“What is this?”

Shen Yi let his hand drift off the scabbard. He’d already made a reasonable guess.

Sure enough, something faintly teasing entered Aqian’s voice.

“A demon-hunter’s badge.”

“Demon-hunter—” Shen Yi had heard the title more than once. He’d even seen a few of them in person at Qingfeng Mountain.

“They track demons across a thousand li. They sit outside the Division’s structure. They answer to orders but not to summons.” Jiang Chengyun stepped into the room, expression flat, and tucked his own silver bell back into his sash.

Answer to orders but not to summons.

When the Division issued a directive, demon-hunters could carry it out. But no one could dictate their methods. Maximum autonomy — results delivered, process unreviewable.

No one included the General herself.

And could carry it out was the operative phrase. If they judged something else more pressing, or simply didn’t feel like it, they could ignore the order entirely.

Even internally, the copper, silver, and gold bells marked their tiers — but a gold-bell demon-hunter couldn’t command someone with copper.

Rules this loose represented something specific: unconditional trust from the court.

The entry requirement was Deputy Commander rank, but that was merely the simplest threshold. Aptitude, temperament, and ability all had to pass review.

“What are the benefits?” Shen Yi looked back.

Jiang Chengyun’s jaw tightened slightly. Aqian smiled and pressed a hand to her stomach, sinking back in the chair. “Demon-hunters answer directly to the court. Whatever you want — if the Great Qian dynasty has it, we have it. And none of the Division’s endless rules.”

“We only care about one thing.”

She held up two fingers. “How much demon activity you can track down. Or how many demon heads you can take.”

Jiang Chengyun glanced at her fingers with resignation and added: “You’d also get access to the largest intelligence network in Qingzhou. You’d be part of it, naturally.”

Aqian shook the bell again. “Use this to leave information anywhere you like. Anyone at personal attendant rank or above has access to similar methods — any bell-bearer who comes within range can receive the signal, and within a hundred li you can exchange intelligence directly.” A pause. “Though if you want to use it to charm a young lady, that’s also fine.”

“It can carry things too, for a while. Useful in a pinch.”

She propped herself back on the table and slowly pushed the silver bell across. “There’s a qi-suppression method inside. A form-concealment method. A qi-seeking and qi-drawing method. And a small personal gift Aqian prepared especially.” She tilted her head. “Old General Chen mentioned you seem to enjoy a certain kind of thing. Does big brother still need to think about it?”

The round little face held a smile — but the smile had a quality to it that didn’t quite match the sweetness. Jiang Chengyun let his eyes droop in the same direction.

Both of them had listed benefits.

Anyone who wasn’t a fool knew what accepting this object implied.

A silver-bell demon-hunter in standing was no lower than a personal attendant Deputy Commander. In practice, they were polar opposites.

If the Division’s people were picking their way carefully through a field of blades and fire, demon-hunters were the lunatics dancing barefoot on knife-edges.

With grounds for the arrogance, certainly. But who spent that long near the river’s edge without getting their feet wet?

In plain terms — their feet had never been truly dry.

“No need to deliberate.”

Under the watching eyes, Shen Yi picked up the bell and tucked it away without ceremony, gaze level — as if it really were an ordinary bell.

“…”

Aqian and Jiang Chengyun looked at each other.

That casual. That unbothered.

If this black-robed young man wasn’t simply too dense to have followed anything, there was only one possible explanation.

His nerve exceeded even what Aqian had been expecting.

“Convinced yet? How does he compare to you back then?”

She patted Jiang Chengyun’s arm with the back of her hand.

“Grand—hss!“

The small hand on his arm twisted before the word finished.

He looked down and stopped talking.

Fair enough. He had been excited when he received his bell — had worked up a great deal of courage before finally accepting it. Nothing like the ease in front of him now.

The difference was that he’d gone through more than a decade of genuine life-and-death fighting before becoming a demon-hunter. Even with a gold-bell demon-hunter for a grandmother, she hadn’t intervened once. Her character meant that if she heard news of his death, she’d throw her head back and laugh, call him useless — and if there were any grief hidden inside the laughter, she’d never let it show until after the mockery was finished.

Shen Yi had been in the Division less than a month and already had Lin Baixi’s letter paving the road ahead and Chen Qiankun watching over him from behind.

Whether this was a calf too young to fear tigers — hard to say.

“Big brother — push your qi into it. Once he’s done with what he’s handling, I’ll have him show you the ropes.”

“Learn what’s inside as quickly as you can. Getting rattled by a few flood dragons whose brains were soaked waterlogged — that’s honestly embarrassing. If you can’t beat the oldest one, at least be fast enough to run: land a slash on its forehead, slap it across the face a few times, lead it on a three-thousand-li chase, and circle back to kill its children on the way. Genuinely exhilarating. You should try it sometime.”

Aqian hopped off the chair, gave a wave, and bounced out of the room.

Jiang Chengyun gave Shen Yi one last look and followed at an unhurried pace.

When they were a comfortable distance away, he said with mild dissatisfaction: “Grandmother — giving him the silver bell directly, isn’t that a bit unfair to the rest of us?”

“Here.”

Aqian raised her wrist and shook the delicate gold bell.

“Trade you.”

Jiang Chengyun looked at the swinging bell.

Something burned behind those lowered eyes.

In all of Qingzhou, there were only three gold bells. Each one represented someone at a level equivalent to a Demon Suppression General.

Which meant the twelve Generals, plus three gold-bell demon-hunters — fifteen practitioners at the core-nurturing stage. The entirety of Qingzhou’s top tier, below the General herself.

But the heat faded quickly.

“I’ll wait until after you die. When I’ve properly reached the peak of the core-nurturing stage. Then we’ll talk.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

Aqian rolled her eyes. “A bell is nothing by itself. Whatever rank Chen Qiankun can offer — can’t I offer the same? What actually matters is how much demon qi gets collected, blood-essence from the heart, how much that translates into medicines and techniques. That’s where real ability shows.”

“Does he have that ability?” Jiang Chengyun looked over with genuine uncertainty.

Aqian stopped walking. The look she turned on him was the look for someone missing the obvious. “You’re not seriously expecting a Jade Liquid Perfection practitioner to carry that weight right now, are you? This is encouragement. Hunting demons is your job. Growing into it is his.”

The two of them walked on.

Side courtyard. Quiet room.

Shen Yi sat back on the edge of the bed, turning the silver bell over in his hands, thoroughly puzzled.

What extraordinary luck he’d apparently been having lately.

He’d been sitting quietly in a room, and two people materialized out of nowhere to hand him intelligence access, a treasured implement, and a collection of survival techniques.

The girl’s expression of suppressed delight had nearly put him on edge.

The apparent cost, in the end, was — nothing?

Killing demons alone was something he’d intended to do anyway.

“Strange.”

He shook his head, and tried channeling qi into the bell.

Something like falling into inward vision — the space in front of him filled abruptly with several objects.

Several records of techniques, written out in full.

And the small gift Aqian had mentioned.

It lay quietly.

A Condensate Realm flood dragon’s demon core.

(End of Chapter)