After she realized what she'd just done, Nuo Tao's face—already flushed an abnormal shade of crimson—instantly went deep-ripe red.
With a "whoosh" she sprang up off the ground and retreated to the corner.
She lifted her head to look at Gu Chengming. She'd meant to fling out a couple of fierce words to salvage some face, but the moment they reached her lips, that sense of submission carved into her subconscious left her utterly unable to put up a tough front, and what finally came out was soft and meek: "What did you do to me?"
Gu Chengming didn't answer. Instead he clapped his hands, dispersing that last wisp of aura lingering at his fingertips, and said with a smile:
"Don't be nervous, Miss Thief-Cultivator. This is merely to give us a conversational setting where we can, for the time being, set down our inner guard and treat each other with candor."
——Candor my foot!
Nuo Tao roared wildly in her heart, yet looking at that smile of Gu Chengming's, she found that her impression of this sword-cultivator fellow had, for some reason, indeed grown a good deal warmer, and that urge to be obedient simply could not be suppressed.
"A Harmonious Joy Sect technique?"
Nuo Tao muttered, a little glumly.
It wasn't as though she'd never run into Harmonious Joy Sect disciples on her travels down the mountain before, but what one of those people had ever had a method like this?
In the conversation that followed between the two of them—perhaps because the effects of that illusory realm still lingered—Nuo Tao behaved with extraordinary cooperation.
Not only did she reveal her own background—the current Walker of the Myriad-Theft Gate—she also laid bare in full the purpose of this descent from the mountain.
Perhaps it was the influence of Gu Chengming's Red Dust Art illusory realm, perhaps it was the posture Gu Chengming now took in speaking with her that loosened her guard, or perhaps it was because her entire fortune and very life were at this moment in the hands of the man before her.
Like a bamboo tube tipped of its beans, bit by bit she spilled out all the secrets concerning the token, the secret realm, and the like.
——So it's a secret realm left behind by the Myriad-Theft Gate?
Having heard her out, Gu Chengming stroked the Azure Luan token in his hand, lost in thought.
This was an unexpected delight. He'd originally assumed it was merely some ordinary ancient cultivator's ruin—who'd have thought it was a place of inheritance left behind by the Myriad-Theft Gate, which specialized in the dao of cause-and-effect and fortune-stealing, and the handiwork of that legendary Myriad-Theft Immortal Sovereign no less.
Seeing Gu Chengming fall into contemplation, only then did Nuo Tao belatedly come to her senses.
"I'm done for..."
She clapped a hand over her mouth in some chagrin—how had she so easily blurted out the greatest secret of her sect?
If her master found out about this, wouldn't he break her legs?
But things had come to this; there was no room left to take it back. She might as well see whether, after she'd told all this, the other party would show some great mercy and let her go.
"Um..." Nuo Tao glanced cautiously at Gu Chengming and probed: "I've said it all now—can you let me go?"
Gu Chengming came back to himself, looked at the hope-filled Nuo Tao, and shook his head: "That probably won't do."
He pointed out the door: "If I'm not mistaken, you thief-cultivators have never registered at Snowfall Pass, am I right?"
A faint bad premonition rose in Nuo Tao's heart, and she gritted her teeth and said:
"Of course thief-cultivators don't register with the authorities!"
The girl's tone was rather self-righteous: "If we really did register, our identity information would go into the official rolls—then how could we steal from people, steal from heaven, steal cause and effect? What's more, my Dust-Merging is in itself a concealment art untouched by cause and effect. To register my own name with the authorities would be tantamount to entering the mortal world; others could follow the cause and effect, vine to melon, straight to me."
Finally she tossed her head up, and to defend the last shred of a thief-cultivator's dignity, said through clenched teeth:
"We thief-cultivators never register! It's the rule!"
Gu Chengming nodded, and on his face surfaced that smile that made Nuo Tao's skin crawl:
"I know. That's exactly why I'm going to have you come register with me right now."
Perhaps because of the effect of the Red Dust Art illusory realm, Gu Chengming found that in just this short span of time he had already established a rather deep—one might even say thick and sturdy—cause-and-effect thread between himself and this thief-cultivator young lady before him.
And by means of this cause-and-effect thread, he could easily discern this Miss Nuo Tao's emotions at this very moment.
——This really is...
Gu Chengming sighed inwardly.
It seemed he really had invented a rather overpowered technique for using the Red Dust Art. This kind of cause-and-effect link, built up through "conditioning," was far sturdier than a simple exchange of interests or a debt of gratitude.
"I won't go!" Nuo Tao shook her head like a rattle-drum: "A scholar may be killed but not humiliated. If a thief-cultivator actually registers with the authorities, is she still a thief-cultivator? I cannot possibly do something so disgraceful! If I really registered, I'd be the most disgraceful generation the Myriad-Theft Gate has had in several thousand years! My master would expel me from the sect!"
Nuo Tao seemed genuinely to resist this act, even prepared once more to perish together with her foe rather than yield.
Within his sea of consciousness, that cautious voice rang out once again.
[The «Red Dust Phantom Body Formula» looked on coldly, its tone detached: Fellow Daoist Gu, don't waste your breath on her.]
[People like this won't shed a tear until they see the coffin. Yet she's merely an Ant Realm nobody. To exhort her so kindly is to leave her a path to live, and yet she's so obstinate and pig-headed, blind to good intentions.]
[Since she can't be made use of, and she knows your secret, and might even bring trouble down on you, you may as well simply kill her. Dispose of the corpse cleanly, and don't spare the spirit-soul either.]
Gu Chengming paid no heed to the «Red Dust Phantom Body Formula»'s killing intent; he merely gazed quietly at Nuo Tao.
Under his gaze, Nuo Tao's skin crawled, and she too came to realize that her attitude just now had been rather dangerous.
Right now she was the fish on the chopping block, and he the knife!
"Fellow..." Nuo Tao's expression changed in an instant, and she said with a pitiful, aggrieved air: "I've already handed over all the treasures on me, and I haven't done anything bad at Snowfall Pass—if you want to push the point, all I did was steal a dozen-odd dharma artifacts from a black-hearted trading house. Just let me go."
"Even if you kill me you'll get nothing—my storage pouch will self-destruct after I die, and besides——"
She gave a sniff and played her last trump card: "My master is a Fifth-Realm great cultivator, and he's most skilled at deducing cause and effect. If I die here, the venerable old man will surely know, and then you'll be in trouble too!"
On hearing the four words "Fifth-Realm great cultivator," Gu Chengming's expression didn't change much.
After all, when you're already deep in debt, one more doesn't weigh you down—one more Fifth-Realm enemy was no big deal.
But within his sea of consciousness, a certain cultivation method that had just been clamoring to kill and maim underwent a light-speed reversal in attitude.
[The «Red Dust Phantom Body Formula» knit its brows, its tone instantly turning grave: So she's not Ant Realm... but Junior Realm? And standing behind her is a Fifth-Realm great power skilled in cause and effect?]
[That does call for careful consideration. The methods of a Fifth-Realm powerhouse are unfathomable. To kill the small one and draw out the old one would be extremely unfavorable to your great cause of longevity, Fellow Daoist Gu.]
[It pondered a moment, then immediately changed its tune: Fellow Daoist Gu, grudges are better resolved than forged. Since she has a backer, sparing her life may hold more value. As for the registration matter—perhaps we could discuss it again? Or... it would suffice if she merely swore a Heavenly Dao oath?]
Gu Chengming thought to himself, your face certainly changes fast—where did that fierce streak from a moment ago go?
He withdrew his thoughts, looked at Nuo Tao, his tone unchanged as ever: "I won't kill you, but you are, after all, a thief-cultivator."
Gu Chengming drew that Night-Patrol Token from his bosom and said solemnly:
"Here at Snowfall Pass, I count as a Night-Watch Bureau official bearing certain duties."
"I cannot be certain whether, after you leave, you'll go on thieving, or whether you'll endanger the safety of Snowfall Pass. So registering on Snowfall Pass's management rolls—this is the bottom line, and the precondition for you to walk out of this room alive."
"As for what you said earlier, about not having done anything bad at Snowfall Pass..."
Gu Chengming looked at her: "After you register, the Night-Watch Bureau will naturally investigate and verify. But that's on the premise that, as you say, you really only stole from that black-hearted trading house, took no lives, and did no other evil. Otherwise, a spell behind bars cannot be avoided."
Nuo Tao looked into Gu Chengming's eyes, then thought of that master of hers—formidable, yes, but not necessarily able to rush to her rescue in time—and finally felt once more, deep in her mind, that ringing-bell imprint that made her instinctively want to obey.
At last she caved.
"Fine..." Nuo Tao let her head droop. "Register, then, I'll register..."
Snowfall Pass, the Census Bureau, the hall abuzz with voices.
This was the busiest, and also the most clamorous, place in the entire frontier pass.
Traveling merchants coming and going had to pay their taxes here; newly arrived demon-hunting squads had to report in here; even those criminals exiled here from within the realm had first to come here to leave their mark and collect their hard-labor tags.
"Next! Stop shoving, line up properly!"
The clerk in charge of registration, Old Wang, was an old hand who'd knocked about Snowfall Pass for thirty years. Wearing his official cap, a balding vermilion brush in hand, he was, with a thoroughly impatient face, driving off several rogue cultivators trying to cut the line.
Just then the light at the hall's entrance suddenly dimmed, and the hall abruptly fell quiet.
Old Wang furrowed his brow, thinking, which blind fool is making trouble at the door now?
He was just about to slam the table and curse, but when he raised his head, the profanity already at his lips was forcibly swallowed back, turning into a string of violent coughs.
"Cough, cough, cough—Lord Gu?!"
Old Wang hastily took his feet down off the stool and straightened his official cap.
There at the hall's entrance, a young man with a long sword hanging at his waist was walking slowly forward.
It was none other than the tenth-ranked on the Hidden Dragon Ranking—Gu Chengming.
"Lord Gu, what brings you here?" Old Wang came trotting over to greet him: "If there's anything you need, just send word."
Gu Chengming halted his steps and gave Old Wang a gentle smile: "You're too courteous, Clerk Wang. Handling things by the rules—it's only proper."
"My lord is noble and high-minded." As Old Wang said this, his gaze drifted, of its own accord, to behind Gu Chengming.
There stood a girl who looked to be about fifteen or sixteen.
The girl was pretty, her hair tied up in playful twin ponytails, only at this moment her fair little face was full of dejection and reluctance, her head drooping low, all but burying itself into her chest. She wrung the hem of her clothes with both hands and dragged her feet along behind Gu Chengming, every step as though roots had grown beneath her feet—that put-upon, downtrodden look of hers couldn't help but stir one's pity.
"And this is...?" Old Wang hesitated a little.
Gu Chengming turned sideways and, ever so naturally, reached out a hand, and like guiding a wayward junior of his own household, gently patted the girl's shoulder and pushed her up to the counter.
"She's here to register." Gu Chengming pointed at the roster on the desk, his tone bland: "Outside cultivators entering the pass must truthfully register their identity, cultivation, and lineage. That's correct, isn't it?"
Old Wang was taken aback for a moment, but didn't ask further. He sat back down behind the counter, spread open a brand-new roster, lifted his brush and dipped it in ink, and looked toward the girl who'd kept her head down all along.
"Name?"
The girl kept her head down, staring fixedly at her own toes. She really didn't want to say.
As a Walker of the Myriad-Theft Gate, as a thief-cultivator who'd set her ambition on becoming a "Thief Saint," to leave her name on the authorities' rolls was simply to grind her own career into the dirt! This was an utter, abject humiliation!
How would the friends she had out in the martial world look at her from now on?
"Oho, isn't this Nuo Tao? I hear you got a temporary residence permit at Snowfall Pass? Or was it a good-citizen certificate?"
The moment she pictured that scene, Nuo Tao wanted to find a block of tofu and bash her head against it.
"Young lady?" Seeing she wasn't speaking, Old Wang prompted her again.
Nuo Tao bit her lip and steeled herself: "...Nuo Pao."
"Nuo Pao?" Clerk Wang was a bit puzzled; it sounded rather familiar.
Nuo Tao nodded rapidly, working her little scheme in her heart.
As long as it wasn't her real name, cause and effect couldn't lock onto her. Yet before the beads of her abacus had even clacked into place—
"Pat." That soft sound was not heavy at all, just like an elder's affectionate pat on a junior.
Nuo Tao's body gave a violent shudder, and almost without any process of conscious thought, her body reacted on instinct.
"N-no, that's wrong, I misspoke! My name is Nuo Tao, I'm not called Nuo Pao—it was a slip of the tongue just now, truly a slip of the tongue!"
After shouting all this, she even instinctively shrank her neck, stealing a glance out of the corner of her eye at the hand Gu Chengming had laid on her shoulder.
"Eh?"
The brush in Old Wang's hand hung suspended in mid-air; a drop of ink fell onto the paper with a "plop," spreading into a blot of black.
"Ahem, Nuo Tao, is it? Good name, good name. And your place of origin? Or rather, what gate or sect is your lineage from?"
Nuo Tao bit her lip, her gaze shifting about, trying once again to bluff her way through: "No gate, no sect—just a rogue cultivator."
This time, Gu Chengming didn't even lift a hand.
He merely tapped lightly on the desktop with his fingers, twice.
And the girl, giving herself up for lost, spilled it all out in one breath.
"Lineage of the Myriad-Theft Gate, the thirty-sixth-generation worldly Walker of the Myriad-Theft Gate, occupation: thief-cultivator."
Clerk Wang's hand froze. Though his cultivation wasn't high, he counted as half a man of the martial world, and of this legendary, never-showing-its-full-form sect that styled itself "also an immortal gate," this freakish, oddball sect, he had naturally heard tell.
It was said that the heirs of this gate were each and every one supremely arrogant, their skills reaching to the heavens—divine thieves whom others, day in and day out, could only beg not to be robbed by. Where was the sense in one of them being hauled in to register?
Was this Lord Gu's doing? Now that was truly...
Seeing that Clerk Wang still hadn't set brush to paper, Gu Chengming asked, puzzled: "Is something the matter?"
"It's nothing." Old Wang swallowed a mouthful of saliva, then went on to ask: "Cultivation?"
Nuo Tao had by now thoroughly given up the broken pot to shatter as it would. She let her head droop: "Mid Second-Realm."
"Purpose of coming to Snowfall Pass?"
"Tempering, looking for something."
"Current residence?"
When asked this question, Nuo Tao instinctively was about to say "no fixed abode."
But she glanced at Gu Chengming beside her, and remembering her current predicament, she could only, with grief and indignation, change her answer: "Temporarily lodging at the Northern Garrison Manor, Lord Gu's home."
After that the registration was at last complete, and Old Wang handed her an identity wood-tablet. Nuo Tao numbly took the tablet.
She looked at the squarish "Nuo Tao" carved upon it, and the glaring line beneath it—"Occupation: thief-cultivator"—and felt that her life had gone utterly grey.
It's over, it's all over.
"Let's go."
Gu Chengming was quite satisfied with this result.
"Now that the formalities are done, you're a lawful resident of Snowfall Pass. From now on you must do things by the rules, understand?"
"I... I understand."
On the road back to the Northern Garrison Manor.
Nuo Tao followed dejectedly behind Gu Chengming, clutching tightly in her hand that identity tablet that stood for her shame.
She hesitated a long while, but couldn't help opening her mouth in a small voice, a few notes of pleading in her tone: "Brother Gu, I've registered now, and my identity's been exposed too. Can you let me go?"
Gu Chengming halted his steps and glanced back at her.
In the sunlight, the girl looked at him with reddened eyes, piteously. Gu Chengming smiled: "That won't do."
"You're now a key subject of my observation. Until I've confirmed you really haven't committed any crime, you'll stay obediently right under my eyes."
Gu Chengming pointed at the identity tablet in her hand: "And besides, you're a person with a registered identity now. If you ran off and something happened later, wouldn't I be the one left holding the bag?"
Nuo Tao stared at that retreating back, wanting to weep but without tears.
"Master..." Nuo Tao raised her head to the sky and let out a mournful wail in her heart: "This unfilial disciple has disgraced the Myriad-Theft Gate, woof!!!"
It's over.
This conditioned reflex can't be cured either.
In the study of the Northern Garrison Manor's rear courtyard, the candlelight flickered, drawing Gu Chengming's shadow out long and slender.
Upon the desk, lined up in a single row, were set twelve dharma artifacts.
These dharma artifacts varied in grade—there were flying swords and protective shields, and there were also auxiliary items such as jade pendants—but without exception they were all the loot Nuo Tao had lifted from the Myriad Gold Pavilion this time.
Gu Chengming was in no rush to interrogate Nuo Tao. Instead, he first sat alone in this study and, making use of the intelligence network at his command and the special sensing of the Red Dust Art, meticulously combed through this "Myriad-Theft Gate Walker's" movements since entering the pass.
The results were somewhat beyond his expectations.
Just as Nuo Tao had argued in her own defense, although she bore the title of thief-cultivator and did indeed go about her business in a furtive, sneaking manner, ever since she'd entered Snowfall Pass, apart from this "major case" targeting the Myriad Gold Pavilion, she really hadn't committed any heaven-defying, conscience-betraying deeds.
Never mind killing for goods—she'd even paid double for the buns at a roadside stall, seemingly because she'd thought the stall-keeper had it hard, and tossed in some charity along the way.
"A thief with principles, no less."
But this couldn't cover up the fact that she had stolen from the Myriad Gold Pavilion's storehouse.
Although Nuo Tao swore up and down that it was a "black-hearted trading house," in the laws of the Great Qian there was no clause stating that one could freely cart off someone's storehouse just because the other party was black-hearted.
On that basis alone, Gu Chengming could perfectly well throw her into the Night-Watch Bureau's dungeon and let her reflect properly for a good three to five years.
However, when his gaze truly fell upon those twelve top-grade Tier-Two dharma artifacts—
Under the gaze of those eyes steeped in red-dust qi, a layer of black miasma was coiling about each and every one of the dharma artifacts.
Twelve dharma artifacts, without a single exception, were all "dead men's wealth."
Were it one or two, it might still be coincidence—after all, killing for treasure is a common thing in the world of immortal cultivation, and a trading house reclaiming a few ownerless items could be explained away.
But twelve dharma artifacts, all about to take the stage as the finale lots, all being this kind of black goods—that could no longer be explained by mere coincidence.
The Myriad Gold Pavilion's sources were filthy to a shocking degree.
After that, Gu Chengming called out toward the door: "Come in."
The door was pushed open.
Nuo Tao dragged her feet in, both hands hanging properly at her sides. Walking to a spot three paces from the desk, she most consciously brought her legs together and, somewhat timidly, called out:
"Brother Gu?"
Gu Chengming pointed at the chair across from him: "Sit."
Nuo Tao's body gave a shudder, and she instinctively made to crouch down, but seeing the look in Gu Chengming's eyes, she forcibly halted the motion, and gingerly perched on only half a buttock, her back ramrod straight, like a student undergoing an examination by his tutor.
"Speak, then." Gu Chengming pointed at the heap of dharma artifacts on the desk: "Why were you so set on stealing these twelve at the time?"
Nuo Tao glanced at those dharma artifacts, and into her formerly somewhat cowed eyes there suddenly came a sliver of indignant resentment.
"I told you already—that Myriad Gold Pavilion is a black-hearted trading house!"
She curled her lip, and though her tone was still a bit weak, her confidence had clearly grown a good deal:
"In those first days after I came to the Barter Market, I heard those rogue cultivators muttering at the tea stalls, saying that quite a few lone travelers had vanished without a trace after going to the Myriad Gold Pavilion to fence stolen goods or appraise treasures."
"I felt something was off right then, and out of a... ahem, out of a chivalrous heart, I slipped in under cover of night."
Saying this, Nuo Tao instinctively puffed out her not-exactly-ample chest:
"We of the Myriad-Theft Gate cultivate the stealing of heaven's secrets and the filching of cause and effect. Toward this sort of blood-reeking thing, our intuition is the keenest."
"At the time, in the storehouse, I spotted these twelve finale goods prepared for the auction at a single glance."
"The cause and effect on these dharma artifacts was wound tight as death—one look and you could tell their original owners had died with unclosed eyes."
Gu Chengming gave her a somewhat surprised look: "Your Myriad-Theft Gate even understands the dao of cause and effect?"
Hearing Gu Chengming's skepticism, Nuo Tao was instantly displeased.
"Of course! We're the ones who steal heaven, steal earth, steal cause and effect!"
"Master has said: all things in the world have their fixed allotment; only cause and effect can be altered. When we steal things, what we're really doing is plucking at the threads of cause and effect."
"If one didn't even have this much discernment and stole some deadly thing laden with great cause and effect, one really would meet an untimely end."
Gu Chengming fell into thought.
By this account, Nuo Tao had indeed seen that there was something wrong with these dharma artifacts before choosing to act.
And the Myriad Gold Pavilion's bounty was very strange too.
By rights, with the storehouse robbed and twelve priceless Tier-Two dharma artifacts lost, a normal trading house should long since have reported it to the authorities.
Chaotic though Snowfall Pass was, the Great Qian's deterrent power was right there. As long as a case were filed, the authorities would inevitably intervene to investigate, with a city-wide manhunt.
But the Myriad Gold Pavilion hadn't.
They'd chosen the most laborious, and also least efficient, method—posting a private bounty.
And the bounty's terms were exceedingly harsh: must be captured alive, with no upper limit set.
Where was this catching a thief? This was plainly silencing a witness. This was clearly fear that, once the authorities got involved, they'd follow the vine to the melon and trace the true sources of these dharma artifacts.
Gu Chengming sneered coldly inwardly.
Now, with Luo Jinyao escorting Zhou Qingmu back to the Capital, a brief vacuum had appeared in Snowfall Pass's top-tier combat strength.
As the tenth-ranked on the Hidden Dragon Ranking, and as the Night-Watch Bureau's "face" here and now, some matters, once he'd run smack into them, simply had to be dealt with.
What's more...
[The Hundred Bones Resonance cheered: Emperor Gu! What are we waiting for? A crooked shop! Killing for goods!]
[That Myriad Gold Pavilion thing—just from the name it sounds loaded! Not only shall we carry out justice on Heaven's behalf, we'll also confiscate their storehouse—ah no, confiscate all their ill-gotten gains!]
[This is the way of the emperor! Under all of heaven, no land is not the king's; their money is your money!]
Beside it, the Zhouli Heavenly Harmony Righteous Heart Method, most rare of all, also voiced its agreement.
[Zhouli nodded: The way of the merchant lies in honesty, lies in benefiting the people. To amass wealth through slaughter—this is the disordering of the law.]
[Those who disorder the law shall be put to death.]
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