The man observed Su Yan’s defensive expression and posture before glancing at the door and back at his face. Nothing in his face changed. "What did you do?"

"Ah?" Su Yan froze. "I … I didn’t do anything!" Fuck! Could it be that he had imagined one of his characters to be a mind reader?! Or maybe he was a fortune-teller instead and had known that Nie Chang’s nose would be broken and that was why he had come here?!

The man looked at him and finally grabbed him by the shoulder, pushing him out of the way.

"Ah! Damn, what —" Su Yan stopped when the man turned to look at him with an inquisitive look. What was happening? His little bit of protest wouldn’t have enraged a true cultivator, would it? Or, well, was he even a cultivator?

Su Yan’s gaze slid back to the gray robe. He couldn’t remember writing something about gray robes having a special meaning but maybe he had thought of it in the special dimension and the system had saved the info while he had forgotten about it? That wasn’t impossible.

The man furrowed his brows imperceptibly but didn’t say anything. Instead, he stepped past Su Yan, coming face to face with Nie Chang who had rushed over when Su Yan screamed.

The two men looked at each other, neither of them saying a word. Nie Chang didn’t know who the other person was since Su Yan hadn’t told him too much and in the chapter he had uploaded, only a few characters had been introduced by their name, none of them with a detailed description.

This could have been anyone but in case it was someone who knew this Ziju An … He had to be careful! He couldn’t do anything that might give away that he wasn’t the same person anymore.

Thinking of that he glanced at Su Yan. Damn. He hadn’t reminded him of that when Su Yan came back from his talk with Xue Chang Fu. What if Su Yan had already done something that didn’t fit his main character?

Meanwhile, the gray-robed man finally stopped staring at Nie Chang in a daze and cleared his throat. "Grandmaster Ziju, may I ask … What happened to your face?"

Nie Chang’s brows almost twitched but he forcibly held back from displaying any emotion. Judging from the beginning of the novel, Ziju An wasn’t someone who showed his thoughts too clearly. He was supposed to be mysterious and wouldn’t lose his calm even when faced with the Sect Master’s constant teasing. He definitely wouldn’t show a troubled expression if his disciple broke his nose.

Nie Chang motioned inside in the hope that this was someone from the sect he knew. "It’s nothing much." With that, he dropped the subject and went inside, the other man following behind.

Su Yan looked at the two of them, stunned. Was that really his boyfriend in Ziju An’s body and not Ziju An himself? When had Nie Chang gotten this cool? Uh, not that his boyfriend hadn’t been cool before but … This was an entirely new level of cool!

Inside Ziju An’s study, that very cool boyfriend motioned at the chair in front of the table and sat down himself. He didn’t even dare to pour a cup of tea. After all, who knew if he was able to replicate the true ancient scholar-like way of pouring tea that Ziju An certainly exercised?

The man grabbed the front part of his robe and sat down, letting it fall down onto his legs. Nie Chang inwardly nodded to himself. Just like that! It had probably looked strange when he sat down. Not that he hadn’t watched dramas set in the ancient period or some xianxia setting but seeing it and doing it himself were still two different things. Someone who came from earth like Su Yan and he wouldn’t notice the difference but a resident of this world might. They couldn’t risk that.

Nie Chang looked at the man, wondering whether he should say something. But what would Ziju An say in this situation? 'How may I help you?', 'What may I do for you?', 'What did you come here for?' None of that sounded like what a cultivator would say and furthermore … He didn’t know who this was. Maybe they had decided to meet beforehand? What was he supposed to do then?

In the end, it was the man that opened his mouth. "I apologize for disturbing you but … I just wanted to make sure whether or not you agreed to accompany the Sect Master and your disciple for that mission in the Jin He City."

Nie Chang’s mind churned. Mission in the Jin He City? His disciple and the Sect Master? Could it be this was about the 'plan' the Sect Master had mentioned to Su Yan before? Then this person should be the Elder Yue that the Sect Master was bothering all the time. If that was the case …

He nodded. "Yes." Then he fell silent again. The more he minced his words, the less the Elder would have to go by to detect that he wasn’t the real Ziju An. And it should be in line with the image of a Grandmaster, shouldn’t it?

Yue Mu Gang watched him silently before he nodded and got up. "Then I’ll take my leave." He turned around and walked a few steps before turning back. "Your nose …"

"Mn?" Nie Chang looked up.

"Do you need help to straighten it?"

Nie Chang almost winced. On one hand, he felt like it would be better not to have to do with Yue Mu Gang any longer. On the other hand, he wouldn’t be able to straighten his own nose and he didn’t trust Su Yan with it. And even though this wasn’t his real body, he still didn’t want to run around with a broken nose that grew skewed in case they had to stay here for longer than a few days.

Thus he finally nodded.