Chapter 96: Heart Demon of Monk

Yu Xuan continued reading the newspaper headlines.

He muttered to himself, "Hmph, same as always. Alchemists complaining about rising herb prices, outer sect disciples caught sneaking into male quarters... Wow! and what’s this? A fortune teller stall gets shut down for using illusion arrays to fake predictions?"

He paused, "...Wait a minute."

He coughed awkwardly, folded the newspaper halfway, and glanced away.

"Forget it. My fortune teller was a real one, it even showed a dollar sign. I’m rich now."

And with that, he returned to flipping through the newspaper, fully enjoying the quiet moment — oblivious to the fact that Disciple Wu had already entered the hall and was now looking at him from across the room, wondering whether to announce her presence or wait for him to finish reading the entertainment column.

Still not wanting to waste time, the woman approached him directly.

"Hello, are you the one who took the mission to hunt Thorny Goats?" she asked.

Yu Xuan lowered the newspaper and glanced up — then froze for a second.

What he saw... was a lizard person.

Disciple Wu is a lizard person?

No, no — he wasn’t being judgmental. It was just that his Earth-born instincts, deeply rooted in old conspiracy memes, whispered the words "secret world government" at the sight of her.



But she was beautiful, undeniably so. Her face was perfectly symmetrical, her green-tinged scales shimmered faintly under the sunlight, and she had a dignified, sharp-eyed look. Also, she was taller than him. And... yep, that was a tail.

’Okay... she’s not a dragon variant. Just... lizard-people exist here too’, Yu Xuan thought with mild resignation. He knew not every lizard people were sub-dragons, they were species on their own.

"Yes, Senior. Where should we speak?" he asked politely, standing up.

"Let’s go to a business room," she said.

The mission hall offered several private rooms for negotiations, evaluations, and other official matters. The two made their way down a hallway lined with doors, eventually entering one furnished with a low table, cushions, and a luminescent orb for recording formal exchanges.

Once inside, Wu gestured toward the center. "Place the goats. I’ll assess the quality. If they’re too damaged, you’ll only get 40 Sect Points per corpse."

Yu Xuan summoned five goats into the room with a wave of his hand. "They’re all like this. Clean kills, just their hearts destroyed."

Disciple Wu knelt down, inspecting one of the goats with the critical eye of a seasoned trader. "Their hearts are indeed punctured... That’s a loss. Makes heart-blood soup impossible."

Yu Xuan blinked. Heart-blood soup?!

Who in their right mind eats that?

She continued professionally, "But the organs and meat are otherwise intact, and the pelts are untouched. That’s good enough."

Curious, Yu Xuan asked, "So what do people even use these goats for? What kind of dishes?"

Wu glanced up at him, narrowing her eyes slightly.

"...What’s your age?"

"Fourteen," Yu Xuan replied.

"You’re healthy, young, and far too innocent to ask that question," she said coolly. "Now hand over the rest of the goats. Then we’ll discuss your compensation."

As she stored the five corpses into her space ring, Yu Xuan reluctantly summoned the remaining ones. But his face twitched.

He was the one who’d caught them. He had seen what they were doing. He had a fairly strong guess now what kind of dishes they were being used for — and it wasn’t anything you could serve to a child.

’Please don’t turn these into weird dual-cultivation tonics or aphrodisiac hotpot’, he silently prayed. That would be some heavy karma.



Still, it raised a philosophical question — Were suspicious things done in secret?

Or were the most suspicious things always done openly, so that nobody would suspect them at all?

Either way, he had a feeling he didn’t want to eat at UFC for a while.

The negotiations concluded smoothly, and Yu Xuan walked out 900 Sect Points richer — 90 points for each of the ten Thorny Goats. Not bad for a single day’s work and some mildly traumatic goat-related experiences.

Disciple Wu offered him more tasks on the spot, clearly impressed by his efficiency, but Yu Xuan politely declined.

"For now, I won’t be taking any more missions," he said with a respectful smile.

With business wrapped up, he returned to the mission hall front desk.

A familiar face waited there — the calm, ever-composed monk who had become something of a opponent in his recent journey.

Seeing Yu Xuan walk toward her with a confident little smile, the monk’s serene expression flickered.

’My heart demon has arrived...’ she thought grimly.

She didn’t know why, but this junior seemed to gravitate toward her specifically, always bringing nonsense with him.

’Maybe he’s fallen for my charms? No, no! Stop it. I’m a monk. A monk! A monk!’

Even if she is a monk and had taken vows, at the end of the day... a girl was still a girl at heart.

"Senior," Yu Xuan said cheerfully, "you can check now. All my missions should be marked as complete."

The monk sighed inwardly but checked his his mission status. Her brow furrowed slightly, then smoothed.

"Yes... all three missions completed. Well done. Now, do you wish to store your points here? You’ll receive an annual interest rate of 3.14%. Or do you want to withdraw now?"

Yu Xuan thought, ’There’s interest?! Wait, the mission hall is a bank too?!’

He paused, gears turning. Then suddenly said:

"I want to take a loan. What’s the procedure?"



The monk stared at him, utterly speechless, "...The interest on loans is 9.9% yearly," she said flatly.

Yu Xuan’s face darkened with seriousness he said, "This is eveninglight robbery."

She glanced toward the window. The sun was dipping toward the horizon.

"Technically, this is eveninglight robbery I guess, but your wording is wrong."

"I don’t make the rules," the monk continued, voice cool and increasingly done with him. Her tone, however, carried the deadly calm of an experienced loan collector.

"Fine, fine." Yu Xuan raised his hands in surrender. "I’ll withdraw for now."

"Wise choice," she said, resisting the urge to throw her prayer beads at him.

She processed the transaction, handing him his medallion with the updated balance. Yu Xuan accepted it with the smug satisfaction of someone who believed they’d just outsmarted a bank, when in fact they were simply leaving with what they earned.

And as he turned to go, the monk rubbed her temples and exhaled.

’May Buddha preserve my sanity.’

***

[A/N: We reached the 100k words mark. It’s been a long journey, so today the author will shamelessly ask for gifts. And also we will reach 100 Chapter mark this week. Thank you all the readers, you make this work Awesome.]