Not Human

The old man's attitude did a complete 360 and he immediately gripped Zhishi Wu's leg.

"Spare me great lord cultivator." a look of despair appeared on his face.

Zhishi Wu shook him off his leg.

"We can't eat him Snip, he's expired." he said as he squatted down to look the old man in his eyes.

"Speak now and if you leave anything out I'll feed you to my bear instead." this was just a bluff, Gomu was a herbivore and would probably barf at the idea of eating meat.

"My Lord it's all the fault of those bastards!" rage filled the old man's eyes and his hands clenched forming fists.

"About a month ago the Southwind bandit group arrived, their leader had always been in the late stage of Qi condensation so our mayor kept him at bay." the old man's expression devolved from fury to sorrow.

"This time he had actually managed to break through to the foundation establishment stage and our mayor couldn't compete. They locked him beneath his residence and started to distribute a powder they call sunset powder, most people refused but..." his hands which had been clenched relaxed.

"The ones who refused were force-fed it and became addicted, they didn't even spare the children, everyone started to rob and plunder to purchase powder from them, the city became hell. Those two sitting outside in the restaurant are part of the group and forced me to lace my food with products, it was all their fault."

Zhishi Wu thought about the situation for a few seconds before standing up.

"I feel no pity for you." he spoke with an emotionless voice.

His gaze held no sympathies.

"A person who doesn't forge their own future is on par with an ingot in a blacksmiths hand."

Zhishi Wu looked down on him one last time before leaving the room.

The old man sat there thinking about what happened and fell backwards.

"I am not human." a tear fell down the old man's eyes when he realized what Zhishi Wu's words meant.

…

While this was happening Jia Lin was wondering why Zhishi Wu was in the restroom so long.

"Elder, lean in I have to ask something that requires discretion." Jia Lin whispered.

Mei Fan was astonished that this little girl actually had something important to say and leaned closer to her.

"I thought foundation establishment cultivators never had to use the bathroom."

"..."

Mei Fan thought this was a joke for a moment and waited for her to laugh. Right as she was about to respond the two men from earlier walked over, one of them was tall and the other was short.

"You ladies not interested in the food? I am Almond and my friend here is Dumpling" the tall one asked, his face was shaped like an almond vertically, it was safe to say he may have been dropped on his head as a child.

"Or could it be you were too enamored with us to properly eat?" the short one spoke, his face was shaped like a dumpling, it was plausible that he may have eaten a great number of dumplings to end up like that.

Mei Fan had a disgusted expression on her face similar to one that a person may have if they stepped in dog shit, and Jia Lin just sat there not too sure what was happening.

"I was about to eat but seeing your ugly faces made me lose my appetite." Mei Fan spoke up.

Jia Lin was visibly stunned by the statement, "so much for being a dignified elder" she thought.

Almond and dumpling were caught off guard by the statement as well, they didn't except such a beautiful lady to spit such poison.

"Let's see how you like to be force-fed." Almond spoke and started to approach her.

"Let's see how you like the taste of the wall." Mei Fan replied before casually swinging her hand and sending him flying into yesterday.

Dumpling who was about to attack Jia Lin stood there dumbfounded.

"Little Jia, take care of your portion as well." Mei Fan said as she looked towards dumpling.

Jia Lin was not accustomed to violence but she still swung at Dumpling and he fell backwards, Dumpling had already seen what happened to Almond so he began to stand up and run.

"YOU CRAZY WOMEN!" he turned his head as he ran.

Thump!

Zhishi Wu distinctly remembered that he had told these two to sit still, yet for some reason the moment he returned one of the men was halfway through a wall and another was running for his life.

"... I must have missed something important." he thought to himself reassuringly.

He crouched down and looked at Dumpling.

"Great looks like we found our guide." Zhishi Wu said to the two women.

"Guide?" Dumpling was not sure what Zhishi Wu meant by that.

…

Within the mayor's residence the Southwind bandit group seemed to have been under a different impression of the situation.

"Capn, the three entered the Iron Chef restaurant, it shouldn't be long until they become hooked." Scrawny spoke with a gleaming smile on his face as he rubbed his hands together with glee.

"I am wise after all, just like my brother." Capn spoke while intermittently drinking.

Scrawny continued to read off of a paper in his hand.

"Some folks have heard of us selling slaves and are interested."

Capn's eyes lit up.

"Finally those useless powder grubbing insects have a use."

"Well we gathered some information on them, the only thing we managed to dig up is that they are some sort of cult."

Capn shook his hand back and forth dismissively.

"Don't know, don't care lets sell these pathetic excuses for people, it's just like getting paid to sell our garbage hahaha."

Capn stood up and checked the inside of a barrel.

"We are running out of the powder, let's deal with these three cultivators and then we can request some more sunset powder."

The thought of requesting more powder reminded Scrawny of something.

"Ain't it sort of ironic Capn." Scrawny asked with a thoughtful expression.

"What is?"

"These orthodox cultivators are strange, they set fire with one hand and extinguish with another, heh."