Liar

The man leading the group in the alley grabbed the girl by the throat, staring at her viciously as he demanded an answer.

"Tell me, why did you do it!"

The girl felt the immense pressure on her neck, and her breathing became extremely difficult.

Tears flashed in the corners of her eyes as she spoke, word by word.

"I was truly wrong, please, I beg you to forgive me."

Hearing her words, the man became visibly angrier; he increased the force in his hand, choking the girl until her face turned a sickly green.

"I spent one hundred thousand gold soul coins, damn it! You tell me how I'm supposed to forgive you!"

With that, he pulled out a small knife, intending to teach the girl a lesson.

"Stop!"

A blonde girl shouted from outside the alley.

Hearing this, the group turned their heads, looking at the newcomer with confusion.

She looked like a stranger; she didn't seem to be from Soto City.

"Who are you? Is our business any of your concern?"

Qian Renxue showed no fear, straightening her posture as she walked inside.

Chen Qi followed silently behind her, possessing no presence whatsoever.

Chen Qi had seen this kind of classic, forced-conflict scenario countless times; what was the point?

It was nothing more than both sides trading trash talk, followed by the protagonist waiting until the villain was at their most arrogant before defeating them in one fell swoop.

"My name is Qian Ren... Qian Xue! I have come to punish evil and promote good. What crime do you have to answer for, bullying an innocent girl?"

Hearing Qian Renxue's words, the man was even more bewildered.

What "punish evil and promote good"?

Did they look that evil?

The man hurriedly took off his hood, gesturing with his fingers as he explained.

"Look, Qian Xue, is it? Did you get something wrong? We are..."

"It's impossible for me to be wrong. I, Qian Ren... Qian Xue, saw it clearly. You are bullying an innocent woman!"

Are you kidding me?

Who is actually bullying whom here!

Who is going to reimburse my one hundred thousand gold soul coins?

"Who is bullying an innocent woman?"

"My eyes aren't blind, so don't bother trying to make excuses!"

Chen Qi watched this scene with some confusion.

Why wasn't the plot following the script?

According to the tropes, shouldn't the two sides be trading insults and then starting a fight by now?

Why did the villain seem so aggrieved?

He pulled the aggressive Qian Renxue back, stepped in front of her, and asked, "Tell us what happened."

The man sighed at his words, recalling his ordeal, and felt like banging his head against a wall.

"When I was a kid, my family..."

"Get to the point!"

"I went to a soul tool shop. This girl was a salesperson there. She promised the quality of the soul tools was excellent and that they were brand new. I thought it was true, so I spent one hundred thousand gold soul coins to buy one, but it broke the moment I got it home. That's why I brought my brothers here to demand an explanation. That's the story."

The man rattled off his experience at five times the normal speed, and the girl hurriedly explained as well.

"I'm innocent! At the time, I was just working a part-time job at that shop. I was only saying what the boss told me to say. Besides, I've already been fired."

Soto City?

Soul tools?

Combining the two, Chen Qi felt a strange sense of familiarity.

It seemed there was a legendary character who opened an identical shop, buying up useless junk at low prices and turning around to sell them at exorbitant rates.

"Is the owner of the shop you mentioned named Flender?"

The girl's eyes flashed with confusion upon hearing this. Could he be a victim too?

"How did you know?"

Chen Qi was now certain; it was that old profiteer Flender scamming people for money. To dare charge one hundred thousand gold soul coins for a piece of junk—he really was blinded by greed.

Beside them, Qian Renxue listened to their conversation with some confusion, wondering how Chen Qi knew the shop owner's name.

"Chen Qi, how did you know the name of that shop owner?"

"Don't worry about the details. You don't read the newspapers, so of course you wouldn't understand a lot of the news."

Chen Qi brushed it off as usual. Qian Renxue felt something was off after hearing that, but she had never seen Chen Qi read a newspaper either.

However, Qian Renxue couldn't be bothered to pursue it. Chen Qi was always hiding something, and she was already used to it.

"So that means I blamed you wrongly? That detestable profiteer! To make me, Qian Xue, suspect the wrong person—if I don't raze your lair to the ground, I'll change my surname! Tell me where that shop is!"

"I am willing to lead the way!"

The man and the girl spoke at the same time; they already hated Flender to the bone.

One had been swindled out of money.

The other had been made a scapegoat, and if she hadn't run into Chen Qi today, she wouldn't have been so lucky.

"Very well, no more talk. Let's hurry to the profiteer's location!"

On the rooftop, Pufferfish Douluo and Snake Spear Douluo very sensibly hid themselves.

They dared not steal the spotlight in front of Qian Renxue; if Qian Daoliu were to blame them, there was no telling what kind of trouble they would be in.

The group marched imposingly until they arrived in front of a shop named Treasure Room.

Through the door, they could see a middle-aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses, lying on a recliner and sleeping very leisurely.

The girl pointed at the middle-aged man inside and said.

"That's him!"

Qian Renxue nodded, led the three of them in a fierce rush, and kicked the newly installed door off its hinges.

BOOM!

The massive noise startled the sleeping Flender. He opened his eyes only to see the door he had just installed to save a few coins shattered on the ground like trash.

The junk on the shelves had also been crushed into actual garbage by the impact of the door.

"Who are you people? None of you are leaving after wrecking my shop!"

Seeing this, the man stood with his hands on his hips and said righteously.

"Hmph! You swindled me out of one hundred thousand gold soul coins, so what if I wreck your shop?"

Only then did Flender realize that this man was the one who had come to him for compensation yesterday.

Fortunately, he had used the excuse of not knowing him to make the man go find the girl who sold him the item. Looking at it today, the girl was there too.

"The items sold in our shop are the cream of the crop. Why don't things break when they're with me? It must be that you handled it incorrectly."

"Bullshit! I didn't even use it; it broke the moment I got home!"

The man aggressively took out the pile of scrap metal and slammed it heavily onto the counter.

"Then it must have been the girl who sold it to you that broke it."

Hearing this, the girl was not pleased. She pointed at Flender's head and said.

"Bullshit! I didn't even touch it at the time because you said the item was precious and I couldn't afford to pay for it. In the end, he was the one who took it out of the cabinet."

"Then you broke it. Alright, alright, say no more, or I'll have to kick you out!"

With that, the aura of a Soul Saint erupted from his body.

Sensing this aura, the man and the girl's expressions turned sour.

They hadn't expected the middle-aged man in front of them to be a Soul Saint—an existence they couldn't afford to provoke!

"Step back and let me handle this."

Qian Renxue suddenly spoke.

She walked in front of everyone, showing no fear of Flender's Soul Saint pressure.

With Flender's meager strength, he wasn't even qualified to be a guard for her, Qian Renxue, in Spirit Hall.

"Hey, I'm asking you, Uncle: are you going to refund this money today or not?"

Flender pushed up his glasses, looked at the frail-looking young girl in front of him, and gave a disdainful laugh.

"I said, my goods have no issues, so I am not refunding!"

Qian Renxue nodded, looked at the man and the girl, and said.

"You two go outside first. Leave this to me."