First Meeting with Wu Xin

"Good morning, Madam!"

"Good morning, Seventh Lady!"

A chorus of greetings rang out across the shabby camp. In his daze, Gu Sheng seemed to hear a very familiar set of footsteps. He twitched his nose in his sleep, as though he had caught the scent of breakfast.

"Slurp~ Slurp~"

Gu Sheng’s ears twitched. Someone seemed to be eating! He opened his eyes groggily, and the first thing he saw was Liu Daimei’s beautiful upside-down face. Turning his head, he saw that Gu Xuanwu had indeed opened the food container Liu Daimei had brought for him and was wolfing down a bowl of noodles.

"Old Zhang, you’re awake! Have some noodles! Don’t be shy, come on, come on!"

Seeing Gu Sheng staring at him, Gu Xuanwu showed not the slightest sign of embarrassment. He lifted the bowl, now more than half empty, and called out to him, wearing a shameless grin.

"You ate that much? Aren’t you afraid you’ll burst?"

Gu Sheng tossed him that remark, then looked up at Liu Daimei. "How long have you been here?"

"Not long! I only just arrived."

Liu Daimei shook her head and sat down beside the bed. She pulled Gu Sheng’s head onto her lap, then looked down at him with a smile. "Do you want to get up and have breakfast? I brought plenty more."

"No. I don’t have an appetite right now. Let me sleep a little longer!"

Gu Sheng smiled at her, shifted into a more comfortable position in her arms, and closed his eyes again.

"You. Go outside and eat!"

After holding Gu Sheng’s head for a while, Liu Daimei ordered the stunned Gu Xuanwu, who had been caught off guard and stuffed full of public displays of affection. She pointed toward the tent, clearly indicating that Commander Gu should take the hint and get out.

"Uh~"

Gu Xuanwu shuddered under Liu Daimei’s gaze. He hastily swallowed the noodles in his mouth, then carried his bowl and ran outside.

When Gu Sheng woke again, the area outside was bustling with noise. He had just turned his head when Liu Daimei, who had been watching the tent entrance, looked down at him. "Why are you awake? Did you get enough rest?"

"I did. If I sleep any longer, I’ll waste away!"

Gu Sheng shook his head and stood up, stretching and loosening his muscles. Although his strength was formidable, he was still somewhat lazy. Besides, his sleep had never been very good since entering Lord God Space, so whenever he got the chance to fall asleep, he would never easily dispel his drowsiness.

Liu Daimei knew that Gu Sheng’s sleep quality was poor, so she had always been very accommodating when it came to his sleeping.

"What’s going on outside? Gu Mengmeng is arguing with someone."

Gu Sheng noticed the commotion outside while stretching. With his current cultivation, hearing the conversation outside would have been easy, but he had deliberately sealed away most of his abilities and was living like an ordinary person.

It wasn’t because he had lost his mind and wanted to experience life. It was because he wanted to become stronger.

Once one reached the Xiantian stage, merely accumulating strength was no longer useful. Without corresponding insights into power, no matter how many Heavenly Treasures one consumed, one’s limits would remain firmly fixed. It was impossible to trigger a qualitative transformation.

Why did some cultivators at higher realms like to experience and comprehend ordinary life? Wasn’t it because doing so made it easier to "see" the world clearly and gain insights?

Gu Sheng’s current strength could barely be considered high, and his Xiantian Void Core cultivation was passable. But the solid core and Golden Core stages that followed required one to comprehend the state of the True Self. He still had no sufficient clue about that, so he had adopted this method to see whether he could gain some insight and draw connections by analogy.

"What are you making such a racket about? It’s early in the morning, and you two are still squabbling endlessly!"

Even after Gu Sheng finished stretching, the two people outside were still arguing without pause. His bad temper flared at once. He walked outside and shouted at them without the slightest courtesy.

Gu Xuanwu immediately ran over to Gu Sheng’s side. Pointing at the man across from him—a fellow with a crew cut dressed like a Sorcerer—he shouted, "Old Zhang, you be the judge! This guy opened his mouth and demanded ten thousand silver dollars. He said he’d refuse to do the job if we didn’t pay, and he even said he’d lure that Female Ghost out to deal with us."

"Not so! Not so!"

Wu Xin started throwing around fancy words. "I merely asked Lord Gu to pay a little more in incense money. After all, this is dangerous work. That Female Fiend won’t be easy to deal with. I might even lose my life in there!"

"Too much. One thousand silver dollars."

Gu Sheng had no desire to waste words with Wu Xin. Paying this fake monk was already a waste. He had only handled half the job, then decided to spare the Female Fiend because he thought she had died unjustly. Afterward, he had raised his price on the spot, nearly causing a disaster. How was that any different from those Putian medical practitioners?

If Wu Xin had truly been in danger of losing his life while dealing with the Female Fiend, that would have been understandable. After all, everyone only had one life. Why risk it for money that hadn’t even reached his hands?

But Wu Xin was different! He simply couldn’t die. Last night, he could have chased the Female Fiend to the bottom of the well and destroyed her, but the man had deliberately held back. He had even leisurely haggled with Gu Xuanwu. Did he really think that sparing the Female Fiend once would make her obey him?

"Nine hundred silver dollars. You didn’t act honorably. You could have destroyed that thing in one go, yet you deliberately let her off and nearly got someone killed."

Gu Sheng wasn’t about to show this man any courtesy. Pointing at a guard who seemed to have arrived that morning, he said, "This boy’s father—a sixty-seven-year-old man, someone’s husband and the father of his children—"

"He would rather stay up all night himself than let this boy risk his life guarding the house. That good old man was nearly killed by the evil fiend yesterday. If something had really happened to him, you would have had to answer for his life. And you’re still haggling with me now. Do you think my gun is just for show?"

"Click~"

A bullet slid into the chamber. The pistol at Gu Sheng’s waist was already pressed against Wu Xin’s head.

"I don’t know what kind of bullshit compassion possessed you. I only know that before you came, that Female Fiend had already taken the life of one of our brothers—skinning him, gouging out his eyes, ripping out his heart and bones. There wasn’t even a human shape left. And you actually showed mercy to something like that. Do you even have a heart?"

Sometimes, Gu Sheng truly couldn’t understand how certain people thought. Letting someone off just because they had died unjustly—wasn’t that insane?

Of course, after saying all that, Gu Sheng was actually feeling a little guilty. Wu Xin wasn’t the only one who had spared the Female Fiend. He had done so too. If he had truly been willing to go all out, the Female Fiend would never have escaped to the bottom of the well on the first night.

However, he had refrained from killing the Female Fiend at the time to preserve his advantage of foresight. Of course, he believed he was better than the Thief Monk Wu Xin in one respect: he had genuinely dealt the Female Fiend a severe injury and made proper arrangements to ensure she would have no chance to harm anyone else.

"This…"

Wu Xin was at a loss for words. He didn’t know what to say or how to explain himself. Could he say that he hadn’t expected the Female Fiend to be so powerful, or that she would continue harming people even after being injured? Wouldn’t that ruin his reputation?