The Minotaur blinked at Yueyang’s words.
Then he caught up. “You calling me the smartest — that part I’ll accept. But what’s this about being the most shameless?”
“If you weren’t shameless enough,” Yueyang said with an easy shrug, “you wouldn’t have walked right up and handed me the perfect excuse to smack you around. What would you call that, if not shameless?”
He didn’t even finish the sentence before he was already there — a blur of motion, and his palm connected with the Minotaur’s face with a resounding crack. The Minotaur’s temper ignited immediately and he swung back — but Yueyang had already slipped away with footwork so fluid it was almost effortless. The moment the Minotaur lowered his fist and opened his mouth to let loose, Yueyang was in front of him again, this time catching the other cheek with a clean backhand.
He worked with the relaxed efficiency of someone born for exactly this task.
Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.
The Minotaur couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Every time he opened his mouth, another slap came sailing back at him. Every time he tried to retaliate, Yueyang glided back to Lieyan’s side before his fist got anywhere close. The Minotaur was no fool — he understood perfectly well that he had no realistic hope of taking Lieyan in a one-on-one fight, let alone with this absurdly fast kid darting around on the side. Fighting both of them at once meant he wouldn’t just lose — he’d be reduced to dust.
Out of options and unable to say a single word, the Minotaur suddenly extended a large, solemn thumb toward Yueyang.
What on earth did that mean?
Yueyang was genuinely puzzled.
Was this creature a masochist? Had a good slapping actually done something for him? The thought sent a wave of revulsion crawling across Yueyang’s skin.
“Your speed is quite impressive — considerably faster than that vampire just now. And the force behind each slap was well-distributed too. Very good form,” the Minotaur said, with the earnest sincerity of a man who was absolutely not the one who had just been hit, but a calm and objective commentator watching from the sidelines. Then he turned to face a spot in the sky beside them and bowed deeply. “City Lord, and Lord Yumu — in order to delay the criminals from escaping, I, Lima, have taken quite a beating to the face. I ask that the City Lord and Lord Yumu speak a word of fairness on Lima’s behalf.”
“You deserved every hit.” A middle-aged man in resplendent robes, radiating the composed authority of someone long accustomed to power, descended from the sky with fury crackling in his voice. “Lima, you scheming, calculating Minotaur — you deliberately used my beloved concubine as bait, with complete disregard for her life and safety. I’m not talking about outsiders — even I want to beat you senseless right now!”
His expression made it look very much like he intended to do exactly that.
Fortunately, his personal guard captain and household steward moved to restrain him.
And with a wanted criminal like Captain Lieyan still standing right there, the City Lord could hardly afford to start a brawl and risk giving her an opening to run.
The Minotaur’s smile turned sly. “The City Lord hardly lacks for female companionship — one more or less makes no difference. Besides, even the finest cuisine grows tiresome when eaten too often. A little variety now and then is good for the palate. If no single woman is shown excessive favor and all receive equal affection, resentment withers and harmony takes root. The household becomes a more peaceful place. This is, in fact, a blessing in disguise — why be angry over something that benefits everyone?”
“…That’s actually not entirely wrong…”
The City Lord, as quick to cool as he was to flare up, visibly deflated. The righteous fury drained out of him almost instantly, leaving no trace of his earlier murderous glare.
Yueyang watched all of this with cool detachment and offered no comment whatsoever.
Luohua, meanwhile, had commandeered several Sky-rank bystanders to carry her flower pots into a nearby shop — she wasn’t about to let anyone’s brawling damage her collection. The Sky-rank cultivators in question were no small names in the Southern Heavenly Realm by any ordinary measure, but Luohua’s bearing was so effortlessly noble, her manner of directing people so utterly unapologetic — as though every person present existed solely to serve her — that they collectively assumed she must be some exalted figure from the Upper Heavenly Realm. The fact that both Yueyang and Lieyan had been dutifully following behind her carrying pots like errand-runners only reinforced this impression. None of them dared refuse.
You’re all hopeless — can’t even carry a flower pot properly, and you call yourselves Sky-rank?
Set it down slowly — if any of my flowers are damaged, I’ll have your hands.
Does no one here know how to be careful?
Not content with conscripting them as laborers, Luohua gave the unfortunate group a thorough dressing-down that left them walking on eggshells, desperately afraid of offending this imperious young woman who clearly answered to no one.
It wasn’t just them — even the onlookers held their tongues, and that included the Redemption City Lord himself, whose cultivation sat at the very peak of Sky-rank Level 5.
Standing at the City Lord’s side was a gaunt, expressionless figure — pallid as a corpse, utterly devoid of affect, mechanically precise in every movement. He held in his hands a black set of scales humming with strange energy.
While Luohua was directing the flower-pot carriers and Lieyan and Yueyang stood facing the City Lord and the Minotaur, this figure raised the black scales and pointed them at the Minotaur. He placed a single silver feather on the left pan of the scales, then spoke in a flat, toneless voice: “Minotaur Lima — do you confess to the crime of deception?”
“I confess,” the Minotaur answered with perfect courtesy.
This was Yumu — one of two Elder Enforcers under Tiangui the Executioner. One was assigned to pursue and capture; the other to question and judge. Yumu was the one who pursued.
Before the black scales, denial was pointless. According to the laws of the Divine Tribunal, every living being in the Heavenly Realm — with the exception of the divine — was guilty of something. Only the degree varied. And to deny a charge was to invite severe punishment. The accused could only hope that their sins were light enough that the scales — which measured virtue against guilt — would tip in their favor: the silver feather of goodness sinking low, proving that goodness outweighed wrongdoing and earning the accused forgiveness and redemption.
The Minotaur answered honestly, acknowledging that he had deceived the vampire into accidentally injuring the City Lord’s concubine.
A ripple of energy rose from him and drifted toward the right pan of the scales.
Light shimmered across the black surface. The scales swayed — and then the left pan, bearing the silver feather of goodness, descended, while the right pan, bearing his sins, lifted.
Yumu’s face remained completely still as he gave a single nod. “Minotaur Lima — your sins may be forgiven. Your true nature is good.”
The Minotaur beamed with relief and bowed repeatedly.
Yueyang stared.
This guy made that judge in the Peng Yu case look like a paragon of impartiality. That outcome was acceptable?
The mechanical, utterly expressionless Yumu turned the black scales toward Luohua. “You have been keeping company with a wanted criminal. Do you confess to the crime of association?”
Luohua’s beautiful eyes went cold. “And if I am guilty — so what?”
The words were barely out before energy rose and drifted onto the scales.
The silver feather of goodness plunged immediately, while the pan of guilt swung high.
Every onlooker — including the Redemption City Lord — breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Thank goodness. Yumu getting his hands on a woman like that would have caused a catastrophic scene.
Yumu delivered his verdict in the same dead voice, unchanged in inflection: “While you carry the sin of association, your fundamental nature is one of extraordinary goodness. You were merely deceived by a wanted criminal into a moment of confusion. Your sin is light — you may be forgiven.”
The crowd broke into warm applause. Setting aside the matter of guilt entirely — a woman this beautiful simply should not be arrested.
Yumu then turned to Lieyan. “You are a wanted criminal of the Divine Temple. Your crimes are grave beyond measure. Do you now repent and surrender yourself to justice?”
Lieyan’s answer was a single spit on the ground.
Energy rose. The right pan — guilt — dropped like a stone. The left pan — the silver feather of goodness — floated upward.
Lieyan was guilty. She was to be arrested—
Yumu said nothing, but everyone present understood the outcome.
Then Yueyang raised his hand.
“I’d like to participate in the virtue test as well.”
If he hadn’t volunteered, everyone would nearly have forgotten he was there. But here he was, walking straight into it.
“You are the accomplice of a wanted criminal, abetting her crimes. Do you confess to knowing your wrongdoing?”
“I do not,” Yueyang said, shaking his head.
“Deeply mired in sin, yet blind to the path back.” Yumu finished his pronouncement. The right pan of the scales — guilt — descended, while the silver feather on the left rose high.
Yueyang’s guilt was confirmed — and more severe than Lieyan’s, apparently. A ripple of interest passed through the crowd. The name of Captain Lieyan was known to all — she was a notoriously difficult target. But this young man’s cultivation was only Sky-rank Level 3, by all appearances. If the assembled crowd combined forces, he could be subdued — and delivering him to Lord Yumu would earn more than just a reward. More importantly, it would forge a connection with the Central Divine Temple’s people, just as the Minotaur Lima had done.
Lieyan clenched her fists and made her position absolutely clear.
Anyone who came at them was getting hit. She was fighting to the last.
The onlookers hesitated. Captain Lieyan at her peak Sky-rank Level 5, plus ancient dragon power — besides the Redemption City Lord and Yumu himself, no one here had any business going near her. Better to stay cautious and not start something they couldn’t finish.
What none of them knew, of course, was that Lieyan had learned to suppress her presence and conceal her true cultivation level during her training in the Sky-Reaching Tower. The grueling work she had put in at the Gate of Life and Death and the Sky Stairway had already pushed her past Sky-rank Level 5 to Level 6, and from there into the near-Innate Sovereign state. And then, within Yueyang’s energy field, she had broken through entirely to a full comprehension of the Sovereign realm. Freshly advanced to the Innate Sovereign realm, she was now in an entirely different class from a handful of Sky-rank cultivators.
If it weren’t for not wanting to blow the entire plan, Lieyan’s fierce temperament would never have tolerated the Minotaur strutting around in front of her like that.
“That’s a nice set of scales — let me have a look.” Yueyang became a streak of light.
The sentence wasn’t finished before the black scales were already in his hands.
The crowd went dead silent.
Even Yumu’s eyes went wide.
He hadn’t felt a thing. He couldn’t begin to understand how a treasure bound to his own will had ended up in someone else’s hands. It was supposed to be impossible.
Yueyang deliberately mimicked Yumu’s expression and his flat, affectless delivery, holding up the black scales like a solemn official conducting proceedings: “Yumu — you fancy yourself an embodiment of justice, yet your intelligence is critically deficient. The evidence suggests excessive consumption of contaminated infant formula in early childhood, resulting in neurological damage, manifesting not only as severe intellectual impairment but also complete facial paralysis — a condition causing significant distress to public aesthetics. Do you confess to these crimes?”
Every jaw in the surrounding crowd hit the floor.
They had seen bold. They had never seen bold like this.
They had seen arrogant. They had never seen arrogant like this.
This kid was absolutely out of his mind. Guilty or not, Yumu wasn’t going to let him walk away from this.
Luohua looked at Yueyang pulling this stunt and completely lost her composure — bursting into free, uninhibited, full-bellied laughter, her shoulders shaking as though she had entirely forgotten there was a crowd around her. Unlike most women, her unrestrained laughter didn’t diminish her presence in the slightest — it only made her seem more commanding, more genuinely herself, a person so thoroughly at ease in her own power that she needed no performance of delicacy. The entire street fell silent except for the clear, bell-like ring of her laughter, which went on, and on.
Lieyan was fighting with every fiber of her being to maintain a suitably fierce expression.
Her lips compressed into a very determined curve.
If a fight weren’t imminent and she didn’t absolutely need to hold it together, she would have been laughing just as hard.
“You.” Yumu’s expression twitched — barely, infinitesimally — but otherwise remained exactly as blank and flat as ever. His eyes, still robotic in their total absence of readable emotion, fixed on Yueyang with absolute focus. “Are seeking death.”
“Wrong answer.” Yueyang didn’t bother absorbing any energy to conduct his judgment. He simply used his fingers to physically push down the right pan of the scales — guilt — and let the silver feather on the left rise high. He held the right pan down, gestured for everyone to observe, and adopted Yumu’s exact inflection: “The instrument has spoken with perfect clarity. You are not merely intellectually impaired and facially paralyzed — your sins are also of the gravest imaginable magnitude. Utterly beyond redemption, deserving of ten thousand deaths, unforgivable in any degree. I, being an exceptionally virtuous and thoroughly righteous individual, have arrived at a difficult decision: in addition to confiscating your instrument of crime, I shall cleanse you of your sins personally and see you on your way. In short — the sooner you’re gone, the better for everyone.”
The last word was barely out of Yueyang’s mouth.
Yumu’s right hand moved.
His index and middle fingers drove directly at Yueyang’s eyes.
The attack was so fast that not a single person in the crowd had time to react.
Even Lieyan — Sky-rank Level 6, with full comprehension of the Sovereign realm — only caught the barest ghost of a shadow when she turned her head.