Chapter 26: Penniless in Jiang City Part 1

Today should have been an utterly ordinary day for the cultivators of the Cultivation World.

Yet Lu Mingyi stood amid the throng of passersby, staring at the towering city gate before her. Atop the wall, two massive characters—”Jiang City”—were carved in bold, vigorous calligraphy exuding grandeur. However, she remembered that in the past, these characters had simply been on a plaque hanging above.

Streaks of brilliant light, like shooting stars, flashed across the sky one after another—cultivators flying on their swords. Below, through the open gate, she glimpsed the lively market inside the city. Monks in colorful robes strolled about, while shops lining the streets displayed gleaming immortal artifacts or steaming hot food, creating a bustling scene.

Jiang City was the largest and most prosperous town in the entire Jiangxia region, known alongside the Taiqing City across the river as the “Twin Stars of the Central Plains.”

But gazing at the crowded market teeming with traffic, ignoring the probing and eager glances from the passing crowds, and looking down at the only thing she had on her—the Crane Cloak—Lu Mingyi felt a wave of sadness well up from within.

Now, she had to face a dire and thorny problem:

She was flat broke.

That day by her parents’ graves, she didn’t know how long she cried. Only when her eyes ached unbearably did her reason slowly return, and she began to contemplate her situation.

Her parents were buried in Jiangxia, so without a doubt, she was now in the northern mountains of Jiangxia.

However, this mountain had once been full of pine trees. She didn’t know when they had all been cleared away, replaced by maple trees blanketing the slopes—and they were clearly high-quality ones at that.

Upon closer inspection, Lu Mingyi saw that her parents’ graves had been renovated everywhere except for the two tombstones she had personally carved. The area in front was clean and tidy, with abundant offerings—clearly someone came regularly.

Besides her, who else would?

Lu Mingyi wandered around the surroundings, confirming her location in Jiangxia through familiar mountain shapes and terrain.

However, when she passed a pool of water and inadvertently glanced at the surface, she froze in shock.

The face reflected in the water was utterly unfamiliar!

She leaned in, peering left and right, then checked her body all over. The wound on her ribs had vanished completely. She confirmed that she had truly changed bodies and stood there stunned for quite a while.

Lu Mingyi had always been strikingly beautiful, but this new face was even more exquisite than her own.

In the past, encountering such a stunning woman, Lu Mingyi would surely have wanted to befriend her.

But now, it was her who had suddenly switched bodies. For someone raised in the orthodox ways of a prestigious sect like Lu Mingyi, this felt nothing short of horrifying.

A soul entering another person’s body—across the entire Cultivation World, that could only mean soul possession!

But setting aside that Lu Mingyi would never resort to soul possession, even if she wanted to, her spiritual power had completely dissipated. How could she have done it?

Thinking of spiritual power, Lu Mingyi hurriedly examined this new body—and was shocked once more.

Though it had Metal-Water Dual Spiritual Roots, the bone structure was extraordinary, on par with her previous one, or perhaps even slightly superior!

Pacing by the pool, Lu Mingyi recalled some storybooks she had bought before, which featured things like “rebirth” or “reincarnation.”

Could it be that the intense pain she had sensed before was a sign of her death?

And now, had she returned to life in a corpse?!

But how had she died so suddenly? And why had her soul returned right by her parents’ graves? Who had been the original owner of this body?

This was utterly absurd. Lu Mingyi’s heart filled with mixed emotions as she washed her face by the pool.

Cool water slid down the refined contours of her superior face, dripping into the pool and sending ripples across the surface, blurring that unfamiliar visage.

She crouched by the pool, her fingertip hesitantly touching her chest, where a heart beat vigorously.

The Five-Colored Stone… would it still haunt her relentlessly?

Memories of her past life flashed through her mind, and her heart ached with bitterness and pain in response to her turmoil.

Deceived, concealed, harmed.

And the Five-Colored Stone, the Demon Sect…

The last drop of water fell from Lu Mingyi’s chin, and the pool surface finally stilled.

Lu Mingyi didn’t know why she had suddenly returned to life in a corpse, but the circumstances were too suspicious. Though she wanted nothing more to do with the Five-Colored Stone and such matters, she couldn’t help worrying if some greater conspiracy lay behind it all.

After all, if even the leader of the world’s top orthodox sect, the Taiqing Sect’s Sect Leader, could collude with the Demon Sect, what was impossible?

But pondering this in some remote mountain forest yielded no answers. Since her parents’ graves were still there, she was definitely still in the Cultivation World. She would need to venture out, meet people, and gather information to understand the situation.

With her thoughts clear, Lu Mingyi began preparations.

In the Cultivation World, without cultivation, one could not take a single step—a lesson she knew all too well.

Yet when she actually began cultivating with this body, Lu Mingyi was astonished.

In just one day, she induced qi into her body. In three days, she entered the Qi Refining Stage. In less than two years, she had reached Qi Refining Great Perfection!

Such aptitude was unprecedented across the Nine Provinces!

After all, even she—the former “Top Aptitude” Lu Mingyi—had taken three years to reach Qi Refining Great Perfection, bolstered by the resources of Taiqing Sect and the Shen Family.

Amid her shock, Lu Mingyi’s doubts only grew.

How could someone with such beauty and talent end up inexplicably in this mountain forest? Why had they died, becoming the vessel for her soul?

There were too many suspicious points. Lu Mingyi decided to head down the mountain immediately and wander the world to seek clues.

Conveniently, she was approaching a breakthrough. To advance from Qi Refining to Foundation Establishment, it was best to consume a Foundation Establishment Pill to consolidate her body and meridians. She needed to find one somehow.

Before leaving, Lu Mingyi knelt before her parents’ graves and kowtowed three times.

Over the past two years, living day and night in this mountain forest accompanied only by the sun, moon, and nature, her state of mind had stabilized further.

The events of her previous life were now mere clouds of the past. Having luckily returned to life in a corpse, she would start anew.

Yet she never imagined that this fresh start would truly begin from zero.

She had no spirit stones, only the Crane Cloak on her back. In the mountains, she could still hunt birds or beasts to roast and eat. But now in the city, without spirit stones, what could she buy?

Her new life hadn’t even properly begun, and she was already on the verge of starving!

Originally, Lu Mingyi planned to take some escort missions at a convoy office in Jiang City to earn startup capital. But now, faint with hunger and her front pressed to her back, she didn’t even want to walk—let alone circulate spiritual power?

She leaned against a nearby wall, clutching her rumbling stomach, utterly miserable. At the same time, she wondered: Jiang City had always been a big town, but had it ever been this lively?

Was some event happening? Or had this Jiang City changed into something else entirely?

Just then, a woman in purple robes approached with light steps, her eyes fixed on Lu Mingyi. She smiled. “Fellow Daoist, are you here in Jiang City alone? Need someone to show you around?”

Starving and irritable, Lu Mingyi first snapped in the Jiangxia dialect for her to scram, then added, “I’m a local. If you’re looking to rip off tourists, find someone else.”

“Hiss, you’re from Jiangxia?! No, wait—I mean, I’m not trying to rip you off!” The woman’s expression changed. Instead of leaving, she boldly eyed Lu Mingyi a few more times. “I’ve been in Jiang City for nearly a century, and I’ve never seen you… Someone as beautiful as you, and you’re really a local?”

“Fellow Daoist, don’t I speak Jiangxia dialect more fluently than you?” Lu Mingyi shook her head, accustomed to such clichéd pickup lines, and turned to leave.

“Hey, wait! Fellow Daoist, I’m Zhou Xun, second miss of the Zhou Family in the southern part of the city.” The woman blocked Lu Mingyi and introduced herself eagerly. “Look, we met right as you entered the city—must be fate, right? Let’s get acquainted?”

Lu Mingyi paused at that, her clear eyes sweeping lightly over Zhou Xun. Sure enough, there was a jade plaque at her waist engraved with the character “Zhou.”

Cultivation families often engraved their surname on jade plaques to prove their descendants’ identity, much like a sect’s Identity Token.

Even if she was lying, it wasn’t without basis. Considering her own penniless state and ignorance of the current year, and that the other was a young miss from a cultivation family, Lu Mingyi fell silent for a moment before curving her lips slightly in courtesy. “As Second Miss Zhou says, it does seem fated. I’m Jing Yao. My mother was from Jiangxia, and I grew up here as a child.”

The surname Jing came from her mother, and “Yao” from the idea of “carefree wandering.”

“Jing Yao? What a beautiful name!”

Zhou Xun stared at the smiling eyes of the tall woman before her, nearly entranced, words of praise spilling out.

Though the Zhou Family couldn’t compare to great cultivation clans, it was still prominent in Jiangxia. Zhou Xun had even joined a local mid-tier sect and witnessed a few Nine Provinces Grand Competitions.