SWNOVELXO Chapter 69
Chapter 69: Harvesting a Large Quantity of Materials
In the Long Family dungeon.
Mu Wan was tightly bound to a beautifully patterned iron pillar, just regaining consciousness.
“What do you want?”
She looked up and saw Chen Ansheng standing in front of her.
Seeing the vigilant and panicked expression on Mu Wan’s face, Chen Ansheng curled his lip, “Don’t look at me like that. If I wanted to do something, I would have done it while you were unconscious. This shows how noble and upright I am, understand?”
Peh!
Mu Wan cursed inwardly, this guy really has no shame.
“We agreed it would only be a spar, and I’ve already upheld my end of the bet! If you were truly an upright gentleman, you should let me go!”
“Don’t you want to know why I am so powerful?”
Hearing this, Mu Wan’s heart stirred.
To be honest, this guy’s abilities had exceeded her understanding.
He had cultivated for less than forty years and had reached the fifth realm of immortality.
Normally, that was something she would never have dared to even dream of.
“Is it because of that Spirit Pool in your home?”
Mu Wan was genuinely curious, momentarily forgetting her predicament.
“Not at all.” Chen Ansheng shook his head casually and said, “If you want to know the answer, you have two options: Firstly, willingly become my servant. Secondly, I can turn you into a puppet, but in that case, knowing the answer would be useless because you would become a walking corpse.”
Servant or puppet?
Given the choice, anyone with common sense would know how to choose.
“Aren’t you afraid I would pretend to agree and then find a chance to stab you in the back?” Mu Wan said.
“Hehe.” Chen Ansheng smiled, “If I didn’t even have this little bit of control, why would I keep you around?”
Upon hearing this, a feeling that Mu Wan couldn’t quite describe emerged from within her.
Since she could remember, she had always been enveloped by the halo of outstanding talent, and it wasn’t until she met this guy a few days ago that she realized just how ridiculous her own pride was.
When Chen Ansheng revealed his extraordinary abilities, she had indeed felt crushed, even having her resolve shaken.
But later, when she witnessed Chen Ansheng’s true power and realm, that feeling of despair gradually faded, replaced by a sense of distant admiration.
After a long silence, Mu Wan spoke, “I have a question.”
Chen Ansheng replied, “Ask.”
Gathering her courage, Mu Wan raised her head and looked at Chen Ansheng: “If you want to control someone to do your bidding, my Senior Brother Zhu would be more suitable. Why did you specifically capture me?”
Chen Ansheng looked Mu Wan up and down and said, “What would I want with a pig? As for you, you’re not just a servant; you have other uses as well.”
Other uses?
At those words, Mu Wan shivered, feeling a tingling sensation all over her body.
Could it really be as she thought, that “other uses” meant that kind of thing…
Thinking of this, Mu Wan felt her cheeks grow slightly warm.
“I… I won’t betray the Holy Land to help you. Rather than betray, I’d prefer to be an ignorant and oblivious puppet,” Mu Wan whispered as she lowered her head.
“Truly spirited! Then I shall fulfill your wish.” Chen Ansheng decisively said.
“Hey, wait a minute!”
Suddenly, Mu Wan lightly called out before saying something that even Chen Ansheng couldn’t have anticipated.
“That… Young Master, I have spent decades in hard cultivation, enduring countless lonely nights and I have yet to find a companion that I admire, so before I lose my immortal soul and consciousness, I want to experience… what it feels like to have a companion. Could you fulfill this for me…?”
“???!!!”
Chen Ansheng was utterly bewildered.
Is this really such a request?
“I don’t know if what I understand by fulfilling is the same as what you meant?” Chen Ansheng felt a sudden itch in his heart, after all, this was a request he had never considered.
“Perhaps… yes. Whether you think I am cheap or dissolute, I am about to lose my soul anyway, so what is there left to hide?” Mu Wan spoke in a low voice, her face reddening.
“I have always enjoyed helping others. Seeing you so lonely and cold, of course I shall fulfill your wish. Just wait while I untie the magic binding ropes!” Chen Ansheng’s hands trembled, as if he returned to the feelings and state he had when he first met Qing’er.
“Don’t… there’s no need to untie the binding ropes. What do you think, Young Master?”
She lifted her head, her stunning face adorned with a shy smile, her eyes filled with tenderness and longing.
“Good suggestion, just what I wanted!”
…
Several hours later, two figures emerged from the dungeon.
“I’m a bit curious. You actually willingly established a master-servant contract with me. Why is that?”
The master-servant contract couldn’t be established through coercion or temptation.
After fulfilling Mu Wan’s desire, Chen Ansheng didn’t have the heart to turn her directly into a puppet, so he tried establishing a master-servant contract and, unexpectedly, it succeeded.
“Wan’er doesn’t know either. At that moment, I wasn’t thinking of anything, I just followed my heart, and then it happened,” Mu Wan said shyly.
“Hmm.” Chen Ansheng nodded thoughtfully, “It seems that whether a mortal or an immortal, all beings have emotions. As long as you are willing to communicate deeply, any mental knot can be unraveled. This is a natural principle.”
“Your words make sense, Young Master. Please continue to communicate with your servant in the future to avoid any future mental knots,” Mu Wan playfully stuck out her tongue.
Just as Chen Ansheng was about to engage in more conversation with Mu Wan, he sensed that Long Shaoyan had returned.
“I have matters to attend to today, and I will have someone escort you back to the Holy Land. In the future, if there are any developments, you must promptly inform the Old Ancestor of the Long Family. In short, if anyone dares to interfere with the Long Family’s Spirit Pool passage, you must report it immediately. Understood?”
This was something Chen Ansheng had previously instructed and it was also another reason he accepted Mu Wan as a servant.
“Your servant remembers,” Mu Wan nodded and said, “By the way, Young Master, will the soul contract we established be discovered when I return?”
“Don’t worry. This contract, let alone the small realm of immortals, even great powers in the immortal world wouldn’t be able to detect it. Just rest assured and go.”
The tattooing technique wasn’t a miraculous method but was simply excellent at concealment; if it were easily detectable, someone like Zhu Feng would have long since stopped using it.
“Your servant understands.”
Then, Chen Ansheng informed everyone that to avoid igniting a battle between the two parties, he had released Mu Wan. The people of the Long Family naturally complied and escorted her outside the clan grounds.
After sending Mu Wan off, Chen Ansheng called for Long Shaoyan.
“Master, I’ve only gathered a portion of the materials you requested, and there are still some materials that have not been located.”
“Let me see.”
“Here it is.”
Long Shaoyan respectfully presented the storage bag to Chen Ansheng, who accepted it.
As his consciousness swept through the storage bag, Chen Ansheng was pleasantly surprised.
Inside were tens of thousands of jins of various rare materials from the immortal world for alchemy and equipment forging.
“Where did you get so many?!”
Chen Ansheng had thought a few hundred jins would be sufficient; unexpectedly, Long Shaoyan directly brought back tens of thousands, quite the pleasant surprise.
“Report to Master, my family has businesses in all major regions of the You Xuan Realm. I instructed each business to search for them together, and they found these.”
“Good, good, good! Continue to gather more in the future; the more the better.”
“Understood, Master.” Long Shaoyan responded, but he had a question, “Master, these materials are quite ordinary, some even no one cares for. Why collect so many?”
“I have my own wonderful uses for them. You might even benefit from it in the future. Now go, keep collecting, and when I emerge from my next closed-door retreat, there will be a reward.” Chen Ansheng was in a cheerful mood and planned to grant some purple crystals to his disciple to help him quickly improve his cultivation.
“Disciple doesn’t dare to expect a reward. I will get to work right away.”
Though Long Shaoyan expressed that he didn’t want a reward, he was extremely looking forward to it, as anything Master offered would be a treasure.
“Hmm, go ahead. I shall enter closed-door cultivation now.”
After Long Shaoyan left, Chen Ansheng flew to Long Que’s residence to inform him that Mu Wan had become one of his own, and if there were any movements from the Northern Ancient Holy Land, she would relay the information.
Long Que felt quite excited, praising that Brother Chen’s skills were high, and he was truly impressed that he could even win over the other party’s Saintess.
Another hour passed, and Chen Ansheng returned to the immortal world.
As soon as he returned, Chen Ansheng woke up Li Xiuyuan, who had been pretending to be in closed-door cultivation, to go fetch materials to exchange for immortal crystals and purple crystals.
“Dumb donkey, what kind of mischief are you up to again?”
As soon as Li Xiuyuan left, the elusive Zhong Li arrived at his courtyard.