Awkwardness / Saying No

Before staging a highway robbery, Wu Youren had done some psychological prep work and laid down three rules for himself: Three Things Not to Rob! The first thing not to rob was... Holy crap, that's a military truck. Can't rob that! The second thing not to rob was... Damn it, another military truck? The third thing not to rob was... For fuck's sake, are the military trucks never-ending? By the fifth convoy, it was finally not a military vehicle. Wearing a black mask, Wu Youren flickered into view right in the middle of the road. He raised a hand and fired three consecutive shots toward the oncoming vehicles. "Halt! I want to buy some food!" He hadn't deliberately aimed at the people or the vehicles; he had fired into the air above the convoy. In theory, this was hardly the caliber expected of a professional! A true seasoned highwayman would have fired straight at the vehicles. A more ruthless one wouldn't have even shown his face—he would blast the convoy to scrap and kill everyone inside before rummaging through the wreckage. Yet Wu Youren figured that although his circumstances were dire, he hadn't reached utter desperation; he should at least keep a shred of a bottom line. These people were likely coming to hunt Guizu; if behind them lay the active war zone between Jin and Liang, there wouldn't have been any need for words. "Holy shit..." Three vehicles were approaching, one of which was a minibus. The open-topped off-roader in the lead couldn't tolerate this. The apprentice knight in the passenger seat grabbed a rifle, ready to pull the trigger. "Don't aim at him!" the knight in the back seat hastily warned. "He said he wants to buy food, and he fired into the air!" The next moment, gunshots rang out. The knight in the back seat bellowed, "We have no food! Scram, or you die!" Wu Youren darted to the side of the road, flicked his wrist to toss a small black dot, holstered his firearm, and drew the greatsword from his back. The black dot exploded with a boom—it was a hand grenade. Fortunately, it went off well clear of the convoy; at the very least, that distance showed the bandit possessed a sense of restraint. "Damn it, a real holdup," the knight muttered. Did anyone need to toss a grenade just to buy food? "Slow down!" he barked into the vehicle radio. Originally, the three vehicles had intended to use their speed to force their way through, but with the other party throwing a grenade, they had to alter their plan. The moment the vehicles began to decelerate, the knight leaped down from the off-roader. Four or five people also rushed out from the minibus behind it. Dark gun muzzles poked out from the vehicle windows. The knight who had charged out first drew two rods from his back, one of which was tipped with a spearhead. He leveled a rod toward Wu Youren, then lowered his hand and began screwing the spearshaft together at an unhurried pace, speaking slowly. "Brother, say no more. Respecting that grenade of yours, here's a hundred silver dollars for safe passage!" "I've got money!" The masked figure tossed out a gold coin, which landed squarely in the center of the road, before slowly stepping back. "I told you, I want to buy food! Cooked food... It's an emergency!" "Holy crap..." The knight's hands paused as he twisted the spearshaft together, unable to resist mumbling, "You're actually buying?" "Hurry up!" Wu Youren raised his gun and fired another shot into the sky. "I fucking said it's an emergency!" "Wu Youren!" a woman's voice suddenly called out. "Holy shit!" The masked figure froze. His very first robbery... and this happened? "You've got the wrong person! Uh, fine, sure, I'm Wu Youren—framing him works too!" He was genuinely flustered. Who in the world could have anticipated this? "It really is you!" Before the minibus had even come to a full stop, another middle-aged man rushed out. "Don't silence us! I'm Holar... of Anping Trading, under Count Shengming's estate!" "Silence you my ass!" Wu Youren flatly denied having ever harbored such a thought. Running into his angel investors under circumstances like this felt... totally fucking absurd! "Forget it. I originally planned on fifty silver dollars' worth of food being enough, but now make it eighty's worth." "Bah, why even sweat over that?" Holar waved his hand. "Everyone, fetch food! For martial artists, right?" Food for martial artists differed vastly from ordinary rations, having nothing to do with taste and everything to do with energy and nourishment. "Right," the masked figure nodded and tossed another gold coin. "Don't give me extra." "Say no more," the knight said, stopping the assembly of his spear. "Need a hand?" "No need, just an unexpected snag," Wu Youren waved. "Best if none of you spread word of this." "No problem." The knight began taking the spear apart; the offer to help had only been a polite gesture anyway. If the other party had actually taken him up on it, he wouldn't have known how to respond. "We're purely passing through. We never saw each other. We carry plenty of food, so misplacing a bit is completely normal." The situation had reached a reasonably normal resolution, but then that same woman's voice piped up again: "Wu Youren, where's your bird?" "I came here to rob... to force a transaction!" The masked figure was utterly speechless. Was she worried people hadn't identified him quickly enough? Even for martial artist rations, two hundred silver dollars could buy quite a lot. The other party quickly brought out two large backpacks. Holar genuinely wanted to foster good ties with him. "Want us to help you carry them?" "No need, get moving," Wu Youren waved. "Lest there be any suspicion of tailing." They had wanted to say a few more words, but upon hearing that last remark, they climbed back into the vehicles and took off without hesitation. Even after the vehicles had driven far off, the masked figure remained standing there, visibly on high alert. As his silhouette shrank into a small dot, someone in the convoy gasped, "What's he... digging up?" "Holy shit," a knight grimaced upon hearing that. "Did he plant landmines by the roadside too?" At those words, everyone in the convoy drew a sharp breath. "Damn, good thing we stopped!" "Still, just for some food... was that really necessary?" "From now on, nobody mentions food again," the knight in the off-roader commanded. "You all heard what I said earlier!" On the way back to the ruined house, Wu Youren couldn't resist devouring another huge meal. Reaching the place, he first untied Xiao Ha from the pillar. The little fellow opened its beak to squawk, but he stuffed a strip of dried meat right into it. Sure enough, Xiao Ha didn't care this time whether it had a resentment crystal attached; it swallowed the meat strip in one gulp and opened its beak for more. *Looks like while I was breaking through, the little guy truly reaped some benefits!* Wu Youren nodded inwardly. *Chen Quanxu's discerning eye really is something else!* After wolfing down two-thirds of the two hundred silver dollars' worth of food, Wu Youren finally felt his condition returning to normal. With noon just arriving, he decided to relocate. The people from Count Shengming's estate knew he was in the vicinity. Regardless of how they had promised to keep quiet, this place was no longer safe. He didn't have to silence them, but he couldn't put human nature to the test! Besides, he needed to test out the changes after his breakthrough, which would take at least a day or two. Around midnight the following day, Wu Youren quietly returned to Red Pine. A bit curious this time, he deliberately vaulted back and forth over the wall three times, yet found nothing amiss. He truly couldn't fathom why Chen Quanxu didn't dare enter Red Pine. Still, with their cultivation systems being different, there was no need to obsess over it. Stepping quietly up to his cabin, he paused in surprise: there was someone inside? Sensing the presence, he breathed a sigh of relief. Why the hell was this son of a matrilocal husband sleeping in his room? Wu Youren had originally intended to enter through the hidden roof hatch, but knowing who it was, he knocked softly on the door instead. "Hmm?" A soft grunt came from inside, though the person didn't speak. Liu Jingming was fairly reliable; only upon hearing the familiar knock outside did he let out a long breath. He opened the door and whispered, "I didn't dare answer, terrified someone would catch me posing as you... Where have you been these past few days?" "Had some personal business to handle." Wu Youren noticed the fellow was still wearing his coat and nodded slightly. "Thanks for the trouble." "Several groups came looking for you!" Liu Jingming winked and grinned. "The one who showed up the most was Instructor Daiqisi." "The Purple Fan Dragon King," Wu Youren remarked with relief. Since the son of a matrilocal husband was in the mood to joke around, nothing serious had happened. "Nobody from the Life-and-Death Knot came?" "A woman came, saying she was from the Protocol Office," Liu Jingming replied casually. "Her name was Talisi... Uh, why the long face?" "She's Life-and-Death Knot too," Wu Youren said gravely. "She has even more tricks up her sleeve. Don't let your guard down around her!" "A honeypot only works on handsome guys," Liu Jingming replied with an impish grin, not taking it too seriously. "Wrong, dead wrong!" Wu Youren shook his head. "Handsome guys... are never short on beautiful women!" "I'm not arguing about that with you," Liu Jingming shook his head. "Either way, you still haven't tasted a woman... Am I right?" "I'm going to sleep in the greenhouse!" Wu Youren couldn't be bothered to argue further, though he scoffed inwardly: *Good thing I haven't tasted a woman yet!* Over the past day and a half, he had mapped out the changes within his body and even pieced together a cultivation path! This wasn't blindly groping in the dark; he had obtained a heritage—or at least part of one. The source of this heritage was the faint voice he had heard when absorbing that Guizu relic in the azure armadillo cave. For a long time, he had assumed that experience was an illusion, but it hadn't been. It was the memory of an immortal cultivator. He wasn't sure how high the cultivator's realm was, though the man had possessed quite a few muttered complaints and rambling thoughts. Wu Youren wasn't certain when this sliver of consciousness had entered his life. Perhaps it had been inside the azure armadillo's Guizu relic, but it was even more likely to have hitched a ride during his transmigration. In his past life, the Ancient Divine Lantern had just been an ordinary mortal. If someone like him could lodge his soul in this body, it made total sense that a stray thought from an immortal cultivator could have tagged along! He hadn't sensed any of this information before because his cultivation had been too feeble to pick it up. Furthermore, the cultivation method he had figured out on his own differed considerably from this immortal cultivator's lineage. Fortunately, Daoism preached that all paths led to the same destination, and the difference between the two wasn't so vast as to make them incompatible. At most, their paths before breaking through simply hadn't aligned. This wasn't entirely good news, but precisely because of this divergence, he didn't have to worry about some demonic-seed scenario where he would end up as nourishment for some immortal powerhouse. The world, by and large, was fair after all. Most crucial of all, according to the grading standards of this immortal cultivator's system, he had now officially entered the qi refining stage!