"What are you doing?"

"What is that in your hand?"

"Don't do this!"

After Su Xuan darted behind the rock, someone started shouting in panic.

CLICK!

CLICK!

The shouts were mixed with another strange sound, accompanied by flashes of light. If someone from the world below were here, they would recognize at a glance that Su Xuan had taken out a phone to take pictures, and had even used the flash!

"Hehe, perfect!" Behind the rock, Su Xuan held his phone, his lips curling into a smirk.

Next to him squatted a disheveled man and woman, both trembling with fear. The man, whom the elder had earlier called "my young master," was especially terrified, breaking out in a cold sweat. He didn't dare lay a hand on Su Xuan; after all, Su Xuan could incapacitate his "bodyguard" with a single slap!

"Take a look, both of you." Su Xuan presented the phone screen to the young master.

Seeing his own photo on the screen, the young master's face turned ashen. If such photos got out, he'd be too ashamed to show his face in the Mountain World. It would be utterly humiliating!

"I plan to show these photos to Sect Leader Su Pei of the Yu Xian Sect," Su Xuan said calmly as he put his phone away. "If she saw someone conducting such disgraceful acts within her sect, she would definitely..."

"Don't, don't!" the young master said hastily. "Please don't show these to Sect Leader Su, and don't tell anyone about this. We were in the wrong just now. How about we offer some compensation?"

"You see, once someone provokes me, it's very hard for me to forgive them," Su Xuan's voice turned cold.

"Please forgive me this one time!" the man pleaded, pressing his palms together.

"However," Su Xuan's tone shifted, "if you're talking about compensation, I'm willing to accept. So, what kind of compensation did you have in mind?"

"Xuan tickets!"

"Elixirs!"

The man quickly snatched his outer coat from the ground, fumbled inside, and produced a thick wad of high-denomination Xuan tickets and a bulging bag of elixirs, offering them to Su Xuan.

Su Xuan took them and couldn't help but grin. Forgetting the value of the elixirs for a moment, the Xuan tickets alone were worth more than one hundred thousand!

To carry so many Xuan tickets on a trip… this man must come from a very wealthy family!

"Who are you? You can be honest now, can't you?" Su Xuan asked.

"Of course, of course," the man replied with a miserable expression. "I am Zhu Hongyun, the eldest young master of the Zhu Family from Lockheart Mountain."

"Alright, Zhu Hongyun, you can go." Satisfied with the compensation, Su Xuan waved him off.

As if granted a pardon, Zhu Hongyun quickly grabbed the girl beside him and scrambled away.

"Hold on a second," Su Xuan suddenly called out. "That jade pendant around your neck looks pretty good. Why don't you add it to the compensation?"

"This..." Zhu Hongyun hesitated.

The jade pendant was called the Treasure-Seeking Pendant. As its name suggested, it could sense the location of treasures, making them easy to find. This was precisely what he had prepared for tomorrow's trial. Without it, his gains would be greatly reduced.

"What? Unwilling?" Zhu Hongyun's expression convinced Su Xuan that the pendant was indeed something valuable.

"I... I'm willing." Though his heart ached, Zhu Hongyun gritted his teeth and handed the pendant to Su Xuan before finally fleeing, completely forgetting about his elderly bodyguard.

"The Zhu Family will remember this! You just wait!"

Seeing Zhu Hongyun abandon him, Wu Bo could only start crawling away, though he still managed to hiss a threat at Su Xuan. He and Zhu Hongyun were used to swaggering about and intimidating others. When had they ever suffered such humiliation?

"You haven't paid your compensation yet!" Su Xuan said with a cold expression, blocking Wu Bo's path to demand payment.

Wu Bo didn't want to pay, so he simply lay on the ground and played dead.

"Old man, if you don't compensate my cousin, I'll stab you!" Ji Sisi, seeing Su Xuan had the upper hand, grew playful. She pulled a hairpin from her hair, pointed it at Wu Bo's eyes, and said, "Tell me, should I stab your left eye first or your right?"

"Don't stab!"

"Let's talk this out!"

Wu Bo immediately became much more cooperative and handed over all his valuables to Su Xuan.

"See? Wouldn't it have been easier if you'd just done this from the start? Goodbye!" Su Xuan, having received another payment, laughed and waved farewell to Wu Bo.

Wu Bo crawled away, his face grim.

"Cousin, you were amazing back there!" Now that it was just the two of them on the hilltop, Ji Sisi cheered, clinging to Su Xuan's arm and bouncing with every happy step. "Where did you get that thing?" she asked curiously. "I've never seen you take it out before."

She was referring to Su Xuan's cell phone.

"A friend gave it to me. It's getting late, let's enjoy the moon!" Su Xuan dodged the question, found a grassy patch to sit on, and looked up at the night sky.

Ji Sisi also sat down, resting her head on Su Xuan's shoulder.

The moonlight framed them in a beautiful silhouette, but their thoughts were worlds apart.

Su Xuan suddenly recalled a line of poetry:

Dew will be white from this night on; the moon is brightest in my homeland.

Ji Sisi, on the other hand, was thinking:

How did my cousin suddenly change so much? His charm has multiplied, far surpassing the cousin I knew before! To be honest, I was somewhat annoyed by my former cousin. He was always so clingy, and his actions were wishy-washy, lacking any real manliness! But today's cousin has an off-the-charts manliness index! Truly domineering and mighty!

She couldn't help but take Su Xuan's warm hand. Gazing at the beautiful moon, she too recalled a poem:

A bright moon rises over the sea; from the farthest shores, we share this moment.

But little did she know that this cousin was not that cousin; the two were as different as heaven and earth.

"Cousin, how did your combat strength get so domineering?" After a moment of starry-eyed admiration, Ji Sisi couldn't help but ask.

"Hah, I just surpassed myself for a moment," Su Xuan said modestly.

"No, it was more than that!" Ji Sisi pouted. "Actually, I've already figured it out. You've been hiding your true strength all along, pretending to be a spoiled young master. Cousin, are you planning to become the Head of the Ji Family?"

She knew the Ji Family was in a period of transition. If her cousin continued his spoiled ways, he would likely lose his eligibility to inherit the family fortune, as there were too many capable siblings and relatives competing with him.

Su Xuan remained enigmatically silent.

Ji Sisi took his silence as confirmation.

"Cousin, you can do it!" she said. "I'll always support you!"

"Cousin..." Ji Sisi said again, this time shyly, "when you become the Head of the Ji Family, there will be nothing standing in the way of us being together. I'm willing... to be with you. I can swear it on this moon!"

"Go on back and get some sleep." Seeing Ji Sisi begin to sincerely make an oath to the moon, Su Xuan patted the dust off his clothes and stood up.

Only after finishing her oath did Ji Sisi get up and follow him.

「That night.」

Zhu Hongyun of the Lockheart Mountain Zhu Family found it impossible to sleep. After tossing and turning several times, he said to the old attendant sharing his room, "Wu Bo, I want to kill that kid!"

"So do I," Wu Bo replied.

"But you can't beat him!" Zhu Hongyun said, disappointed.

"I can!" Wu Bo took out a Golden Needle. Staring at its sharp tip, he said, "With this, I can beat him! With this, I can kill him!"

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