No wonder Li Banfeng found the man likable. And no wonder the whole village felt strangely endearing to him.

Iron Gate Fort was a gathering place for Homebound Cultivators, which Li Banfeng found rather puzzling.

Homebound Cultivators, by nature, did not like dealing with other people. In fact, the very idea of a "gathering" was already extremely difficult for them.

There was another problem too. Every Homebound Cultivator had a fixed residence. They were not the sort who packed up and moved whenever they pleased. And so, getting many of them to live together in one place seemed like something that could only exist in one's imagination.

And yet, Iron Gate Fort really existed and quite a number of Homebound Cultivators lived here. When Li Banfeng looked around, he saw house after house packed tightly together. They stretched so far into the distance that he could not even see where the village ended.

A burst of arguing suddenly interrupted Li Banfeng's thoughts.

A young woman had come out to buy rice. She opened the sack, rummaged through it with her hand, and quickly discovered something unpleasant. There was quite a lot of sand mixed in.

She immediately turned to the old man driving the donkey cart and questioned, "Every time I buy rice from you, there's sand in it. And there's more and more each time. This is way outrageous!"

"The grain gets hauled from far away," he said. "Isn't it normal for it to have a bit of dirt, a bit of sand mixed in? If you are that delicate, then don't eat rice. Eat meat every day instead. There's no sand in meat."

The old man was shameless and utterly unreasonable, but the woman did not argue with him. She lowered her head and left.

Homebound Cultivators, it seemed, were not very good at arguing. Most of them would simply grit their teeth and think,

Fine. I won't buy from him.

However, would buying from someone else really be any better? Not really. It was all the same.

There was another grain seller in the fort who pushed a cart around the village, and he also mixed things into his rice.

On top of that, the grain here was terribly expensive. In Puluo Province, grain had always been cheap because Agrarian Cultivators existed. Even in Greenwater City, half a kilogram of rice only cost about 1.8 yuan.

But here? Here it somehow sold for 2.5 yuan. And it wasn't just the rice. The same thing happened with all sorts of goods.

Some people sold cotton. Some sold fabric. Some sold rouge. Others pushed carts filled with books and newspapers, or paper and writing supplies, or various everyday household goods.

There were even barbers who went from door to door. They never stepped inside the houses. Instead, the Homebound Cultivators would bring out their own little stools and sit right at the doorway. The barber would drape a large cloth over them and begin shaving.

Some people sold cotton. Some sold fabric. Some sold rouge. Others pushed carts filled with books and newspapers, or paper and writing supplies, or various everyday household goods.

There were even barbers who went from door to door. They never stepped inside the houses. Instead, the Homebound Cultivators would bring out their own little stools and sit right at the doorway. The barber would drape a large cloth over them and begin shaving.

Once the haircut was finished, the payment was settled on the spot. There was no hair washing service. The Homebound Cultivators simply went back inside and handled that part themselves.

There were also people who came around to collect the chamber pots. They would take away the one from the previous night and replace it with a clean one. Each exchange required payment.

There were also people who came to collect the chamber pots. They would take away the one from the previous night and replace it with a clean one. Each exchange required a payment.

Everything was delivered as a door-to-door service. However, that raised an interesting question. If these Homebound Cultivators never left their homes, how exactly did they make a living?

Li Banfeng soon noticed something. The merchants who came to Iron Gate Fort did not only sell goods. They also bought them.

The middle-aged woman selling fabric had already bought quite a few finished garments and pieces of embroidery. The workmanship on them was rather impressive.

The man selling sundries collected several pieces of pottery and porcelain, each one crafted with great care.

One Homebound Cultivator was particularly skilled at making pipe stems. Several merchants waited outside his door to collect their orders. From the look of it, the business was doing quite well.

The merchant selling books and newspapers had a keen eye. He bought paintings and had already collected more than a dozen. The artistry of each piece was excellent.

That meant one thing. The few Homebound Cultivators selling paintings had very likely already reached the fourth level of cultivation.

Because of their abilities, level-four Homebound Cultivators were naturally skilled at painting. Of course, there were exceptions. Li Banfeng was one of them…

Before Li Banfeng realized it, he had spent over an hour wandering through Iron Gate Fort, yet he still felt reluctant to leave.

Iron Gate Fort was a place where Li Banfeng felt at ease. It was a kind of comfort he couldn't quite put into words.

Of course, not everything about the place sat well with him. The merchants charged well above market price, yet paid far below it. In the end, the Homebound Cultivators were left with almost no profit.

Charging a little extra for door-to-door trade was understandable. However, mixing sand into the grain was going too far.

Li Banfeng was just about to teach those grain sellers a lesson when a sudden cry rang out behind him.

"Owh!"

A young woman lay sprawled on the ground. Flowers were scattered everywhere, bright and fresh, as though they had only just been picked. Beside her lay a thin bamboo stick.

This wasn't an ordinary stick. It was the kind blind people used to tap their way along the road. Li Banfeng had seen one before. Granny Wu from the orphanage had carried one just like it when her eyesight began to fail in her later years.

The girl was blind. And with all those flowers, she had to be a flower seller.

Someone must have barged into her just moments ago, sending the flowers flying in every direction.

Who bumped into her?

Li Banfeng thought. He looked up and immediately recognized him. It was the young man who had given him directions earlier.

The man had just sold two paintings and was rushing after a fabric seller to buy some cloth. In his haste, he accidentally knocked the girl over.

"My flowers..." The girl fumbled across the ground, and her hands were already stained with blood.

The young man hurried to pick up the flowers for her, and panic covered his face in sweat. A Homebound Cultivator feared trouble, but he feared causing trouble for others even more.

A Homebound Cultivator feared being hurt, but he feared hurting someone else by accident even more, especially a girl like this.

The flowers scattered on the ground were in terrible shape. Some were smeared with mud, some had broken stems, and some had lost their leaves.

The young man picked them up one by one and placed them into the girl's hands as he apologized over and over.

"It's alright, it's alright..." The girl wiped away her tears, struggled to her feet, and limped forward as she continued selling flowers.

"Buy some flowers... Who wants fresh flowers~"

Those two calls alone, filled with weakness, sorrow, and the tremble of someone trying not to cry, broke the young man completely.

"Miss, wait a moment. I'll buy some flowers," the young man said as he hurried after her.

"How many... would you like?" the girl asked timidly.

"I'll take them all!"

The girl carried more than a hundred flowers of all sizes and he bought every single one. Some cost three yuan, others five. Just like that, several hundred yuan was gone.

He had just sold his paintings to earn that money, and now it was all gone. It would be a lie to say it didn't hurt.

The young man's cheeks trembled, but he still took out the money. If he didn't, he would never be able to live with the weight on his conscience.

After receiving the money, the girl gave a faint smile, and even her dull, unfocused eyes seemed to regain a trace of life.

"Big brother, thank you. You are a good person."

The young man shook his head. "It's nothing… just walk slowly and be careful."

Holding her bamboo cane, the girl tapped her way forward and gradually disappeared into the distance.

The young man stood there, watching her go again and again, and only after she was completely out of sight did he finally carry the flowers back home.

What a romantic chance encounter!

However, Li Banfeng did not find it romantic at all. He had only noticed three things.

Firstly, most of the flowers the girl sold were common wildflowers that grew along the roadside. As a Wanderlust Cultivator, Li Banfeng was very familiar with them. Anyone could gather large handfuls from any patch of grass. Selling them at such a high price was, frankly, shameless.

Secondly, the flowers had not been ruined by the fall. Many of them had already been damaged beforehand. The young man had focused all his attention on the girl and failed to notice, but Li Banfeng did.

Thirdly, the girl did not know how to use a blind person's cane. When Li Banfeng had cared for Granny Wu, he had paid close attention to how such canes were used. An actual blind person would sweep it from side to side to feel the path ahead, not poke around aimlessly like she was doing.

Li Banfeng frowned slightly.

A woman selling sundries nearby let out a short laugh. "You noticed, didn't you? She's a fake. That girl could've learned anything when she was younger, but this is what she chose."

Li Banfeng looked at the woman and asked, "You know her?"

The woman nodded. "Her name's Sui Donglan. She's educated and can read. I heard she even had a job in the city before.

"But then she got hooked on gambling and lost everything at the tables. Debts piled up, so she ran to Iron Gate Fort. Now she hides from her creditors and tricks people for money."

"Today she pretends to be a flower seller to fool naïve young men. Tomorrow she will dress up as a beggar and scam the soft-hearted.

"Yesterday she even dressed up all flashy and claimed she was selling herself. Some old bachelor got fooled and handed her nearly ten thousand, and he didn't even get to touch her hand. Tell me, how shameless can someone be?"

Li Banfeng nodded slightly. "That is shameless."

A man selling cigarettes nearby snorted. "When Zhou Yu beats Huang Gai, one's willing to strike and the other's willing to take the beating[1]. It only works because both sides are in on it. Who told these Homebound Cultivators to be so easy to fool?"

The woman did not like hearing that. "What do you mean by easy to fool? They just don't harbor wicked thoughts. If we are talking about fighting ability, how many Daoist paths could actually beat them? And this is their own doorstep. If they really wanted to strike from the shadows, which scammer could possibly escape?"

The man shook his head. "They would never have the heart for it."

"Wouldn't they?" the woman replied. "Did you forget what happened to that group of Deception Cultivators?"

The man lit a cigarette. "Those Deception Cultivators were absolute scum. Killing them was the right call."

Li Banfeng stood stunned for a long moment before asking, "What are Deception Cultivators?"

"A Daoist path," the sundries vendor said. "Don't tell me you have never heard of Deception Cultivators. They can imitate anything they pretend to be. Their performance is flawless. You can't tell the difference at all."

Weren't all the Folly Cultivators supposed to be extinct? Then how can Deception Cultivators still exist? Folly is folly. Deception is deception. Are they really not the same cultivation path?

Li Banfeng asked, "Can they imitate anything? Then is Sui Donglan a Deception Cultivator too?"

The woman selling sundries gave a sharp, little sneer. "She wishes. But no matter how hard she tries, she just can't seem to run into the Peddler. The time before last he came to Iron Gate Fort, she was too late and missed him entirely.

"And last time, oh, she did catch up with him. But would you believe it? He never even stepped into the fort, and there wasn't a single other customer around him. Sui Donglan looked straight at him, took him for some nobody vendor, and walked right past without so much as a glance. When she realized what she had done, she was absolutely furious. That's why everyone says her luck is dreadful."

The man selling cigarettes shook his head. "It's not luck. I think the Peddler is avoiding her on purpose. That girl's already cunning enough as it is. If she ever became a Deception Cultivator, wouldn't she turn into a monster?"

Li Banfeng turned to the sundries vendor. "You said Sui Donglan didn't recognize the Peddler last time?"

The woman nodded.

Li Banfeng picked up a rattle drum from the woman's stall. "Who would buy something like this? The kids of Homebound Cultivators?"

The woman burst out laughing. "You don't need to sell it to children. The Homebound Cultivators themselves like playing with these things."

Li Banfeng looked at the feather duster beside the rattle drum. "This thing does look pretty fun. I will take everything on your cart. Go ahead and calculate the price."

The woman froze for a moment, unsure if she had heard correctly. "You mean you want everything on this cart?"

Li Banfeng nodded. "Including the cart."

***

Once Sui Donglan left Iron Gate Fort, she stopped pretending to be blind.

When she reached a quiet, deserted spot, she set aside her bamboo cane, wiped the blood from her hands, and began counting her money.

The blood had been fake. The injury from her fall had been fake too. Even the flowers she sold had been casually picked from wild patches by the roadside.

She would never sell these flowers to women. Even female Homebound Cultivators could tell at a glance that they were of poor quality. However, it was much easier to sell these flowers to men as men would only pay attention to her face and not her flowers.

Once she had sold half of them, she lost interest in the rest and she simply found a fool to take them off her hands.

The Homebound Cultivator who had given Li Banfeng directions was the perfect target. She bumped into him, fell to the ground, smeared some red ink on her hand, and the performance was complete.

Homebound Cultivators were easy to trick. Even after being deceived, they often didn't realize it. And even if they did, they would never speak of it.

Sui Donglan had used this method many times. However, she couldn't pretend to be blind again as it would be too obvious.

What should I pretend to be tomorrow?

she wondered. She was still thinking it over when a sudden burst of rattle drum clatter reached her ears.

Clink-clank, clink-clank.

"Foreign soap, snow cream, foreign matches, foreign candles, foreign iron shovels! A cart full of fine goods from an old trusted vendor! At cost price, pick whatever you like!"

"The Peddler!" Sui Donglan's eyes lit up as she hurried to the roadside. A man was pushing a cart, a felt hat pulled low over his face. He tapped a rattle drum as he called out his goods.

Is this really the Peddler?

she wondered.

The way he shouted sounded exactly like what Elder Yu, the cloth seller, had described, but something felt off.

Isn't this the wrong time? Why is he here now?

Sui Donglan hesitated, suspicion lingering in her mind. Then another thought surfaced.

Old Zhang, the charcoal seller, once mentioned that the Peddler would not always come on a fixed schedule. It would be a matter of luck if one could run into him. Looks like my luck has finally turned.

Sui Donglan stepped in front of the peddler. With a shy expression, she asked softly, "Are you the Peddler?"

Li Banfeng gave her a look and nodded. "Do you really need to ask?"

Sui Donglan lowered her voice and asked, "Do you have any cultivation powder?"

"Of course." Li Banfeng reached into his cart and pulled out two pickle jars. "Gold Cultivator powder, one hundred yuan. Deception Cultivator powder, three hundred thousand. Which one do you want?"

Author's Note

PS: There's no cabinet with drawers, so the pickle jars will have to do. I just don't know if the Peddler will be upset.

1. The saying came from an old story. During a great war, Zhou Yu had Huang Gai publicly beaten to make it look like he had turned against him. The punishment was real, but the plan had been agreed upon beforehand. One was willing to strike, and the other was willing to endure it, all to deceive their enemy. ☜