Chapter 21 The Exchange of Information

The exit that Xiao Tan and Bei Ling found was located in the mountains and forests west of the town. They had initially fallen into a cave while searching for houses in the east of the town, and now they had passed under the entire Cang Ling Town.

If they were walking on the ground, this distance wouldn't even take half a day. But underground, the paths were intricate, winding, and undulating. From time to time, they would encounter various obstacles, or even backtrack. They were lucky to come out before dawn on the third day.

When the two returned to the Cang Ling Inn, it was the darkest hour before dawn, and the inn's gate was still closed. Of course, there were many ways to enter the inn, such as the side door, the back door, the second-floor corridor windows, and the third-floor corridor windows. If it were any other martial artists, as long as they had some Jianghu (martial world) experience or a foundation in Qinggong (light body technique), entering and exiting the inn would be easy. However, these two…

Bang, bang, bang…

At three or four in the morning, when people were sound asleep, they started knocking on the door with such fanfare.

After knocking for a while, a shop assistant's voice came from inside the door: "Who is it?"

"Tian Zi Room C, let us in," Xiao Tan replied.

After a few seconds, the shop assistant opened the door and said sleepily, "May I ask, esteemed guests, why are you outside in the middle of the night?"

"Hehe… sorry to bother you," Xiao Tan naturally wouldn't answer the other party's question, he just said a few perfunctory words and went upstairs with Bei Ling.

The shop assistant naturally didn't really want to know what the two of them were doing outside in the middle of the night, he was just saying it casually. After the two went upstairs, the shop assistant re-bolted the door and went back behind the counter on the first floor to continue sleeping. There was a reason why this shop assistant slept in the lobby on the first floor. It wasn't because he was afraid of losing money from the counter, but because he was afraid that someone would come to steal wine. To put it more bluntly, he was guarding against Lu Shan…

Back in the room, the two pushed the door open and entered, only to see Jibe sitting alone on the only bed in the room. He crossed his legs, interlaced his fingers, and naturally hung them on his feet, in a state of closing his eyes and gathering Qi (vital energy).

"Whoa, haven't seen you for a day, Brother Jin, are you entering Dao (the Way)?" Bei Ling joked.

Jibe had already heard them come in. He knew that the only people who could open the door like this from the outside were his teammates, so he didn't get nervous. At this moment, he slowly opened his eyes and said, "I'm using a skill to restore my stamina."

"Oh? You actually have an active skill to restore stamina?" Xiao Tan asked, "Then what does this skill consume?"

"No consumption," Jibe replied, "But I have to gather Qi (vital energy) and meditate like this."

Bei Ling seemed to have caught some information from these words, and immediately asked, "Did you learn some internal energy from the NPCs in this script?"

"You guessed it," Jibe smiled smugly, "Lin Chang and Su Shang came once this afternoon, naturally still for that matter. I said I didn't know where the Liao Zhu (chief) and his wife went, and even the two of you didn't return all night, but I was sure that none of you four were dead." He saw the changes in Xiao Tan and Bei Ling's expressions, and added, "Don't worry, I can't tell them about settings like the 'team bar', it's useless to say it, they won't believe it, and they can't understand it." He continued his previous words, "Lin Chang and Su Shang were quite polite, saying that this matter wasn't urgent, and after the duel, they would invite our Broken Sword Tea House to the Ye Mansion as guests, and then we could talk about it. Then they bid farewell and were about to leave." He smiled, "At that time, this young master had a flash of inspiration and said to Lin Chang…"

"You asked him to teach you the superficial internal energy that he was originally going to teach the captain first?" Bei Ling interrupted.

"That's right," Jibe replied, "Seeing that the third day is almost here, I guess these guys will be very busy on the day of the duel, and we'll be leaving the script after this day. So yesterday afternoon was the only chance. Since Lin Chang agreed to teach Brother Feng martial arts, and also made it clear that it was just a superficial internal energy that could be taught to anyone… I took the opportunity and told him that the sooner the better, to teach me that set of internal energy first, and then I would teach it to Brother Feng, so that he wouldn't have to make a special trip for this matter."

"Not bad, you actually managed to swindle a skill," Bei Ling commented, "As Jin Fugui (Jin Wealthy), this is considered an above-average performance, right?"

"What do you mean by being Jin Fugui! Is Jin Fugui an animal?" Jibe said unhappily, "Besides, what's wrong with this name! Even if it's a little vulgar, it's still a piece of my parents' heart, a kind of blessing!"

"Your parents have ulterior motives…" Xiao Tan interjected coldly.

"You can't say that, I believe most parents are still good to their children, this is just a good intention that backfired," Bei Ling added.

"You two…" Jibe wanted to say dog men and women, but unfortunately this intention was blocked by the system, and he couldn't spit out the second half of his sentence, so he had to hold it back and changed his words, "Forget it… This young master is also a professional player, I won't bother with an organization like your Hell Frontline that specializes in complaining."

Xiao Tan patted Jibe's shoulder: "The friendship between men depends on the level of venom in each other's complaints. So we're talking about you, it's a sign of trust."

Before he finished speaking, with a smack, Xiao Tan was heavily slapped on the back of the head by Bei Ling.

"I'm not a man!" Bei Ling said.

"Hahaha…" Jibe laughed, "And how good the relationship between men and women is depends on how light the woman's hand is and the man's tolerance."

Xiao Tan covered the back of his head and awkwardly changed the subject: "By the way, what's the special effect of the internal energy you learned… that is, the skill?"

"The skill name is 【Xu Feng Yin Qi Jue】, it's one of the basic internal energy techniques of the Ye Mansion. If it becomes a skill, the effect is… as long as I meditate cross-legged and guide my breathing in a certain way, I can get an extra 1% stamina recovery per minute, and it won't affect my own stamina recovery rate." Jibe replied.

"Not bad, in this way, even if your stamina drops to zero, as long as you meditate for half an hour, you can return to nearly half, and in an hour, you can recover seventy to eighty percent," Bei Ling commented, "Good skill."

"In my opinion, this martial arts world script is simply a treasure trove of skills," Jibe added, "My gains are not limited to this. In the evening, the young master of the Tang Clan came to visit, saying that it was to thank me for my great kindness and virtue, and wanted to give me a large sum of gold and silver. I thought to myself, what's the use of that thing, I don't live in this world for long."

"So I said, why don't Brother Tang just teach me a set of superficial Kung Fu to practice. He immediately agreed and passed on a set of 【Xie Feng Lan Yue】to me. This is a Kung Fu specializing in using folding fans. After becoming a skill, it can passively increase the rate at which I use the big iron fan." He paused, and then said, "I have been practicing and experimenting in the room before. Now, my fan is more than twice as fast as before."

"Oh, no wonder you're restoring your stamina," Xiao Tan responded.

"Hey, do you have any news about the captain and the others?" Bei Ling asked.

"No, I'm still hoping that you can bring me some news," Jibe said, "That main quest to eliminate the Bell Demon still exists, which means they should still be dealing with a certain Boss in the Bell Realm, right?"

"Hmm…" Bei Ling nodded thoughtfully.

"By the way, what have you two gained during this time?" Jibe asked.

Next, the three of them exchanged information with each other in the guest room. In addition to various information about this Jianghu (martial world), the gossip of Murong Ying and Tang Shize, the most critical point was the secret of Lin Chang possessing the Tai Xu Wu Xiang Da Fa (Great Art of Nothingness)…