It was the first pair that I had seen so close to each other. I knew that other pairs were working together, but this?

This was brazen.

If they knew what I knew, they would have been miles away. I stirred my dao whiskey. I had asked the mundane bartender to make it slightly watered down to see if he would actually do it. I was surprised when he did.

In the background two women played large stringed instruments. Their discordant buzz wasn't quite right for dancing, but it did background lo-fi pretty well.

The two cultivators with the mark were irritatingly, looking at the performers. I couldn't read their lips from his direction. I was going to have to get a little closer, but then I saw Lee taking a move. When she moved, I stayed put.

I held up two fingers to ask for a second drink. The bartender clocked me and wanted over.

"Do you know those two men over there?" I said.

"They're both enforcers for the club," he said.

That explain the uniform as well as the particular Harry part that they both had reminding me of Obi-Wan way back in the early days. He lingered there for a little bit longer as if he wanted to say something. I gestured at him to continue.

"They're up in some business right now trying to recruit," he said. " If you're interested in joining then you should talk to him. Otherwise I would steer clear. They're very shall we say persuaded with their pitch,.especially with people that they think might be a benefit to the group."

Now as injured as to what the bartender's role was with this. Surely he had to know that people were not showing up again and again sometimes. But then again that was exactly how a bar was run. Wasn't it? Anyway, walk ing whenever they wanted while they're open. The only difference is that people could leave and not come back and here, they left because they were being abducted. On the surface, I can imagine how he didn't really want to know how the club worked, but on the other hand, if he had even the slightest inkling of what was going on, he might be one of them.

It had to be the case that there were some people that kept around because they were too useful to kill. If this was the case then perhaps this is one of their touch points. He went back to another customer and I observed him doing his thing for a while.

When I look back at the two enforcers, they're gone. I had to check them around the room to see that they were talking to my girlfriend and she was looking very at ease. In fact, She looked like she had a will in hand. Now. I didn't know exactly what she was doing or what she was saying but I saved to say she My pants easily so I was pretty sure that she could navigate into a discussion with them about the final points of cultivation. Now I don't want to say that they were going to mansplain cultivation to her. Even that just sounds ridiculous. But it was probably something it was because she was going to try to do.

If you were trying to impress a woman and you told her about a secret skill that would unlock something, would that sound suspicious?

It sound like whatever they were telling her and she was not really impressed. Or at least it looked liked that. She might be saying something otherwise to confuse the fuck out of them.

I was torn between thinking about where I could find any victims and also really starting to enjoy what she was doing.

I'm not really a fan of heading to the bar. I am a man and I can generally get along wherever I am, but if I had my choice it would be game night with the homies with plentiful snacks for the girls and whoever else was there.

Call me old fashioned but the idea of paying an upcharge for a drink that costs less at home? Those days are behind me. That's money better spent on more nosh. I did like to tip the server when I went out, but as a social worker I was for a robust living wage.

The bartender here looked like he would fight me if I tried to insinuate that he would take a tip, but he took my waan. I was number waan in his books.

As far as I was concerned if she was doing the talking with the guys then I was going to drop her. She didn't know that they were enforcers for the sect. We were exactly the kind of people that they were trying to stop from infiltrating. That meant that they worked out the people that we wanted to make friends with.

If there was one thing that I figured out that would make them want us around. It was to ask them about recruiting. The way that they probably needed us to be there meant that they would take just about anybody. It wasn't that I was particularly strong, It was because that was a warm body.

I mean it was, but not only that.

A willing warm body would get very far in this arena.

Me? I was just trying to see where this situationship was going.

She had them laughing.

Over the full roar of the crowd and music I couldn't make out what they were saying. Sadly, I was going to have to move in if I wanted more information.

Instead, I looked around the room for any other members that I could get my hooks into. She seemed to have herself well under control.

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In any of the situation I might have been Ella at East. But I knew she could handle herself. Not only that first that I found looked like they couldn't handle anything. Across the way a woman in a black cultivator robe looked like she was trying to get a cancer as fast as she could through a pipe. What surprised me about this was that we were indoors and yet she was still smoking at the store. Thankfully, she was by window and something was happening. That made her smoke just float out in such a way as to not linger. I could see the mark on her face.

At one point in time, I thought that perhaps the different types of marks meant something. The very first member of the Red Fang stack that I met hadn't had any marks. And he was the highest drum cultivator that I'd ever fought today. These guys they all had a very similar Mark. What this told me was that either the Mark went away or there was some bullshit about a certain people being given a chance to get And then if they don't do it they will get the mark.

My thought was that they took several select individuals through training and use them as their enforcers or as their big bosses once they got to a high enough level. Otherwise, it was like giving someone a tattoo that they would always be no better than this level. In theory it was terrible and I practiced it looked even worse if that was what was going on. But I didn't know these guys.

As I moved closer to the woman with the pipe, all I knew was that she was high enough in the organization to have become a trusted member of the team. I was going to ask her some cultivation tips. I might have to fake smoking as well. I wonder if the effects of smoking or is bad for cultivators as they were for regular human beings. Probably. I also couldn't imagine being a cultivator and getting lung cancer. That had to be the absolute worst.

But if I only made my way over there, she acknowledged me with a nod.

"Good afternoon madam," I said.

I waited for a 10th couple of seconds before Sgt. Actually trying to look at me. If she was second round she was just that. I wasn't about to unveil myself in this club but I wanted to get her attention.

"Good afternoon young master," she said. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting before. Your hair is so...unique you must get constant compliments."

It really wasn't that unique but try telling her that. When everyone around you has jet black hair, the one guy with curly brown hair was the anomaly. I was well aware that I stuck out. It was one of the reasons that I had spent so much time learning how to do my hair like they did and also trying to figure out a way to straighten it if possible. It was not really working out.

"It's only so many people that can say they're interested in this kind of hair. It's a lot of work," I said.

" Even so, curls? In that hair? It looks lovely," she said. For a second I thought she was going to puff some smoke in my face so actively or something but she just carried on. I realized that she wasn't going to hold up her into the conversation unless I did. And before I punched her straight through several walls, I was going to need some information out of her.

"So this is a nice club right?" I said.

"You know it," she said.

I was trying to gauge what she was going to say. On one hand, I was very interested in her impression of the place. I was also very impression interested in her impression that she would give to an outsider. Because this is saying a lot about her and what she liked and what she thought she could sell to other people. If she thought this is a good place where people should actually go to, she might be one of those naive idiots.

Xiran haunted me.

She seemed like a normal person until she revealed what she was and we knew already. And then when we tried to get her to stand down, it was only my threatening of her life that made her play along.

"You're a cultivator of some strength," she said.

Now she has my full attention. At her level she wouldn't be able to see my level. That was part of the reason I spent so much time training on hiding my cultivation. You would see it if you were looking straight at it and you knew what you're looking for, but her?

"How very interesting," I said. "I saw you smoking here and I had a few questions. Based on the way the smoke is flowing, it looked like a cultivation technique."

"Oh this? This is a parlor trick," she said, waving her pipe around. "You're not going to learn anything from this path. That is unless you are a free agent?"

My heartbeat quick enough for a second. I think she was ready to play ball. I had been a little bit tired of sitting out of this entire Mission as my girlfriend decided to move into my territory. A quickly look at told me that she was doing very well. As a fourth room cultivator, she could easily take those two cultivators in a fight.

The one in front of me? If I was mistaken, she was second round but it looked like she was trying really hard to hide that. It either wasn't a part of her path, or she had them been trained.

I gave her my full attention.

"I'm open to negotiation," I said. "What are you offering?"

I expect her to launch into her sales pitch. I didn't expect her to laugh.

"Offering? We can remake you stronger and more durable," she said. "You could be the strongest cultivator here and rise to become one of the top in this city."

I prepared myself mentally to hear the same spiel that I had heard so many times. Promises about potential and advancement would change my life.

I had heard the mantras before. ABC! Always be cultivating. In fact, I'd heard it so many times that I could probably say them all myself. What was the point of them if I could do their pitch for them?

Heck I could even train them up to a respectable level and they would all be none the wiser. They would just consider me some secret hidden Old Masters or something like that. I wasn't. The way that these things went? I might as well have been.

I briefly considered showing her just the smallest inkling of my power. She might be able to take it. She definitely could but then everybody else would know. Would that make me more or less of a good recruit for her? Did they even have someone of my realm? Chances were they didn't.

"That sounds interesting. What's on it for me?" I said.

"What's on it for you?" She said.

"Listen here friend. You're trying to sell me on joining your Sect. Every man, woman and child in this city is selling for their particular path. If you don't have a good pitch? You can't sell it," I said.

She cringed back.

"Friend?" she said.

I was tempted to take her out right there. But there were too many witnesses and ... I wanted to see if she was beyond saving. Something told me that I would be disappointed anyway.

"What?" she said, exasperated.