"All right."

The Immortal Maiden Baohua did not believe that anything touching the water-kin could be a small matter.

But since Shen Yi did not care to say more, she was not the sort to keep hammering at a thing until it cracked.

At that thought she looked back toward the sky.

Old Zhang was sitting on his battered prayer mat, hiding furtively behind a cloud.

"Dao Friend, I'll trouble you with the rest of it. As for your payment, you may come to the Baohua Sect and ask for me… you must know who I am by now." The Immortal Maiden Baohua sighed.

She really was too green after all. She had brought two people with her altogether, and both of them had worked out who she was long ago.

Next time she wanted to go out and see the world, she would have to study rather more than cultivation.

"Rest easy. This lesser cultivator guarantees it will be handled properly."

Only then did Old Zhang show himself. To have watched a fight between two at the sixth layer of Return-to-Void with his own eyes was worth boasting of anywhere in Hongze.

But it was not the Immortal Maiden Baohua who astonished him most.

It was that Senior Shen. Quiet as anything, travelling entirely by translocation, without so much as a travelling treasure to carry him.

Young Master Liu had only invited him aboard because he looked so worn from the road.

And then the man had opened with a Heavenly Palace.

On strength like that — a match for the fifth layer of Return-to-Void — he would be more than enough for an outer-gate elder at the Baohua Sect.

That was what concealing an identity looked like. The Immortal Maiden Baohua really ought to take lessons from Senior Shen! Even an old hand like himself had been taken in.

"It… it won't be too expensive, will it?"

The Immortal Maiden Baohua added the question with rather less confidence.

She had suddenly remembered that she already owed Shen Yi a very large debt.

"At your standing it is nothing…