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This is Xue Yang. He was a wicked little cultivator, and always very naughty. He lived with his friend, the man with the black gauze hat.
One day Xue Yang and his friend were walking through town. "I have some business to take care of," said his friend. "Please wait here, and don't get into trouble."
Xue Yang was hungry. He saw a vendor selling dumplings. Yum! He grabbed a bowl and started to eat. "Hey! You have to pay for that!" yelled the vendor. Xue Yang just laughed. He didn't like paying for things. He didn't like people telling him what to do, either.
Xue Yang decided he didn't like this vendor one bit. He kicked over the tables, he kicked over the chairs, he kicked over the entire stall!
He was just about to leave, when the man in the black gauze hat came back. "I thought I told you to stay out of trouble," said his friend with a sigh. But Xue Yang knew he wouldn't get punished. The man with the black gauze hat gave the vendor some money, and then they left.
Xue Yang decided to show the man with the black gauze hat what he did for fun. "Come with me!" he said. Together, they went to the corpse training ground.
He had a show all ready for his friend. Two corpses were fighting—this should be exciting! And it was...but not exciting enough. So, with a snap of his fingers, the corpses cut off their own heads instead. “Xue Yang!” the man with the black gauze hat exclaimed. “Why did you do that? Now you don’t have anyone to play with.” But Xue Yang didn’t want to play with boring, slow corpses.
“It’s a good thing I brought you some replacements,” the man continued. The replacements he gave to Xue Yang weren’t dead yet, but Xue Yang knew how to fix that.
The man with the black gauze hat still had more errands to do, but this time, Xue Yang followed him. “I’m going to a brothel to find my father,” his friend said. Xue Yang didn’t really care, but while they were waiting, he heard his friend’s father talking.
“Intelligent women are too much trouble,” said the sect leader. Xue Yang still didn’t care, but then his friend’s father said, “her son is too much trouble, too.”
The man with the black gauze hat left the brothel without talking to his father. He was smiling, but he didn’t look happy. “Don’t just pretend everything is fine,” said Xue Yang. “If someone said that about me, I know what I’d do.”
His friend stopped, and thought about it. “Xue Yang, will you help me?” he asked. “I have an idea.” Xue Yang grinned. He liked the sound of that!
Now that they had a plan, the man in the black gauze hat looked happier. As they made their way home, they walked past the same vendor from earlier. Xue Yang was about to kick his stall over again, just for fun.
Suddenly, someone hit him instead! It was a cultivator in a black robe. "Please don't hurt my friend," said the man in the black gauze hat.
"You shouldn't let him do that," said the black-robed cultivator.
"He's young, but he should know better," said a white-robed cultivator.
"Yes," said the man in the black gauze hat.
But these two cultivators made Xue Yang angry. They weren’t very much older than him, they weren’t any better than him, and he told them just what he thought.
"I apologise for my friend," said the man in the black gauze hat, and they left.
"Why did you say that?" asked Xue Yang. "They're no better than we are." He thought about all the ways he'd show them, one day.
"It's better not to cause trouble," said the man in the black gauze hat. But Xue Yang liked causing trouble very, very much, so this was where he and his friend would always disagree.