The evening breeze swept by, lifting a few scraps of torn talisman paper and sending them spinning through the air.
He calmly surveyed the devastation.
The reclining chair Wei Weihan had kicked over lay in pieces. The ragged umbrella that had shaded the stall had collapsed nearby, its ribs twisted.
Scattered across the ground were cheap talismans, fragments of magic items, and... the remains of his clay teapot.
Xuanyuan slowly crouched down.
He didn't look at the priceless "goods." Instead, he reached out and gently picked the largest shard of the teapot from the pile of debris.
Its edges were rough, with the distinctive texture of fired clay.
It really was an ugly teapot. Its body was crooked and its color uneven. Many years ago, shortly after he'd awakened, he'd made it from roadside mud on a whim and fired it over a simple ordinary flame.
It wasn't worth a penny.
But Xuanyuan had used it to drink tea for many years.
He was long accustomed to the angle of its spout and the feel of its handle.
It had brought him a tranquil, undisturbed ease that belonged to him alone.
And now, someone had crushed that ease beneath a single kick.
Xuanyuan looked at the shard in his hand, his gaze as placid as an ancient well, revealing neither joy nor anger.
He only felt a little annoyed.
Like a lion sleeping soundly, woken by a fly buzzing in its ear.
He didn't care whether the fly lived or died.
He only wanted the world to be quiet again.
So he gave the person who'd made the noise a choice.
A choice that would teach everyone to keep quiet.
He put the shard back on the ground, stood, and brushed nonexistent dust from his hands.
Three days.
He'd given