Chapter Forty-Eight: The Grand Performance Begins

"Good evening, sorry to disturb—"

At this moment, Liu Shuyue descended the stairs and stopped in her tracks upon seeing the two of them.

Lin Qing happened to be reaching for a bag of potato chips, her shoulder nearly touching Chen Xuan's.

"Pardon me, am I arriving at a bad time?"

Liu Shuyue asked the question, but her eyes showed no intention of looking away.

"Not at all, we were just discussing some matters." Chen Xuan coughed twice, casually standing up, "Would you like some coffee or tea?"

"Tea, please. Make one extra cup." Liu Shuyue gestured toward the second floor. "You can come down now. The store manager isn't going to eat you."

Someone else?

Chen Xuan looked toward the stairwell with a puzzled expression and saw a robust-looking man walking down hesitatingly. He had an impression of this man; he had formerly been a hunter and was also among the initial members of the hunting team.

"Your name is... Antler?"

The other man immediately wore an expression of being flattered. "Lord Chen, I didn't expect you to remember me!"

"I remember. Back at the foot of Zhangwei City, you were the one shouting at the top of your lungs to support the immortals."

"Hehe." He scratched his head with some embarrassment. "I'm just a rough man, can't think of any fancy words, so I could only rely on a loud voice to cheer for the Immortal Lords."

"Come have some tea." Chen Xuan placed two cups of tea on the coffee table.

"Thank, thank you..." He hurriedly lowered his head in gratitude, sitting on the very edge of the chair.

"I've basically made all the arrangements for Spicy Village and am ready to set off." Liu Shuyue sat down beside Lin Qing and said, "However, considering the two places are far apart, I was wondering if the store manager could also register Antler as that... VIP customer? If his room connects to the Great Wilderness, I'll be able to rush back to the village at any time."

"I see." Chen Xuan immediately understood the brilliance of this move. The back door of a room traveled with its owner; if two customers were each connected to a different location, it would be equivalent to establishing a Anywhere Door between the two places. "There shouldn't be any problem with that."

"That's wonderful." Liu Shuyue turned her gaze back to Lin Qing. "It seems your recovery is going quite well."

"You must be Miss Liu, the one who helped treat me?" Lin Qing took her hand and said, "I've heard Chen Xuan mention you. My mind wasn't very clear when I just woke up last time, so I forgot to formally thank you... Thank you for saving me. If there's an opportunity in the future, I will definitely repay you."

Perhaps not expecting her to be so proactive, Liu Shuyue was slightly stunned before withdrawing her hand with a smile. "Actually, I didn't do much, there's no need to be so formal. Miss Lin, don't you have suitable clothes here? I can help you prepare a couple of sets."

Lin Qing's only outfit was that one-piece combat suit, and what she wore now were Chen Xuan's oversized T-shirts.

"Thank you for your kindness, but I've already picked out some online, and they should arrive tomorrow."

"Online?"

"Um... it's a bit complicated to explain. If you're interested, I can show you around now."

"Alright, then I'll have to trouble Miss Lin."

The two of them were already growing familiar with each other.

***

Chen Xuan twitched the corner of his mouth. Could this be considered cross-era communication?

"By the way, does this shop require any special treasures to be repaired?" Liu Shuyue suddenly shifted the topic back to Chen Xuan. "It looked dilapidated the last time I saw it, and it's still the same now. Won't that affect business if things go on like this?"

"Not really. It's just like fixing an ordinary house, it's just a bit troublesome to find people," Chen Xuan explained. Fixing lights and water pipes was fine; there were plenty of phone number stickers on roadside utility poles, but finding reliable masons was difficult. "And I've been rather busy lately, so I haven't gotten around to it."

"Why don't... I have the villagers come and help tidy it up," Liu Shuyue suggested.

"That's right!" Antler nodded repeatedly. "There are carpenters and masons in the village with quite good craftsmanship. Especially after becoming cultivators, even their former specialties have improved significantly. However, they can only make mortal items; they probably wouldn't be of any help with things from the immortal realm..."

Right, how could he have forgotten about this?

This shop was extremely神秘—so mysterious that except for its functions, everything else was entirely ordinary. Having the residents of Spicy Village help repair it seemed quite appropriate.

Chen Xuan immediately agreed, "Alright, let them have a try."

Soon, Antler brought over a batch of new villagers. Their expressions upon stepping into the room were much like his: filled with reverence yet cautious, as if this were some sacred place. After a brief discussion, everyone rolled up their sleeves and got to work, with an attitude that could only be described as enthusiastic and earnest.

All the broken furniture was dragged away and replaced with new cabinets and small tables crafted from solid wood. Holes in the walls were plastered over with mortar and then covered with animal skins and bones for decoration. The floor was swept and mopped multiple times, leaving not a single corner untouched.

In less than two hours, the store took on a completely new look.

If the interior decoration style of the lobby had previously been minimalist and elegant, it had now transformed into luxurious elegance. Hand-polished furniture naturally exuded a sense of nobility, not to mention the bull horns, dragon claws, and tiger pelts on the walls. Such decorative pieces, usually seen only in museums, instantly elevated the shop's aura to a whole new level.

"How is it? Are you satisfied?" Antler asked with an expectant tone.

Chen Xuan patted him on the shoulder. "Good job."

Everyone was instantly overjoyed, as if they had received the approval of an upper immortal, their excitement overflowing in their expressions.

Chen Xuan was also deeply moved internally. They worked their fingers to the bone for him without even asking for wages, and their only demand was his affirmation. These were top-tier workers you couldn't find anywhere else even with a lantern!

When assigning a room to Antler, he used the QR code scanner to peek at everyone's abilities and discovered that most of these people had cultivated the Clearing Heart Chant. Some focused on talisman crafting while others concentrated on combat techniques, and their progress was quite good.

In that case, the benefits Spicy Village could bring him seemed to extend far beyond the performance points from swapping abilities.

"Can you delay your departure by one day?" Chen Xuan asked Liu Shuyue.

The latter estimated the time. "Just one day should be fine. Do you have any plans?"

"Yes, there is indeed something I need your help with."

Perhaps he could run a small preview first—for this world that had yet to open its eyes.

***

At noon the next day, Chen Xuan and Lin Qing took a ride to the flood control scenic belt along the Sha River.

This massive river split the city in two, which was why several large bridges had been built across it over the past twenty years. But the busiest of them all was still the Sha River First Bridge right before them. Built the earliest, it connected the most important urban thoroughfares, so even though it was a bit aged, its traffic volume remained the highest among all the cross-river bridges.

Not only that, both riverbanks served as fine tourist attractions with green belts and riverside parks. Even on a weekday, plenty of people could be seen relaxing along the shores.

"It's about time, let's start." Chen Xuan turned on his phone's recording mode.

A moment later, three pillars of water suddenly erupted from the river surface, each more than ten meters high!

This unusual commotion immediately drew gasps of shock from the tourists on the scenic belt.

"Was that an explosion?"

"Is someone dynamiting fish?"

People who were still playing or camping on the park grass also rushed toward the flood control embankment.

"Mom, there are people standing on the water!" a child shouted.

"What the heck, is this some kind of stunt performance?" More and more people were shocked to discover that three figures had appeared right where the water pillars had dispersed.

They were three tall men dressed in animal skins, bare-chested with well-defined pectoral and abdominal muscles, and bulging bundles of tendons on their arms, exuding an intense sense of power. Even more striking was their attire: their light brown skin was painted with numerous patterns, they wore beast-horn helmets on their heads, and bone necklaces hung from their chests, quite fitting for the style of fierce savages.

"But they aren't carrying any equipment, how are they floating?"

"Quick, check KuaiShou, is anyone live-streaming?"

The crowd chattered nonstop in discussion.

"Enough!" Suddenly, one of the men let out a roar, his voice overpowering the surrounding commotion like a muffled thunder rolling across the river surface. "You are pushing things too far! We left our homes and fled all the way here just to survive, yet you still pursue us to the bitter end. Since that's the case, I won't hide anymore! Come on!"

"Hah, he's performing quite well," Lin Qing said happily. "He was so stiff during the rehearsals that I thought he'd be too nervous to speak when it actually mattered."

"They are just lacking in worldly experience, not lacking in courage." In Chen Xuan's view, anyone who could bring their entire family across half of Qingzhou and survive in a famine where people ate each other was definitely neither incompetent nor cowardly. Perhaps Antler and the others didn't understand the significance of these performances, but as long as it was a request from "Lord Store Manager," they would do their utmost to fulfill it.

As for stage fright, it wasn't a major issue. As long as they circulated the Clearing Heart Chant, they could instantly calm their minds and execute their mission with intense focus. Chen Xuan had already experienced this himself.

"Pursuit? Who?"

"I support you calling the police!" people around laughed.

The next moment, however, everyone abruptly fell silent.

"Is that so? That's for the best, it saves me the trouble of hunting you down world by world... Let's end this." The crisp, cold female voice that rang out immediately afterward felt like a biting wind blowing through, freezing the entire river solid. Even without seeing the speaker, merely hearing that lingering, resonant reprimand was enough to stir wild imaginations in people's minds.

"Look, on the bridge!" Someone pointed toward the bridge.

The others hurriedly raised their heads, looking up toward the bridge framework fifty or sixty meters above the water surface—

There, standing upon the railing at the edge of the Sha River First Bridge, was a woman draped in flowing white garments.