"No, no — only this one's that cheap. The others run eight hundred," the agent said hastily.

"Why?" Wei Zhao asked.

"Well… this one's a bit special, you see, so it's slightly cheaper. You really won't find better value anywhere else," the agent said, dodging the question.

"Special? Special how?" Wei Zhao was puzzled. He'd just been around the place and hadn't spotted a thing wrong with it. Could it be that the place had a murky history?

The agent would rather not have said anything, but seeing Wei Zhao press him so insistently, clearly determined to get a straight answer or nothing, he had no choice but to stammer out: "This is just what I heard, mind you. They say a man died here during the renovations — got cut clean in two by an electric saw. After that the place started acting up. Scared the landlord so badly he wouldn't live in it himself and could only put it up for rent. That's why it's so cheap."

Even as he spoke, the agent felt a chill crawl over him. Just standing in the doorway his hair stood on end; it was as though a cold wind breathed out from inside. If he weren't working to feed his family, he'd have run for it long ago.

Wei Zhao, however, was unimpressed. If there really were ghosts in this world, he thought, then he was one himself right now — what the hell was there to be afraid of?

Seeing Wei Zhao say nothing, the agent naturally assumed the deal was dead, and offered: "Tell you what — let me show you some other places. I guarantee they're every bit as good, and though they'll cost a little more, it won't be by much. What do you say?"

"No need. This one will do. Give me the keys — I'll sign the contract right now," Wei Zhao said, brisk and decisive.

"Ah?" The agent blinked, then, overjoyed, hurriedly produced the contract and the keys, nodding again and again. "Right away! You're a bold one, I'll give you that. But ghosts and such are just something people scare themselves with — best not to think about it."

Wei Zhao gave a little laugh, signed, paid, took the keys, and moved in on the spot. The place came fully furnished anyway — and truth be told, it wouldn't have mattered if it were empty. All Wei Zhao wanted was somewhere to sit in meditation and cultivate. Everything else was negotiable.

Sitting in meditation to restore his true qi, he mulled over his next move. What puzzled him most right now was this: since when had the secular world produced such formidable practitioners?

The moment he'd been projected here he'd run into one late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator and one mid-stage. In the old days that would have been unthinkable. And if there were Foundation Establishment experts about now, might there be even stronger ones — Golden Core, say?

Such strength was nothing on Cloud Terrace Island, where experts were as thick as clouds. But for it to appear in the secular world was terrifying. After all, the strongest this world had ever known was merely a Heaven-rank Great Perfection — and anyone of that caliber was unbeatable here.

What worried Wei Zhao most at this moment was Qiu Lingshan and the others. If they came up against these Heaven-rank experts who had suddenly appeared, what would become of them was impossible to imagine.

But in their last exchange of letters, Qiu Lingshan and the rest had made no mention of any Heaven-rank experts. Could it be that these people had only recently emerged? Or had they been here all along, simply unknown to anyone?

Yet if these people were native to the secular world, Wei Zhao found that hard to believe. The spiritual qi here was far too thin. Cultivating purely on one's own, reaching Heaven-rank Great Perfection was already the limit; breaking through to Foundation Establishment would be impossible, let alone reaching late-stage Foundation Establishment — or something even stronger.

But if they weren't native to the secular world, then where had they come from? Surely they hadn't come down from Cloud Terrace Island? Wei Zhao would never have entertained such a thought before — but now that the Central Merchants' Guild existed, it wasn't out of the question.

"Let's hope the fighting hasn't started yet." Wei Zhao sighed with some worry. He had no intention of contacting Qiu Lingshan and the others right away, though. The pressing business was to recover his strength — even if he couldn't reach the formidable level of his true body, he must at least not be weaker than those two Foundation Establishment experts he'd encountered.

As for why he wouldn't contact Qiu Lingshan yet, the reason was simple: Wei Zhao knew that the moment they learned of his whereabouts, they would stop at nothing to come find him. Until he was sure enough of himself to deal with those two Foundation Establishment experts, he had no wish to drag them into danger.

After all, the enemy weren't early-stage Foundation Establishment, but one late-stage and one mid-stage. No number of Heaven-rank Great Perfection cultivators would help! The gap in strength was so vast that sheer numbers were useless. Only when he possessed absolute strength of a comparable tier would he have any grounds to fight them.

Of course, Wei Zhao had considered another possibility: now that Heaven-rank experts had appeared in the secular world, might Qiu Lingshan and the others, long since at Heaven-rank Great Perfection, have broken through and advanced as well?

But no sooner had the thought surfaced than he dismissed it. The Heaven-rank Great Perfection strength of Qiu Lingshan and the rest hadn't come from their own cultivation — Wei Zhao had raised them to it himself. In the secular world, at least, it was impossible for them to break through.

Turning it over and over, Wei Zhao finally cast these tangled thoughts from his mind. There was no point in dwelling on them. Now that he was back, there was nothing to be anxious about — so long as he could quickly recover his strength, everything else could be discussed.

Sitting cross-legged in stillness, Wei Zhao cultivated in the room for a full day. By the time darkness fell outside, he felt his strength had risen considerably — from Heaven-rank late stage at the start, he should now be roughly at the peak of Heaven-rank late stage. Trivial though that was compared to his true body, it had only been one day of recovery; the results were already quite good.

"Tch. Ghosts, my foot." Wei Zhao stretched and muttered to himself. Truth be told, after hearing the agent's tale, he'd rather been looking forward to it. To an existence of his caliber, ghosts and monsters held no terror whatsoever — they merely piqued his curiosity.

Unfortunately, judging by the day's events, the haunting was probably just another rumor passed along and embellished. He'd had a laugh over it and let it go; there was really nothing credible to it.

It was about seven o'clock now, the sky outside fully dark. Wei Zhao rose, ready to go out and gather some information.

Big city or small, come nightfall there was always a spread of street stalls, and those were where the men of the world gathered. Such people might have no other use, but they were certainly well informed. Sounding them out for a tip or two was as good a way as any.