Sudden Acknowledgement

Jing Jiang's day started pretty normal.

He woke up, ate some breakfast, and prepared the materials he and Lei Mingxing might need, before sitting down in the storefront to wait for his apprentice.

Usually, Lei Mingxing and Chang Liuyun arrived about ten to twenty minutes later and Jing Jiang would use this waiting time to worry about the Unyielding Branch Forge's current financial difficulties, before sighing and concluding that he couldn't cut any more costs.

After Lei Mingxing got there, however, he would quickly shake this downcast mood off and focus on work and his dear genius apprentice.

But today was different, an hour passed and Lei Mingxing still didn't show up.

Jing Jiang began to feel restless and very worried about his apprentice's well-being. He even thought about closing the shop for a bit while he went out to search for her.

"What's the matter, Jiang'er?"

His old father's voice woke him from his worried thoughts.

Jing Jiang turned to look at his father.

The other must have noticed how strangely his son behaved, not even working on a new artifact despite it being his favorite pastime. The openly worried expression on his son's face was even odder.

It genuinely confused Jing Hai.

"Do you remember the apprentice I told you about?" Jing Jiang asked in turn, waiting for his father, who usually left early in the morning to set up his stall in the morning, to remember.

"That apprentice with a 'heaven-defying' talent who is on the run from her noble family? Sure, you gushed on and on about her yesterday at dinner again."

Jing Jiang hurriedly glanced left and right out of the forge before shooting his father a sharp look, but ultimately nodding. He then proceeded to wave for his father to come closer.

Jing Hai helplessly shook his head at his silly son. Only barely suppressing an amused expression from spreading on his face as walked over.

"I think something happened to her, usually she would have arrived a long time ago," Jing Jiang whispered into his father's ear with a deathly serious expression.

"Maybe her family found her, or even worse, enemies of her family!"

Jing Jiang jumped up from his seat.

"You know what? I think I will go out to look for her. Can you lock the forge after you leave?"

Jing Hai almost broke into laughter at his son's somber determination, but he still grabbed the other's shoulder to try and persuade him to stay put, when suddenly the door to the forge opened.

Father and son looked up at the rare occurrence that was a customer and Jing Jiang realized that the customer was a familiar face.

"Hello, what brin-"

"I want to buy some more of your apprentice's arrows! In fact, give me all of them!"

The customer rudely interrupted Jing Jiang, but before Jing Jiang could even open his mouth to answer, the door opened once more and this time a group of people rushed in.

They roughly shoved the mercenary who had previously bought the fire saber to the side and chaotically inquired about the arrows with the slender arrowheads.

The Jing father and son were stunned, facing this customer enthusiasm that they hadn't experienced in the longest time.

"Why do you want the arrows?" Jing Hai hesitantly asked, as his son was too overwhelmed to ask any questions.

"Are you kidding? These arrows are simply too powerful! They are able to penetrate a Rock Hedgehog's hide and kill it in one shot!" One of the mercenaries hastily explained with a baffled expression.

Hearing these words, Jing Hai abruptly fell silent and looked at his son who was equally as clueless as him.

Concluding that there were no answers to be gained from his son, Jing Hai turned to look for the aforementioned arrows, soon finding the ones that weren't quite like the rest created by his son.

The chaotic shouting grew even louder at the arrows' appearance, but Jing Hai just began to calmly examine them.

And he made a startling discovery!

These iron arrowheads weren't the ordinary work of an apprentice in the slightest!

They consisted of the purest iron Jing Hai had ever seen, filled to the brim with metal Qi, becoming much harder and more durable than steel.

"What's wrong?"

Jing Jiang watched his father's ever-changing expressions and reached out to touch the arrowhead as well, but he didn't find anything strange. Puzzled, he waited for his father's explanation.

"This is absolutely pure iron."

Jing Jiang was still confused even with these words, but Jing Hai didn't hold it against his son. After all, he wouldn't have realized it either if it wasn't for the fact that he had seen pure iron before. Although the purity from the one he saw in the past still wasn't quite up to par with the iron he held in his hands at this time.

No matter how carefully he looked, there wasn't the tiniest hint of impurities in the ore.

"There are absolutely no impurities inside the iron," Jing Hai whispered into his son's ear in a shocked voice.

Jing Jiang abruptly froze upon hearing his father's explanation before becoming inexplicably excited.

"Will you sell them to us or not?"

One of the mercenaries finally got tired of waiting and asked, the others around him echoing his words.

Met with the impatient looks of the mercenaries, Jing Jiang was scared that they would leave and opened his mouth to quickly state a price but Jing Hai hastily stopped him.

" 40 yuan per arrow!"

Shocked by his father's extortionary price, Jing Jiang opened his mouth to quickly change the price while nervously glancing at the mercenaries. Expecting them to complain about the price and subsequently leave without buying anything at all.

But before the mercenaries could even utter one curse, Jing Hai continued.

"This is a very fair price, these arrows are made from absolutely pure iron after all, they won't break or chip even after being used to shoot Rock Hedgehogs tens of times over."

The mercenaries' faces brightened a bit and it only took one of them to place an order for the rest to wildly begin bidding. Their frantic greed even caused the original price of 40 yuan to rise to 70 yuan after only five of the fourteen arrows were left.

Just like that, the Jing father and son earned 7 silver and 70 yuan from the arrows alone, not to mention the several bows that were sold alongside them.

And that wasn't even all of it, because the mercenaries who didn't get any arrows requested to put in a private order even though that would be much more expensive, but they only earned a headshake from Jing Hai in return.

So they had no other choice but to ask when the next batch of arrows would be ready with hopeful expressions, but were still met with a vague answer from Jing Hai once more. They left feeling regretful and bitter.

The forge became quiet once again after the last of the mercenaries were gone.

Jing Jiang and Jing Hai wordlessly stared at the closed door.

"... we have to find this apprentice of yours."

Jing Hai said, still watching the closed door.

Jing Jiang nodded, his feeling in chaos.

"I will go look at the market and you stay in the forge in case she comes here, alright?"

Jing Jiang happily agreed to his father's suggestion, as the other was much more familiar with finding people in the constantly moving crowds of the marketplace than he.

Jing Jiang began to describe Lei Mingxing's appearance as best as he could.

"My apprentice's face is covered by a face veil, but you should still be able to find her. She has curly hair, a mole beneath her left eye and a beauty mark on her forehead. Also, she is very tall, about the same height as me, and she is usually accompanied by her partner, he is even taller. His face is also covered by a mask."

Listening to his son's description, Jing Hai's slightly furrowed his brow in thought but finally headed out to look for his target.

Small theater:

Fire Saber Mercenary: First come, first serve!

Other Mercenaries: *glaring at him with dangerous eyes*

Fire Saber Mercenary:... on second thought, I'm a firm supporter of equal rights.