Neglect and Despair
After spending one month in Zong Village, Yaan's skill with the axe improved, as did his efficiency in cutting down trees and dragging back the wood. He became more adept at identifying the correct trees, so he didn't need to venture out too far into the dangerous woods to locate them.
The dark forest was dangerous, but the region close to the village was said to be safe enough.
Eventually, he managed to increase his earnings to five bronze coins each day. With five bronze coins, he could buy four large potatoes each day whilst saving one coin away.
Despite his seemingly hopeless situation, Yaan hadn't given up on hope. He refused to resign himself to living out the rest of his days in this dreadful village, so he decided to save up for a cultivation technique. He needed a cultivation technique if he wanted to become a cultivator…he needed a cultivation technique if he wanted to become stronger!
If he just kept his head down and worked diligently, Yaan was sure that eventually, he would be able to afford the unknown price of the cultivation technique.
Unfortunately, today's events seemed to spit in the face of his plans.
As Yaan returned from his work, dragging a bag of lumber behind him like usual, he noticed a group of people crowded around a certain area. Curious about the commotion, Yaan walked over to the crowd and asked someone what was going on.
"A girl died." The boy he asked sighed regretfully. "She was too young for this work and couldn't afford to eat. Nobody helped her, so she died from starvation."
Yaan's eyes widened in shock. He knew that Zong Village was a harsh place, but to allow someone to starve to death? Could something like this really happen?
Just as he was thinking this, Yaan froze. He caught a glimpse of the girl's corpse, causing his hands to tremble in disbelief.
"Out of my way!" His exhaustion seemed to be swept away in that moment as he pushed his way through the crowd. Some people grunted in discontent, but others looked at him pitifully. From his panic, it was obvious that he knew the deceased.
"Una…"
The girl was actually Una, the five year old girl from Lightstone Village. Yaan dropped to his knees and stared at her lifeless, emaciated body.
Someone he knew had died once again…
He wasn't exactly close to Una, but Lightstone Village was a tight-knit community where everyone was at least familiar with one another.
"I was supposed to take care of her. This is my fault. I failed. My fault. I failed…"
Yaan was not the one to speak these words. He looked up, only now realising that Falca was also kneeling down beside her corpse whilst muttering to himself dully. By Falca's side, the final boy from their village, Jash, stood there with a dazed expression, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Falca kept on muttering about how it was all his fault. Yaan wanted to comfort him, but stopped himself. He realised that truthfully, they were all to blame.
Una was just a small girl, she was unable to tolerate this type of labor. Xinti hadn't accounted for her small and weak stature, assigning her an impossible task. They should have been looking out for and supporting her…but instead, she suffered in solitude and died alone.
Yaan had promised himself that he wouldn't cry again after his family's demise, but the tears began to flow uncontrollably as he was once again reminded of that horrific day. First his family, and now Una. It felt like one by one, they were all going to die…
The pain and despair that Yaan felt in this moment couldn't be put into words, leaving him standing there with a blank expression, staring down at the young girl's starved corpse.
"Hey, what's going on?!" Xinti's annoying but familiar voice thundered from just outside of the crowd. Everyone moved away from the village tyrant fearfully, presenting him with a passageway towards the centre.
Xinti moved his eyes towards the body and paused. He didn't walk any closer to Una's corpse, but after getting over his initial surprise, he glanced at her body and frowned from a distance.
"Oh, so someone died. Whoever disposes of it will be paid one bronze coin." His words left Yaan feeling stumped. Could a person really be so cold-hearted?
Actually, Yaan was all too aware that humans could truly be this heartless. After all, that Elder Sun was even worse.
"You, you, you heartless bastard!" When he heard Xinti's words, Falca snapped. He jumped up and pointed at Xinti with a shaking finger. Yaan was startled by the sudden outburst and quickly turned towards the older boy with wide eyes.
The burning anger on his face was blatantly visible, as if he had forgotten all about Xinti's authority…or perhaps, he just no longer cared. Life in Zong Village had taken its toll on everyone, Falca included. This incident finally pushed him over the edge, he was unable to contain all of his pent up emotions any longer.
"Falca, don't!" Jash grabbed onto his shirt and tugged pleadingly. He didn't want to see anyone else get hurt today. Unfortunately for Jash, a person's wishes rarely came true.
Bang!
Without warning, Xinti's fist slammed into Falca's jaw and sent the boy flying.
"You were the one that I beat before, right? I thought you learned your lesson, but it seems I was too merciful. Hmph, you know what…"
After punching Falca square in the jaw and shattering the bone, Xinti stood over the now shivering boy with a cold grin.
"I think that I'll make an example of you."
Bang!
His fist fell down once again and collided with Falca's head. The young boy choked out a mouthful of blood, staining Xinti's white robe.
"Damnit, you dare get your filth on my clothes?! Haha, good, good, good!" Terrifyingly, Xinti seemed to become even more enraged than before. This was not just an act that he put on to intimidate others, he was truly a person with an uncontrollable ego and temper!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He wailed down on Falca with punch after punch. Yaan was hesitating previously, but when he saw Xinti continue with his relentless assault, even after Falca lost consciousness, he couldn't sit back and watch any longer.
"Xinti, please-"
Bang!
Yaan stepped towards Xinti carefully and attempted to reason with him, but found himself caught in the chest by a kick before he could get any further.
"Does my authority mean nothing to you people?!" Xinti roared out loud.
The large young man scanned his eyes over the scared kids with a crazed glare. He then looked towards two older boys and pointed at them, causing startled and fearful looks to spread across their faces.
"You two, tie that kid to the punishment pole!" He pointed at Yaan, then nodded towards a wooden pole in the centre of this area.
The pole and the surrounding ground were all died red with blood. The two boys paled, but they nodded and grabbed Yaan, who was still recovering from Xinti's kick.
Yaan's mind remained hazy as he was dragged towards the punishment pole. He was tied to the wooden pole with a unique type of rope which was developed within the village.
Under Xinti's terrifying gaze, the boys tied his wrists up so tightly that the rope dug into his skin and left behind red blisters.
"Sorry, we have no choice." One of the boys quietly muttered in his ear.
When Yaan opened his eyes, he saw Xinti standing tall above Falca's unconscious body.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"…"
Everyone stared silently in horror, watching as the Xinti madly stomped down on Falca's head again and again. Yaan was tied up and couldn't move, but his eyes remained wide open and the feeling of helplessness in his heart grew stronger. Xinti's heavy kick injured him so badly that some blood was stuck in his throat, so he couldn't even cry out.
Falca's body had long since become disfigured, yet Xinti continued with his barbaric display of power. His expression was contorted in rage, until eventually, a look of realisation and shock briefly flashed across his face.
"Ah…I overdid it again…" Xinti muttered at a barely audible volume.
He originally didn't plan to kill Falca, but Xinti was a person who didn't know the meaning of the word restraint. Once he became enraged, he almost always went overboard, this was actually the second time that something like this had happened! Even for the tyrannical Xinti, killing a child was not something that he took pleasure in doing.
However, he quickly recovered, realising that he needed to maintain his confident demeanour.
Thump!
Xinti kicked Falca's lifeless body towards Yaan. Yaan was tied up in a way that forced him to kneel on the hard dirt ground, and he now found himself staring directly at Falca's mangled corpse from just a couple of feet away.
"Leave him tied up beside the corpse for one day. If I find anyone feeding him, then I'll kill them myself. Clear?" Xinti yelled out, only feeling satisfied after seeing everyone hurriedly nodding.
Yaan was starved and deprived of water for a full day and night, but what he found even worse, was being forced to stare at Falca's festering corpse during this time. Una had been dragged away and buried, but flies and other insects made their way into Falca's body during the high heat of the day. The smell became rancid quickly, making Yaan dry heave from the bottom of his empty stomach for hours on end.
For the full day of his punishment, nobody came to his aid. Nobody even dared to step within twenty feet of the pole.
When he was finally released, Yaan dragged himself home in a truly pitiful state. He barely managed to consume a raw potato before passing out on his wooden bed from exhaustion.
After this traumatising event, life became even more difficult. Xinti's mood seemed to be quite bad these days. He would deliberately find problems with Yaan's work wherever possible, often skimping on the full deserved pay. Thanks to this unfair treatment, it became harder than ever to save up money. After enduring this difficult living situation for another two months, Yaan was beginning to lose hope.
There was only so much of this torment that he could take.
Two months later, another young child died. This wasn't anyone Yaan knew, but the atmosphere in the village would always become more solemn following a death. It served to remind them of their own precarious situations.
During this time, Yaan made it a point to talk to others in order to learn more about the Heavenly Path Sect and the world of immortals in general.
The first thing he learned was quite depressing, which was the cost of the most common cultivation technique. This technique cost three gold coins to purchase, a set price throughout the sect. Three gold coins was equivalent to 30,000 bronze coins. Even if he managed to save one bronze coin every day, he would need to spend 100 years carefully saving his money before he was able to afford this technique.
Yaan felt like something was wrong with this. What was the point of choosing people with cultivation talent to join the outer sect if they couldn't even learn the most basic of techniques?
He was right to have his doubts. Primarily, the problem lay with Xinti. As the village chief, payment was entirely up to his discretion. He deliberately paid the village kids a pitiful wage to keep them weak and afraid. This allowed him to continue lording above the masses without fearing that they might eventually surpass him and seek revenge,
Secondly, it turned out that after reaching 16 years of age, they would leave this village. At this point, they would be taken to a different area of the outer sect and provided with the basic cultivation technique for free.
The problem with this, was that starting cultivation at 16 years old was quite late. Cultivation was a slow process, requiring long periods of time and endless effort, which was why the sect took in children between the ages of five and ten.
The idea of the outer sects was to temper the children with lower talents through difficulty and hardship, but Xinti pushed this to an unnecessary and unhelpful extreme.
But even so, the fact that he was able to get away with this showed that the sect did not really care about the outer sect disciples. Maybe one day, Yaan would come to understand the sect's attitude towards the outer sect disciples, but for now, he was left feeling exhausted, frustrated, and teetering on the verge of despair.