Chapter 251: Returning Fully Loaded
The search results left everyone overjoyed.
Lu Xiansheng had been sitting tight at Baiye Manor, quietly fishing with bait. And what bait it was! He’d put out the real deal.
Two full wagonloads. More than two hundred pieces of rare ingredients used to refine spiritual pills. On top of that, over a thousand taels of gold and silver, four hundred catties of spirit rice, and twenty-four jars of spirit wine!
Three days earlier, the Guzhang Mountain brothers and Zuo Gaofeng had seen several wagons passing by. Turns out, those were the very same ones loaded with all this treasure.
And that wasn’t all. The manor’s warehouse had also been opened, revealing piles of gold, silver, and valuables stacked halfway up the room. Even at a glance, the haul had to be worth at least five thousand taels!
They searched Lu Xiansheng’s body and found a storage artifact. A jade-green arm bracelet. Inside were more than twenty spirit stones and eighteen bottles of different pills!
His glass shield was also a fine defensive artifact, worth at least 300 spirit stones. A pity about that pill furnace, though. Lu Xiansheng blew it up himself to clear the way. Otherwise, that alone would’ve fetched a small fortune.
When the jade bracelet was presented to Liu Xiaolou, he discovered that its inner space was about the same size as his Qiankun Pouch. The good thing was, it was easier to carry. You could wear it on your arm instead of tying it at your waist. The downside was obvious too: Lu Xiansheng’s personal seal was etched right into the jade. Trying to scrape it off would ruin the artifact’s structure entirely, which was seriously kind of disgusting.
Still, there wasn’t time to worry about that. They stuffed all the loot, including the artifacts taken from the two Lu clan cultivators who’d also died in the fight, into the jade bracelet and the Qiankun Pouch. Whatever didn’t fit, they carried off with poles and baskets. Then, wasting no time, the group began their descent down the mountain.
Flames roared to life, swallowing Baiye Manor whole. Everything they couldn’t carry -- grain, fine furniture, silk, hemp clothing -- went up in smoke.
Yellow Wind Ravine was safe… for now. The four Lu-family cultivators who had once roamed here were nothing but dust buried underground, so the group chose to make camp here.
Once they settled in, Mu the physician took charge of tending to the wounded. He selected the right pills from their spoils, having the injured swallow some or apply them directly to their wounds. Within a short time, three bottles of spiritual pills were used up.
Though the Lu clan had been their mortal enemies, they had to admit that Tianmu Mountain truly deserved its reputation as the Alchemy Sect. The pills’ effects were remarkable. Four hours later, even the gravely injured had stabilized, and the unconscious were beginning to wake.
Of course, much of the credit went to Mu the physician himself. As Wulong Mountain’s top healer, he proved once again that everyone’s trust in him was well placed.
While they had the time, Liu Xiaolou sat down with Dai Shenggao, Dragon Mountain Wanderer, and Zuo Gaofeng to figure out a fair way to split up the spoils.
They decided that the jade bracelet, the glass shield, and six other captured magical tools would each count as one share. These treasures were all high- or mid-grade items, worth anywhere from around three hundred spirit stones to fifty or sixty.
There were also four low-grade tools, which they grouped together as a single share. Selling them off would probably bring in about fifty spirit stones.
Next, they divided up the two hundred and sixty or so pieces of spiritual materials into four shares, each worth roughly forty to fifty spirit stones.
Finally, the fifteen bottles of spiritual pills were split into four portions as well, each valued at about forty spirit stones.
Lastly, they counted the forty or so spirit stones they’d collected from looting corpses and split them into two shares. About twenty-three stones each. It didn’t look like much compared to the rest, but the upside was that they didn’t need to bother selling anything off, which made those shares just as appealing in their own way.
In total, there were nineteen shares of loot, each worth a different amount. Some as high as over three hundred spirit stones, others barely more than twenty. Since each item had its own use and appeal, their actual value really depended on who was looking at it.
Of course, dividing spoils is never perfectly fair. Everyone’s share depended on how much effort they put in, what they contributed, their cultivation level, and even their seniority. That wasn’t just how things worked among the Wulong Mountain band, but how all rogue cultivators across the land did it.
Liu Xiaolou once again took the first pick, followed by Dai Shenggao and Dragon Mountain Wanderer. After them came Zuo Gaofeng, Fairy Huang Ye, Daoist Hu Du, Captain Hu, Mu the physician, and the others. For most people, the order of merit in this battle was pretty clear. Even if a few contributions were hard to rank exactly, they could always go by cultivation level or seniority within Wulong Mountain. There wasn’t much to argue about.
To be fair, the four brothers from Guzhang Mountain had done quite a lot. Their reckless assault was key to breaking Lu Xiansheng’s defenses. But truth be told, one of the main reasons everyone risked their necks attacking that stronghold was to rescue them. And they did succeed in that. So, counting them among the main contributors felt a little forced.
As Dai Shenggao put it, they really shouldn’t take part in the loot distribution at all. Still, after some discussion, everyone agreed to treat the four brothers as a single group and give them one share, placing them at the very end of the order.
Liu Xiaolou had the first pick. He hesitated for a long time between the jade bracelet and the glass shield, but in the end, the engraved name of Lu Xiansheng on the bracelet made his eyes sting. He chose the glass shield instead.
The glass shield was a top-grade defensive artifact. Something even Foundation Establishment cultivators relied on to stay alive. Liu Xiaolou had long been lacking a proper life-saving tool like that. With it, his chances of survival in future battles would rise sharply. And if he ever got desperate, he could always sell it for a good price. Even unused, just having it tucked away in his storage pouch was like carrying over three hundred spirit stones. His life suddenly felt a lot more comfortable.
Next was Dai Shenggao. He immediately went for the jade bracelet. He’d been yearning for a storage artifact for years, and now he finally had one. Technically, his contribution in this fight wasn’t greater than Dragon Mountain Wanderer’s or Zuo Gaofeng’s, but Dai had long served as the one who issued the “Hero Posts” for the Wulong Mountain band. His prestige and seniority were unmatched, so both Dragon Mountain Wanderer and Zuo respectfully let him choose first.
Honestly, it didn’t matter what place you ranked; everyone’s share this time was way better than anything we’d ever gotten before. Maybe a few people felt a twinge of envy, sure, but not a single one was unhappy.
Fang Bu’ai chose spirit stones. It was the most straightforward choice, and also exactly what he needed at the moment. He had no intention of making another two-thousand-li trip trip to the Chicheng Mountain market just to cash them in.
In the end, what was left for the four Gu Zhang brothers were four bottles of spiritual pills. The eldest, deeply moved, struggled to his feet and bowed to everyone around him. “Brothers, from all of us, thank you!”
Aside from the items claimed in order of rank,the remaining spirit rice, spirit wine, gold and silver trinkets were divided evenly into twenty-two shares. Each person got twenty catties of spirit rice, one jar of spirit wine, and jewelry worth two hundred and forty taels of silver. Everyone walked away with their fair share.
Shouldering their rice, their wine, and their winnings, the lot of them set off from Yellow Wind Ravine as the sun came up, grinning and laughing, heading their separate ways.
Following Liu Xiaolou’s instructions, they would all lay low for at least three months. Maybe even half a year. After all, in this battle they had killed one Foundation Establishment disciple from Tianmu Mountain’s inner sect, two Qi Refinement stewards at the tenth layer or peak, four outer-sect stewards and vassal disciples, burned down a manor, and seized a fortune in loot. The blow to Tianmu Mountain was devastating. It was a loud, humiliating slap in the face for the Lu clan. And it was only a matter of time before Tianmu Mountain struck back with fury.
So Liu Xiaolou left Yellow Wind Ravine with Fang Bu’ai by his side. They hadn’t gone far when two people came running up behind them: Zuo Gaofeng and Tan Bajhang.
“Xiaolou, wait for us!” they called out, grinning. “Let’s all breakthrough together!”