"It’s a raid! They sent an Elder to shut us down!"

"Run!"

"NOBODY MOVES!" Jiu Zui’s voice exploded across the cavern, accompanied by a wave of Sovereign-level spiritual pressure that physically slammed the entire crowd to the floor, pinning thousands of cultivators to the cobblestones like insects under a boot.

Jiu Zui stepped up onto the railing beside Ji’an, crossing his arms, looking down at the terrified auctioneer.

"The bid is five million, you sweaty pig," Jiu Zui sneered. "Going once. Going twice. Sold."

Ji’an didn’t wait for the gavel.

She leaped off the railing, her Wind-Step Boots activating to completely negate the fifty-foot drop.

She landed in the center of the pit with a silent, graceful crouch, right next to the kneeling, terrified form of Lin Xuan.

The heavily armored guards surrounding the boy didn’t even try to stop her. They were too busy pressing their faces into the dirt, paralyzed by Jiu Zui’s aura.

Ji’an stood up. She reached into her spatial ring, bypassing the herbs and artifacts, and pulled out her heavy, blackened Black Iron Spatula.

She looked at the heavy, magical iron chain binding her brother’s wrists; the veins of her forehead were popping out in anger.

She channeled the newly acquired, extremely dense internal meridian compression technique she had been practicing for a week.

Her arm didn’t bulge with muscle, but the sheer, condensed kinetic energy flowing into the spatula made the air around the iron warp and distort.

CLANG!

Ji’an brought the flat edge of the spatula down on the thick iron chains.

The chains didn’t just break; they shattered into fine, metallic dust under the absurd, overwhelming physical force of her strike.

Lin Xuan gasped, pulling his freed, bruised wrists to his chest. He looked up at the cloaked figure who had just bought him for five million stones and shattered his bindings with a cooking utensil.

"Who... who are you?" Lin Xuan whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of awe and terror.

Ji’an knelt down as she reached up and pulled back the heavy hood of her Silk-Weave cloak, revealing her face.

Lin Xuan’s silver-flecked eyes widened to the size of saucers. He recognized the stubborn jaw that matched his father’s and the eyes.

He recognized the older sibling who had vanished in the middle of the night two years ago.

"Get up, Xuan," Ji’an said, her voice unusually soft, lacking any of its usual arrogant bite. She reached out and gently wiped a streak of dirt from the boy’s bleeding cheek. "I’m taking you home. And then, I am going to make you the biggest bowl of soup you have ever seen in your life."

Up on the balcony, Jiu Zui uncorked his wine gourd, taking a long, satisfied drink as he watched his apprentice claim her brother.

’The Sect Leader is going to have an aneurysm when he sees the bill,’ Jiu Zui chuckled to himself, entirely unbothered. ’Worth every single stone.’

The shopping trip was officially over. Lin Ji’an had just acquired the most expensive, high-maintenance item in the entire Black Market: family.

And the Celestial Sword Sect was about to get a whole lot more complicated.

.

.

.

The shattered remnants of the heavy, magical iron chains fell to the dirt floor of the sunken pit, raising a small cloud of dust.

Lin Xuan, the thirteen-year-old runaway heir to the Lin General’s Estate, stared up at the cloaked figure who had just bought him for an astronomical sum, only to break his bindings with a piece of cast-iron cookware.

When Lin Ji’an pulled back her hood, the boy’s silver-flecked eyes, the genetic mirror of her own, widened in absolute, unadulterated shock.

"Third... Third Brother?" Lin Xuan whispered, his voice cracking from dehydration and sheer disbelief. "You... you’re alive? But Stepmother said you ran away to die in the wilderness!"

"Stepmother says a lot of things, Xuan, and most of them are garbage," Ji’an replied, her voice dangerously calm.

She reached out, her thumb gently wiping a smear of blood and grime from her little brother’s bruised cheek.

The maternal, protective instincts of a head chef whose junior line cook had just been bullied violently roared to life in her chest.

She stood up slowly, turning her back on her brother to face the raised stone podium where the corpulent, sweating auctioneer was currently trying to discreetly edge toward a hidden trapdoor.

"Going somewhere?" Ji’an called out, her voice amplified by her Harmonious Five-Grain Qi. The sound carried perfectly across the dead-silent, terrified cavern of the Black Market.

"E-Esteemed guest!" the auctioneer stammered, raising his hands defensively as the crushing spiritual pressure of the Drunken Sovereign, Jiu Zui, continued to pin the rest of his guards to the floor. "The transaction is complete! The boy is yours! Please, there is no need for violence! The Black Market respects the Celestial Sword Sect!"

"You don’t get to invoke sect politics after putting a price tag on my family, you greasy pork bun," Ji’an hissed.

She didn’t walk toward the stage; she utilized the Wind-Step Boots Jiu Zui had just bought her.

With a single, explosive burst of kinetic energy, she crossed the fifty-yard pit in a literal blur, appearing directly in front of the podium before the auctioneer could even blink.

"Wait—!"

WHACK!

Ji’an swung the Black Iron Spatula with the full, devastating force of her newly compressed internal meridians.

She didn’t hit the man; she hit the solid stone podium. The dense, iron-infused strike shattered the massive block of granite into a thousand flying shards of shrapnel.

The shockwave blew the auctioneer off his feet, sending him crashing into the wall behind the stage with a wet, heavy thud.

"Listen to me, you subterranean bottom-feeders!" Ji’an roared, turning to address the terrified rogue cultivators, mercenaries, and slavers pinned to the cobblestones. "I bid five million spirit stones for this boy! But after reviewing the merchandise and factoring in the sheer, unmitigated audacity of putting a Lin in chains, I have decided to issue a severe penalty fee for emotional damages, psychological trauma, and poor customer service!"