Looking toward the city gates, after weathering much wind and frost, the scenery remained the same, yet the people had been replaced by a new batch.
Once the five had entered the city, Lin Yue went to the city wall's bulletin board and began scanning down from the missing person notices.
She had once made an agreement with Hong Ying and the others that if anyone came to attend the Martial Arts Convention, they would post a notice here so they could all gather.
After looking through them, she didn't see any information on Hong Ying, Fang Heng, or the others. Ten years had passed, and they would be at least twenty-five or twenty-six now; by the standards of her past life, most people that age were already married with children.
Lin Yue paid someone to write a person-seeking notice and post it up. If they did come, they would meet in the nearby woods on the day of the Martial Arts Convention.
After entering the city, Lin Yue prepared to sell the medicinal herbs she had accumulated over the years—lingzhi, ginseng, Paris polyphylla, fleeceflower root, and so on. She had brought them all with her, about twenty or thirty stalks in total, ranging from ten to a hundred years in age, with the majority being lingzhi.
She really had a strange luck with lingzhi; a casual glance would often reveal their presence. She would inevitably pick some up whenever she went out, and she had used many of them to make soup. Sometimes, having seen so many, she even grew too lazy to pick them.
Ten-year and hundred-year herbs were generally used for medicine, while those reaching five hundred years had a noticeable effect on increasing internal energy—though even then, not by much. Only a thousand-year immortal lingzhi was a treasure that martial artists would truly fight over.
Selecting a time-honored brand like Tongren Hall, Lin Yue walked inside. A medicine apprentice immediately came forward to greet her. His eyes discreetly sized her up, and seeing her ruddy complexion, abundant blood and qi, and steady gait, he knew she was a martial artist.
"Is this young knight-errant here to sell or buy medicine?"
Whenever the Martial Arts Convention arrived, many people from the jianghu came to sell medicinal herbs to cover their travel expenses. At such times, wealthy families or martial arts halls would come to buy aged or rare herbs for medicinal baths to clear meridians, strengthen bones and tendons, or to manufacture medicinal pills.
After the potent medicinal power permeated the body, one used qi to push the blood and blood to carry the qi, accelerating the circulation of blood and qi throughout the body. This forcefully cleared the bloodlines and meridians while rapidly washing away impurities and toxins from the blood vessels and the body, expelling them through sweat and other means.
Tongren Hall sold medicinal bath ingredients for martial use, though they had to be used within the hall. They would help brew the medicinal liquid and pour it into a tub; the buyer only had to lie in it for the bath.
Most were ordinary medicinal baths used by martial artists with low aptitude or blocked meridians, costing dozens of taels per dose. The goal was to improve one's aptitude so that the meridians could withstand or contain more internal energy. For martial artists with good natural talent, their meridians were already tougher and clearer than those of ordinary people, so these baths weren't of much use to them.
As for medicinal bath formulas that could support the body tempering of First-Rate martial artists, every single one of them was held in the hands of prestigious sects or aristocratic families, making them difficult to obtain without the right channels.
All medicine had side effects. Lin Yue had reached the First-Rate realm without needing medicinal baths. Tai Chi already trained the bones, tendons, and skin externally while training a breath of energy internally. She had the time to grind away; she didn't fight or cause trouble, and few could defeat her anyway. She also didn't need to build a family legacy, so there was no need to risk her life to earn money for these herbs.
Since she had longevity, she would take things slowly.
"I'm here to sell medicine."
Lin Yue took out the No. 66 token given to her by the Martial Arts Convention.
"Oh! So it's Knight-Errant Lin! This way, please!"
Tongren Hall had a long-standing partnership with the Martial Arts Convention—the medicine for Li Le had been provided by them. Presenting a token granted special treatment when buying or selling herbs, or when seeking medical consultation.
This token displayed the session number, ranking, and the holder's name; it was only valid for the person named on it. As long as the holder possessed this token, they could enjoy discounts.
By now, twelve sessions of the Martial Arts Convention had been held, and twelve hundred tokens had been issued. Even assuming people from two sessions were still alive, there were about two hundred people who could enjoy the discounts at any given time. Her ranking was near the end and her martial arts were at the Second-Rate level; now that newcomers were emerging, she was considered an old-timer, so showing it didn't attract much attention.
As long as she didn't show off everywhere like a certain someone, she would be fine.
Lin Yue followed the medicine apprentice to a guest room and sat down.
"Please wait a moment, Knight-Errant Lin!"
The medicine apprentice politely poured her a cup of tea and left. While she was drinking the tea, a middle-aged man with the scent of herbs clinging to him and a light stubble on his face arrived. He cupped his hands with a kind look in his eyes, introduced himself, and sat down.
Lin Yue took out the large bundle of medicinal herbs. Manager Wang raised an eyebrow and scanned their ages—they weren't very high.
"My brothers and I spent several years saving these up. I'm bringing them here to exchange for some travel money. Please have a look, Manager Wang."
"Tongren Hall will surely give Knight-Errant Lin a fair price!"
Manager Wang nodded. He picked up the herbs to observe their appearance, color, and scent, stating the price and market value for each stalk. He only set one down to pick up the next after Lin Yue nodded.
Ten-year herbs went for a few to a dozen taels; the older they were, the higher the price. The most expensive was a two-hundred-year purple lingzhi, priced at two thousand three hundred taels.
In the end, the total price was twenty-seven thousand taels. Adding the five thousand taels from the Martial Arts Convention and Li Le, and the forty thousand taels from selling herbs along the way, minus food and drink, she had over seventy-one thousand taels left.
Everything was on her person.
With two months to spare, Lin Yue went to a brokerage to rent a house and settled in. She practiced martial arts daily and occasionally wandered the streets to watch the festivities. Once, she spotted Jingming on the street. The other four were nowhere to be seen; instead, he was with a martial artist who walked a step behind him, clearly deferring to him.
Lin Yue spared him a glance and walked away; their grievances and affairs had nothing to do with her.
She didn't plan to participate in this session of the Martial Arts Convention. Most martial artists at the peak of the First-Rate realm were off searching for opportunities to break through. Aside from those who had no hope of breaking through, they wouldn't waste time here; they had their own venues for martial gatherings.
Li Le had once mentioned that on the east coast of Yuzhou in the eastern part of the Great Qian Empire, there was an island named Yinghu Island. Far from human habitation, that island was a gathering place for top-tier experts.
Two months passed in a flash. Lin Yue checked the bulletin board at the city gate and visited the nearby woods, but there was no sign of Hong Ying, Fang Heng, or the others.
Perhaps this was where their fate ended; sometimes, a parting is a final farewell. Lin Yue let out a sigh of lament and walked toward a spot twenty li into the suburbs.
The Martial Arts Convention had begun. The person sitting in the very center of the high platform was still Zhang Tianhu, the Great Boss of the Longmen Escort Agency. Half of his hair had turned white. In the first seat on the left, where the goat-bearded old man had once sat, the sect master of the number one sect, the Quanzhen Sect, was also gone. He had been replaced by a new face; the old acquaintances had all become old men and women.
In just ten years, they had all grown old.
Looking toward the sect disciples, Lin Yue looked directly at the very back. The five members of the Guiwu Sect stood in a row at the tail end. Only Jingcheng could barely see the figures on the high platform by stretching his neck and looking through the gaps between heads. Three of them were standing on their tiptoes, while Jingming simply gave up.
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