The Central Continent, the Mission Pavilion of the Lingxiao Sect's Outer Sect.

  Steward Wang was resting his eyes, holding his well-patinated purple clay teapot. The death-warrant contract in The Hundred Thousand Mountains had kept him awake day and night recently. He had just popped a Soul-Calming Pill and was preparing to take a breather.

  "Steward Wang, Mid-Yellow Tier mandate in The Hundred Thousand Mountains. Account closed."

  A familiar, slightly lisping voice, laced with a profitable, accommodating smile, rang out in front of the counter.

  Steward Wang's eyes snapped open.

  Crash!

  The purple clay teapot he had polished for ten years dropped onto the green bricks and shattered, splashing scalding tea everywhere.

  Looking as if he had seen a ghost, Steward Wang stared dead at Xu Nan.

  Aside from missing half a front tooth, that round-faced Xu Nan hadn't lost a single hair!

  Not only had he come back alive, but Xu Nan nimbly slapped an investigative jade slip bearing the Dark Shaman Cult's seal onto the desk. Smiling brightly, he extended his chubby hand. "Steward, sir, if it’s not too much trouble, could we settle the payout for this contract?"

  Steward Wang snapped out of his shock. He had zero interest in checking the jade slip. Leaning right over the counter, his old eyes locked onto Su Wan, his voice trembling with excitement. "M-Miss Su! You're actually alive! Thank the heavens, thank the Ancestors! Right, where... where is the Eldest Young Master of The Xie Family? He didn't suffer any accidents, did he?!"

  "Xie Changyuan is fine. He headed back to The Xie Family halfway through the trip to accept his punishment," Su Wan said coldly, not even looking the steward in the eye.

  Hearing that both of these VIPs were safe, the massive mountain that had been crushing Steward Wang's chest for over half a month collapsed. He let out a long breath, nearly slumping over the counter in exhaustion. His life was saved! His head was finally safe from the wrath of the Su and Xie families!

  Just as he was about to sigh in relief, Xu Nan’s harmless, fat face leaned in. He lowered his voice, his tone laced with profound implication.

  "Steward Wang, during this Mid-Yellow Tier run, we accidentally bumped into a Dark Shaman Cult Master who had formed a Golden Core. Tell me, if this were reported to the Sect's Disciplinary Hall—that the Mission Pavilion deliberately fed Outer Sect disciples into the mouth of a Core Formation monster... would that be considered an oversight on your part?"

  The relief on Steward Wang's face froze instantly. Cold sweat soaked his back in a flash.

  A Core Formation monster?!

  If this reached the upper echelons of the sect, even if The Su Family didn't pursue it, the Disciplinary Hall would flay him alive! Looking at Xu Nan's smiling but razor-sharp eyes, he instantly understood what the fat bastard was doing—this was extortion for hush money!

  "What... what do you want?" Steward Wang ground his back teeth.

  "The contract payout proceeds as normal. As for the 'medical compensation' for this unexpected trauma..." Xu Nan covertly held up three fingers. "Three hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. I guarantee Senior Sister Su and Senior Brother Yan won't breathe a word about the Core Formation monster."

  Steward Wang trembled with rage. But under Xu Nan's gaze, which had him dead to rights, he could only agonizingly count out three hundred spirit stones from his private storage bag. He threw them into Xu Nan's chest like hot potatoes. "Get out! Take the stones and get the hell out!"

  Smiling so wide his eyes disappeared, Xu Nan thanked him repeatedly before turning and leaving with Su Wan and Yan Zheng.

  Watching the three of them walk away, Steward Wang slumped into his chair, wiping his cold sweat. But half an incense stick later, realization suddenly hit him. He slapped his thigh hard. "Wait a minute! That was a Core Formation monster! How the hell could three Qi Condensation trash survive a Core Formation monster?! That fat bastard was bluffing me!"

  Steward Wang looked at his deflated storage bag. Thinking about the half-month of terror and sleepless nights he had endured, only to end up being brutally blackmailed by an Outer Sect servant, he clutched his chest, nearly coughing up a mouthful of old blood. "Hunting geese all my life, only to get my eyes pecked out by a fat goose! I panicked for nothing!"

  The Outer Sect instantly exploded with gossip.

  No one could figure out how an aristocratic heiress, a Sword Pavilion servant, and a Four-Element Spirit Root fat reject had managed to crawl out of the Dark Shaman Cult's meat grinder in one piece.

  Meanwhile, tens of thousands of miles away at The Su Family in The Central Continent.

  The Su Family Patriarch frowned as he read the secret letter sent back by Xie Changyuan. The letter omitted the terrifying presence of the Crucible, heavily exaggerating the dangers of Miaojiang, the annihilation of the Dark Shaman Cult, and Su Wan's unyielding backbone in the face of absolute despair.

  "This girl... she actually carved out a path to survive out there..." The Patriarch sighed, a complex calculation flashing through his eyes.

  "Patriarch, regarding the Eldest Miss's monthly allowance..." the old butler beside him asked quietly.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Do not let her withdraw a single spirit stone!" the Patriarch snorted coldly. The father and daughter shared the exact same stubborn temperament. But he paused, his face darkening, before issuing a secret, contradictory order. "Pass the word to our commercial branches and Outer Sect shadow contacts... from now on, do not deliberately make things difficult for Su Wan. If she wants to run wild outside, let her run wild."

  ...

  Compared to the undercurrents in The Su Family, The Xie Family was currently pure chaos.

  Inside the Xie Family's Ancestral Hall, a thick rattan whip whistled through the air, viciously striking Xie Changyuan's back.

  Crack! Crack!

  "You rebellious son! You dared to privately mobilize four Foundation Establishment shadow guards and forcibly boot up the cross-domain Great Sumeru Teleportation Array for a woman! Do you have any idea how many Premium-grade Spirit Stones the family burns just to turn that array on once?!" Xie Zhen, the Xie Family Patriarch, was so furious his beard trembled. His whip showed no mercy.

  Xie Changyuan's back was whipped into a bloody mess, but he bit his lip and refused to cry out in pain. Instead, he threw himself forward, hugging Xie Zhen's thigh. Showing absolutely no remorse, he shamelessly began to wail loudly. "Dad! Good hit! Your son knows he was wrong! But I will not marry anyone other than Wan-er in this life! If your heart bleeds for those spirit stones, then your son won't stay home and eat free rice anymore!"

  "What kind of stunt are you pulling now?!" Xie Zhen looked at this degenerate troublemaker with deep suspicion.

  "Dad, go pull some strings with the upper management of the Lingxiao Sect and buy me the title of 'Outer Sect Guest Elder'!" Xie Changyuan looked up, his face full of dramatic resolve. "Your son is going to permanently reside in the Lingxiao Sect's Outer Sect! I need to be the closest to the water to catch the moon! If you don't agree, your son will hang himself from the rafters of the Ancestral Hall tonight and end the Xie bloodline!"

  "You... you evil spawn!" Xie Zhen nearly passed out from anger, pointing at his son's nose and cursing for half an hour. But Xie Changyuan just acted like a dead pig that didn't fear boiling water—he was absolutely determined to play the shameless rogue.

  Eventually, Xie Zhen truly couldn't beat the stubbornness out of his only legitimate eldest son. Letting out a long, helpless sigh, he viciously threw a token symbolizing the status of a Lingxiao Sect Guest Elder straight at Xie Changyuan's forehead. "Get out! Get your ass to the Lingxiao Sect immediately! If you don't bring the Su girl back within a year, just die out there and never come back!"

  Treating the token like a priceless treasure, Xie Changyuan scrambled out of the Ancestral Hall, completely ignoring the whip wounds on his back.

  ...

  The Outer Sect of the Lingxiao Sect, Nanxi Pavilion, on the edge of Block Ding.

  It was late at night, and the broken gates of the courtyard were shut tight.

  Xu Nan sat at the slightly damaged wooden table on the second floor. Pulling two heavy storage bags from his robes, he casually tossed one to Yan Zheng, who was sitting in the corner cleaning his sword.

  "Senior Brother Yan, catch. This is your share."

  Yan Zheng caught it in one hand. Sweeping it with his Divine Sense, he found exactly three hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones and several bottles of premium Body Tempering Pills lying inside. This level of wealth was enough to trigger a bloodbath across the entire Outer Sect.

  Yan Zheng's hard face showed zero surprise; instead, he looked entirely calm, as if he had expected this all along. He looked up at Xu Nan's calculating, fat face, his voice low. "I knew it. With a personality like yours—a creature that only eats and never shits out gold—how could you possibly leave everything in the Dark Shaman Cult's vault to those mortals in Miaojiang? That letter you wrote sounded incredibly righteous, though."

  "Ah, Senior Brother Yan, your logic is flawed. What I did was 'rob the rich to feed the poor,' while casually collecting a microscopic labor fee." Xu Nan didn't even blush as he casually sipped a cup of cold water. "Most of the people in that Miaojiang settlement are mortals. If I left too many cultivation resources with them, it would inevitably attract a massacre from other rogue cultivators in the future. I took those hot potatoes away for their own good."

  Yan Zheng couldn't be bothered to listen to his twisted logic. He carefully secured the bottles of pills close to his body. Then, he took out a Voice Transmission Talisman and sealed a portion of the spirit stones, preparing to send them to his younger brother, Yan Ping.

  He understood the same logic Xu Nan did. He could only send a portion; sending too much would attract thieves and cause a disaster. But at the very least, Yan Ping wouldn't have to worry about food or clothing for the rest of his life.

  "Tomorrow I'll go to the Outer Sect courier station and have someone deliver these spirit stones to my brother's caravan in The Central Continent," Yan Zheng said, his eyes softening in a rare moment. "With this capital, he can buy some property in the Mortal Realm and make a decent living."

  Xu Nan nodded and didn't say anything else. He knew Yan Zheng's weak spot, which was why he had split the money so cleanly and efficiently.

  Xu Nan couldn't care less about the scheming in The Central Continent or Yan Zheng's family ties. Right now, he was facing the most brutal "Heavenly Debt Collection" of his entire life.

  For the entire month since returning from Miaojiang, The Heavenly Crucible had been frantically deducting the "transaction fee" for over-leveling and refining a Core Formation monster.

  Walking on perfectly flat bluestone slabs, Xu Nan's left foot would smoothly trip over his right, sending him face-first into the ground to leave a crater. When he went to fetch water from the back mountain, he was chased for three miles by a bald-tailed stray dog kept by the servants, resulting in his pants being shredded into strips. Even drinking cold water would accurately lodge in his teeth, nearly choking him to death.

  The worst part was, the Heavens seemed to have a personal vendetta against his front teeth.

  One day he would trip and snap off the left half; the next day he would fall down the stairs and shatter the right half. To prevent his "accommodating, profitable face" from turning into a leaky, broken sack, Xu Nan had to agonize through buying exorbitant "Bone-Regrowing Pills" from the Outer Sect's Spirit Medicine Pavilion to fix his teeth.

  "Three Low-grade Spirit Stones for one tooth! Good Heavens, your toll fees are more predatory than loan sharks!"

  Clutching his newly regrown front teeth, Xu Nan squatted on the threshold of Nanxi Pavilion, trembling with financial heartache. The capital he had burned on Bone-Regrowing Pills this month was enough to buy a high-quality flying sword!

  Watching the round-faced youth constantly tripping on flat ground and howling while being chased by dogs, the Outer Sect disciples sneered with undisguised contempt.

  "See that? A piece of trash who breaks his teeth just by walking. He definitely hid behind Senior Sister Su and Yan Zheng in Miaojiang, playing dead and leeching off their merits!"

  "Exactly. Riding on their coattails, and he still has the nerve to make a fool of himself here every day. I heard he even dared to ask Steward Wang for a payout. Utterly shameless."

  Facing these sarcastic remarks, Xu Nan patted the dirt off his butt. Instead of getting angry, he grinned, looking extremely satisfied.

  The trash talk of the Outer Sect bottom-feeders meant nothing. The storage bags hidden in his robes, packed with the foundation of the Miaojiang Dark Shaman Cult, were hard, cold, premium assets. Wealth should never be exposed. The more these idiots treated him like trash, the more stable his portfolio became.

  "Laugh. Laugh all you want," Xu Nan rubbed his cheek, flicking the invisible iron abacus in his mind. "By the time you bottom-feeders are breaking each other's heads open over a few Low-grade Spirit Stones, I'll be using the Golden Core monster's inheritance to manipulate the market of this entire Outer Sect."