Voices boiled over in the market. Transactions were in full swing.
Yet, amidst this clamor, Lin Mu felt a rare sense of idleness.
There were still several hours before the Stone Gambling den was fully set up. The official assembly had not yet opened.
For once, Lin Mu had nothing urgent to do.
Looking at the chaotic flea market, Lin Mu sighed internally.
Since transmigrating, the string in his mind had been pulled tight every single moment.
The days before opening his aperture were akin to purgatory—waking before dawn to serve Gu Masters, doing menial labor, suffering beatings for the slightest error.
A short period of time was enough to grind away his last shred of fantasy about this Gu world.
As expected of what Fang Yuan said: In this cannibalistic world, if you don't eat others, you will be eaten.
For the past few days, to manipulate the "Green Pouch Grass" scheme, he had walked a tightrope between buyers and sellers, leaving almost no room for thought.
Now that the setup was complete and all risks had been cleanly transferred to Lin Feng, he could breathe.
Strolling through the market filled with the smoke and fire of mortal life, listening to the noisy bargaining, he felt a long-absent sense of lethargy.
The Way of cultivation lies in alternating tension with relaxation.
Even with his deep schemes, he had to stop and catch his breath occasionally. Otherwise, where would he find the strength for the next slaughter?
Taking advantage of this rare leisure, Lin Mu observed the flavors of the mortal world.
Black Blood Stockade wasn't a top-tier power.
Clan Leader Lin Cang was only at peak Rank 3, far inferior to those mountains guarded by Rank 4 experts.
However, the clan was united enough.
Though they didn't share bitter hatred for a common enemy, the various lineages would twist into a single rope when facing external threats.
This was how they carved out a space to survive in the chaotic Southern Border.
In the Southern Border, mortal lives were cheaper than grass.
Those without a backer were either carried off by beasts in the deep mountains or became blood food for Demonic Path Gu Masters practicing evil arts. They died without understanding why.
Because of this, even though Black Blood Stockade was a small place, countless mortals squeezed their heads to get in as servants and laborers.
They hoped for nothing more than a seedling with cultivation talent to appear in their family.
Once an aperture was opened, even with C-grade or D-grade aptitude, they could be pushed up to become an external disciple of the clan.
The whole family would ascend to heaven, no longer suffering the torment of wind, rain, and impermanence.
Lin Mu's original body was the descendant of such mortal servants.
Legend had it that his grandfather was a Gu Master with B-grade aptitude. Relying on that glory, the family settled in the stockade.
But good times didn't last. His grandfather was ambushed by White Bone Stockade while searching for refinement materials and died of heavy injuries. His corpse was never recovered.
The family's glory plummeted. By his father's generation, no aperture was awakened. He spent his life doing the hardest logistical work, dying of illness when Lin Mu was seven.
And he, Lin Mu, had been in this body for three years.
In these three years, following the trajectory of the original owner, he suffered countless hardships and beatings.
He curled up in the woodshed through freezing nights and dug for poison grass at the foot of the mountain.
Only after the Aperture Opening Ceremony a few days ago, awakening B-grade talent, did life improve slightly.
At least he could step onto the path of a Gu Master properly, rather than muddle along as dispensable fuel for this world.
Unknowingly, his thoughts drifted, and the flow of people pushed him to the edge of the market. The stalls here were pitifully crude.
In an inconspicuous corner, Lin Mu's footsteps paused.
A worn straw mat was spread there, piled with a few bags of black powder.
A youth in coarse hemp clothes, face covered in soot, squatted behind it with his neck shrunk back.
He held a steamed bun, cold and hard as iron, and swallowed it with difficulty using cold water from a gourd.
"Selling... selling Black Blood Wood chips."
The youth's voice was hoarse and cowardly. His eyes darted away, daring not look at the passing pedestrians.
Lin Mu looked at that face. A corner of deep memory was gently lifted.
Lin Ping.
Three years ago, shortly after Lin Mu transmigrated, his body was frail and his aperture unawakened. Black Blood Stockade had no surplus resources for external servants, forcing them to live in a communal sleeping quarter.
He remembered that winter was exceptionally cold. The communal bed was like an ice cellar.
He and Lin Ping, both orphans without parental care, huddled under the same thin quilt like two frozen quails for warmth.
The deepest memory was when the sour, cold bun was too hard to bite.
Lin Ping smashed it bit by bit with a stone, giving half to him. He smiled through cracked, dry lips and said: "It's easier to swallow when crushed. You won't be cold after eating."
Back then, they both thought that opening an aperture meant a good life.
The reality was that Lin Mu awakened B-grade, gaining an entry ticket to climb upward. Only by fighting and killing could he barely win a sliver of survival.
Lin Ping only awakened D-grade. He was eliminated early.
Though not as precarious as a mortal, it was hard to maintain a livelihood.
With too many monks and too little gruel, Black Blood Stockade followed the law of the jungle.
With his kind nature, unwilling to kill, he could only chop slightly toxic Black Blood Wood to exchange for meager living expenses.
"Lin Ping."
Lin Mu walked over. His voice wasn't loud, but it made the youth burying his head in the bun tremble.
Lin Ping looked up sharply. Seeing who it was, the bun in his hand nearly fell to the ground.
In that instant, surprise, awkwardness, inferiority... countless emotions wove together in his turbid eyes.
"Lin... Brother Lin Mu?"
He subconsciously hid his soot-stained hands behind his back and shrank backward, stammering, "You... you're visiting the market too. I heard people say you're doing well in the academy and even beat Zhao Hu."
Lin Mu looked at him. No arrogant pity rose in his heart. Instead, a faint warmth surged.
In this world, this bit of old warmth was perhaps the only proof that he had once been "human."
But, to survive, one could not be "human."
"What 'doing well'? Just struggling to live in the cracks."
Lin Mu squatted down, not minding the filth on the straw mat. He reached out and picked up a pinch of black wood chips, smelling them.
"Rich in oil, dried thoroughly. High quality."
"Really?" Light suddenly appeared in Lin Ping's dim eyes.
"I went specifically to the shady side of Broken Soul Mountain to chop this. The toxicity is a bit heavy there, but it burns without smoke and lasts a long time!"
"I'll take it all."
Lin Mu fished out two Primeval Stones from his chest pocket and gently placed them into Lin Ping's calloused palm.
"Ah? No... no need for so much!" Lin Ping panicked, trying to shove the stones back, his face flushing red.
"This... this is only worth a few copper coins. If you need it, just take it. Who are we to keep score?"
"Take it."
Lin Mu pressed his hand down. His tone allowed no refusal, though his gaze was peaceful.
"Business is business. Even brothers must settle accounts clearly. Besides, I happen to want to try refining some herbs recently and need this long-burning fuel. You're helping me out."
A white lie. But it made Lin Ping feel his labor had value, rather than accepting charity.
Lin Ping clutched the two Primeval Stones, still warm from body heat. His eyes reddened, and he finally nodded heavily. "Okay! I'll wrap it up for you!"
Watching Lin Ping pack the chips with agile hands, Lin Mu was silent for a moment.
Taking the heavy bag of wood chips, he suddenly spoke in a low voice:
"Lin Ping, the caravan is here. The stockade will be chaotic for the next two days. With these two stones, you have enough to pass the winter."
Then, he patted Lin Ping's shoulder. Ignoring Lin Ping's calls, he turned and left.
Old acquaintances met; old debts settled. He would not touch karma. This warning was the greatest kindness he could offer.
If this were Earth, Lin Ping might have been a good teacher or a community worker. He only thought of others.
But in this Gu world, those who lived for others only became food.
Lin Mu had no delusion of changing Lin Ping, nor the ability to do so. In this world, being able to protect oneself was already precious.
...
After bidding farewell to Lin Ping, Lin Mu didn't rush back. He continued to wander among the stalls.
Suddenly, his gaze was drawn to a stone at an itinerant merchant's stall from an outer stockade.
The stone was pitch black, only palm-sized, covered in mud and grime.
It looked like a piece of rotten mud found anywhere by the roadside, currently being used casually by the stall owner to prop up a wobbly table leg.
Lin Mu squatted down calmly.
Under the guise of browsing miscellaneous items nearby, his fingertips seemingly inadvertently brushed across the surface of the black stone.
Rough. Dry.
And on the stone skin, there was a layer of extremely hard-to-detect dry cracks, dense as fish scales.
More critically, within the crevices of the fish scale pattern, a faint, withered redness seeped out.
Lin Mu recalled an obscure Earth Path method mentioned in the original work.
When such Gu worms hibernated, they absorbed surrounding iron ore, causing their shells to resemble stone but not be stone.
"Fish scale pattern. Suspended animation shell..."
Lin Mu's heart skipped a beat.
This extremely obscure characteristic was mentioned in passing in the narrator's notes of *Reverend Insanity* regarding unpopular Southern Border Gu worms.
This was the special protective shell formed by the "Red Mud Gu" when it secreted body fluids mixed with mud to seal itself in dormant hibernation under extreme environments!
In the eyes of ordinary Gu Masters, this was an overly weathered, useless mud stone. Worthless.
Only Lin Mu, who had read the original work and possessed the "God's Eye view," knew that beneath this skin that looked dead as rotten wood, there was a high probability of a Gu worm sealed with a sliver of life remaining.
"Boss, how much for this rusty dagger?" Lin Mu suppressed the throbbing in his heart, pointing at a broken knife on the stall and asking casually.
"Half a Primeval Stone!"
"Too expensive." Lin Mu shook his head. He prepared to use bargaining as a pretext to ask for the "table prop" as a throw-in.
Just then—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The earth suddenly transmitted a violent, rhythmic tremor. Even the tea bowls on the stall rattled and clinked.
The black stone was shaken loose from the table leg and rolled into the mud.
The bustling market fell deathly silent instantly.
Everyone looked like ducks strangled by the neck, gazing toward the mountain road outside the stockade gate with terror and awe.
Yellow sand billowed into the sky. A massive procession broke through the thick Iron Wire Miasma, descending like divine soldiers.
Leading them was a giant beast, fully three stories tall.
It was covered in heavy black iron scales, its four limbs thick as pillars. Every step it took shattered rocks and collapsed the ground.
On its back, broad as a plaza, a magnificent red silk tent was erected.
In the gray gloom of the Southern Border mountains, it appeared exceptionally dazzling, like a moving palace.
A layer of faint golden light circulated on the surface of the tent—clearly no ordinary object, but the prototype of some mobile defensive Gu House.
Rank 4 beast—Mountain-Bearing Elephant!
And in the shadow of that red silk tent, a figure sat vaguely visible.
Though the face couldn't be seen, the terrifying aura radiating from it was like a great mountain pressing on everyone's hearts, making it difficult to even breathe.
Lin Mu temporarily shifted his attention from the stone. Mixing in the crowd, he narrowed his eyes, feeling that trembling oppression.
"That is Jia Fu." An old Gu Master beside him spoke with a trembling voice.
"The leader of the Jia Clan Caravan. A true Rank 4 expert!"