Book 5 - Chapter 2: Water Town, Rich Man (2)
Zhong Geng’s first disciple Wu Zhen, a hundred Lun master a step away from becoming a thousand Lun master was Zhong Geng’s favorite disciple, at only the age of 28, with the hope of becoming a thousand Lun master by 30. To breakthrough that stage at that age meant that there was a chance of him becoming a Milun master in his life, for a Milun master to appear in this remote place, he could definitely become an existence similar to a king.
Wu Zhen had spent the previous night discussing with his master the only solution, which is to spend their utmost to befriend the other party. As the type of youngster Lei XinFeng was, if they didn’t anger him then there shouldn’t be any problems, this was something they took comfort in. These sorts of absolute talented people would definitely not stay here for long, he should only be staying here temporarily, which means that he couldn’t threaten their influence in this area.
Therefore, Wu Zhen come over to invite him early in the morning.
XinFeng did not reject either and brought Zhou Xin with him, as for Uncle Zhou Tong, he did not want to and for an honest man to go to discuss certain issues with them would cause a difficult situation.
As for why he brought Zhou Xin, XinFeng had his own idea, he knew that he couldn’t possibly stay here for long, to allow Zhou Xin to get to know Zhong Geng who had a great influence here would be beneficial to Zhou Xin’s future.
They followed the pier back to the market.
The sight of the market at early morning was very beautiful, with faint mist and only a few water birds flying past in the skies, with the faint slushing of waters, it was as if the houses floated on the waters. On the wooden walk ways was quite a few people opening their food stores already, next to the walkways were boats rowing by, after entering the market, all sorts of bustling activity could be heard.
Wu Zhen laughed, “This market is the busiest one on these waters, the other places don’t have so many people living there. There will be even more people here during the rainy season.”
XinFeng asked, “Rainy season?”
Wu Zhen answered, “En, the rainy season isn’t too suited for fishing, many fishermen would gather here, especially during the two months where the rain would be the fiercest, at that time most of the fishermen would return to escape the fierce winds and heavy rain.”
XinFeng didn’t know much about the weather here, he had always lived in a mountainous area in the past, which only had a warm season and a cold season, it was different from this place. This place similarly only had two seasons, but it was the rainy and dry seasons, during the dry season there would be many areas of land appearing but during the rainy season the entire land would be submerged in water, becoming an extremely large lake, therefore all the locals were fishermen, none of them lived on land.
On their journey, the three of them quickly reached the residential area behind the market, where wooden houses resided on waters.
Wu Zhen whistled and a small boat rowed over, a sturdy fishermen greeted, “Young master.” After doing so, he held the boat and invited the three of them aboard.
The three of them sat down and that fisherman spoke, “Sit tight.” He then grabbed a bamboo pole tightly and started to row the small boat towards the water way.
After only a little while, they had already reached a water garden with a very big wooden platform. Zhou Xin exclaimed, “Brother Lei, look, that scaly crocodile is up there!”
On the platform was a large scaly crocodile that had already been cut into pieces, it’s skin had also been carved off and the enormous head mounted vertically on the platform, the teeth in its mouth revealed, every one of which were as big as a palm, glistening a faint white glow seemingly like jade.
Zhou Xin’s curiosity led him to run up the platform and Wu Zhen immediately instructed someone to follow to prevent anyone running into that child. He now knew that XinFeng was particularly good to Zhou Xin, and as he had someone follow Zhou Xin, he himself accompanied XinFeng into the room.
XinFeng immediately noticed the intricate craftsmanship of the room, entirely different from the houses in the market which were extremely simple built for residential purposes only, while this room was much more intricate, with carvings on the doors and windows, glazed tile pieces on the ceiling and roof, wind chimes on the eaves making crisp ringing sounds along with the wind.
On the large wooden pillars were carved water beasts. The floor beneath them was extremely sturdy, which could be felt upon standing on it, completely different from the wooden walkways at the market, standing on them would cause “Gechi Gechi” sounds to appear but no sounds were made here. Who knew how many materials were used in making this, one could tell through this that these were the ways of the rich, with Zhong Geng’s strength in this small place, he was definitely extremely wealthy.
There were carved pillars and painted roof beams, beautiful rugs, swaying veils, all sorts of green plants situated in all corners and many normal servants who greeted Wu Zhen upon seeing him, calling him young master.
XinFeng couldn’t help but feel shocked, he himself was a Milun master but never had experienced such treatment. Before practicing, he still had to worry about his three meals, after he did, he had continuously went through many battles, his experiences already far surpassing this young master but when it came to his lifestyle, he lost.
The largest room was in the middle of the water garden, after passing through a few passageways he came to the middle room. It was a spacious room open on all four sides due to the warm temperature, no matter if it was the rainy or the dry season, the temperature was still extremely warm, therefore the houses of the rich were all open on four sides with only light veils to block mosquitoes as partitions. This room was roughly three hundred square meters large with only a dozen pillars supporting it, surrounded by large amounts of greenery.
XinFeng could not help but praise, “Not bad.” He was an experienced man, despite this building’s beauty, his expression remained very calm.
Wu Zhen nodded secretly, only experienced men would have such a reaction, he had seen many rich landowners enter here with a dazed expression. Zhong Geng invited with a smile, “Welcome, hehe, it’s a bit crude.” He said politely.
XinFeng replied, “It’s already not bad.”
Behind Zhong Geng was Han Xiao Bao, while Tian Dabin did not even appear, yesterday, Tian Dabin’s performance was extremely disappointing to him, if it weren’t for the Tian family’s influence here, then he would have simply chased that fellow away, he was practically a troublemaker.
The four of them sat down and some servants immediately brought over breakfast. XinFeng spoke, “Bring a share for my brother.”
Zhong Geng instructed and immediately a few servants went to the platform to bring Zhou Xin breakfast.
Breakfast was very sumptuous, there was rice, porridge, all sorts of fried fish and all kinds of marinated vegetables. Those that XinFeng could recognize were very little, all of them were the specialties of this place with decent taste, this meal was very satisfying.
Finished breakfast, Zhong Geng tried probing XinFeng, hoping to find out which sect did XinFeng belong to and why did he come to this remote place.
XinFeng of course wouldn’t tell the truth, he simply explained that the sect elder wanted him to come and train without any special motives.
Zhong Geng only partially believed it, but he had already put down his worries, he could tell that XinFeng did not harbor any ill intents, sending disciples out was something all large sects did, any disciples of sects would come out to gain experience, for all sorts of reasons and for all sorts of experience, this was something he was sure of.
Han Xiao Bao did not speak at all and merely looked curiously at XinFeng, she couldn’t understand why such a young person could be stronger than her master, it’s a Milun master, an extremely powerful existence. Until now she has only met a single Milun master who was the age of 70-80, this was really impressive, she didn’t expect a youngster to become Milun master, she really couldn’t imagine how he trained.
Zhong Geng spoke, “Old brother Lei, since you’re here to train then live here with me, it should be much more comfortable then living on a boat.”
XinFeng of course rejected, he did not want to live here, which seemed inconvenient. He replied, “No need, I’ll just live on the boats, but, I have something to trouble mister Zhong.”
Zhong Geng replied, “Please do, if I can help, I’ll do it.”
XinFeng spoke, “I need a small boat, en, I can use money to buy it.” He had considered the fact that the rainy season was here and he wanted to go out to train, lightning storms were the golden season for his training, he needed to quickly raise his strength, to do so he needed to go out himself and not trouble Uncle Zhou any further, especially since traveling during rainy days was very dangerous and that Uncle Zhou was a normal human, incapable of blocking lightning strikes.
Zhong Geng replied in shock, “You want to buy a boat…..uh, no problem, I have them here, I’ll just give it to you. En, do you want servants?”
XinFeng answered, “No need, I’ll buy it, I don’t need servants either.”
Zhong Geng said with a laugh, “It’s just a small boat, you really don’t need to pay for it, hehe, it’s not worth much here anyways.”
XinFeng thought for a while and let the matter go, to him a small boat really wasn’t worth anything, he wasn’t a normal human after all, he nodded, “Alright, then I thank you.” Expressing his gratitude was a must.
Zhong Geng laughed, he was extremely pleased with XinFeng’s attitude and immediately ordered his servants to prepare a good boat.
Conversing with Zhong Geng helped XinFeng learn of many pieces of news, something he wouldn’t get from Uncle Zhou, this place was indeed very remote, a small corner of Wansee island, and within half a year he would be able to reach the barbarian continent, the place XinFeng came from but from this place to the center of Wansee island he would need at least ten years of travel, of course practitioners who could use the ancient Lun passages would not need too much time.
As compared to the barbarian continent, Wansee Island was much more lovely, not only were there many citizens, there were also many sects and even a remote place had many practitioners. However, the world was too big, it was sparsely populated, and in a small place even if they had practitioners there, there wouldn’t be too many, and the average strength there was rather low, a ten thousand or even a thousand Lun master was enough to control an area.
Many practitioners without hope of raising their levels would choose to return to their homelands or find a remote place to become a landowner, monopolizing an area was enough for them to start a small family tribe.
Zhong Geng spoke, “Old brother Lei, are you free these days?”
XinFeng asked, “Is something the matter?”
Zhong Geng laughed, “Yes, a good matter.”
Translator’s Corner
These…..descriptive chapters…………painful……….
Anyways I’ll continue translating but those chapters will be saved up for the later weeks….zzzz…..
Maybe another one will be posted this week? Ummuu……