The noise filling the City of Stars had climbed to several times its usual volume, all because the currency exchange had finally gone live. Ye Tianxie dropped Su Feifei off at Guoguo’s Cottage (well — “dropped off” wasn’t quite right; Tianxie still hadn’t fully made peace with that name) and then hurried straight toward the lord’s manor. Halfway there, a call came in from Zuo Pojun.
“Second Brother, you have to go in person to claim the funds card. It’s the worst of the rush right now, but Fourth Brother and I figured we’d better grab ours anyway, so we’re heading over first.”
Ye Tianxie gave a quick reply, then strode into the lord’s manor.
“That fast?” Seeing him back already, the City of Stars’ lord rose to his feet, clearly caught off guard. “Hero from another world — don’t tell me you’ve already slain the Golden Sword Lion Beast? Or…”
Ye Tianxie pulled the golden mane of the Golden Sword Lion Beast from his inventory and set it down before the City of Stars’ lord. The lord’s eyes lit up, and a relieved smile spread across his face. “Good. You truly haven’t disappointed me. Since that’s settled, then as promised, I’ll immediately—”
“Hold on a moment,” Ye Tianxie cut him off with a raised hand, then, unhurried, drew out “Wang Cai’s Deed” from his inventory. “My lord, I think you may need to give me some additional reward.”
“This is… eh? This is the deed Wang Cai lost, all those years ago! I remember this deed — I handed it to Wang Cai myself, with my own hands.” The City of Stars’ lord’s surprise gave way to alarm. “Why is this deed in your possession?”
Ye Tianxie said, “My lord, the rumor that Wang Cai was killed by an Immortal Beast wasn’t false. I happened to run into that very Immortal Beast in the Demon Shadow Forest. After I killed it, I found this deed on its corpse.”
“An Immortal Beast… what? You found the Immortal Beast, and you killed it?” The City of Stars’ lord’s voice climbed a register, his emotions clearly stirred.
Ye Tianxie stepped back and pulled the corpse of the little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion out of his inventory. The City of Stars’ lord stared at the little Immortal Beast in astonishment, his expression growing more and more agitated, and it was a long while before he finally settled. He let out a long sigh. “I never imagined that forest was truly hiding an Immortal Beast — and one already beginning to turn demonic, no less. If it had ever lost itself entirely and broken free of the Demon Shadow Forest, the consequences don’t bear thinking about. Once again, I owe this to you — a true hero, one who bears the Hero’s Badge. You have my sincere gratitude.”
“And the deed?”
“Heh,” the City of Stars’ lord gave a generous smile. “Perhaps this is heaven’s own reward to you heroes. Since the deed has already found its way into your hands, the land it grants is naturally yours to command.”
“Ding… Because you hold ‘Wang Cai’s Deed,’ and with the consent of the City of Stars’ lord, you have been granted full, unrestricted control over the land on North Street, City of Stars, for 67 years — free to use, build upon, demolish, transfer, or sell as you see fit.”
“Ding… You have successfully completed the quest ‘Slay the Level 25 Lord-tier BOSS Golden Sword Lion Beast in the Demon Shadow Forest East of the City of Stars.’ Reward: EXP +30,000, Renown +30. Because you triggered and completed the quest’s hidden branch, you have received bonus rewards: EXP +50,000, Gold +30,000, Renown +100, City of Stars Lord Favorability +10, one City of Stars Pardon Token. You have received the hidden ultimate reward: full, unrestricted control over the land on North Street, City of Stars, for 67 years.”
Ever since he’d entered the World of Fate, good luck seemed to have followed him everywhere.
No — without the strength and the guts to back it up, none of this so-called luck would exist in the first place. Full control of a massive stretch of land right in the city center for sixty-seven years — a reward on this scale was something he’d never seen or even heard of before. Leaving everything else aside, if you tried to put a price tag on it, the number would be nothing short of astronomical.
“Thank you, my lord. If there’s ever anything you need, feel free to call on me.” Ye Tianxie said politely.
“I will, astonishing hero.” His Favorability had climbed by 10 points, and the City of Stars’ lord’s manner toward Ye Tianxie had clearly warmed since before. Just as Ye Tianxie was about to leave, the lord added one more thing: “Hero from another world — if the day ever comes that you clear Level 50 and earn the right to travel to the City of the Lost, come find me first. When that day comes, I’ll have a letter of introduction waiting for you — one that will grant you an audience with the supreme emperor of my Lost Continent.”
Leaving the lord’s manor, Ye Tianxie didn’t head straight back to his home in this world. Instead, he made his way directly toward the commercial district — toward the identification shop sitting at its farthest, most neglected edge, the one whose business had gone the quietest. His trip to the Demon Shadow Forest had left him with a fresh pile of unidentified equipment. But given the level requirements, none of it was anything he urgently needed identified. And yet his feet had carried him here almost against his own will… not for the identifying. For the chance to see, once more, the girl who’d stirred something in him yesterday.
Very, very few people had ever lived through what he’d lived through. He alone truly understood, truly recognized, the look that had been in her eyes. It was that flicker of recognition — glimpsing something of his own past self in her — that had left him unable to forget her.
A handful of appraisers were still lingering around the identification shop, waiting for their turn — no more of them than yesterday, just a scattered dozen or so. Clearly most identifiers already understood that, at this stage of the game, standing around here was nothing but a waste of time, and they’d be better off grinding out some other life skill instead.
The moment Ye Tianxie arrived, his eyes went straight to yesterday’s girl — Shattered Star-Heart. She still stood quietly in yesterday’s same corner, though perhaps thanks to the sliver of hope Ye Tianxie had given her, there was a touch more life in her gaze now than there’d been the day before.
As if some thread between them had tugged taut, the instant Ye Tianxie spotted her, she spotted him too, a brilliant light stirring in her eyes. When he walked up beside her, she spoke first: “You’re here… are you here to have equipment identified?”
The moment the words left her mouth, she ducked her head slightly, a flicker of regret at having said them. But to her surprise, Ye Tianxie answered with a simple, warm yes.
“Yeah, that’s right. I picked up some more gear, so I could use your help.” Ye Tianxie said, smiling. His voice was always strangely gentle around her. Because he’d once carried that same look in his own eyes, he understood, deep down, exactly what she needed most.
“Ah?” The girl looked up, surprise and delight both plain on her face.
“These are three Silver-grade pieces. Would you mind identifying them for me?” He drew out the three Silver-grade pieces the Golden Sword Lion Beast had dropped and traded them into her hands.
Cradling the three Silver-grade pieces, Shattered Star-Heart stood stunned for a long moment before finally, a little flustered, starting the identification. A moment later, she bit her lip lightly and said, “Three Level-25 Silver-grade pieces… that comes to seventy-five gold total. I… we’re friends by now, aren’t we — I should really identify these for free, but… but I…”
But she really did need the money. Badly.
“Don’t say that.” Ye Tianxie shook his head, a note of displeasure in his voice. “I’m glad you think of me as a friend. But I don’t want to owe anyone a favor. Getting things identified here is a lot cheaper than at the shop — you’re already doing me a favor as it is. If you really insist on identifying my gear for free, I’m not going to be able to bring myself to come back.”
“And besides—” He gave a faint smile, eyes on her lovely face. “The identifier at the shop is some seventy- or eighty-year-old man with skin like tree bark, and you’re a beauty who looks like she stepped straight out of a fairy tale — a pleasure just to look at. That kind of good mood you put a person in? No amount of money can buy that.”
Under his gaze, a flicker of flustered color crossed Shattered Star-Heart’s face. She couldn’t meet his eyes, and said, with genuine, grateful sincerity, “Thank you.”
Ye Tianxie said nothing more, only watched quietly as she cast her Identification skill. Here was a girl caught in the middle of a hard, losing struggle — trapped, maybe, in some circumstance that had left her in despair. The wariness in her eyes and her bearing toward the world, and that hazy, urgent need for money — all of it told Ye Tianxie exactly what he suspected.
But he also knew this: what she needed wasn’t charity. So this was the quiet way he chose to help her — the same way he, once, as a small child, freezing and starving in the cold wind, had wished more than anything that someone, anyone, would let him help with some task in exchange… even if it was hauling stones all day for nothing more than three steamed buns, or three bowls of porridge.
Compared to the boy he’d once been, forever wavering between life and death — this girl was, in her own way, lucky.
Once all three Silver-grade pieces were identified, the girl carefully returned them to Ye Tianxie along with the seventy-five gold she’d earned, then gave him a shy, achingly beautiful smile. She knew his name now — by this point, almost everyone in the World of Fate knew his name, the man who’d carved a legend out of a novice village. But she’d never once seen what he actually looked like. So, quietly, in her own mind, she’d begun sketching out an image of his face.
Ye Tianxie glanced over the properties of the three Silver-grade items, then tucked them straight back into his inventory. He drew out the three Gold-grade pieces the little Six-Winged Purple-Scaled Sky-Treading Lion had dropped and traded them into her hands as well. “And three more Gold-grade pieces, if you don’t mind.”
“Ah… no, not at all.” She answered him just the same as the day before. Even knowing that he was Xietian — the man perched at the top of the Level Ranking, wrapped in mystery and strength, and even after watching him casually pull out a stack of high-grade equipment just yesterday — seeing him now produce Gold-grade gear, the kind ordinary players never even laid eyes on, still left her struggling to steady the shock in her chest. It took her a good while to compose herself before she carefully began the identification. “Three Level-15 Gold-grade pieces… ninety gold total.”
The light of the Identification skill flickered again and again across the three pieces. At Shattered Star-Heart’s current identification level, her odds of successfully identifying a Gold-grade item stood at only 30% per attempt, with a maximum of four attempts allowed. If all four attempts failed, the item would have to be handed off to an identifier at the shop instead — and if a fifth attempt failed too, the item would simply be destroyed.
(By the math of probability theory: Shattered Star-Heart’s chance of successfully identifying a Gold-grade item within four attempts works out to 1 − 7/10 × 7/10 × 7/10 × 7/10 = 0.76 = 76%. The chance of all three Gold-grade pieces coming back successfully identified is 76% × 76% × 76% = 43.9% — actually pretty solid odds, all things considered. Yeah! Writing web-game fiction means your math better be good, or all these piles of messy numbers will break you. Huoxing here — back in my college entrance exams, I nearly maxed out math and the sciences, but Chinese was only a 126, and English was a goddamn tragedy — and let me just roar it out: WHO THE HELL INVENTED THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS A SUBJECT?!?! I couldn’t even nail my own language and you want me learning some other one too?!?! Anyone who struggled through English and still failed it anyway was a fallen fucking angel in a past life!!!! Am I right?! AM I RIGHT?!)
(Got carried away there, went off on a tangent — the trauma and the grudge run too deep…)
(End of Chapter 157)