The wheel of time turned, and the merchant caravan arrived at Gu Yue village once again. It had felt like it had only been a few breaths of time when it had last come around. Normally it wouldn't have made much ripples in Fang Yuan's plans, but because of the new abundance of resources he had thanks to the system he was not lacking in primeval stones but needed some gu worms in certain critical areas.
The same rock gambling den was set up as last year, and a face familiar to most of the people inside walked in.
"It's him again!"
"He won a Mudskin Toad last time, who knows what he'll win this year?"
"Tch, that was just due to luck, there's no way that lightning strikes the same place twice!"
A voice was quite cheerful though, amid the chorus of sneers and whines. "Young Master, you've returned here! Ah, it's as if we only met yesterday! To see that you've graduated now- I'm sure that you'll have a great run this year as well!"
The smile on the female attendant faded slightly as the man she directed this to gave her a quizzical look. "Is there a reason that you're acting so familiar? Like we've met before?"
"Ah- Young Master, don't tease me like this," she replied, pouting in a way that some might find cute. "How could you forget that time you found the Mudskin Toad?"
The man blinked at her, his face unfazed. "You must've met my elder brother Fang Yuan then, my name is Fang Zheng." Fang Yuan had asked Fang Zheng to ease off on making Vitality Leaves to some extent, so he had managed to get to Rank 1 Upper Stage by this point.
"E-Eh?! Why are you joking in that way?" the attendant asked. Needless to say slogging in the shop was hard- and moving alongside the merchant caravan was harder still. While the profits could be extremely high given how constrained the markets and economies of this world were, a worker like herself would see very little of said profits. To be a real player within the merchant caravan one had to be Rank 3 or have a strong backing, neither of which she had. And while the profits were high, the risks of dying along the journey were also high. Who would want to deal with that day in and day out?
However, this attendant had remembered the young Gu Master who had wandered into the gambling den last year and had even taken extra steps to try to be as appealing as possible to him. She had used a different kind of perfume and had taken great pains to adorn herself, something which was not easy while traveling alongside a caravan. Gamblers, naturally, no matter what they told themselves, never quit after getting a big break. The allure of another big payout was too much and she reasoned that that same Young Master would wander into their gambling day almost certainly when it returned.
The other idiots had ruined her chances last time, but she figured that now was an excellent chance to grasp onto this opportunity. After all, with time he would naturally grow into a fully-fledged Gu Master and possible elder of his clan, and just like Mo Chen she thought it would be better to get her talons into Fang Yuan as early as possible before that happened.
However, despite looking forward to this moment for several weeks by now and making all of these preparations, the Young Master in question was completely ignoring her- behaving as if they'd never met.
"Young Master, look closely, I haven't changed that much-" she began to say before a Gu Yue clansmen interrupted her.
"He isn't lying, Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng are twins," he said.
'Twins!?' the female attendant thought, shocked, but based on the way the other Gu Yue clansmen were looking at her, this was not a lie.
'Why doesn't this stupid woman get out of my way?' Fang Zheng thought. Ever since he had been betrayed by Shen Cui, he oftentimes saw the face of that wretched witch in the faces of the woman he would encounter. The fact that this woman had dolled herself up so much only made the resemblance stronger. On top of which, he easily recognized a woman trying to slip into his brother's good graces for nothing but the thought of the benefits that it would provide. He did not voice his resentment, however, as he had come here to do business and making a scene was not on a list of what he intended to do.
Fang Zheng avoided her entirely, going to a male shop attendant instead and dropping a bag of primeval stones on the counter.
The female attendant was shocked by this behavior- and inwardly furious. Not only did this Fang Zheng give her the cold shoulder, he also went ahead to spite her in another way. Now, someone else would earn the commission she would've gotten from selling to him.
"I have three hundred primeval stones and I would like to gamble," Fang Zheng said.
Immediately there were cries of shock.
"Three hundred! I couldn't make that much in three years!"
"How is that guy so loaded/ He's just a Rank One Gu Master?"
"Tch, he's just spending his parent's inherited fortune. Lucky brat..."
"Hehe... he's Rank One, why not challenge him for a piece of the puzzle and take it for ourselves? As they say, it is a great crime for a beggar to be holding diamonds!"
"Don't you know, his elder brother, Fang Yuan, is part of Qing Shu's team!"
"Qing Shu? Forget it then, we might as well try to steal the meat from a lion's mouth!"
Fang Zheng ignored these outbursts and pointed out the stones that he wanted to buy without hesitation, picking up a mixture of medium-value and high-value stones.
In total, he had bought seventeen. Unlike Fang Yuan, he did not open them up himself, and instead used the gambling den's service to open up the rocks.
Naturally given the amount that he had purchased a large crowd gathered around him, wondering if luck ran in the family and that he too, might find something like the Mudskin Toad.
The first five rocks yielded nothing, but something seemed to be emerging from the sixth rock.
"No way!"
"Could it be that this kid really found a gu worm?"
As the rock was excavated further, there were sighs of disappointment. While there indeed had been a gu worm inside of the rock, it had died and thus was useless.
"Hmm... bad luck to him."
"It's not over yet though, he still has more rocks to-"
Before the sentence could be completed, Fang Zheng suddenly said, "I would like to take the rest of the rocks home and have someone else open them."
He took the other rocks into a bag and then abruptly left.
"Same thing as last year!"
"These two brothers are really alike!"
"No, one is just luckier than the other!"
"Yeah, dumb kid spent 300 stones and has nothing to show for it!"
While Fang Zheng wandered back to their apartment with the other rocks he had, Fang Yuan was examining the gu worms up for sale in the central tent of the place.
Unlike last year, there was a Liquor Worm up for sale. One might not be up for sale even if you waited for a decade, and then you might find two in consecutive years. That was just how scare and unpredictable the supply of the Liquor Worm was.
"Grandma! Grandma! Do you think that you can buy me the Liquor Worm?"
This question was brought up by a young female Gu Master, who had just recently awakened her aperture. Her name was Gu Yue Yao Le, and from Fang Yuan's memories, she would grow up to become a talented healer though would die alongside the rest of the villagers before she could unlock her full potential.
The Liquor Worm's demand was high, after all, who wouldn't want something that could possibly double their progress - and so naturally few people could afford the price. However, this young girl was not ordinary and had a strong backer- Gu Yue Yao Ji, the medicine hall elder, was her grandmother.
"Alright, alright, don't worry," Yao Ji said. "I'll make sure to buy this for you."