It took less than a week after the rules were established for Mo Qian to prove why an unreliable man could still be indispensable.
He descended to the village at dawn wearing rough clothes, his hair tied differently and his whole posture altered. No one in the sect would have mistaken him for a peasant, but in small markets people usually see what they expect to see. And no one expected the Primordial Firmament Sect to have eyes and ears among the stalls.
The idea had been Lin Yuan's.
If Grey Cloud and the local clans were already watching them, the sect could not afford to focus only on walls and barriers. They needed information. And among all his disciples, Mo Qian was the one who seemed to breathe more easily the murkier a situation became.
"Don't steal anything unnecessary," Lin Yuan told him before he left.
Mo Qian smiled. "'Unnecessary' is a depressing word."
"If you get caught for something stupid, I won't come rescue you."
"If I get caught, Founder, it will be because my talent was insufficiently appreciated."
Despite the light tone, both of them understood that the mission mattered. Bai Lian needed certain herbs that were becoming scarce. Gu Tian wanted fragments of mineral and sealing ink. Mu Qingxue had left behind a short list of materials for reinforcing minor formations. And above all, Lin Yuan wanted to know what people were saying now that the sect had begun to attract notice.
Mo Qian returned after sunset carrying two bags, a victorious grin, and news worth far more than the items.
"The Heishan Clan is buying men," he said as soon as he entered the hall. "Not true fighters. Brutes. Debt-collectors. People used to breaking things. Also, in the black market someone connected to Grey Cloud was asking about paths that circle around our mountain."
Gu Tian set his wine jar on the table. "Expected."
"Yes," Mo Qian said. "But there's more. There's going to be a clandestine auction in three nights. Not a big one. One of those places where scavengers, minor clans, smiling merchants, and ruin-divers gather. There will be old formation materials, broken relics, worn seals, and... this."
He unwrapped a small metal fragment from a cloth bundle.
Lin Yuan took it. The moment the dull piece touched his hand, the medallion beneath his robe pulsed once—faintly, but unmistakably.
He looked up. "Where did you get this?"
Mo Qian leaned against the wall in satisfaction. "A drunk was using it to scratch his table while boasting that his cousin found something like it in a ruin. I traded three lies, one coin, and one fright for the piece."
Gu Tian took it from Lin Yuan, examined it, and frowned with interest.
"It isn't valuable by itself," he muttered. "Part of something. A formation key segment, or an incomplete node."
Su Wan stepped close enough to see. Bai Lian was carrying a bowl of fresh herbs. Jian Mu still trained outside in the courtyard, but even he raised his head at the change in the atmosphere. Han Yue sat on a stone table pretending boredom.
"Then we go to the auction and take what matters," he said.
"That," Mo Qian replied, "is exactly how someone sounds who has never set foot in a room where smiles are more dangerous than swords."
Lin Yuan did not need much time to decide. The fragment resonated with the medallion, which meant the auction might hold objects tied to ruins or deeper inheritances. Ignoring it would be foolish. Walking in carelessly would be just as bad.
"Who can go without drawing too much attention?" he asked.
"I can," Mo Qian answered immediately.
"You attract attention even when breathing," Han Yue said.
"And you attract it with all the subtlety of a fire," Mo Qian shot back.
Gu Tian grunted. "I can go. A drunk old man in a black market is as common as dust."
Lin Yuan nodded slowly. Mu Qingxue was away at her clan, though her knowledge would be useful. Bai Lian needed to stay. Su Wan was not ready for that kind of exposed environment. Jian Mu and Han Yue could serve as backup only if they were ordered not to speak, which was already a strategic challenge in Han Yue's case.
That night Mo Qian described what he had heard in the market. The auction would be held in an old warehouse near the dry creek south of the village. Buyers entered by invitation or recommendation. Most items were small and dirty, but occasionally something valuable appeared because minor ruin-scavengers did not know what they had found. He had also heard the name of the Celestial Compass Pavilion, which made the situation significantly more delicate.
"When information brokers begin circling," he said, "it means we aren't the only ones hungry."
Lin Yuan spent much of the night planning. They could not spend too much. They could not show urgency. They could not let anyone openly connect the newborn sect to certain objects. Yet the intuition remained lodged in his chest like a thorn: the fragment Mo Qian brought home was not an accident.
Before leaving, Mo Qian lingered in the hall and looked once more at the piece on the table.
"You know," he said, his tone strangely less playful, "somewhere else, someone like me would have kept this and sold it later—or run away with it."
Lin Yuan looked at him. "What stopped you?"
Mo Qian smiled faintly. "Maybe I'm getting sick."
Lin Yuan said nothing. But as the young man walked away, he thought that this "useful thief," as the system had once labeled him, was changing faster than anyone might have expected.
Not because he had suddenly become good.
But because for the first time, he was beginning to find reasons not to live for himself alone.