Youjin Chao, you sneaky bastard! Yung cursed.

His eyes involuntarily wandered around the room: a warehouse slash office which also seemed to act as this Ziyou Maque's sleeping quarters, judging by the oversized hammock. It was filled with a dizzying array of dangerous weapons, their sharp edges glinting in the low internal light. Some blades looked well-used and others remained untouched, varying in size and shape from tiny daggers to long swords and glaives. The air was thick with the smell of steel and rust. The black and silver surfaces gleamed and shimmered like a room of mirrors reflecting back Yung's nervous face from all directions. As though the blades were daring anyone foolish enough to offend their owner.

He steadied his breath to the rhythm of a song. He read, then reread the empathic links from both the older boy and the menacing man.

No malice. That didn’t give Yung much confidence.

“Strange use of xinqi you got there, lad.” Ziyou Maque said. He pointed at Yung’s naval palace dantian with a quill, “The movement of xinqi is as clear as day. But I can’t tell the effects. Was it a numinous art? Interesting.”

He noticed! Damn! Goodbye, cruel world. Yung sweat buckets. Body cultivation’s meridian building realm was analogous to spirit cultivation’s foundation building. This man was more than a whole major realm above Yung. Of course he’d notice. Stupid, stupid!

“Calm down lad. I ain’t gonna eat you up like a fiend, hahaha. We’re fellow madlanders. And you’re going to go places; I can feel it in my bones. Why would I antagonise a compatriot with the fox clan behind him.” The gang leader grinned. He ordered one of his subordinates to serve lunch.

Would you have eaten me if I wasn’t a madlander! Yung rolled his eyes, not finding solace in such reverse prejudice. His mother was not a madlander!

He decided honesty was the best policy. “I’m Ziyou Yung. It’s a pleasure to meet the man I’ve always heard legends about. Even at the Youjin clan, leader Ziyou Maque’s fame is the talk of the town.”

“Infamy, you mean? And call me Uncle Maque. We’re not strangers.” The man grinned again. He had a gold tooth.

Yes, we, are.

“Sure. Forgive my rudeness then, Uncle Maque.” Just go with the flow. Go with the flow.

Youjin Chao that traitor was gorging himself. Yung had no appetite.

Yet even Su Xiya didn’t reject the red curry-looking stew, sipping on it with contentment.

“Brother Chao, is the food tasty?” Yung deadpanned.

“Huh? Oh, yes yes. Quite good. You haven’t had pure madlander cooking, have you? It’s spicy.” The jerk was having fun. His empathic link read glee.

“… Sure.” Yung tried the stew. Yum! Tastes like cumin.

Youjin Chao wiped his mouth and turned towards Ziyou Maque after drinking a cup of water.

“Uncle Maque, about the matter I asked you before.”

“Babysitting you both as you hunt fiends?” Ziyou Maque crossed his arms. “Even if I agreed, what use will it be to you to train under absolute safety?”

“Brother Yung is a complete novice at combat. First, he needs to get used to staying in the forest for long periods before going into fights. He could use all the safety he can get.”

Yung vigorously nodded. Maybe I can trust this guy after all!

“Well, still a wussy move.” Ziyou Maque said.

“If I may,” Yung raised his hand. That comment hurt him personally. He put on his best politician voice, saying, “I’m a jade carver. And I don’t know what deal Brother Chao is striking with you, but if the problem is about trust, I can assure you—”

“It ain’t!” Ziyou Maque glared at him. “What’s making a jade carver like you head into the forest?”

“We need to prepare for the second phase of the sect recruitments,” Youjin Chao said.

“Didn’t the fox clan already take you in?”

“Fairy Nanya certainly did,” Yung replied. “As a servant. If I want to be a member of the Twilight blood palace, then I’ll have to prove myself in trial. She won’t simply hand over a spot at her prestigious sect for free. If I can pass the trial, Fairy Nanya promised to consider… other matters.”

As for what these ‘other matters’ were, Yung hadn’t the foggiest clues. He was pretending to be erudite. But Ziyou Maque doesn’t need to know that.

"And if you can't?" Ziyou Maque asked the critical question.

“Then no one in Dim gold city can benefit from me ever again.”

Ziyou Maque went silent, thinking it over for a bit. “It costs me nothing, though I’ll have to hand over the gang operations to my subordinates. In any case, the lower town gangs have their hands full with the uptowners. They won’t bother us.”

Youjin Chao beamed, “It can be an excursion; Ling’er can go with us too if she wants.”

Yung remembered the scroll he had handed to Su Yafeng for safekeeping. It was called a “Su fox clan blood spirit contractual scroll,” with the “Su” character stamped red and wide on the ribbon.

He had an appointment with the Youjin clan patriarch in four days.

Four days… four days… Yung contemplated the issue.

With all the information on the fox clan he’d gathered today, a blood spirit contract was far more advantageous than he could have imagined.

I need to do something nice for Miss Yafeng. She’s so good to me.

Silky agreed from inside his dantian. Miss Yafeng had given him a golden qi-rich grape.

Youjin Chao kept going back and forth with Ziyou Maque. They were hashing out the details of the trip.

Weapons, food, blankets, fiend repellents, fiend attractors…

If it’s that dangerous, then it’s better to go with an army… now where can I find an army lying around for me to use?

Outside the window, he saw the children training. For fame and glory? Or for a better future?

Unknown birds flew over the Red hole. The stench was almost unnoticeable. But it was there, like a hidden poison. Far too many madlanders had rash-like skin defects, yellow eyes, and anorexic limbs to Yung’s discomfort—all symptoms of easily prevented water-borne diseases.

This place may have improved, but it was still a land of exile.

What do you wish for, Ziyou Maque? You work for the betterment of your people, but to what ends?

Youjin Chao and Ziyou Maque's talk came to a close. The conclusion was hollow. Yung barely registered it. He had already drafted another plan in his mind. There was no need to blindly follow Youjin Chao's methods; whether he could trust him and Ziyou Maque was a non-issue.

It was better to have the initiative and create lasting trust from there.

“It ain’t a pretty sight, is it?” Ziyou Maque suddenly asked.

The conversation stopped. Yung pondered the question.

“I can’t imagine.”

“What an honest answer.” Ziyou Maque said. “Tell me about yer parents, Young Yung. I hear your father was a madlander.”

“He was. Yeah. Mother had the Youjin name.”

“What a lucky brat, snatching a noble lass. But maybe not, to leave the world so young.” Ziyou Maque gazed outside, and Yung did so too—a stream of literal dirt rant through this settlement.

“Compared to the people stuck here, he might’ve considered himself lucky. He died in that massive voidfiend outbreak when I was two. I don’t remember much of him. Of them.”

“You have my condolences.” The gang leader sounded truly regretful, “I lost my wife that day too.”

Ah, that’s why…

“Why would you help me, Uncle Maque? Why really?” Yung suddenly asked. “What can I do for you in return?”

Honesty was the best policy.

“You didn’t grow up in the slums. You lived in the lower town, then the Youjin clan citadel.” Ziyou Maque said.

“That I have.”

“Maybe that’s why you got lucky enough to soul contract the missing yaoguai. And then be taken in by the Su fox clan of all people. Ha, Haha!”

Youjin Chao glanced at Yung, then shrugged.

“I didn’t lie when I said you are gonna go places.” Ziyou Maque touched the large scar on his face. “My intuitions ain’t rarely prove wrong. Young Yung, we need your luck!” The gang leader stood up and walked to the window. He leaned on the windowsill and pointed at his domain. A stinky, dirty slum full of disease and hope.

“Let’s stop with the games. No more tests.”

I was being tested? On what?

Ziyou Maque didn’t speak for minutes. He picked up a wine gourd and drank the whole thing. “If this goes on, the gang will lose its grip on the slums.”

"What?" Youjin Chao shouted, his eyes wide as though the sky had fallen.

“Many folks don’t want the Youjin clan to bounce back, you see. Like the Westmoon royal family, the Baishui clan, and the Zheng clan. Their rare class silk trade was too lucrative.” Ziyou Maque said. “Since the Dim gold foxmoths left, eastern upper town has been a mess. No jobs, but men had to feed their families. Most now work in the underground paddy farms, but there’s a limit to how much the Youjin clan can expand. A lot of them came down to lower town. They formed fiendhunting teams.”

“Why is that a problem?” Youjin Chao asked.

“Most got kicked out by either the gangs or the fiends. So they went down a pecking order. They’re starting to come to the slums too, Young Chao; that’s how desperate they are. The lower town is already at full capacity.” Ziyou Maque calmed his breath, but his hand grabbed the windowsill so hard it cracked. “The lower town and the slums are part and parcel of the same diseased limb, like symbiotic worms feeding off another. One can’t survive without the other.

“It was fine before when I took over the slums. Sure, there was some conflict. But there always is. We soon reached an equilibrium. I don’t bother the lower town; they don’t bother us. We trade and make merry. This ain’t in the scale for that. The lower town is like a bulging wart. It’s gonna burst soon, and that might take the slums with it. If the Youjin clan doesn’t handle this right, the city might be done for.”

Yung nodded. He had a hunch but never imagined the effects of the foxmoths leaving had such repercussions. But considering how the Dim gold silk accounted for a massive portion of the city's trade, the signs were in plain sight now that Ziyou Maque pointed it out. He'd seen way more unemployed, beggars, and thugs these last few years in the eastern upper towns. He commuted through the place daily from the Youjin clan citadel to the jade slip shop in the central market square.

Thugs… were a feature of the lower town, not the upper, where 'civilised' people lived.

"The vast majority messes up during their first hunt. Fiend hunting isn't something you can learn in a day or two. Trapping, tracking, hiding, and finding food in the wild is just as crucial as cultivation prowess.

“But these city folks come here, get their asses handed to them, and either run back to the upper towns or keep crowding the lower town and the slums, filling it with the injured and the sick. But they won’t give up. They got families to feed.”

“At least the Youjin clan is trying to help them. After all, the hundred thousand uptowners who lost their livelihood were under their direct rule. The other noble clans, on the other hand,” Ziyou Maque spat with vitriol, “think they can take over this city if the Youjin clan, the lower town gangs, and the Free sparrow gang fail to get the situation under control. I doubt they plan to rebel before lower town spills over, but they’ll dive like vultures the moment they see weakness. Bloody carrion eaters the lot of them.”

“You don’t care about my relationship with the fox clan.” Yung said, “You want me to bring the foxmoths back with Lord Yaoguai’s help.”

“I do care. Ya wouldn’t have been able to talk with me and them Youjin folks in equal footing if the Su foxes weren’t behind you. But that’s in the future.” Ziyou Maque said, “The foxmoths are a more immediate concern. You gotta save the Youjin clan to save the slums. What a joke, but it’ll work out. You’re half, the madlanders here might take some time to get used to you, but you’re one of us. And you’re hugging that fox yao’s thigh. The Youjin clan can’t dare to ignore you.”

I bet Youjin Chun was counting on me not finding this information. Yung guessed; I told her Nyanya tasked me with an important matter. She’d think I am searching for the foxball. The foxmoths are far more important to her than that. Oh, Moira, praise the fates. She must’ve been jubilant that I would agree to return the foxmoths with that amount of compensation. They tried to fleece me! As I thought, four days were too much!

Yung glossed over the fact that it was he who set both the date and the terms of the deal, much to Silky’s chagrin. He had more urgent matters to consider. His morals, for a start.

He could hold the foxmoths hostage over the clan’s head for more cash, but that would be no different than playing with the lives of the innocent. He’d literally be trading ren lives for money.

Yung could not do that. So he forgave Youjin Chun for trying to cheat him.

I am going to have to talk this over with Silky later. Err… how did you convince a child to make up with friends again?

“I understand,” Yung said. “I’ll see what I can do.” He thought for a while, then asked, “What did you test me on?”

Ziyou Maque laughed, then winked, “A secret, lad. But you passed. I just had to make sure.”

“I’m meeting the Youjin patriarch soon. I want you to be there with me.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“I need xinqi, a lot of it.” Yung said. “And the hundred thousand madlander’s in the slum look like they’d be willing to trade.”

Youjin Chao gaped. Ziyou Maque stared, flabbergasted, then laughed out loud. It was like roaring thunder, and the vibrations sent the multitudes of blades on the wall rattling. Hearing that, his subordinates rushed in from the other room.