Sha Xiao

Sha Xiao restrains young Thieving Heaven in a well and identifies himself by name while the captive questions who he is and why he was taken. He keeps a sheepskin map in his possession and watches Thieving Heaven with close attention during this confinement. ^{ch. 1493}

Sha Xiao uses a method that inflicts unbearable itch on young Thieving Heaven’s body, forcing the youth to writhe on the ground while tearing at his skin. When Thieving Heaven attempts to kill himself by charging a wall rather than beg for mercy, Sha Xiao intervenes, heals him, and praises his backbone while showing admiration. He breaks Thieving Heaven’s resistance through psychological pressure about his family and beloved waiting for him, then laughs when the youth grasps that Sha Xiao needs him for some scheme. After Thieving Heaven kneels and calls him “grandpa,” Sha Xiao is satisfied, ending the torment and laughing with a sharp voice like a crow’s cry above a graveyard. ^{ch. 1494}

Sha Xiao forces young Thieving Heaven to participate in a small competition, snickering that the youth cannot hide his plot to raise his strength and overthrow the control. He praises Thieving Heaven’s straightforward nature and offers to help him seize victory if the youth calls him grandpa again, transferring huge amounts of fighting knowledge directly into Thieving Heaven’s mind when the youth yields. ^{ch. 1496}

After young Thieving Heaven executes a sneak attack with blurred grey eyes killer move that he never trained, he expresses shock while Sha Xiao laughs, claiming the youth was free to choose his methods all along. Sha Xiao repeatedly praises Thieving Heaven’s brutally efficient battle style, calling it shamelessness and despicable nature that reminds him of his own youth. ^{ch. 1497}

Sha Xiao prevents young Thieving Heaven from using certain Gu and transfer methods, insisting that the youth handle refinement work himself to avoid exposing Sha Xiao’s presence. He transfers a huge amount of information for a Gu recipe that the youth initially resists as too vicious. ^{ch. 1498}

When young Thieving Heaven refuses to refine the vicious Gu recipe, Sha Xiao applies his itch method with such force that Thieving Heaven almost loses consciousness. He demands the youth call him grandpa and mocks the resistance, only to relent when a nearby family’s congenitally deficient baby dies naturally. Sha Xiao offers the dead baby as the refinement material, threatening to discard Thieving Heaven as a pawn if he refuses. ^{ch. 1499} During the Gu refinement, Thieving Heaven intentionally sabotages the fire, and Sha Xiao roars accusations of deliberate failure and audacity, only to leave young Thieving Heaven to the burning fire as punishment. ^{ch. 1500}

He has stitched a sheepskin map into young Thieving Heaven’s clothes and orders it thrown into the oasis pool. Fang Yuan judges his cultivation at least rank four and likely rank five, and treats him as the crucial factor behind young Thieving Heaven’s later path. ^{ch. 1509 ch. 1511 ch. 1512}

Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable later names Sha Xiao as his Dao Guardian. ^{ch. 2171}