“I won’t fight, man,” Yung said. “Everyone in the city knows me. Do you think there’s someone dumb enough to lay a hand on me now?”

“That kind of conceit gets young masters killed,” Su Haochen said.

He was right.

That’s why Yung was looking for trouble.

Not to get killed, of course, but to get some hands-on experience fighting ren, before some random event killed him.

Yung needed to gauge where his fighting abilities lay against ‘normal’ cultivators.

“Even if I want to cause trouble, they’ll run away after apologising. Or just sit there letting me beat them up. I’d have to do some really heinous shit if I want to actually get people angry enough to fight me, despite the consequences,” Yung lamented. Everyone was too afraid of his boo to bully him now.

“Or you could disguise your face,” Su Haochen said. “I see what you want to do here, kid. I think it’s a place to start.”

“Really?” Yung perked up.

“No. It’s dumb,” Su Haochen said, “I think you are dumb. Like the mistress. Do you want to know what the mistress does when she is emotional?”

“No. I’ll ask her myself,” Yung glared at the guy.

Su Haochen was right again, of course.

There were better ways to blow off steam, and he was being supremely dumb right now.

There were better ways of going about learning how to fight. He could train in one of the dojos, learn combat under controlled conditions.

“I’m gonna take the side of the coolie,” Yung said without hesitation.

Stealing food does not deserve death as punishment. Nor maiming or crippling.

Su Haochen shrugged again. His shadows crept up Yung’s legs but Yung did not feel even the slightest touch.

The darkness covered his face, then seemed to settle down like mud. Yung took out a mirror.

The disguised face was so average, nothing really stood out except that it wasn’t a madlander’s face.

“It will hold,” Su Haochen said. “Break a leg.”

Yung would not. He brought out a broken spear.

The edges were all worn down and the tip was broken. It was the same spear he used in the cave.

With its non-lethal blade, perhaps Yung would not accidentally hurt anyone.

After all, excessive violence was bad.

Yung walked into the alley and saw a burly man with short grey hair in leather-studded fighter robes. He had a sword at his back, and was pressing down on an emaciated man’s stomach.

The emaciated man had panic in his eyes, crying, “M-mercy.”

“Shut it! That spirit herb probably cost more than five coppercast spirit stones, you hear? It won’t be worth it even if I sell you. We were nice enough to take you in, but you spit on our face!” The burly mercenary kicked the downed man.

“Quite wasting time,” another man, surrounded by more mercenaries yelled. He held the reigns of two mule-like creature, large crates on their backs. This second man’s robes glittered with qi in Yung’s Link Sight. Artefacts.

“We leave before the sun crests the peak.” There was a hint of annoyance on the man’s face.

“This brother there, if you are willing, let this one repay the five coppercast spirit stones,” Yung said with his best impression of Youjin Liu. “That coolie might die at this rate, and one herb is not worth a precious life, is it?” Even though Yung wanted to beat someone up, his rationality forced him to assess the situation first.

“Huh?” The burly mercenary raised his voice, one eye glaring wide. He looked at Yung, then at the coolie beneath his feet. “I misspoke, brother. It’s five Bronzecast spirit stones.” The burly man grinned, “Ain’t that right, boss?”

The second man who was the leader of this group had been annoyed that one of his wares had been stolen like that. He was a rich merchant, and a cultivator. He needed to teach these poor folks a hard lesson, otherwise, he would have no face left! Next time, what’s stolen might be more than one or two herbs. He grinned too, saying, “What bronzecast!? It was Ironcast. That was a hundred-year-old Green Turtle Black Veined Grass. This young hero here, if you can pay on this thief’s behalf, we’ll look the other way. But if not, then mind your own business.”

“The rules of the city are to hand over thieves to the Youjin guardsmen,” Yung said. “Don’t take this too far.”

The burly mercenary scoffed, “This is why I hate bumpkins. Did ye wander into town cause of the recruitments? Think you’re some heroic goodie?” He spat near Yung's feet. “He’s a mortal. So what if I break a bone? Or two or ten?” The man laughed in a strange gasping tone.

Yung’s face darkened, and he raised his spear.

“Someone’s heard too many stories,” the burly mercenary scoffed. His three fellows joined him with weapons drawn. Even the merchant done in the robe-like artefacts, a cultivator in the same stage as Yung but with body cultivation, took out a thin sword.

One at the 6th stage, one at the 5th, three at the 4th.

Yung took a step backward.

“Too late to run, brat!” the burly mercenary said. He roared, then dashed forward, unsheathing his sword from his back.

He slashed. Yung put his qi into his eyes, and the Empathic Link changed to red.

This was the Thread of Intention, more detailed. Yung read it.

Left shoulder. Yung dodged, sidestepping clumsily.

He couldn’t really read the mercenary’s mind, of course, but the man seemed to have a particular dislike of Yung’s shoulder and wanted to harm it. Threads of Intentions could better show malice or goodwill, as Yung had learnt.

An axe from the left, a spear from the front, the thin sword from the right. The final mercenary ducked, trying to come at Yung from behind.

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Left leg. Right hip.

Torso.

That guy has a dagger! Fuck, he’s aiming at my—

Yung was able to dodge the strikes by reading their Empathic Links. But the dagger, being sneakier, almost nipped his bud.

Cold sweat fell down.

Yung lasted four more seconds.

Then, while dodging a sword strike from the boss, Yung took a punch to the gut. The burly mercenary had feinted with the sword, while his real strike was a left hook.

Yung’s defensive artefact, another bangle that had been gnawed on by Su Nanya, activated, blocking the blow.

“W-What?” the burly mercenary said.

“That’s about it.” Yung was no genius at fighting. Even with intention-reading cheats, he couldn’t beat this many people without formal training.

He activated Empathic Isolation on each of his opponents.

“Huddle up! It’s a—”

Before the burly mercenary could finish his warning, Yung clubbed him on the jaw with the side of his shattered spear blade.

Yung was careful not to use lethal force. At first, he had wanted to knock them out, but had no idea what amount of force would knock them out and what would give them permanent brain damage. So he held back too much.

“I thought you wouldn’t use stealth,” Su Haochen said from his own stealth shadow.

“I don’t like pain,” Yung said. He had no fetish for self-harm. “I’ll fight until I can’t, and then I’ll play.”

Bam. Whack. Thud!

It was one-sided. The mercenaries and the merchant were terrified.

“S-Sir! Misunderstanding, it’s a misunderstanding,” the merchant said. Somehow, the shine of his artefact robe had dimmed. “We didn’t really mean to kill the coolie. We just wanted to teach him a lesson is all.”

Yung knew the man was telling the truth. But the lesson the coolie would learn would probably come at a cost of broken bones and no money to heal it.

In the lower towns? That was as good as death.

Still, Yung didn’t keep up the abuse. These people didn’t have any intention of killing him while they had attacked.

Even if they had, Yung didn’t think he had the resolve to kill anyone.

A few minutes later, the mercenaries and the merchant were bruised all over, on their knees, nearly crying.

““We’re sorry,”” they said in unison.

The patrols from the Youjin Clan came following a slithering shadow snake with the head of a fox; the city had a primitive law enforcement system.

Yung took out a token from his storage artefact and showed it to the annoyed-looking Youjin Guards.

Leading them was a man Yung recognised.

It was the guard leader who had shown up when Yung had saved Wang Gangliu, Wang Gangbao and Ding Shi from the Diving Hawk Gang.

The old guardsman saw the token, his eyes going wide. He sent a glare towards his subordinate who was busy taking a bribe from the merchant.

“How dare you try to bribe someone in broad daylight! Do we seem like bastards to you?” the old guardsman said to the merchant and the mercenaries. “Take them away! Lock’em up good you hear me?!”

The Youjin guards tied their hands with swords and spears drawn. They even tied the hands of the coolie. He was a thief, after all, and thieves wold be whipped.

“Wait,” Yung called out. “Why did you steal the herb?” he asked the coolie.

The coolie remained silent. There was nothing but fear in his eyes.

Yung sighed, “Do you know of Ziyou Yung?” He asked.

The coolie’s eyes widened. He nodded, “I-I got medicine for my sister from them… them.. Well farers.”

“Welfares?”

The coolie nodded. He must be talking about the no-holds-barred philanthropy Yung forced the Youjin Clan to conduct. Certainly, that wasn’t limited to madlanders only, but also for the city’s other destitute population.

“How is your sister now?” Yung asked.

“H-Her tongue's better. No blood now.” The coolie nodded. He didn’t look old, maybe seventeen or eighteen.

“I’m one of Ziyou Yung’s people. I was auditing the city under his name. Don’t worry, if you have suffered injustice, you won’t be treated unfairly. Trust me.”

“I-I did not steal,” the coolie said.

“Lies! Don’t listen to this bastard. We fed him out of hand, and now he dares to—”

“Shut it.” Yung said, and the merchant shut up.

“I picked the herb in the forest yesterday morning,” the coolie said with hard breaths. “It glowed under piles of deadwood, yeah? Maybe if I eat it, I can be a cultivator. Kept it in my pouch, but then they somehow found it and lied about me stealin’!”

“You are the one who lies. That cretin—”

“Someone shut him up, please.” Yung did not like such repeated interruptions.

A guard stuffed the merchant's mouth with cloth.

“They told me to open my pouch. I did, and then they said I stole the herb from their wares! I didn’t. Honest to the heavens, mum’s taught me never to steal,” the coolie was sobbing at this point. Being beaten up, humiliated, blamed, he was just a teen after all. “When they wanted to snatch it, I swallowed the grass. They didn’t wanna let me be a cultivator!”

The guard captain walked to Yung with a tired face, “The merchant has a stock of Green Turtle Black Veined Grass.” He pointed at an open crate. Inside, carefully wrapped herbs were resting upon straw. The old guardsman continued, “I applaud your good intentions, guest of the clan, but that boy is a liar and a thief.”

The coolie was shocked, wronged.

Yung could read every party’s Empathic Links.

All of them were feeling righteous indignation.

The merchant, the mercenaries, and the guards too.

“Ungag him,” Yung pointed at the merchant.

Finally, able to speak, the merchant roared out, “That ungrateful whoreson! Just because some naïve hero is going to eat your lies, I ain’t—”

“Do you keep count of your wares?” Yung asked.

The merchant nodded. “We’ve a scroll in the bag.”

The scroll was brought out. The guards knew what to do. They counted the Green Turtle Black Veined Grass in the merchant's stock.

There should be a total of Forty-nine of them.

“Nine. Eighteen. Twenty Seven…”

And as the counts went one, the merchant’s face paled.

“Forty-nine. Nothing's missing,” the guard who counted said, and everyone realised what had happened.

It was all a mix-up.

“It’s a misunderstanding! An honest mistake. You can’t blame me for this. Of course, I would think that kid stole it if he suddenly has something he shouldn’t.” the merchant was hysterical now. He had never been humiliated like so before.

“Of course,” Yung said grimly. “Usually, if a cultivator blamed a random, commoner mortal, who the heck would waste time checking the ledgers?” He glared at the Youjin guards.

He didn’t forget how they had wanted to take bribes.

“Punish them. Accordingly,” Yung said.

The guards didn’t dare say otherwise.

After the merchant and the mercenaries had been taken away, and the coolie sent to a nearby clinic recently opened by the Youjin Clan, the old guardsman looked at Yung again.

“Ziyou Yung?” he said with tired trepidation.

Yung was shocked. “How did you know?”

“Your face may have changed, but I’d see through that mannerism anywhere,” the old guardsman sighed. “Look, I am not saying what you did was wrong. Everyone needs a hero, an idol. You saved that coolie, but so what? Can you save every damn coolie in the city who is unjustly treated?”

“I’ll save who I can. I don’t need to, nor want to, save everyone.” Somehow, as Yung spoke that, it sounded right and true to him.

“You…ignore this old man’s rambling, I mean no offence.” The old guardsman stopped.

“Go on.” Yung waved a palm.

“Take this as wisdom from an old man. If yer a cultivator, act like a cultivator! Not some mortal. You got backing, authority, and all the money you can waste. You are safe. But what about us, the little folk? We gotta feed children. There are wives waiting for us back home.”

“What about the little folks, you say? What about the folks who are weaker than you? What about them?”

“It’s the way of the world, young man. Listen to this old—”

“What about me? If I didn’t have my so-called backing, and if I was beaten up, a poor little madlander, would anyone even help? Would you help?”

The old guardsman shut up.

“No, because whoever beat me up will give you some spirit stones that you are gonna use to feed your children and wives.” Yung thought he would be more angry while saying that, but the emotions came and went.

“Then what if you offend someone you shouldn’t in these heroic jaunts of yours? Telling us little folks to tie 'em up like prisoners. You’ll be safe. But with this kind of loss of face, how the hell are we gonna live?”

“Then quit being a guardsman,” Yung said. “If you are one just for the salary and bribes, and not for the duty, then maybe it’s about time for you ‘little folks’ to step aside and give the position to people who actually care.”

“You—!” The old guardsman raised his voice, but then the strength left his shoulders.

“Punish them. Accordingly,” Yung said again.

“…aye.” The old man stooped and walked away.

Yung didn’t mean to be so dogmatic. There was a hierarchy of injustice in this world. It was a systematic problem, and playing hero once wouldn’t solve it.

Things needed to be overhauled. And he needed a butt-load of power, cultivation prowess and economic leverage.

“So are we going back?” Su Haochen asked.

“No. Tell me, are there any more misconduct going on around here?” Yung asked with a playful grin.

“…You are gonna kill that old man. He was right, you know? Entitled angry cultivators would kill puppies if it meant saving face. They can’t touch you, but they’ll touch these guardsmen’s children and wives real good.” Su Haochen stopped as Yung was about to swear and tapped his shadow. “A hundred and fifty-eight meters west. A father-in-law is being illegally creepy.”

Yung cracked his fists. “Oh, domestic abuse? Let’s start big then, shall we?”