“Why are you still here?” Jiang Shuxuan walked over slowly and took the basket in Gu Xiqiao’s hand.

Gu Xiqiao chose to put Li Yanmei that still hadn’t reacted aside for a moment because she felt that explaining things was going nowhere, so she chose not to. “Brother Jiang, this is Li Yanmei. We grew up together and went to school together too in the past.”

The ink orbs turned over to look at Li Yanmei before he nodded politely. “Hello, Miss Li.”

Even though there wasn’t much emotion in his words, it was easy to feel his sincerity. In contrast to people like Tang Qinghong that put on masks and facades, he didn’t think of himself as a higher being in the slightest, humbling himself and placing everyone he talked to on the same level as him.

“Hello, Mr. Jiang.” While that was the case, Li Yanmei still didn’t know how to react, because some people had naturally intimidating auras, regardless of their intent.

Seeing that Li Yanmei still wasn’t quite used to him, Jiang Shuxuan lagged behind them by a few steps and let the two girls walk in front of him, letting Li Yanmei relax and think about how the basket that looked so out of place in his hands.

Li Yanmei looked back again, before whispering to Gu Xiqiao, “Little Gu, this guy is not bad.”

Jiang Shuxuan was dressed tidily, polite, and every word he spoke was educated and dignified, thought Li Yanmei, racking her brain to think of the appropriate adjectives to describe him.

After listening to her description, Gu Xiqiao paused for a bit before she glanced at a certain someone in the back that had a strange smile at the corner of his mouth before she looked back at Li Yanmei with a serious expression. “Don’t you think that he’s as cold as ice, emotionless and completely unapproachable?”

“You think? He doesn’t seem to be a talker, and he isn’t very expressive, sure, but I think he’s a good man…” Li Yanmei trailed off, before giggling as she suddenly realized that a certain Gu Xiqiao was being a tsundere. “Do you have any more complaints about him, Little Gu?”

A low chuckle came from behind them, and while it was almost unnoticeable, Gu Xiqiao still managed to pick it up, so she closed her mouth and didn’t speak anymore.

Thankfully, they arrived at their destination quickly, and Gu Xiqiao went upstairs to get the computer to check on the online forums.

Jiang Shuxuan sat down by her side as she did so that he could answer any questions that she had.

Gu Xiqiao typed the link into the address bar and pressed the enter key, and what popped up wasn’t the ancient martial arts forum but instead a login page. No one would be able to enter this website without a member’s ID, and her ID was written on the identification plaque that Jiang Shuxuan had given her.

Gu Xiqiao quickly registered an account with the name ’For A Millenium’, before clicking into the forum expectantly.

In terms of looks, it was just a regular forum with several different categories—’Community Area’, ’FAQs for Newbies’, ’Quest Board’, ’Rewards’, and several others.

Gu Xiqiao immediately clicked on ’FAQs for Newbies’, which had a whole bunch of posts that she checked on and read through, before getting a certain understanding of the Ancient Martial Arts Forum.

This was the central hub of the ancient martial arts world with more than twelve thousand members, and while that sounded like a fine number, it was a pitiful amount in proportion to the population of Hua Xia, barely surpassing a millionth of the population, even if they counted the ancient martial artists that didn’t have families and sects.

Most of them were people from the three great ancient martial arts families. All of these families had their own legacy bases that were left behind by great ancient martial artists from those families long ago. Every year, they would pick a few geniuses and youngsters with potential to go into these bases and grasp opportunities to become stronger. Within all of these families, the one that everyone wanted to go to the most was the Jiang family, but their picking criteria was extremely high, and if you weren’t an unparalleled genius, the only way to enter was through getting points from completing quests on the forum, and exchanging those points for a chance to enter the Legacy Base.

Of course, the points that would be needed for that would be hopelessly high.

Other than the Quest Board, the thing that attracted Gu Xiqiao’s attention the most was the Heaven and Earth Ranking List, as well as the Youth Ranking List. The Heaven and Earth Ranking List was a list of the all the strongest warriors in the world with a total of a hundred positions, while the Youth Ranking List was one of the young generations of geniuses. In other words, the Youth Ranking List could be said to be a precursor to the Heaven and Earth Ranking, and just by having their name on the list, a young person could prove how much potential they had.

Gu Xiqiao clicked into the Youth Ranking List, and the first name on the list was three familiar words…

Jiang Shuxuan!!

The Heaven and Earth Ranking List was a deduction on the strongest warriors in the world through extrapolation and theory because those warriors were either too out of reach or wouldn’t fight on a whim, while the Youth Ranking List was completely decided through direct fights within the younger generation. These fights would sometimes end up being extremely one-sided because of the abilities they practiced—Ancient martial artists from China, ninjas from Japan, vampires from America, clerics from England… Every country had their own strengths and flaws, and this made it so that they would form alliances whenever an evil force arose.

Because there were only limited resources all over the globe, these resources were allocated according to the rankings, with more resources the higher one was on the ranking list.

Gu Xiqiao scrolled down the page and saw some videos that the members of the forum uploaded, along with some comments.

[According to gossip, Jiang Shuxuan has already reached Xiantian! It’s unknown whether this is reliable, but from the video we can notice that the vampire couldn’t even withstand a single attack from him. Look closely, can you see the white glow that was emitted from Jiang Shuxuan’s palm? Don’t underestimate it, because it is a frost blade created from pure chi that is exclusive to people that are above Tongmai… It’s widely recognized that there is a massive jump in power every three stages in ancient martial arts, namely from Bone Refinement to Tendon Forging, and from Tongmai to Xiantian. Every warrior that has surpassed the level of Xiantian could be said to be within the strongest of the strong, and the top ten warriors in the Heaven and Earth Ranking List have at least this level of power… But of course, this is all conjecture, and no one can say for sure!]

So the system’s estimation that Jiang Shuxuan had at least Fleet Foot-level power was correct…

After she finished browsing the forum, Gu Xiqiao closed the browser and looked over at Jiang Shuxuan who was reading a book leisurely, suddenly feeling quite stressed.

“Brother Jiang, shall we go back tomorrow?” She asked suddenly.

His fingers paused and he looked up with a smile, obliging without asking for a reason.

Before she returned, she bid her farewells to Li Yanmei and Shi Tou, giving her laptop to the latter in exchange for a promise that he would be a good boy and listen to the village chief.

Jiang Shuxuan only trailed behind her like a watchful bodyguard as she did all this, and upon knowing that she was about to leave, the Li family and the village chief’s family prepared many dry goods and farm products for her.

Gu Xiqiao couldn’t refuse these gifts, so she accepted them, but the most troublesome was Shi Tou. Once he found out that she was going to leave, he immediately waddled over and declared that he didn’t want the laptop anymore, then clung onto her leg like an overgrown koala, not letting go no matter what.

It was already quite late, so Gu Xiqiao only let the village chief go home first with a sigh as she prepared to talk with Shi Tou. “So your dad’s gone now, are you going to let go?”

“No,” Was the reply from the stubborn boy.

“Fine, fine, whatever you want.” Gu Xiqiao just let him be, and even though she was dragging someone along with her, it didn’t affect her movements in the slightest.

Of course, that didn’t mean that the person upstairs didn’t mind it either.

Jiang Shuxuan put down what he had on hand and walked down the stairs, not bothering to lower the sound of his footsteps so the leather shoes clacked against the wooden stairs quite loudly.

Upon hearing the click-clack of footsteps, Shi Tou looked over towards the stairs, seeing a pair of cold, emotionless eyes that scared him so much he let go of Gu Xiqiao.

After Gu Xiqiao finished packing the last pack of herbs, she saw Shi Tou that was sitting on the floor. “Brother Jiang, you scared him.”

Jiang Shuxuan didn’t have the sheepishness of someone that had intimidated a child in the slightest, and he pursed his lips slightly. “He’s too easily scared.”

Shi Tou: “…”

Gu Xiqiao didn’t know what to say, so she just turned back to work on writing on the herb packets, while Jiang Shuxuan helped her pack all of them together.

Shi Tou that had been shown PDA out of nowhere: I better go home, no one loves me here!

Of course, he took Gu Xiqiao’s laptop with him—She promised, after all!

***

The next morning, the black Benz drove out of the village, and in the afternoon a few hours later, a team of cars drove into the village. The leader of the team found the village chief and offered a careful and polite smile. “Hello, village chief, my name is Mu Zong. Miss Gu sent me.”

Hearing Gu Xiqiao’s name, the village chief breathed a sigh of relief. “Ah, I see. Why have you come to our humble village, Mr. Mu?”

“Our company has decided to develop this village and build an eco-tourist spot based on agriculture and natural scenery, but we might need the help of the villagers,” Mu Zong explained with a smile.

He had accepted a file from Gu Xiqiao the night before that contained many plans for the eco-tourist spot, as well as some candidates that would be able to help them.

Mu Zong let Luo Wenlang take care of the Nine Heavens Group while he rushed here with a guide, and with the help of some of the people that Gu Xiqiao suggested, they managed to build a temporary living area while they waited for the others to come.

It wasn’t an easy feat to build a large-scale eco tourism spot, and Mu Zong had never dealt with this sort of thing before. Thankfully, Gu Xiqiao had gotten Xiao Yun and Wu Hongwen’s help, both of which had their coffers full with the help from Gu Xiqiao.

Later on, Wu Hongwen got a team of trucks with resources and materials that they would need, and caused such a commotion that the villagers from the adjacent villages came to look.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep