After the warehouse opened, the first player to redeem a full double gold one purple set had the ID “Salty Fish King.” Plenty of players wanted to report this ID for false advertising.
It was clearly a hardcore grinder calling himself the Salty Fish King.
Even on the game forums, someone had dug up Salty Fish King’s Hengshui gaming schedule. He typically logged in right at eight in the morning with his helmet, grinding dailies, practicing martial arts, and exploring the unknown until midnight when he finally logged off.
This wasn’t just eight hours of grinding—this was grinding that had grown a person on top of it! Many of the game guides and rare intel for Jianghu came from his shares.
The most famous post was undoubtedly [Heart Washing Manor NPC Gift Favorability List]. From manor lord Ruan Xuezong and his trusted servant girl Shuiyin, to door guest Chef Shao and divine physician Shen Qionghua, including housekeepers, stable hands, and servants—over two hundred people in total at Heart Washing Manor—their favorability intel had all been compiled and continually refined by him single-handedly.
Topping the charts was the NPC everyone cared about most: Ruan Xuezong.
“Ruan Xuezong prefers light, sweet foods.”
“Common dishes: Naturally Born Snow Lotus Soup (gold food), Peony Bird’s Nest (gold), Four-Gill Perch Soup (purple), Orange-Brewed Crab (purple), Flower Crisp Cake (purple)…”
“Favorite alcohol: Peach Blossom Brew (purple).”
“Favorite tea: West Lake Dragon Well (purple), Bi Luo Chun (purple).”
“Frequent locations: pavilion, study, Back Mountain…”
Each piece of intel was the fruit of Salty Fish King’s painstaking labor, earning him the title of the forums’ Salty Fish bigshot strategist.
After finishing his dailies for the day, Salty Fish King sat on his bed. As a star federation citizen, he wasn’t used to sitting cross-legged, so he adjusted his posture several times before managing to settle in.
A golden book shimmering with light hovered in his mind, somewhat like a comic book, but the dashing little figure on it sat cross-legged, teaching him how to regulate his inner breath with the first layer of [Cleansing Dusty Heart].
He followed along exactly, soon sensing a warm current surging from his dantian. It flowed through his limbs, into his organs and meridians, bringing an intensely comfortable cleansing sensation.
As the prolonged inhalation and exhalation came to an end, he closed his eyes and opened them again. His mind felt much clearer, with none of the fatigue from staying up late the night before. Instead, he brimmed with energy. The scenery outside the window—birds chirping amid blooming flowers—seemed brighter than before.
The changes under his helmet startled him a little. He thought to himself, ‘This must be an illusion, right? The scars on my body don’t hurt anymore?’
Salty Fish King’s ID was famous online as a grinder who conquered every game. But no one knew that before he became addicted to gaming, he had been an upright urban youth who acted heroically. When he saw a girl about to die in a monster’s jaws, he rushed in to save her, earning an ugly scar on his back in the process.
The monster’s fatal wound had glowed with sticky green fluorescence. Even years later, it would flare up from time to time. But after this meditation session, the pain seemed to have eased.
He puzzled over it for a moment but didn’t dwell. After getting up from the bed, he headed straight to report to Chef Shao.
After a flood of players poured into the manor, Chef Shao had scouted a few and granted them chef status, assigning them kitchens to use.
Salty Fish King was one of them.
Among players, he currently ranked first in recipe collection rate, leaving everyone else in the dust. A few days ago, after grinding his dailies for Chef Shao, he had received a new green recipe: [Qingtuan].
Recipe description: Qingtuan, a traditional snack from Jiangnan that locals adore.
The method was simple: mix mugwort leaf juice into glutinous rice flour. The mugwort juice gave it a green hue for coloring, then wrap in red bean paste filling, shaping it into round green dumplings.
Steam them in a basket, and soon these verdant, fragrant, chewy snacks were ready.
Other players often failed while recreating recipes due to fumbling around, but not Salty Fish King. His meticulous nature meant he never had a shaky hand—except when adding the bean paste filling, where he hesitated for a few seconds.
In this game, players’ dishes weren’t just for self-consumption to gain buffs; they could also gift them to NPCs to boost favorability, provided they nailed the NPC’s preferences.
“Ruan Xuezong prefers light, sweet foods.”
This summary came from his extensive experiments, but lately, he had uncovered new intel: “Ruan Xuezong likes sweet, but not too sweet.” In other words, the manor lord enjoyed sweets but disliked anything overly cloying—the precise sweetness control was quite the puzzle.
Undoubtedly, as a special NPC, Ruan Xuezong’s favorability was incredibly hard to raise.
With that in mind, he carried the fresh plate of qingtuan and began searching Heart Washing Manor for Ruan Xuezong.
He checked the usual spots first but found no sign of him, falling into thought.
Jianghu’s realism extended to this: characters didn’t stand frozen in place. Some NPCs stuck to a three-point routine, while others had lives of their own, wandering wherever they pleased without stupidly staying put.
Familiar as he was with the manor’s layout, he soon spotted Ruan Xuezong’s figure from afar in the cliffside pavilion on the Back Mountain.
The cliff was tall.
Salty Fish King balanced his plate and leaped up with double jumps turning into triple jumps.
A flagstone path led to the Back Mountain summit. New players without martial arts skills had to climb it honestly. These players, who griped about three flights of stairs in real life, didn’t mind scaling the mountain daily just to grind an NPC’s favorability.
Now that they had lightness skill, things were easier—no one walked properly anymore.
Salty Fish King landed on the cliff and immediately understood why Ruan Xuezong stood there sipping tea. Built into the mountainside, Heart Washing Manor offered a view from here of pavilions, towers, flowing springs, and cascading waterfalls—like a paradise on earth.
‘The scenery in this game has always been stunning,’ Salty Fish King thought, nodding firmly.
He approached with his plate, about to take a step, when he froze in place.
Nothing else—just that the NPC ahead sipped from a teacup, his face bare without the mask. This ordinary moment felt both familiar and utterly alien.
It was a visage beyond the brush’s power to capture.
Clad in a white cloak, he leaned against the railing, his skin snow-pale, hair ink-black, as if ill—heart-wrenchingly fragile and ethereally beautiful.
His long lashes lowered slightly, needing no expression to resemble a peerless painting.
Wait—who could tell him who this man was?
Salty Fish King’s mind went blank. In his daze, he didn’t notice he stood at the cliff’s edge. His foot slipped on a stone, and before he could react, he tumbled off.
He streaked by fast and vanished faster, a shooting star passing through Ruan Xuezong’s world.
By the time Ruan Xuezong looked up from his tea, he had no idea anyone had been there.
Wuxia protagonists fell off cliffs into caves, claiming ancestors’ fortunes and peerless martial manuals, launching them to life’s peak.
Ordinary players plummeted straight to the bottom—no tree to cushion the fall—losing half their health bar and ending up half-crippled.
When Salty Fish King opened his eyes again, he lay on divine physician Shen’s sickbed. The elder physician handed him a poison pill with practiced ease. “Here you go, young man. This pill isn’t bitter—guaranteed to send you to the final stage of life in the next second.”
“Thanks, divine physician Shen.” He took it in a daze, cradling the purplish pill without swallowing right away, his gaze utterly vacant.
Fortunately, after learning lightness skill, thrill-seeking players abounded in all shapes and sizes—his odd behavior didn’t stand out.
A few days later, an anonymous forum post exploded: [Ruan Xuezong Hides a World-Shaking Secret—The Jianghu Planners Are Devilish Heart-Twisters].
When commenters pressed for the secret, the original poster said nothing.
Only Ruan Xuezong oddly noticed that a certain player’s favor-grinding had grown even more diligent.
…
Meanwhile, as players delved deeper into their martial training, Ruan Xuezong received an urgent letter rushed by fast horse from chamber manager Cao.
The letter reported that one of Heart Washing Manor’s merchant ships bound for the Capital City—escorted by their own escort bureau—had sunk in a river bend. Salvage efforts revealed a massive hole in the hull. The escort team had drowned, and the cargo—rare furs, pearl jewelry, gold, silver, and treasures—had vanished.
Two days later, Manager Cao returned with a grim face.
“Young Master, we were truly unlucky this time. The escort bureau’s been short-staffed these past two years, so we sent some green rookies. Then a south wind kicked up en route—high waves crashed the ship against rocks. The cargo’s likely at the bottom now, impossible to recover.”
In the escort and merchant trade, the greatest fear was never fierce bandits but uncontrollable natural perils.
North-south cargo ships were a key revenue stream for the manor. This mishap meant total cargo loss, plus several young escorts dead—the damage was severe. Since it was their own bureau handling security, there was no one to claim compensation from.
Worse, Heart Washing Manor had a contract with Capital City merchants. Fail to deliver on schedule, and lawsuits would pile on heavier losses.
The manor’s people wore faces shadowed in gloom.
“Impossible to recover? I don’t think so.” Amid the despair, only Ruan Xuezong toyed with his teacup, his expression profound.
Not arrogance— this rivers and lakes world was fraught with peril. In his last life, countless blades and arrows had come his way, all later proven premeditated, never coincidence or accident.
Such an accident left even the watching players silent. They’d been listening patiently when dialog boxes popped up before their eyes.
【Ding! Triggered quest “Investigate Sunken Ship”】
【Ding! Triggered quest “River Hidden Truth”】
The familiar sound jolted the players. Here it came—the quest! Ruan Xuezong pondered. These players had trained in martial arts for a bit now; it was time to take them down the mountain for some real tempering.
【Task Introduction: This merchant caravan shipwreck has inflicted unprecedented losses on Heart Washing Manor. Young heroes, clear your minds and head to the accident site to uncover the truth.】
The players were all thrilled, itching to run laps right there on the spot. “Whoop! Whoop! We’re short on contribution points—this quest is perfect!”
“Are we playing constables this time, helping the manor investigate the case?”
“I’d bet a pack of spicy strips this is—”
