A Snail's Wisdom 48 A Rich Thief

"Oh, you think I should punish him? And what about his friends? Should I punish them, too?" Kenja asked sarcastically, standing at the side of the vendor's shop.

The monkey-like person who told him off was ready to breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment at any time. Even if he could beat him in a fight which would not be an easy thing to do, would his other brothers casually look the other way?

Kenja was no fool. That disciple was only doing the bidding of the tall pretty boy in dire need of a haircut, and he was at the Core Crystallization stage surrounded by an entourage more capable than Hizumi's group. Kenja couldn't afford to cause trouble, especially when you consider the fact that his current ident.i.ty should not even be inside the sect.

The wisest thing he could do was step aside for his seniors and then resume his shopping once they had finished.

Snail coughed, "Ahem—you may have a point, disciple, but you're my disciple. How will I ever keep any face if I just let them bully you? At least allow me to—"

"No! You promised me that you wouldn't do anything against my wishes," Kenja interrupted him.

"Hmph!" snorted Snail, no longer desiring to pursue the matter.

"For both bottles, that will be five thousand credits, young master," the vendor told Yu.

Kenja looked at the two bottles Yu had picked up and grimaced. 'Five thousand for those?!'

Having cleaned out much of the marketplace, Kenja had a clear grasp on the prices of most of the merchandise. He had bought several dozens of those bottles already, and their prices hadn't exceed fifteen hundred credits.

The vendor was taking advantage of Yu by gouging the prices.

"Isn't that a bit more than what they are worth?" asked Yu.

Kenja furrowed his brows, a pang of guilt hitting him.

The reason the vendor could inflate the price to such an extent was because he deduced that the other shops' supplies had run out. Kenja had intentionally gone through the marketplace and bought all of the low-grade pills as well as a bunch of other inexpensive items that were useful for cultivators.

It was Kenja's fault that the vendor could raise the price to such an extreme.

Kenja looked at the followers eyeing Yu greedily, and his sympathy for Yu grew further.

It was clear that Yu was not buying the pills for himself but for those behind him. Kenja had spent a day rocketing through tens of books concerning pills, so he would be a complete failure if he didn't know that those pills were suitable only for those at a stage earlier than Yu's cultivation.

Even though Yu had acted like an arrogant young master and was most likely purchasing the pills to impress his followers, the deed itself was selfless. It was meddlesome and bad etiquette to interfere with another's business and profit, but since he had indirectly caused the customer some trouble, Kenja felt he should make amends to him in some fashion.

"Those prices aren't fair at all."

All eyes turned to Kenja.

Snail laughed into Kenja's ear. "That's my disciple! Tell that annoying girl it should be double that price! Make him pay more!"

Snail was excited at the opportunity to get back at the feminine Yu, failing to read the intentions in Kenja's words.

'This snail…so petty.'

"Ahem, senior brother, I just pa.s.sed by several stores that sold those very same bottles for around 1200 credits each. If you like, I can show you," Kenja offered in a manner befitting a younger brother.

Yu looked at Kenja with furrowed brows of confusion.

'What is he talking about?' Yu wondered. He had just gone through the entire marketplace, and there were no other shops with these pills left. Unable to comprehend Kenja's intentions, he was about to rebuke Kenja for his meddling when the vendor in front of him spoke up.

"Ah, is that the case? My apologies, young master. Perhaps their quality is not as good as these here, but it was rather rash of me to charge an upstanding disciple of the sect the original price. If you permit it, I would like to offer them to you at half price. Twenty-five hundred credits. Even if I lose out, it would be a great boon to have one of the Five Tributaries purchase from my store," the vendor spoke rapidly and decisively.

The true mettle of a businessman was not measured by his intelligence in marketing nor in how they handled their customers but in how quickly they reacted to changes.

The vendor had seen from which direction Yu and his group had come from as well as what he wished to purchase. The likelihood was low that Yu would come all the way to his shop for pills that should have been frequently sold in the other shops unless the other shops had run out. Taking into consideration the cultivation of Yu and his friends, it was easy to determine whom he was buying the pills for.

It took only one breath of time after seeing the items Yu had picked out for the merchant to decide to sell the items for double what they were worth, and it took only one breath of time after Kenja advised Yu for the merchant to slash his price in half.

If what Kenja had claimed was true, then the vendor would not only lose out on turning a profit, but he might have alienated one of the sect's treasured disciples. That would result in a lose-lose scenario for the merchant and his merchandise, so he adapted immediately after Kenja had forced his hand.

Yu blinked several times in response to the merchant's sudden change and verbose flattery. He took out his keystone and handed it over to him to complete the transaction.

"Why did you help him, disciple!? This girly man deserves a slap in the face for disrespecting me!" Snail complained.

"When did he disrespect you?" asked Kenja, his eyes rolling at the dramatic snail.

"Disrespecting my disciple is the same as disrespecting me!" he declared proudly, sliding his eyes around Kenja's face to meet his left eye.

Kenja merely chuckled at Snail's over-protective behavior. He could be annoying and troublesome at times, but he also had his sweet moments.

Kenja had known that the vendor would change his tune as soon as he suggested to go to the other shops. There was no way for the vendor to know he had lied, so it was a simple matter getting him to offer Yu a fair price. If he hadn't, then he would have sold Yu two bottles himself.

Yu placed his keystone and one of the pill bottles into his storage bag before walking away from the vendor over to Kenja. The vendor's smile turned to a disappointed frown once Yu's back was turned.

To get Kenja's attention, Yu addressed him, "You there, boy…I mean, junior."

Kenja turned to face Yu and clasped his hands politely, bowing his head slightly.

"Yes, senior brother?"

Yu adopted a grand pose as if he looking down on an insignificant child. "You spoke out when it wasn't your place. Kneel and apologize."

Kenja struggled to keep his right eye from twitching, unsure if his ears heard properly.

'Kneel and apologize? Senior brother, I think you mean to say thank you.'

Kenja had just helped Yu save quite a bit of credits, so receiving this sort of treatment in return was inconceiveable.

Seeing no change in Kenja, Yu's eyes flared slightly and his aura pressed down on Kenja, "Kneel and apologize."

It was like a mountain was placed on Kenja's shoulders, crushing his leg bones. It took all he had to remain standing.

The left side of his face heated up.

Snail was raging.

Kenja was about to tell Snail to calm down when Sakura's hilt began to heat up and shake from his back.

Sakura was quaking.

Stuck between three boiling points, Kenja felt as if he was losing control of the situation, so he did the only thing he felt he could do to resolve the impending confrontation.

He kneeled.

"My apologies, senior brother. It was rude of me to speak out of turn."

Snail and Sakura froze in place. They had not expected Kenja to yield to the bully.

"What are you doing, disciple. Where's your pride?" Snail spat out.

"Shut it!" Kenja commanded Snail.

Kenja was not in a position to cause trouble, especially for someone who exceeded him in status and power. While he was indignant toward the senior's treatment, the senior did have the moral high ground. Kenja had, indeed, interrupted his senior's conversation with the vendor, even if it were for the senior's benefit.

Even if he wanted to argue against the domineering senior, his aura alone felt like a tremendous boulder was crushing him.

Moreover, Snail and Sakura often forgot themselves whenever their tempers peaked. If Kenja had acted any slower, there was no telling what would have happened.

Yu nodded at Kenja, content with this junior's apology.

"As long as you understand your mistakes. Here…a gift for the promising junior." He took out one of the Qi Accelerant Pills in the bottle he carried and handed it to him.

For Sora Yu, he wished to thank Kenja, but it was difficult to do so while maintaining his image of superiority in front of him and his juniors. Teaching him a harsh lesson about the rules of the world while giving him a pill as a reward was, according to Yu, a win-win.

"If you make it to the inner-sect, seek me out. I always have room by my side for another smart junior brother," he told Kenja. Even though the outer-sect disciples were all trash to him with no future, Kenja had given him hope that there could be a diamond hidden underneath all that garbage.

Kenja closed his fist around the pill and clasped his hands. "Thank you for the lesson, senior brother." He stood up, watching as Yu and his escorts walked back the way they came. He could feel Snail swaying in his sh.e.l.l from side-to-side.

Kenja turned back to the angry merchant who gave him a mean look.

"What do you want? Are you here to ruin more of my business?"

Kenja laughed at his words. "You have a right to be angry. Let me make it up to you."

He pulled out the list of items he had written earlier and pa.s.sed it to him.

"I will purchase any and all items that you have on this list for a fair price."

The man took the sheet of paper from him and read through it. His eyes bulged as he saw all his merchandise was listed there.

'What a joke! There's no way he has enough for all this.'

He put the paper down to yell at the mischievous man and his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Kenja had already placed his stone into the TD, and the dial was pointing past the maximum value of one hundred thousand credits.

…

Sora Yu was feeling better after buying the pills for his brothers. He walked back to the specialty shop to meet up with his other junior brother and receive news on the thief. As he walked back, he saw the vendors closing down their shops and congregating at the expensive specialty shops. At the specialty shop where the Voidmetal Dagger was stolen, he spotted his junior brother. Next to him were several merchants speaking with a chubby vice elder.

His junior brother spotted him and ran to greet Yu and his other brothers.

"Brothers, it wasn't only one shop. The others had things that were stolen as well."

Yu's group was shocked into silence. Seeing no response from them, he continued.

"The vice elder believes that a person with a rusted sword is the perpetrator. They have long black hair and might be wearing a sh.e.l.l earring, and the vice elder spent the entire day yesterday, looking for such a person."

Yu's group was stunned into silence once more. Why did the description sound familiar?

The junior brother went on, "Turns out that that person had indeed come today and visited most of the shops here. The strangest thing though. Only the shops he hadn't visited got robbed."

At this time, Yu instinctively reached for his storage bag.

…

…

…

"IT'S GONE!" he exclaimed.

The rest followed suit, looking for their storage bags.

"MINE'S GONE, TOO!"

"WHAT THE h.e.l.l?!"

"WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS IT?!"

Sora Yu's eyes reddened out of anger as he coughed up blood. It had been only moments ago that he had considered Kenja a potential junior brother of his.

"GO FIND THAT GARBAGE AND BRING HIM TO ME!"

…

Split up from his comrades, Yu made his way back to the store he had purchased the pills only to see the smiling vendor walking away from an empty table.

"Where is he? Where did he go!" Yu interrogated him.

The vendor was surprised but, sensing the urgency, quickly answered him, "The boy? He has already gone?"

Yu was panicking. He had more than thirty thousand credits at stake as well as other valuable items and pills in that bag. He couldn't afford to lose it.

"Where did he go? And what happened to your shop? Did he steal from you?" Yu barraged the vendor with questions.

"Steal from me? He bought everything I had! I am going back home a rich man!" he celebrated with a large smile.

The vendor's items could have easily totalled more than fifty thousand credits.

Yu clutched his chest and covered his mouth to keep the blood from spraying. Sora Yu would cry tears of blood right now if he could.

'Brother, if you're so rich, why are you stealing?!?!'