Good First Impressions

"What..." A middle-aged fisherman, adjusting his rod, is shocked when he sees, out of the corner of his eye, three girls as beautiful as fairies following a boy of similar age as they walk down a road in front of him leading to his village.

"Hey, look at those travelers over there..." he murmurs quietly to his friend who was cleaning fish.

"Why don't you get back to work instead of staring at passersby?" A skinny middle-aged man with a strong stench of alcohol says grumpily.

The fisherman, hearing this, angrily throws a fish at his friend's face. "You bastard! Do what I said and see that they aren't ordinary travelers!"

"Oh, you old bastard, I'll make you swallow the guts of these fish..." he says as he turns to look at the travelers his friend is talking about.

With just one glance, he understood his friend's insistence because the three beauties he saw walking ahead resembled more the immortal fairies told in stories than the ordinary women he saw in the village.

But unfortunately for him, he doesn't have the opportunity to calmly savor the sight of the three beautiful ladies because, at this very moment, the young man leading the three girls moves in front of his gaze, looking directly into his eyes.

"How far is the Yu village?" the young man asks calmly while looking at him with his dark red eyes that seem capable of seeing his very soul.

At that moment, he is sure the young man can see his soul because the chill running down his body, along with all his danger senses going off, tells him that the cold eyes looking directly at him belong to a predator who could kill him as easily as cutting grass.

"Y-y-yes sir... following this... uh, road, a few hours' walk," he says, struggling to stay on his trembling legs. "A-as long as you follow this road, there shouldn't be any problem..."

"Alright..." the young man says simply, continuing his journey without giving him a second glance.

Or so he assumes since he didn't dare lift his gaze to look at the young man or the three girls who, throughout the entire exchange, neither looked at him nor said anything.

"Sir?! Hahahah, since when do you call any young bastard 'sir'?" his friend says, laughing after the young man has walked far enough to disappear from sight.

"Shut up, you bald fuck! Did you see that young man's eyes? Those were the eyes of a killer!" he says while wiping the sweat of fear from his forehead with the back of his hand.

In his youth, he was a hunter, but after his group encountered a black bear in the mountains, he had to become a fisherman because of the injuries from the attack. But now, remembering the deadly look of the ferocious bear, the terror he saw in the bear's furious eyes doesn't compare to the terror he saw in that young man's calm eyes.

"Killer's eyes...? Well, that young man did have an strange aura..." his friend says, looking at the path they took to get here.

"And he came from the southern forest alone and unarmed while with three beautiful ladies..." his friend continues, frowning with greater fear at each word. "...Could he be a Gu master?!"

He nods in agreement with his friend's words. "I fear so... and it's better that we don't return to the village for a while if he's heading there."

His friend nods, understanding his words, as the reason is more than obvious to any mortal who grew up hearing stories of how Gu masters often exterminated entire mortal villages in the past because just one inhabitant dared to offend them carelessly.

In fact, now he could consider himself quite lucky for not provoking this Gu master's wrath, even after carelessly staring at him and the girls beside him as they made their way to the Yu village.

"Shouldn't we warn the village about this Gu master?" his friend asks, doubt on his face.

He looks at his friend's face, asking this stupid question, then looks at the horizon where the young man went. "If you want to warn the village, go ahead! I'm getting out of here before this Gu master decides to come back and kill us!"

He finishes his words and doesn't even bother to gather his fishing gear before quickly getting up to run to his house in the rice fields on the outskirts of the village.

"Damn! To hell with the village; someone will warn them anyway!" his friend says at the same time, running after him to follow in the same direction since they live close to each other.

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*Yu Village*

"Uh... well, village leader, sir..." one of the village guards speaks nervously in front of Li Xin.

Li Xin, an old man with white hair and a long beard in the classic style of an oriental philosopher, listens to his words while peacefully practicing calligraphy on a delicate piece of green bamboo under a cherry tree with beautiful pink leaves.

"Then tell me at once; I don't have all day..." Li Xin frowns because, although he doesn't really have a busy day as he makes it seem, he still doesn't want to waste his time listening to stupid murmurs.

"So, tell me which fisherman fought with whom after arguing over who caught the biggest fish after getting so drunk they couldn't walk anymore." Li Xin has a calm yet irritated tone, as if he has heard the same story countless times.

"Sir... several fishermen and farmers reported seeing a young man followed by three beautiful girls heading toward Yu village, and—" The guard doesn't finish his words when Li Xin looks at him, quite irritated.

"Get to the point!" Li Xin says irritably due to the delay from the guard, who is just an inexperienced recruit.

At least that's what he sees from his awkward posture and nervousness, and above all, the fact that any veteran guard wouldn't be stupid enough to interrupt his calligraphy moments, so they sent a recruit to face his anger instead.

"Yes, sir! According to these people, the young man leading the group is a Gu master!!" The guard speaks hastily, almost tripping over his words.

"Oh... are you sure?" Li Xin's angry expression softens into one of concern as he puts down his calligraphy brush.

"It's not certain, sir... but everyone who saw him said he didn't have the aura of a common mortal!" The guard responds, his heart racing with worry, as the village leader doesn't seem to know about this supposed Gu master.

'...If it were someone from the Huo clan, they would have informed me in advance of their arrival so I could prepare their accommodations,' Li Xin thinks as he gets up from his seat and begins walking toward the village gate in deep thought.

'A demonic Gu master wouldn't walk openly like this... could he be a lone Gu master?' Li Xin pays little attention to the guard following him apprehensively without saying a word.

Of course, he considered the possibility that this traveler might just be an ordinary person and not a Gu master, but if there's one thing he's learned in his many years as the leader of this village, it's that for a rank 1 middle stage Gu master like him, it's better to always treat situations as if they were the worst-case scenario to avoid danger.

"Was he armed? Or did he act violently towards any fishermen or farmers?" Li Xin asks the guard following him, inquiring about something important.

"No, sir! At least, not that has been reported to us..." Li Xin understands the clear meaning behind the guard's words, as a demonic Gu master wouldn't leave any witnesses alive in most cases.

"Well... the fact that we aren't receiving news of blood in the rivers or missing farmers indicates that a massacre likely hasn't occurred," Li Xin says with a bit of helplessness, trying to make the most of the information he received.

"Some said that this supposed young Gu master had a notorious, frightening look, like that of a kil—" But the guard doesn't finish his words.

The reason for this is another guard arriving quickly, kneeling before the village leader, and speaking rapidly as he catches his breath after running halfway across the village.

"Village leader, sir! A young man identifying himself as a Gu master has arrived at the village gate and wants to see you!" He speaks without unnecessary pleasantries for this urgent situation.

"Is this young man the same one you sent him to warn me about?" Li Xin asks directly, focusing on what is most important to him.

"Based on the description of the young man and the three beautiful ladies with him, we believe so, sir!" Ji Cio responds without hesitation, as an experienced soldier should.

"Alright... Ji Cio, go back to my house and prepare to evacuate my family if necessary..." Li Xin speaks with a serious expression as he approaches the guard.

"...and also eliminate what's in the basement before escaping, understood?" Li Xin murmurs the last part quietly in Ji Cio's ear.

"Yes, sir!!" Ji Cio places his fist in his palm and kneels on the ground, making a respectful salute.

"You! Come with me." He points to the guard who first came to inform him and continues without worrying about looking back.

As Li Xin walks through the busy dirt roads of the village, he feels a great pressure building in his heart, the same feeling that always comes when he is about to meet genuine Gu masters, unlike himself, who is merely the illegitimate son of a Gu master from the Huo clan tasked with guarding this village, which lay along an important caravan route.

In fact, he has never even been in a real fight between Gu masters. In the few cases where a demonic Gu master came to the village, he always resolved the problem "diplomatically", which can also be called paying whatever ransom the Gu master demanded.

So, as he walks through the village roads towards the gate, he feels that every look and smile he receives from the village's mortals appear as mocking, reminding him that he is seen as an honorable and powerful Gu master in their eyes, but in reality, he doesn't even have basic combat capability since the Huo clan doesn't fully trust someone who is only partially a clan member.

"Sir, it seems a crowd is forming..." The guard beside him says, surprised to see a small group, mainly of young men, gathering at the village gate.

But before Li Xin can say anything, the worst happens. Before he even realizes it, he sees one of these young men on the ground, screaming in pain, holding his eyes that are bleeding profusely.

"Damn! Idiot kids!" Li Xin shouts angrily as he forces his old body to run towards the commotion, certain that it originated from the Gu master.

"Ah!" But when he passes through the group of young men, who make way for him after recognizing him as the village leader, he sees three beauties who seem like pure jade fairies, explaining why a group of young men is gathered here.

However, he hardly bothers to take a look at them as his attention goes directly to a young man standing in front of the beautiful girls. Who as if to assert his status, a large amount of black blood floats and swirls rapidly around him as he coldly looks at the young man on the ground, screaming and bleeding as if he were a piece of shit.

Li Xin doesn't need another second to understand what happened; it's obvious that these three ladies must be the wives or sisters or something similar to the Gu master, and this young man was foolish enough to disrespect them, which now endangers not only himself but the entire village if not for Li Xin, who is also a Gu master.

"Oh, hello, my esteemed guest! It's an honor to welcome you! I'm really excited to have a fellow Daoist to share tea with in my abode!" Li Xin says with a wide smile, completely ignoring the young man screaming in agony on the ground.