Chapter 206: Seeing the Sheep in the Earth
Jiang Wang finished his bath, put on clean clothes, and stepped out of the bathing room feeling refreshed.
Water cleansed the mortal body; the world cleansed the dusty heart.
He paid no mind to the little maid Xiao Xiao who had come in with her head lowered to carry away the old clothes. Jiang Wang walked through the courtyard on his own and entered the main hall.
That sealed jar of Tiger Bone Wine sat right there on the square table in the center of the hall.
Back in Maple Forest City, under Du Yehu's influence, they had often enjoyed gathering together for feasts and drinks.
Jiang Wang was no stranger to fine wine.
He sat down casually beside the square table and gave the wine jar a pat. His eyes suddenly fixed on something.
Beneath the wine jar, somehow, a slip of paper had been pressed.
Jiang Wang glanced around. He felt nothing unusual.
He pulled out the slip of paper and unfolded it. Only three characters were written on it: Don't drink.
The handwriting on the paper was crooked and jagged. The writer had clearly deliberately obscured their script.
The wine is problematic?
After a moment's thought, Jiang Wang called out toward the outside: "Xiao Xiao!"
Xiao Xiao ran into the room, panting: "Master, what is it?"
"Just now while I was bathing, did anyone come here?"
"No... Did the master lose something?"
Her fingers clutched the corner of her clothes tightly, her expression overly cautious and apprehensive.
"Oh, no, I was just asking casually." Seeing this, Jiang Wang lost any further desire to question her and waved his hand to reassure her: "Go about your business."
After the little maid walked out the door, he turned back to look at the wine jar before him, his gaze filled with interest.
In a small pond like the Hu Family Mine, his mindset was perfectly calm.
"So this jar of wine has a problem. Then who did it, and why? And who was it that warned me?"
"Before this wine was sent over, that old man surnamed Ge went drinking with Steward Hu. Given his petty and vindictive nature, it's entirely possible he would pull some kind of trick."
"If the Azure Wood Immortal Sect is subordinate to East King Valley, they should possess extraordinary expertise in the art of poison. I must be extra cautious."
"If that old man surnamed Ge is courting death, then what role did Steward Hu play in all this?"
"And who saw through everything and warned me in this way?"
"I have no enemies here, and I shouldn't have any friends either."
Jiang Wang thought for a while, then simply broke the wine seal.
A rich aroma of wine surged up, filling his nostrils. The liquid was clear and translucent—quite decent wine. Steward Hu must have invested quite a bit.
Jiang Wang condensed a single green spike with one finger and lowered it into the wine jar.
This was the Third-rank middle-grade Dao Art that Dong A had once instructed him in: the Poison-Devouring Thorn.
After ten breaths of time passed, the Poison-Devouring Thorn remained its same green color, showing no reaction whatsoever.
"Could it be that old man Ge actually has some means I cannot detect? But then again, the grade of the Poison-Devouring Thorn really has fallen behind."
At this thought, Jiang Wang entered the Grand Void Illusory Realm with his consciousness and directly spent fifteen hundred merit points to upgrade the Poison-Devouring Thorn to the Second-rank upper-grade level using the second-tier Dao Manifestation Pedestal. The Poison-Devouring Thorn became the Poison-Devouring Blossom.
Exiting the Grand Void Illusory Realm, he formed the Dao Art seal, and the Poison-Devouring Blossom bloomed at his fingertip.
Its color was like jadeite, its form like carved jade, with faint patterns visible upon it.
He tossed this exceedingly beautiful Poison-Devouring Blossom directly into the wine and waited a while. Still, there was no change.
"Could it be not poison?"
This little mine really did have quite a few strange things about it.
Jiang Wang thought for a while, then directly drew out a ball of wine liquid from the jar, pressed it down with one palm, and sent it seeping through the floor tiles into the earth beneath.
Then he resealed the remaining Tiger Bone Wine and pushed it aside.
With his current strength, there should be no opponent in this mine capable of matching him. As long as he remained cautious, he was fully qualified to respond to any situation with equanimity.
Given the warning on that slip of paper, he would not eat any food here or drink any water here. After all, his current physical constitution hardly required such things.
Jiang Wang sat in meditation in the main hall.
As one of the four Transcendent cultivators stationed at the Hu Family Mine, he didn't have much to do.
He only needed to coordinate with the formation array to repel any fierce beasts that occasionally wandered close.
The other task was escorting the miners back to town once a month, which generally involved two Transcendent cultivators going together. Working in rotation, he only had to go out once every two months.
Setting everything else aside, this job was indeed leisurely and suited a cultivator without much ambition.
...
Xiao Xiao washed the dirty clothes, then went to steep a pot of tea and brought it to Jiang Wang.
She bustled in and out like a small spinning top, never stopping for a moment.
"How lovely..."
The moment she stepped into the main hall, she felt a brief moment of disorientation.
It was as if flowers were blooming one after another before her eyes, their fragrance filling her nose. She felt comfortable and relaxed.
In truth, she had already stepped into Jiang Wang's Dao Art—the Sea of Blossoms.
The primary effect of this Dao Art was hallucination. Had Jiang Wang not restrained its power, Xiao Xiao would have completely lost all sense of time and place by now.
He wasn't suspecting this poor little maid. It was merely his habit to practice his Dao Arts at all times and in all places.
Since the Dao Art had not been fully activated, Xiao Xiao only received a mild effect. Feeling comfortable, smelling fragrance—all of these were merely illusions.
Jiang Wang took the tea cup and set it aside casually, asking while she was still under the influence of the Sea of Blossoms: "How long have you been at the Hu Family Mine?"
This mild influence would cause no harm to Xiao Xiao. It would only make her subconsciously feel at ease, causing her to speak from the heart.
In simple terms, she would speak the truth.
"More than two years, almost three now."
"You've been here so long. In your memory, has anything strange ever happened?"
"What kind of thing counts as strange?" Xiao Xiao asked.
She had not lost her wits. Under the influence of the Dao Art, she had merely temporarily let go of her wariness and become relaxed and natural.
Her speech was no longer so cautious and guarded.
"Something that defies reason. Something a normal person wouldn't do, or something that wouldn't normally happen."
Xiao Xiao bit her lower lip and said: "Ge Heng is an old pervert. He enjoys tormenting people. The more his victims suffer, the happier and more joyful he becomes. He likes to use whips soaked in water to lash people. His favorite is silver needles. He often..."
"Anything else?" Jiang Wang couldn't help but interrupt.
The old man Ge Heng's behavior was indeed perverse, but it had nothing to do with the abnormalities of the Hu Family Mine.
The things he did—Jiang Wang felt uncomfortable just hearing about them and couldn't bear to listen further.
This deepened his dislike for Ge Heng, but now was not the time to settle old scores.
"Other things... things that wouldn't normally happen..."
Xiao Xiao thought for a while, then said: "Last year, someone said they saw a glowing sheep in the mine shaft. Everyone was puzzled—how could there be a sheep in the mine shaft? And how could a sheep glow? But he swore solemnly, and he didn't seem like he was lying... A strange thing, that probably counts."
"What happened to that person?"
"He was never seen again after that. I heard he went back to his hometown."
People in mining areas like these came and went with normal regularity, and their origins and such couldn't always be verified. Basically, once someone left, they just left.
But Jiang Wang caught a whiff of coincidence in this.
"When did this happen last year?"
"I can't remember exactly. Maybe around August or September?"
It was now April. Just over half a year ago at the Hu Family Mine—which would be around the winter months—someone had trespassed on the mine grounds at night and been spotted by a Transcendent cultivator stationed there.
A battle had ensued between them.
After that, the Transcendent cultivator had also left the mine.
And pushing the timeline back a few months further was what Xiao Xiao had described: a miner seeing a sheep in the mine shaft.
After that, the miner had also departed.
It was hard to say whether these two incidents had any necessary connection. But their commonality was clear: the people involved had all left, with no follow-up.
If you put them together, the traces of artifice were unmistakable.
"The cultivator who lived here half a year ago..." Jiang Wang chose his words carefully: "What kind of person was he? Can you tell me about him?"
Because Xiao Xiao had been that cultivator's maid before. After he left, old man Ge had "taken" her over.
So when asking questions, Jiang Wang tried to be considerate of her feelings.
Xiao Xiao lowered her head. Her expression was hidden from view.
The Sea of Blossoms was not some specialized intelligence-interrogation Dao Art. In its current application, it was at most equivalent to Xiao Xiao chatting in a relaxed state.
"It's all right. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to," Jiang Wang said.
"He... wasn't much different from the other masters. At most, he wouldn't hit me."
Jiang Wang understood clearly that so-called maids had very little autonomy. The maids in the Hu Family Mine could in large part be directly called the cultivators' playthings.
For many Transcendent cultivators, there was no grand future, no noble ideal. The pursuit of decadent pleasure was their true reason for seeking transcendence.
Even a weak cultivator who had fallen to guarding a mine, like old man Ge, never forgot to enjoy himself as much as possible.
Jiang Wang nodded and was about to end the topic.
But Xiao Xiao continued: "He... he said he would take care of me, protect me, and... take me away."
Even under the influence of the Sea of Blossoms, the words came with difficulty. In her normal state, she would never have said them out loud.
After all... to many people, this was laughable.
A Transcendent cultivator promising to look after and protect a mere maid?
Even if Xiao Xiao had been swept off her feet at the time and not found it laughable, by now she should have realized how absurd it was.
Because the result was obvious—when that cultivator left, Xiao Xiao didn't even know what had happened.
"Thank you for telling me this," Jiang Wang said, and dispelled the Sea of Blossoms.
Xiao Xiao felt only a momentary daze before returning to her normal state. She looked down at the tips of her feet.
"My allowance—you can go to Steward Hu directly to collect it," Jiang Wang said. "Whatever needs to be added to the courtyard, arrange it yourself. I won't be involved."
The compensation he had negotiated with Steward Hu was primarily in Dao Source Stones. For some gold and silver coins needed for daily life, the mine would hardly be stingy toward a Transcendent cultivator.
Giving her something to do could improve the little maid's mood.
Summer had arrived, and the air was beginning to feel oppressive.
Jiang Wang glanced at the sky beyond the courtyard. It was dark and heavy.
It was about to rain.