With those words, a mutton-fat jade token flowing with a warm, gentle luster was tossed toward Retainer Chen.
Casually, like the girl was throwing a rock.
Retainer Chen's expression had been placid as water, assuming this brat who didn't know the height of heaven and earth was about to whip out some artifact bestowed by an elder...
Or the token of some trading guild steward, in an attempt to wriggle free.
He didn't even raise a hand.
He merely caught the flying jade token with a thread of spiritual power and gave it an offhand glance.
Then, the next moment...
That unflappable face of his froze solid.
His head snapped down, eyes locked on the token.
Those old eyes went wide in an instant, as if he were looking at something inconceivable.
In the hands of an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator, an item like this would at most register as extraordinary material with exquisite carving.
It was precisely someone like Retainer Chen, a Golden Core cultivator who'd spent years moving through Cangqing City's upper circles and seen plenty...
Who truly understood what those exceedingly intricate, subtle dragon and cloud patterns on the token meant.
But precisely because he understood, his first reaction was disbelief.
How could a person of that station possibly show up like this?
Filthy.
Disheveled.
Caught red-handed stealing someone's Storage Pouch in a black market.
No matter how you looked at it, it didn't seem real!
"Young lady..."
Retainer Chen drew a deep breath, his expression turning graver than ever, a trace of hesitation creeping into his voice.
"This item... where did it come from?"
The girl rolled her eyes enormously, thoroughly unimpressed, and dusted off her hands.
"It's mine, obviously. What, you think I stole it?"
Retainer Chen wasted no more words.
With extreme care, he split off a thread of spiritual power and probed into the jade token.
Hummmm...
The next moment, a hidden imperial clan restriction inside the token activated.
Faint golden light lit up bit by bit along the dragon and cloud patterns on its surface, finally converging at the center into an exceedingly distinctive seal of the Great Xia imperial clan.
Retainer Chen's face changed completely in that instant.
Whoosh!
The Golden Core pressure that had blanketed the entire alley a second earlier withdrew clean away in an instant, like a receding tide.
Under the disbelieving stares of the several Foundation Establishment guards, this normally lofty Golden Core Retainer bowed solemnly and offered the token back with both hands.
"...This one's eyes were blind. I did not know Commandery Princess Ling'er had arrived."
"I have given great offense. I beg Your Highness's forgiveness."
Silence.
Dead silence.
The black market guards who'd just been beaten flat by Mo Fan and had barely dragged themselves upright all stood there completely stunned.
Mo Fan turned his head slightly too, glancing with some surprise at the girl in the ratty gray robe beside him.
The Great Xia Dynasty.
Commandery Princess Ling'er.
Well now.
So this wasn't some simple rich heiress.
This was Great Xia imperial nobility.
The girl snatched the token back and tucked it into her robe again.
Seeing Retainer Chen's solemn attitude, a bit of that imperial smugness returned to her slightly grubby little face.
With her identity now thoroughly exposed, the farce in the black market naturally had to end there.
Under Retainer Chen's personal supervision, the girl extremely reluctantly returned the Storage Pouch to the two big men.
An inventory check found everything inside untouched.
Knowing she was in the wrong, the girl obediently fished several Mid-grade Spirit Stones out of her own Storage Pouch and pressed them on the men as compensation.
Though she still couldn't help muttering under her breath:
"Well, they look like they fence stolen goods..."
"And they talked so suspiciously..."
The two men, who'd been tailed for no reason, robbed for no reason, and then inexplicably handed a hefty payout, hardly dared to press the matter further.
They took the Spirit Stones and hurried off.
It looked like the whole thing was finally over.
The girl clapped her hands together and was about to take the opportunity to slip away.
But Retainer Chen bowed slightly and added, with exceedingly dutiful diligence:
"Since Your Highness has revealed your identity within Cangqing City, this matter is of great importance. This one must report to the City Lord's Manor at once."
The smugness that had just returned to the girl's face froze solid.
"...You have to report it?"
There was one last flicker of hope in her eyes.
"I must."
Retainer Chen answered without a shred of hesitation.
"Can't you just pretend you never saw me today and let me go?"
"Forgive me, this one cannot."
The girl's shoulders slumped all at once, and she wilted like a frost-bitten cabbage.
She knew perfectly well that flashing that token meant this escape trip, the one she'd worked so hard to pull off under everyone's noses, was basically over for good.
Her family would probably receive an urgent transmission from the Cangqing City Lord's Manor any minute.
And indeed...
Retainer Chen had already taken out a Voice Transmission Jade Slip and sent word.
During the wait for the City Lord's Manor to send someone, the alley that had been so tense a moment ago gradually loosened up again.
The more the girl thought about it, the angrier she got, and she rounded on Mo Fan to vent it.
"This is all your fault!"
Mo Fan, arms folded, leaning against a moss-covered wall, listened with utter bafflement on his face.
"How is this my problem?"
"If you hadn't struck that pose like you were seriously about to fight to the death, would I have had to panic and reveal my trump card just to save you?!"
The girl glared at him, puffed up with anger.
Mo Fan sneered and hit back without mercy:
"And who was it screaming 'Senior Brother' every other breath and dragging me into this whether I liked it or not?"
The girl was momentarily stuck for words, but her mouth stayed stubborn.
"If I hadn't exposed myself, were you actually planning to fight a Golden Core cultivator?!"
"Whether I could win is a separate question."
Mo Fan glanced at her, his tone even.
"But I'm not going to just stand there and take a beating."
The girl looked at that impervious face of his and ground her teeth in fury.
But recalling how Mo Fan had stood between her and the danger, that unyielding back...
Most of the anger in her chest inexplicably dissolved.
The two of them went on bickering back and forth, line for line.
It was only then that the girl seemed to suddenly remember something.
"Oh, right."
She blinked those bright, wide eyes and looked at Mo Fan.
"This princess has been through all this with you, even got chased half a street with you, and I still don't know your name."
Mo Fan didn't think much of it, answering offhandedly.
"Lu Xiaoqi."
At that name, the girl's puffed-up, half-playful expression stopped abruptly.
"Lu?"
Her brows knit faintly, an odd light flashing through her eyes as she looked Mo Fan up and down all over again.
"Your surname is Lu too?"
Mo Fan found her strange reaction rather odd.
"What is it?"
"Is that surname some big taboo in the cultivation world?"
The girl stared at him for a few breaths, some thought seeming to pass deep behind her eyes.
But soon, she shook her head.
"...It's nothing."
And with that, she dropped the subject.
Just then...
Hummmm...
An exceedingly powerful surge of spiritual power erupted above the alley.
Mo Fan looked up on reflex.
This was Cangqing City, after all.
Flight through the air by cultivators was expressly forbidden within the city.
Yet at this moment, several streaks of escape light cut across the sky without the slightest attempt at concealment...
Moving at startling speed and landing at the alley mouth in the blink of an eye.
Anyone who could fly openly into a place like this...
Their status went without saying.
At the head was a young man in a lavish brocade robe, his bearing exceedingly extraordinary.
As the capital of Cangqing Province, Cangqing City's City Lord was a Nascent Soul powerhouse renowned across the region.
And this young man who'd come in person was that City Lord's only son, the true apex of young nobility in all of Cangqing Province.
Young City Lord Qing Luan.
Commandery Princess Ling'er's status was special.
The fact that the City Lord's Manor sent the Young City Lord himself to receive her the moment they heard showed exactly how seriously they took it.
The moment Qing Luan appeared, he first paid his respects to the girl with impeccable propriety.
But there was a clear familiarity in his tone.
The two of them had obviously met before.
In fact, the instant the girl saw this Young City Lord, her already sagging face turned considerably uglier.
"Why does it have to be you?"
The girl rolled her eyes with extreme distaste.
Qing Luan wasn't offended in the least.
If anything, the corner of his mouth curved into a refined smile with a hint of teasing in it.
"I heard back at the manor that a certain Highness had gone and stolen something in our Cangqing City black market."
"I assumed something had gone wrong with Retainer Chen's Voice Transmission Jade Slip."
"So naturally, I came in person to witness this remarkable sight."
"You're the thief! I didn't steal anything!"
The girl's face darkened and she fired back on the spot like a cat with its fur standing on end.
From those few exchanges, it clearly wasn't the first time they'd gone at each other.
Having finished needling the girl, Qing Luan's gaze then moved past her, quite naturally, to Mo Fan leaning against the wall.
Especially once he noticed how Ling'er had been speaking to this plainly dressed young man without a shred of imperial airs, and how easily the two of them squabbled.
Qing Luan's gaze paused for a moment between them.
Then he looked at Mo Fan.
Assessing, but not discourteous.
"And this is?"
Ling'er pursed her lips and answered offhandedly:
"Oh, the free Senior Brother I just picked up in the black market."
Mo Fan: "..."
Seeing this, Retainer Chen stepped forward and recounted what had happened to Qing Luan in exceedingly concise terms.
Once he'd finished listening, the casualness in Qing Luan's eyes slowly receded a few degrees.
An Azure Cloud Sect disciple newly arrived in Cangqing City, able to beat several Foundation Establishment cultivators into helplessness with his body alone.
That already wasn't ordinary.
More than that, even knowing Retainer Chen was a Golden Core cultivator, this man hadn't run.
He'd genuinely prepared to fight.
Add to that Ling'er's attitude toward him...
Qing Luan took another look at Mo Fan.
This young man called Lu Xiaoqi was worth remembering.
The Young City Lord stepped forward with perfect grace and clasped his hands slightly toward Mo Fan.
"My thanks today, Fellow Daoist Lu, for looking after Her Highness."
Mo Fan glanced at the girl still rolling her eyes off to the side and replied flatly:
"Wouldn't call it looking after her."
"Plenty of trouble, though. That part's real."
Hearing this, the girl kicked a loose chunk of stone at her feet in fury.
"You...!"
Qing Luan watched the two of them go back and forth, the smile on his face unchanged in the slightest.
Only the look deep in his eyes grew a shade more thoughtful.
Then he brushed a hand across the Storage Pouch at his waist.
An archaic token, neither metal nor jade, carved with the City Lord's Manor's intricate crest, appeared in his palm.
"I hear this is Fellow Daoist Lu's first time in Cangqing City?"
"More or less."
Mo Fan nodded.
"In that case, Fellow Daoist, you might as well hold onto this token."
Qing Luan extended it toward Mo Fan.
"Cangqing City is a mix of dragons and snakes. Should Fellow Daoist Lu run into any inconvenience, simply present this."
He paused briefly, then added with complete naturalness:
"In this city, the vast majority of places will honor it."
Ling'er, standing off to the side, knew exactly how much weight that token carried, and raised her eyebrows in some surprise.
"You're being pretty generous this time."
Qing Luan merely smiled.
"Fellow Daoist Lu has helped Her Highness. This small convenience is the least my City Lord's Manor should offer."
Mo Fan looked down at the token, then back at Qing Luan.
He didn't bother with false modesty.
"My thanks, Young City Lord."
With that, he reached out, took the token, and tucked it into his robe.
Since the City Lord's Manor had taken over the situation, Mo Fan naturally had no reason to stick around.
He turned to leave.
"Hey! Lu Xiaoqi!"
The girl's voice came from behind him.
Mo Fan didn't stop walking.
He just raised a hand and waved it lazily.
"Today counts as me owing you one!"
The girl stood in the crowd, shouting after his retreating back.
Mo Fan still didn't turn around.
"Let's hope there isn't a next time."
"You...!"
The girl stamped her foot in place, furious, and in the end let herself be escorted by the City Lord's Manor's people...
Walking grudgingly toward the carriage waiting at the alley mouth.
Qing Luan, however, didn't board immediately.
He stood where he was, quietly watching the street corner at the far end of the black market where Mo Fan had disappeared.
Only after a moment did he slowly draw his gaze back.
"Lu Xiaoqi..."
He murmured the name once, thoughtful.
Then he turned and stepped up into the carriage.
The carriage soon disappeared into the clamorous streets and alleys of Cangqing City.