The moment that slightly hoarse, probing voice sounded in his ear, the fingers hidden beneath Mo Fan's wide sleeve tightened almost imperceptibly.
A mutated rat-tooth throwing dart slipped silently into his palm.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he turned his head slowly and fixed a cold, measuring stare on the speaker from beneath the shadow of his hood.
Standing beside him was a middle-aged man in a rough cloth hunting outfit.
The man was powerfully built—the arms left bare by his short jacket were corded with muscle, skin darkened to a deep bronze by years of wind and sun.
His face carried several shallow old scars, and he radiated the thick, unmistakable air of someone who had spent a long time living on the knife's edge.
But Mo Fan noted, with sharp precision, that despite the rough exterior, those eyes held a shrewd and calculating glint. This was no brainless brute.
"Don't misunderstand, little brother. No ill intent."
The man had clearly caught the faint chill of resistance coming off Mo Fan. He withdrew his hand from Mo Fan's shoulder with practiced ease and laughed openly.
"Name's Fang Tong. I'm an old hunter who's been scraping a living around Greenwood Market for years."
Seeing that the wariness in Mo Fan's eyes hadn't faded, Fang Tong lowered his voice with the ease of long habit and began laying out the unwritten rules of the marketplace.
"From the look and bearing of you, little brother, you're the type who works alone. But taking on bounties isn't the same as hunting in the hills behind your village."
He gestured at the gray wooden plaque on the board and spoke with the weight of experience.
"Especially the kind that say 'bizarre manners of death, suspected Evil Spirit.' Around here, when a bounty is tricky or the threat is unknown, going solo is far too dangerous."
"Even if you're a solid late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator—the moment you stumble into an unknown evil formation or get swarmed, there's no one to even send word back for help."
"So among us rogue cultivators, 'Temporary PUGs' (Pick-Up Groups) are very popular."
Fang Tong grinned, showing a set of yellowed teeth.
"One person pulls the listing, everyone agrees on the split beforehand, then you work together. If you hit something tough, you go in shoulder-to-shoulder."
"If it's unwinnable, you cover each other's retreat. Rewards get divided by contribution afterward. Safety first, guaranteed returns. That's what we call the spirit of the contract."
Mo Fan listened in silence. His expression didn't shift by a single degree—cold and still as a slab of rock.
Inwardly, though, he had already understood exactly what this man wanted.
"If Brother Fang knows the rules so well," Mo Fan said, voice low and unhurried, "why come to me specifically?"
Fang Tong rubbed his hands together and spoke plainly.
"I won't lie to you—I've been watching you from behind for a while. You spent more time in front of that Linshui Village listing than anyone else. Clearly, you've got your eye on it."
He paused, then dangled the bait he'd prepared.
"We've already got a three-man group together on our end, and we're just short of one more solid fighter with vigorous Qi and blood to anchor the formation. If we work together, those 15 low-grade Spirit Stones are as good as ours."
"Sure, each person only walks away with a few stones in the end—but out here, when you're earning the hard way, your life is worth more than the money. Don't you think, little brother?"
On the surface, Mo Fan remained perfectly unmoved—even carrying a faint edge of aloof indifference. But inside, his mind was running a furious cost-benefit analysis.
I have no idea what the terrain around Linshui Village looks like. Don't know the local situation at all.
And I know far too little about how devil cultivators operate. If I go in alone and blunder into a trap, there's zero margin for error to try and fail.
Mo Fan's gaze shifted slightly.
If there's a group of locals who know the roads and are hungry for coin leading the way... that's actually not bad at all.
As for the 15 low-grade Spirit Stones?
Please. He had a stack of mid-grade Spirit Stones in his storage bag. He couldn't care less about that kind of pocket change.
What he actually wanted was the devil cultivator lurking behind Linshui Village—the one who could let him complete his breakthrough quest.
Decision made, Mo Fan quietly slid the poison bone dart back into his sleeve.
He looked at Fang Tong and gave a slight nod, tone as flat as ever.
"Fine. I'm in."
Fang Tong's face lit up. These days, recruiting a body cultivator who looked like genuine trouble was a massive boost to any temporary PUG's survival odds.
"Ha! Now that's what I like to hear! I love a man who doesn't waste words!"
Fang Tong slapped his thigh enthusiastically and turned to lead Mo Fan over to meet the other two members of the group.
And then he froze.
Mid-step, his entire body locked up as if a bucket of ice water had been poured straight down the back of his neck. The grin on his face solidified instantly.
Because the moment he turned, the corner of his eye finally caught the black-robed figure standing silently half a step behind and to Mo Fan's left.
Mo Yan.
In the noisy, crowded market plaza, that figure in black robes was like a ghost that didn't exist—easy to overlook entirely if you weren't deliberately looking.
But when Fang Tong—an "old dough stick" (veteran) who had spent years licking blood from the blade's edge and possessed a beast's instinct for danger—actually let his gaze settle on Mo Yan...
A bone-deep chill crawled up his spine.
That was the aura of death. The kind that struck straight at the soul!
Even through the middle-aged swordsman's face conjured by the [ Moon Veil Gauze ], Fang Tong could feel it—those eyes hidden behind the veil were hollow. Dead. The eyes of something that looked at living people and saw only corpses.
What made his scalp crawl the most was this: he could not detect a single trace of a living person's spiritual energy fluctuation from that black-robed figure!
And yet the icy, killing aura that wrapped around the man pressed down on his nerves like something very, very real.
"This... who is this friend?"
Fang Tong swallowed with great difficulty. He took half a step back on instinct, putting a little more safe distance between himself and the figure.
The smile on his face had gone stiff and uncertain, and even his choice of words became cautious.
"Little brother... what we agreed on earlier was a four-way split. If your side is adding another deeply hidden expert to the mix..."
Fang Tong rubbed his hands together, expression pained.
"Fifteen Spirit Stones... I'm afraid that really won't stretch far enough."
Mo Fan didn't even turn his head.
He just tilted it slightly, letting a faint, ambiguous curve show in the shadow beneath his hood. His tone was perfectly flat—as if he were commenting on something utterly trivial.
"Don't worry about it. He won't participate in the distribution of the mission rewards."
Then Mo Fan turned fully and fixed Fang Tong with an extremely oppressive, profound stare.
"An extra pair of hands, free of charge. Isn't that... better for everyone?"
"..."
Fang Tong's expression locked up completely.
His Adam's apple bobbed again, his expression stalling. He hesitated—still a little unsettled—but since the other man had already put it that way, there was no graceful way to refuse.
He forced out a dry laugh and went along with it.
"That's... that's excellent! Excellent! Since this eminent expert is willing to exert effort for free, that is naturally something we could only wish for!"
Fang Tong wiped the cold sweat seeping from his forehead and quickly turned sideways to lead the way.
"Then... right this way, little brother. I'll take you to meet the rest of our brothers. We'll prepare to set off right away!"