Vehicles were pouring into Bai Town around the clock, quickly filling up this small mountainous city that was used to its casual and peaceful lifestyle. As the number of the lookers-on arriving in town grew, the public order of the city was threatened by all the accompanying hidden perils.
The municipal government was having a headache. After sending out all the personnel they could spare, they went to talk to Old Shui, basically saying "Since all these people are here for Phoenix Mountain, we can't be the one taking all the bullets if anything goes wrong. You lot can't just stand there and watch, can you?"
Old Shui laughed. "Are you kidding me? We have like ten people on the mountain, and the most we can do is to keep the surrounding area of Phoenix Mountain safe. Anything beyond that is not our problem.'"
The government responded quickly to that without even blinking their eyes—from Phoenix Fair on the south to the ancient city on the east, almost a half of Bai Town was circled out as "surrounding area".
To be honest, it was a genuine concern. Since the two "parents" did not have time for this, Old Shui went to discuss with Xiaojin, and decided to keep an eye on the city. Hence, Li Dong, Guo Fei, and several others all went down the mountain. Yan Han also closed the Pavilion of Gems temporarily, coming to Bai Town to help.
"Beep! Beep!"
Dai Han drove into the downtown area in his seafood transportation truck, and found a street corner to park with much difficulty. His elderly parents were right behind him, driving another minivan.
"Didn't you say you found a place to live for us? Where the hell is it?" his dad asked as soon as he got off the van. Moving to a strange city was making everyone flustered.
"I asked a friend to find it for me, but he's not picking up his phone!" Dai Han was equally anxious. The friend he'd contacted was none other than Yan Han, whom Dai Han had become acquainted with after supplying the shop with a few batches of big-toe thickshell turtles. The fellow had promised Dai Han to help him rent a place, and asked Dai Han to call him after they arrived at Bai Town, but Dai Han could not reach him now.
"Why are there so many people in this crappy little town? I told you we shouldn't come, but you just wouldn't listen! See what happens now? We're gonna sleep on the street tonight!" Mother Dai was even more short-tempered, and her complaints were flying out like sharp little knives.
"..."
Dai Han dared not talk back, and could only dial the number repeatedly.
"Hey, are you three new in town? From Yueyang, right?"
Just then, a small man came out of nowhere, and there was something familiar about him.
Yes, with a peaked cap, an outdoor jacket, and a messenger bag across his shoulder, he looked exactly the type that one could find in every city and that one would try to avoid, for he might block your way the next moment, asking, "Hey, mate, do you need dvd/cellphone/tickets/girls/a room?"
Dai Han had met enough of such people to recognize one. He raised his guard right away. "Who are you?"
"Hehe, just see me as an information provider." The man opened his bag and took out a pamphlet, then said patiently, "There's no need to beat around the bush—we all know why we're here in Bai Town. I make a living by gathering information, which is the only thing I'm good at. Check it out."
'Hm?'
Dai Han took the pamphlet and flipped through it. The contents were printed badly on low-quality paper. Some of the pictures were even hand-drawn.
However, the information inside was quite substantial, covering the 5000 km^2 of Bai Town from Shali Village on the west to Simenzi on the east. Everything was marked out clearly: geography, layout, demographics, where to go for the basic necessities in the downtown area, and even the dangerous and safe zones of mutated creatures in the surrounding area.
He was surprised by all the information, and was going to read into it when a hand covered the page. The man grinned. "A thousand yuan and it's yours!"
"This crap is a thousand yuan? This is robbery!" Mother Dai said angrily.
"Sister, you're insulting me." Taking back the pamphlet with a straight face, the man said, "The whole country now knows about the real immortals up on Phoenix Mountain. Didn't you see that video the other day? That was a Sky-turning Seal hammering the ground! Don't tell me you're not interested, or you wouldn't be here!
"I see that your whole family is here, so I presume you're going to settle down in Bai Town? Well, then you'll have to get used to the environment, and that's where my pamphlet comes in handy. It'll save you a lot of trouble. Is a thousand yuan too much for that?"
'Man!'
You got to give it to this know-it-all. Mother Dai hesitated at this glib salesman's words. Dai Han was impatient by now, and took out his phone. "Fine, I'll take one. You accept wechat transfer?"
"Of course!"
The two finished the transaction with a swipe of their phones. Dai Han winced a little at the man's online ID: Sunny Lemon Tea.
Holy sh*t! Wasn't that the name of that app user obsessed with data who had compiled a map of the mutated creatures of the country? Dai Han was a big fan, but he had never thought the real person behind that ID could be so vulgar.
The two befriended each other on wechat, and the man added, "Feel free to come to me if you need help. I charge by the hour. Byebye!"
With that, the fellow happily waved them goodbye, and went on to swindle the next family.
'Tsk! Tsk!'
It got Dai Han thinking: nowadays, any expertize could turn out to be useful. He had decided to make friends with this guy. Maybe he would become the walking encyclopedia of the cultivation world someday.
***
"We're fully booked. Please try someswhere else."
"I'm sorry, but our last suite has just been booked."
"The windowless single room is gone, too. Sorry!"
"Sister, are you telling me that the letting agents have no rooms available, either?"
"Why, sorry, man, but everything I have—to let or for sale—has been taken a month ago."
"And your agent is still open when you have no properties?"
"Where did that question come from? Who are you to tell me how to run a business?"
All right, the family of three followed the markings on the pamphlet and began to search for a place to live on each street in turn. Their criteria were dropping very fast—first from long-term accommodation to short-term tenancy, then to hotel rooms, and even the cheapest bunkhouses… there was no spare room!
Along their way, they saw people of all sorts of social status coming into this city with all their accents. Everyone looked so fearless and filled with aspiration.
This city had gone insane. It was as if a vast sea of fire that could explode at any time, burning everyone into ashes, was brewing underground.
It was noon when they arrived; half a day had passed during their search. As the sun began to set, they were forced to accept the fact that they had sleep in their vehicles tonight. Just then, Dai Han's phone finally rang.
"Man, I'm so sorry. There's just so much work." Yan Han arrived in a hurry twenty minutes later. Annoyed as he was, Dai Han couldn't say anything. He only asked, "What have you been busy with?"
"What else? All these people! They're talking about nothing but going onto the mountain every day, and it's going crazy. We foot soldiers are working our a*ses off!"
Despite the complaint, one could see the gloating look in his eyes. There were foot soldiers and foot soldiers. What would you call the hireling of an immortal?
"Here, let me take you to the place. I have to go back in a moment."
Soon, they zigzagged through the alleys into an old residential area. The walls were so old that one could not tell their original color. They climbed the stairs all the way up to the sixth floor and saw that it was one of those old-school layouts with two flats on each floor.
Once the door was opened, the first thing came to their heads was "Such a dump!"
The 60-m^2 flat had two bedrooms and a living room. In the bathroom was a squat toilet; a gas cylinder stood in the kitchen, covered by a layer of greas thicker than the wall.
Kids nowadays probably didn't even know what a gas cylinder was.
"Are, are we going to live here?"
Mother Dai didn't like it at all. They were affluent people back at home, living in their two-story villa, but now, they had travelled a thousand miles to live in this sh*thole?
"Auntie, this belongs to a distant relative of mine, and they were doing me a big favor to keep it. Do you have any idea how much a place like is sold for?"
Before she could answer, Yan Han stuck out a finger, "A million at least!"
"Then, then at least we can have somewhere clean! This is filthy!"
"All right, all right. We're here, aren't we? Just trust the kid. Let's begin cleaning up."
Father Dai was better at adjusting and took his wife away to clean the room. They didn't have to worry about the luggage. Two physical laborers had been waiting downstairs, and were carrying things up right away.
Dai Han pulled Yan Han to the side and asked quietly, "Brother Yan, I've come here because I want to open a shop in the market town. Any shop will do. Can you help me with it?"
"Um…" Yan Han frowned. "That's gonna be a problem. It's not that I don't want to help you, but I really don't have the liberty to. Half of the 688 shops in the market town has already been booked, and the other half is left for common people. That being said, you have to have something worth selling for to get you a place."
"Can you name a price? We'll try…"
"That's not what I meant. Money has nothing to do with this. If it can be solved by money, it won't be a problem. A lot of Tuhao are lining outside, but they're not getting in!" Yan Han interrupted his chubby friend, and patted the latter on the shoulder partly out of sincerity, and partly to show off. "My man, Bai Town is rising, and life here is not going to be easy!"
"Well…" Frowning, Dai Han did not speak for a moment. He believed that Yan Han was not lying to him. The market town was set up by the immortals, and it was only natural that they should set the criteria high.
His face lit up moments later. "Brother Yan. Come with me! Let me show you something!"
After that, he led Yan Han down the building to his seafood transportation truck.
The door of the container was opened with a clunk, and damp air rushed out. Looking in, Yan Han was a little surprised. Inside a specially made box with water and oxygen pumps were two tiny soft-shelled turtles.
They were about the size of a plate, and had it not been for their occasional movements, they'd have almost looked dead.
At the first glance, they looked like any ordinary soft-shelled turtles. However, the two years running the Pavilion of Gems had given Yan Han a pair of sharp eyes. The turtles had extremely small eyes, big nostrils, and strange patterns on their heads. Their shells had neatly arranged patterns and were lustrously black.
They were big-toe thickshell turtles! And they were a pair!
"Are they a male and a female?" He was not so sure.
"Yup, one each and very alive."
"Haha! That's awesome!" Yan Han gave him a friendly nudge, asking, "Where did you get them?"
"They were so popular that those in our ponds soon sold out. We then bought some baby ones, trying to see if they could mutate again. This was about half a year ago; most of them turned out to be normal. We have given up, but the day before our departure, I went to check in the pond again. Well, there they were!" Dai Han had also been amazed by this discovery.
The thickshell turtles before—including those taken by the government for research—all mutated after they reached maturity. Maybe that affected them in some way, but none of them were willing to mate, and naturally laid no eggs.
These two, however, had mutated when they were babies, which made them worth cultivating. If they could reproduce successfully, artificial breeding would be made possible.
For now, the value of the thickshell turtle mainly lay in its shell—which could be made into simple defensive refined instrument—and its meat—which contained trace amount of spiritual essence, and was edible for common people.
Dai Yan was a smart guy; he added, "Brother, I'm not bragging here—I might be useless in a lot of things, but talking about breeding soft-shelled turtles, my family has been doing this for three generations! Do you think this is enough for a small shop?"