aggrieved
You could hear a pin drop in the side hall.
Tu Shanlan closed her eyes in pain, pinching her brow hard with her fingers. Ao Ming's mouth was agape; he had forgotten the pain in his still-swollen cheek, only a blank stare remained. Even the God of Wealth of the North Road, sitting in the main seat, froze in mid-air as he stroked his beard, his kind smile completely petrified.
In the suffocating silence, only the chubby little golden dragon broke the deadlock.
"My goodness! Little sister, your eyes are brighter than the luminous pearl in my Dragon Palace!" Daqiangzi was not intimidated by this blunt and terrifying question. Instead, he proudly puffed out his round, golden belly and slapped his chest with his little paws, making the golden scales buzz.
"Absolutely! Pure! Purest of all! Our Golden Dragon has been this pure since birth!!"
His large, clear eyes, like glass, sparkled with the pride of being recognized. He even swung his fat tail in front of Qian Jin and said generously, "Don't believe me? Tap it! Listen to the sound, isn't it crisp? It makes the same sound as a gold ingot!"
Qian Jin's fingers involuntarily reached towards the dazzling tip of the tail, his fingertips trembling with the reverence of an archaeologist discovering the Imperial Seal of the State.
"Cough! Cough cough cough!" The God of Wealth from North Road finally regained his voice from the shock. He quickly changed the subject, "Um... Da Qiangzi! Let's get down to business! Getting down to business is important!"
Tu Shanlan and Ao Ming also seemed to snap out of their daze, quickly stepping forward and practically dragging Qian Jin back to her seat. Ao Ming lowered her voice, gritting her teeth: "Qian Jin! Stop it! Your drool is dripping onto my sleeve! That's a colleague! Alive!"
Qian Jin reluctantly tore his gaze away from the dragon scales, smacked his lips with lingering satisfaction, and muttered softly, "Knowing it's alive... living things are more valuable, you know, sustainable production, don't you understand..."
Tu Shanlan glanced at her helplessly before turning to the God of Wealth of the North Road and said solemnly, "God of Wealth, Da Qiangzi has already explained the whole story. The most urgent task is to quell the turmoil outside the palace gates."
The sorrow on the face of the God of Wealth of the North deepened. He sighed heavily, a sigh that seemed to carry the biting chill of the North: "Alas, you do not know this. The most troublesome thing right now is not those aggrieved people crying and wailing at the palace gate."
He paused, his fingers unconsciously tapping on the icy jade armrest.
“The most critical thing is,” his voice deepened, carrying the heavy weight of an impending storm, “that because of this farce, the entire ‘Northern Icefield Trade Route Revitalization Prayer’ project has been urgently halted by the higher-ups!”
"Stop?!" Tu Shanlan and Ao Ming exclaimed in surprise at the same time. Even Qian Jin looked up, the infatuation in her eyes for Jin Lin instantly replaced by astonishment.
The project failed, which means that all the subsequent large sums of money for offerings and potential profits will be lost!
“Exactly.” The God of Wealth of the Northern Route rubbed his temples wearily. “This matter has caused quite a stir and had a very negative impact! The higher-ups believe there were major flaws in the execution of the prayer, leading to a large-scale backlash from believers and severely damaging the credibility of the God of Wealth’s Palace. Until the truth is thoroughly investigated and the dispute is properly resolved, all prayers, resource allocation, and divine blessings related to the entire Northern Trade Route are suspended!”
He glanced at a jade slip spread out on the table, its surface covered with dense, dim runes.
"This project involves an extremely wide range of interests, including tribal trade in the far northern snowfields, the supply of spiritual materials from the major immortal sects and merchant guilds, and even a portion of the transshipment profits between the Netherworld and the human world. Everything depends on the vitality of this trade route. Now that it has been suddenly frozen, it's like pulling one thread and affecting the whole body! The pressure from all sides is almost tearing the roof off my palace!"
Hearing this, Daqiangzi, who had been curled up on the table wagging its tail, drooped its head and nervously scratched at the table with its little paws: "It's all my fault... my lousy mouth..."
"There's no point in talking about this now," Sister Lan waved her hand. "The most urgent thing is to contact the representatives of those aggrieved parties outside the palace as soon as possible. We need to know what they did after meeting with Daqiangzi and why they ended up bankrupt. Only by finding the root cause can we address the problem, quell the situation, and have a chance to restart the project!"
“That’s right.” The God of Wealth of the North Road nodded. “The three of them, Master Wang, Manager Li, and Boss Zhao, as representatives of wealthy merchants, should still be outside the palace gates at this moment. I have already ordered someone to invite them in, and they are waiting to be questioned in the side hall next door.”
---
In the adjacent side hall, the chill seemed even greater than outside. Three middle-aged men, dressed in thick brocade furs but with troubled expressions, sat uneasily on ice-jade chairs.
Their eyes darted around, exchanging uneasy glances.
The door was pushed open, and Tu Shanlan, Ao Ming, and Qian Jin walked in. The Northern God of Wealth did not personally arrive, to ensure impartiality. However, the pervasive divine pressure in the hall silently reminded everyone whose territory this was.
The fat man, Master Wang, who was in charge, immediately fell to the ground and wailed, "Your Honor! You must do justice for us! That evil dragon! He cursed us! He caused us to lose everything and our families to be destroyed!" He cried so hard that his face was covered with snot and tears, and his fat body twisted on the ground as if he was suffering a great injustice.
Beside him, the tall, thin shopkeeper Li, with a goatee, looked like he had been deeply shocked and was on the verge of collapse. He clutched his chest and coughed violently, his voice weak: "Cough cough... Immortal Official... We... We are all devout believers, and we have never failed to make offerings every year... Who knew... Who knew we would suffer such a calamity... That evil dragon... cough cough cough... His heart is despicable!" He coughed so hard that it was as if he would die at any moment.
Finally, the last one, Mr. Zhao, with his shiny bald head and fleshy face, looked furious. He slammed his hand on the ice jade table and roared, "Why are you arguing with these celestial officials! Pay up! Compensate us for all our losses! Otherwise... otherwise we'll smash up your God of Wealth Temple!" His eyes were fierce, but he clearly lacked confidence and was all bark and no bite.
Tu Shanlan remained calm, letting them perform for a moment before slowly speaking. Her voice was clear and melodious, carrying a calming power yet also containing an undeniable authority: "The three of you, please calm down. You keep saying that you went bankrupt because you followed the Golden Dragon's decree. But money doesn't just disappear into thin air. What exactly did you do?"
“We…we just listened to him!” Master Wang pounded the ground. “He said to go to the West! We thought…we thought there was a way to make money in the West…”
"Bullshit!" Ao Ming, unable to contain himself any longer, interrupted him with a sneer. The dragon race's keen sense of aura allowed him to detect something amiss. He narrowed his eyes, carefully examining the three of them. "Why... do you have a faint demonic aura about you? Speak! Where did you go? What kind of monster did you see?" He took a step forward, his dragon might unconsciously emanating from him, causing the three mortals to instantly turn pale.
Qian Jin's gaze swept over the three of them as quickly as a highly accurate scanner.
“Heh,” Qian Jin snorted softly, his voice not loud, but clearly reaching everyone’s ears, “Master Wang, the Fire Spirit Jade mouthpiece of your pipe is of good quality, worth at least fifty mid-grade spirit stones, right? Manager Li, is the ice silk lining warm enough? This material, in the mortal world, you couldn’t get it for less than a hundred taels of gold per foot, right? Boss Zhao, your golden nanmu ebony bracelet… tsk, it’s polished to a high gloss, probably a family heirloom.”
She paused, her clear eyes revealing a knowing understanding as she looked at the three pale-faced men. "Bankruptcy? You three bosses, even a single, inconspicuous trinket you own could cost an ordinary person several lifetimes. This bankruptcy is certainly unique."
Tu Shanlan added at the opportune moment, her tone carrying a chilling warning: "The God of Wealth of the Northern Road has said that if you do not tell the truth and harbor deceit, then you, along with your descendants and clan, will be followed by the God of Poverty for all eternity. You must have heard of what it's like to be possessed by the God of Poverty? That's the real deal: you'll choke on water, trip while walking, your rice will be infested with worms, and you'll always lose money when you sell goods. Generation after generation, you'll never have a chance to turn your life around."
The words "God of Poverty" were like the last straw that broke the camel's back, completely shattering the three's feigned composure and performance.
"Immortal Official, spare me! God of Wealth, spare me!" Master Wang was the first to break down, tears streaming down his face. "We'll tell! We'll tell! We...we weren't telling the truth!"
Manager Li hurriedly chimed in, no longer daring to feign illness: "It's...it's because we were bewitched! We were insatiable!"
Boss Zhao slumped down, a layer of cold sweat on his bald head: "We...we went to the Valley of Burial Souls!"
"The Valley of Burial Souls?" Tu Shanlan and Ao Ming exchanged a glance, both seeing the question in each other's eyes. Qian Jin also put away his playful expression and listened attentively.
“In our Northern caravan, there has always been an ancient legend.” Master Wang’s voice trembled with lingering fear. “It is said that in the far west, near the edge of the endless ice plains, there is a forbidden place called the Valley of Burial Souls. Legend has it that it is the place where an extremely powerful, and also extremely evil, great cultivator from ancient times passed away. That place is very evil and is listed as a forbidden area, but it is also… full of temptation.”
Shopkeeper Li continued, his eyes still gleaming with the greed of that time: "Legend has it that if you find the entrance to that secret realm and offer up your most treasured and precious possession, you might be able to have a wish granted! Whether it's becoming incredibly wealthy or achieving immortality... it's all possible!"
“But no one ever knew exactly where that place was or how to get there, and no one dared to go. Everyone just thought it was a scary story,” Boss Zhao said in a muffled voice, filled with regret. “Until…until that day, the three of us were praying for our future at the Temple of the God of Wealth, and the golden dragon said, ‘You’ll understand once you go to the West.’ The three of us were completely bewitched! We thought it was a divine revelation! That it was referring to the Valley of Burial Souls!”
"Yes! Yes!" Master Wang nodded vigorously. "We think that Lord Jinlong must be hinting that we should go there to find opportunities and make a fortune! So we secretly found a local old hunter who supposedly knows a bit about the business to be our guide, paid him a lot of money, and asked him to take us to the vicinity of Burial Valley!"
"And then? What happened?" Tu Shanlan pressed.
All three of them wore expressions of extreme fear and confusion.
"And then...and then things got really weird..." Master Wang's voice was erratic, as if he were lost in a nightmare. "We followed the old hunter for several days, walking through the ice fields and snow-capped mountains. The weather was getting colder and colder, and the fog was getting thicker and thicker. One evening, the fog was so thick that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Suddenly, the guide said, 'We're almost there,' and told us to wait where we were while he went to scout ahead...and then...and then he never came back..."
Shopkeeper Li shivered: "We were cold and scared at the time, and we wanted to go back, but we found... we were lost! No matter which way we went, it was like we were going around in circles! As it was getting dark, we seemed... we seemed to see something glowing in the fog, vaguely like the entrance to a valley... We don't know how we ended up walking there in a daze..."
Boss Zhao wiped the cold sweat from his bald head, still shaken: "And then... we all... we all fell asleep! Yes! We just fell asleep! Without any warning, our eyelids were so heavy we couldn't lift them! When we woke up... it was three days later! We were lying in a snowdrift dozens of miles away from our camp!"
"The most terrifying thing is!" Master Wang's voice trembled with tears, "When we woke up, we found that all the valuables we had with us—gold notes, silver notes, spirit stones, jewelry, even my ancestral jade pendant!—were gone! The storage bags for the goods were empty too! They were completely clean, like...like they had been licked by something!"
“We were terrified! We thought we had encountered a snow demon or a powerful robber!” Manager Li added. “But the three of us were all fine, without a single injury! We just felt extremely tired and weak… We didn’t dare to make a sound and secretly fled home.”
"So you're planning to cause trouble for the Golden Dragon?" Ao Ming raised an eyebrow, his tone sarcastic. "And then try to pin the losses on the God of Wealth's Mansion and extort compensation? You're even willing to incite so many people to storm the Celestial Palace?"
The three lowered their heads in shame, not daring to utter a word.
"What about the old hunter? He didn't have a single clue?" Ao Ming pressed.
“No… He’s nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead… He’s vanished into thin air…” Master Wang shook his head.
Ao Ming pondered for a moment. "There are many strange things about this matter. The remaining demonic energy may be the clue."
Lan Jie'er's fingertips tapped unconsciously on the ice jade tabletop. "It seems... we have to go to this Burial Valley of Souls."
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