Chapter 87: A Time-Honored Tradition
They almost made it out of the boys' housing complex. If anything, it had been surprisingly quiet. Paike was half expecting to get attacked when he first stepped out of his door. He had been braced to prove himself, but had to put on a good show.
The show had gone on long enough that he had actually gotten confident without having to act in the slightest.
So when a group of five young boys stepped in front of them, it was almost a relief. He wasn't going to have to go looking for trouble to show that he wasn't to be accosted. They came here to let him get it out of the way.
Their leaders stepped forward. "I apologize for blocking your way, but I don't believe we have records of your tax to..."
Paike tuned out the thin veil of an excuse that they wrapped their shake-down or intimidation in. It didn't matter to him what they said. Instead, he scanned the faces. For the most part, he knew them from either his year or just people he had seen around the sect but hadn't interacted with.
His eyes caught on one familiar face, though. Han Saiyan stood at the end and was looking quite uncomfortable. He refused to meet Paike's gaze, but Paike wasn't going to let him get out of this with his face intact.
"Han Saiyan," Paike called, cutting off the spiel to the leader. He wasn't worried about him. The leader seemed barely in Topaz, but his cultivation felt wrong. Paike wouldn't be surprised to find out that he would never advance again. He was likely some lackey put in charge of even weaker cultivators. Apparently, some of the new year had already joined up with this group. "I didn't expect you to be crawling for patronage so fast. Where is your pride? You so eager to be someone's dog?"
The provocation should have sent the arrogant young master spluttering in rage, not even a week ago. However, it seemed that the boy had learned some self-preservation skills in the meantime. Paike supposed it was unfair of him to think that he was the only one growing and changing here.
It was enough of a distraction that the cultivators were taken aback that Guan Li was able to slip away into an alleyway. Paike was going to give him a little more time to get into position.