Building a Martial Dao Celestial Family by Laying Low

Gossip burst out of the Lishui County Town gates and didn’t stop, racing along the main road for a couple of miles. He glanced back several times, and only when he was sure no one was chasing him did he dare to slow his steps.

"Damn it, this just isn’t my year..."

On his back was a blue cloth bundle, packed and ready to go. Inside, aside from a few changes of clothes, were his heavy valuables—gold and silver.

He kept it ready at all times; no packing necessary.

’Looks like I’ll have to lie low in some poor, remote village for a while again. Sigh... when will this life on the run ever end?’

Gossip couldn’t help but sigh, his face a mask of gloom and resignation.

After leaving Hidden Emperor Castle and following Chen Li to Mirror Mountain all those years ago, he had hoped for a few peaceful days.

But the appearance of that menace from the Celestial Sword Sect, Elder Jian Dian, scared him witless.

He told Chen Li, then greased his heels and slipped away to Lishui County to live in hiding.

Originally, with the gold leaves he’d taken from Hidden Emperor Castle, he could have easily bought some land, become a wealthy gentleman, and comfortably waited for death in idle peace.

But Gossip was who he was.

He was used to the hustle of the Jianghu. Forcing him to be completely idle would be a punishment worse than death.

After less than half a year of leisure, he felt restless all over, an itch deep in his bones.

So, he picked up his old trade again: fortune-telling and divination.

The trade was all about telling people what they wanted to hear, reading minds, observing faces, and creating an air of mystery.

These were precisely Gossip’s signature skills.

This time, however, he had no intention of setting up a shabby stall on a street corner, scraping by on petty earnings.

Instead, he planned to build a sterling reputation in Lishui County as "Half-Immortal Bo, the Infallible Oracle."

As for his methods, he fell back on the same old tricks from Hidden Emperor Castle, which he had mastered to perfection.

He started by greasing palms with silver coins, quickly getting the local street thugs of Lishui County on his side.

Once the silver coins were distributed, these men became his secret eyes, ears, and assistants.

Take, for example, the middle-aged man who had just been asking about an heir.

The man had heard of his reputation and had been waiting his turn for over ten days.

The slip of paper he’d dropped into the "Question Box" was later retrieved by Gossip’s two apprentices, who recorded its contents in detail in a separate ledger.

When the man came a second time, thugs would secretly follow him, gathering details about his home address, family situation, and neighborhood relationships until they had a nearly complete picture.

This information would be passed from the thugs to the apprentices, who would then compile it into a brief and deliver it to Gossip’s desk.

Every day, Gossip already had a clear idea of who was waiting outside his shop and what they wanted long before he opened for business.

The so-called "lottery box" was actually a cleverly designed trick box with a hidden compartment.

The only slips actually available to be drawn each day were three to five carefully selected ones, corresponding to the clients whose backgrounds Gossip had already investigated and whose fortunes he was confident he could "predict" accurately.

As for the first-time clients with unknown backgrounds, their slips never even made it into the drawing pool, thus eliminating any chance of accidents or being exposed.

Of course, to maintain the illusion of randomness and miraculous accuracy, Gossip would occasionally arrange for a plant in the crowd to be "chosen" on their first visit. They would then stage a performance of his godlike foresight, further cementing his reputation.

The hundred-wen fee for a reading was merely the price of admission.

The real profit was in the follow-up "guidance."

Just like with the man earlier, Gossip had steered the conversation toward his ancestral tomb, implying its poor feng shui was the issue.

Whether his wife gave birth to a boy or a girl, as long as the man remained obsessed with having an heir, there was a high probability he would return with a hefty sum to have the tomb relocated.

The fee for that would not be a mere hundred wen, but dozens or even a hundred taels of silver.

With each step interlocking with the next, the operation was virtually flawless.

The name "Half-Immortal Bo" quickly became famous in and around Lishui County, and a constant stream of people sought him out.

Gossip’s life became exceedingly comfortable, and his waistline began to expand.

As for the vicious-looking group from today, they were the disastrous result of a careless mistake he’d made half a year ago—a truly unexpected calamity.

That day, a man and a woman had barged straight in, completely ignoring the rules about waiting in line and drawing lots.

The woman was about forty, her clothes opulent.

The man with her looked older, with a profound and steady presence. A sharp glint flickered in his eyes when they opened and closed.

With his sharp eye, Gossip could tell at a glance that both of them had at least Spirit Realm Cultivation. The man’s aura was so deeply concealed he had likely already reached the Grandmaster Realm.

Gossip had wanted to make an excuse and refuse them, but the woman’s first words were laced with threat. She wanted him to divine how many children the man would have in his lifetime.

Gossip cried foul internally. He knew nothing about this pair’s background; his thugs could never pry into the private lives of people at this level.

But he was in an impossible situation, like riding a tiger, so he had to brace himself and rely on his years of experience reading people to make a call.

He made a show of performing a divination, then declared, "This gentleman has a noble Life Chart and profound blessings. From his features and birth date, I can see his fate with children is quite strong. By my calculations, he is destined for three sons and three daughters—a sign of great fortune."

’He’s a Grandmaster, after all,’ he thought. ’He’ll live a long time. Even if he has few children now, he can always have more later. This gives me some wiggle room.’

And even if he didn’t end up with that many, Gossip could always claim that as a cultivator, the man had defied heaven and altered his own fate, thus interfering with a mortal divination.

Upon hearing this, the gloom on the woman’s face did indeed lift, and she even cracked a slight smile. She rewarded him with fifty taels of silver on the spot and left with the man, satisfied.

Clutching the silver, Gossip breathed a sigh of relief, feeling even a little smug.

’Grandmasters are pretty easy to fool, aren’t they!’

He had no idea that this was only the beginning of his troubles.

Two months ago, the woman had sent her subordinates to find him again.

This time, her demand was even more outrageous: she wanted him to divine the location of the man’s mistress and illegitimate child.

Gossip later found out that the woman had somehow discovered that two of her husband’s apprentices were actually his children. This discovery convinced her that Gossip truly had remarkable abilities, and she became determined to force the "divine oracle" to find the others.

But Gossip had no such ability. Based on a faint accent he’d detected from the couple, he gritted his teeth and said vaguely, "The signs are faint... they point toward Jiangzhou."

He thought that would be enough to put her off for a while, but he hadn’t expected her to be so relentless. By the look of things, she fully intended to detain him and wouldn’t rest until the entire truth was brought to light.

"Damn it, that crazy woman! I’m a goddamn fortune teller, not a constable from the Government Office! Making me figure out her husband’s sordid affairs all day. Figure my ass! Son of a bitch... what rotten luck..."

Gossip hurried on, muttering a stream of curses under his breath.

He cursed as he quickened his pace.

All he wanted was to find a remote village, lie low for three to five months, and wait for this deadly mess to blow over.

However, he hadn’t gone far when a pale purple figure drifted into view, landing lightly thirty feet in front of him and blocking his path.

At the same time, a cool female voice spoke, "Mr. Bo, you seem quite cross. Just now... were you cursing me?"

Gossip froze, as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped over his head, freezing the very blood in his veins.

The newcomer was the very woman he’d been desperately trying to avoid.

The woman was around forty and impeccably maintained. Her skin was fair and smooth, and though fine lines graced the corners of her eyes, they only added to her mature charm.

She wore a long, pale purple palace-style gown. Her hair was swept up into a high coiffure, secured with a jade hairpin, and pearls dangled from her earlobes. Her entire presence radiated opulence and nobility.

But right now, her gaze was as sharp as a needle, locked onto Gossip, and the invisible pressure she exuded made his breath catch in his throat.

"I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare! My Lady, you must have misheard. How could I possibly insult you?"

A fawning smile, uglier than a grimace of tears, instantly plastered itself across Gossip’s face.

The beautiful woman glanced at him coolly. "Good. Mr. Bo, let’s dispense with the pleasantries. Come with me. This time, I expect you to determine the whereabouts of that mother and child with absolute clarity. You can’t be as vague as you were before."

Gossip’s face fell.

This was exactly the kind of mess he wanted no part of.

First of all, he didn’t actually have the ability; his last "prediction" had been a complete shot in the dark.

Second, the woman’s husband was a genuine Martial Arts Grandmaster.

If he got caught in the middle, the slightest misstep would mean getting crushed to pieces.

’Even if I actually help this crazy hag find them, will her Grandmaster husband let me off the hook?’

’I wouldn’t even know what hit me!’

But the circumstances were out of his control. The woman was clearly a Spirit Realm Powerhouse, while he was merely at Qi Realm Perfection. He couldn’t even dream of outrunning her.

The muscles in his face twitched as he forced another smile that was more painful than tears. "Yes, yes... I will do my best... After you, My Lady."

The beautiful woman said no more, turning and heading back toward Lishui County Town.

With a miserable, long face, Gossip trudged dejectedly a few paces behind her.

They had walked for only a moment when a sizable merchant caravan came into view, slowly approaching a bend in the road ahead. The braying of mules and horses and the clamor of human voices partially obscured the view.

A desperate glint flashed in Gossip’s eyes. Throwing all caution to the wind, he broke into a desperate sprint toward the nearby Lishui River.

If he could just jump into the river, his swimming skills might give him a slim chance of survival.

"Mr. Bo, do you think... you can get away?"

The beautiful woman sneered, as if she had expected his escape all along.

With a light tap of her toes, the purple-gowned figure vanished, reappearing in a blur of astonishing speed as she shot after Gossip.

Although Gossip had a head start, the gap in their abilities was simply too vast.

In the space of just a few breaths, the woman’s purple figure had closed to within thirty feet of him.

Feeling the sharp whistle of air behind him, Gossip flung his arm back, hurling a gray-black, pigeon-egg-sized sphere at the pursuing woman.

BANG!

The sphere exploded in midair.

A thick, acrid cloud of grayish-white smoke instantly billowed out, covering an area dozens of feet wide and swallowing both of them.

This was Gossip’s last-ditch escape tool.

"Futile."

But from within the smoke came the beautiful woman’s cold snort.

A fierce Palm Wind tore through the air. A surge of Qi Strength instantly blasted the smoke away.

Using the smoke as cover, Gossip had managed to dash forward another dozen paces and was now less than a hundred feet from the Lishui River’s bank.

But the woman was already less than twenty feet behind him, her face a mask of cold fury. She was clearly enraged now.

She struck out from a distance, sending a palm strike flying through the air toward Gossip’s back.

Gossip felt a blow like a sledgehammer to his back. "BLAARGH!" He spat a mouthful of blood and crashed heavily onto the muddy riverbank.

He was only a few feet from the rushing water.

He struggled to rise, but his body screamed in agony. His Inner Qi was in disarray, and he couldn’t even find the strength to lift a finger.