Shortly after the incident, Ao Fan immediately ordered the Lan family to close the city gates and strictly inspect every departing cultivator, demanding that Nie Shiyun be captured and brought before him the moment he was found. Knowing he was in a towering rage, the Lan family did not dare to disobey. However, they were ultimately just a powerful clan; they could restrict cultivators for a time, but they did not possess the absolute authority of a mortal emperor. After some internal deliberation, the Lan family decided to collaborate with other families to issue a joint arrest warrant, intending to solve the problem with a massive bounty.
In less than a day, Nie Shiyun’s name spread throughout the Middle Realm. Aside from the cultivators who had witnessed the artifact-crafting competition, very few had ever heard of him. The few cultivators from the Shang Family Artifact Workshop who had interacted with him dared not utter a word, trembling in their homes for fear that some powerful figure might mistakenly believe they were associates and involve them in the fallout.
Madam Shang soon learned of the news. Both anxious and angry, she hurriedly contacted Nie Shiyun to demand why he had caused such a massive commotion. Although her tone was clearly filled with irritation, it carried an even deeper sense of underlying worry.
At that moment, Nie Shiyun was inside the jade pendant space, observing the situation outside.
It had been over half a day since he had entered the space at the scene and, amidst the chaos, hitched a ride on a passing cultivator to leave the area. He had expected Ao Fan to be livid, so he was not surprised to learn that the Lan family had begun questioning every cultivator in the city one by one.
He still had Disguise Pills on him, but the Lan family were no fools; they would surely dispatch cultivators with higher cultivation bases to keep a strict watch. Disguise Pills were not omnipotent; when faced with specialized magic treasures or a significantly higher cultivation level, it was easy for flaws to be exposed. The places under the strictest scrutiny were undoubtedly the Artifact Crafting Guild, the cultivation rooms, various elixir shops, and the inns.
Having planned this well in advance, Nie Shiyun had already collected all the rewards he was owed and replenished his supply of pills. While the Lan family kept a sleepless watch over those locations, he was resting and building up his strength within an inconspicuous thicket.
"Is it really necessary for Ao Fan to be this angry? Didn't he win?"
"Anyone with eyes can see he was played for a fool! Haha, it’s truly satisfying."
"Shh, lower your voice. He’s in a foul mood; let’s not end up as his punching bags."
Passing cultivators, thinking no one was around, laughingly discussed the day's events as their voices gradually faded into the distance.
When the moon rose to the treetops, Pinghe City fell into the silence of late night after the grand farce of the day. However, the Lan family cultivators remained dutifully at their posts throughout the town, not daring to miss a single detail.
Nie Shiyun did not know how long this situation would last, but he figured that after a few days of fruitless searching, the opposition would naturally begin to suspect that he had somehow slipped out of the city unnoticed. Leaving the city then would likely be much simpler.
He took this opportunity to respond to Madam Shang.
Having heard nothing from Nie Shiyun for over half a day, Madam Shang had been frantic with worry. When she finally received his reply, his tone was unhurried. Rather than worrying about his own future after offending the Lan family and Ao Fan, he first apologized to her, saying that had he known it would come to this, he wouldn't have stayed at the Shang Family Artifact Workshop, fearing he might have implicated them.
Madam Shang was stuck between anger and laughter. "You don't need to worry about such trivialities. If you have the energy for that, why not worry about yourself? Do you have any idea how enraged Ao Fan is! The Lan family has joined forces with three other families, determined to capture you alive throughout the entire Middle Realm. Such a massive mobilization is truly rare. This involves the relationships between several great families—how am I supposed to save you?"
She sent several long, rambling messages, unable to sit still while waiting for a response. She imagined Nie Shiyun must be a refugee on the run; would his distraction in listening to her messages indirectly harm him?
"Sigh..."
"Madam, please don't distress yourself; it's bad for your health... Could it be that because you care for him so much, he truly thinks he can just go around causing trouble everywhere?"
Madam Shang looked helplessly at the maid who was worriedly massaging her shoulders and asked in return, "It would be better if he actually came to me for help. You see how he acts as if he's following everyone's lead, but in truth, he has his own plans calculated very clearly!"
"But he's only one person. Can he really escape the Lan family's pursuit? Even if he runs out of Pinghe City, he won't be able to reach the Upper Realm. After all, the Immortal Ships are also properties under the great families."
Madam Shang froze for a moment, then patted the maid's hand. "Thank goodness you reminded me. I must tell him that the token for the Immortal Ship can no longer be used."
Seeing Madam Shang send another message to Nie Shiyun, the maid pursed her lips helplessly and muttered softly, "Madam is just too kind to people. Especially to the juniors."
Upon receiving the news, Nie Shiyun expressed his gratitude to Madam Shang once more. He hadn't expected the Lan family to move so quickly, even coordinating with the industries of other families. He had originally planned to find a way out of the city in a few days and head toward the docks.
It seemed he wouldn't be able to catch that Immortal Ship. Other matters were manageable, but this was the one thing Nie Shiyun found regrettable.
However, the dragon scale was an indispensable part of repairing the passage; such an opportunity would not come twice. Although he longed to go to the Phoenix Clan's territory to find his partner as soon as possible, after weighing the two options, Nie Shiyun decided to prioritize the greater goal.
"It really wasn't easy."
Nie Shiyun held the translucent, hard scale, which reflected beautiful light under the naturally soft glow of the space. Although Ao Fan himself had a terrible temper, it didn't diminish the beauty of a dragon's scale.
Nie Shiyun felt a sense of longing from the jade pendant space toward this scale, so he put it away into another storage tool after admiring it. The jade pendant hadn't been so "hungry" for a long time; usually, precious materials thrown inside would remain untouched even after years. But whenever it showed an interest in absorbing something as part of itself, it was invariably a rare treasure.
Obtaining a single dragon scale had caused such a commotion. Thinking of how Xuan Yang, despite being ten thousand times unwilling, had still given him several phoenix feathers since childhood, Nie Shiyun could only say it was fortunate he had raised Xuan Yang himself.
The Dragon and Phoenix clans were the most powerful. Once these two sides were settled, things would be much easier. The White Tiger clan had occasionally interacted with humans for a thousand years and was much more "approachable" compared to the Dragons and Phoenixes. As for the Xuanwu clan, he heard they had decent tempers but spent most of their time slumbering in the sea regions; not even the other three clans could easily find them, let alone humans.
Setting aside future concerns for the moment, Nie Shiyun soothed his Heteromorphic Fire, which was still somewhat restless after the day's excitement, and calmed himself to begin cultivating. Although he had the jade pendant space as an excellent hiding spot, he was currently a wanted man across the entire realm. No matter how hidden his movements were, there was no guarantee he wouldn't be discovered while traveling. It was always better to have a more stable cultivation base.
While Nie Shiyun was steadily improving his cultivation in peace, the city was in an uproar.
Ao Fan had expected that within three days, Nie Shiyun—that human who deserved to be hacked into a thousand pieces—would be brought before him. How could a Void Refinement cultivator escape the eyes of the many Body Integration cultivators throughout the Lan family? In the end, even the head of the Lan family in the Middle Realm, a Mahayana stage cultivator, had personally intervened. Yet ten days had passed, and the man who couldn't be found remained missing.
"He couldn't have just vanished into thin air! Is your Lan family full of useless trash?"
Hearing the report from a Lan family servant, Ao Fan irritably swept the teacups and vases off the table with a single strike, sending them shattering across the floor.
"We... we don't know either..."
The scapegoated cultivator wanted to cry but had no tears, tremblingly clearing away the shards from the floor.
Everyone had thought that after a few days, Ao Fan's anger would subside, but unexpectedly, he became even more volatile than before.
The Lan family had no idea that Ao Fan had been swindled out of a dragon scale. Furthermore, there was something else they didn't know: because Ao Fan had caused such a massive stir, the Lan family head naturally had to report it to the main branch in the Upper Realm. Upon hearing of it, the main branch didn't dare keep it a secret and reported it to the Dragon Clan.
The leader of the Dragon Clan—Ao Fan's father—didn't take the matter too seriously. In his eyes, Ao Fan running off to the Middle Realm to compete with humans was just a childish game, so he let him be. However, Ao Fan was his youngest son, after all. Hearing that he was in a bad mood, the leader sent a perfunctory message, informing Ao Fan that a clan gathering was scheduled in a few years and it would be good for him to return to the clan for a while then.
Ao Fan's body shook three times when he saw the message.
When members of the same clan met, especially at occasions like banquets, they wouldn't always remain in human form. A few years was nowhere near enough time for a dragon to regrow a scale to its original state! When that group of kinsmen saw him missing a scale, they would surely mock him.
He had to kill Nie Shiyun to vent his anger before then! And he would seize his storage rings and bracelets; if he could get the scale back, perhaps he could temporarily stick it back on to fool them...
Ao Fan paced irritably in his room, his teeth itching with hatred.
"Achoo."
Nie Shiyun, cultivating in the jade pendant, sneezed. He hadn't yet realized that his act of "scale-snatching" would indirectly lead to Ao Fan losing all face within the Dragon Clan.
Nie Shiyun stretched and, after a long interval, checked the situation outside.
Having taken a Disguise Pill, Nie Shiyun emerged into the outside world. Wary of the Lan family's layers of inspection, he didn't dare approach the city gates or the Artifact Crafting Guild. However, blending into the crowds to walk around and listen to the cultivators' gossip was perfectly fine.
As expected, although the Lan family maintained a basic level of vigilance, they had likely begun to suspect that Nie Shiyun had slipped away unnoticed. After all, it stood to reason that if a whole family of cultivators couldn't find a single trace of a Void Refinement cultivator after ten days, he simply wasn't there. Cultivators were also starting to whisper that Nie Shiyun was probably long gone, and that the Lan family's continued strict inspections would only bring inconvenience to other rogue cultivators.
The Lan family was caught in a dilemma, but it seemed they were preparing to gradually give up the search within the city and instead cast a wider net.
Nie Shiyun, who had lost track of time in the jade pendant space, checked the date. Although the opportunity to leave the city was coming soon, he
*************
"So that's how it is..."
Zhai Bairong had brought Nie Shiyun to a different town. As soon as they settled into an inn, he entered the spatial realm, prompting Nie Shiyun to explain the sequence of events in detail.
Upon learning that the matter concerned the repair of the Ascension Path, Zhai Bairong felt that the risk was justified. Although Nie Shiyun never shrank back when action was required, he was not one to court trouble without a compelling reason.
When Zhai Bairong had first arrived in the Middle Layer, he heard that a smithing competition was being held in Pinghe City. He knew that while he might not make it in time to participate, it was highly likely he could find news of Nie Shiyun there, so he set off immediately. He hadn't expected that halfway through his journey, Nie Shiyun’s name would spread across the Middle Layer in such a notorious fashion. Hearing others describe Nie Shiyun as a lone rogue cultivator, Zhai Bairong realized that his partner had not relied on any family or sect after arriving in the Upper Realm, which only made him more worried about Nie Shiyun’s current predicament of being hunted.
Seeing Zhai Bairong lost in silent contemplation, Nie Shiyun leaned in close. "What? Are you still angry?"
"I am not angry. I was simply anxious that you would disregard your own safety so recklessly."
Nie Shiyun patted the back of his hand. "I had at least a ninety percent certainty before I made my move. Even if I had failed, I would have been able to escape. Though it may have looked like a narrow miss, the item is in my hands. At worst, I would have had to go into hiding for a few decades; my life was never in any real danger..."
Zhai Bairong paused, then turned his hand over to clasp Nie Shiyun’s firmly. "...Fine. As long as you are alright in the end."
Nie Shiyun smiled. "Not angry anymore?"
Zhai Bairong replied helplessly, "I told you, I am not angry."
He pulled Nie Shiyun’s hand to his face and pressed a gentle kiss against it. Nie Shiyun felt as though the spot where those lips touched his skin had been set ablaze.
Absence truly made the heart grow fonder. He pressed himself against the other man, whispering intimately into Zhai Bairong’s ear, "A great deal has happened this past year. I have so much I want to tell you, and I want to hear how you’ve spent your days as well... but I suppose all of that can wait until later."
Their lips met. What began as a light, tentative touch soon grew fervent, as the longing accumulated over an entire year suddenly overflowed like a surging spring.
