The Cloud Ruins Bazaar’s noise hadn’t subsided;
If anything, the midday market opening had only made it more sweltering.
Xue Yin and Jin split up to investigate for half a day before finally meeting up at the central square.
They exchanged a few words near the stone tablet, then turned into a small tavern on the west side of the square.
The tavern was small but extremely noisy, the air thick with the sour smell of cheap ale.
Near the window, a Wingfolk mercenary was banging on the table, boasting about single-handedly slaying a Giant Troll Earthsplitter.
Drunk and repeating himself for the third time, the number of Earthsplitters had already ballooned from one to three.
At a diagonal table, a turban-wrapped merchant was passionately discussing the recent price trends of hot-selling goods with his companion, apparently having made a huge profit.
He deliberately lowered his voice, but couldn’t suppress the smugness in his tone.
“Pass it through one middleman, and it changes to this number.”
He held up three fingers, and his companion sucked in a sharp breath.
Xue Yin and Jin sat down in the corner by the wall and ordered two glasses of fruit wine from the bartender, pretending to rest.
When Xue Yin tentatively asked, “Have any people gone missing recently?”
The bartender only snorted through his nose and wiped the tablecloth roughly across the counter.
“People die every day, people flee every day. Can you keep up with all that?”
He then turned to serve another table without even glancing her way before he left.
Jin’s gaze lingered on her face for a moment, then he took the cup from her hand and placed it on the table.
“What about the Master’s side?”
Xue Yin sighed and briefly summarized what she’d seen in the past half day:
Grain market prices, the piled-up missing person notices on the bounty board, and the strange indifference and numbness of the Cloud Ruins Bazaar residents…
Just then, a sudden commotion erupted from the east alley entrance.
Xue Yin set down her cup and exchanged a glance with Jin.
They both stood and walked toward the door.
A scrawny little Lesser Demon boy darted out from beside a centaur girl’s salt basket, clutching two small packets of coarse salt.
He stumbled barefoot over the gravel road.
The girl paused for a moment before realizing that two bags of salt were missing from her basket.
She screamed, “Thief! He stole my salt!”
The crowd instantly closed in.
A burly Horned Demon set down his iron ingot, an elderly Cat-Ear woman closed her herb pouch, and even the mercenaries rolling dice in the wine tent stopped their game.
The boy was completely blocked at the end of the alley, his body curled under a wagon wheel, trembling all over.
“If my sister doesn’t get treatment soon, she’ll die…”
He lifted his head, begging eyes sweeping the crowd.
His eye sockets were sunken, and his lips were cracked white.
The centaur girl chased up, squeezed through the crowd with difficulty, looked at the boy’s face—
So thin it was just a skeleton—
Then gritted her teeth and snatched the salt bags back.
Unfortunately, more than half the coarse salt had already spilled from the bags during the boy’s panicked flight.
Grains of salt poured out of the torn openings, scattering around her hooves.
The girl lowered her head to look at the salt on the ground.
Her lips trembled a few times.
She crouched down and began picking up the salt grains one by one, putting them back into the basket.
Tears swirled in her eyes twice, but she couldn’t hold them back.
With a plop, they fell onto the gravel.
At that moment, the crowd parted automatically.
An old man in a worn hemp robe slowly stepped forward.
Jin recognized him.
It was the Rockborn elder who served porridge at the congee stall.
The old man sighed and asked, “Do you know what the punishment is for blatant theft in the Cloud Ruins Bazaar?”
The boy hung his head, not daring to meet the elder’s eyes, and mumbled a weak, “I know.”
The elder looked around at the crowd, upholding the rules of the bazaar.
“According to the Covenant, you will be completely expelled, never to return.”
No one objected, no one sympathized.
As for the centaur girl’s loss, naturally, no one cared.
Two young Rockborn men stepped out from the crowd.
They flanked the boy, one on each side.
Their movements weren’t rough, but they silently dragged him step by step toward the edge of the depression.
The boy was lifted off his feet, crying all the way.
“My sister is still in the South Camp of the Cloud Ruins! She’s sick… please… I beg you, let me go back… if I leave, there’s no one to take care of her. She won’t survive…”
Xue Yin watched helplessly as the boy was driven out of the Cloud Ruins Bazaar.
Here, if you break the rules, you deserve the worst punishment.
The open evil must be eliminated, expelled, pushed beyond the boundary, in order to maintain order within it.
But the blood spilled in the dark—
As long as it doesn’t stain the streets, as long as it doesn’t cause unrest in the market—
No one inquires about it, and no one has the energy to.
Missing persons, fleeing, quietly vanishing—
These things happen in the corners that aren’t seen within the boundary.
As long as they don’t disrupt the market’s operation, they are silently digested.
“We’ve been looking in the wrong direction.”
Xue Yin’s mind rapidly pieced together fragments of what she’d seen and heard into a rough outline.
Jin was silent for a moment, then caught on.
“The Master means that someone inside the Cloud Ruins is using a bloodless method to lure the missing people away.”
“Exactly.”
Xue Yin nodded, her gaze cold.
“And this person, or these people, know the rules of the Cloud Ruins very well. They avoid all methods that would trigger alertness, selecting targets of specific bloodlines. So our current focus should be on how they pinpoint their targets.”
A moment later, the two circled around to the outskirts of the South Camp.
This was the edge of the refugee camp and temporary work sheds—
The shacks were even more dilapidated than those inside the market, the conditions even harsher.
Xue Yin silently extended her Stillness Domain Strings, quickly locking onto the deepest part of the shed area.
Inside the shed, a weak life fluctuation was burning with fever, breathing rapid.
“Found it. That boy’s sister.”
Xue Yin signaled the direction to Jin.
Jin lowered his profile, using the shadows of the sheds and the drying rags as cover, crossing the South Camp without a sound.
A moment later, he emerged from that broken shed carrying a five- or six-year-old Lesser Demon girl.
In her sleep, she was still muttering, “Brother…”
Xue Yin took a fever-reducing potion from her pack, pried open the girl’s mouth, and fed her small sips.
The girl’s throat instinctively swallowed a few times.
Some liquid spilled from the corner of her mouth, but Xue Yin gently wiped it away with her sleeve.
“Master, I found the boy’s location.”
Jin brought back news while Xue Yin tended to the girl.
“He didn’t get far after being driven out. Probably waiting for nightfall to sneak back and take care of his sister.”
They didn’t linger.
Xue Yin picked up the girl, and Jin led the way.
They found the boy among the rubble outside the Cloud Ruins Bazaar.
Xue Yin gently handed the girl back to him.
“I’ve already given your sister the medicine. But she still needs rest. The Cloud Ruins won’t take you in anymore, but the neighboring Slag Highlands are short on hands. Take your sister to Furnaceheart Valley, find Lord Laine, and tell him my name—Xue Yin. He’ll take you in.”
The little Lesser Demon boy’s eyes were filled with disbelief.
He hugged his sister and fell to his knees.
“Lady Xue Yin… I have nothing, but from today, my life is yours! I’ll do whatever you say…”
Xue Yin was flustered by his kneeling, instinctively stepping back half a step.
She wasn’t used to being knelt to like this, much less being called “Lady.”
She quickly bent down and reached out to help him up, her voice carrying a rare hint of embarrassment.
“Get up, don’t do this. Just call me Xue Yin.”
Jin took two pieces of black rye bread from his pack, crouched down, and placed them in the boy’s hand.
“Take these. Take care of your sister on the way.”
The boy took the bread, tears welling up again.
He took a deep breath, adjusted his sister higher on his back, took a step back, and gave Xue Yin and Jin one heavy kowtow before turning and leaving.
“Does the Master think a small favor isn’t worth such a reaction?” Jin’s gaze followed the fading figures of the siblings.
Xue Yin tilted her head and looked at Jin with confusion.
She didn’t deny it.
She truly didn’t understand.
A few rations and one bottle of fever medicine—
Was that worth someone saying, “My life is yours”?
“But what the Master considers a small favor can sometimes be important enough to change a person’s entire life.”
Jin looked at Xue Yin with deep emotion, his tone as calm as if stating a fact repeatedly verified by time.
“Just like when the Master reached out to me back then.”
Just then, a low voice came from behind the rocks.
“Kind-hearted, but bad for the rules. Still, not unpleasant.”