Fifteen minutes later, he opened his eyes.
Full stamina.
Full blood qi.
Good.
Let's go.
He stood, stretched, and walked out of the grove.
The moment he stepped past the last twisted tree and into the open forest, a voice rang out.
"Hoy! Where do you think you're going?"
Lu Chen stopped and turned.
Three cultivators emerged from the shadows.
The one in front had a face ravaged by scars.
The kind that came from bad genetics and worse qi circulation.
Actually, upon closer inspection, it looked less like bad genetics and more like he'd picked a fight with a cat.
And lost. Decisively.
He stepped forward with the confidence of someone who'd learned that looking tough was the only way to survive. His robe had clearly been stolen from someone taller. It dragged on the ground.
But he didn't seem to notice. Or care.
To his left stood a wiry cultivator with dodgy eyes.
He kept glancing at the tree line, like he was already planning escape routes. He had three. Lu Chen counted.
To his right, a broad-shouldered simpleton with a sword that looked like it had lost more fights than it won. And been dropped. And then sat on. Possibly used to dig a latrine at some point. He gripped it eagerly, waiting for permission to swing.
Lu Chen looked at them.
Three cultivators of the Idiot Dao. Probably been waiting all day. Probably thought he'd be exhausted, wounded, easy prey.
But he wasn't.
[Blood Qi Reserves: 100% — Peak Condition]
[Physical Status: Uninjured. Unbothered. Unimpressed.]
[New Assessment Unlocked: These Three Are Going To Make This Very Easy.]
The pockmarked leader planted his feet, crossed his arms, and delivered his line with the gravity of someone who'd practiced it in his puddle reflection.
"Leave all you have. Even your clothes too. And maybe we'll consider letting you go."
A pause.
He clearly expected fear.
What he got was Lu Chen blinking at him the way you blink at a dog that has just tried to explain mathematics.
All you'd hear is woof woof.
Is that it? Lu Chen thought. No dramatic aura release? No threatening backstory? Not even a 'do you know who I am?'
He felt almost cheated.
The leader's sneer flickered. "Did he not hear me? Liu Mang, what do you think?"
The wiry one—Liu Mang tilted his head. He'd seen this before, back when he was still a sect disciple. Victims sometimes went catatonic with fear. But this felt different.
This felt like something that would end badly for someone, and his instincts, honed by two years of running from people stronger than him, were screaming that the someone was probably him.
"I don't know, Boss Gu," Liu Mang said carefully. "Something feels off."
The simpleton—Hei San stepped forward anyway. "Who cares? Let's just take his stuff!"
He raised his voice at Lu Chen the way people raise their voice at foreigners when they don't understand the language, as if volume creates comprehension. "You! Hand over your belongings!"
Lu Chen tilted his head.
Then raised his hands and started making gestures. Pointing at his ears. Shaking his head. Tapping his mouth. A universal sign for I can't hear or speak.
The three bandits stared.
Gu Biao's scarred face scrunched in confusion. "He's... deaf and dumb?"
Hei San stared so hard his sword almost dropped. "Both?"
"That's what deaf and dumb means, Hei San."
"I know that." A pause. "Which one's which again?"
Liu Mang jumped in, eager to seem useful. "Deaf is the mouth and dumb is the ears."
Gu Biao pressed two fingers to his temple. A small twitch developed under his left eye. "Are you dumb? Deaf is the ears. Dumb is the mouth."
He said it slowly. Carefully. Like explaining to children why fire was hot.
Liu Mang's face flickered with embarrassment, but he quickly masked it. "That's what I said."
"You didn't."
"I meant to."
Gu Biao held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. Something cold passed through his expression the look of a man mentally filing away information for later use.
"Oh." Hei San looked at Lu Chen with genuine pity. "So he's got... two problems."
"Yes." Gu Biao said it without looking away from Liu Mang.
"That's sad."
"Hei San, focus."
"I'm focused. I'm just also sad."
Liu Mang scratched his head, eager to change the subject. Back when he was still in the sect. Before the stealing and the expulsion and the incident with the Elder's prize rooster that he refused to discuss.
He'd seen a deaf servant once. The servants used hand signs. He'd never bothered to learn properly, but he remembered a few.
"I know some signs," Liu Mang said, stepping forward. "From before. Let me try."
Gu Biao blinked. "You know sign language?"
"A bit."
"Since when?"
Liu Mang met his gaze with the unearned confidence of someone who had once watched a man fall down stairs and, upon being asked if he knew first aid, replied "sure" and immediately made everything worse.
"Since just now when it became useful."
Gu Biao gave him one hard look. It was a look filled with doubt.
Or rather, it was less filled with doubt and more the expression of a man taking a very difficult and hard dump.
*Well that explains the hard look.*
Then he waved his hand. "Fine. Find out what he's carrying."
Liu Mang approached Lu Chen with the confidence of a man about to perform open heart surgery having once watched it on a stolen television. He raised his hands and made some clumsy signs.
He thought he did something awesome. like a pro even.
But.
What he actually signed was.
I have big head. Brain small like peanut. Father dropped me on head when young. Now I very dumb.
Lu Chen maintained his innocent smile.
But something sparkled behind his eyes.
Liu Mang turned to his companions, expression professional. "I told him we'll let him go if he cooperates."
Gu Biao nodded approvingly. "Good. Good. Hei San, get ready in case he tries anything."
Hei San gripped his sword tighter. "Got it, Boss Gu." He narrowed his eyes at Lu Chen. Intimidatingly. He'd been working on his intimidating look. He practiced it on wood spirit squirrels. The wood spirit squirrels were not intimidated, but he remained optimistic.
Lu Chen, still smiling, made a few tentative gestures back. Fearful ones. Trembling hands. Pointing at his storage pouch. Shaking his head pleadingly.
What he actually signed was.
Please don't hurt me. I'm just a poor deaf-mute traveling alone. I'll give you everything. Also, your friend just told you his father dropped him on his head and you nodded like this was new and useful information.
Liu Mang's chest puffed with pride. "He says he'll cooperate. He's scared."
Gu Biao grinned, his scarred face twisting. "Of course he is. Look at him. Pathetic."
For a moment something flickered in Gu Biao's eyes.
Satisfaction.
This was why he did this. Not for the money. For the look on their faces. The same look he'd seen on his own face in the mirror growing up, before he learned to hit back.
But underneath that satisfaction, something else stirred. A memory of Liu Mang's confident bullshits.
Something isn't right here.
Lu Chen's smile never wavered.
He made more signs. Pointing at Gu Biao's scarred face. Then at his own smooth skin. Then a gesture like wiping something off, followed by a sad, sympathetic shake of his head. Then he pointed at the sky. Then at a rock. Then at Gu Biao's face again.
What he signed was.
Your face looks like the earth after a meteorite got revenge on it for stealing its girlfriend. Does it hurt when girls look at you? Or have you given up and started approaching livestock instead?
Liu Mang, unflinching: "He says he's never seen such a powerful and distinguished cultivator before. He says your features are very commanding. He's intimidated by your presence."
Gu Biao actually preened, running a hand over his scarred cheek. The same cheek that had cleared a room every time he'd entered one since age fourteen. *Distinguished.* He let the word settle on him like a well-fitted robe.
But even as he basked, that small voice whispered tugging at the back of his mind. Liu Mang got deaf and dumb backwards. He couldn't even get that right. Can he really be trusted to translate anything correctly?
"Liu Mang," Gu Biao said slowly, "tell him he has good taste."
Liu Mang turned back to Lu Chen.
Lu Chen continued. More signs. Pointing at Hei San's battered sword. Then making a chopping motion that slowed mid-swing and simply... stopped. Then pointing at a nearby puddle and making a deeply disgusted face. Then miming trying to cut the puddle and failing. Then looking at Hei San with enormous, pitying eyes.
What he signed was.
Your sword looks like it surrendered in a previous life and has been apologizing ever since. I have seen more threatening things hanging in vegetable stalls. Did you lose a bet, or did someone genuinely sell that to you as a weapon?
Liu Mang, without blinking translated. "He says your sword has a very rare and rugged quality. He says it looks like it's survived many battles. He's impressed."
Hei San looked at his sword.
His sword, which had been used to pry open a stuck door last winter. His sword, which had a small notch in it from when he'd accidentally hit a fence post. His sword, which a goat had chewed on once and he still wasn't sure why. Did it look like a vegetable?
"Survived many battles," Hei San repeated slowly, as if tasting the words.
"Many," Liu Mang confirmed.
Hei San's broad face split into the widest smile. This was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about his blade. Back in his village, before the demonic beasts came, the farmers had laughed at it. But those farmers were dead now, and he was alive, and his sword had survived many battles, and sometimes that was just how things went.
"Boss Gu," Hei San said, voice thick. "I think I like this guy."
"Don't get attached," Gu Biao said. "We're robbing him."
"Can't we rob him nicely?"
"That's not how robbing works, Hei San."
"It could be."
Gu Biao pinched the bridge of his nose and turned back to Lu Chen. "Tell him to hand it over."
Lu Chen made a final series of signs. Pointing at all three of them. Then at the ground. Then making a digging motion. Then a gesture of counting coins, followed by pointing at each of them in turn, nodding very seriously.
What he signed was.
You three are so thoroughly, cosmically, generationally stupid that you would dig your own graves and thank me for the shovel. You could be captured, sold, and the buyer would make you count the money and you'd feel proud about it.
Liu Mang, professional to the end: "He says you're the most formidable cultivators he's met in the entire forest. He says he feels genuinely honored. He says this is a story he'll tell his grandchildren."
Gu Biao puffed up like a toad that had been told it was a dragon. "Of course. Of course. You see, Liu Mang, this is what genuine cultivation presence does to people. They sense the dao in us."
Liu Mang made a face that could have meant anything.
"Now," Gu Biao continued grandly, "tell him to hand everything over quickly, and we'll let him keep his inner robe. I'm feeling generous. A man of my distinguished features can afford to be magnanimous."
Liu Mang opened his mouth to translate.
But the words never came.
Because Gu Biao was now staring at Lu Chen.
Not at his hands. Not at his pouch where the loot is. But at his face.
The innocent smile was still there. But the eyes behind it.
The eyes had been laughing. Had been laughing for the entire conversation. Bright, patient, deeply entertained laughter. The kind you saw in the eyes of someone who had been given an unexpected gift and was savoring every last second of it.
Gu Biao had seen that look before. On the faces of older disciples back in his village sect, before he dropped out. On merchants who thought they were smarter than him. On everyone who'd ever looked at his scarred face and decided he was nothing.
Laughing at him.
And then it all came together. The eyes. The nagging feeling that had been gnawing at him since the beginning. Liu Mang's straight faced bullshit from the very start.
"Wait," he said quietly.
The other two looked at him.
"Wait." His voice hardened. "Liu Mang. Look at his eyes. He's been smiling this whole time, but his eyes—"
Lu Chen's smile widened.
Not the innocent smile anymore.
A predator's smile. Patient. Satisfied. The smile of someone who had just watched a very long and very good play reach its final act.
Gu Biao's hand went to his sword. "You can hear us, can't you."
It wasn't a question.
Liu Mang's face went the color of old ash. "Boss Gu, I—"
"Shut up." Gu Biao's eyes never left Lu Chen. "You've been playing with us. The whole time."
Lu Chen tilted his head.
Then, clear as a bell, he spoke.
"Took you long enough."
The words landed like a stone dropped into still water. Hei San's sword dipped. Liu Mang's hands started shaking.
He had now identified five escape routes and was quietly ranking them by survivability. Gu Biao's scarred face cycled through red, then purple, then a color that didn't have a proper name yet but would probably be called a humiliation incarnate.
"You—" Gu Biao's voice cracked. "You understood. Everything. The whole time?"
"Every word." Lu Chen's expression was filled with pure, unrepentant mischief.
Your friend Liu Mang here called you a peanut brain whose father dropped him as an infant. He told you that you have the face of a meteor impact site and asked if you've ever gotten close enough to a woman to know if she laughs at you. He told Hei San his sword couldn't cut through water. He told all three of you that you are so profoundly, ancestrally stupid that you would dig your own graves and thank the man who handed you the shovel."
Well. It was all true. But how would they know he wasn't being completely truthful?
A pause.
"And you all stood there nodding like proud little ducks."
Silence.
Very loud silence.
Gu Biao's head turned. Slowly. Toward Liu Mang.
"Is that," Gu Biao said, very quietly, "true."
Liu Mang had located his top two escape routes and was now simply waiting for an opening. "Boss Gu, I want you to know I was working under significant pressure—"
"You called me a peanut brain."
"That's a very reductive summary of—"
"You said my father dropped me on my head."
"I was translating spontaneously, the context was—"
"You told me my face looked like a meteor hit it."
"Boss Gu, in some cultures that's actually considered—"
"WHAT CULTURES, LIU MANG? WHAT CULTURES THINK THAT?"
Hei San had been standing very still, processing. Now he looked at Liu Mang with the expression of a dog that has been told, for the first time, that the thing it thought was a friend was in fact a cat.
"Liu Mang," Hei San said slowly. "You said my sword was impressive."
Liu Mang turned to him. "Hei San, now is really not the time—"
"But he said it couldn't cut water."
"Hei San, technically most swords can't actually cut through—"
"Which one's true?"
"That is genuinely not the most important question right now—"
"It's important to me!" Hei San's voice cracked with the particular anguish of a simple man confronting the specific lie he was not equipped to handle. "I've been carrying this sword for three years! The farmers laughed at it! I thought we'd proven them wrong! I thought it had survived many battles, Liu Mang!"
"It survived one fence post and a goat—"
"THAT GOAT WAS AGGRESSIVE!"
"WILL YOU BOTH SHUT UP," Gu Biao roared.
The forest went quiet.
Somewhere nearby, a bird decided it had heard enough and left. It felt considerably dumber for having listened to the cultivators of the Idiot Dao, and it was a bird.
How dumb could it get?
They all watched it go, somehow understanding the intent behind the flight, reading it clearly in the expression on the bird's face. All except Hei San, who watched it with mild curiosity and wondered if it was edible.
Gu Biao turned back to Lu Chen. All those years of being laughed at, all those scars, all that carefully maintained dignity instantly focused into one trembling, furious point.
And now even a bird was looking down on me.
"You think this is funny," he said.
Lu Chen was quiet for a moment.
Then, almost gently: "Gu Biao."
"Eh?" Gu Biao blinked. He hadn't given his name.
"All this has proven," Lu Chen said, "is that you three are diligently cultivating the Dao of becoming idiots. And from what I've seen today"
He tilted his head "You're very close to reaching the peak."
Gu Biao's scarred face trembled.
All that humiliation. All that rage. And nowhere left to put it except forward.
Lu Chen almost felt bad.
Almost.
"COURTING DEATH!" Gu Biao's voice cracked across the trees. "KILL HIM!"