Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Bai Zhizhi hadn't even made it out of the Management Bureau before being hauled back in for starting a fight.

Although it was true that the other party had provoked him verbally first, so the little fox couldn't be blamed for causing trouble, the fact remained that an Adept from their side had been injured on their turf. Jiang Lin couldn't just let it slide.

Still, the little fox's actions left him feeling both helpless and amused.

Call him obedient and well-behaved? He made an Adept bleed with a single move. Call him hot-tempered? Yet he had taken Jiang Lin's words to heart and even asked if the other party was an ordinary person before making a move.

Regardless, Jiang Lin didn't dare leave Bai Zhizhi alone for the time being, so he had Lin Xiaoyang keep him company while he went to handle the matter.

Thinking about how that blue-eyed guy had shot him a vicious look before leaving, Bai Zhizhi felt he hadn't performed well enough. He shouldn't have just focused on hitting the blond; he should have beaten all of them up.

So annoying!

As soon as Jiang Lin left, Lin Xiaoyang looked at Bai Zhizhi with great curiosity: "Your speed just now was incredible. I didn't even see how you made your move."

He had seen a Fox Demon working at the zoo before—the one their Brother Jiang had caught—and in terms of attack speed, they weren't even on the same level.

Bai Zhizhi was curious: "Who are those people? Why does your relationship seem so strange—half hostile, half not? They clearly can't beat you, yet they're so arrogant and unafraid."

He had been observing the people around while fighting. A few of them were cultivators, not very advanced, but more than enough to handle the Adepts. Yet despite having superior combat strength, they let them swagger around their own turf. How strange.

Lin Xiaoyang let out a long sigh: "This... it's a long story."

Bai Zhizhi looked at him with slightly rounded eyes, as if waiting for him to make a long story short.

Lin Xiaoyang figured that since Brother Jiang planned to keep this little fox around, it would be bad if he got into real trouble due to not understanding certain relationships.

So he explained: "To put it simply, we live on a planet with many countries. Ours is one of them. Countries compete with each other. Those people just now are from the USA, currently the world's top military power. Our country is only second right now. Because they have a lot of advanced equipment, they have some advantages in certain energy fields. Also, since they have many satellite countries, they occupy more energy fields. For some energy fields not within our territory, if we want to enter, we have to trade something for slots."

Bai Zhizhi: "Energy fields?"

Lin Xiaoyang: "These are places like spirit realms and secret realms. They're dangerous but full of opportunities—lots of good stuff, but also very dangerous things. Some of those dangerous things even we Cultivators might not be able to handle. So we have to control the energy fields to prevent the dangers inside from escaping, otherwise ordinary people would have no way to survive."

Lin Xiaoyang looked at Bai Zhizhi: "We cultivators need things from energy fields for cultivation. Besides that, there are many other needs for people's livelihoods. Take the Spirit Soil they came to trade with us for example. Some spiritually charged plants can't be grown in just any soil, but Spirit Soil can. We cultivators need Spirit Plants to refine pills, and ordinary people also need medicinal herbs grown in Spirit Soil to treat illnesses."

"And that's just one aspect. Going deeper, talent is a nation's foundation. If our generation, or the next, can live in places rich in spiritual energy and eat food infused with spiritual energy from childhood, their physical fitness will greatly improve, and we might even cultivate more cultivators. The more strong people a country has, the more say it gets."

Bai Zhizhi roughly understood: "So now that I hit them, they'll use that as an excuse to reduce the amount of Spirit Soil they were supposed to give us, right?"

Lin Xiaoyang nodded: "Probably. It depends on how Brother Jiang negotiates with them. But I've been sick of them for a long time. They swagger around on our country's territory, thinking that because they have some Spirit Soil resources, we have to grovel like dogs. Dream on!"

Bai Zhizhi, who always distinguished between gratitude and grievances, hit the blond because of his rudeness. He didn't regret making a move, but he wouldn't let others clean up after him either.

So he looked at Lin Xiaoyang and asked: "What does Spirit Soil look like?"

As he asked, he touched the hidden Storage Bracelet on his wrist. He had plenty of good things from Qingqiu. If the people here lost something because of his actions, he could compensate them himself.

Lin Xiaoyang: "What does it look like? It looks like soil, basically. But not just any soil from the energy fields—only soil where spirit herbs have been grown counts as Spirit Soil. Spirit herbs are extremely rare in energy fields. If you find one, every part of it is a treasure, and people will fight over it until blood flows."

Bai Zhizhi's hand stopped. He now understood what Lin Xiaoyang meant by Spirit Soil. If it was soil where spirit herbs had been grown, Qingqiu had plenty. But the problem was that while his bracelet contained many treasures, it didn't have soil. Who would treat dirt as a treasure and store it in a Storage Item?

Jiang Lin came out of the director's office and entered the meeting room. Lin Xiaoyang looked at him nervously, while Bai Zhizhi beside him also widened his eyes. After hearing whatever Lin Xiaoyang had said, he looked like he was waiting to be judged.

Jiang Lin smiled and said, "Let's go. Heading home."

Lin Xiaoyang was surprised: "Hull and his people aren't going to pursue this?"

Jiang Lin: "Bai Zhizhi is just a Demon Cultivator temporarily placed at the Management Bureau, not an employee. They provoked him and got beaten—it's their own fault for being weak. As for the Spirit Soil, its allocation was decided at higher levels long ago; it's not up to them. If they want to reduce the amount of Spirit Soil, we'll reconsider our talisman quotas next time."

The American Adepts had advantages in energy fields and obtained a lot of Spirit Soil, but their country wasn't without strengths. Talismans were unique to their country.

If they encountered particularly fearsome beasts in energy fields, using talismans might allow them to escape with their lives. Some special areas were impossible to traverse without talismans clearing the way. The Americans had some leverage over them, but they also had ways to counter them.

Lin Xiaoyang sighed in relief: "Good, good. I thought they had a lot of say with all their arrogance, but they were just putting on a show. Tsk."

Jiang Lin glanced at him: "I haven't settled accounts with you for taking action."

Lin Xiaoyang immediately backed down: "But I saw them attacking our little fox! You told me to take good care of him."

Jiang Lin gave him a light smack on the head: "I told you to take care of him, not to stir up trouble. You seem to love chaos."

Then he looked at Bai Zhizhi.

Bai Zhizhi saw the hand he used to hit Lin Xiaoyang and stepped back directly.

This reaction made Jiang Lin find it even funnier, but he still had to make things clear: "This time, the fault isn't yours. I'm glad you listened to me and didn't attack ordinary people indiscriminately. But next time such a situation arises, I hope you can control yourself and ideally avoid drawing blood."

The Adept Ike, whom Bai Zhizhi had struck, had claw marks on his face that, while not deep enough to reveal bone, still required stitches. Even if Adepts had stronger recovery abilities than ordinary people, without some spiritual medicine, the scars would probably remain.

What's more, if the claw marks had been just a bit higher, Ike might have lost an eye. If one eye had been blinded, this incident wouldn't have been so easy to resolve.

Bai Zhizhi looked away from Jiang Lin without saying whether he agreed or not. If he met someone else who dared to be rude to him in the future, he would decide the severity of his reaction then.

Seeing his reaction, Jiang Lin just smiled. For now, he had to go along with this little fox as much as possible, understand his temperament, and slowly guide him.

Lin Xiaoyang was winking at Bai Zhizhi, probably happy about the fight and getting off without punishment.

Jiang Lin knew that he had always disliked that group of Adepts, and fearing that his indulgence might lead to trouble, he warned: "Next time, don't."

Lin Xiaoyang dared not act up anymore and obediently said, "Got it."

Jiang Lin: "Is the Zhou family matter settled?"

Lin Xiaoyang had taken on a mission today but ended up going to Moyun Mountain at almost the same time as Jiang Lin. He finished the job in half a day—pretty fast.

Lin Xiaoyang shook his head gloomily: "No, I couldn't find anything wrong with the Zhou family. Their place was clean—no Yin Qi, no ghosts or evil spirits. I thought I'd wait until Brother Yue or Brother Dao'an finish their work and come with me tonight to take another look."

Yue Yanting and Ren Daoan were both in their squad, with higher cultivation than him. The Zhou family matter was serious in some ways and not so serious in others; it didn't require Brother Jiang's intervention. So he planned to wait for someone else to be free and drag them to the Zhou residence.

But as soon as he left the Zhou house, he received a notification from the Management Bureau. The Zhou residence was close to Moyun Mountain, so he rushed over immediately, arriving even earlier than Brother Jiang.

Still, Brother Jiang was impressive—he caught this little fox demon right away.

Jiang Lin: "You just left without finding any problem?"

Lin Xiaoyang quickly said: "Of course not. I left my Ji Xiang with Zhou Yan and told the Zhou family that since nothing shows up during the day, I'll come back at night. If there really is some evil spirit, with Zhou Yan carrying Ji Xiang, the evil spirit wouldn't dare approach."

Jiang Lin: "Let's go back to the courtyard first. Later I'll go with you to the Zhou residence."

Lin Xiaoyang cheered: "Great! With Brother Jiang on the case, nothing can't be solved!"

Author's note:

Updated every night at 9 PM sharp~