Chapter 42
Chapter 42: A yun zhou continent Tour Route?
The new players’ situations were mostly the same.
In a lot of families, there just weren’t many people who played games—unless they were the same generation. And this was VR. Most elders hadn’t even heard of it. The moment a player tried to explain, their family wrote it off as nonsense or a nervous breakdown.
Only a handful managed to persuade siblings, or relatives who’d watched them gaming for years.
A case like Liang Xue Yao’s was rare.
The energy produced twenty slots, but the channel rules didn’t change. The login window still closed after one hour. And the release time was still 12 a.m.—a truly cursed hour.
Most office workers were automatically filtered out unless their schedule was weird or they lived for games. Even with all the hype, not many people would wait until midnight and log in on the dot.
Still, between the crowd chasing the drama and the people who just wanted to see what the fuss was about, the mass rushing those twenty slots was huge.
And a big portion of that mass was furious.
What kind of official release happens at 12 a.m.?
If you had to pick twelve, why not noon?
Song Jiu Lai had a simple answer: because how else was she supposed to sneak around and claim land?
She had already assigned point tasks to the first fifty players, ordering them to pick a spot around wangan county and throw up makeshift wooden shelters for the newcomers.
Luckily, the players had gotten much more flexible with spiritual qi. With controlled cuts and mortise-and-tenon joins, they could raise a wooden hut in a day. The conditions were crude, but they didn’t have a choice.
For the new players, Song Jiu Lai had the System teleport her back to the sect.
Newcomers were arriving. As Sect Master, she had to show her face.
She also went to see the connection Su Huan Li had left her—Senior Sister Shui Ping of flying sparrow sect—and ordered twenty puppet dolls. This time, she shamelessly bought on credit.
She’d burned through her spirit stones by brute-forcing pills into herself. The Devil Horned Snake gallbladders and the earth-bell ling zhi in her bag still hadn’t been sold.
Fortunately, Senior Sister Shui Ping was straightforward. She agreed to the credit.
And even though her name was Shui Ping, that didn’t mean she was an Aquarius.
After spending more than ten days on first mountain, returning to longevity sect felt like being reborn.
Mostly because she’d killed so many demon beasts that she’d been living inside stench—corpse stink, blood stink, bile stink—until her nose felt like it was made of ash.
Now she changed into plain, simple clothes and sat down in a restaurant in wangan county, eating like she’d been starving for months.
So much for “no need to eat.” Even at mid Qi Refining Stage, she still craved food like a demon.
And the best part?
She could eat without gaining weight.
Spiritual qi burned it off too fast.
She even stumbled into proof of the players’ influence. A waiter came over, cheerful as a hawker. “Miss, our shop recently has peach-blossom wine, grape wine, all kinds of fruit and flower wines. We also have specialty flower cakes and new desserts. Would you like to try some?”
Song Jiu Lai nodded, eyes half-lidded. “Bring me grape wine. And… do you have Dongpo pork?”
The waiter lit up. “Oh, Miss, you have taste! Dongpo pork is a new signature dish we begged from the immortals of longevity sect. We only prepared to launch it today—the sign isn’t even up yet, and you already know!”
It wasn’t that she “knew.” It was just that in transmigration stories, the first grand dish always showed up sooner or later, and it was always Dongpo pork. Players were predictable that way.
Still, yun zhou continent meat was different from blue star’s. Not castrated livestock, not the same feed, not the same world. The gamey taste was lighter, and it worked surprisingly well in rich dishes.
Song Jiu Lai nodded. “Then bring me a serving.”
“Right away!”
She sat by a second-floor window. wangan county had the occasional cultivator passing through, but otherwise it looked like a plain ancient town.
And yet… it wasn’t.
She’d started to notice the difference in yun zhou continent mortals.
Mortals here lived their lives. If they couldn’t walk the cultivation path, they stayed here and lived out an ordinary lifetime.
There was no nation, no imperial court—only factions and territories. So mortals had no ladder to climb, no grand ambitions to chase. Their world was small, and they were trained to accept it.
They had no “pursuit.”
They were trapped.
Because demon beasts existed, just living safely to old age was considered the best ending.
Couldn’t they travel? See something beyond a single county?
To spend a lifetime in one place—even one small county town—felt unbearable to Song Jiu Lai. But that was only because she’d seen a wider world. She knew what “far” meant.
To a common person in wangan county, even myriad immortals sect sounded like something from a storybook—distant, unreal, outside imagination. How could they long for the vastness of the world when they couldn’t picture it?
Some tried to leave. No one stopped them.
They just died.
Either to demon beasts, or to rogue cultivators with bad intentions.
In this world, the hardest thing was the word “leave.”
A lucky few—families that produced a genius—might be taken away by cultivators. But even that was often just trading one cage for another.
Only merchant caravans moved through the world, protected by deals with sects.
And caravans were dangerous too.
Song Jiu Lai exhaled slowly. “…” A long sigh slipped out before she could stop it.
The System’s voice drifted in. “Why are you sighing?”
“Nothing,” Song Jiu Lai said. “I just had a stupid idea.”
“Tell me.”
Normally, it didn’t actively read her thoughts, even if it could. So if it asked, it was listening on purpose.
Song Jiu Lai stared out the window. “If longevity sect grows strong one day… could I connect wangan county to other places? Open a tour route. Let even mortals travel. I just feel like… people should see a wider world in their lifetime.”
The System replied, “That isn’t what you care about most.”
Song Jiu Lai clicked her tongue. “Fine. If I don’t open routes, Fan Gu Zhou’s wine won’t sell. Zhou Xiao’s food can only grow here. They’re cultivators—later on, they can’t just carry goods everywhere. longevity sect won’t make real money without trade routes. And wangan county is too small.”
Too small.
The System didn’t oppose her. “We don’t have enough people yet. Step by step. Those twenty newcomers—how will you manage them?”
Song Jiu Lai’s spirit snapped back to business. “I’ve already arranged it. A Wu has to hold the mountain area, so I won’t dump this on him.”
She tapped the table lightly, eyes sharp. “And I can’t keep farming demon beasts alone. It’s too slow. Players need training too—even if most won’t dare at first. I can start issuing training tasks.”
“You’re starting that now?” the System asked.
“No,” Song Jiu Lai said. “After this month’s settlement. Next month I’ll issue them. You’re my backstop, so I’m not afraid. They don’t have that confidence. Early on, only a few will volunteer.”
She lifted her wine cup, gaze distant again. “For now… I’ll see what these new players are like.”