Simply Trading

To be honest, he had only been planning to get the girls to owe him enough favours so that they would willingly pa.s.s some of their Merit Points to him later on, when he was ready to get his hands on some useful items or martial art techniques. But now it seemed he needn"t have bothered! With Elder Ming on his side, surely he didn"t have to go through the trouble of conning the female disciples of their Merit Points, did he? Especially when Ming Guanhe had already promised to help him get hold of whatever he might need!

Then he stopped, and sighed. Things were going far more smoothly than he had thought possible, when he first joined this Heaven Sword School. Although it had the Foundation martial art that he needed, he had to admit that he wasn"t particularly enticed by the way that it handled the training of its disciples. Nor did it have that much of a reputation, there in the Southwest.

It was, after all, a rather simple organisation that has only managed to maintain a rather reasonable standing, there in the small kingdoms to the South. And most of its disciples had hurried off to the more respectable and powerful Sects and Schools elsewhere, as soon as they reached the age of eighteen.

And that was his plan as well, to get away from the Heaven Sword School. As soon as he had formed his Core. Or earlier, if it wasn"t possible.

Yet, it appeared that Elder Ming Guanhe was hoping to use him to gather herbs in the Southern Woods, and so heal his daughter of her ailment. Wasn"t that going to take up too much of his time? And there was the possibility that the old man might take steps to get rid of him, once he has served his purpose, when Qingsong was completely healed.

So, wasn"t it a little risky? Could he really trust that old man?

And if he did agree to Elder Ming"s plan, and helped him with the herb gathering, did it mean that he would have less time to work on his own medicine field? There were still a good number of medicines that he required, and hanging onto his plants there would make things a lot more convenient.

Indeed, he was already holding back about a quarter of his harvests now, so that he had enough to concoct those tonics that would make it easier for him to train his physical body, and to ease his fatique from all those Foundation laying qi-circulating exercises. So he wasn"t about to give them up.

At least, no until he had successful built up his Foundation to that target that Old Man Snow Mountain had set for him.

Besides, he was still the sole supplier for those herbs that the female disciples from the Rear Garden needed. Which meant that they would certainly be making noise, if he gave up such a lucrative business. And he definitely did not need any publicity, good or bad, if he was really going to help Elder Ming with this medicine gathering mission of his.

Having too many eyes on him, and too much talk about his affairs, was certainly going to be detrimental!

Still, he was planning to leave the Heaven Sword School in another year or so. Therefore, he would have to tell the female disciples to start working on their own little herb garden, if they didn"t wish their supply disrupted when he really leaves the medicine fields.

He paused and sighed. And stood looking up at the thin sliver of moon up in the sky as he considered how he was going to do that. Breaking the news to Lingxi would be the easiest way to get word to the other female disciples. But doing that now, when he had just managed to wriggle his way into Elder Ming"s confidence gave the impression that he was getting rid of the bridge now that he had crossed the river. And that would certainly leave a bad taste in everyone"s mouth.

And apart from his good name, it would also give the impression that he didn"t really care about the well-being of the girls from the Rear Gardens. And that would probably leave them all feeling at least a little sour about their relationship with him.

Not exactly the sort of image that he was trying to build for himself, now was it?

So it might be more prudent to simply leave things as they were, and try to get his hands on some benefits from the girls if he can instead. After all, he had spent all that time working on a particular reputation in the Rear Gardens and it would definitely raise questions here and there, if he had to lose it for no reason.

Besides, he might be able to get his hands on some other benefits through them instead. That might make it worth his while.

All he had to do now was to maintain his stance towards the female disciples of the Rear Gardens, and to keep his attention focused on Elder Ming, rather than his daughter Qingsong. Whatever others wished to think was taking place between him and her, would be entirely up to their imagination. He certainly wasn"t going make any moves to clarify the situation.

And he doubted that anyone, from the Rear Gardens or otherwise, would try to make him cough up any information regarding the truth behind his a.s.sociation with Ming Guanhe! Especially when they knew just how devoted he was to his daughter. No one was likely to risk offending him, over someone as inconsequential as a herb-grower like Qin Feng!

Unfortunately, he didn"t realize that there was someone waiting for him at his little house, intent on doing just that!

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