Chapter 87: Striking when the iron's hot
"I don't care that you failed to amplify it. I just want you to restore it to its peak condition. I will pay the additional fee for it too. However, I want it done tomorrow, or else I will see you in court."
Duan Hui Yin had gone through the contract and knew that it was the blacksmith's responsibility to repair her item if he broke it while amplifying it. As he did, he had to fix it within a day. She just needed to pay a small fee to him. If he refuses to fulfill his part of the deal, the contract will hold no meaning, and he will have to return her money to her.
If he doesn't return it to her, he will end up in jail for a while!
Chen Wei Qu turned silent as he felt threatened by her.
"What? Cat got your tongue?" After noticing him pulling back his arrogance and suppressing the mean glints in his eyes, Duan Hui Yin taunted him.
"I-I don't have the materials necessary to fix it." While saying this, Chen Wei Qi sweated internally but still kept a straight face outside.
However, she could no longer see his previous arrogance or feel his lousy attitude.
"You lacking materials to fix spiritual objects is not a matter of my concern." Duan Hui Yin glared at him fiercely. He was a grown-ass man, but he has long lost his courageous nature. Chen Wei Qi was like a lion who had lost his mane and balls. He took a step back as he felt intimidated by her gaze.
She continued, "If you fail to fix it by tomorrow, be prepared to hand back the payment I made to you and also the broken pieces of my brush to me. I will come with a few guards, so I advise you to be on your best behavior at that time, else you know what you will face. Hahaha!"
She believed that she had won against him verbally.
Thus, she laughed like a gambler who won a lottery.
He exposed a bitter look, and her laughers intensified.
"Fuck off, brat!" He cursed at her in anger.
"See you tomorrow."
Without sparing another look at him, she turned, walked away from him, and left the smithy.
Neither the young miss of the Duan Family nor the blacksmith noticed that two more entities were present in the smithy.
As Xie Yang wanted to evade coming in contact with the members of the Duan Family even after wearing a mask to cover his identity, Xie Ye had no choice but to hide himself and his young master from the rest of the world.
'Who do you think is wrong in this situation?' Xie Ye gave him a look that contained an entire sentence.
Xie Yang met his eyes before writing some characters in his palm.
'They are both in the wrong.'
Chen Wei Qi was in the wrong because he drank alcohol before smithing and tried to amplify her spiritual object while intoxicated.
One can't clap with one hand.
Duan Hui Yin, too was in the wrong because she didn't take the necessary precautions to preserve her spiritual object, although the expert had advised her to take them.
If she had embedded her spiritual brush with the stone of immortality or some other materials that preserve spiritual objects before giving it to the blacksmith to amplify, then even if he were to fail, the chance of it shattering into two pieces like this was zero.
But she didn't, and that was why Xie Yang had no intention of taking her side.
"Damn it all!"
The blacksmith smashed his fist on the counter.
"I've already blown up my entire fortune on gambling and alcohol. I don't have anything of value left. How am I going to pay that bitch off?"
He gritted his teeth, an expression of dismay vivid on his face.
"Am I going to end up in jail again?"
When the thought of going back to that inhuman place where there is no alcohol or warm food, Chen Wei Qi became even more depressed.
"I am a repeat offender, so my punishment this time will be far worse than the last time."
"Last time I to stay there for half a year."
"This time, wouldn't that old man make the prison pay for my meals for two years?!"
"No, no, no!" Chen Wei Qi shook his head furiously, "I need to men this situation somehow."
"Fuck gambling and alcohol! I will never touch these bitches after I resolve this situation."
Before he started racking his brain to come up with an idea to save himself somehow, Chen Wei Qi uttered another two sentences and promised that he would never indulge in bad habits.
"My friend, I heard you're in quite a pickle.
"Luckily, seeing you want to change your ways and live a better life has moved my heart.
"How about I help you?"
Chen Wei Qi suddenly heard the voice of a young man coming from his side. He looked toward the source of the noise almost subconsciously and saw no one. He nearly believed his ears were playing a trick on him when all of a sudden, two figures blurred into his vision.
Chen Wei Qi's eyes widened.
He didn't even notice them coming in the smithy. How long have they been standing there? Had they heard everything he had said? Do they know how pathetic he was?
"Who are you?" Che Wei Qi suspiciously stared at the two people with masks covering half of their faces and only exposing their eyes as he went for his weapon.
"We're not robbers, and we came to you with good intentions, so don't bother picking up your weapon to fight us."
Xie Yang curved his eyes into a smile so calming that the blacksmith eased a little.
"Have your parents never taught you manners? I will be the bigger man and pass my wisdom on to you. It's not a good thing to eavesdrop on a stranger's conversation with his customer. Remember this." While saying this, Chen Wei Qi gave them stinky eyes.
Xie Yang kept the smile on his eyes as if he was blind to his attempt at annoying him.
However, Xie Ye exploded like a firecracker.
"If you didn't want others to hear, you should have set up a barrier. Why are you blaming us?" Xie Ye glared at the blacksmith as redness flashed in his eyes, and the air in the room turned red with killing intent.
The blacksmith felt so intimidated by him when he saw killing intent flashing in his eyes that he tripped and fell on his butt.
"My bad."
He apologized to them for being mean outwardly while inwardly he was cursing at them.
'Who the fuck are these crazy people?'
Chen Wei Qu thought that he was really unlucky as after having a face-off with a sharp tongue girl, he now needed to survive having a confrontation with crazy people. After all, which sane person would feel offended after hearing a simple sentence from an intoxicated man and expose killing intent? And which mentally stable person will keep on smiling after someone chides them?
Xie Yang grabbed Xie Ye's wrist and told him to calm down. Only then did Xie Ye retract his killing intent. The surroundings returned to their previous calm, and the blacksmith felt a lot better.
"W-what do you people honestly want?"
The blacksmith was starting to feel a bit tipsy, so he burped while asking for their intention behind sneaking into his smithy and offering to lend him a helping hand.
"I will be honest with you." Xie Yang said, "I will do you a favor and get the materials you need to repair your debtor's spiritual object, using which you can fix her stuff and escape imprisonment, but you must do me a favor in return."
"What favor?"
Chen Wei Qi was a man drowning in the sea, but he wasn't going to sell his soul to the devil.
If the mysterious men wanted him to do evil, he wasn't going to agree.
Thus, he didn't hastily accept his offer.
"Nothing serious."
After saying that, Xie Yang took out the hair strands and the shards of the bones of the eighteen-legged beasts and placed them on the table before the blacksmith.
Chen Wei Qi glanced at the material before his eyes widened, and he exclaimed, "Rare materials obtained from a level 20 eighteen-legged beast!"
"You certainly have the insight of an experienced blacksmith." Xie Yang's eyes narrowed as he said, "I wonder if you have the skill to make spiritual objects out of them."
Chen Wei Qi raised his chin and looked at him before saying, "If you want me to forge equipment with these strands of hair and shards of bones in exchange for your help, then I am willing to agree to your deal."
Xie Yang did think it was going to be this easy to get the blacksmith to work for him.
He said, "Good."
"What materials do you need to fix Duan Hui Yin's spiritual object?" Xie Ye questioned the blacksmith.
Chen Wei Qi thought for only a moment before he said, "A wooden shard or branch of a spiritual tree that has cultivated for a thousand years and gained sentience is I believe the most suitable material to restore the Wooden Jade Spiritual Brush. Unfortunately, there isn't any explorer or cultivator in this city capable of stealing a branch away from a thousand-year-old spiritual entity.
Can you do it?" Chen Wei Qi expressed his skepticism about their ability.
Xie Yang replied, "I wouldn't have offered to deal with your problem if I wasn't confident in my and this gentleman's ability."