The city of Peaceful Willow was everything the Blue Cloud Sect was not: loud, crowded, and gloriously mundane. It smelled of fried dough, horse manure, and cheap wine. To a cultivator, it was a "desert of spiritual energy." To Han Zhao, it was paradise.
A month had passed since the "Ink-Cloud Incident." The Blue Cloud Sect had fallen into a chaotic civil war of finger-pointing, and Ancestor Yun was reportedly in seclusion, nursing a soul-wound that smelled suspiciously of archival soot.
Meanwhile, in a quiet alleyway near the city's east gate, a new shop had opened. There was no grand sign, only a small wooden board that read: "Han's Second-Hand Scrolls & Repairs."
Inside, Han Zhao was doing what he loved most—absolutely nothing.
[Current Life Expectancy: 92 Years, 245 Days.]
[Status: 'Hidden Dragon in the Market'.]
He sat behind a counter made of plain cedar, sipping a cup of tea that cost three copper coins. Across from him, Su Lian—now dressed in the simple linen robes of a merchant's wife—was furiously practicing her calligraphy.
"I still don't understand," she muttered, snapping a brush in her frustration. "We have the Azure Dragon Core. We could sell it to the Jade Emperor Pavilion for enough Spirit Stones to buy a small kingdom. We could find a Spirit Vein, hide in a cave, and reach the Nascent Soul stage in fifty years."
Han Zhao didn't look up from his tea. "Kingdoms get invaded, Senior Sister. Caves get raided by 'lucky' protagonists. But a bookstore? Nobody raids a bookstore. There's no profit in it."
"You are the most infuriating man I have ever met," she sighed, leaning back. "You have the power of a Peak Qi Condensation cultivator, the stealth of a ghost, and the ambition of a turtle."
"Turtles live for centuries," Han Zhao pointed out. "Geniuses live for twenty-five chapters."
Suddenly, the shop's bell chimed.
Han Zhao's internal sensors flickered. His 'Social Invisibility' was currently set to 'Boring Shopkeeper'.
A man walked in. He was dressed in expensive silk, but his eyes were bloodshot and his hands were shaking. He wasn't a cultivator; he was a mortal noble, likely a local magistrate's son.
"I heard..." the man whispered, looking around the dim shop. "I heard you can fix things. Not just books. Patterns."
Han Zhao set his tea down. [System Scan: Target is cursed. 'Life-Draining Shade' attached to his spine.]
"I fix books, young master," Han Zhao said, his voice flat and uninteresting. "Sometimes I fix maps. But patterns? That sounds like expensive work. I'm just a simple man."
"I'll pay ten gold bars," the man begged, slamming a heavy pouch onto the counter. "My father... he touched an old scroll from the 'Cursed Tomb.' Now he won't wake up, and my shadow started screaming at me this morning."
Su Lian's hand drifted toward the dagger hidden in her sleeve. A curse from a 'Cursed Tomb' usually meant high-level cultivators were involved. This was exactly the kind of "Trouble Magnet" Han Zhao avoided.
She expected Han Zhao to kick the man out. Instead, Han Zhao stood up and walked around the counter.
"Ten gold bars is a lot of tea," Han Zhao mused.
He reached out and tapped the man's shoulder. To the man, it was a comforting gesture. In reality, Han Zhao's shadow surged for a micro-second, his 'Nameless Longevity Script' Qi acting like a vacuum.
The 'Life-Draining Shade'—a nasty, spider-like spirit—wasn't just defeated; it was consumed by Han Zhao's shadow.
[Essence Absorbed: +5 Days of Longevity.]
[System Note: Curses are high-calorie snacks.]
The man gasped. The weight on his shoulders vanished. The screaming in his ears stopped. He looked at Han Zhao, but because of the 'Social Invisibility', he couldn't quite focus on the shopkeeper's face. He just felt a sense of overwhelming... averageness.
"It... it's gone?" the man stammered.
"The air in here is very dry," Han Zhao said, returning to his stool. "It's good for clearing the head. Perhaps your father just needs a better humidifier. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a shipment of very boring tax records to organize."
The noble left the gold and scrambled out of the shop as if the gods themselves had touched him.
Su Lian stared at Han Zhao. "You just ate a Grade-2 Malignant Curse like it was a grape."
"Energy is energy," Han Zhao said, sliding the gold bars into a hidden floorboard. "And more importantly, that noble will go home and tell everyone he was saved by 'some guy in a shop' whose face he can't remember. It's the perfect business model."
He looked out the window. The sun was setting over Peaceful Willow City.
[New Quest: The Merchant of Shadows.]
[Objective: Accumulate 100 years of life through 'Quiet Services'.]
[Current Progress: 92/100.]
"Su Lian," Han Zhao said, closing the shop door. "Would you like to learn how to fix a 'pattern'? It's much more efficient than sword practice, and it doesn't involve nearly as much bleeding."
Su Lian looked at the broken brush, then at the man who was currently turning a legendary dragon core into a paperweight for his ledger. She picked up a new brush.
"Teach me," she said.
Han Zhao smiled. In the heart of a mortal city, his "Record of Immortality" was finally getting interesting. He wasn't building a sect; he was building a sanctuary.
And as long as the tea stayed hot and the world stayed away, he was perfectly happy to be the most powerful "nobody" in history.