32: Street vendors go into the mountains to sell "heart medicine"

The faint light on the stall slowly receded, but the line of blood-red warning characters seemed to be branded on everyone's retinas, scorching their nerves.

"The holder of the token must sever a kinship."

These seven words, like a clap of thunder from the Nine Heavens, exploded in the dead of night, shattering the joy of their recent victory.

Su Qingzhu's face instantly turned pale. She subconsciously took half a step back, her gaze at Zhang Xuanyi filled with horror and incomprehension.

"Sever a kinship... What does that mean? Do you mean we have to... do that kind of thing for a mission?" Her voice trembled; this completely crossed her bottom line.

To act chivalrously and save lives was for protection, not for sacrifice.

Gongshu Yin's perpetually impassive abacus-like face also showed a solemn expression for the first time.

He didn't look at the words but instead lowered his head to fiddle with the silent Karma Machine. The abacus beads clacked, but instead of the crisp sound of transactions, it was a dull, obscure, stagnant feeling.

"The power of rules," he said slowly, his voice dry. "This is not a mandatory command issued by the system; it's more like an... ancient contractual revelation. That place in the Northwest probably contains some supreme law related to 'kinship.' Obtaining the 'Severing Stele Token' means one must bear its cost."

He paused, then added, "The word 'kin' has a broad meaning. Blood relatives, master and disciple, confidants, Dao companions... even us, partners who share weal and woe in the Dao Market, can be considered 'kin' in the judgment of certain laws."

As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere grew even colder.

A Yuan, who had been silent, quietly glanced at Zhang Xuanyi, then swept his gaze over Su Qingzhu and Gongshu Yin, finally letting his eyes fall back on his own clean, dust-free hands.

There was no fear in his eyes, only a nearly fated calm, as if he had long anticipated that all beautiful things in the world came with a hefty price tag.

Only Zhang Xuanyi still maintained his lazy demeanor, as if the sky falling down was just a blanket.

He casually tossed away the last handful of melon seed shells, clapped his hands, and his gaze lingered with interest on the blood-red characters.

"Interesting, very interesting."

"Zhang Xuanyi!" Su Qingzhu couldn't help but raise her voice. "What time is it now! You still have the mood to say it's interesting? This is about severing kinship! We are not evil cultivators!"

Zhang Xuanyi turned his head, his dark eyes surprisingly bright in the night.

He didn't retort. Instead, he smiled and asked an unrelated question: "Qingzhu, what do you think of this Spirit-Sealing Stockade now?"

Su Qingzhu was startled and subconsciously looked around.

The night wind blew, and the valley was no longer dead and oppressive. Instead, it was filled with an indescribable vitality.

The mountain spring into which Zhang Xuanyi had poured the "Pseudo-Three Caverns True Qi Liquid" had now transformed into a spiritual eye. Wisps of spiritual mist steamed up from the spring, enveloping the entire village.

In the distant houses, lights were bright, and one could faintly hear suppressed cries, laughter, and the joyful shouts of children.

Those were the sounds of new life.

Just a moment ago, the last cured man opened his eyes. He didn't say anything earth-shattering, but simply looked at his calloused hands and wept bitterly.

He was a stonemason. Before being imprisoned, he was carving a stone hairpin for his future wife.

Now that he was awake, the first thing he did was rush home, dig out the unfinished stone hairpin from a dusty corner, and continue carving it by moonlight, hammer and chisel.

His wife stood by his side, tears streaming down her face, repeatedly stroking his back.

Such scenes unfolded simultaneously in a hundred families throughout the Spirit-Sealing Stockade.

On the Karma Machine, the dense golden patterns were no longer just records; they seemed to come alive, forming vivid pictures: someone returned a secretly hidden land deed to a neighbor, kneeling in repentance; someone ran over ten li of mountain road overnight to carry back their blind old mother, whom they had abandoned in a mountain god temple; the clan elder, who had once been paralyzed on the ground, was now leading the entire clan to rebuild the ancestral hall they themselves had torn down, saying he wanted to erect a new stele, a "Stele of Atonement."

These vows, born from "good deeds," pure and vast, surged into the stall like a hundred rivers flowing into the sea.

This was the true reason for the unlocking of the fifth layer of "Dao Market Share"—not how miraculous Zhang Xuanyi's pills were, but that he had leveraged the "collective self-redemption" of the entire village.

"Do you see?" Zhang Xuanyi's voice drifted over. "We saved a hundred people, but what was truly saved was the hearts of this entire village. We extinguished the ghosts in their hearts and lit their own lamps."

He walked in front of Su Qingzhu, his gaze deepening: "If, to save ten thousand people like these, or even the people of an entire world, the price is that one person must sever one of his 'kinships,' do you think this transaction... is worth it?"

Su Qingzhu was stumped.

She opened her mouth but couldn't utter a single word.

Reason told her that Zhang Xuanyi's words seemed to hold some twisted truth, but emotionally, she could not accept it no matter what.

"I..."

"Alright, don't think about it," Zhang Xuanyi waved his hand, interrupting her struggle. "The sky hasn't fallen yet. Rules are dead, but people are alive. It says 'must sever a kinship,' but it didn't say how to sever, whose to sever, or for how long. What if it just means I have to sever my kinship with these melon seeds and can't crack them anymore?"

This joke somewhat eased the heavy atmosphere; even Gongshu Yin's lips seemed to twitch slightly.

Su Qingzhu rolled her eyes at him, but her mood inexplicably calmed down a lot.

Yes, this man always had a way of making a huge crisis sound like an insignificant matter. Although it sounded unreliable, it always gave people a strange sense of security.

"Let's go. Before we leave, let's collect some 'interest,'" Zhang Xuanyi said, walking towards the village chief's house.

At this moment, the village chief was leading all the villagers, old and young, kneeling at the village entrance. Before them were various mountain goods, local products, and even a few pieces of decent ore.

Seeing Zhang Xuanyi and his group approach, the village chief excitedly kowtowed, tears streaming down his face: "Immortal Master! Divine Man! You are the reborn parents of our Spirit-Sealing Stockade! These are a small token of our villagers' sincerity; please accept them!"

Zhang Xuanyi walked past the gifts without a glance, saying faintly, "I don't want the things."

The villagers immediately showed disappointment and fear.

Zhang Xuanyi stopped, turned back to look at them, and a faint smile played on his lips: "But what you owe me, you haven't paid back yet."

The village chief shivered: "Immortal Master... what... what else do we owe you?"

"I gave you a hundred 'Qi Guiding Talismans' in exchange for a hundred good deeds. That debt is settled," Zhang Xuanyi extended a finger. "But I poured an entire bottle of 'True Qi Liquid' into your lifeblood spring, turning your poor mountain gully into a blessed land. How do you account for that debt?"

The villagers looked at each other. Yes, that immortal spring was priceless!

Let alone these mountain goods, even selling the entire Spirit-Sealing Stockade wouldn't be enough to exchange for it!

The village chief gritted his teeth, as if he had made a major decision: "Immortal Master! From today onwards, our entire Spirit-Sealing Stockade clan, generation after generation, is willing to be your slaves, at your beck and call!"

"Slaves?" Zhang Xuanyi scoffed. "My stall doesn't take slaves."

He looked around, at the faces that were both reverent and bewildered, and slowly said, "The 'interest' I want is very simple. From today onwards, Spirit-Sealing Stockade shall be renamed 'Spirit-Transmitting Stockade.' Any cultivators passing through here must be treated well and offered a bowl of spiritual spring water. Any spiritual awakening practitioners who are misunderstood by the world as 'demon-possessed' must be welcomed into the stockade. Teach them how to control their spiritual senses, tell them this is not a disease, but a talent."

He paused, his voice suddenly becoming sharp: "As you once locked people in the cellar, so shall you now welcome them to the honored seat! As you once feared 'Qi,' so shall you now revere 'Qi'! This 'interest' you shall repay for generations. If one day, I hear that 'Spirit-Transmitting Stockade' has violated today's promise..."

He didn't finish, but his cold gaze was more powerful than any threat.

The village chief's body trembled, then his eyes burst with ecstatic light.

He understood. This Immortal Master was not trying to enslave them, but to give them a true path to life, a responsibility of inheritance!

How was this demanding interest? It was clearly a tremendous gift!

"We... obey the Immortal Master's decree!" The village chief kowtowed heavily. Behind him, all the villagers knelt in unison, their shouts echoing through the valley.

After all this was handled, the sky was already tinged with the white of dawn.

Zhang Xuanyi and his group did not linger. Facing the morning sun, they walked out of the stockade.

Behind them, the village, with its curling smoke and rising spiritual mist, was full of hope and vitality.

But the path ahead of them led to a completely different world.

On Gongshu Yin's Karma Machine, the star map area representing the Northwest showed a dead, grayish-black, with only a single point in the very center, flickering with a faint but stubborn light, like a grain of dust in the desert, yet as heavy as Mount Tai.

"The Northwest Desert, anciently known as 'Guixu,' is rumored to be the abandoned land of the ancient immortal-demon war. Spiritual energy is cut off, and laws are chaotic. Living people who enter have a ten-in-ten chance of death," Gongshu Yin said in a deep voice, as if stating a cold data report.

Su Qingzhu's heart tightened again. She couldn't help but look at Zhang Xuanyi.

Did this mission really have to be undertaken?

Zhang Xuanyi seemed to know what she was thinking. He didn't turn back, just looked towards the distant horizon and said softly, "Some things, you can't run from. If I don't go see, I won't be able to sleep at night."

His tone was calm, yet it conveyed an undeniable determination.

The group walked in silence, the morning sun stretching their shadows long.

No one mentioned the warning, "must sever a kinship," again, but those seven words were like an invisible thorn, embedded in everyone's hearts.

It hung over their shared destiny, growing heavier with each step they took towards that dead desert.

They were about to face not only a perilous dead end but also a cold and ruthless contract.

Deep in the desert, steles stood in rows.

The central stele was broken, inscribed with "Kinship Severing Contract: Those who enter the Dao Market..."