I was already a bit sleepy. Getting interrupted so suddenly put me in a terrible mood. I could hardly be bothered to go check who it was, but I had to.

“Who is it?” I called out into my book. No response. I got up, dragging myself out of bed. “Where you at,” I whispered to myself.

I connected with my plants and found the person’s position. I wrapped a blanket around me, on top of my robes. I wandered out swaying like a zombie. I stepping through a bush and some vines and found a woman tied to the ground. Twenty vines stuck out from the ground and bound nearly every part of her body. I sighed. Did trouble fall in love with me or did somebody lower my luck stat? Maybe both?

She started struggling the moment she saw me. She wasn’t weak, quite the contrary. Twisting and turning, she forced every part of her body that could still move to move. She loosened huge chunks of dirt in the process, but this only gave the trap more space to maneuver. Her struggling displaced all the dirt covering the trap. The tentacles only tightened further.

I had full confidence in my level thirteen Twentytacle Traps. They were incomparable in raw toughness and strength. This random street rat would never be able to escape.

“Stop struggling. I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. She didn’t stop struggling.

“Mm. Mmf,” she moaned and grunted while trying to tear my plant apart.

“Hey, I’m serious! You’ve probably already woken up the neighbors. Keep struggling and they’ll come complaining.” A loud thump and my gate trembled. “Ah, and there they are.” I rolled my eyes.

“What the fuck are you doing back there? It’s the middle of the night!” a familiar voice yelled from behind the gate. It was the same guy who had complained earlier.

“Mmmmmmf,” the girl moaned.

“Oh,” he whispered. Then he shouted, “Congrats, brother! But please quiet down.”

“Oh noooo.” I glared at the girl. “You damned meatloaf, shut up!” I said, not loud enough for the person outside to hear. I have no idea why I called her a meatloaf.

I planted a gigantic Prison Pineapple and tossed her in as violently as I could. “You’re going to drive me crazy.” The pineapple swallowed both the girl and the trap holding her in one go. I made sure the pineapple was hidden from sight and opened the gate. “There you are,” he said, with a frown carved into his face.

“I’m sorry about the noise. I wasn’t expecting it either. It won’t happen again, I promise.” I told him.

He sighed and shook his head, “It’s fine. Just a tip for the young though. Doing it with Qi doesn’t make it feel better, it just causes more collateral damage.”

“...Alright, thanks,” I said. He went back to his house, and I walked back onto my property with a bitter look on my face.

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Now, who was that girl, sneaking around in my yard like that? In the middle of the night, too.

I walked back to my Prison Pineapple. The pineapple was hollowed out and had a mouth that could open and close. Overall, it looked like a skinny jack-o-lantern. The stem connecting the pineapple to the rest of the plant dipped down. I opened the pineapple by a tiny bit. No noise came from inside, so I assumed she was done struggling. Its mouth opened wide so that I could climb in.

“Hey,” I growled, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She stared back at me with a terrified pair of eyes. Honestly, I should be the one looking at her like that. I shouldn’t have called her a random street rat. While she wasn’t as strong as Chen Wei, she was still far more powerful than me. Nearly every part of her body was tied up and I was still scared of getting too close to her.

Black cloth covered her from head to toe. A short sword and a dagger were tied to her waist. If I had to guess her age, I would say she was around nineteen.

A wave of force blasted me out of the Prison Pineapple. The back of my head hit a tree and I bounced off. I put my hand to the floor and lifted myself up, “Interesting,” I murmured.

All my ribs should have been broken. If I wasn’t knocked out by the impact, I should have been knocked out by the pain. Instead, I was standing completely unharmed. The push wasn’t even painful. She was understandably panicked so I didn’t get too angry. I was trying to help, but she was still fighting back. As I saw it, I was the helpful vet, while she was a panicked animal.

Still, the girl would have killed me if I were weaker, or if she wasn’t tied up. She sent me flying without lifting a finger!

I had noticed myself slowly getting stronger lately, allowing me to jump over fences four meters tall. I jumped back into the mouth of the pineapple.

“You might want to listen to what I have to say,” I had the vines tighten, but not by too much.

“So,” my brain sifted through a bucket of questions and selected one. “What are you doing here?”

No answer.

“Are you mute?” She shook her head. I guess she isn’t deaf, either.

“Let’s get this over with, yeah? I want to go back to sleep, so don’t make this harder then it needs to be.” The leader of this grandiose sect had bowed to me and given me the highest ranking guest tablet. I had a decent idea of my status within the sect, although I hated actually using it. I pulled out the jade slip. “Do you know what this is?”

“Yes,” she squeaked. So she can talk!

“I’m pretty sure I have the power to pardon anything you did. If not, I can hide you away or whatever else.” I said, “So please just answer my questions and I’ll send you on your way.”

To nobody's surprise, she didn’t believe me.

I just want to finish my book and go to sleep… “I don’t have heavy ties with the Blue Fire Sect. I just arrived here today. I’m a, uh, friend of the sect head. But that doesn’t mean I’m loyal to the sect. I’m not part of the sect, I’m just living here for the time being. Now if you want to be stubborn, I won’t bother with you anymore. I’ll hand you to some officials or whoever does the policing around here. If you cooperate, I’ll probably let you go.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then her head tilted forward. I assumed this was a nod, as she could barely move her head underneath the vines.

“Well then, what’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Li Hui Ming,” she answered.

“What were you doing in my yard?” I asked.

“I wasn’t doing anything. I was hiding,” she said.

I better not have captured her just for playing hide and seek. “What were you hiding from?”

“The Blue Fire Sect,” she said.

So this was a bit bigger than a game of hide and seek. “Why? What are you doing here then?”

“I’m spying on the sect,” she scoured my face for any tiny reaction.

My eye twitched. “Can you say that again?”

“I’m spying on the Blue Fire Sect.” She was dead serious.

“Oh yay, this makes this so much easier for me,” I said sarcastically. I ran a couple scenarios through my head. “Oh wait, this actually does make everything easier. Don’t make any noise or I’ll have to tie you up again. See you tomorrow!”

I hopped out of the pineapple and I waved goodbye. The vines on her fell off but the mouth of the Prison Pineapple shut, trapping her within. I returned to the house, shaking my head at the laundry list of things I would have to do tomorrow.