Ye Mo didn't ask, but he was sure the debt she was talking about had been owed by the girl's grandpa. How old was she? How could she owe that much debt? But how was her spirit pill master grandpa poor? Even if he owed debt, he shouldn't not have a storage ring. Ye Mo really couldn't understand.
Ye Mo followed the girl as they spoke, and he got to understand quite some things.
The girl was called Xin Zhida. Her grandpa was Xin Xiangui. Xin Xiangui went outside to fight for a career when he matured and with some fortune, he managed to become the disciple of a spirit pill master in Pill City. He then became a spirit pill master and had been living here since.
15 years ago, Xin Xiangui brought back Xin Zhida and they lived here together. She was small at the time and all the information she knew came from Xin Xiangui.
Hearing this, Ye Mo began to suspect if this girl was even Xin Xiangui's granddaughter, because she had been brought by him a bit too suddenly. Of course, Ye Mo didn't think too much of it.
Six years ago, Xin Xiangui died and left behind Xin Zhida who was only 11 at the time. Luckily he left a house and some fortune for her.
Just when Ye Mo wanted to ask how all the fortune was used for debt repayment, Xin Zhida said, "We're here."
They were at an old small yard. It wasn't at the prosperous part of the Pill City, but it wasn't too distant either. There was a simple level three defense and spirit sense shielding formation. Ye Mo didn't expect the grandpa to have left her such a decent place to stay.
Ye Mo nodded. This was much better than he had expected. If she had this place, then about ten years later she might reach the golden core state and would then have a good future.
"Qianbei, please go in." Xin Zhida carefully took out a jade card and opened the formation.
Ye Mo followed her inside. He found there were two huge spirit attraction trees in the middle of the yard. It was because of these two trees that the small yard's spirit chi became dense. Even if she didn't go put up stalls, she should be able to cultivate here.
There were six rooms in this yard. Ye Mo scanned with his spirit sense and found that there were people in the other rooms. Did Xin Zhida rely on rent to earn spirit stones? If that was the case, she didn't need to go set up stalls.
But there was only one room left. If she rented that to him, where was she going to stay?
Xin Zhida pointed Ye Mo to the smallest room and said, "Qianbei, you can stay here."
Ye Mo looked at her in confusion. "This is the last room, where are you going to stay?"
Xin Zhida didn't expect Ye Mo to have already scanned with spirit sense, and she blushed before saying, "I'll be staying in the yard at night."
Ye Mo frowned. Clearly, Xin Zhida was letting him rest in the place she was supposed to sleep. If he couldn't find a place to stay, he could go outside the city. He didn't need to take over Xin Zhida's room.
Seeing Ye Mo frown, Xin Zhida began to worry. She looked at Ye Mo nervously, worried that he would refuse her deal. She could tell Ye Mo was a nice person who was being kind to her. Otherwise, he wouldn't have wanted to buy her magic artefact shard.
Ye Mo thought for a moment and asked, " Zhida, did your grandpa leave you this yard?"
Xin Zhida nodded and looked at Ye Mo in confusion, "Yes, my grandpa left this for me."
"Since you have five rooms rented out already, why are you still opening a street stall?" Ye Mo asked.
Xin Zhida looked down and said, "Those rooms aren't rented out. Grandpa owed people, so they have been taken over by them. If I don't pay the debt within ten years, they will completely own the place. It's been six years already, and I've used all the spirit stones I earned to pay debts."
"How many spirit stones did your grandpa owe?" Ye Mo asked.
"This is a long story." Xin Zhida sighed and looked at the other rooms with some concern.
Ye Mo also felt a few spirit senses scan over. The highest was golden core state level five and the lowest was golden core state level one.
"Okay, then come talk to me in the room." Ye Mo took Xin Zhida inside the room and set up a restriction. The spirit senses immediately couldn't scan inside anymore. The owners of those spirit senses seemed to know a powerful person was there and quickly withdrew their senses, not daring to keep scanning.
Xin Zhida saw Ye Mo casually set up a powerful restriction that was even more powerful than the restriction in the yard, and she looked at Ye Mo with surprise. Ye Mo seemed much stronger than she had thought.
"Can you tell me?" Ye Mo asked.
Xin Zhida nodded. Ye Mo gave her an amicable feeling and didn't look down on her because of his power.
"Six years ago, my grandpa's friend came and found him saying he found an ancient ruin at Great Zhou Mountain. My grandpa didn't think much of it and organized a few friends to go there. But after a few days, he and his friends came back. Then my grandpa started gathering spirit stones everywhere. He used these spirit stones to buy a lot of magic artefacts and herbs in Pill City and made more pills before leaving Pill City again," Xin Zhida said.
Ye Mo thought that the cultivators here had taken over Xin Zhida's house by force, but now it really seemed that her grandpa owed large sums of money.
Xin Zhida was naïve and never thought about whether someone might have been scheming against her grandpa and said, "After my grandpa left, he never came back, and the friends he went with never came back either."
Ye Mo nodded and asked, "Who are the people living here?"
"The people who asked my grandpa for pill concoction. He was borrowing spirit stones everywhere and they all lent my grandpa spirit stones. Some people were grateful that my grandpa concocted pills for them, so they didn't ask for repayment. But some people asked me for repayment, and since I didn't have spirit stones, I could only pledge the house," she replied.
"How much do you owe these people?"
"700,000 in total."
Ye Mo was speechless. He knew that people usually talked about top grade spirit stones in South Peace State. 700,000 top grade spirit stones were nothing to him but for Xin Zhida, that was something she could never earn back even if she opened street stalls for her entire life.
"Where is Great Zhou Mountain? Which ancient ruin did your grandpa go to?" Ye Mo felt that something was fishy about the mountain.
Xin Zhida shook her head. "I don't know. I've never been outside Pill City. When my grandpa left, he said he would come back for sure. He told me to not leave Pill City to find him before he returned. But I heard him and his friends discuss about some Herb King spirit range."
Spirit range? Would this herb king spirit range be an ordinary spirit range?
The bitter bamboo needed a spirit range, so if it was a spirit range then he really wanted to go see this Great Zhou Mountain.
"Zhida, do you know pill concoction?" Ye Mo thought that she should know at least something about pill concoction if her grandpa was a pill master.
But Xin Zhida shook her head, "I don't. My grandpa never taught me pill concoction."
Ye Mo didn't think much of it. A lot of pill masters and pill kings didn't want their descendants to concoct pills. It wasted too much time and the cost was too high. Usually, pill masters weren't very strong as they wasted a lot of time in pill concoction.
But of course there were some geniuses who not only excelled in pill concoction but were also powerful.
"What spirit root do you have?" Ye Mo was interested in taking Xin Zhida in as his disciple.
"I have a water, wood, and metal spirit root," Xin Zhida replied.
Her spirit root wasn't very good, and it wasn't suitable for pill concoction, but Ye Mo didn't mind. His pill concoction didn't have strict requirements for the spirit root. Besides, he had two water type flames. He could give one to her if she accomplished something.
Thinking about this, Ye Mo said, "Actually, I'm a pill master myself. Because you remind me of someone close to me, I want to take you in as my disciple. Tell me, would you be willing?"
"Huh? Is Qianbei here for the pill king tournament?"
Xin Zhida immediately knelt down and said, "Zhidan is willing to serve Qianbei as master."