"Han Yu! Get back here, you scamming fox!" a man dressed in simple linen robes covered with dust shouted.
"Hey! It's not my fault you lost ten times in a row!" a boy replied while running.
The boy was dressed in simple brown robes that had been patched up in several spots. His feet moved like the wind while a pouch jingled with the chime of coins on his waist.
"You sly brat! You tricked me with the cups!" the man shouted while running after the boy, anger flaring up on his face.
"I never scammed you, Peng Gu. You simply didn't have the skills to keep up!" Han Yu replied but didn't slow down in the least bit.
"You better stop, you punk, or I'll break your legs!" Peng Gu shouted as he raised a stick in his hand.
"That's exactly why I'm not stopping, Peng Gu," Han Yu said as he sensed the sound of something coming from behind.
He jumped just in time for the stick to fly from underneath him.
"Shit!" Han Yu cursed as he looked around for a place to hide.
'If that had hit me, it would definitely break my legs, considering Peng Gu's cultivation base,' he thought.
While he was faster than Peng Gu, he knew he wouldn't be able to keep this up for long. The man still had better stamina than him, so he needed to get away quickly.
Unfortunately for him, there weren't many places to hide as he was already close to the farms.
'Dammit, the harvest is already over, so I can't even hide in the crops,' Han Yu cursed his luck. 'Did they really have to harvest it this fast? The crops were still here yesterday.'
He had run here so that he could hide in the fields, but now even that was out of the question. All he could do was muster all the stamina he could and run with all his might.
"I, Han Yu, will not be caught here for a mere cup gambling scam!" Han Yu said to himself.
"So you admit it's a scam, you bastard!" Peng Gu screamed from behind.
"Shit, he heard that? Did hearing also improve with cultivation base?" Han Yu wondered to himself.
He took a look back and saw that Peng Gu had closed in, spurring Han Yu to run even faster.
'I won't be able to keep this up,' Han Yu thought to himself. 'I need to find somewhere to hide.' He looked around but saw no place.
The fields were bare everywhere he could see, and all that was in front of him was a hill.
'Wait, the hill?' An idea formed in Han Yu's mind. 'That might just work.' He smirked.
He put his hand in his robes and pulled out a pouch.
"Leave me be! Take this back!" Han Yu shouted.
The rattling of metal could be heard from the pouch as it soared through the air.
"UGH!" The pouch ended up colliding with Peng Gu's face, making him groan.
He caught the pouch and felt its weight.
"Did that brat really give up?" Peng Gu was surprised.
He had been warned by the others not to gamble with the boy, but the winning odds of triple the return were far too tempting for him to ignore, especially when he saw two people win before him. As such, he used half the money he had and won on the very first try.
Feeling confident in his eyes, at watching the cups, he knew he could win the gamble.
Cup gambling was a simple game, which involved placing a coin under one of three cups. The cups would then be shuffled, and one would have to guess where the coin was hiding. Even children could play it, and as such, it was a common pastime for people.
Some played for money, while children played for candy.
Having won once, Peng Gu was confident in winning again, and he sure did. But the third time, he lost.
Thinking it was just bad luck, he placed more money to recoup the losses but kept on losing until he had lost ten times in a row. It was at that time he figured out it was a scam from the start, and his earlier wins were just bait to make him spend all his money.
Han Yu began running as soon as he saw Peng Gu getting angry, which resulted in him being in his current predicament.
Unfortunately for Peng Gu, Han Yu was not done scamming him yet.
"Wait a second..." Peng Gu took a look inside the pouch and saw that there were no coins. "THIS IS SCRAP METAL!" he screamed.
He looked ahead and saw that Han Yu was already at the top of the hill.
The boy seemingly stuck his tongue out as if mocking him before he went down the hill, unable to be seen.
"DAMN YOU! I WON'T LET YOU RUN SO EASILY!" Peng Gu roared as he stirred his cultivation base.
Qi flowed out from his Dantian and into his limbs, amplifying his strength.
He ran faster than before, showing that he was simply conserving his strength. If other cultivators were here, they'd know that he was at the First Stage of the Qi Refining Realm!
It was a decent cultivation base for a commoner.
'I won't let a mere Sixth Stage of the Body Tempering brat outrun me,' he swore.
But once he reached the top of the hill, he was left confused.
"Where did he go?" Peng Gu wondered.
He looked down the steep edge of the hill, which was rocky, and at the river that flowed at the bottom. Getting down from here was not easy, and it would be very easy to fall. Even a Body Tempering Realm cultivator might end up dying from such a fall, if not breaking a lot of bones.
Peng Gu looked around, but he saw nothing but a couple of trees that had mostly lost their leaves. He checked the trees as well, just to make sure the boy wasn't hiding atop them, but there was simply no place to hide.