Humans have always claimed to be smarter than beasts, and now I’m starting to see the basis behind their claims. In what human city would people willingly trade precious treasures for lunch boxes filled with homemade cooking? Unless it’s a time of famine, no one would trade away their family heirlooms for a meal that’ll only keep them full for a day. Even if it was to curry favor with a prince, people would only begrudgingly give up their belongings, not compete with one another to give up their riches first. …Unless it was for a princess’ hand in marriage, then some people would do very stupid things, but Lucia Fluffytail isn’t offering herself up.

“Marinated aurochs tripe! Chewy, sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and delicious! Who wants it?”

She’s offering up cooked cow stomach lining.

“Me, me, me!”

“Aren’t you a three-horned ox? Why are you trying to buy tripe? Go eat some grass!”

“Why do you care what I buy? Only my wife, my mother, and my mistress can tell me what to do with my money!”

“Well, I hope you have more money than me because I want this dish!”

This is ridiculous, but at the same time, the two souls in my body are telling me this is to be expected. Other than the natural ability to shatter formations that squirrels have, they also have an innate aura that decreases the intelligence and warps the common sense of the people around them. This aura hasn’t been recorded in any books, but not all knowledge has been recorded in writing. Some knowledge is recorded in scars and regrets. “Senior Sister Mu, will you be in any trouble after bartering away the Blazing Sun Sect Necklace?”

“Of course,” Senior Sister Mu said and glanced at me. She was eating a piece of grilled dragon that she was holding in her hand like a piece of jerky. “The Blazing Sun Sect Necklace is passed down from generation to generation. It’s absolutely a loss to trade it for a dragon corpse.”

I’m pretty sure I can ask why she did it without using any words. All I have to do is stare at her in silence until she feels awkward enough to respond.

Munch, munch.

…

Chew, chew.

…

Gulp.

…Unfortunately, the only one feeling awkward here is me. Alright, I have to ask before Senior Sister Mu gets upset at me for staring at her while she eats. “If you know it’s a loss to trade away the Blazing Sun Sect Necklace, then why did you do it?”

Senior Sister Mu glanced at me while another piece of grilled dragon meat appeared in her hand. Despite the glistening oil on the meat, her hands remained unstained thanks to the layer of spiritual energy she was using to coat her fingers. “It’s a loss for the sect to lose the necklace, but it’s a personal gain for me. What’ll happen to me if lose the necklace? I’ll be fined, but whatever I have to pay, it’s worth less than this grilled dragon. You’re the holy child of our sect; you have to look at the bigger picture. Fines are simply business expenses.”

Righteous sects, my ass. Bloodmoon was treated as a demonic cultivator for killing people and robbing them of their cultivation to increase his own strength. Senior Sister Mu is a supposedly righteous person, but she traded away a treasure that would help future generations for her own personal gain. If it were any other item, I wouldn’t judge her so harshly, but as the holy child of the Blazing Sun Sect, I was next in line to receive that necklace!

“Also, since the other sects lost their respective pieces of jewelry, it’d be suspicious if I were the only one to retain mine,” Senior Sister Mu said as if she had forgotten she was the one that targeted the other sects in the first place. While she spoke, she never stopped scarfing down the grilled dragon. Just watching her eat made my mouth water and my stomach grumble. If I were a beast whose gluttony outweighed my greed, I don’t think I would’ve been able to resist purchasing some of Lucia Fluffytail’s food.

“Hey!” a loud voice said from the beasts crowding around the makeshift stall the squirrel-woman had set up. “Do you have any vermillion bird meat for sale? I’m willing to pay an extremely high price for some.”

Lucia Fluffytail scratched her head and looked around. The vermillion birds had left the area shortly after the dragons. They were too prideful to stick around with a bunch of losers who let a heaven-defying treasure escape. “Well,” Lucia Fluffytail said and stroked her chin. “That depends. Is anyone here capable of regenerating someone’s limbs if I chopped them off?”

“I can!” the bird-person who hoarded all the pork-floss buns said and raised her hand. “For every limb I recover, I’d like a pork floss bun as payment!”

“In that case, I do have vermillion bird meat for sale!”

A familiar, small, red figure appeared on the countertop in front of Lucia Fluffytail. It was the vermillion bird I had an awkward encounter with earlier inside the squirrelkin’s life pouch. It looked around, but it didn’t even have a chance to register its surroundings before a gleaming sword light cut off its wing. Its panicked squawk barely left its beak when three more sword lights cut off its remaining wing and legs. “Quick, heal him!”

“Got it!” the bird-person said and ran over, pushing through the crowd of beasts. Her body shifted, and she turned into a blue-green bird with long trailing tail feathers. Her beak opened, and a fountain of green light poured onto the poor vermillion bird’s bleeding body. The vermillion bird’s limb stumps contorted and wriggled as new body parts grew, pink and featherless.

“Ooh, that’s a pretty neat ability,” Lucia Fluffytail said. “How many more times can you do that?”

The blue-green bird, which I suspected was a mix-blooded luan, thought for a bit before nodding twice. “I can do it six more times.”

“Six? Alright,” Lucia Fluffytail said. “Close your eyes and meditate, Mrs. Feathers’ Future Husband. This’ll be over quick!”