Yanwei exhaled slowly as he stood amidst the neatly sorted piles. The vast silence of the Growth Space seemed to echo the stillness within him.
His gaze swept over the organized herbs, weapons, and remnants of battles long over. The chaos was gone—every item accounted for, every ounce of value weighed and placed in its proper category.
With an expression void of emotion, he muttered,
"Finally done cleaning up."
He took a few steps forward, stopping beside the curious object he had set aside earlier. His eyes lingered on it for a moment, but he didn't touch it yet.
"After I find out what the use of those things is, I'll just sell them for some spiritual stones."
His voice was low, steady—free of passion, but not without purpose. There was no trace of sentiment in his words, only the sharp rhythm of efficiency. Waste nothing, keep moving forward.
Yanwei turned his gaze toward the three items he'd set aside earlier: a sword, a pair of gloves, and a small stone. He crouched down and picked up the sword first—sleek, refined, its edge carrying the unmistakable glint of spiritual reinforcement.
A Rank 2 weapon.
He gave a faint nod, lips twitching into a dry smirk.
"This sword is quite good. It'll definitely sell for a lot."
Then, as his eyes narrowed, the smirk turned into a sigh.
"The stuff in Jiang Yu's pouch was full of shit," he muttered. "This sword's the only thing worth anything."
He spat to the side, voice low and mocking.
"Poor fucker."
Next, he picked up the gloves. Midnight black with faint silver etchings, the surface pulsed faintly with hidden energy. As he slid one on, he felt an instant connection—a responsiveness that sharpened the movement of his fingers, like the glove was made for his hand.
He tilted his head slightly, the corners of his mouth lifting again.
"If I wear this, the speed of my dagger work would definitely improve." He flexed his hand, testing it. "And it's a bonus that it's a growth-type, too."
He paused, staring at the glove, then let out a low chuckle.
"Heh. The Divine Sword Sect really pampers their heir, huh? Even gave Zhang a growth-type weapon."
"That's rare… even outside this barren place."
The chuckle faded, but the gleam in his eyes remained—cold, sharp, and calculating. Everything had a use. Everyone had a price.
Nothing about it screamed "valuable." In fact, it looked exactly like something a bored child might kick across the ground.
But the moment Yanwei picked it up, his expression shifted.
He focused his spiritual soul toward it, probing with care—only to meet silence. No feedback. No resistance. Just… emptiness.
His brow furrowed slightly.
"My spiritual sense can't see through it?"
He tested it again, this time more carefully, more deliberately—but still, the stone gave him nothing. No flow of energy, no concealed rune patterns. Just a wall of nothingness.
"Tch." He exhaled through his nose. "If some rookie found this, they'd probably think the previous owner just had a weird collecting habit."
He turned the stone in his hand, narrowing his eyes at its plain surface.
"No energy signature, no traceable aura… even if you poured spiritual power into it, it wouldn't react. And it blocks spiritual sense entirely."
A pause.
"They'd toss it aside, thinking it's just a rock."
But Yanwei wasn't a rookie. The very absence of reaction was, in itself, suspicious.
He flipped the stone once more, slowly.
"Something like this… doesn't end up in a sect heir's pouch by accident."
He didn't smile this time. He just stared at the stone, the silence between his thoughts stretching long and still.
Then he carefully slipped it into a separate pouch on his belt—not with the trash, not even with the valuables, but somewhere he'd remember.
"I'll figure out what you are later."
Because anything that hides itself that well wasn't ordinary.
And if others thought it was useless?
Even better.
Yanwei let out a quiet sigh—long and drawn-out, the kind that wasn't quite frustration, but more like weariness coated in boredom. The weight of sorting through corpses' belongings, of analyzing scraps for value, had dulled into a mental drag.
He dusted his hands off and stood, his gaze drifting toward a dark shape nearby.
The black cat.
It hadn't moved once.
Lying on its side, its body looked limp—too limp. If it weren't for the faint rise and fall of its chest, Yanwei might've assumed it was already dead. But even from a distance, he could see the shallow rhythm of its breathing. Strained. Labored.
As if the air itself refused to reach its lungs.
"Still breathing," he muttered, walking toward it with a steady gait. His eyes stayed locked on the creature—sharp, alert.
"Barely, though. It's struggling to even pull in air… like the space is choking it."
The cat's sides rose with difficulty, its mouth occasionally parting, but no sound came out. Its limbs were motionless, tail slack.
It looked like a corpse—if not for the fragile thread of life clinging to it.
Yanwei knelt beside it, the earlier cold edge in his expression softening—not out of pity, but curiosity.
"You're still hanging on, huh?" he whispered.
Whatever this cat was, whatever it had endured, it had managed to survive… just barely.
Yanwei stood silently beside the cat for a moment longer, then exhaled through his nose and rose to his feet. There was no point lingering.
With a flick of his fingers, he summoned a thread of spiritual energy and activated his storage ring.
The piles of discarded weapons, cracked talismans, broken pouches, and even the few valuable items—the Rank 2 sword, the gloves, and the strange stone—all vanished in quick flashes of light, sucked into the ring one by one.
"Trash sorted."
He didn't bother looking back. His gaze dropped to the black cat again.
Still unmoving. Still breathing, barely.
Without a word, he reached down and picked it up. Its fur was cold to the touch, body limp like cloth, but it didn't resist—couldn't.
And then, with a final surge of intent, he stepped toward the threshold of the Growth Space and exited it.
In a blink, the barren world within vanished behind him.
Now back in the physical world, he placed the unconscious cat gently on the ground beside him. It twitched faintly in the fresh air, chest rising just a little easier now.
Yanwei dusted off his sleeves, then sat down beside it, his face calm and unreadable.
Yanwei stared at it for a second… then let out a soft scoff and smiled.
"Little cat, I've done everything I could to save your life."
His tone was light, almost lazy, but laced with a sharp edge.
"I don't have any medicine to save your ass. And even if I waste my precious time running to the market, you'd probably be dead and rotting before I got back."
He stood up straight, folding his arms behind his back.
"Your life's up to you now."
The smile on his face lingered, sharp and indifferent—as if he'd already decided that whether the cat lived or died wasn't his concern anymore.