Gu Shi Yi got off the carriage, left the small town, and returned to Blue Moon City. He found a secluded inn, locked himself in his room, and with a smug grin, he started counting the silver notes he had taken out from his embrace. Li Yaner watched from the side with a hand covering her mouth, giggling,
"Shiyi, you're really wicked, you wiped out all the silver notes from his bosom, how is he going to settle his bill?"
Gu Shi Yi said uncaringly,
"He had already lost everything earlier. These silver notes were all earned back by me... I'm merely retrieving them now. You don't need to worry about him, he's a son of the Gu Family, he never has to pay up front for his meals, it's all on account!"
What Gu Shi Yi didn't know was that at that very moment, Gu Yongping was going ballistic in a restaurant,
"What do you mean... I can't put it on the account anymore?"
The restaurant owner also wore a troubled expression,
"Tenth Master, it's not that I want to cause you trouble, but the word came from your family that you've taken too much silver from the residence lately, and the accounts office has been instructed not to cover your bills anymore, so..."
So I am asking you for the silver, don't dine and dash!
Gu Yongping, though furious, thought of the one thousand taels he won the previous day and didn't think much of it. He reached into his bosom and his face turned green. It was then that he realized what had happened and couldn't help but curse loudly at the street,
"Li Shiyi, you son of a bitch, you're scamming me across the river!"
He had seen a lot in the gambling circles and thought that Li Shiyi was one of those swindlers who preyed in the Itinerant World, a grifter making a living in gambling dens. Yesterday, the boy won nearly five thousand taels together with him in the Gambling House. If Li Shiyi had been on his own, he probably wouldn't have made it out of the small town, so he set his sights on the status of the Gu Family young master, borrowing his influence and relying on the gambling house owner's fear of offending the Gu Family to make a safe escape from the town!
"Damn it, you use me to cross the river and also swindle me out of a meal, you're getting too extreme!"
He didn't even leave a single silver for me!
No matter how much Gu Yongping cursed, it was no use; by now, Li Shiyi had made a clean getaway!
Currently, there was no hope of obtaining silver from the public fund, but since he had his own silver, he ordered the Waiter,
"Go back and tell my wife, say to send someone over to take care of the bill!"
"Yes!"
The waiter ran off to the Gu Residence and soon returned with a bitter face,
"Tenth Master, when I went to the residence and inquired, that... that wife... the wife..."
"What did the wife say?"
Gu Yongping, seeing the waiter's hesitance, suddenly had a bad feeling,
"The wife... the wife... had the gatekeeper tell me that there's no such person in the residence and they wouldn't give me any silver!"
"I..."
Gu Yongping felt like he truly hit a streak of bad luck that day, as if everyone picked today to be at odds with him!
Li Shiyi!
If I see you again, if you don't want Gu Yongping to break your legs, then don't let me see you!
In Blue Moon City, Gu Shi Yi counted the silver notes with an easy smile, and Li Yaner laughed,
"We have enough silver notes to last us a while now!"
Ha ha!
Indeed, wealth disperses and comes back again; with skills... the silver really comes effortlessly!
The dice in that Gambling House were all rigged; the dealer could roll any number they wanted, big or small. Gu Shi Yi did nothing but use a Reverse Blinding Technique when passing by the dealer, causing him to confuse the big and small numbers. After that, when the house bet big, she bet small, and when the house bet small, she bet big, naturally winning as much as she desired!
Gu Shi Yi carefully stored the silver and said to Li Yaner,
"This time, I went into the Gambling House to lure Gu Yongping out. The old fellow warned me before, not to use Taoist Techniques for deception. I've slightly broken the rules this time, so this silver can't all be used for ourselves; we have to use it to help the poor too!"
The old man said it long ago, using Taoist techniques to harm and deceive others only diminishes your own moral virtue. If your moral virtue suffers, it damages your Taoist heart and is harmful for your next life. So, no matter what others do, the old man, even if poor enough to be eating the Northwest wind with me, never wished to take the evil path using Taoist techniques.
In the past, Gu Shi Yi was quite indifferent,
"Those Gambling Houses set up Feng Shui Formations and cheat all the time, don't they?"
The Old Taoist Priest then said,
"If they do it, it's their moral virtue that is diminished. If you do it, it's your moral virtue that is diminished. They might enjoy this life, but in the next, they'll become beasts of burden, whipped and driven by others. Do you wish for that as well?"
Mortals are dull-witted, only worried about this life and not the next. We, as practitioners of the Tao, naturally cannot be like them!
Gu Shi Yi used to often criticize the Old Taoist Priest internally for his lustful and greedy tendencies while still holding onto such inexplicable principles, refusing to be flexible. Yet now, with the old man gone, she firmly remembered his words and didn't dare to violate them at all!