In a sense, he was right. Song Yi was cheating, but not how Gao Hung thought.

That was because the ‘shadowmander’ scales in question were completely fake. Days ago, when Song Yi had begun to study the Twilight Shroud Minor Art, he’d painted the regular salamander scales black. He hadn’t expected that they would become useful so soon.

Beneath either of the two blows he’d blocked, those scales would’ve shattered without a doubt. The trick was in clever application of the Twilight Shroud. By applying it to only parts of his body and the immediate items he had on his person, he was able to shift none other than his obsidian axe to block the blow instead.

There was such a thing as a shadowmander. Song Yi had learned this from Old Man Wang. Shadowmanders were shadow-essence salamanders, and were considered incredibly dangerous to even early-stage cultivators. In all aspects, they were of a completely different class than regular salamanders.

Gao Hung was a stroke of good fortune for him though. With this convincing mook, Song Yi was able to pull off his con perfectly.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to gloat. He had another more important matter to take care of.

“If fellow brothers and sisters don’t mind, I’ll be leaving now. Don’t bother to follow me.” Song Yi released Luo Ai and turned to leave.

Neither she nor Gao Hung made a move to attack him. They were both in awe of the powerful ‘shadowmander scales’ that had turned a mouse into a dragon.

The crowd parted to allow Song Yi exit. While many of them looked upon him unfavorably for his actions, they didn’t hold any personal grudge with him.

Just as he exited the encirclement, another person called out.

“Brother, please wait a moment!”

Song Yi broke into a wide grin. But when he turned around, his face was expressionless.

“Yes?”

“I am interested in buying one of these shadowmander scales. I will offer 500 sect credits for it.”

Song Yi frowned, to which the man replied, “1000! I’ll give you 1000.”

“This… These were quite hard for me to obtain.” Inside, Song Yi was actually happy with this price. He had been worried that even after this showing he would have to convince people to buy them.

“2000. Brother, I truly can not go higher than this.”

Song Yi was just about to accept the deal when a woman interrupted.

“I will offer 3000 sect credits per scale.”

“4000!” Another disciple shouted.

Song Yi was cheering inwardly. Only in his wildest dreams did he allow himself to imagine a bidding war starting.

“4500! Who dares to outbid me on this?”

“I dare! 6000!”

“I’ll give you 10,000 each, and I’ll take half a dozen.”

This bid silenced the crowd. A young girl stepped out. She wore dozens of shiny accessories on her wrists and around her neck. By what good fortune, Song Yi didn’t know, but she had clearly gained herself a large sum of wealth within the sect.

Song Yi’s face twitched. He had to physically restrain himself from palming at least one of her bracelets as he handed her six of his scales.

He ended up selling the other half of his scales at between 5000-6000 sect credits each. He now had almost 100,000 sect credits. He was rich!

With a smile on his face, he bowed to the crowd and at last took his leave in the same direction Su Bai had gone.

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Not even five minutes later, one of the lucky disciples who had managed to acquire a scale noticed something odd.

“Hey, do shadowmanders have red spots?” he asked.

A nearby disciple frowned. “Let me see that for a second?”

The scale was handed over, and the disciple rubbed the scale with his sleeve. Dozens of other disciples were crowded around, when...

“Shameless!”

“Despicable!”

“How could someone act like this? A thief and con man in the sect? Unbelievable!”

The outrage began to spread through the novitiates in this region of the ninth land mass. They hadn’t had a personal grudge with him before, but now they absolutely did.

Before long, there would be a new black name in the community: Song Yi.

----------

“Kid, I’m proud of you. You did well today.”

Song Yi was taken aback. “You’re not going to say that what I did was immoral?”

“Immoral? It’s the fault of those naive fools for not checking the wares!”

“Didn’t I just steal their money?”

“Mercantilism is different from thievery. Very different.”

Song Yi didn’t understand, but this issue wasn’t high on his priority list at the moment. There was something else that weighed far heavier on his mind.

It wasn’t long before he left the forest and entered the mountains. He was starting to wonder if Su Bai had really continued to go this way when he heard a rumbling sound.

It didn’t take much investigation to find the source.

In a wooded valley, Su Bai was practicing her Thunderclap Palm technique. In the short time since she’d left the village, many a poor tree had received a beating. The smaller ones were all felled, while the larger were riddled with holes.

Song Yi approached her, making no effort to conceal his presence.

“Big Bro Yi, you had the courage to come after me? See if I don’t beat you up right now!”

“You’re angry.”

“Of course I’m angry! How could you do something like that? I almost got beat up because of you!”

He looked at his feet, uncomfortable.

“You knew I was a thief.”

A dirty glare shut him up.

“You don’t understand anything, do you?” she turned away so he couldn’t see her face. “Not only that, you almost got your hands cut off! Are you stupid? What were you thinking?!”

“You’re right…” he said. “I don’t understand anything. But how could I?”

“What do you mean?”

Song Yi clenched his fists. He’d known that he had to apologize, but never could’ve expected how difficult it would be.

“I’m sorry, Bai’er. I’ll buy you something with my own-”

SMASH!

The tree in front of Su Bai was blown into pieces.

“Idiot!”

She stormed away back in the direction of her village.

Song Yi was left dazed in the middle of the abused grove. He didn’t chase her again. After all, by now he figured the jig would be up, and there’d be a horde of novitiates out for blood.

He laid on his back, staring up at the crescent moon that hung above in the starry sky.

“I really don’t understand girls,” he said.

“Kid, I’ve lost count of how many years I’ve been alive. Let me tell you now, it doesn’t get easier.”

Song Yi couldn’t help a wry smile from appearing on his face when the monarch said that.

“Do you think she’ll forgive me?”

“She will. But in the meantime, you should let her be alone. When the time is right, you’ll know.”

For a long time, Song Yi simply laid there with the monarch for company. He didn’t train, he didn’t think about techniques or Qi. He just allowed his mind to rest.

Inhale.

Exhale.

When he closed his eyes, he saw the starry sky. He witnessed vast constellations, stars dying and being reborn anew.

He saw myriad planets. Some of them were lush with life. Others were dead and decayed.

And then, on one planet, he saw himself, laying down next to a pond, covered by a sparse canopy of trees.

He could see the filth on his skin, covered by the training-torn novitiate robe he wore.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

He heard his heartbeat growing louder and louder.

Suddenly, the scenery changed once more.

He was in a dark room, lit by a single torch. All around him was a monotonous pattern of gray stones, save for one wall that held a solid iron door.

This was a prison cell.

He touched the door with his hand.

The moment he did, a click sounded, and the door swung open.

“Prisoner has begun to escape. Enable security measures.” A deep, rumbling voice rang out through the halls.

“Old Man Wang, what is this? What’s going on?”

The monarch didn’t respond. In fact, Song Yi could no longer sense him.