84 Improvemen

Sweat dripped down Gong Lan's brow as she swept the stairs to the temple for the hundredth time. She remembered every crack and every plant that grew beside the massive Stairway to Heaven. She even remembered each rodent that passed through and shot them a menacing glare every time they crawled onto the stairway with their dirty paws.

Her gaze held no killing intent. Rather, it threatened to punt them all the way back down, causing them to restart their climb from scratch. Not long after, the rodents chose to stay off the stairway. For now.

Satisfied, she swung her broom over her shoulder and ran a hand over her now-bald head. Regrettably, it was a rule in the monastery. All those residing here, whether male or female, monk or not, needed to shave their heads. Her teacher said hair encouraged vanity, and shaving it built character. However, so far her rehabilitation had her questioning whether this was a legitimate reason or if the old monk was just a neat freak, cloaking his personal, albeit overly neat agenda in a mantle of righteousness.

Regardless, the months of toiling, cleaning, and manual labor had reduced her anxiety significantly. She felt her worries surfacing from time to time, but instead of beating them back like she usually did, she let her mind wander. Her teacher had told her that much of her mental suffering was from unprocessed trauma . She had kept it bottled up all this time.

Unlike much of what she had been told in the past, the answer to her problems was not to unleash her bottled-up anger. This didn't solve the problem. There were many triggers that interrupted her way of thinking and prevented her from behaving rationally. This had served to protect her mentally in her most vulnerable moments.

The only way to deal with these triggers was to process the very thoughts that caused them in the first place. When she had asked how to process them, her teacher had handed her a broom and instructed her to sweep every tile in the monastery and every step on the large flight of stairs. This was to be her task every day. He also said that whenever the thoughts that bothered her surfaced, she shouldn't fight against them. Instead, she should let her mind wander as she continued sweeping, carefully moving her broom left and right, moving her eyes left and right as she swept.

She had been very skeptical at first; the more she swept, the more thoughts resurfaced, and only scenes of bloody carnage came up. But as she swept and focused on her broom, the scenes bothered her less and less. They were still horrifying, but they didn't make her tense up like they used to. Her blood no longer boiled when she thought of battle.

The afternoon sun beat down on her as she traveled back to the Bridge of Redemption, a large stone pathway that traveled from the monastery to the bodhi tree. Crossing this bridge was the only way to travel to the other side without swimming or flying. Legend had it that the founding monk of the temple had achieved Buddhahood beneath its branches.

She observed these branches as she swept, and her mind wandered once more. She thought of a scene of bloody carnage, which caused her to instinctively focus on the broom and her sweeping motions. A few moments later, she thought of her brother smiling at her. Then she thought of a scene in her childhood where her father had told her he was disappointed. She thought of the smiling face of a woman who she did not remember. She thought of Cha Ming and his little fox. There was no rhyme or reason to her train of thought that she was aware of. She followed the monk's advice and let her mind do what it had to.

After a half hour of sweeping and dreaming, she suddenly felt a strong urge to cry. She dropped her broom and knelt in her orange kasaya, shivering, allowing tears to flow down onto the Bridge of Redemption. She wasn't sure why the bridge was called that, but she often felt these sorts of emotions whenever she swept it. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sweep to the end of it.

After crying for an incense time, she felt much more clearheaded than before. Her taut muscles crackled as she stretched out her limbs in satisfaction. Regardless of whether or not the monk's method was correct, one thing was certain: She had never felt so relaxed in her life.

***

A cart struggled along a worn-out clay road, bringing root vegetables to town for sale at the market. A man was driving it, his long gray hair tied behind his head in a messy topknot. His shirt was cut from coarse cloth, and it had obviously not been washed in many weeks. There was a simply dressed but beautiful lady beside him. Her black hair ran all the way down to her shoulder blades, and it was fastened in place with a beautiful mauve hairclip. The piece of purple jewelry had seen better days. Despite this, she wore it proudly. It was her only hairclip, and she treasured it.

Hong Xin was feeling considerably better than she had months ago after her time at the inn. Fearing she'd get caught by the authorities for murder, she ran until she couldn't anymore and found refuge with an old farmer and his lovely wife. Seeing her pitiable and frightened appearance, they had taken her in. It wasn't purely for charity, however.

She soon became aware that the couple was aging and having trouble making ends meet. It wasn't due to the quality of their land, but rather that their poor, aging bodies were falling apart. Before they could even ask her, she immediately volunteered to help with the fields. She tilled, planted, and hoed the cracked ground. She weeded an extensive garden as an eruption of foreign plants threatened to choke out their crops. Finally, she harvested said crop, the same one they were now bringing to the market. The experience was life changing.

Being raised in a city, her life thus far had been completely devoid of hard labor. Now she had the calluses to prove she was more than just a pretty face. Her beautiful skin, which she had carefully kept out of the sun for so many years, was now weather-worn and tanned. And unlike many months ago, she now wore a gentle smile on her face.

Nevertheless, it was time for her to leave. She had stayed long enough, and she aimed to improve her lot in life. She missed the city life and its conveniences, as well as its magical appliances and accessories. The couple she had dwelt with offered to recommend her to a local inn, an offer which she gratefully accepted. Birds of a feather flocked together, and she was sure that anyone the old man recommended would be a nice person.

I hope they manage to find someone to help them out with the fields, she thought. Old Gui could barely kneel, and his wife didn't have the endurance she used to. They needed a strong pair of arms to help them. When I find a job, I'll be sure to write to them often, and if they don't find anyone, I'll see who I can convince in town.

Soon, they arrived at the gates of Castle Town, a medium-sized village completely enclosed within stone walls. It was a refuge for the local residents, who would otherwise live in fear due to their proximity to the spirit woods. After arriving at the gates, the old farmer paid their communal toll of three coppers, and they entered the village with no issues.

Hong Xin accompanied the old farmer all day, using her natural charm to coax buyers from the busy streets. For the first time in a long time, the man sold his entire load at a reasonable price. Normally he would have sold at least half his crop to a bulk buyer, who would take on the trouble of redistributing it over a longer period. The profits greatly reassured the old man, who wasn't healthy by any means.

After having sold the lot, Old Gui led Hong Xin to the inn he had mentioned. It only took a half hour before her employment was finalized, and she soon had a full belly, a warm bed, and a new set of clothes to wear for her first day at work the next day. Unlike last time, this new boss was an older gentleman, and his smile radiated kindness. She could not sense any wicked or covetous intent in his expression.

Life is taking a turn for the better, she thought. Then, for the first night in a long time, she cultivated.

***

"Go!" Feng Ming said to his squadmates, who immediately pounced toward a nearby group of dark-robed cultivators. They screamed as the soldiers' spears found their marks and ended their pitiful lives. Feng Ming looked up when he heard a chiming bell, an alarm of sorts to warn the remaining cult members of an attack.

He snorted and pulled out a bow from his bag of holding. An arrow quickly left his bow and was followed by an agonizing scream. He didn't aim as he shot, simply letting loose one arrow after another, and they somehow found their marks. The ringing stopped.

His team assembled and began charging toward a group of fifty cultivators. Twenty of them had bows, and the remaining members held swords in hand, ready to fight. Behind them, a significantly larger cultivator stared at them with red eyes. He emanated a baleful aura, and Feng Ming could practically taste the sin oozing out of him.

"Loose!" the large man, who was clearly the leader, yelled. A flurry of arrows rained down on Feng Ming's squad, but they remained expressionless and didn't even bother raising their shields. To the surprise of their opponents, the arrows either bounced harmlessly off their armor or fell to the ground, barely missing the soldiers as they advanced.

"Charge!" Feng Ming yelled. He released his foundation-establishment aura, causing the opposing troops to cower. Half of them recovered after a small amount of effort, their bodies transforming. Some grew larger, and others sprouted weapons on their limbs, but all of them shared a similar feature—they were all inhuman and pure evil.

"I thought so," Feng Ming said. "Tonight, drinks are on me, boys!"

The troops cheered.

"Captain is definitely the luckiest son of a goat I've ever met," one soldier said. "Every mission he picks ends up successful with no casualties, and the high-priority targets are always there when we need them to be. He's like our guardian angel, always looking out for us."

"Shut your trap and deal with these buggers first," a sergeant snapped. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think you'd taken a fancy to our dear captain."

The remainder of the troops snickered before focusing on their enemies, who were less than fifty paces away.

"You guys take care of the small fries," Feng Ming yelled. "I'll take care of the big one." As they approached, the opposing forces held out long spears in an effort to impale them mid-charge. A veritable wall of shields came up behind them, and they were all covered in vicious spikes.

Feng Ming snorted and stomped his foot, which caused a large pillar of earth to come out from beneath him, propelling him upward and over the shield line. Archers tried to stop him mid-flight, but all arrows missed him due to a strong breeze that happened to blow at the right moment. A few threw spears, but those that hit him broke due to faulty construction. As Feng Ming landed, he grabbed his spear and began attacking the leader wantonly. The large creature could only grit his teeth and unleash one saber art after another.

On the battlefield, several other freakish strokes of luck occurred. The soldiers accompanying Feng Ming noticed their armor shifting unusually, avoiding lethal strikes one after another. Their enemies' blades shattered on first contact, clearly a manufacturing defect that had not been corrected through proper tempering of their blades. Sometimes the soldiers even slipped in pools of blood, only to find out that they had avoided a lethal blow, which was then absorbed by another enemy fighter.

"It's better to be lucky than good," Feng Ming always told his soldiers. And he was right. Unlike the rest of the army, the special forces operated on a contract basis. Often, there were optional objectives to be completed that were more lucrative than the original mission posting. Their team always completed these. As such, their cultivation bases advanced by leaps and bounds.

This was the biggest reason for Feng Ming's current early foundation-establishment cultivation base. As the group leader, he obtained half the spoils. The sheer amount of resources he consumed, combined with a good dose of luck, enabled him to easily break through to foundation establishment with a nine-pillared foundation. A foundation with nine pillars was flawless, something that only one in a thousand cultivators could hope to obtain.

He used this power to his advantage, oppressing his opponent, who was at middle foundation establishment but had unfortunately established a low-grade foundation with four pillars. This was his lot in life, and he could only be trampled underfoot by Feng Ming's better foundation, equipment, and luck.

The battle was over after sixty breaths. Feng Ming let out a sigh of relief as the golden glow that surrounded him condensed into a golden rune. It floated around him like a guardian spirit, a reward for all his virtuous behavior. Two other runes floated around his head.

Three down, six to go, he thought. The first volume of the Good Fortune Scripture had nine treasures that could be obtained. Only then would he be able to proceed to the next step.

***

A loud yawn broke the silence in Wang Jun's office. His eyes were rimmed with black due to severe sleep deprivation. Unfortunately, he had no choice in the matter. Business deals that should have gone through didn't, and the market wasn't responding as he'd planned. He was sure that, in addition to Zhou Li's interference, another figure was manipulating the scenes from the shadows.

There was nothing he could do about that. All he could do was work as hard as he could with every waking hour to compensate for it. On the bright side, his increase in cultivation base had made it far easier to concentrate and sustain himself without eating or sleeping. Exhausted, he wrote another letter to the third prince, informing him of his successes and failures.

Elder Bai entered the room with a pot of tea and quietly poured a cup for his young master, who sipped it with closed eyes. "It's nice to see that you still have the sense to treat yourself to a cup of tea. You know, there was a study a few years back that proved that those who drank one to three cups of tea lived up to five years longer than those who didn't."

Wang Jun smiled. He'd read that report and knew that it was utter hogwash. Still, he appreciated the older man's humor in such trying times. He needed all the help he could get.

"Remind me again where we are with our targets," Wang Jun asked while massaging his temples.

"Well," Elder Bai said after clearing his throat, "we've fallen behind schedule, and our total revenue thus far is less than 500,000 high-grade spirit stones. We still have a long way to go to achieve the family's goal of three million. Aside from this, our operating margin targets are slightly lower than required, mostly due to the loans we've had to take to prioritize growth. In addition, our market share in key sectors is way off track. We'd need a miracle to get things in order by the deadline."

"Or a war," Wang Jun retorted.

The older man raised an eyebrow. "Duly noted, Young Master." He then continued listing off various key items. Wang Jun found himself uncharacteristically nodding off in the process. He asked the ever-patient Elder Bai to repeat said information whenever he caught himself in the act.

"Where are we at in the search?" Wang Jun asked.

Elder Bai sighed before setting down a stack of papers and seating himself in front of the young man.

"Young Master," he said gently, "you need to let her go. You're spending an unhealthy amount of time on this matter, and you're letting it eat you up from the inside out."

Wang Jun simply continued staring blankly.

Elder Bai sighed. "How will you get your revenge if you don't complete the family's task?" he asked.

Wang Jun's eyes narrowed when he heard this, and the exhaustion he felt instantly dissipated.

"Quite right, Elder Bai. Please keep up the good work, and let me know if you catch a whiff of something big."

"As you wish, Young Master," Elder Bai said. He then picked up the teapot and retreated from the room, leaving Wang Jun to his brooding.