Six hundred li was not a considerable distance for cultivators.
The two did not head directly to Anyang City.
Instead, they descended in a small town called Wang'an, dozens of li away from Anyang.
By the time they arrived, night had already fallen.
Wang'an Town, nestled against a canal, was brightly lit and bustling with noise and activity.
Su Jiu chose a rather grand-looking inn and stepped inside.
The sharp-eyed attendant, noticing their extraordinary attire and ethereal bearing, immediately greeted them with a beaming smile.
"Honored guests, will you be dining or staying the night?"
Su Jiu walked ahead, her aloof demeanor keeping the attendant from getting too close.
"Staying. Two upper-class rooms."
"Right away! Two upper-class rooms!"
The innkeeper behind the counter, hearing this, promptly echoed the order and reached for the ledger to record it.
However, his peripheral gaze inadvertently caught the seemingly carefree young man behind Su Jiu.
The young man was facing him, wearing a meaningful smile.
With his left hand, he raised a single finger and gave it a slight shake.
Meanwhile, his right hand casually tossed a half-piece of low-grade spirit stone, making it flicker in and out of sight.
The innkeeper's movements abruptly halted.
His shrewd eyes, honed from years of dealing with countless guests, instantly gleamed with greed.
If he couldn't understand this hint, decades of business would have been wasted!
Clearly, this young rogue wanted to share a room with the fairy-like maiden!
The innkeeper's mind raced as he fidgeted with the ledger in his hands.
When he looked up again, his face bore an exaggerated expression of distress, as if facing an insurmountable dilemma.
"Honored guests..."
He dragged out his words, oozing apology.
"Unfortunately, you've arrived a bit late today."
Su Jiu frowned slightly at his words.
"What do you mean?"
The innkeeper sighed, his wrinkles bunching up.
"You see, for some reason, several merchant caravans from the south arrived today and booked all our upper-class rooms."
As he spoke, he pointed conspicuously at the burly men drinking and rowdily playing finger-guessing games in a corner of the hall.
"Now, we only have one celestial-class room left."
Su Jiu followed his gesture and saw the men indeed wore matching attire, clearly part of the same group.
She glanced back at Su Ji, her eyes questioning.
Su Ji shrugged innocently. "I'm fine with anything. Should we try another inn?"
This statement sent the innkeeper into a panic.
Not only might he lose the half-piece of spirit stone, but even the payment for two rooms could slip away!
This brat wasn’t playing along!
Here he was, trying to help the guy out, and he wasn’t even cooperating!
"Wait, wait!"
"Honored guest, you might not know this."
"For some reason, merchant caravans have been flooding in these past few days. At this hour, other inns will be fully booked too."
"Only my place is lucky enough to have one room left."
"If you leave now and can’t find lodging elsewhere, even this last room might be gone by the time you return."
Su Jiu felt an inexplicable irritation but kept her composure.
"Fine. One upper-class room, and one ordinary room."
To her surprise, the innkeeper’s face twisted further in distress.
He shook his head mournfully.
"Honored guest, you really don’t understand."
"Those merchants were extremely generous—they not only took the upper-class rooms but also all the ordinary ones for their guards and servants."
"Right now, our inn truly has only one room left."
Su Jiu was at a loss for words.
She instinctively looked at Su Ji again.
Seizing the moment, Su Ji leaned in as if to whisper in her ear, but she dodged and shot him a glare.
Her expression clearly said, "There are people watching. What are you trying to pull?"
Su Ji had half a mind to say "Exactly what you think," but feared retaliation.
Instead, he lowered his voice and offered a plausible explanation:
"Junior Sister, do you think these merchants might have been heading to Anyang City, only to find it a dead town, and are now stuck here trying to offload their goods?"
"Let’s stay here."
"We might even gather some useful information from them."
Su Jiu listened to his seemingly logical reasoning and reluctantly suppressed her discomfort.
After all, gathering intelligence was their top priority.
With a cold hum, she gave a barely perceptible nod—her silent consent.
The innkeeper, sensing victory, broke into a grin so wide his wrinkles resembled a blooming chrysanthemum.
The next second, his expression turned stern as he barked at the attendant:
"What are you standing around for, useless fool? Where are your manners? Escort our honored guests to the celestial-class room at once!"
"Right away!"
The attendant scurried to lead the way, bowing obsequiously.
Su Jiu strode forward without sparing Su Ji another glance.
Su Ji, unhurried, lagged half a step behind.
The innkeeper, quick on the uptake, sidled up to him with an ingratiating smile.
"Honored guest, how did I do? Was my performance satisfactory?"
He whispered, clearly fishing for praise.
Su Ji glanced at him and nodded.
"Very."
Then, without another word, he moved to follow Su Jiu.
The innkeeper froze, then hurried after him, his voice dropping to a hiss:
"And... the half-piece of spirit stone?"
Su Ji paused and turned, his face the picture of innocent confusion.
"I was just tossing it around for fun. Why?"
The innkeeper: "..."
His smile stiffened, then his face flushed a deep, mottled red.
It felt like a punch to the gut—his chest tightened with frustration.
After decades of outsmarting others, today he’d been outsmarted by this brat!
Rage surged to the top of his skull—
But then his eyes landed on the black cloth-wrapped spear strapped to Su Ji’s back and the two conspicuously valuable swords at his waist.
The fury evaporated like a bucket of ice water dumped over his head.
Forcing a smile even uglier than a grimace, the innkeeper resigned himself to the loss.
Just as he was about to slink away—
A half-piece of low-grade spirit stone, glinting faintly, landed softly in his palm.
Su Ji’s voice followed:
"Prepare a good meal later."
"Keep the rest as a tip. Enough?"
The innkeeper clutched the spirit stone, utterly dumbfounded.
What... what kind of game was this?
He stammered, "Enough! More than enough, young master!"
This was an unexpected windfall indeed!
reezy rom-com) Good news: Jiang Liu is quite the ladies' man. Bad news: He’s lost his memory. Lying in a hospital bed, Jiang Liu listens to a parade of goddesses spouting "absurd claims," feeling like the world is one giant game of Werewolf. "Jiang Liu, I’m your first love." "Jiang Liu, you’re my boyfriend—she’s your ex." "Jiang Liu, we’re close friends who’ve shared a bed, remember?" "Jiang Liu, I want to have your baby." The now-lucid Jiang Liu is convinced this must be some elaborate scam... until someone drops the bombshell: "The day before you lost your memory, you confessed your feelings—and got into a relationship." Jiang Liu is utterly baffled. So... who the hell is his actual girlfriend?! ... Before recovering his memories, Jiang Liu must navigate this minefield of lies and sincerity, fighting to protect himself from these women’s schemes. But things spiral even further out of control as more people show up at his doorstep—each with increasingly unhinged antics. On the bright side, the memories he lost due to overwhelming trauma seem to be resurfacing. Great news, right? So why are they all panicking now?
Heart] Chen Yi traversed the cultivation world for eight hundred years, charging his way to the Tribulation Transcendence stage. Just as he was outwitting his 81st Heavenly Tribulation to ascend to immortality, he was suddenly pulled into a chat group called the "Multiverse Transmigrators Support Group." To his surprise, the group was filled with nothing but fresh-faced newbies who had just transmigrated. [Help! I transmigrated into a disgraced concubine in the cold palace, and the tyrant emperor is about to execute me!] [I ended up as a cannon-fodder villain, and the protagonist is still chasing me—WTF!] [I woke up as the protagonist’s father, but I’m about to be sacrificed in a ritual! What do I do? Urgent!!!] Chen Yi stared at the chaotic flood of desperate pleas in the group and fell into deep thought. "Seriously? You drag me into a newbie transmigrator chat group… only after I’m one step away from becoming an immortal?"
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
