Meanwhile, within Fang Yuan's aperture, on Fang Yuan Continent...
"Oi! You!"
After ten days, Wang Tian no longer protested being addressed like that nor did it leave him with any confusion as to who that person was talking about. The rod had taught him well.
Though these people had saved his life, they extracted every ounce of labor from him in return. They were merciless to him now that he had recovered. 'How else will we recoup our investment in this runt?' they often opined.
He was too weak for heavy work, though they had certainly tried. Instead, he was assigned the most degrading tasks: cleaning horse dung in the morning, washing used pans, fanning his masters as they slept, even silencing frogs in a nearby pond at night. Once, someone had even used him as a footstool.
Even the man who had saved him since he somewhat resembled his lost son showed him no further kindness after Wang Tian had recovered. Wang Tian endured these humiliations, both psychological and physical.
But he never stopped thinking about escape. About what life was like back when he was free. He missed his old clan members every single night as the body aches made it difficult for him to fall asleep.
Exhausted each night, he still attempted to break through to Rank 2 now that he had an idea of how to do so. But without primeval stones, progress was painfully slow. Each time he neared success, relentless labor interrupted the amount of time he had and shattered his momentum. The crystal walls of his aperture rebuilt themselves over again and again.
He searched for wild gu worms but found none. This tribe was not dumb enough to hand him any either.
Simply running away like this was an option but not a very good one. The dangers of the outside world were immense, and his captors had horses and he would not be able to outrun them if they tried to catch him. Not to mention the tribes on Fang Yuan continent were all extremely xenophobic and would not accept Wang Tian if he managed to escape - at the very least as a slave right now he had some value to these people so they kept him around.
Still, he watched. Waited.
And dreamed of the day an opportunity would appear to leave. The clear blue skies above beckoned to him like they would to a bird in a cage, promising the freedom of flight. Heaven would not abandon him just like this - he was sure of it. He had just survived a near-death scenario. That had lit the flame of hope in his heart. Just like Ren Zu, he would continue clinging to Hope Gu. So long as he had that, he could always find the strength to keep moving forward.
"Oi! Didn't you hear? We need a new latrine ditch dug out! Now!"
Wang Tian slowly shuffled to where the voice was coming from. The time to try and escape was clearly not now.
When his opportunity finally came, he would run without looking back.
***
The sun was shining brightly upon Shang Clan City.
A local man stepped out of a pleasure house, stretching lazily after a night of indulgence. As he adjusted his belt and blinked in the bright morning light, he spotted a friend exiting another establishment across the street.
In Shang Clan City, this sort of thing was nothing unusual.
After all, we've all been in this situation at one point or the other.
He lifted a hand and waved. "Hey! How are the wife and kids?"
"Oh, you know, the same as always," his friend replied, falling into step beside him.
The two strolled down the busy street, past vendors, hawkers, and the gaudy signs of yet more brothels. As they walked, they noticed a ragged-looking man standing at a corner, muttering to himself.
"Eight times eight is sixty-eight… eight times eight is sixty-eight…" the man repeated under his breath, brow furrowed while he had a small bowl near him.
"I wonder what's wrong with that guy," the first man murmured.
"Indeed. Everyone knows eight times eight is sixty-seven," his friend said with great confidence.
They shared a look, then both decided it wasn't their problem and kept walking.
"Anyway," the first man said, lowering his voice, "I wanted to talk to you about a business idea I had."
His friend grimaced. "Is this the restaurant idea again? The one with animals as waiters? Because we already established that teaching a goat the menu is impossible even with a Goat Enslavement Gu."
"No, no, hear me out. You know how there are brothels everywhere in Shang Clan City, right?"
"I mean, yeah," his friend said dryly. "We just left two. Of course I know that."
"We should try opening our own," the first man said. "After all, we have a lot of experience!"
"Experience going into one isn't the same as experience in running one. Not to mention that the market is saturated."
"No, you don't understand. They try to cover every fetish under the sun," the man went on, "but what if there's one they're missing?"
His friend stopped walking. "Look, we are not opening some illegal place. I'm not going to prison because you thought something might sell especially if the girls are mi-"
"That's not what I'm talking about," the man said quickly. "Listen. Picture a brothel where all the woman are dressed up as... gu worms!"
"Gu worms? Who would pay for that?"
"There are some cute and attractive gu worms. Popular ones like the Liquor Worm which I think is pretty cute will sell well I think. The costumes won't even cost that much... they can be pretty skimpy because well, you know."
His friend stared at him.
"Really? Women dressed as gu worms? That's the angle you're going for?"
"I'm telling you," the man said, eyes shining with a mix of shame and entrepreneurial fervor, "what do Gu Masters love most? Their gu! That means I bet we can find a bunch of paying customers among Gu Masters, who are some of the richest people in this city! It's a market that no one's tapped yet!"
His friend pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "You know what? Compared to the animal-waiter restaurant, this is actually an improvement."
"Exactly!" the man said, grinning. "So, partner… interested in investing?"
"No..."
The two of them happened upon another beggar who was also mumbling something under his breath. "Eleven times eleven is eleventy-one..."
"What's with the beggars and poor math skills?" one of them wondered.
"Well, if they were intelligent they probably wouldn't have to beg," came the answer.
What they didn't know was that the beggar sect was in full swing regarding its power and influence. Shang Yan Fei was about to disband it - it had only lasted this long because of his mild favoritism towards Shang Xin Ci.
Now though, the beggar sect had just gotten a massive resurgence and plans to disband it were themselves disbanded instead. The fact that they had rooted out Wu Ran for being a spy massively increased their credibility in the eyes of the Shang Clan hierarchy - having found something that the Shang Clan's own intelligence network had missed.
On top of which, their Supreme Elder was a Rank 6 Gu Immortal somewhat affiliated with the Shang Clan. Just as their name implied, the Beggar Sect was living mostly on the scraps off of Fang Yuan's table. He was immensely rich when compared to an ordinary person owning three entire land masses after all. Even his leftover scraps could easily maintain the organization.
As such, there were beggars at every corner of Shang Clan City, trying their best to refine Stupidity Gu for the sake of the Beggar Sect.
It looked like the Beggar Sect was now going to be a part and parcel of Shang Clan City's daily life.