A half-dozen burly men and women crashed down from the skies, digging craters as they landed around the two of them. Dressed in black and white, they all held vicious weapons and regarded Hui and his master with dark eyes.

The servant backed away, breaking out of the circle. Behind her, the cultivators lounging on the rear pavilion sat up, peering toward them. A few let out whoops or whistles, and Hui’s ears caught a few bets getting exchanged between the rowdier cultivators.

The biggest of the burly cultivators, a man with a pair of punching gauntlets, stepped forward. He nodded at Weiheng Wu. “You come along with us, or things will have to get dangerous.”

“Ah. This kind of reinforcements,” Weiheng Wu said, disappointed.

“What kind of reinforcements did you expect?” Hui replied, too startled to hold back his voice.

Weiheng Wu waved his hand. “We could have continued to discuss the issue with someone higher up the chain. There was no need to resort directly to violence.”

“Alright, now, come with us. We don’t need to cause trouble for the Matriarch,” the leader said. Casually, he slapped one fist into the opposite palm. A crack as loud as thunder rolled through the yard.

One of the burly men paused. He leaned into his leader and whispered something that sounded a lot like "fiance" and "Weiheng Wu."

The leader glanced at Hui and his master, then shook his head back. "They're just unruly guests. It's your imagination."

Hui edged closer to Weiheng Wu, quietly circulating his death qi. Would you believe if I said it's not your imagination? Wait, don't tell me, is this all happening because these servants somehow don't know our faces?

... On second thought, that's not so unreasonable. The matriarch called the first banquet on a whim and held it immediately. It's likely many of the members of the clan, especially low-ranking ones, were on missions or working their usual duties, and didn't attend. As for not knowing my face and name after I saved the clan, well, I hid out in my room. Unless they saw me during the fight or at the earlier banquet, why would they know me?

Master might be famous, but at the end of the day he's a shut-in who does nothing but hide on the peak and cultivate all the time. A random Bai clan servant not knowing his face isn't surprising.

And as for my name...

Name. Wait, hold on. Have either of us mentioned our names yet?

Hui's eyes widened. Ah! I called myself Xiao Hui by force of habit earlier! And Master hasn't bothered to introduce himself at all!

Damn my habits! If only I'd said Weiheng Hui, we wouldn't be here! Now it's too late, far too late.

“I’m not causing trouble at all,” Weiheng Wu replied, and in the same instant, the servants, the bouncers, and the guests in the back pavilion all crumpled to the ground.

Hui stared, startled out of his thoughts. Is this… did Master defeat them with pressure alone?

“Come along, Hui. There is no point in arguing with a bunch of donkeys,” Weiheng Wu said, striding toward the banquet hall.

Hui hurried after him, afraid to accidentally get crushed if he strayed too far from Weiheng Wu. He cast an apologetic look at the bouncers. The bouncers glared back, murder in their eyes.

Hey! Don’t direct that at this small disciple, okay? I did nothing to you, nothing!

They returned to the banquet room. Bodies splayed everywhere, piled up, curved over tables and slumped in chairs. A few cultivators sat upright, sweat dripping down their faces as they shielded the lower-level cultivators around them. In the middle of the room, a contingent of five blue-robed cultivators laid flat on the ground, caught in the midst of crossing to their seats.

Two cultivators remained upright. A stiff-backed man in even more austere white robes than Starbound Sect’s, his only ornament a white ribbon around his simple half-crown hairstyle, glared fiercely at them. As they entered, he lifted a hand and placed it on his table, eyes locked on them.

The second leaned back in her seat, relaxed, an easy smile on her face. Dressed in opulent golden robes and shiny gold silk pants, she reeked of wealth. Gold dripped from every surface of her body, every inch of her robes heavy with chains and gems. A tall golden crown stood atop her head, and heavy golden hairpins dangled from her hair. Her hair itself was spun gold, her eyes gold, and her fingernails gold as well. She waved the two of them over, wrist jangling, fingers flashing with rings.

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Weiheng Wu took the empty table at her side. Hui cast a look at the empty seats beside them, quickly counted the number of blue cultivators on the ground, looked around the banquet hall, and swallowed. He bowed deeply to the blue sect before he sat. Er, mystery blue sect, I apologize for my Master’s behavior!

As Weiheng Wu sat, he released his pressure. All around the room, cultivators sat up and drew breath again, pale faces regaining color. The white-robed man from across the room shook his head disapprovingly at Weiheng Wu.

Hui bowed deeply in his direction as well. Apologies to everyone! Apologies to all the seniors Master just aggro’d!

The servant girl from before skittered off into the distance. Hui tensed, then took a deep breath. Actually, if she gets someone higher up in Bai clan, it’s to my favor. There’s plenty of Bai clan cultivators who should recognize my face, especially the stronger ones, and if she goes straight to the Matriarch, Bai Xue, or Bai Luoren, all the more to my favor.

“Quite an entrance, quite an entrance! I only wish I’d thought of it,” the golden woman said, shaking her head. “They call me the Golden Merchant, and you?”

You don’t say, Hui thought, looking over her from head to toe. There was hardly an inch of her that wasn’t gold. Even her boots glittered with gold brocade.

“Weiheng Wu, and my disciple, Weiheng Hui,” Weiheng Wu introduced them.

Now you introduce yourself properly, Hui despaired quietly.

“Weiheng Wu? The genius of Starbound Sect himself. What a rare honor,” the merchant replied, smiling. “You wouldn’t happen to be searching for anything, would you? High-end equipment? High-tier magical treasures? Rare herbs or resources? A genius like yourself must have needs far beyond ordinary men. But fear not, the Golden Merchant can supply all your needs.”

Weiheng Wu furrowed his brows at her. “Why would I require anything?”

She blinked at him. “Cultivation requires resources. Money. One could even consider wealth equivalent to cultivation. Without resources, high end equipment, expensive pills… how could anyone cultivate?”

“Cultivation requires nothing but the truths of the world, and the truths of the world are freely available to all who look,” Weiheng Wu returned.

Hui gestured the Golden Merchant toward him. She leaned in. He licked his lips nervously, then tried, “Er, Master is a true genius. The likes of us shouldn’t attempt to, ah, comprehend him.”

“Eh? Are you calling me… not a genius?” the Golden Merchant asked. She arced a golden brow at him and pursed golden lips disapprovingly.

Sweat dripped down Hui’s back. “No, no, no, senior, please, I would never. I simply… I wish to express…”

“I have said nothing that cannot be comprehended. Hui, you must work harder on your comprehension skills. This is not the first time you’ve struggled to understand simple concepts,” Weiheng Wu lectured.

The Golden Merchant laughed. “I understand. I understand now. How about you, Weiheng Hui? Do you have any needs? Wants?”

Hui smiled at her, pained. Unfortunately, senior, I’m poor!

Wait, no, wait. He reached into his robes. “Would you be interested in making a purchase? I have some talismans to sell.”

“Oh?” The Golden Merchant smiled at him. She leaned in as he set his wind talismans out before him.

“Second stage wind talismans imbued with the Boulder-Cutting Wind art. Rends enemies and leaves a signature scar in the earth after it. Useful for cutting, er, boulders, stone, earthworks, and the likes as much as for attacking,” Hui said, pointing one at her.

She picked one up and felt it. “Durable. This is fine silk, no? That should raise the price some. The technique itself is somewhat lackluster, and second stage is a limitation, but even so… shall we say, ten spirit stones per talisman? A total of a hundred spirit stones.”

One hundred spirit stones for all my hard work, when I have a debt of millions? Hui resisted the urge to groan. It’s a start. It’s better than nothing. “Deal.”

She grinned, revealing gold teeth, and scooped up his talismans.

“If I were to sell… third stage talismans, how could I expect the price to change?” Hui probed.

“A third stage talisman would be worth a hundred spirit stones, depending on the technique, of course. Fourth stage, a thousand, fifth stage, ten thousand, and so on. I myself rather like talismans, since they can be used by any stage of cultivator regardless of strength… If you bring me a talisman that I find useful, I might be able to squeeze out a few more spirit stones.”

Good to know! Useless right now, but good for later. After all, the talisman formulas I know for third stage talismans all belong to Bai Luoren. I can’t steal his formulas for myself without risking the wrath of the Bai clan. If I make third-stage versions of the Boulder-Cutting Wind, that’s fair game, but I’m not going to spit in the face of someone who put in so much effort to help me.

Hui reached into his robes and drew out all the extra garbage he had on hand: the crystals from the cave, and the rest of the detritus he’d picked up along the way. “And this?”

The Golden Merchant sifted through the pieces, picking here and there. She twisted her lips, then shrugged. “Twenty spirit stones for the lot.”

“Deal.”

The Golden Merchant handed him his spirit stones, and Hui shoved them into his robes. I could use that spatial ring, Bai clan!

Weiheng Wu glanced at Hui. “Don’t lose yourself on the path of wealth. There is little of merit and many distractions on that path.”

The Golden Merchant clicked her tongue disapprovingly.

“Disciple hears and obeys, Master,” Hui replied. The path of wealth? More like the path of no-debt! I’m so far from wealth that it’s not even funny!

“There, right there,” the servant girl said, charging back into the room.