass of a high-level exotic beast, or coming across Heaven And Earth Treasures that could alter one's Aptitude.

Stumbling into the Immortal Cave of a powerful expert.

Although the things that happened in such chronicles were rare, there were always a few such lucky individuals.

Originally, with the Bai Family's foundation and under the suppression of the three major families, it would have been impossible for a Five-Viscera Martial Artist to be born.

But as it happened, this Five-Viscera Martial Artist of the Bai Family had exploding luck; during a great Opportunity, he entered the Immortal Cave of a Xiantian Master.

At that time, he was only at Mid-Stage Divine Strength.

Fortunately, this Xiantian Master was not a cruel master of the Demonic Path.

Otherwise, a mere Mid-Stage Divine Strength Martial Artist entering the Immortal Cave of a Xiantian Master would have surely perished.

From this perspective, he was lucky.

But his luck wasn't quite good enough.

This Xiantian Martial Artist had been dead for many years, and the consumables within the Immortal Cave had basically weathered away with time.

What he obtained was extremely limited.

This also meant that after he stepped into the Five Viscera Realm, he had no resources to support his martial arts practice.

This was the drawback of being born into an unranked Family.

No matter how good your martial arts talent was, without enough resources, becoming a powerhouse was fraught with difficulties.

However, women actually had an advantage in this regard. If a woman had excellent natural talent, she could rely on it to marry into a Noble Family and obtain enough resources for martial arts.

In contrast, even if a man were willing to marry into a Family, a Noble Family might not fully trust a so-called matrilocal son-in-law.

Of course, with good luck, it wasn't impossible for someone in a Noble Family to invest in him.

But clearly, this Five-Viscera Martial Artist of the Bai Family did not meet those conditions.

He hadn't reached this stage through natural talent either.