The beginning of the trap was because he had tasted the sweetness.
Chen Xia relied on the latest excuse to successfully add 60,000 spirit stones of debt to the Old Fisherman.
No matter how many spirit stones were borrowed, it was just a sentence of "Remember it on behalf of my master."
But the Old Fisherman didn't know what was going on. Maybe he was busy and didn't come to find Chen Xia. He probably didn't want to deal with this matter either.
However, Chen Xia had also borrowed spirit stones from the elders. Ten or twenty thousand spirit stones were not a particularly large amount for formal elders. They could take them out without asking much or urging much.
In addition, Chen Xia also asked the Fourteen Sons of Vast Sky to borrow spirit stones, but the young people were indeed not as easy to fool as the old men. They all shook their heads and said they had no money.
Chen Xia was not discouraged either. He asked them one by one from top to bottom until he asked Li Yang.
Li Yang was very curious about Chen Xia's request to borrow money. He tilted his head and said, "Didn't you earn a lot of money from alchemy? How come you still lack money?"
Chen Xia honestly replied, "Because there are also many uses for money, income and expenditure cannot reach a balance, so I lack money."
Li Yang sighed, "I really envy you for being so good at alchemy and having such great strength. You are only one level higher than me, but you have already sat in the position of the Elder of Laws."
Chen Xia shook his head. "Those are not important. Whether you can lend me money or not is very important to me."
"Haha, how much do you want to borrow?" Li Yang laughed and asked. His heroic eyebrows lifted lightly. There was no provocation in his gesture, but rather some mischief.
"Ten or twenty thousand," Chen Xia replied.
"Then ten thousand it is," Li Yang chuckled lightly, looking up at the sky instead of taking out money right away. He asked another question.
"Why are you so amazing that it's beyond my imagination?"
Chen Xia rubbed his nose and thought for a moment before answering plainly, "Maybe it's because I'm very lucky."
He said this very seriously, not jokingly.
Li Yang chuckled lightly but didn't take it seriously. "Then I really want to have the same luck as you."
"Well, just thinking about it is enough," Chen Xia chuckled lightly. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Li Yang, looking at the pale sky. His tone was low, as if murmuring to himself.
"Actually, if I had a choice, I wouldn't want to be so amazing. Just let me stay in my hometown and live an idle life. That would also be a very good outcome."
"But time, it always pushes me to move forward."
"Who isn't?" Li Yang chuckled and retorted.
Chen Xia also laughed. He lightly kicked a stone in front of him and nodded. "Yes, who isn't?"
Time can change everything. Chen Xia didn't quite believe it before, but now he had no choice but to believe it.
After today, Chen Xia stopped borrowing money. He borrowed a total of 70,000 spirit stones, which was not too much.
Half a month after he stopped borrowing money, Pan Dadao came to find him. His short figure hurried over and jumped into the threshold of Chen Xia's cave residence, shouting,
"Why didn't you tell me you were borrowing spirit stones? I have extra spirit stones here."
While shouting, Pan Dadao took out an exquisite storage treasure from his arms and shook it twice. The sound of spirit stones colliding inside could be heard.
"Aren't you keeping those spirit stones to buy a purple golden coffin? How can you bear to give them to me?" Chen Xia asked curiously.
"Aren't you borrowing them?" Pan Dadao was a little confused. According to the news he had heard, Chen Xia was clearly borrowing spirit stones.
This did stump Chen Xia. After a long pause, he slowly replied, "But I might not be able to pay them back."
Pan Dadao quickly waved his hand with a smile.
"It's okay, it's okay, don't worry about it. You can take them first. Pay me back if you can, and it's fine if you can't. I'm a cheap bag of bones. It doesn't matter what coffin I lie in."
Chen Xia shook his head. "Your coffin is more important. Although I always say that being coffin-less doesn't matter, if you really lose your coffin, it's still better to keep it. Isn't that your wish? How come you don't want your wish anymore now?"
Pan Dadao mumbled, "Don't you lack money?"
"No matter how lacking in money, I can't use your wish to fill the gap," Chen Xia shook his head.
Pan Dadao was stunned. It seemed that with his thousands of years of cultivation experience, he could not understand this sentence. In his view, wasn't a great cultivator supposed to oppress and exploit lesser cultivators?
"Why...why?"
Pan Dadao couldn't help asking.
Chen Xia rubbed his nose. "Because it's not cool at all. Can I answer like this?"
Pan Dadao really didn't understand. "But standing in a high place is for gaining benefits from the low places, right? That's how the path of cultivation goes."
"Why seek benefits from the low places?" Chen Xia shook his head. "Actually, there is another line of thinking. Reaching a high place is to allow the low place to live well too."
"Of course I'm certainly not of that thinking, but I won't seek benefits from the low places like you said either."
Chen Xia tilted his head and grinned. "I belong to not caring about things."
"You...you really have insights," Pan Dadao still kept his head low. His voice was hesitant in response. He still didn't understand Chen Xia.
This was also normal. If you try to explain freedom and equality to someone who has been oppressed for a long time, they most likely won't understand it either, and will even think you are crazy.
Among cultivators, the differences in status were even more distinct.
Chen Xia didn't intend to change anything, but he didn't want to just follow the rules either.
"I definitely won't take your spirit stones. Go back, if you lack money to buy a purple golden coffin, you can come to me to borrow. You won't need to pay it back when you die."
Chen Xia spoke plainly, not jokingly.
"Thank you, sir." Pan Dadao bowed with clasped hands to Chen Xia. After being oppressed for so long, he still couldn't understand what Chen Xia said.
He had thought of other questions before too.
For example, why did others like to bully him? Was it because his cultivation was low, his status was low, or because he was short and ugly?
He couldn't find the answer.
He only knew that later, fearing the beatings, he knelt down one by one to beg those people for forgiveness, kneeling in the muddy ground and splashing dirty water all over himself.
Those people jeered and told him to kowtow and admit his wrongs towards the muddy dirty water.
Pan Dadao did as he was told. While kowtowing, he saw himself through the muddy dirty water.
Bedraggled and ridiculous.
Splash! Mud splattered everywhere. He couldn't raise his head under their ridicule and oppression.
Those people forgave him, but Pan Dadao still didn't know what exactly he had done wrong.
And that one kowtow...
Had lasted until now.