Life is so unfair!

In the end, they led Ming Yahui to their boss. When the guy started to talk about him, Nie Li started killing the members of the gang. He started with the two guards outside. He materialized his bone sickles and silently stabbed them in the back. After they died he took their corpses into his world and vaporized them there. The world also scanned some things out of them.

He eliminated the others stealthily as well. He had tried many types of attacks. Putting a grain into someone's heart walls in his void form and letting them die from a 'heart attack', to obscure killing arrays. He had to put up some silencing barriers sometimes, to avoid detection.

He even killed the shop attendants and closed the shop with a key he took from one of the corpses. Shadow Devil spirit was extremely suited for silent assassinations. In the end, the only survivors were Ming Yahui, Wu Ya, and his four guards, and a whore whom Nie Li had just put to sleep with a simple technique that the parent used on their kids if they don't want to sleep. There was no reason to kill her, and she won't wake up until morning.

And all of the corpses he took into his world and disintegrated them. With the way Nie Li's killed them, there were no signs of struggle and not a single drop of blood on any surface. Except for Wu Ya's second in command. There were some signs of the interrogation Nie Li put him through to get some information about the gang and Ming Yahui. He also got the location of another two bases. One of them even held slaves. All in all, it had taken Nie L less than 5 minutes to deal with all low-ranked bandits. The strongest among them was that deputy, a silver-ranked fighter.

Now that they were dealt with Nie Li headed upstairs towards Wu Ya's cabinet. Two of the remaining guards were standing in front of the door and they quickly joined their companions in death. And Nie Li walked through the door into the cabinet. He knew what was happening here from the beginning through his 'bug'.

5 minutes earlier in Wu Ya's cabinet.

"Oh, look guys, who came to visit us? Our dear 'noble' little Ya," laughed a slightly obese man in an unbuttoned shirt. He was sitting in his chair haughtily relaxed way. His two burly guards who were standing on the sides leaning on walls joined his laugh.

"Wu Ya, you haven't changed at all. Still that whoring drunk I remember." Ming Yahui wasn't afraid of them. He was an almost 5-star demon spiritualist now and a member of an aristocratic family even if a bit poor one.

"Oh, our little Ya has become rather bold." Wu Ya said. "You weren't so ungrateful when we took you as one of our own, back then." He griped.

"You didn't take me. I came to join you myself if you remember." Ming Yahui replied.

"So what happened now? Did your new family chase you away?" Wu Ya said condescendingly.

"No 'my new family' didn't chase me away. I came to you with a very profitable offer."

"Oh, what kind of offer?" Wu Ya replied disinterestedly, "If that offer is to pluck the feathers of your new family, I don't think that's going to be very profitable. They are very poor. I still can't understand why would you join them leaving us. I rather prefer to rob some merchant. Less danger, more profit."

"Yes, the offer is to pluck the feathers of my new family. Exactly one member of my family. And the profits could reach a million, maybe even more." Ming Yahui said smiling at Wu Ya.

"Bullshit. I doubt your entire family makes a million a year. So there's no way someone in your family will carry a million with him." Wu Ya refuted. After Ming Yahuhi left them to join Heavenly Marks Family he got them investigated. Even though most of the information was closed to outsiders he learned that they were the poorest aristocratic family in the city.

"Well, what if I say that he was connected to the new Purple Haze Grass riot. You must have heard about it."

"Hm everyone knows that it was the Alchemy Association who was behind that. They started selling it now. They have even released a new pill recently, that's ten times stronger than the current ones."

Ming Yahui was surprised. When Nie Li told him that he had delivered the grass to the Alchemy Association he became worried. But after thinking some more he came to the conclusion it was Nie Li who discovered the information about the grass and sold it to the Association. So his backing from the Association could not be very strong. But another elixir recipe was completely another matter. Was it Nie Li again who discovered the recipe and sold it to the Association?

If that was the case then Nie Li's backing may be stronger. And it also meant that any possibility of him rising in the Heavenly Marks Family was closed to him now. He had no doubt that Nie Li or Nie Wen will try to take revenge on him. Well, he didn't plan to stay with such a poor family anyway. So he must get as much as he could from this situation and jump the ship now.

Wu Ya was looking at the thoughtful Ming Yahui with a patronizing smile. Kids nowadays. They think they know everything. Maybe he could bring the kid again into the fold with some effort. His planning was interrupted by Ming Yahui's next words.

"Why would they go through so much trouble then? They could have done it more orderly. Alchemy Association is a huge organization. They didn't need to go through so much trouble." Then Ming Yahui told Wu Ya the abridged version of Nie Li's scheme.

"So I'm sure that it was him who sold the Purple Haze grass to the Alchemy Association" he finished his story.

"Are you sure that he has the money?" Wu Ya asked barely hiding his greed.

"Yes, he started to spend hundreds of thousands according to my sources" Ming Yahui didn't tell them that Nie Li had started to spend hundreds of thousands even before selling the grass. Even if Nie Li's connection to the Alchemy Association was stronger than he expected there was a great opportunity for him.

"But there is one important thing. We cannot allow him to survive. If the Alchemy Association will learn about it, there will be hell to pay."

"Don't worry little Ya." Wu Ya laughed. "I will personally lead the attack if necess… Ugh," he coughed and slowly slumped on the table in front of him.

"It was not a completely bad plan," Nie Li said, suddenly appearing behind Wu Ya. He removed the bone sickle from Wu Ya's back.

"What?" mumbled completely bewildered Ming Yahui. He looked at the slumped corpse of the Wu Ya and turned towards the guards. Both of them were pincushioned to the wall by ice spikes. Nie Li put up Ice spike trap arrays on the walls they were leaning on. When Nie Li gave command ice spikes appeared and stabbed them to death.

"How?" continued Ming Yahui. "You are a Silver Rank already?" he asked somewhat gathering his wits. He looked again at the corpse of Wu Ya and Nie Li. Then immediately turned and ran towards the door. But they were stuck and he couldn't open them, no matter how much he struggled. Nie Li's arrays weren't that simple.

Ming Yahui stopped and turned towards Nie Li. He sighed and took out a jade amulet from his neck. Then suddenly pointed it at Nie Li and released an attack. Attack was shaped like a brown-colored beam. But Nie Li was already in his void form. He had started to turn as soon as he noticed the amulet. He could feel a decent amount of energy from it.

The beam hit Wu Ya's corpse and it started to wilt but passed through Nie Li harmlessly. In a couple of seconds, the corpse turned into a mummy. Nie Li turned back corporeal.

"Whew. That would have hurt," said Nie Li looking at what remained of the corpse. Then turned towards Ming Yahui who was frozen in his place. Not out of fear, Nie Li just immobilized him with a technique. Even if the amulet was almost out of charge with that attack who knows what kind of tricks this guy had under his sleeves.

Nie Li walked around the desk, which looked a bit worse for wear from the attack, and took the amulet from Ming Yahui's still outstretched hands.

"Hmm, so that's how you were able to cultivate faster than usual," Nie Li said. Ming Yahui could only furiously glare at him. The technique Nie Li used froze the space around someone blocking any movement. It could only hold someone much weaker than the attacker.

Nie Li released the technique around Ming Yahui's head and slightly weakened it around the rest of his body. He didn't want him to die from asphyxiation after all.

"Give it back!" was the first thing Ming Yahui shouted furiously trying to free himself. But it looked comical with him being frozen in a crouching position and only his head being able to move freely. The rest of his body could only twitch.

"This? Don't worry, I am not interested in your things. I will return it to you if I decide not to kill you." Nie Li replied. He looked at the corpse of Wu Ya and the ruined chair it was sitting on. Ming Yahui's attack has dealt a great amount of damage to it. Nie Li sent both the chair and the corpse into his world to disintegrate. After some thinking, he sent the damaged desk there as well. He only took some documents from its cabinets. He will send them to Kaize. Maybe he will find something interesting in them.

After cleaning the room from unnecessary things, Nie Li took out his favorite armchair. When he bought it he never thought that it would be used so much. He sat down and looked a Ming Yahui. He didn't remove the corpses of the two guards for the sake of the atmosphere. Ming Yahui should understand what kind of fate awaited him if Nie Li will be unsatisfied.

"So you had me watched after all. There was a reason my instincts were warning me about great danger." Ming Yahui said resignedly.

"Good instincts. But you wouldn't have been in this situation if you hadn't decided to sell me out to these two-bit bandits. So a person must first learn to read the signs of the fate correctly." Nie Li said.

"Oh come on. After yesterday's events would you have really let me go?"

"Of course. Being a bit ambitious isn't a sin. I might have actually offered you a job with some great benefits." Nie Li admitted. Of course, he would have kept an eye on him, but there were a couple of plans where such a person would have been useful.

"But would have kept an eye on me no doubt." Ming Yahui said after some pause. He was surprised that Nie Li felt sincere with his words.

Nie Li shrugged as if saying that's a given. Did you expect anything else?

"But would you have allowed me to rise higher than you? Or would you have suppressed me?"

"Are you joking? How are you planning to surpass me?" Nie Li asked incredulously. "If you were hoping on this trinket of yours, I have to disappoint you. It will at most help you to reach the Black gold rank in six to eight years. Then it will become useless." This amulet was popular in the Snow Wind Empire era amongst the noble children. They were given to talented children to help their cultivation. Usually, it needed to be modified by someone to fit the child's soul force characteristics. And Nie Li could see it was not entirely suitable for Ming Yahui's soul force.

Ming Yahui's face became red with embarrassment. He had forgotten he was in front of a thirteen-year-old Silver rank demon spiritualist. When he considered the consequences of Nie Li and Nie Wen's actions yesterday, he took into account their apparent cultivation in the meeting. Even though it was very impressive he had some hope for the artifact his grandfather left him. He hoped that the amulet's effects will grow with time.

And reaching the Black Gold rank in six or eight years wasn't bad at all. That was an unreachable dream for many people. But for the monster in front of him, it was a trivial matter?! Life is so unfair!