Lin watched as the member of the Crimson Lotus Gang, used some sort of Qi technique to remove the fork from his eye. It seemed he wasn’t completely skill-less. The fork clattered to the floor, stained red with his blood.

“It’s our lucky day Hong. We caught two scorpions for the price of one,” one of the thugs said.

“Lucky day my ass, I just got stabbed in the eye,” Hong said, cradling his injured eye.

“Don’t complain. I’ve heard injuries to the eye can increase your comprehension of the ocular dao. This is truly a fortuitous encounter you’ve been blessed with.” The last member of the trio said, his eyes glazed over and his jaw slack. Whatever affliction was affecting the trio, he was clearly suffering the worst of its effects.

“Will you idiots shut up before I bless both your eyes with a fortuitous encounter,” Hong said with air quotes. “And for Shang Di’s sake, clear the moon leaf from your system, we need to focus.”

Lin turned her back to the men, completely ignoring them. After all, they were too busy squabbling amongst themselves to pose any threat. “I thought I told you not to wander off. Now, look what happened.” Her expression softened. “Are you alright?”

Shawn patted his bruised stomach and winced. “I should be fine. Will you be alright? I can help if you need it.” All this time he had assumed that Lin would be able to beat the men. What gave him that impression he wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the casual grace she walked with. But if that assumption proved to be false, then he would be in deep trouble.

She cracked her knuckles. “It’s fine. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to work out some stress. Who’s first,” she said as she turned to face them.

Shawn took that as his cue to get out of the way. If he got caught in the middle of the fight he would only be a hindrance to Lin.

“This isn’t going to be a fair fight, this is gonna be a beat down.” The three thugs approached in unison, their eyes now clear from the effects of the moon leaf drug. Lin stood still as they circled her. A stray plastic bag rolled down the street prompting the men to burst into action.

The man behind her moved in a burst of speed that Shawn had a hard time tracking. The man jumped in the air and attempted to kick her in the face. As fast as a serpent's strike, Lin grabbed the man’s leg completely stopping his momentum.

The man hung upside down clearly shocked by this turn of events. His head rested uncomfortably against the ground due to Lin’s diminutive height. “You’re right.” Lin threw the man into a wall causing it to crack. “This isn’t going to be a fair fight.”

Shawn cheered from the sidelines happy to see the Crimson Lotus members be annihilated.

The last uninjured member of the gang pulled out a knife and charged her. Once again she stood and watched him approach. The man swung his knife in a broad arc aimed at her throat.

With casual ease she caught the man’s wrist blocking the attack. She twisted the man’s wrist till it cracked. With a scream of pain, the man fell to his knees, but Lin wasn’t done with him yet. She kneed the man in the head sending him flying ten feet away.

Shawn looked at the two knocked-out gang members, he hadn’t known Lin was so strong.

“Don’t get overconfident, I’m different from those two grunts,” Hong said, blood leaking out of his eye. An amount of Qi so large that Shawn could feel it halfway across the street coalesced in the man’s hands. The feat was especially impressive considering Shawn had never sensed Qi before.

Shawn mulled over the foreign sensation, searing it into his memory. It would speed up his cultivation efforts immensely if he already knew what Qi felt like. Upon closer inspection, he realized that he had been sensing Qi in the air all along, just a different flavor of it. Whereas the ambient energy in the area had a faintly electric feel to it, the man’s Qi felt sharp. He feared that he would be cut if he got too close to it.

The Qi ran down the length of the knife extending its length and causing its extra length to glow like a lightsaber. The man gave his newly improved weapon a few practice swings, it cut through the concrete like butter. Shawn gulped, glad the man had been hindered by drugs when they fought. I would have died in a second if he was at full power.

“Are you afraid yet?

Unlike Shawn, Lin looked completely calm. “It’s annoying when an ant like you gets an ego. Your technique is stupid, it’s inefficient.”

The man growled in anger then charged her. Like always, Lin stood with her hands at her sides, completely relaxed. This time she prepared, blood-red Qi coated her hands, forcing Shawn to step backward.

Lin’s Qi felt nothing like the man’s. Her Qi was poisonous, it felt toxic to even breathe the air near her. Honestly, it reminded him of the skill wisp he had seen after he used [Devourer] on the scorpion, just much more powerful. The aura the two gave off was remarkably similar.

The man swung his sword to no effect. Like the other attacks, Lin caught it with her hands. Shawn looked on in shock as blood-red energy seeped out of her hands, protecting her from the immense cutting force of the blade.

She flexed her arms and the energy enveloped the man’s energy sword. The two energies clashed momentarily before Lin’s blood-red Qi won, completely disintegrating his energy projection. Her technique did not stop with just the destruction of his Qi. The energy flowed forward like a deadly acid, dissolving the knife in mere seconds.

The man stumbled backward, but it was too late, Lin’s technique had already latched onto his arm. Her Qi made crackling sounds as it slowly dissolved the man’s hand. The man screamed in horror. Making the first smart decision in possibly all his life, the man turned tail and ran. Lin made no motion to follow and the deadly Qi dissipated as the man escaped.

Shawn stood slack-jawed, thoroughly impressed and somewhat scared by her display of power. He’d make sure not to get on her bad side, he didn’t want to get disintegrated by her Qi. “What was that technique you used,” Shawn asked?

“I call it the [Poison of the Scorpion]. I made it myself,” she said, looking very proud of herself. Shawn scrunched his forehead in thought, the technique she used sounded awfully similar to the one he was offered. He was starting to regret not taking it.

“Can you teach it to me?”

Lin laughed. “The first thing you ask for is to learn my technique. Have you no shame? You haven’t even thanked me for saving you yet.

Shawn blushed. “Sorry, thank you for saving me.”

“As for learning my technique, your cultivation base is too weak to learn it at the moment. Honestly, I’m surprised you’re still alive, I’ve seen literal newborns with more Qi than you.”

Shawn winced it hurt to hear that even children were better than him. “That makes sense. I’ve never cultivated before.”

Lin looked at him in shock. “You’ve never cultivated? What have you been doing all your life? And for that matter, why the hell are you in Najian if you’ve never cultivated.”

“I don’t know why I’m in Najian, it’s just where I ended up,” Shawn told the truth. Lin had already been able to pick up on his lies multiple times in the past, so it was better to stick to the truth. “And if my weak cultivation base angers you so much, you could teach me how to cultivate.”

One of the Crimson Lotus thugs groaned as he woke up. He limped over to his comrade and then carried him away.

“We should leave before more of them come,” Lin said, not answering his question.

Shawn’s mind wandered as they rushed back to the Scorpion’s Den. By now the initial burst of rage had faded and he was left perplexed by his actions. Why did he stab the man? If he just waited for Lin he could have avoided injury. Even though he couldn’t logically understand his actions, he still felt satisfied with them.

Even more satisfying was the blue box he had been ignoring.

Congratulations! Your skill, Deception has grown to level 3.

Improving a skill was always an enjoyable experience.

They returned to the Scorpion’s Den to find it mostly empty, only a few customers drank at the bar. It seemed the dinner time rush hadn’t started yet

“Shawn, what took you so long? We need you back in the kitchen.” Chule took a look at Shawn’s disheveled state and paused. “Are you alright? What happened?”

Shawn told Chule what had happened, by the end of his story, Chule was furious.

“No one hurts a member of The Den and gets away with it,” Chule snapped. He pointed his metallic arm at Lin. “Gather a team and take care of the Crimson Lotus. They’ve been a thorn in our side for too long.” How Chule referenced the Scorpion’s Den set off alarm bells in his mind, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him why it made him so concerned.

Chule turned to Shawn. “I’m sorry you had to go through that my boy, we’ll make this right. You don’t have to go back out there till the Crimson Lotus is taken care of.” Shawn stood stock still in shock, not expecting this type of response from a restaurant. Shouldn’t they call the police?

Chule slid a cup of tea to Shawn. “Once you finish that you can start in the kitchen.”

Shawn took his time drinking his tea, trying to remember where he had heard of The Den before. By the time he had finished his tea he still hadn’t made the connection.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder causing him to jump in fright. A tall teenage boy with blond hair stood behind him. “I’m Tian, Chule told me to show you the ropes in the kitchen.”

Shawn let himself be guided into the kitchen, where Tian showed him how to do his tasks. They were relatively simple, nothing he hadn’t done before. His first job was to cut carrots for a soup they would be serving for dinner tonight.

Shawn took a carrot from the large pile to his left and placed it on the cutting board. Shawn grimaced as he looked at the knife resting flat on the counter; too many psychos had threatened him with knives recently.

Shawn calmed the slight tremor in his hand and began methodically chopping the carrots into even pieces.

He focused on his work, doing his best to let the stress from the day flow out of him, but worry would not leave him no matter what he did. He paused his chopping as a grim realization overcame him, disparate memories coming together to form a cohesive whole.

It all made sense now. The Scorpion’s Den was The Den. The same gang that even the psychopathic man in the robe thought was blood thirsty. How had he been so blind; the truth had been right in front of him the whole time.

The wooden boxes containing herbs that smelled similar to the drugs he had seen the homeless taking. The respect everyone had given him as he walked the street with the necklace, even going as far as to get out of his way. Lin’s unexpected fighting power. For god's sake, what type of waitress was able to easily beat three gang members?

He had accidentally joined a gang! How had he been such an idiot? The boxes he spent all day delivering with Lin had probably been filled with drugs.

Even though they had treated him kindly so far, the members of the Scorpions Den were not good people. He shivered as he realized what Chule had sent Lin to do. Everyone in the Crimson Lotus would die tonight.

To his horror, he realized that he wasn’t completely opposed to the idea. A seed of hatred had been planted inside him from the encounter, changing how he saw the world.

“Is something wrong,” Tian asked, noticing his discomfort.

The necklace felt heavy on his neck like a collar. “No, nothing's wrong. “ He had to get out of here.