A Ya Fried Chicken Shop

So many mid-level cultivators had been sacrificed, yet at the most critical moment, the plan went awry.

When Master Xu returned to the forest, he found that the Soul Snatching Talisman, infused with the lives of dozens of cultivators, had been completely destroyed by some unknown force. What kind of power could do such a thing?

A golden opportunity had been wasted for nothing. Though Master Xu still wore a warm smile like a kindly gentleman, inwardly he was already seething with rage.

These past few days, he had replayed the events over and over in his mind, trying to pinpoint where things had gone wrong.

It wasn’t until he saw the faint trace of black sand lingering on the hem of Xu Ya’s robe—something only a talisman caster could detect—that Master Xu finally understood.

The Soul Snatching Talisman was designed to grow stronger when challenged and was considered foolproof. The only known counter was someone like Xu Ya, who had no spiritual power whatsoever. Could it be that she had accidentally broken the talisman? Master Xu was furious with himself for overlooking such a detail.

He had underestimated this useless girl.

Of course, Master Xu had never truly intended to generously open a shop for a waste like her. That was merely a contingency plan.

Recently, there had been rumors in the Yunmeng Immortal Marsh linking Xu Ya to Shi Yuzhen. At first, he thought it was just idle gossip among cultivators. Who would have guessed that Shi Yuzhen would actually bring Xu Ya along during a reinforcement mission? Maybe the rumors weren’t so baseless after all.

After observing them, Master Xu was surprised to find that Shi Yuzhen had such a taste. Xu Ya not only had pitifully low spiritual power, but her appearance was plain and rustic, offering neither aesthetic appeal nor practical use.

He had only suggested the shop to help her “relax” a bit… Master Xu stood in the shadow, his face hidden from the light, but Xu Ya could tell he was in a foul mood.

Yet Shi Yuzhen had gotten involved with someone like her. Master Xu brooded darkly. Perhaps that prophetic dream had some accuracy after all…

Well, so be it. If this could be used to set a trap, then as long as he could get his hands on Shi Yuzhen’s body, Master Xu didn’t mind going through a bit of trouble or laying down extra plans.

His specialty, after all, was wearing the mask of virtue and righteousness while committing the filthiest of deeds.

Given Xu Ya’s status in the Immortal Marsh, she had no choice but to obey. She couldn’t refuse any order from a cultivator of higher rank. In other words, she had no right to say no. On the surface, Master Xu’s offer to fund a fried chicken shop for someone like her seemed like an immense honor.

Master Xu asked with a smile, though he gave her no room to decline. “Xiao Ya, what do you think? Naturally, I wouldn’t ask for nothing in return. I’ll just take ten percent of the monthly profits in spirit stones as a token.”

“Th-thank you, Master Xu,” Xu Ya quickly pulled her hands free from the children and Shi Yuzhen’s grasp, clumsily clasping her hands in a formal salute, her head nearly buried into the wall crack.

【Eek, this villain looks so scheming.】

Xu Ya muttered inwardly. Better to agree for now. Running a shop beat being chased around the Immortal Marsh like a stray dog. Shi Yuzhen didn’t care about appearances, and that had made Xu Ya a prime target for all those NPCs.

Master Xu beamed with satisfaction. “Haha, your return today is already wonderful news. Now that Xiao Ya has agreed to the shop, it’s joy upon joy, blessings upon blessings. Senior Brother, why don’t you return to the Immortal Marsh with Shi first? I’ll take Xiao Ya to see the shop.”

Master Chen had no objections.

Master Xu brought Xu Ya to a bustling marketplace. It was already dusk, but the streets were still packed with people. In her previous world, this would have been considered a prime location for a storefront!

As expected, Master Xu had already negotiated multiple rounds and was well-acquainted with the neighbors.

Everyone greeted them with friendly smiles, flattered that a cultivator would come in person, and warmly welcomed the two into the shop.

The landlord, slightly hunched, introduced the small shop of about two square zhang—roughly twenty square meters by modern standards.

It was more than enough for Xu Ya to work her magic.

Behind the shop, two doors had already been installed. Aside from the back exit, there was even a small room suitable for living.

Xu Ya was quite pleased. Her round eyes sparkled with excitement.

Just thinking about living in the mortal world instead of returning to the Immortal Marsh to be chased around like a stray dog filled her with energy!

As for Master Xu’s schemes, she had a pretty good guess. Didn’t novels always go like this? Seeing her getting close to the male lead, the villain would surely try to sneak trace amounts of poison into the food to subtly alter the male lead’s physique, then strike when the time was right.

Xu Ya wasn’t too worried. She had already confirmed with the system multiple times—any fried chicken made by her was “impervious to weapons.” If she could further enhance her own physique, she might even develop fried chicken that could boost cultivation.

With that in mind, all she needed to do was keep an eye on Master Xu and make sure he never got another chance to harm Shi Yuzhen!

Xu Ya felt refreshed and clever, proud of her own quick thinking.

With her approval, Master Xu finalized the deal for the shop. He gave her a quick lesson on pricing strategies and left the rest entirely in her hands.

Xu Ya listened intently. This felt no less important than being the manager of a Ta-o-ting branch. Who would’ve thought she could build a career even in a cultivation world?

She was genuinely grateful to Master Xu for this opportunity.

Master Xu still wore his ever-present smile, but now that Xu Ya knew he was the main villain from the incomplete manuscript, she couldn’t help but watch his micro-expressions closely.

She’d never noticed it before, but now she realized Master Xu’s smile was like those hastily rendered NPCs in the 3A games she used to play—superficially pleasant, but with an uncanny valley creepiness if you stared too long.

After that jarring experience, her modern memories had returned. Now, everyone in the cultivation world—except for the male lead Shi Yuzhen, who had a well-designed “model”—gave her the same eerie feeling as Master Xu.

She had once asked the system why that was. The system had stammered that maybe the author hadn’t put enough soul into creating the side characters.

Xu Ya barely accepted that explanation, since the evidence was right in front of her.

Now, the once-kind Master Xu had helped her secure a shop and taken care of various details, all while wearing his fake smile and squeezing the back of her hand.

He didn’t hold back. Xu Ya felt a dull pain but didn’t make a sound.

Out of the corner of his eye, Master Xu noticed that the black talisman sand clinging to Xu Ya’s body had been completely wiped away. He let out a quiet breath of relief, clasped his hands behind his back, and continued to smile as if nothing had happened.

Master Xu suggested that Xu Ya move her belongings from the Culinary Cultivator sect to the shop so she wouldn’t have to shuttle back and forth while running the business.

Many cultivators from the Culinary Cultivator sect had already tasted Xu Ya’s fried chicken during the event at Yuxian Platform and fully understood its effects.

Even before Xu Ya arrived at the sect, news of her opening a shop had spread throughout the Immortal Marsh. Many low-level cultivators had just begun fasting and still craved food. Now, a delicious crispy fried chicken with powerful cultivation-boosting effects was about to become available. Naturally, they were drooling in anticipation.

A few days ago, when Shi Yuzhen and the others failed to return on time from the reinforcement mission, the Immortal Marsh had been shrouded in sorrow. Now, not only had they returned safely, but there was also a fried chicken shop opening.

Everyone was eager to descend the mountain for a taste.

And so, for the first time in her cultivation life, Xu Ya experienced something akin to a Long Aotian moment. Those who usually gave her the cold shoulder now greeted her with beaming smiles.

Xu Ya could only return their greetings with a polite smile, but inwardly she thought they were all fake. She was already calculating how to price the fried chicken to rip them off, heh.

Xu Ya didn’t have much luggage. This time, she finally remembered to pack everything into her golden-finger treasure pouch. With just one trip, she truly left the Yunmeng Immortal Marsh behind.

She had never felt such freedom before. Xu Ya took a deep breath of the night air, full of liberty, and skipped along, tossing her keys with a crisp jingle.

Like a carefree little girl who had just found happiness, her joy radiated from every pore.

From now on, all she had to do was assist the male lead in becoming the so-called number one in the Immortal Realm. Wouldn’t the day she could finally return home be just around the corner?

The system sighed in her mind: 【This makes it really inconvenient to feed the male lead. When will you ever complete your mission?】

Xu Ya responded with a mix of comfort and disdain, “Are you seriously not just a simp for the male lead? Why are you more eager than someone like me who actually wants to go home? Once I’m no longer being chased around like a stray dog, I’ll have a steady income of spirit stones to maintain my body. Then I can develop even better fried chicken. If I feed him that, won’t the mission get done even faster?”

The system immediately went into its usual “not listening, not listening, turtle chanting scriptures” mode.

Xu Ya ignored it completely.

She couldn’t help but hum a tune as she fetched some water from the shared well behind the shop. With a simple cleansing spell, she made the water float and scatter into every corner of the shop.

Grime and dirt were instantly cleaned away.

Lighting a candle, Xu Ya, as usual, pulled fried chicken and her special oil pot out of her treasure pouch.

Time to fry up tonight’s inventory.

The shop was a full twenty square meters—much larger than the place she used to live in back in the Immortal Marsh.

She could line up dozens of boxes beside the oil pot.

Xu Ya coated each piece of fried chicken with her special blend of spices according to the recipe, then dropped them into the neatly arranged oil pot.

Back in the modern-day Ta-o-ting, Xu Ya had already been a seasoned pro. She had perfect control over the heat.

Before long, batch after batch of sizzling, crispy, piping-hot fried chicken came out of the pot.

With swift hands, Xu Ya wrapped each one in plain paper.

Then she stayed up all night, brush in mouth, painting a sign for her little shop on a canvas—A-Ya Fried Chicken. She wrote out the price list one by one, setting the prices according to the standards of Culinary Cultivators. Given the effects of her food, she figured she could easily charge a bit more.

Thinking about how the high-end ingredients and elixirs from Culinary and Alchemy Cultivators could cost a fortune, Xu Ya couldn’t help but calculate—how many chickens would it take to trade for a single spirit medicine that nourished the dantian?

Even if the raw ingredients in her treasure pouch were endless, they still had to be processed by her. Wasn’t that labor?

And since labor was involved, the price couldn’t be low. Especially when her fried chicken had different effects for different people—that was a unique selling point.

Usually, food and pills produced by Culinary and Alchemy Cultivators had very singular effects. But Xu Ya’s fried chicken, with its flexible ability to boost cultivation, would normally require far more spirit stones to obtain.

Xu Ya whimsically dreamed of striking a satisfying trade with Alchemy Cultivators—she’d give them fried chicken, and they’d trade her pills. That would be perfect.

Balancing the brush on her nose, Xu Ya struggled for a while before finally settling on the prices.

After finishing everything, she collapsed spread-eagle on the wooden bed—she hadn’t even gotten around to laying out the bedding!

But Xu Ya didn’t care in the slightest. She lay there happily and drifted into a deep sleep.

The next morning, the familiar system broadcast served as her alarm clock. Today was the grand opening of A-Ya Fried Chicken.

— Translator’s Notes —

– zhang: A traditional Chinese unit of length, approximately 3.3 meters. Two square zhang would be about 22 square meters.

– turtle chanting scriptures: An idiom meaning to ignore what someone is saying, similar to ‘in one ear and out the other.’

– Long Aotian: A stock character archetype in Chinese web novels; an overpowered, domineering protagonist who faces no real challenges.