Chapter 3: The Revelation of the Celestial Heir's Legacy and the Bounteous Harvest
Through profound cultivation, Xu Ling unravelled deeper mysteries within the Medical Immortal's legacy. His recent endeavours—dispensing justice, aiding the virtuous, and nurturing unwavering optimism—had harmonised with the inheritance's spiritual tenets, propelling his enlightenment to the second celestial stratum.
At daybreak, Li Chuang's crimson BMW trailed dual cargo transports into Xu Village: one destined for communal fruit procurement, the other to convey Xu Ling's transcendent yield. The young cultivator stood vigil at the hamlet's threshold, his nocturnal meditation concealed beneath dawn's veil.
"Brother Xu greets the morning lark!" Li Chuang chuckled, alighting to clasp his shoulder.
"Villagers are accustomed to greeting the dawn," Xu Ling demurred, masking his all-night communion with esoteric cultivation arts.
"Ordinary tillers? Hardly!" Li Chuang's eyes sparkled with mirth. "Fresh Daily's twenty-cent stake makes you our agrarian tycoon!"
"Wealth cannot reshape the rhythms etched by time." Xu Ling's smile held arcane wisdom.
"Now—where blooms your alchemical orchard?" Li Chuang gestured toward the idling trucks. Provincial executives awaited this botanical marvel.
"Earth's embrace still cradles them. Summon your harvesters—gilded apples first, sun-kissed melons shall follow."
Twenty labourers descended, armed with crescent harvesting blades, wicker panniers, and celestial balance scales. The procession wound through dewy lanes to an orchard where boughs wept under vermilion globes—each fruit swollen with spiritual ambrosia distilled through Xu Ling's nocturnal rites.
"By the Nine Heavens!" Li Chuang gaped at the arboreal tapestry. He'd anticipated experimental saplings, not this hundred-tree symphony of abundance.
Crimson nectar dripped from his sampled prize. "Ambrosial! The celestial springs flow richer than last moon's brew!"
"My alchemical refinements bore fruit," Xu Ling acknowledged, his enhanced meridians having purified the vital essences.
"Marvel upon marvel!" Li Chuang wheeled to address the harvesters. "Handle these astral treasures like imperial jade! Bruise not their sanguine cheeks, harm not their arboreal mothers—for they shall rebirth this glory!"
As workers moved in ritual precision, Li Chuang gestured toward neighbouring groves where embryonic fruits clung in jealous viridescence. "August harvests? Such alchemy! These rubies shall vanish ere dusk from every Fresh Daily emporium."
Xu Ling observed the laden crates, his smile a cypher of cultivation's dual harvest—earthly prosperity and cosmic ascendancy—poised to forge a new epoch.
The Secret of Bountiful Harvest: A Farmer's Dilemma
**"Naturally."
Xu Ling inclined his head with detached composure. If even this proprietary horticultural technique couldn't outpace his competitors, he might as well cease respiration entirely.
The men conversed idly amidst crisp apple crunching. By twilight's approach, labourers had completed harvesting and quantifying the yield from one hundred twenty trees.
**"Supervisor Li – total yield registers at thirteen thousand pounds. All crated for transport."
Li Chuang choked mid-bite, juice trickling down his chin. **"A hundred trees yielding ten thousand pounds? Verify the scales!"
**"Triple-checked, sir,"** the foreman affirmed, every basket meticulously weighed under his hawk-eyed scrutiny.
**"Brother Xu… Your innovative cultivation methodology achieves such… such *magnitude*?"** Li Chuang's gaze burnt with reverent astonishment.
**"The technique optimises fruit-bearing efficiency,"** Xu Ling conceded.
This agricultural marvel hinged on dual foundations:
1. The arcane growth Elixir not only intensified saccharine profiles but also exponentially augmented cellular expansion in each pomaceous specimen.
2. His mother, Wang Huifen, had meticulously tended the orchard under his expert guidance, implementing precision irrigation and circadian pruning regimens.
**"You must safeguard this knowledge with utmost vigilance,"** Li Chuang hissed, fingers digging into Xu Ling's forearm. **"This innovation could secure our conglomerate's dominion over continental markets. Should industrial espionage occur…"**
**"Peace, friend,"** Xu Ling's lips curved like a sated fox. **"The methodology's complexity defies replication."
---
**"Xu Ling! When shall you unveil this sorcery? We share ancestral soil!"
**"Forsake not your roots! My coffers funded your university passage!"
**"Outsiders barred, but kin denied? What manner of loyalty is this?"
A tempest of villagers led by Sun Mingfu – the blacksmith's hotheaded son – surged through orchard rows. Xu Dong, the protagonist's cousin, orchestrated the chorus:
**"Fret not, elders! Our Lingzi shan't abandon his blood once fortunes bloom!"
Xu Ling raised palms in sacerdotal benediction: **"When market turbulence stabilises, I shall impart these arts – pomologists, prunus cultivators, even cucurbit growers. All shall learn accelerated harvest alchemy."
**"Swear this? I'll uproot wheatfields for orchards come dawn!"
**"Scholars don't lie! Cease gawping – heave those crates!"
Under Sun Mingfu's bellicose direction, wooden containers ascended trucks with ant-like efficiency.
**"Supervisor Li, the convoy departs for county processing. I shall follow anon…"**
Confrontation with the Street Brutes
Subsequently, Xu Ling apprised the assembled villagers of his orchard's premature apple maturation. Their bewilderment manifested through gasps and widened eyes.
"Lingzi, can this truly be? Decades of cultivation have taught me no such marvel!"
"Cease your scepticism! Brother Lingzi's arboreal testament requires no validation!"
"Should we emulate Lingzi's methods, our orchards shall yield bounteous, succulent harvests!"
The congregation murmured like stirred hornets, their faces alight with newfound hope. Having orchestrated agricultural preparations, Xu Ling embarked upon his motorbike toward the county seat to survey the pomological market. Recognising monocultural limitations, his mind – honed by the **Celestial Physician's Legacy – now perceived cultivation through prismatic clarity, this mystical endowment having amplified both cognitive acuity and corporeal prowess.
Market reconnaissance revealed that lychees commanded premium demand. Though tempted to consult Yu Mengna at Tiantianxian Fruit Emporium, the westering sun compelled the village to return. Prior to departure, he lingered at a commercial arcade for filial gifts – an act of devotion that precipitated fateful consequences.
**Fortune's caprice** orchestrated recognition by his former antagonists.
"Chief Zhang, yonder rustic resembles our commercial saboteur!"
"By the heavens! That hayseed's raiment brands him clearer than firebrand on hide!"
The gang leader, Zhang the Brutal, blanched at the remembrance of their prior engagement. His sycophants provocateured:
"Chieftain, shall territorial sovereignty be thus profaned?"
"Past misfortune stemmed from numerical disadvantage. Twenty against one – what mathematics forbids victory?"
Gnashing tobacco-stained teeth, Zhang hissed, "Bide temporally. When he quits this mart, we shall orchestrate an ambuscade."
As Xu Ling traversed Yunshan County's periphery toward the desolate crossroad, two dozen ruffians materialised like jackals. His **Celestial-enhanced perception** had long since penetrated their crude stratagem.
"Persistent vermin," he murmured, advancing relentlessly.
"Halt, knave! Memory fails thee?" barked an underling.
Xu Ling maintained implacable progression.
"Deaf-mute cur! Another pace brings bone-breakings!" A diminutive tough blocked his path.
"I discern only canine yammerings. Remove yourself ere my forbearance expires."
Enraged, Zhang bellowed, "Second and Third Lieutenants – apprehend him!"
The henchmen charged, but Xu Ling's ocular focus intensified. **Mystical energies coursed through his dantian**, coalescing within his clenched fist. A deafening **CRACK** echoed as the second lieutenant's nasal architecture disintegrated – not merely fractured, but reduced to osseous powder.
The mob recoiled, yet Xu Ling's symphony of violence had merely commenced. His form blurred into a typhoon of precision strikes – each impact resonating with calculated devastation. Within heartbeats, the thoroughfare became a mosaic of groaning casualties, their commander trembling like an aspen leaf.
"Inform your overlord," Xu Ling coldly declared, cleansing his knuckles of sanguine stains, "subsequent provocation demands legionary reinforcement."
Mounting his steel steed, he dissolved into twilight's embrace, leaving a legacy of shattered bones and whispered legends in his wake.
The term "clash" here evolves from physical confrontation to metaphorical conflict of agricultural methodologies, echoing the multidimensional usage noted in dictionary entries about opposing beliefs and forces.
The Gang's Demise
The Second Brother's body was hurled backward in a violent arc, colliding with the earth in a spray of gravel. His hands clawed desperately at his shattered nasal bridge as guttural wails erupted—*"Uuugh... my face! Aaagh—"*—before darkness claimed his consciousness.
Xu Ling pivoted fluidly, driving his fist like a piston into Third Brother's diaphragm. The man folded like crumpled parchment, foetal whimpers escaping through clenched teeth as visceral agony locked his muscles. Within three breaths, both enforcers lay vanquished—grotesque marionettes with severed strings.
He lifted his gaze, frost-edged mockery curling his lips. *"You mongrels were so eager for a fight. Well? Come at me."
The taunt detonated Ruffian Zhang's rage. *"Fourth Brother—the cudgel! NOW!"
A splintered oak staff slapped into the gang leader's palm. With apish fury, Zhang swung downward—*"ROT IN HELL!"*
Xu Ling became a liquid shadow. **CRACK!** The weapon fragmented against a roadside boulder, shards ricocheting like shrapnel. Zhang staggered, palms bleeding through tremors, as the remnant handle clattered to the asphalt.
Arms crossed in glacial composure, Xu Ling's sneer deepened. *"Pitiful. You wage war against forces beyond your ken."
Twenty hardened thugs exchanged uneasy glances. *"His reflexes... like some demon!"* came a hissed observation.
Zhang's voice cracked like a whip. *"COWARDS! Swarm him! No man dodges twenty blades!"
The pack surged forward—a tsunami of knuckle-dusters and switchblades. *"GUT THE B*ST*RD!"* *"SHATTER HIS SPINE!"*
Xu Ling's smile bloomed carnivorous. *"Lesson concludes in ten seconds."
Chaos crystallised into lethal choreography. His limbs became silver flashes—a knee shattered here, a carotid struck there, solar plexus implosions blooming like dark roses. Bodies cascaded earthward like felled timber.
**First heartbeat** Two attackers crumpled, wrist wristbones powdering under precise kicks.
**Second heartbeat** Three more collapsed, windpipes constricting under knifehand strikes.
**Tenth heartbeat:** The asphalt became a mosaic of groaning flesh, weapons scattered like child's toys.
Ruffian Zhang's bladder released as he crab-walked backward. *"W-what devilry is this?"
Xu Ling flicked blood droplets from his fists, voice arctic. *"The reckoning your filth deserves."
As he turned toward his motorcycle, the gang leader wheezed: *"The Black Dragon Syndicate will flay you alive—"*
**CRUNCH.** Xu Ling's boot heel pulverised Zhang's ankle mid-threat. *"Tell your masters",* he purred with deathbed intimacy, *"their empire shall drown in the storm they courted."
The motorcycle's growl swallowed the sunset as asphalt bled into the horizon. Within his veins thrummed the **Medical Immortal's Legacy**—an arcane force transmuting peasant blood into divine retribution.
*And in the syndicate's ivory tower, seven jade teacups simultaneously cracked along their glaze lines.
The Veterinary Miracle
Xu Ling tilted his chin upward, his smirk cutting through the barn's dust-choked air like a scalpel. *"Enlightenment dawns upon you at last?"
Ruffian Zhang recoiled as if branded, spittle flecking his unshaven jaw. *"Y-yes... I'm reformed..."
*"Conviction etched in marrow—not this simpering pantomime,"* Xu Ling snapped, having long penetrated the veil of the thug's pretence. Beneath calloused fingertips, he summoned a filament of qi—that primordial energy humming through his **Medical Immortal Inheritance**—and pressed it against Zhang's collarbone. The gangster convulsed as celestial fire rewired his neural pathways, every past transgression now burning behind his retinas like hellfire projections.
*"Choose redemption",* came the ultimatum, *"or become entropy's plaything."* The motorcycle's ignition roared to life, its exhaust plume swallowing the gang leader's whimpers.
Under the cover of twilight's indigo veil, Xu Ling navigated serpentine village paths. Yet before he could dismount, Yao Shunzi—a cattleman whose weathered face mirrored his beasts' suffering—staggered into the courtyard, moonlight glinting off sweat-slicked temples.
*"Ling-gongzi! In heaven's name—"* The man's heaving interrupted his plea.
Xu Wenhai emerged, squinting from the farmhouse, rheumy eyes narrowing. *"Your father's lungs plague him anew?"
*"Nay, Elder Xu!"* Shunzi clawed at his straw hat. *"The brindle matriarch—her womb rebels! The calf..."* His voice shattered like porcelain. *"She's our spring planting, our winter grain..."
Wang Huifen's laughter tinkled discordantly from the kitchen window. *"Since when does my son midwife livestock? Fetch Ma the bovine-witch from—"*
*"Death's scythe hovers!"* Shunzi collapsed to his knees, palms grinding into gravel. *"Only the **Miraculous Hand** can—"
Xu Ling silenced him with an upraised palm. *"Lead on."
The barn seethed with villagers—a tapestry of scepticism woven from crossed arms and muttered oaths. *"Madness!"* *"Let Li-po deliver calves, not this..."*
Xu Ling knelt amidst straw and desperation. The cow's laboured breaths sawing through the barn's stillness, her flank quivering like storm-tossed sails. Through the **Sight Beyond Flesh**—that transcendent gift from his immortal benefactor—he perceived the tragedy: hind limbs akimbo, umbilical noose tightening.
*"Breech presentation,"* he announced, sleeves rolled to reveal forearms thrumming with golden luminescence. *"Rotation required."
A cacophony of disbelief erupted—*"Charlatan!"* *"Butcher!"*—until Yao Shouliang, patriarch whose hands had delivered three generations of livestock, gripped Xu Ling's wrist with arthritic fervour. *"Work your sorcery, boy."
Fingers became surgical instruments guided by divine cartography. The barn air crackled as qi surged—an aurora borealis contained within bovine flesh. One precise torsion, one whispered incantation from forgotten medical sutras, and life erupted in a gush of amniotic sacrament.
*"Bull calf!"* cried a child, her voice cleaving the silence.
Xu Ling swayed, his qi reserves depleted, as the newborn's wails harmonised with its mother's exhausted lowing. *"Boil liquorice root and angelica,"* he instructed, blood-streaked hands trembling. *"She'll nurse by dawn."
Shunzi pressed his forehead to the manure-streaked earth. *"Name your price, miracle worker!"
*"Only this,"* Xu Ling murmured, vanishing into the inkwash night, *"whisper of hope when despair's winter lingers."
Behind him, awestruck murmurs crystallized into legend: *"Not mortal..."* *"Guanyin's avatar..."*
And in the periphery, where moonlight feared to tread, Black Dragon spies scuttled through moonlit alleys—their coded messages already winging toward syndicate overlords. The **rustic ascetic** who bridged realms of man and beast had become... problematic.
The Veterinary Miracle and the Gangster's Downfall
The bovine's distended abdomen revealed a purplish-black reticulum filled with partially digested foliage. Xu Ling swiftly concluded his examination.
*"Toxicosis-induced dystocia,"* he pronounced with clinical precision, turning to Old Yao. *"Uncle—did this heifer exhibit prodromal symptoms before parturition? Specifically... ingestion of hydrophytic vegetation tainted with agrochemicals?"*
Yao Shouliang struck his thigh in epiphany. *"By heaven's truth! I supplemented her fodder with riverbank weeds after the drought."* His weathered face crumpled in self-reproach. *"Foolish kindness becomes cruelty."*
*"Aetiology identified permits remediation,"* Xu Ling soothed. Kneeling in the straw, his palms mapped the creature's pulsating abdomen. The animal's thready pulse and cyanotic membranes betrayed life's tenuous grip.
Harnessing esoteric energies from his **medical immortal legacy**, Xu Ling's consciousness permeated the bovine's corporeal matrix. The noxious agents had ravaged the enteric nervous system, yet his second-tier cultivation enabled interspecies somatic manipulation. A nimbus of auric light emanated from his hands as therapeutic vibrations catalysed molecular detoxification.
The gathered villagers recoiled as undulating waves traversed the creature's hide. With convulsive heaves, the cow expelled viscous necrotic matter before rising unsteadily—eyes luminous with restored vitality.
*"Astonishing!"* a voice exclaimed in disbelief. *"Zoological thaumaturgy!"*
Yao Shouliang prostrated himself, tears etching furrows through field dust. *"Our lineage's salvation incarnate!"*
*"Join our libation ceremony—this demands Dionysian celebration!"* implored Yao Shunzi, clutching Xu Ling's sleeve.
*"First, secure the neonatal berth,"* Xu Ling demurred with mirthful practicality. When a vigorous calf emerged moments later, even the most cynical observers erupted in acclamation.
*"His Hippocratic mastery transcends taxonomy!"*
*"The Xu scion wields panacea!"*
Eventually capitulating to Shunzi's insistence, Xu Ling partook of rice wine beneath the gibbous moon, unaware of the concurrent darkness unfolding nearby.
Ruffian Zhang contorted upon his kang bed, neural pathways aflame with malignant qi. The insidious energy implanted by Xu Ling now coursed like liquid obsidian through his meridians. Cephalic thunderclaps alternated with genital paralysis—a calculated humiliation transcending physical trauma.
*"Vesuvian impotence!"* his spouse shrieked, shattering celadonware against the rammed-earth wall. *"Divorce manifests at dawn—or witness your entrails adorn these rafters!"*
Zhang's guttural moans mingled with ferrous saliva. This transcended injury—it was **karmic retribution**. The village adept had engineered a bio-spiritual castration beyond allopathic comprehension.
As nocturnal whispers permeated Yunshan's hamlets, two legends coalesced: *"The bovine shaman... and the devil's gelding."*
Meanwhile, in stygian recesses, Black Dragon enforcers honed their dao blades. The chronicle of Xu Ling—**Agrarian Ascendant**—had inscribed its inaugural verse in the annals of folk mythology.
Chapter 6: The Gangster's Desperate Plea
Ruffian Zhang's wife erupted in fury, her shrill voice cleaving the stagnant air. * "Karma has finally ensnared you!"
The words struck Zhang like a celestial mallet. His consciousness reeled back to Xu Ling's ominous parting words—*"Malevolence summons divine reckoning"*—and the merciless pummeling he'd endured. Could that provincial herbalist wield such esoteric power?
Dread cascaded through his veins. The relentless cranial vise, the creeping paralysis below his loins... all converged upon an inescapable verdict: Xu Ling had hexed him.
*"That fiend... no mortal walks clothed in such radiance,"* Zhang rasped, recalling the aureate luminescence that had haloed Xu Ling's palms during their clash.
*"The gravest filial impiety is to perish without progeny,"* the Confucian admonition thundered in his skull. At five-and-thirty winters with no heir—a perpetual barb his wife wielded like a lash—his ancestral lineage now teetered on extinction. The final humiliation: his yang essence extinguished like guttered incense.
Frantic, he barricaded himself with the illicit jade discs hidden beneath floorboards. Five incense sticks burnt to ash. Ten. *No primal stirring.* Repeated attempts yielded only mortifying stillness.
*"What sorcery binds my vitality?!"* He hammered fists against plaster, salt trails etching his jowls.
By first light's rooster cry, Zhang lay supine as a funerary effigy, pupils fixed on cracked ceiling beams. * My dynasty crumbles.
He'd heard tavern whispers of the "wilting dragon ailment" but never fathomed its venomous bite. * This transcends nature's course—'tis a demonic craft.
Pride dissolving like morning frost, he channeled triad connections to procure Xu Ling's number. The rotary dial trembled in his grasp.
Meanwhile, Xu Ling stood in courtyard solitude, circulating qi through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians as prescribed in the *Canon of Medical Transcendence*. Dawn's gilded breath caressed his form, spiritual energy coalescing into nimbus clouds about his crown.
The jade tablet chimed—a serpent's hiss from unknown depths. * "Wei?"
*"Da... Da-ge Xu! 'Tis I, wretched Zhang!"* The voice crackled with animal desperation. * "I beseech your mercy—posthaste!"
Xu Ling's lips curved like a crescent blade. * "Ah, Zhang-xiong! Yearning for another lesson in humility? My palms hunger for discourse."
*"Nay! I capitulate!"* Zhang's plea curdled into a whimper. *"The curse... my crown chakra splits asunder, and my... my jade stem lies entombed!"* A sob ruptured the confession. * "You hold the key. Heal this affliction, and I'll burn incense before your effigy thrice daily!"
Xu Ling adopted theatrical perplexity. "Cursecraft? What manner of delusion grips you?"
*"Cease this pantomime!"* Zhang's snarl held the timbre of a cornered beast. "When your accursed hand struck my back... I felt the seal's branding! That golden aura... you're doing it!"
Silence pooled like spilt quicksilver. Then Xu Ling's chuckle slithered through the receiver—a viper's nest given voice. * "Perceptive vermin"
Zhang's breath hitched. *"Your... your price?"*
*"Your reign of terror concludes at dawn,"* Xu Ling intoned with glacial finality. * "Disband your scorpion nest. Surrender to the magistrates. Never again defile Yunshan's soil with your shadow."
*"But the syndicate—"*
*"These are celestial edicts, not negotiations,"* Xu Ling severed the protest. *"Defy me, and your limp member shall calcify into jade mockery. The cranial agony? Merely a prelude to grand mal seizures that'll paint your ancestral hall with brain matter."
Zhang crumpled onto sweat-soaked linens, a salted oyster in human form. * "I submit... all terms accepted."
*"Wise rodent,"* Xu Ling purred. *"The abandoned Moonwash Bridge at high sun. Come, solitary—with your ledgers of iniquity. We shall... discuss spiritual rehabilitation."
The line died mid-sneer. Xu Ling raised palms to the ascending sun, watching golden tendrils dance between fingers. The *Canon of Medical Transcendence* had bequeathed dominion over mortal coils—but today, he'd wield it not as a physician but as Yama's crimson-robed magistrate.
In his opium-den gloom, Zhang clutched his demon-ridden skull, whispering to the cockroach scuttling across floorboards, "What karmic debt have I invoked?"*
The Gangster's Bargain
"Since candour prevails, let us dispense with pleasantries," Xu Ling intoned icily. "Should you desire remedy for your malady, present yourself at my estate **without delay**. Two hours hence, not even the sovereign deities could salvage you. Choose judiciously."
"Y-Yes, Paramount Xu! I depart posthaste!" Ruffian Zhang wheezed, clawing at his pulsating temples. *Providence has cast a lifeline.
"Stay your haste—my ministrations are no alms. For this… *singular predicament*," Xu Ling lingered on the phrase like a spider testing silk, "the tariff stands at **100,000 yuan**. Bear species—or spare yourself the journey." The line was severed mid-protest.
Zhang's visage drained to a parchment hue. *A king's ransom!* Yet the claws of desperation shredded his indignation. Years of extorting market vendors now demanded cosmic restitution.
Unwashed and feral-eyed, he gunned the throttle of his rattling 125cc steed toward Xu Village—a route etched in infamy from prior fruit-grower shakedowns.
At Xu Ling's compound, fists hammered the wrought iron. * "Master Xu! Your humble supplicant—Zhang of the township kneels!"
Within the courtyard's sanctuary, Xu Ling reclined beneath the gnarled branches of a persimmon tree, leisurely sipping his tea as jasmine-scented zephyrs caressed the air. *"Cross the threshold,"* he drawled, motionless as a meditating sage.
Zhang collapsed in a supplicant's prostration, brine streaking grime-caked cheeks. * "I recant! The karmic wheel grinds—grant absolution!"
Xu Ling's brow arched like a drawn sabre. * "Conviction requires substantiation."
From his frayed coat emerged a sandalwood casket—ten vermilion stacks bound in latex. "The blood price! Now, exorcise this curse!"
The corner of Xu Ling's mouth twitched. * "Commendable… yet currency alone cannot balance ledgers."
Zhang's pupils dilated. * "Any tribute! Impose your terms!"
Xu Ling gestured toward terraced orchards shimmering in the noon's glare. * "These groves thirst for toil. You and your jackals shall till them—**without recompense**—for twelve lunar cycles. Weeding, pruning, reaping—my will becomes your scripture."
Zhang's Adam's apple bobbed. *Indentured servitude?* His wife's blade-sharp ultimatum echoed. * "Accorded! My lackeys arrive ere dusk!"
"Astute." Xu Ling rose, casting a shadow that swallowed sunlight. * "Now vacate my demesne. And inform your curs to bear their own grave-digging tools."
Zhang scrambled crabwise, terror metastasising. *"But my **skull**—my **flesh-prison**—when shall—"*
Xu Ling leaned into his aura, voice thrumming with primordial resonance. *"When my spleen is soothed. Till then…"* A palm brushed Zhang's shoulder, discharging crackling spiritual energy. "Consider this earnest money."
Zhang reeled, clutching his suddenly silent cranium. *"Benefactor! Gra—"*
Xu Ling flicked a dismissal. *"Preserve gratitude. You've purchased respite, not redemption."
As the motorcycle's snarl faded, Xu Ling tallied bloodstained bills. *A hundred millennia of yuan*—seed money for expanding his botanical dominion. But the truer conquest? Shattering a despot's hubris.
*The scales of karma,* he mused, *find equilibrium through hands both mortal and divine.
The Fruit Market Showdown
**"Your restoration remains paramount,"** Xu Ling declared, his voice honed to surgical precision. **"This transcends mere physical recovery—it concerns your ancestral legacy."
Ruffian Zhang's face drained of colour. The phrase *chuán zōng jiē dài* resonated beyond biological imperative—it embodied ancestral honour, filial obligation, and the perpetuation of familial essence.
A glacial smile played on Xu Ling's lips as he observed the man's visceral dread. **"Very well. The suppression curse shall be lifted... for seven dawns."** His gaze sharpened like whetted blades. **"But should you dare defy me again—"**
**"Never! By my ancestors' graves!"** Zhang prostrated himself, forehead grinding into the dust. **"Two labourers shall report to your orchard at dawn—uncompensated, unquestioning!"
Xu Ling's approving nod carried imperial finality. His palm descended upon Zhang's shoulder, releasing a surge of spiritual energy that crackled through the air. The thug convulsed upright, vitality flooding his pallid complexion. **"The migraines... gone! And..."** His cheeks flushed crimson, gaze darting downward. **"My eternal gratitude!"
**"Begone,"** Xu Ling commanded, turning with robes swirling. **"Mother—to the marketplace. We dismantle Liu Dog's monopoly today."
---
**Two hours hence:
The village square thrummed with the musk of overripe persimmons and crackling tension. At its western fringe, Liu Dog—his left leg still dragging from Xu Ling's previous disciplinary measures—presided over a worm-eaten stall adorned with the declaration "Premium Pricing—All Varieties!"** A defeated procession of farmers extended before him, their calloused hands clutching produce baskets.
**"Watermelons—five mao per catty,"** he barked, scarlet betel nut saliva splattering the dirt. **"Accept or starve."
A silver-haired matron wavered. **"But last season—"**
**"Last season's ghost won't fill your rice jar!"** Liu Dog's crutch hammered the earth. **"This territory answers to me now. Choose wisely."
Sudden turbulence rippled through the crowd. **"Clear passage!"** Xu Ling's voice sliced through the humidity. He and Wang Huifen manoeuvred a cart stacked with lacquered cashboxes, their synchronised movements radiating calculated intent.
**"Xu Ling?"** Liu Dog's facial tic betrayed him. **"Is your apple grove insufficient? Now you poach my commerce?"
**"Poach?"** Wang Huifen's retort carried blade-like clarity. **"We practice equitable trade. Eight mao for watermelons. One yuan twenty for peaches."
The crowd erupted in electrified murmurs. Liu Dog's complexion purpled. **"This lunacy will beggar these simpletons! None will—"**
**"Observe closely,"** Xu Ling interjected frostily. Addressing the farmers: **"Present your harvest at our stall. Immediate payment—double this parasite's rates."
The queue disintegrated. Within moments, Xu Ling's cart groaned under melons, peaches, and apples glistening with morning dew. Liu Dog's stall stood barren as a plundered tomb.
**"You fancy yourself a saviour?"** Liu Dog hissed, venom dripping from crooked teeth. **"I'll grind your bones to—"**
**"Your enforcers are... occupied,"** Xu Ling countered, sorting banknotes with ritualistic precision. **"Has memory failed you? Who tills my orchard presently?"
Liu Dog's crutch clattered to earth. **"Ruffian Zhang... you've allied with that gutter rat?"
**"Allied?"** Xu Ling's smile chilled the air. **"I domesticate strays. Harm one hair upon these farmers..."** He let the unspoken vow hover like an executioner's steel.
Liu Dog's spittle struck dust. **"This war's unwon."
**"Today's battle concludes,"** Xu Ling pronounced, coins cascading through his fingers. **"Remove your stench from this ground."
Clash at the Fruit Market
**"Our previous encounter stemmed from misunderstanding. I've come to extend Xiaoling's sincere apologies,"** Wang Huifen uttered stiffly, her smile resembling cracked porcelain.
**"Apologies? When my leg mends, I'll drag your entire clan before the township magistrate!"** Liu Dog hissed, venom pooling in his gaze as it pinned Xu Ling.
The young cultivator ignored the threat, addressing weathered farmer Sun with palms open. **"Uncle Sun, your peaches shall find honorable purchase with me. I guarantee prices surpassing this charlatan's scraps,"** he vowed, gesturing dismissively at the seething middleman.
Another tiller, Xu Hongliang, shouldered through the crowd. **"My pear harvest ripens as we speak, Young Ling. Might your generosity—"**
**"Place your trust in me, kinfolk!"** Xu Dong's baritone cut through the murmurs, arms spread like a marketplace orator. **"Ling's scales balance fairness with wisdom. He'll school us in Earth's secrets while lining our pockets!"**
Liu Dog's face turned purple. **"This whelp dares poach my livelihood!"
**"Compose yourself, Dog,"** drawled Liang Xiaoyong, county fruit magnate, examining his jade ring. **"Observe his hemp rags—this pauper couldn't ransom a donkey cart, let alone claim your produce. Should he buy every peach at one yuan per jin, bankruptcy would claim him ere sunset!"**
**"You court fresh maiming,"** Xu Ling countered, eyes narrowing to jade slits. **"Has the lesson of your crippled leg faded? Next time, your third limb shatters."**
The middleman recoiled, seeking refuge behind Liang's brocade sleeve.
**"Brute force ill becomes civilized men,"** Liang sneered, flicking fingers at his bodyguards—twin mountains of muscle with knuckles popping menacingly. **"Last encounter favored chance. Today, we grind your bones into market dust."**
As the thugs advanced, Xu Ling's cultivation-enhanced senses mapped their lumbering trajectories. A feral grin surfaced. **"Let the dance commence."
**"Cease this barbarism!"** Wang Huifen's plea sliced the air. **"We convene for commerce, not carnage!"
Too late. A tattooed enforcer lunged, fist arcing toward Xu Ling's temple like a blacksmith's hammer.
**"Amateurish gambit,"** the cultivator sighed, evading with a fluid sidestep. His counterstrike—a phoenix-beak fist—pierced the brute's diaphragm. The man collapsed like a sack of millet, doubled over and wheezing for breath.
The Heiress Descends
**"By the heavens—!"
The mountainous thug—easily two hundred _jin_ in bulk—collapsed like a slaughtered hog, his squeals shredding the air. The confrontation dissolved in mere heartbeats.
Silence ruptured into bedlam.
**"Since when do you wield celestial combat arts, Lingzi? Your strikes rival lightning's wrath!"
**"Impart your secrets, Young Ling! Let us smite these venomous serpents!"
Liu Dog and Liang Xiaoyong blanched ashen. They'd witnessed Xu Ling's prowess, but this—*this* transcended mortal brutality. The remaining enforcers deflated like punctured wineskins. Even Liu Dog **voided his bladder in terror**, knees quaking at the primordial fury radiating from Xu Ling's coiled stance.
**"Retreat!"** Liang Xiaoyong barked, feigning nonchalance through twitching lips. **"Let your harvests moulder in the mud for eternity!"
His bravado shattered when Meng Laosan—the indolent bachelor clutching his rickety watermelon cart—grovelled, **"Patriarch Liang, forsake us not! These melons bear no sin—!"
**"Cultivate vertebrae, not whimpers!"** Xu Dong thundered.
**"Tend your pestilent irrelevance,"** Liu Dog sneered. **"When maggots feast on his melons, will *you* barter coin for rot?"
**"Cease this farce,"** Xu Ling intoned, serenity unshaken. **"Peddle allegiance as you will. Let trust's ledger be inscribed for those who choose illumination."
Li Ersao edged forward, suspicion warring with desperation. **"Does this county magnate's patronage breathe truth?"
Xu Ling let her doubt hang unanswered. Liu Dog and Liang Xiaoyong exchanged vulture-like glances—until a **dragon's roar of combustion engines** sundered the tension.
A crimson **BMW 5 Series**—its chassis gleaming like congealed blood—screeched to a halt. Villagers gasped. In Xu Village's dust-choked lanes, the grandest conveyances were oxcarts and sputtering motorcycles.
**"What manner of beast is *this?"
**"A chariot of jade and forged opulence! My cousin whispers, Such foreign steeds command *millions* of yuan!"
**"Millions? Do its wheels spin upon golden axles?"
The door **clicked**—a sound as crisp as frozen jade. A woman emerged—ethereal, her complexion moonlight distilled, draped in a snow-fox blazer and denim sculpted to her curves.
**"Yu Mengna,"** Xu Ling exhaled, the name a prayer.
**"Has... has the Jade Emperor's daughter descended?"** Someone whispered in awe.
The Fruit Queen's Arrival
Grandpa Sun stood transfixed, his weathered pipe suspended mid-draw, as though witnessing an apparition materialise from the desert haze. Seven decades of earthly existence had never prepared him for such celestial splendour.
The stranger's strappy sandals whispered across the dust, each stride a sonnet of poise that made the village women clutch their aprons in silent awe.
**"Could this phoenix descend upon our humble coop?"
**"Fool's fancy. No Xu bloodline ever courted such fortune."
Through the susurrus of speculation, Yu Mengna glided toward Xu Ling with predatory grace. **"Little Ling",** she chided, her voice laced with mock reproach, **"have village manners robbed you of courtesy? Or must I acquaint myself with your neighbours unannounced?"** Her hand descended upon his shoulder—a calculated pantomime of intimacy.
**"Sister Mengna! You are salvation incarnate!"** Xu Ling seized her alabaster fingers, his eyes kindling with the fervour of a zealot before sacred flames. **"These good souls doubted my covenant—yet here you stand, divine vindication in mortal form!"
**"The chain store magnate!"
**"What lesser chariot could bear such majesty?"
**"Our orchards shall taste justice at last…"**
Even Liu Dog and Liang Xiaoyong stood petrified—two jackals shrinking before a snow leopard's regal glare.
**"Madame Yu,"** Liang stammered, his bravado crumbling like autumn leaves, **"we... we never imagined your acquaintance extended to... rural acquaintances."
**"You are Liang of Dafa Fruits."** Her gaze crystallised into arctic frost. **"The man whose trucks ambush my caravans under crescent moons."
**"A... a regrettable misapprehension! Between industry peers…"** His words withered beneath her glacial regard. Dafa's provincial empire shrank to insignificance before Tiantianxian's continental dominion.
**"Peers?"** Her laughter tinkled like shattering icicles. **"Shall we revisit last Tuesday's highway ballet? Your trucks pirouetting to block mine?"
Liang's forehead glistened with permafrost sweat. **"Operatic error! Stagehands overzealous in their..."
Beside him, Liu Dog gulped air like a beached pufferfish.
**"Let this curtain fall on farce,"** Yu dismissed, turning with the finality of a guillotine's descent.
**"Y-yes! Immediately!"** Liang scuttled backward, his retinue dissolving into the dust like morning mist. Liu Dog swayed, knees buckling under the weight of ruin.
**"Neighbours!"** Xu Ling's voice boomed across the square—a conqueror's clarion call. **"Behold Yu Mengna, architect of Yunshan's Tiantianxian fruit dynasty! Where lies your doubt now?"
Thunderous applause erupted as villagers surged forward, arms laden with ruby pomegranates and golden persimmons—offerings to their new patron deity.
**"Cousin Dong, guard the gates. Our celestial guest requires libations,"** Xu Ling commanded.
**"By your word!"** Xu Dong snapped a salute, his grin splitting his face like a jubilant crescent moon.
As the pair retreated through envious stares, Wang Huifen clasped Yu's hands with maternal fervour. **"Child, last visit was but a hummingbird's pause. This time, you shall linger as our household's jade talisman!"
Yu's amusement rippled like wind through bamboo chimes. **"Auntie, I come bearing contracts... and perhaps,"** she shot Xu Ling a sidelong glance, **"to pluck the secret of your son's ambrosial apples."
Xu Ling chuckled, leading her past sun-dappled courtyards where laundry fluttered like celebratory banners. The afternoon sun now blazed with renewed vigour, gilding the village in liquid gold—a radiant dawn of transformation where tyrants trembled and orchards dreamed of empire.
To be continuous…