Chương 302: Silent Sage (V)

I sped out of the house and headed over to the source of the roar; it was quite easy to spot since there was a fair bit of audience crowding it, forcing me to shuffle between them to get to the front. I got quite a few elbows into my ribs as a protest, but I endured it. Once there, I could only sigh: Wan Lan and Xi Zhao stood on one end, with six men standing opposite of them, led by a younger one who seemed to be Wan Lan's age.

He wore rather garish jewelry and, on top of the quite flamboyant robe, made it so he looked less like a person and more like a walking ad. Wan Lan was holding a few gemstones, while Xi Zhao was holding a few plants, as though flaunting them on purpose.... which was probably what they were doing.

"Are you deaf?! I told you that if you don't sell it to me, I'll hang you all for the entire world to see! Do you not know who I am, huh?!"

"... should we?" Wan Lan replied dismissively.

"Y-y-you brat! I'm a Core Disciple of the Jade Meridian Sect, Zhu Ning!" he proudly proclaimed, though to the backwater bumpkins like the kids and me, the name really didn't mean anything.

"Hah! Are you scared? Humph! Because you angered me, now I will only give you twenty mid-grade stones instead of forty!" Wow. Wooooow. Talk about shameless. Though I wasn't looking forward to conflicts like these, I knew they were inevitable--more so ever since the kids 'showed off'. I mean, they're walking disasters with a protag aura so thick you could see it from outer space (I assume). It's a miracle this exact scenario isn't being played out every day.

"Hm? Ah, Master, you're here!" Xi Zhao called out, his dour expression turning bright. The two completely ignored the man as they walked over and handed me their findings, once more causing quite a few eyes to look at us... well, "greedily" is a nice way of putting it.

"Apologies," he continued.

"We would have gotten more if some barking dogs didn't keep bothering us."

"..." wow. You look innocent enough, but you sure spit out some heinous fire. He spoke it just loudly enough for basically any cultivator in a radius to hear, including the flamboyant--wait, what's his name? Oh my God, didn't he say it just fifteen seconds ago or so?!

"Y-y-you! How dare you! That's it! Even if the King Yama comes, he won't be able to save you! Kill them!"

"You are rather quick to disregard the rules of the city," I said, glancing over at him.

"Or, are you saying that you are so important you get to disregard them?" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"... hah. What a coward. If you're a man, come outside and face me!"

"Did my disciples steal this from you?" I asked.

"What?"

"I'm asking whether they stole this from you."

"We didn't, Master," Wan Lan quickly responded.

"We found it just like we found other things before."

"So they say."

"So what? What does that have to do with it? I wasn't stealing them--I offered to buy--""--oh, shut the hell up," I groaned, somewhat tired.

"Do you think everybody here is three years old and has never heard of a Spirit Stone before? You may as well have taken a shit and thrown it directly at their faces. You say you want to face us? Xi Zhao, go out with them."

"Master...?" he tilted his head.

"Do whatever you want," I said; though I considered just letting it go, I also understood that if I did, these incidents would just keep happening. No matter how glib a tongue I have, it ain't glib enough for this world; only raw violence can carve things in their stubborn stones.

"Kill them, maim them, humiliate them, hell, for all I care, use them as marionettes to put on a play. Just, whatever you do, do it so loudly that the world hears."

"... understood, Master," he smiled faintly in acknowledgement. That man, as well as his entourage, weren't weak--in fact, the weakest was in the middle stages of Spirit Manifestation, while the strongest was in the mid stages of Revolving Core Realm. So, why was I sending a Foundation Establishment brat to fight them? Because I decided to trust the kids' judgment when it came to these things. He looks unbothered, and so I will pretend to be unbothered, too.

I still haven't passed on the Single Severance, though at least now I had a specific target I was waiting for rather than some vague notion: for his Draw Master trait to evolve into the Endless Draws trait. Is it a realistic thing to expect, especially since the system mentioned that only the pathway was opened rather than it was a certainty? No, of course not. But I've also made my choice to not give it to him until or, yes, if, he eventually gets it.

Regardless, he was plenty strong without it, and it ought to be a good chance to gauge just how strong he was.

"... you're sending a child to face me? Hah. Funny. Fine, let us go." He didn't seem bothered, but after a second of thought, I kind of understood why. He likely thinks this is my way of 'apologizing', by 'giving' the disciple away to be punished. Meh. He can think whatever he wants. Judging from the crowd and how the way they looked at me changed, they probably thought the same.

"Master, is Brother Zhao going to be okay?" At some point, everyone except for Long Tao joined me as we started walking toward the edge of the city, with quite the sizeable crowd at our heels. This was also when Xing Feng asked, seeming rather worried.

"Do you believe in your brother?" I asked back with a faint smile.

"Hm! Of course! He's the strongest!"

"Then why wouldn't he be okay?"

"Ah!"

"Even if he does somehow defeat them," Lao Shun spoke directly into my head, using the transmission technique. Right. I have to ask the bastard to teach me.

"Is that even a good thing? We're already being watched closely, and after this... they'll probably send people to watch us in our bedrooms." I glanced over at him and shrugged; I mean, that was probably already the case. That old monster has a legendary paranoia; he likely investigates anything that remotely falls out of normalcy, and we fall so far out I'd be more shocked that there aren't spies in our bedrooms. Who knows?

Maybe it's a ghost employed by him that's leaving those things next to me, trying to scare me into leaving this place or something. So, Xi Zhao wiping the floor with some third-degree-nobodies? Probably matters squat in the grand scheme of things. It will at least help with the general crowd and them leaving us alone, for better or worse. As for the rest?... well, I'll deal with it when the time comes.