Smashing the Shop (Part 1)

Xu Ya’s shop sign now hung above the entrance, draped with a cloth that doubled as a curtain.

It gave off a vibe similar to the milk tea shops she’d seen in the mortal world.

What surprised Xu Ya was that the first to be drawn in wasn’t a curious cultivator, but rather the little beggar who seemed fated to keep crossing paths with her.

The day before, the child had hidden in the shadows, quietly watching Xu Ya descend from Immortal Marsh Mountain and busy herself inside the shop. He didn’t make a sound, just squatted quietly in front of the closed door.

It was early spring, and the morning dew was heavy. The chill still lingered in the air, and the child wore only a tattered inner garment.

When Xu Ya opened the door, she noticed it wouldn’t budge past a certain point. Peeking out, she finally saw him.

The little beggar was curled up, fast asleep at the doorstep, shivering from the cold.

Xu Ya quickly stopped trying to force the door and instead opened the other side. She gently patted the boy’s shoulder.

He was extremely sensitive. The moment she touched him, he curled up even tighter, his arms forming a ball around his head in a defensive posture.

Xu Ya frowned.

That kind of instinctive reaction didn’t lie. Clearly, he’d been driven away too many times in the Immortal Village, and even in his sleep, he remained on guard against others’ touch.

Xu Ya didn’t see herself as some saint, but this child reminded her too much of her own hardships on Immortal Marsh Mountain. She had to admit—she empathized.

She began to consider whether she could take him in. After all, her A-Ya Fried Chicken shop might need an extra pair of hands.

Xu Ya suddenly smacked her own forehead. Now that she was free, she really dared to think about anything—even considering this without a word to her business partner.

Maybe she could just give him a few good meals, she thought.

The child slowly woke up, groggy, and when he realized it was the same big sister who had shown him kindness twice before, his guard finally began to lower.

Xu Ya no longer looked frail. Her face had filled out a bit thanks to all the fried chicken she’d been eating.

As they faced each other, Xu Ya felt like she was looking into a mirror. The boy was painfully thin, his cheekbones jutting out prominently. Only his large eyes stood out, like windows into his soul. Xu Ya didn’t need to look closely to know how much he had suffered.

She recalled how cultivators returning from their trials often spoke of how prosperous the villages under other sects were, all thanks to the support of cultivators. They always swore they’d do the same one day. But the cultivators of Yunmeng Immortal Marsh were hypocrites—kind and righteous on the surface, yet blind to the suffering of mortals.

They had truly forgotten their roots. Forgotten that before becoming cultivators, they were just ordinary people too.

At that thought, a wave of disgust rose in Xu Ya’s chest. She just wanted to go home.

She gently patted the boy’s head and invited him, “Are you hungry? Come have something to eat.”

The boy stared at her in a daze. Unlike before, he didn’t rush forward. Instead, he thanked her first. Xu Ya didn’t think much of it. She’d seen many quiet orphans in the orphanage—survival always came before manners.

As she was thinking of how to speak further, the boy mustered his courage and said, “Big sister, can you not drive me away? I… I’ll just watch you from afar…”

Xu Ya’s heart melted instantly. Never mind whether Master Xu would approve—she was going to adopt this child!

She led him inside, fetched a basin of water from the public well, used a simple spell to warm it, then cast a cleansing spell to wash him clean.

She pulled out a neutral-colored outfit from her bag and handed it to him, motioning for him to change.

Then she solemnly said, “From now on, stay here with me and help out, okay?”

By the time Xu Ya reopened the shop, only half an hour had passed, and she already had a scrawny, malnourished assistant at her side.

The boy looked familiar, but none of the passing mortals recognized him as the beggar who had wandered Yunmeng Immortal Village for so long.

When someone asked, Xu Ya smiled and said he was the new hire at A-Ya Fried Chicken, named A Xi.

The first customer was someone Xu Ya remembered—a low-level cultivator who had snatched the fried chicken off a small table at Yuxian Platform the other day. He must have experienced a boost in cultivation after that small taste and rushed down to buy more.

The cultivator had sharp eyes and immediately spotted the price—three mid-grade spirit stones.

His face darkened. Who did Xu Ya think she was? This kind of food wouldn’t even be used in a Culinary Cultivator sect, and she had the nerve to ask for such a sky-high price?

Low-level cultivators in Yunmeng Immortal Marsh had limited access to commissions, and their earnings were meager. Other cultivators could earn ten or more mid-grade spirit stones in a single outing, but for those at the bottom like him, even getting a job meant only four or five stones—and often paid in low-grade ones at that.

Making money in the Immortal Marsh was hard enough. And Xu Ya? She’d been here over ten years and earned nothing. Zero.

And now she was charging three mid-grade spirit stones for a plain piece of fried chicken???

The cultivator stood there, face clouded, clearly hesitating.

The morning market in Yunmeng Immortal Village had opened. Vendors pushed their carts into the streets, hawking their goods. The crowd grew, and deals were being struck left and right.

But the low-level cultivator flushed with embarrassment. He needed Xu Ya’s fried chicken, but he couldn’t bring himself to believe it was worth the price.

Xu Ya had her reasons for setting the price at three mid-grade spirit stones. In Culinary and Alchemy sects, items with similar effects would cost at least one high-grade spirit stone.

And the difference between low, mid, and high-grade spirit stones was vast.

By comparison, even if she sold out for the entire day, she still wouldn’t earn enough to buy a single pill from a Culinary Cultivator sect. Xu Ya figured her pricing was already more than fair.

Her fried chicken truly had remarkable effects. Even Master Xu, that villain, had said it was worth five mid-grade spirit stones. Xu Ya had already gone with a compromise.

Seeing the cultivator hesitating at the door, Xu Ya didn’t rush him. After all, she didn’t have to worry about rent. Though she was technically the shop owner, she saw herself more as a store clerk.

A Xi picked things up quickly and had already spent the morning helping Xu Ya restock and run errands. But he was still severely malnourished and looked utterly drained.

Xu Ya noticed and waved him over, handing him half a fried chicken wrapped in oil paper. She smiled and said, “You’ve worked hard, A Xi. Here—this is your reward~”

The low-level cultivator watched as Xu Ya casually handed a piece of fried chicken—worth three mid-grade spirit stones—to a scrawny shop assistant???

He was instantly furious.

Xu Ya was just a good-for-nothing five-spirit-root waste that everyone looked down on in the Immortal Marsh. She was worlds apart from someone like him, a cultivator.

Enraged and humiliated, he prepared to smash the place.

But the moment he began casting his spell, it was blocked.

The shop had a half-counter that separated the inside from the outside. Master Xu had embedded spiritual energy into the counter, which protected the goods on display. Unless Xu Ya handed something over herself, any attempt to reach in or forcefully take something would be stopped by that formidable energy.

Still, the backlash from the spell hit both sides. The cultivator’s eyes turned bloodshot with rage, while Xu Ya felt the ground shake beneath her feet.

She immediately pulled A Xi into her arms, looking out at the cultivator in confusion.

She truly had no idea what he was trying to do.

It wasn’t until he started cursing her out that Xu Ya finally understood—he was angry about her pricing.

In Yunmeng Immortal Village, there was more than just Xu Ya running a shop that sold medicinal herbs and materials for cultivators.

Many of the shops were backed by elders from the Xianze Sect.

That was exactly why Xu Ya had accepted Master Xu’s proposal with a clear conscience. On one hand, she had no way to refuse. On the other, there was no reason to.

The pricing of Xu Ya’s fried chicken had already taken into account the prices and effects of similar products offered by her peers in the village. She believed it was perfectly reasonable.

Perhaps the other party still looked down on her deep down, thinking that her so-called immortal fried chicken wasn’t worth the price.

Tension was about to erupt.

When the cultivator saw that his spell had failed to cause even the slightest damage to the shop, he completely lost it. He began forming another destructive hand seal, preparing to unleash it at full force, completely forgetting that Xu Ya’s shop was also backed by Master Xu of the sect.

When facing Xu Ya, a low-level cultivator like him didn’t even need to hear her say a word to feel humiliated.

At that moment, a surge of spiritual energy descended from the sky, directly clashing with the destructive spell.

The domineering spiritual energy pushed the attack back. Faced with a cultivator of higher rank, the low-level one was no match. Overwhelmed by the force, he was knocked backward and landed hard on his backside.

The early morning crowd on the street began quietly packing up, preparing to scatter. “Oh no, oh no, immortals are fighting! Spells don’t have eyes! Quick, get out of the way!”

They didn’t understand the details, only that the A-Ya Fried Chicken shop must be run by someone shady who had ruined their morning business. But since it was a shop opened by an immortal, they didn’t dare say anything. The small vendors hurriedly pushed their carts and cleared out of the area.

Protecting the tools they used to make a living was more important!

The ones who had arrived were Zhan Zhengzhen and Cai Wenle. Both were sword cultivators and had a fairly ordinary relationship at first. But after a sudden ambush during a reinforcement mission nearly cost them their lives, they had developed a strange camaraderie. After all, everyone else was a girl, and even though Great Senior Brother Shi Yuzhen was close, he couldn’t exactly bond with them like sworn brothers. So the two had become especially close.

Yesterday, they had received a message from Senior Brother Shi, instructing them to return to the sect and resume their undercover assignment. So they had returned to Xianze.

Before they had even greeted their master, they heard that Master Xu had sponsored Xu Ya in opening a fried chicken shop. From now on, anyone who wanted to experience the effects of her fried chicken could simply go to the village and buy it.

Upon hearing the news, they were genuinely happy for Xu Ya.

Indeed, with fried chicken like that, opening a shop made perfect sense. Master Xu had a sharp eye.

So the two of them immediately agreed to be Xu Ya’s first customers the next day, to show their support.

Besides, Xu Ya’s fried chicken was truly delicious. Even though they had long since stopped eating mortal food, just thinking about that crispy, fragrant flavor made their mouths water.

But to their surprise, as they descended on their swords, they saw a cultivator from afar forming a hand seal aimed at the shop.

Looking closer, it was a mid-level destruction spell. If that spell hit, Xu Ya’s entire shop would likely collapse into nothing.

Without hesitation, they gathered their spiritual power and launched a joint attack from their swords, stopping the disaster in its tracks.

As for that overconfident cultivator, the clash of spells sent him flying dozens of meters through the air.

— Translator’s Notes —

– A-Ya Fried Chicken: The name of Xu Ya’s shop. ‘A-Ya’ is a common, affectionate way to refer to someone named Ya in Chinese, indicating it’s her personal venture.

– forgotten their roots: A common Chinese idiom (数典忘祖) criticizing someone who has achieved success but forgotten their humble origins and basic principles.