The next day at dusk, the last glimmer of daylight faded at the horizon, and the entire Qingling Academy was enveloped in the deep blue of night.
Cao Xing had been busy until this hour before finally rushing to the dining hall for a meal, deliberately choosing a secluded forest path to avoid crowds.
Just as he rounded a corner, familiar voices reached his ears from ahead.
Amidst the swaying bamboo shadows, several figures flickered in and out of view—six young men and women huddled together, arms slung over each other’s shoulders, whispering and giggling with intermittent snickers of "hehe," "haha," and "hoho." It sounded anything but innocent.
Cao Xing’s head instantly throbbed. He paused mid-step, ready to turn back.
"Old Cao? Old Cao, it really is you!" Lu Jiayao was the first to recognize him, grinning cheerfully. "What a coincidence, running into you here!"
"..." Cao Xing couldn’t muster a smile.
Yeah, what. a. coincidence.
"Hey, Old Cao, where you headed?" Wen Shuangbai, fiddling with her storage pouch, lagged behind with Xie Ziyin and Shen Hefeng. She glanced up casually as she asked.
For the ten-thousandth time, Cao Xing cursed his inability to ignore people. "Dinner."
"So late?" Yin Xuan, who admired Cao Xing more than any other elder at Qingling Mountain, sighed softly. "Elder Cao, you really have it rough."
Once he became an elder himself, he’d never join the disciplinary hall. It was pure torment for cultivators.
"Qingling Mountain is lucky to have you!" Li Zhuohua, leading the group, clapped Cao Xing on the shoulder as he passed. "Keep it up! You’ll replace Old Qian in no time!"
"..." Cao Xing’s eye twitched. "...Where are you all going?"
"We’re hitting the streets!" Lu Jiayao extended an enthusiastic invitation. "Wanna join us, Old Cao?"
Cao Xing declined instantly. "No."
"By the way, there’s been a surge of thieves in the imperial capital lately—some bold enough to target disciples of the seven major sects. Be careful," Cao Xing warned, unable to suppress his concern.
The next moment, he noticed an odd, almost mischievous glint in their smiles.
"Thanks for the warning, Elder. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine," Wen Shuangbai said, tying her storage pouch to her waist and breezing past him.
Behind her, a strikingly handsome man in white robes nodded slightly at Cao Xing in silent greeting. A faint, elusive fragrance wafted from him, triggering a sense of déjà vu. Cao Xing frowned. "What’s that scent on you?"
"Me?" Xie Ziyin feigned confusion, lifting his sleeve toward Wen Shuangbai. "Do I smell?"
She leaned in for a sniff and immediately shook her head. "Nope! You’re imagining things, Old Cao!"
Then she tugged Xie Ziyin away, quickly catching up to the trio ahead.
Cao Xing watched them go, unsettled.
"Old Cao, you should be careful," Shen Hefeng, lingering at the rear, muttered while studying his turtle-shell divination tool. "I just cast a hex for you. You’ve got a streak of ‘minor misfortune’—troublesome people will keep causing you setbacks..."
Cao Xing stared at the walking embodiment of "minor misfortune" before him. "...‘Minor misfortune’?"
"Yep, and not just one. Tough luck, Old Cao." Shen Hefeng patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Want to spend some spirit stones to have me neutralize it? I’ll give you a friends-and-family discount..."
After a long pause, Cao Xing tossed him a single spirit stone. "Fine. Neutralize it."
If only it could neutralize them—he’d finally have peace!
Once the group was gone, Cao Xing hurried off.
Shen Hefeng pocketed the stone and rejoined the others. "The sun must’ve risen in the west—Old Cao actually paid up? He must be having a rough time. Lu Jiayao, heard any rumors about which elder pissed him off?"
Lu Jiayao pondered. "Nah, Old Cao’s pretty well-liked. The elders even keep his secrets for him!" Which was why he still hadn’t uncovered Cao Xing’s cultivation specialty.
"Probably Elder Qian," Wen Shuangbai guessed, releasing Xie Ziyin’s sleeve.
After all, Qian Lai was Cao Xing’s direct superior.
Xie Ziyin sniffed the lingering fragrance on his sleeve, indifferent. Not his problem.
Li Zhuohua nodded gravely. "Definitely Old Qian."
"Poor Elder Cao," Yin Xuan sighed again.
Lu Jiayao agreed. "Good thing we’re so considerate. Imagine if we added to his troubles—he’d be even worse off."
"Right," Shen Hefeng said, stashing his turtle shell and the spirit stone (with zero intention of performing any hex-neutralizing rituals—those street "fortune-tellers" were all frauds anyway). "We’re practically saints. With disciples like us, Old Cao must’ve burned mountains of incense in his past life!"
The group nodded in solemn unison.
---
Meanwhile, after his belated dinner, Cao Xing returned to his quarters, ready to unwind with a cup of tea.
Just then, Old Medical Cultivator Ye—the most senior healer from Qingling Mountain, assigned to chaperone the six troublemakers—kicked his door open, fuming. "Cao Xing! What kind of useless guards did you assign?!"
Cao Xing: "?"
"Someone stole my tracking butterflies! The ones I raised for ten years—fed them like my own children! They were taken right from my courtyard, along with the lure incense! Your security is a joke!"
"..." Cao Xing suddenly recognized the scent on Xie Ziyin.
Tracking butterfly fragrance.
No wonder they’d taken the forest path today—Old Ye’s residence was at its end.
"Any chance..." Cao Xing studied the seething elder. Annoyance gave way to schadenfreude. "...the thief is an inside job?"
Old Ye: "Huh?"
Cao Xing had a hunch about the six’s next target. "Just wait, Elder Ye. They’ll return your ‘children’ in a day or two."
"..." Realization dawned. The old man erupted. "Those little brats! I should’ve jabbed them with extra needles when they were injured!"
Cao Xing: "Who hasn’t had that thought?"
Every elder at Qingling Academy—except the reclusive, book-obsessed Pavilion Master Xu—shared the sentiment.
With disciples like these, they must’ve committed unspeakable atrocities in a past life.
---
Out in the imperial capital, Wen Shuangbai and her crew prowled the streets, deliberately haunting the thief-infested areas flagged by the Mystic Heaven Mirror. They gravitated toward crowds, weaving through bustling markets.
Yet, after clocking over ten thousand steps, all six storage pouches remained stubbornly untouched.
What kind of luck was this?
Wen Shuangbai frowned. "What’s going on?"
She thought her plan was flawless, so why was she stuck at the very step of getting robbed?
Weren’t thieves supposed to target disciples of the Seven Great Sects? So why was Qingling Mountain the exception??
Wen Shuangbai smacked her forehead in frustration. "This makes no sense…"
"Keep hitting it, and you’ll only get dumber," Xie Ziyin remarked.
"Shut up," Wen Shuangbai shot him a glare. "If you’re so smart, explain why this is happening."
"There are too many of us," Xie Ziyin mused. "Maybe we should split up?"
"Are you stupid?" Wen Shuangbai pointed at Yin Xuan, who had paused halfway across the bridge and was now sitting there, leisurely admiring the moon. "My senior brother has been sitting there alone this whole time, and his storage pouch is still intact."
Xie Ziyin: "..."
"Hey…!" Lu Jiayao, who had been looking around, suddenly brightened and waved at a group of people seated on the second floor of a building in the distance. "Qianli!—Xiaoli!"
Hearing this, Wen Shuangbai turned to look.
On the opposite side of the river, in what appeared to be an expensive restaurant’s second floor, the little spirits from Jade Rhinoceros Valley were gathered.
"You can see them from here?" Li Zhuohua squinted for a long moment. "Junior Brother Sanyu’s eyesight is impressive."
Since they had nothing better to do, the group followed Lu Jiayao over. The little spirits from Jade Rhinoceros Valley came clattering downstairs, and soon, everyone was chatting outside the restaurant.
A waiter stood nearby, watching them intently.
Yu Xiaoli gave a wry smile and whispered, "They’re afraid we’ll run off without paying."
"What happened?" Lu Jiayao asked curiously.
Behind her, the other three little spirits giggled shyly and nudged Yu Qianli forward.
Yu Qianli stepped up, indignant. "While we were shopping earlier, our storage pouches got stolen again! And this time, all five of us were robbed!"
"...?" Wen Shuangbai was baffled. She glanced at the storage pouch hanging from her waist, then back at the little spirits.
How come theirs hadn’t been stolen?
Xie Ziyin, who had once been the top scholar in the sciences before entering medical school, had to admit he was stumped too. Frowning, he asked, "Where exactly were you robbed?"
Yu Qianli: "Just at the night market up ahead! You guys should avoid it—or at least don’t bring your storage pouches if you go!"
The five of them, who had just come from that very night market: "…………"
Shen Hefeng suddenly felt life was unfair. Enviously, he said, "You guys are so lucky."
The five little spirits from Jade Rhinoceros Valley: "??"
"So what are you going to do now?" Lu Jiayao asked with concern.
"We sent a message through the Mystic Heaven Mirror to Senior Brother Turtle, asking him to bring us some spirit stones," Yu Xiaoli explained. "But Senior Brother Turtle walks really slowly, and we got hungry, so we came here to eat… Senior Brother Turtle! Over here!"
In the crowd, a timid-looking young man was slowly making his way toward the restaurant.
Suddenly, he froze, his face twisting in horror. He hurled his storage pouch at Yu Qianli, then—whoosh—vanished back the way he came.
Yu Xiaoli gaped. "I’ve never seen Senior Brother Turtle run that fast before…"
Shen Hefeng, who had just raised his hand to greet the turtle shell, lowered it dejectedly. "Tch. And here I was hoping to bond with him before my death…"
Meanwhile, Wen Shuangbai stared at the dazzling golden storage pouch Senior Brother Turtle had thrown over, then at the six dull, cheap pouches hanging from their waists—none worth more than five hundred spirit stones.
Suddenly, it all made sense.
Damn it! Even thieves had the audacity to look down on their shabby wallets? Where was the professional integrity?!
Fuming, Wen Shuangbai immediately rallied the group, bid farewell to the Jade Rhinoceros Valley spirits, and marched off with great determination to the high-end storage pouch boutique she’d spotted earlier.
It was expensive. It was extravagant.
The cheapest one cost ten thousand spirit stones.
But that wasn’t why Wen Shuangbai chose this shop. The real reason was—
"Your seven-day no-questions-asked return policy—is that for real?"
The shop assistant’s expression was complicated. "...Of course."
"Then pick me one that won’t get damaged even if a cultivator self-destructs right next to it," Wen Shuangbai demanded.
The assistant presented five options. Wen Shuangbai chose the cheapest one, handed over fifty thousand spirit stones, and—just to be sure—asked again, "If it gets damaged within seven days, you won’t refuse the return, right?"
"This model comes with a six-month damage guarantee. If it breaks, we’ll replace it without question," the assistant assured.
"You won’t go back on your word later, will you?" Wen Shuangbai pressed. Fifty thousand spirit stones was no small sum!
"Of course not," the assistant said, giving her a look that screamed, What kind of question is that? "We’re backed by Qingling Mountain, Junior Sister Shuangbai!"
Wen Shuangbai: "..."
She grinned in relief. "You should’ve said so earlier. Now I can relax."
The assistant: "..."
Sure enough, after upgrading to the fifty-thousand-spirit-stone storage pouch, the Qingling Mountain group got robbed within half an hour.
Wen Shuangbai was nearly moved to tears. "Finally."
