Chương 56: The Sect Must Not Know (1/3) [Bonus 2/6]

He nodded slightly toward Su Yin, the motion barely perceptible beneath the shadow of his dripping bamboo hat—a gesture stripped of deference, more acknowledgment than respect. The flickering spirit-lamps cast his mud-streaked features in harsh relief, deepening the hollows beneath his cheekbones.

Not only that, to solidify that power base, he needed to upgrade his Veil and forge a heavy weapon.

And for both of those, he needed immediate access to his funds.

Oh right. Talking about that... my other spatial pouch.

As the thought crystallized, he felt the heavy bulge pressing against his abdomen—a secondary pouch tied securely to his inner belt beneath the waxed-canvas layers of his cloak. The knot had tightened from days of swamp moisture and body heat, the silk cords practically fused to the leather beneath.

It was the pouch he had acquired upon initially negotiating with Su Yin—the one containing the astronomical sum he had received for selling the Abyssal Overseer's core and accepting the upfront commission for the physician.

Inside that pouch sat a staggering total of 800 medium-grade spirit stones and 5, 000 untraceable silver taels.

It was enough wealth to buy a small district in the Outer Wards—perhaps even hire a private militia, bribe half the city guard, or purchase a minor estate with functional protective formations. Combined with the 200 low-grade stones and 1, 000 taels sitting on the tray before him, their pale blue luminescence pulsing in rhythmic waves, he possessed military-grade funding.

But... his lips curled into a wry, invisible smile beneath his hat, the expression swallowed by shadow and the steady drip-drip-drip of marsh water sliding from the brim onto the already-saturated carpet below.

He was rich. He was exceptionally, fabulously wealthy by the standards of a rogue cultivator.

There is just one glaring, catastrophic problem, he thought, and the irony tasted bitter as old copper on his tongue. I cannot open any of them.

Back when he had accepted the initial pouch, Shi Yan hadn't thought much about the mechanics of opening it.

His focus had been entirely consumed with adopting his false identity, securing an anchor in the city, and gathering the baseline resources necessary to adapt to this terrifying new world—a world where a man's worth was measured in meridians, not marksmanship.

Not long after, he had been utterly preoccupied with the tactical realities of hunting the physician, outmaneuvering the blood-array, and systematically massacring a Cloud-Mirror Sect vanguard team.

But now... sitting in this incense-choked room with the adrenaline fading and rain hammering harder against the windows, the stark biological reality of his transmigration reared its head like a blade pressed to his throat.

To any normal cultivator, a spatial pouch was a simple tool. One merely channeled a fraction of Qi from the Dantian—that luminous core of spiritual power seated below the navel—into the enchanted silk threads, aligning one's spiritual signature to unzip the folded space within. A child of six summers could accomplish it with proper instruction.

Even if the original owner was dead, the cultivator could simply channel Qi through brute force and reclaim ownership of the spatial pouch, dissolving the old imprint like morning frost beneath sunlight.

But he... unknowingly, he let out a deep sigh that stirred the incense smoke coiling before his face.

Shi Yan possessed no Dantian.

He possessed no Qi. He possessed no spiritual signature—no meridians humming with celestial essence, no internal sea of power waiting to be drawn upon.

The [Phantom-Ash Veil] currently sustaining his disguise merely simulated the heat signature and vascular appearance of a Tier-1 aura; it projected the illusion of cultivation through bio-thermal manipulation and ash-realm resonance, but it did not—could not—grant him the metaphysical key required to unlock a Daoist dimensional lock.

To Shi Yan, a spatial pouch was the equivalent of a titanium bank vault with a biometric thumb scanner, and he didn't have hands.

How can I explain this to them without entirely compromising my disguise?

For him, the currency of this world was heavily secondary to Dao Embers. Embers were his ammunition, his armor, his progression, and his lifeblood—the singular resource that kept him from becoming fodder in a world where teenagers could shatter boulders with their fists.

But he was pragmatic enough to know that silver and spirit stones were still the primary local mediums of exchange for information, bribery, secure transport, blackmarket goods, and mundane supplies like preserved rations, unenchanted steel, or simply buying silence.

Back to the topic—Su Yin and her personal attendant's gazes had lingered too long on him, their scrutiny sharpening like the edge of a drawn blade. He could feel it pressing against his spine, dissecting every micro-expression, every breath. Which of course he noticed. Thus, if he let the silence stretch any longer, it would border on suspicion—the kind that invited probing questions or, worse, divination attempts.

Instead of offering a polite, flowery Daoist refusal, or feigning the expected humility of a subordinate newly sworn to service, he chose a soldier's efficiency.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"I see," he said, his voice flat and deliberate, each syllable clipped clean.

He reached forward with one calloused hand, dried marsh mud still visible beneath his fingernails, and calmly gathered the black jade Retainer token from where it lay gleaming against the blood-stained mahogany. The crimson silk tassel swayed gently as he lifted it, the carved seal-script character catching the spirit-lamp's glow. Without ceremony, he tucked it securely into his belt, the jade cool even through the layered fabric.

Without fanfare, he took the new spatial pouch containing the secondary reward—the silken surface embroidered with the ashen phoenix crest still shimmering faintly with residual formation energy—and secured it beside the one he already owned, threading both through a leather loop at his waist. The weight settled against his hip, deceptively light for objects that bent space itself.

Then, he steadied his gaze, pale eyes narrowing fractionally as he let out a measured breath. His broad shoulders shifted beneath the gore-streaked beast-hide cloak as he looked down at the bloodstained canvas sack he had dumped onto the desk earlier—the fabric stiff with dried ichor and swamp filth, reeking faintly of decay even through the oppressive incense.

It was time to fully demonstrate his value and consolidate his logistics.

He reached his hand deep into the filthy canvas sack, his fingers disappearing past frayed edges and crusted stains. When he pulled it out, he deposited a handful of pristine, high-quality spatial pouches onto the mahogany desk with a soft rustle of silk against wood. He reached in a second time and pulled out more, the motion deliberate, methodical—like a quartermaster conducting inventory.

Clink. Clink. Clink.

The sound of jade toggles and silver clasps kissing polished mahogany echoed through the chamber, each impact sharp and final.

He laid them out in a perfectly aligned, evenly spaced row across the polished wood, his soldier's instinct for order asserting itself unconsciously.

There were seven of them in total.

Unlike the plain, unmarked pouches commonly carried by rogue mercenaries—utilitarian things of rough-spun hemp or faded cotton—these pouches were woven from incredibly fine, pale blue astral silk that seemed to drink in the spirit-lamp light and exhale it as a faint, ghostly luminescence. The fabric shimmered with an otherworldly sheen, each thread impossibly delicate yet strong enough to bind folded dimensions.

Embroidered in silver thread upon the face of each pouch, rendered with painstaking calligraphic precision, was the unmistakable emblem of a crescent moon nested within a mirrored cloud—the sigil recognized across three provinces, feared in twice as many cities.

Su Yin's breath hitched audibly in her throat, a sharp inhalation that cut through the heavy incense. The serene composure that had defined her entire presence—spine straight, hands folded, expression controlled—instantly fractured like porcelain struck by a hammer.

Her dark eyes widened, pupils contracting to pinpricks as recognition slammed into her with the force of a Qi-strike. One pale hand rose involuntarily to her mouth, slender fingers pressing against her lips as though to physically trap the gasp threatening to escape.

Ruo'er, standing beside the far-wall vault with her hands still resting against the glowing locking formations, took a sharp, highly unprofessional step backward. Her silken robe whispered violently against itself. Her eyes widened in sheer, primal terror as she recognized the insignia—terror born not of cowardice but of understanding. The kind of fear that came from knowing exactly what those symbols meant.

The soft amber glow from the vault formations painted her suddenly bloodless face in sickly hues.

"Daoist Shi..." Su Yin whispered, her voice barely audible, strangled. The color visibly drained from her porcelain face, leaving her complexion ashen beneath the carefully applied cosmetics. That single loose strand of ink-black hair trembled against her pale cheek.

"Those are... Cloud-Mirror Sect storage pouches."

The statement hung in the air like an executioner's blade mid-swing.

How could they not know? Possessing these pouches meant only one thing in the ruthless, blood-soaked logic of the cultivation world—a logic as immutable as the turning of seasons or the flow of Qi through meridians.

The original owners had been separated from their spatial artifacts. And cultivators of the Cloud-Mirror Sect—one of the three great orthodox pillars of the Eastern Territories, a sect whose inner disciples were groomed from childhood in heaven-blessed resources and killer formations—did not surrender their wealth, their tools, their pride while they still drew breath.

Not willingly. Not under duress. Not even under torture.

Only in death.

Ruo'er, standing near the ironwood vault, took another sharp, unsteady step backward, her shoulder blades pressing flat against the stone wall as though she could merge with it and vanish. Her chest rose and fell rapidly beneath her silken robe—short, shallow breaths of someone confronting a natural disaster made flesh. The ambient temperature in the opulent room seemed to plummet, the incense smoke curling sluggishly now, as though even the air itself recoiled.

Their gazes slowly, almost mechanically—like puppets whose strings had been yanked by trembling hands—shifted from the seven pale blue astral-silk pouches arranged in their perfect, damning row, back up toward Shi Yan.

They blinked in near-unison, eyelids heavy as shutters, as the oppressive reality of his actions settled over them like a burial shroud of lead and ash.

Su Yin's perfectly painted lips—once composed into gracious neutrality—twitched violently. She bit down on her lower lip, the delicate flesh going white beneath the pressure, a thin line of moisture glistening at the corner of her mouth. Faint veins surfaced along the edges of her temple, spidery tracings of purple against pale skin, her elegant brow knotting deeply as though she were physically restraining herself from recoiling.

Her folded hands on the desk had gone rigid, knuckles whitening, fingernails digging faint crescents into her own palms.

Meanwhile, Shi Yan's expression beneath the bamboo hat remained an unreadable mask of absolute indifference—flat, utilitarian, empty of pride or shame. Water continued its steady drip from the brim, each droplet striking the sodden carpet with a faint pat-pat-pat that now seemed deafening in the silence.

He did not boast.

He did not explain the acidic mud of the swamp ambush, the way it had burned through leather and skin alike. He did not embellish the tactical complexities of slaughtering a heavily armed orthodox hit team while burning his Stamina sieve to its physiological limits, his muscles tearing themselves apart from within.

He felt no need to describe how his flesh had torn and steamed beneath the strain, or how he had crushed a man's windpipe with his bare hands to break the anchor-point of a Heavenly Celestial trapping array before it could collapse his lungs.

He simply unhooked the two pavilion-issued pouches from his own belt—the original one holding the 800 medium-grade stones and 5, 000 silver, still heavy with promise, and the new one he had just received—and set them down gently next to the seven looted sect pouches with the care one might afford fragile porcelain.

The contrast was stark: nine spatial pouches now laid out in a row. Two plain. Seven damned.

"Ehm..." He cleared his throat softly, the sound rough and deliberate, drawing their shattered attention back to the present moment. His calloused finger—still streaked with dried mud and faint traces of old blood beneath the nail—extended and tapped once against the desk beside the seven captured pouches. The sound was sharp. Final.

"There is one more thing I require," Shi Yan stated, his voice flat, devoid of the slightest tremor of fear, guilt, or hesitation. It was the voice of a man requisitioning ammunition, not confessing massacre.

"Can the Pavilion open these storage pouches?"

The question landed like a stone dropped into still water, ripples of incomprehension spreading outward.

Su Yin stared at him, her beautiful dark eyes now laced with sudden, sharp confusion that cut through even her terror. Her brow furrowed deeper, lips parting slightly as though to speak, then closing again as thought overtook impulse.

These seven spatial pouches, coupled with his previous deed of slaying Demonic Physician Li—an equal-ranked Tier 2 Late Stage cultivator whose name alone could empty taverns and seal city gates... a man of that capability, possessing that level of combat superiority, should possess the overbearing Qi reserves required to forcefully shatter a spatial lock through brute spiritual pressure.

It was standard procedure among rogue cultivators and sect enforcers alike. Kill your enemy. Flood their pouch with raw Qi until the binding snapped. Claim your spoils.

Why would he surrender the contents of his hard-won spoils to a third party? Why expose himself to potential theft, taxation, or worse—divination through contact with sect-marked goods?

It made no tactical sense. Unless...

Her eyes narrowed fractionally, the gears of suspicion beginning to turn behind that porcelain mask.

Sensing the tactical shift in the room's atmosphere—the way Su Yin's posture had subtly tensed, the way Ruo'er's breathing had quickened—Shi Yan preempted her suspicion with the efficiency of a man who had navigated hostile interrogations before.

"The restrictions laid upon these storage pouches have not yet dispersed," he said, his tone clinical, matter-of-fact.

"Though their former masters have long since died, and the blood imprints they left behind are gradually fading like morning frost, the core seals remain untouched."

He paused deliberately, letting the implication settle, then continued.

"I suppose the orthodox sects are cautious. Who knows? They may leave behind karmic tracings and void-triggering restrictions within the pouches of their inner disciples—formations designed to detonate upon forced entry, or worse, to mark the thief's soul for retribution tracking."

His pale eyes flicked toward Su Yin, unblinking.

"Better to let someone with the proper tools handle it."

He lightly tapped the polished mahogany beside the largest pouch—one embroidered with silver thread so fine it seemed woven from captured moonlight—and let the silence stretch just long enough to emphasize his point.