WBICDPH Chapter 17 Part 1

Chapter 17: The First Pot of Gold

Lin Jin knew that Yanyu Mountain had plenty of missions, but he hadn’t expected this many.

Each mission was recorded on a single bamboo slip, and the slips were hung in dense rows with no gaps between them. Just the third-rank missions alone filled three entire walls.

Standing beside Han Ao and staring at those walls, Lin Jin felt his vision go dark.

Trying to find the right mission among those bamboo slips was no different from fishing a needle out of the Pacific Ocean.

There were plenty of disciples in the Mission Hall. Most of them casually picked a mission and left. Occasionally, someone would switch once or twice because of the location or mission type—but people like Lin Jin and Han Ao, plastered against the wall and carefully examining each slip one by one, were truly unprecedented.

Disciples passing by kept glancing at them curiously. Even the elder presiding over the Mission Hall dragged over a chair and sat nearby to watch.

Although the Mission Hall didn’t limit how long disciples could take choosing missions, who did they think they were? Grocery shopping in the mortal world, picking cabbages?

The elder tried to pressure them into leaving with his gaze, but the two showed zero self-awareness. He glared at them for the time it took two incense sticks to burn before finally losing his patience and letting out a powerful:

“Ahem—!”

The cough shook the hall, startling the two guilty parties at the mission wall so badly that they both jumped.

Sweat poured down Lin Jin’s back as he lowered his voice and whispered to Han Ao:

“The old man’s been staring at us for a while. What do we say?”

“What else can we say?” Han Ao replied. “Yanyu Mountain never said disciples can’t carefully select missions. He can’t kick us out. Stay strong—victory comes with persistence! We’ll find it eventually!”

Enduring the elder’s scorching stare, Han Ao stiffened his resolve and rehung the stack of bamboo slips in his hand, quietly encouraging Lin Jin as he did.

Lin Jin felt this couldn’t go on. Setting aside how annoying they were being, if they really checked every single slip across three walls, wouldn’t they still be here at midnight if luck was bad?

He sighed and nudged Han Ao with his elbow.

“How about we change tactics and try some mysticism?”

“What?” Han Ao raised an eyebrow.

“Let’s stop looking. Just go with your gut and randomly pick one bamboo slip from the three walls.”

“…Will that work?”

“Who cares whether it works? Just try it. You’re the male lead—if the plot’s fixed, you shouldn’t miss it.”

Han Ao thought it over and found the logic convincing. He stepped back a few paces, pointed around to ‘choose’ the middle wall, then followed his intuition and grabbed a random bamboo slip.

But before he could read a single word on it, he and Lin Jin were suddenly swept up by a surge of spiritual energy and unceremoniously tossed out of the Mission Hall together.

They landed painfully on their backsides outside. When they looked up, the presiding elder was glaring at them with bull-like eyes and said irritably:

“Disciples may not change missions more than three times after selection. You’ve lingered here long enough. Leave!”

Han Ao scrambled to his feet and protested:

“Senior, that rule isn’t written anywhere on the Mission Hall notice!”

The elder ignored him, flicked his sleeve, and a new line of small text instantly appeared on the regulations board.

Pointing at it, he announced curtly:

“Now it is.”

“…”
Han Ao was speechless.

Disciples could not take multiple missions at once, and once a mission bamboo slip left the Mission Hall, it automatically bound itself to the holder. The mark would only disappear after the mission was completed. That meant no matter what was written on the slip, they had to accept it.

Han Ao could only pray for decent luck. He held the bamboo slip carefully, softly chanted the mystical anthem Good Luck Is Coming, and then, with trembling hands, infused it with spiritual energy.

Lin Jin watched from the side. A few breaths later, faint golden text surfaced on the bamboo slip:

[Zhongyun City Missing Girls Case]
Mission Rank: Third
Location: Zhongyun City, Mortal Realm
Reporter: Unknown
Target Type: Ghost (suspected)
Threat Level: Blue Flame (suspected)
Time Limit: One month

The information made Lin Jin dizzy.

“I don’t get it. Do you?” he asked.

“Nope. Is this the mission we wanted?”

“Maybe? I remember the boss of this arc was a ghost, and it involved a girl…”

After wracking his brain, Lin Jin sighed.

“I give up. You seriously don’t have a system or something? No cheat codes at all? At least bring the original novel!”

“I wish!” Han Ao said miserably.
“If I’d known, I would’ve memorized those tens of millions of words. This is like being blind! …Ah, whatever. We’ve already taken it. Even if it’s wrong, we have no choice. A third-rank mission shouldn’t be fatal—just bring more life-saving gear.”

Both of them were direct disciples of inner-sect elders at Yanyu Mountain and received monthly spirit stone allowances. Combined with the small jobs they usually took, they were fairly well-off—at least enough to buy talismans, pills, and a few low-tier artifacts.

Being people who valued their lives, they headed straight to the sect’s trading market and spent every last spirit stone on escape and survival items. By the time they left, night had fully fallen. As they strolled toward the Southern Qian Gate, Han Ao suddenly remembered something.

“By the way, weren’t you going to the mortal world to buy things? Do you still have money?”

Lin Jin patted his storage pouch.
“I’ve got a little spirit stone left.”

Han Ao looked at him strangely.
“But the mortal world doesn’t use spirit stones. They use gold and silver. You don’t have any?”

Lin Jin smacked his forehead.
“Right… Where would I get gold or silver? Was there anywhere in the market to exchange?”

“Didn’t see any.”

“Would there be any in the mortal world?”

“You’re asking me?”

“…”

Lin Jin sighed, worrying about where to scrounge up some loose silver or copper coins—when, before, he could think of a solution, he heard a voice from the sky that sounded like the Grim Reaper’s notice:

“Lin! You made me search so hard! Let’s see where you run this time!”

No exaggeration—at the sound of Hua Nanzhi’s voice, Lin Jin went numb from head to toe.

By instinct, he activated the escape artifact Mo Yuzi had given him, ready to bolt—but for the first time, it failed. Before he could flee even a few feet, an invisible barrier blocked his path.

Refusing to believe it, Lin Jin kept activating the artifact again and again as Hua Nanzhi drew closer, but the barrier wouldn’t budge.

“Hah!”

Hua Nanzhi let out an exaggerated laugh of ridicule. Arms crossed, she stood behind him, watching his futile struggle before pronouncing his sentence:

“Stop trying—it’s useless. You’ve escaped me plenty of times with that Earth-tier artifact, so count yourself lucky. But today, I brought out a Heaven-tier Pocket Realm just for you. Let’s see where you can run now!”

“What?!”

A Heaven-tier Pocket Realm?!

Miss Hua really spared no expense!

Artifacts were ranked from first to ninth tier at the lowest level. Above that were the Huang, Xuan, Di, and Tian tiers. Anything beyond Heaven-tier was classified as a divine artifact.

No artifact refiner capable of producing divine artifacts had appeared in thousands of years, and even Heaven-tier artifacts were priceless rarities. Even Elder Jiang Lou, Yanyu Mountain’s strongest artifact cultivator, needed perfect timing and conditions to forge one.