Chapter 598: Thank-You Gift (10/10, bonus chapter for

Plop.

Some invisible, heavy thing slammed hard onto her face.

The sticky, nauseating texture nearly made her gag.

Shrieking and slapping the thing off her face onto the ground, she felt like she was about to cry for real, with none of her usual poise left, eyes brimming with tears.

"Wh-what on earth is this ghost thing?!"

Unlike the young lady, Steward Hai lunged straight over, fumbled around, and picked up a piece of soft, floppy skin — it felt a bit like octopus skin, very soft and quite comfortable.

"Lord Ye, is it dead? Is this the only one?"

Steward Hai asked the key question, and Fang Yue glanced at the system notification.

"System Notification: Congratulations to player 【Yese Liming】 for killing 【White-Through Guai】. Reward: Control +50, Disarm +20, Lifespan +1 year."

Judging from the attribute rewards, it should be a disaster-class Guai — a relatively low-level special-type disaster-class Guai.

The attribute boost isn't high, but the lifespan reward is generous.

As for whether this was the only one, Fang Yue couldn't be sure either.

He glanced at his own attribute changes.

"Control: 7180 【Base: 7200】 【Status/Buff: -20】."

"Disarm: 6120 【Base: 6140】 【Status/Buff: -20】."

"Lifespan: 4 years, 1 month."

Seeing the buff was -20, Fang Yue realized that just now, day had already broken.

He reported the name 【White-Through Guai】 to Steward Hai, but Steward Hai had no clue either.

And the young lady, after wiping her tears, suddenly became very irritable.

But she didn't lash out at Fang Yue, because she knew Fang Yue was saving her — only she had no way to vent the grievance, so she could only take it out on the servants.

Fortunately, everyone was used to the young lady's temper — sharp tongue but soft heart, harsh words but a kind heart, always decent to servants like them; otherwise no one would really be willing to follow her orders.

At this point, Steward Hai spread out the 【White-Through Guai】's skin, traced along its outline, unbothered by the black blood that kept seeping out, and called over a painter to listen to his description and draw the 【White-Through Guai】's appearance.

"Why draw it?" Fang Yue asked, puzzled.

"You can take it to the Government to exchange for a bounty, or trade it for goods on the black market, or auction it off for black stones…"

Steward Hai found it a little strange — given Fang Yue's extraordinary strength, there was no reason he shouldn't know these things.

But seeing Fang Yue didn't seem to be lying, he patiently began to explain.

"Information on an unknown Guai holds very high value. A lot of people collect information about Guai. Common ones like 【Remote-Toad Guai】 or 【Far-Fly Guai】 — their info sells cheap, but an unknown Guai nobody's seen can fetch a high price. Because it's a no-cost business — buy once, sell many times over."

Because a place's population is constantly shifting — that's usually how it is — there are always newcomers arriving and old-timers leaving.

Every newcomer will buy a set of Guai intel, and even if the price has dropped very low, you can still harvest another wave… ahem, I've said too much. Martial artists like you probably aren't interested in this kind of knowledge."

Fang Yue was a bit dumbfounded.

Because even the common Guai Steward Hai mentioned, he had never even seen.

But he quickly figured it out.

It was because of regional differences.

Heiqing Shanmai had its own Guai — which ones were more numerous, which were more common — and as someone who came from Heiqing Shanmai and fought his way here, Fang Yue considered himself fairly knowledgeable.

But arriving at a new place, in this Chaoyang Avenue area, the types, distribution, and composition of Guai were a whole different story.

So collecting information on these Guai and selling it to newcomers arriving on the road was guaranteed to sell, and at no small price.

After all, when life and death are on the line, no one complains about paying a high price.

From this, Guai intelligence was a complete industry chain — caravans like Steward Hai's, whose people go out and about, provide Guai intel, then sell it to intelligence organizations.

The intelligence organizations then sell it to martial artists; the martial artists who buy the intel discover new Guai intel and can sell it back to the intelligence organizations, forming a cycle.

"Since it's an unseen new Guai, the intel value should be pretty high, right?"

Steward Hai smiled: "Don't worry — whatever price it sells for, it all goes to Lord Ye."

"That's not what I meant…"

"Lord Ye needn't be like this. This is what you deserve, and it's the caravan's rule. If a Guai is killed solo, the reward belongs to the individual. If killed by a team, the reward is split evenly. In theory the caravan takes a small handling fee, but for Lord Ye, there's no need for us to quibble over that."

He hadn't expected the benefits provided by these caravans to be so good.

Fang Yue remembered Mo Cun's caravans — the guards who provided muscle got nothing extra, just a flat wage: one payment per escort job, with no share of any Guai killed along the way or anything like that.

From this angle, the caravans — or rather the rules — in the Chaoyang Avenue area seemed a bit more humane, with a sense of industry standardization.

"Thank you for saving my life."

Fang Yue and Steward Hai had just gotten to this point when the young lady suddenly appeared, pressed a bead into Fang Yue's hand, and said expressionlessly.

Fang Yue looked down and froze.

"Name: Fluorescent Bead."

"Grade: Human-grade, lower quality."

"Effect: Emits a fluorescent glow at night, providing continuous illumination."

"Description: Dazzling and brilliant, a scattering of fluorescent light."

"Note: To fish out the real thing from so many junky fakes — you're no simple character!"

That faintly glowing bead was unmistakably the Fluorescent Bead — one Fang Yue had seen several times, all fakes, then once obtained four of in one go at the Huanggui Yiji, and finally had to reluctantly use up to open a door and escape the ruins!

What a generous hand!

Fang Yue glanced at the young lady, Yang Hongxia, in surprise.

This one, despite her temper, still understood reason and knew how to treat people.

"Lord Ye mustn't be fooled by the young lady's appearance. No matter what, the young lady is the one who will inherit the Dayang Merchant Caravan — she understands plenty, it's just that her temper hasn't been smoothed out yet," Steward Hai said with a chuckle.

He then reminded him that this Fluorescent Bead was extremely valuable — even the young lady wasn't so generous as to give one away casually; she really had presented it to Fang Yue solemnly as a token of gratitude.

Alright then...

A little rich lady doesn't count as a rich lady, huh.

Fang Yue picked up the Fluorescent Bead and gave it a sniff—there was some kind of faint, indescribable but very pleasant fragrance.

One only regrets not reading more when the need arises; Fang Yue's grasp of the game world's basic knowledge was far too poor.

So he could only describe it as a very pleasant fragrance, unable to name the specific flower or herb it came from.

Casually pinning the Fluorescent Bead at his waist, Fang Yue figured that from now on, when moving about at night, he wouldn't have to deliberately carry the Human Soul Torch anymore—nor burn any of his lifespan.

Although for the Human Soul Torch, the lifespan burned was really just a drop in the bucket.

Going to sleep, will update after waking up tonight

(End of chapter)