The children - an older sister looking after her three brothers, apparently - were intrigued by a human brazenly marching through demon-infested territory, so they followed Xu Jian as he marched confidently through the city.

As he did so, the girl explained their presence on the wall. "It's safer with the demons than with the humans. Our mom sold her debt to the palace, so once the siege started and they captured all the servants, she couldn't come back. We have to protect ourselves from thieves and kidnappers while she's gone, and demons don't care about kidnapping or hurting us for our cutlery."

"The prisoners are all disciples. I don't think most of the general staff understand they're allowed to leave."

"Oh," said the girl. "Can we go find our mom when you're done destroying the bank?"

"Sure," said Xu Jian.

The children were all put in a good mood by that, so they helped him retrieve a few buckets from a chicken farmer and diligently trailed behind him as he headed up the slope, intent on a pool of water coming from higher up on the peak. He dipped his bucket in, so they all quickly did so as well.

Xu Jian decided the explanation on the politics of slavery in this fantasy world was decent, and decided to ask whatever came to mind. "I was wondering about the word order of Yufeng. Shouldn't it be Feng Yu?"

"That's what the mountain is. The cultivators built Feng Xinzi Palace¹风信子 - Fēng Xìn Zǐ = Hyacinth on Feng Yu Mountain²风雨 - Fēng Yǔ = wind&rain, and the people hid under their wings in Yufeng City³雨峰 - Yǔfēng.," the girl spoke as if reciting from memory.

"So it's bad naming sense."

"...It's bad naming sense?"

Should Xu Jian blame the author or the founders for that? It's hard to know in the world without complete free will, but it was almost fascinatingly shallow. It truly ruined the aesthetics of 'Hyacinth palace'.

Xu Jian had the girl lead him to the bank, which was set against the cliffside, hidden by the buildings that stood like the walls of a courtyard. He used his cultivator's strength to jump up onto the nearest roof. It didn't take much energy; he felt his Qi remain in its cycle, seemingly untouched. Weng Min had mentioned he had reached reasonably far into his cultivation, enough to build a core, but if that were true, the flow of energy paid no heed to it. Xu Jian couldn't even remember where the core was meant to form. In the lower dantian? Maybe the dantian in his heart? But, since its an elixir of internal alchemy, it should be in the lower dantian, where the ingredients go in...

It really was troublesome. Most of the novels he read after Black Path of the Proud Immortal were wuxia, not xianxia, but reading about people doing martial arts was no use to him.

Feeling irritable but still dedicated, Xu Jian doused the roof with water, and repeated the process with the building on the other side. Then he took them to the pool again. The children didn't seem to understand what he was up to, but were happy to play along. It must have been boring, hiding on a construction site for however long it had been since the siege happened.

The second load of water went on the walls of the buildings. They were made of stone, so Xu Jian decided that would suffice.

"Alright, let's go."

He tried the door. As expected, it was locked. With a roll of his shoulders, he pulled his fist back and threw a fierce punch.

[+50]

The door exploded inwards, sending splinters flying. He was happy to be wearing shoes.

"First of all, we have to protect the records, in case anyone complains about this. Then we steal all the money," he told the children.

They scattered to the four winds, climbing over the bars of the teller's counter and tearing open drawers. Their single-minded tenacity to do crime reminded Xu Jian of his own youth.

It wasn't a very big bank, so it was simple enough to find the money by tearing the metal door from its frame. He highly doubted the author researched the history of banking in China for his fictional fantasy world, so the simplest solution really was the best one. It was a room comprised of mostly of cabinets, and inside the cabinets were various forms of currency, from cash to bars to ingots.

He was worried about the weight, but Xu Jinyue's body held true, and if he tipped a cabinet on its side, he could awkwardly drag it away. There were only ten of them, and the bank was, again, not very big, so it didn't take him too long to remove all of them. He tried to be careful with the cabinets; most of this money belonged to the people of the city.

His arms ached from the strain, but the most important aspect was secured. He returned to the tail end of a whispered argument. They whirled around when he approached.

"I can't read!" The youngest boy exclaimed.

"That's fine. Are there records? I can tell what kind they are by myself."

"I think that's what these are," the girl called from another room. Xu Jian went to check. she had used a scale to bash a hole in the lock, leaving even more wood splinters everywhere. The youth of Yufeng certainly had moxy. The girl was standing in the office, which had a desk and five more cabinets, one of which took up the entire wall.

"...If that has banking records in it, I'll take it out drawer by drawer," he said.

Luck was not on his side. The four regular-sized cabinets contained roughly made paper scribbled with debts owed, sorted by date and marked to hell and back with the adjustments of payment. A miserable state of affairs. He shooed the girl out and addressed the siblings as a unit. "Go find me a handcart. It shouldn't be too hard to find one attended, in the state this city is in."

They scurried off like a group of grimy little rats. Xu Jian busied himself with beating on the cabinet until it began splintering under his fists, then prying out the drawers. the records on here were also marked up with adjustments of accounts, but written on rough silk. He began carting these out to the cabinets sitting in the street, piling them up carefully.

While he was occupied with the bank cabinets, the children were on their quest for a handcart. It was a little tricky; people had plenty of time to put away their things in the deathly quiet of the last month. The stores had begun opening, though, so they headed to the shopping district to start their sweep.

This placed them in the exact right position to see the Mountain demon standing in the middle of the street, flustered and drawing his shoulders up in a tense arch, like an aggravated cat.

"XU JINYUUUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEE!"

His voice was so great it seemed to shake the whole city. There was no heat to it, as if all of its energy was focused entirely on being heard. The children recoiled, but he didn't head their way; instead, he jumped onto the wall, and took an enormous flying leap across the entire length of the city, and another onto the cliff face overlooking the entrance to Yufeng.

Even at that distance, his second call of "XU JINYUUUUUUUEEEE" made their hearts shake.

They slid through the alleys, trying to avoid being seen by the demons that lingered by the wall, and found a pushcart behind one of the bolder restaurants that had opened up to serve the demon workers. The girl and the tallest of her brothers took the handles, and the younger two emptied it of the boxes still stacked inside and rode in the back.

They returned as fast as possible, but the mysterious silver-haired man was already sitting on the ground in the lotus position with the drawers stacked up around him, looking as if he had been waiting for hours.

"I think one of the prisoners escaped. The demon lord seemed really upset," the girl said.

He opened his eyes. "Well, that's his problem, isn't it? Let's get to work."

Taking out the files by the drawers meant they could help load up the cart. The drawers went on one side, while Xu Jian exerted all of his power forcing the absurdly heavy cabinets to defy gravity long enough to slide into place on the other. It all creaked forebodingly, but didn't break, so it was probably fine.

The excruciating ache of his biceps extended to his shoulders as he began the grueling process of pushing the whole thing. The two youngest looked bored with how slow he was going, so he shooed them with his head. "Find me a cowl to keep my hair covered."

They scampered off. The girl looked at him warily. She had definitely figured out he was the man who's name Ying Long was screaming. Xu Jian couldn't afford to worry about that. Besides, Ying Long didn't sound enraged when he called, so sneaking around wasn't a dire situation.

When they got to the open street, he stretched a bit and turned to her. "Is your house large enough for a cart?"

"It probably...isn't." She frowned for a moment, then lit up. "You can take it to the Spring Plum Courtyard. It's a summer home for the Lady of the Cold Waters. She won't be using it for months."

"Fascinating. No idea who that is. Lead the way."

She was careful to take him through streets so narrow they were closer to alleys, taking as many shortcuts as possible while still avoiding scrutiny. After a certain point, Xu Jian could feel his Qi ooze, just enough to cover the effort of pulling the cart, but probably enough to kill him if he did it for longer than a day. He really needed to find someone to feed him energy. A small part of himself knew he was being impulsive and childish and was going to get himself hurt, but the rest of him was thinking about the intoxicating luxury of anarchism, so he refused to dwell on it.

The little ones returned with a cowl for his hair, so he sent them off to find a tarp next. On the hill just below the stairs to the palace was a series of expensive-looking homes, and the girl stopped at one with high walls.

"I don't know what rich people do with their houses when they aren't using them. There might be people still. Servants."

"That's fine." He dropped the cart in front of the doors and didn't even bother testing them; he simply leaped over the walls and landed on the other side. It was sealed with a heavy bar over the doors, and nothing else. When he opened it, the girl was looking at him with her eyebrows at her hairline.

"You are...a cultivator, sir?"

"I am."

He picked the cart up, even if the idea of doing so was abhorrent to him. His shoulders felt as brutalized as his stomach, and his legs had been reduced to jelly. He was flushed and sweating, and he could hear his blood hammering violently in his ears. Still, he couldn't leave these things lying in the street. He pushed the cart into a secluded corner of the courtyard, which was lined with trees, into a sheltered area apparently meant for receiving goods. The two youngest boys came running with a tarp, which he spread over the cart. He collapsed, wheezing, and massaged his poor, worn-out limbs.

One of the boys raised his hand. "There's the special demons everywhere. The one that destroyed the whole main street. They're looking for someone."

"Well, best keep our heads down while they're doing that."

Xu Jian, with a tortured groan, flipped over and struggled to his feet. He tried the door. Locked.

"And there's smoke in the sky. I think something happened."

Xu Jian punched, and the door was shattered into pieces. He leaned back in satisfaction.

"Oh, no, that was me. I set the bank on fire."

[+200]