?

Watching Old Master Tang's retreating back, the corners of the onlookers' mouths twitched violently.

This shameless old man. Your grandson beat Liu Quan until he coughed blood and couldn't crawl up for half the day, and you still had the nerve to claim someone bullied your grandson?

If that counted as bullying, then what in the world would it be called if someone actually laid a hand on him?

While all of Yun City buzzed over the affair, Old Master Tang had already hauled Tang Yan back to the family.

"Brat, you can cultivate True Qi now?" In the study, Old Master Tang could hold back no longer. He seized Tang Yan's shoulders and shook them with all his strength.

Looking at his overexcited grandfather, Tang Yan felt his head ache. "That's right. If I couldn't cultivate, I'd probably have been beaten to death today."

"What happened? Wasn't your Dantian ruined?" Tang Ling pressed at once.

"This..." Tang Yan hemmed and hawed.

Seeing that his grandson seemed to have something hard to say, Old Master Tang suddenly recalled that day, more than a month ago, when a fierce, overpowering aura had appeared without warning in the Tang Family. It had lasted only an instant. At the time he had taken it for his own imagination and fretted over it for days. Could it be that some reclusive expert had saved his grandson?

"More than a month ago, I ran into an old man. He said the two of us shared a great destiny, then made me eat something, and just like that I could cultivate. He passed on a few cultivation methods to me as well. But he's loved peace and quiet his whole life and wants nothing to do with the squabbles of the mortal world, so he told me not to mention him. I tried to talk him into staying with the family to enjoy himself, told him there'd be no end of wine and meat, but that crusty old geezer had a strange temper too..." Tang Yan stammered on for a while and finally cobbled together an excuse.

He expected his grandfather to keep prying, but instead Old Master Tang rapped a knuckle down hard on his head. "You little brat, sitting in good fortune and too blind to know it. A man of such high virtue, with his own pride and backbone, unwilling to be dragged down by worldly trifles. He mended your Dantian and passed on his methods, and not only do you fail to call him honored master, you call him a crusty old geezer?"

At the scolding, Tang Yan was struck dumb. He had pulled an excuse out of thin air, and his grandfather simply believed it?

Tang Yan had no idea what was running through Tang Ling's mind, but for Tang Ling a great many things had finally fallen into place. No wonder he had felt that expert's aura that day. No wonder his grandson could cultivate. No wonder the boy had changed so much...

Questions that had baffled him for so long were all neatly resolved by Tang Yan's well-meaning lie.

"Fine. Since your master doesn't want you speaking of it to outsiders, then guard the secret well." Tang Ling swept his hand through the air with great flourish and pressed the matter no further.

Tang Yan finally tasted what it meant to stumble into the right answer by accident. This worked out nicely. It spared him having to invent any more excuses.

"Off you go. Stay close to home for a while, and ask my permission every time before you set foot outside." Old Master Tang waved a hand, and Tang Yan turned and withdrew.

"Yan'er can cultivate again. But that business of teasing the City Lord's daughter... I wonder whether the City Lord will dredge up old debts." Standing in the study, watching his grandson's figure recede through the window, Tang Ling clenched his fists. "So long as there's a breath left in me, I'll stand in front of you."

The moment Tang Yan stepped out of his grandfather's study, he thought of Xiaocui. His Spirit Vortex Fruit was still with her, and he didn't know whether she had brought it back.

Just as he was burning with impatience to go find her, he heard Xiaocui's voice. "Young Master, I'm over here!"

Seeing that she still cradled that hideously ugly Spirit Vortex Fruit in her arms, Tang Yan finally let his heart settle.

"Young Master, here!" Xiaocui handed the fruit over, then gazed up at him expectantly.

Tang Yan didn't disappoint her. He laughed aloud. "Aren't all my banknotes in your keeping? Take a hundred taels for yourself."

"Thank you, Young Master." Hearing that he had kept his word, Xiaocui broke into a delighted smile.

The instant his hand touched the fruit, the Pill Cauldron in his Dantian trembled once more. Anxious to learn why the Heaven and Earth Creation Cauldron kept stirring, Tang Yan clutched the fruit and hurried off toward his room.

"Young Master seems awfully fond of that rotten fruit. His taste lately is getting stranger by the day."

Back in his room, Tang Yan sat cross-legged on the bed, his curiosity piqued. Could it be this Pill Cauldron wanted to eat the fruit too? But if I want to feed you, how am I supposed to do it? Don't tell me I have to swallow the thing before you can get at it.

People always have their curiosity, and curiosity has a way of killing the cat. When Tang Yan split off a thread of True Qi and wrapped it around the Spirit Vortex Fruit, the cauldron in his inner Dantian space shuddered hard. A tremendous suction surged out, and in the next breath his hand was empty.

"Holy crap, it really ate it!" Tang Yan couldn't help cursing out loud.

He turned his gaze inward to examine his Dantian, then froze again. It seemed he could form a faint thread of connection with the Heaven and Earth Creation Cauldron, and he could actually see inside it.

At the bottom of the cauldron lay a chaotic mass of churning energy, and the Spirit Vortex Fruit had taken root atop that chaos. Its once-withered surface had regained its luster.

Damn. It came back to life?

Feeling wave after wave of vitality flowing from the fruit, Tang Yan could scarcely believe it. Could this cauldron actually nurture medicinal herbs? He glanced around. A few ordinary herbs lay nearby, so he tried channeling True Qi to draw them in. But no matter how long he tried, the Heaven and Earth Creation Cauldron gave no reaction at all.

Don't tell me this cauldron is picky about which spirit herbs are worthy of entering it.

He tried drawing the Spirit Vortex Fruit back out, and sure enough, that came easily.

After toying with it back and forth several times, thoroughly intrigued, Tang Yan at last settled the fruit back inside the cauldron.

Setting his playfulness aside, he decided not to consume the Spirit Vortex Fruit yet. Swallowing a spirit herb whole would certainly work, but pairing it with the right ingredients and refining it into a pill would yield far greater benefits.

He had shown his strength today, and that old matter of teasing Lin Dongxue would likely be twisted by those with ulterior motives.

If someone truly spread the rumor that the eldest young master of the Tang Family had meant to force himself on Lin Dongxue, that the City Lord's Manor feared the Tang Family's strength too much to act, and that Tang Yan roamed free without facing the slightest Penalty...

If it came to that, the reputation of the City Lord's Manor would surely suffer.

And to salvage its name, the City Lord's Manor would come looking to make trouble for him again.

The one to plant such a rumor would no doubt be the Liu Family. Yun City was full of lesser clans clinging to the Liu Family's coattails. At a single word from them, those clans would spread the tale far and wide, and in no time the whole city would be in an uproar over it.

Weighing the fallout of revealing his strength today, Tang Yan swiftly searched for a way out.

The Tang Family stood beset on every side. If they carved off some of their holdings to smooth things over with the City Lord's Manor, their strength would take a real wound, and the other great families would seize the moment to gnaw at them as well.

Once the great families had nibbled them down, how much would the Tang Family have left to survive in Yun City?

To stop that from happening, he had to work on the City Lord's Manor itself. Tang Yan paced a few steps across the room, then a rumor came to mind. The City Lord's Wife bore scars on her face from an illness, and she had sought a cure for ages without success. The places she once loved to visit she now rarely went near, and when she did, she went with her face veiled.

Few people knew of it, but as one of the four great families, the Tang Family could confirm the news easily enough.

And in Tang Yan's memory, there happened to be a pill perfectly suited to erasing scars. The Traceless Pill.