Early morning. Sector Leader Dong Feiliao had just finished the weekly pearl distribution when a carpet flew over his head, heading towards the central courtyard.

“Excellent, excellent!” He chortled, running up the central hill. “My pearl harvesters are back!” For many reasons, the Brownwater Sector was the weakest Sector in the entire area. As a result, it was always in need of pearls. It didn’t help that his son, Dong Xiaobai, made money evaporate. The damn kid had even lost him a thousand pearls four days ago! As a result, Feiliao was very excited to see the winnings of the latest expedition, even though it was merely an Arithmetic dungeon that could only hand out Arithmetic pearls.

He skidded to a stop outside the courtyard doors, panting. Calming himself down, he used his sleeve to wipe the sweat off his forehead, before adjusting his robes and opening the door.

Striding in regally, he flashed the most dazzling smile his yellow, cracked teeth could allow. “My children! I’m so glad that all of you have returned safely! Tell me, elder disciple Shuxue, how the venture went.”

Shuxue saluted. “Yes, Sector Leader. The Arithmetic dungeon contained five matrices, and I stood by as our disciples swept through the math monsters like the talented young children they are. We discovered a new notation that up until now had never been known by our Sector. It’s called the factorial, and-”

“Stop!” Feiliao cried out. “What I wanted to know was, how many Arithmetic pearls did you all get? You know the clan has a small tax of 90% on all pearls obtained from dungeons, as well as on all jade slips!”

“Ah, yes, the pearls.” Shuxue rolled his eyes. “There had to be at least ten thousand Arithmetic pearls. I wouldn’t know.”

Feiliao nearly collapsed from excitement. “Where? Show me, show me!”

Shuxue shrugged. “Sector Leader knows I don’t concern myself with such mundane, worldly matters. You’ll have to ask the disciples.”

“Yes, yes, yes, your upright character that contains not a hint of greed in it was the only reason why I let you go on every expedition to the Algebra dungeons, even though you fail everytime.” Feiliao nodded understandingly, then turned to the children behind Shuxue. “Take out your pearls for grandpa here to see, children. The one who earned the most pearls will win some candy!”

The children fidgeted nervously. Some of them stole looks at Zhujiao, who calmly stood in the middle of the throng with his arms folded.

“Eh? Where are the pearls?” Feiliao began to grow annoyed now. What was wrong with these kids?

A girl raised her hand. “We all gave the pearls to disciple Zhujiao. We don’t have any.”

Feiliao blinked in surprise. “Eh? You all gave the pearls away? Has elder disciple Shuxue been rubbing off on you kids too much?”

The girl shook her head. “No, elder disciple Shuxue only touches us when he gets angry.”

Feiliao shrugged. “That’s not what I was asking, but whatever. Zhujiao, you damn rascal. Where are the Sector’s pearls?” He couldn’t see how Zhujiao could possibly be carrying any more than a hundred pearls. A slight, uneasy feeling began gnawing on the back of his mind.

Zhujiao shrugged. “Don’t have them anymore.”

Feiliao’s eyes nearly popped out of his sockets. “Wh-wh-what!” He spluttered. “Then where did they go!”

Zhujiao didn’t say a word, gazing off into the distance in a taciturn manner.

“Impudence! You must be hiding something from me!” Feiliao shouted, veins bulging from his forehead. “Take out your bag, and show it to me right now!”

Zhujiao took out an empty bag, casually tossing it to Feiliao. As he did, the hearts of several girls skipped a beat. The manner in which the bag arced through the air just made Zhujiao seem so handsome to them.

“AHHH! WHAT THE HELL!” Feiliao ripped the bag to pieces, angrily tossing it onto the ground and jumping on top of it. “All you damn kids, take out your bags and show it to grandpa!”

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Trembling, the children tossed one empty bag after another onto the ground. As Feiliao watched this, he felt as if he could die at any moment.

“You inept fools! You lost ten thousand pearls! No, not ten thousand, at least ten thousand! Mathematically, that could mean more than ten thousand! More than ten thousand pearls! Grandpa is so angry right now, he cannot even articulate the degree of his burning emotions!” A single tear trickled down his cheek. “Losing a hundred thousand Arithmetic pearls, how is that even possible?”

“I’m Zhujiao! Nothing is impossible!”

“Shut the fuck up! I’ve had it with you.” Feiliao walked up to a table, grabbed a teacup, smashed it into shards with his grip.

“Shuxue!” He yelled angrily, spinning around to stare straight into Shuxue’s eyes. “Why weren’t you watching these children while they were embezzling Sector funds? You’ve been shirking your duty to your Sector!”

“Sector Leader, please calm down.” Shuxue spoke in a soothing voice. “I’ve already said, I can’t be bothered to deal with mundane tasks and worldly objects. Can you really blame me for having good morals?”

The Sector Leader was gazing off into the crowd. “Shuxue, you’re missing a disciple! You left as 25 people and came back as 24! What the hell is going on here!”

“This…” Shuxue hesitated, trying to think up an excuse.

“Can it be that you actually didn’t notice that you left behind a disciple!” Spittle flew out of the highly agitated Sector Leader.

“I’m telling you, Sector Leader, I don’t concern myself with-”

“Enough! Enough!” Feiliao turned around and walked up to the table. Seeing that there were no more teacups to crumple into bits, he could only smash his fist down on the table and reduce it to dust.

“Elder disciple Shuxue, you have utterly failed in your capacity as an expedition chaperone! As punishment, you will be barred from ever chaperoning again!”

Shuxue’s eyebrows rose to the sky, electrified. “Eh?” He said excitedly. “I don’t have to?”

“Never again!”

Shuxue was beside himself with joy, but he contained his emotion and maintained a straight face. “But Sector Leader, you said that my punishment for failing each Algebra dungeon was to do another Algebra dungeon and get as many Algebra pearls as I could! Here, my punishment for failing an escort task is to never escort again? I don’t understand!”

“That’s because-- that’s because-- ah, never mind!” Some more tears trickled out of Feiliao’s eye.

“Shuxue, you are confined to secluded meditation up until the next time an Algebra dungeon materializes! Enough with you!”

Shuxue saluted again, trying very hard to keep the smile off his face. Had he known this would be the result, he would’ve put much more effort into flying the carpet, so that he could go back into secluded meditation faster.

“As for you, Zhujiao, you little shit!” Feiliao jabbed a finger directly into Zhujiao’s face. “Take the flying carpet and go bring back whoever the missing disciple is! That’s your punishment.”

Feiliao collapsed onto the ground, wiping his brow. Clearly, his mind was not very stable.

“Ten thousand Arithmetic pearls… twenty thousand Arithmetic pearls…” He mumbled in a low voice, before speaking up again. “All of you shitty kids can leave! Except for you, Huiqi (meaning: Unlucky)! You are going to comfort grandpa, who is very sad right now.”

Huiqi was a young girl with pale skin and jet black hair. Upon hearing this, she trembled for a bit, before taking a deep breath and nodding.