As she had just left Chu Yang impriso- to study in the greenhouse deep in the pavilion, Qing Yi felt quite happy as she made her way down the mountain peak and entered the sect.
Today she had planned to visit the Artifact Hall of the Flying Sword Sect.
The Artifact Hall held most of the artifacts that was owned by the Flying Sword Sect and disciples went there from time to time whenever they needed a new weapon or other kinds of artifacts.
But this was not the reason why Qing Yi was currently making her way over there, no, instead she was going to the marketplace that had sprung up around the Artifact Hall!
The marketplace was the main place where the disciples of the Flying Sword Sect gathered together to sell or buy the things, they got from going outside on missions or different tasks issued by the Flying Sword Sect.
Luckily for the disciples, the sect did not close down the marketplace that the disciples had created by themselves, but instead supported it and encouraged the disciples to do business with each other.
In the eyes of the elders from the sect, the marketplace was a great opportunity for the disciples to interact with each other and learn how to trade with others.
"Ah! Qing Yi~ Hello~" At the entrance to the marketplace a girl ran over and hugged Qing Yi happily the moment she saw her.
"Shihan! Release me!" Trying her best to get out of the sudden hug from her friend, Qing Yi barely managed to get free after much struggle and quickly made some distance between them as she warily stared a Zeng Shihan smiling at her.
"What's wrong Yiyi~ I'm simply happy to finally see you again! I have been forced to take up so much extra work by the sect lately and haven't had any free time at all!" Ignoring the slightly angry look on Qing Yi, Zeng Shihan happily approached her and grabbed hold of her hand as she began dragging her towards the marketplace.
"You changed quite a bit over only a month…" Saying this, Qing Yi felt a little helpless as she stared up a Zeng Shihan with a clearly sad look on her face.
"Hah… Why did you suddenly degrade from a respectable senior sister, into… This…"𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
"I'm just more confident to be myself." Not minding anything that Qing Yi said, Zeng Shihan still kept a smile on her face as she dragged Qing Yi over to the front of a small stall close by the entrance of the marketplace.
"What do you need?" Casting a shady look in the direction of Zeng Shihan, the stall owner who was a slightly older disciple looked like an extremely suspicious individual at the moment.
The fact that he was carefully grinding some questionable spiritual herbs and mixing them into an even more suspicious looking potion bottle did not help with his image…
"I heard that you got some relatively high-quality herbs recently…" Acting in an equally shady manner, Zeng Shihan responded to the shady disciple sitting at the stall.
"Hm… I see word spreads quite fast, but what can you give me in return…?" Taking the potion bottle filled with the grinded up herbs, the shady disciple responds to Zeng Shihan as he took out a bottle filled with a bright blue liquid and filled the potion bottle with the grinded herbs up with it.
Soon the liquid in the potion bottle turned bright red as the grinded up herbs inside the liquid dissolved.
"…" Not saying anything more, Zeng Shihan took out a small bag and threw it in front of the shady disciple.
"Here, glad to do business with you." Inspecting the things inside the small bag, the shady disciple soon smiled a bit as he took out a small bag of his own and threw it over to Zeng Shihan before he put away the small bag that Zeng Shihan had thrown him and resumed mixing other ingredients into the now bright red liquid inside of the potion bottle.
"No, the pleasure was mine." Saying so, Zeng Shihan gave an equally shady smile as she picked up the bag that the shady disciple had thrown to her.
"…"
Meanwhile, Qing Yi looked speechlessly at the interaction between both of them not knowing what to say…
The shady disciple with a questionable bright red potion in hand was her senior brother Yu from the Alchemy Hall…
Why did they need to do things like this…? Just look at how many other disciples stopped just to see what both of you were doing!
Qing Yi did not know how these two had gotten to know each other and honestly, she did not feel like she wanted to know in the first place… It seemed like both of them were quite troublesome when they were together…
"Hey! What are both of you doing over there!?" Just as Qing Yi was about to forcefully drag Zeng Shihan away, as the person in question was about to try and do another "shady" deal with Yu once again, a shout came from behind.
Turning around both Qing Yi and Zeng Shihan looked towards the person in question, Yu was no exception either as he put down his suspicious potion bottle as well and looked over to see who shouted at them all of a sudden.
"Ah! It's junior brother Lu Wen! Is he here to stop those shady people?"
"I think so, I heard Lu Wen is quite a righteous character, he was even accepted as the disciple of Core Elder Wang Hu after the newcomer tournament!"
"Is that so? I heard that he recently helped the security personal of the Flying Sword City deal with some people causing trouble!"
"I saw that stall owner and girl exchange something suspicious with each other earlier! They are clearly up to no good!"
"Looks like Lu Wen saw it as well and decided to step in and make sure that they don't cause any trouble for the sect!"
"That girl besides the suspicious one is probably also up to no good, I saw both of them come together earlier!"
"…" As the surrounding disciples talked enthusiastically about the situation, the three people in question looked speechlessly at each other not knowing what to do as they saw Lu Wen walk over in heroic manner, seemingly about to uphold the peace of the sect and make sure nobody makes any trouble.
The one who was the most speechless was Qing Yi, as she felt that she had unjustifiably been dragged into the situation as an innocent bystander.