Steady Earnings

Suddenly, Jing Jiang felt an ice-cold killing intent aimed at his back and he hastily spun around to meet the force with his fist, pressing Lei Mingxing protectively to his side.

The intruder abandoned his surprise attack, evading Jing Jiang's heavy fist instead.

After losing the element of surprise, the intruder and Jing Jiang stared at each other, gauging the other's strength.

"Who are you?! What do you want?!"

The intruder clad in dark attire, with his features hidden behind a black mask, looked just like your stereotypical assassin or robber. He didn't answer Jing Jiang's questions, instead closing the distance between the two, for another attack.

Lei Mingxing finally broke through her instinctual freeze reaction and began struggling in Jing Jiang's embrace while shouting.

"No! Stop! Don't fight!"

The intruder halted his offense at Lei Mingxing's words, a confused and inquiring look in his eyes.

Jing Jiang also didn't initiate an attack, but he still continued holding Lei Mingxing with his arm, watching the suspicious intruder. He was just about to ask if Lei Mingxing knew the other when he noticed the person in his embrace trembling fiercely. A scared expression appeared on his face as Jing Jiang quickly turned to look at Lei Mingxing.

"Let me go!"

There was a tremor in Lei Mingxing's voice, the fear inside her had grown into a complete panic that she could only barely suppress inside her shaking body.

If she didn't, she felt like the little inner Qi she still had left, would jump out, directly attacking Jing Jiang so he would let her go if he wanted or not.

Jing Jiang hurriedly loosened his arm around Lei Mingxing's shoulders.

As soon as she was free, Lei Mingxing quickly moved back a few steps, before closing her eyes and steadying her chaotic mood.

She nervously looked at the candy flower that she was still holding on to and let out a breath of relief after finding it unharmed.

Knowing that the sugar figure was fine, helped Lei Mingxing calm down somewhat. As soon as she felt like her inner Qi wasn't boiling just below her skin anymore, she faced the two people before her that were still engaging in a mutual stand-off.

"Stop fighting," Lei Mingxing once again said in a helpless tone, before addressing Jing Jiang, as he was obviously the one with a higher cultivation base.

"That's Chang Liuyun, the two of us are...partners?" Lei Mingxing struggled to find a fitting word for her and Chang Liuyun's current relationship.

Well, partners seemed close enough, they weren't friends after all, just strangers that helped each other and stuck together for the benefits it brought them. Nothing that affectionate really.

Forget it, she hadn't explained Jing Jiang's identity to Chang Liuyun yet.

Just as she wanted to continue the introduction, Jing Jiang suddenly interrupted her.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to offend your partner! I promise it will never happen again!"

Jing Jiang looked at Lei Mingxing with pleading eyes.

"..."

"???"

Everyone in the room fell silent, Jing Jiang nervously awaiting the other two's response, while Chang Liuyun just raised his hand to touch his masked forehead and Lei Mingxing looked at Jing Jiang in confusion.

What happened, why did the other apologize like that?

And why did she feel like Jing Jiang had misunderstood something?

But she couldn't quite pin down what the other could have misunderstood, promptly moving on in spite of the now awkward atmosphere.

"...And this is Jing Jiang, I agreed to work with him in the future!"

Lei Mingxing couldn't help herself, a bit of pride and excitement still mixed with her voice.

Chang Liuyun finally understood the situation, he glanced at Lei Mingxing in surprise.

He was only away for around three-quarters of an hour and she had already found a job in the meantime?

Just what did he miss?

But this also meant that he had just attacked Lei Mingxing's future employer!

Although, instead of being angry, the future employer actually apologized to him! To him!

Chang Liuyun felt awkward.

What was he supposed to say now?

He looked at Jing Jiang, indecisive on how to start his apology when a sudden flash of realization appeared on the other's face.

Jing Jiang happily opened his mouth.

"Yes, exactly! Lei Mingxing is the greatest talent I've seen in all my years of work. I feel very honored that she chose to work with me. I will do my best to teach her the craft of an artificer!"

Artificer?!

A few doubts began to appear inside Chang Liuyun's heart as he heard Jing Jiang's words. The other's way of speaking worsened Chang Liuyun's impression of him even more.

Why was the other so polite and humble if he was to be Lei Mingxing's boss? Shouldn't be the other way around?

The way Jing Jiang was trying to curry favor with him made Chang Liuyun slightly uncomfortable, but he still asked a few questions, to at least dispel some of his doubts and test if the job offer was legitimate.

"When will she begin working? What will she do? And how is the salary?"

Jing Jiang didn't take offense to Chang Liuyun's questioning, happily answering.

"She can come to work whenever she wants! I will teach her the different techniques of artifact creation, and she can choose what she wants to work on after that! And about salary..., our business is currently not doing so well, I can only offer about twenty yuan a day..."

Listing the last point, Jing Jiang felt a bit awkward.

The salary was really low, barely reaching the same amount as a waiter in an average-sized inn.

Usually, artificers earned a lot of money, competing for the title of wealthiest profession with alchemists. Jing Jiang himself had never struggled financially before.

Until Suan Bi came along that was.

Suan Bi opened his own shop, racking in huge amounts of money and using this wealth to suppress the other businesses.

After a business failed, he poached the, now jobless, artificers in Dark Spirit Town.

The worst part, he didn't only use that method on artificers, also pressured pharmacies and their residential alchemists to close down and join him in his business empire.

Like this, Suan Bi became pretty much the richest person in Dark Spirit Town and the number of still independent forges and pharmacies could be counted on one hand.

But!

Jing Jiang hoped, that with Lei Mingxing's cooperation, he could turn this situation around at the next Bi-Yearly Competition.

In about a month's time.

... This sounded so much more hopeless, now that he really thought about it.

Well, even if it was hopeless, he still had to try, and the first step was to get Lei Mingxing to join him.

"I promise, as soon as the business is doing better, I will raise the salary accordingly!"

Jing Jiang swore with a solemn expression.

"..."

This offer still sounded like a scam to Chang Liuyun. Far too good to be true, even with that pay.

But the decision was ultimately up to Lei Mingxing.

Chang Liuyun looked at his collaborator, waiting for her to make her choice.

Lei Mingxing didn't really have a concept of how much twenty yuan was. Regardless of which time in her life, money was never a central aspect of it. So she didn't actually feel like it was particularly little.

She initially started out penniless after all. The only thing that really mattered to her was the future benefit of learning how to create artifacts.

"Sounds great!"

Lei Mingxing agreed happily.

Jing Jiang's face brightened instantly, and with genuine delight in his voice, he asked:

"So, when do you want to start? Do you want to come here tomorrow?"

His expectant gaze fell on Lei Mingxing, hoping for a positive response, but she just turned to look at Chang Liuyun.

Her answer unfortunately depended on whether Chang Liuyun could help her get through the crowd tomorrow. After their excursion today, she realized that it would still take some time for her to get used to the close contact of squeezing through a huge number of people.

Chang Liuyun sighed helplessly. He didn't really agree with Lei Mingxing's decision as he still thought that it was pretty suspicious, but he would support her plans, as she had supported him by paying their initial expenses and saving him.

This was the unspoken deal that kept their pleasant cooperation going after all.

"I will go to the Mercenary Association in the morning the next few days."

Lei Mingxing smiled beneath her face veil and send Chang Liuyun a happy glance before replying to Jing Jiang's question.

"Then I will come tomorrow morning."

Small theater:

Jing Jiang wiping his sweat: How could I be such a fool and attack my only hope's lover?! Phew, thankfully my new apprentice and her partner are understanding.

Chang Liuyun:...