Still reeling from the low blow, Yù Quán looked up to see a burly man. He had short, roughly cut hair that was as black as his clothes. He wore cultivator robes, but the arms and the bottom had been ripped off, making it resemble more of a martial artist gi. This man was the cultivator from earlier who chased down the thief.

"Did you think you could escape, lady?" the man said in a voice fitting his burly, musclehead look. He then grabbed her by the arm, forcing her to her feet, and held her like that. Yù Quán began slowly crawling away. He hadn’t made any attempts to train or cultivate. He wasn’t eager to face cultivators while he was so weak.

"Hold it!" the man yelled in Yù Quán's direction.

"...Fuck's sake..." he sighed in response.

Yù Quán was now sitting on the floor before the wall of a man, still holding the young woman from before. After Yù Quán composed himself a bit, he faced the gorilla of a man head-on.

"Look, sir- I mean fellow cultivator. I was just doing a good deed and-"

"What are you on about?" the man interrupted.

Yù Quán wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Either he was overthinking things, or this man was exuding ignorance due to anger. He honestly couldn't tell. The man had an intimidating presence and a booming voice. Everything he says could be from anger if you were to go off of sound alone. Right when Yù Quán was about to continue his line of excuses, a new voice entered the fray.

"Come now, Liàng Píng. Don't scare this man as thanks for his good deed."

Yù Quán swiveled around to see an elegant man with long pale blue hair. He was wearing robes that looked like what the oaf's were supposed to look like before being torn apart. There was an air around him that matched his elegant look. Even his walk and how he held a black fan were elegant. Yù Quán had to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

'Great, a lady's man.'

As the elegant man walked towards Yù Quán, he fully opened his fan, revealing a set of writing down the middle. With his [Star Gazing Eyes], Yù Quán could make out what it said before the man even got close. It read “Yan Liqin”. Yu Quan assumed it was his name and thought that if he played an instrument, his name would be pretty ironic.

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Yù Quán had now backed up against one of the alley walls so he wouldn't have anyone in his blind spot. He turned his head to look back at the big guy from before. If these two meant him harm, they now had him surrounded. He began plotting an escape route in case they thought him an accomplice. He began studying the hulking man for potential weaknesses. He remembered the elegant man referring to him as Liang Ping. He was fast, but Yu Quan felt that he probably wasn’t smart. He felt he could lose him by turning down several alleyways.

Yàn Lìqín said faintly before shutting his fan. "Despite having no cultivation and your opponent being a mortal, you demonstrated great reflexes."

Yu Quan was dumbfounded. Had he been watching the whole time? But he wasn’t anywhere nearby. After seeing a slight widening of Yù Quán's eyes, Yàn Lìqín continued. "And you can stay mostly calm surrounded by two cultivators, one you observed to have great speed earlier. Yet you still dared to study Disciple Liàng Píng over here." Yù Quán, who had turned around to face the elegant man by now, was surprised to see him appear right in front of him with a gust of air flying as if it were trailing him.

"And you seem to carry the Star Gazing Eyes, one of the Nine Heavenly Bodies." This set Yù Quán off. He immediately dashed towards Liàng Píng. Yu Quan didn’t understand how this man could know that about him. He wondered if they had a physical indicator; he hadn’t seen his appearance yet, so he didn’t know.

Yù Quán ran towards Liàng Píng and started towards the side with his open arm. Liàng Píng readied himself to catch him when, right outside his reach, Yù Quán suddenly changed directions to the other side. Usually, this would be a challenging feat, even for cultivators, as the turn was too sudden, and his center of gravity and footing were all out of order. But Liàng Píng was surprised to see Yù Quán transition into a slide with one foot facing forward. He then came into contact with the wall, bent his leg, and propelled his body around Liàng Píng on the side where he had the captured woman. Yù Quán was now sprinting, having successfully outsmarted Liàng Píng. He was about to make it to the alley's exit. Yu Quan was hoping to find a crowd to lose them in.

Thud

Yu Quan was abruptly crushed into the floor. After some struggle, he looked up and saw an elegant man with long, pale blue hair and dawning black robes gracefully standing on his head.

"What's the rush?" Yàn Lìqín asked relaxingly. "We don't mean you any harm. And if you're worried about how I recognized your eyes, you shouldn't; the Nine Heavenly Bodies are common knowledge among stronger cultivators." Yàn Lìqín then reached into his pocket and took out a beautiful silver pocket mirror engraved with a dragon design going around the edges.

"Plus," he added as he opened the mirror and held it before Yù Quán's face. "It's a bit hard to miss."

Yù Quán saw his face in the mirror, which looked eerily the same as his own back in his world. But with two silver colors pupils within his brown irises that somewhat resembled tiny stars.

"Shit..." he sighed, realizing that anyone could figure it out and that he had slightly made a fool of himself.