"Remember, aside from that manual, you agreed to do me a favor as well!" Shangguang Ce yelled from behind.
"What? I can't hear you!" Han Xuhan yelled back as he sped away faster than the wind, not letting the conversation lengthen anymore. He had indeed promised that guy an extra favor for the exchange deal back during their second meeting in the Sunrider Sect, but he hadn't expected him to follow through with the deal so simply.
As Han Xuhan, accompanied by his undead minion, vanished from Shangguang Ce's sight, the young man walked out of the cave in a slow, lazy gait.
"Interesting sect. Very interesting. They clearly know that I'm here, yet take no steps to stop me..." Shangguang Ce's eyes moved towards a certain peak, quite far away and nearly invisible in the night.
"Tsk, you sneaky bastard." He muttered to himself in a low voice right before his body vanished into thin air and appeared hundreds of meters away, in the middle of nowhere with only the ocean bellowing just below his feet.
For half a second, his body hung in the air before falling down, dragged by gravity. Yet it never hit the sea, disappearing once more a few feet above the surface of the water.
Swimming through the void, Shangguang Ce reappeared above the floating island of the Sunrider Sect, falling toward the familiar crystal castle, his current home.
Hong Wei had been waiting for him below, probably tracking the movement of the spatial crack he so frequently used.
"When are you beginning his lessons?" She said the moment he landed.
"He...did not agree," Shangguang Ce answered, still not able to fully believe it himself.
"What?" Hong Wei appeared as stunned as he himself was. "That makes no sense! Elder Peng Six's sample analysis clearly shows that that guy is about to cripple himself any moment now! His meridians are on their last leg! Why would he refuse to become a ghost cultivator now?"
Shangguang Ce sniffed. "He says it's because he's racist towards ghosts."
"?!?!?"
"He said that, not me." Shangguang Ce shrugged.
"And you believed him?"
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"Not really, but what else was I supposed to do? He clearly has some reasons not to join our ranks, and he would not tell me. I can't just beat the answer out of him, can I? At least not on the first meeting! It took a painstaking effort to create a decent impression of us ghost cultivators in front of him. I'm not going to ruin it the moment our interests come into conflict."
"That was a peak Essence Assimilation Organism Core you handed him! That cost me my entire credit card! All of that gone, and this is the result?!" Hong Wei kicked a small stone nearby hard enough to reduce it to sand.
"One of your credit cards, usable only in the Purpleheart Galaxy. Calm down, this isn't something to be so upset about!" Shangguang Ce said as he began to saunter towards the gate of the castle, completely unaffected by her anger.
"Next time use your own damn money-"
"I'm not talking about the money," Shangguang Ce hastily explained, breaking out with sweat. "Think about it. This Han Xuhan-"
"That's his name?"
"...Something like that, maybe, I can't say for sure. Anyway, Han Xuhan, is actually a bit more cautious than we had initially assumed. That's a good thing for us if you consider the bigger picture here."
Hong Wei's temper instantly cooled down as the realization struck her.
"You're saying that...he might have guessed that the whole crystal thing was a ploy for something else?"
Shangguang Ce looked thoughtful as he stared blankly into the distant sky. A second later, a cheerful smile bloomed on his face.
"Might have? Ahaha! hahaha!"
"Mind explaining why you're laughing like a sore loser, martial brother?" Hong Wei said, face sour.
"I did put some thought into analyzing the logical explanation behind his actions, and I suddenly understood that we've made a mistake in the ploy." Shangguang Ce sighed.
"It's not that he was too smart to bite the bait, but that we were too hasty in arranging the bait. By putting myself in his shoes, I realize that Han Xuhan had two options in front of him- and they were not about choosing to be a ghost cultivator or not choosing so.
"His options were to trust me fully, blindly, accepting my offer; or to wait and watch how I react to his denial of my offer. He knows that he doesn't have much time left before he becomes a cripple. He must have searched for a cure, a remedy, for a while at least. Suddenly, a random acquaintance he met in this foreign place offers him exactly what he needs with no conditions attached...That's too much of a coincidence."
Hong Wei digested the explanation and harrumphed. "You should've just told him that we know of his condition and we can help him. After all, he won't need to rely on his meridians at all if he reaches the Essence Severance Realm as a full-fledged ghost cultivator."
"I have a feeling that that would backfire even more terribly. No cultivator appreciates their secrets being peeped on. He would become even warier of us. This is actually a good outcome. He will still be a good acquaintance of ours. We can develop our friendship and once he's desperate, he will realize that we are his only option left."
"But did you explain to him that being a ghost cultivator means he doesn't necessarily have to become a cripple?" Hong Wei asked. "How else would he know that it's the only path left for him?"
Shangguang Ce smiled even more deviously.
"Do you think he would simply believe that? If we need to make him trust us, we will have to share some of the downsides of being a ghost cultivator. The process needs to be slow, deliberate and well-planned. Once he is certain that we are no longer trying to desperately recruit him...that's when we tell him that he still has a chance to become a powerful cultivator. At that time, I believe he will not think I'm trying to manipulate him into making him a new prey for the Celestial Armour Galaxy."
Hong Wei snorted. "With Han Fei's precious manual in hand, and as an owner of an artificial Celestial Constitution, he's a target for a good number of people already. I honestly don't like how badly you've screwed this guy over. I don't get why youre so fixated on trying to recruit him."
"It's not like I can find another guy here who has a recessive Celestial Constitution, can I?"
"A condition which is nowhere near enough to let him become a ghost cultivator. That crystal just filled up a huge chasm of the missing parts of the constitution. Besides, who said we need a ghost cultivator? Any decent talent from one of the top sects would be as good as one anyway."
"Hey, you haven't taken a liking to him, have you? The martial sister I know isn't this compassionate." Shangguang Ce threw her a dirty grin.
"Ughh...I'm trying to cultivate some humanity in me just like you asked!" Hong Wei displayed a disgruntled expression as she wandered off into one of the tunnels of the Castle, leaving Shangguang Ce behind.
Watching her back, the dirty smile on Shangguang Ce's face became even more pronounced.