"What a hot day…." The heat peaked as the midday sun settled high up in the sky. Fang Xing relaxed with his legs crossed in a bamboo chair while—over in the herb field—Wang Zhi and the rest of the daotongs were doing their best to catch as many pests as possible. This task could only be done under the scorching midday sun, as these flowers would only fully blossom during this hour. Once the blossoms opened, the pests that had managed to sneak inside their petals during the night would be released, and the pest control operations could be carried out more effectively.
Of course, none of this hard labor required any work from Fang Xing. After stabbing Wang Zhi on that one fateful night, he had become the boss of this herb field; someone even washed and dried his dirty socks for him now.
It wasn’t that Wang Zhi never tried to get even, of course. The day after he’d been stabbed in the chest, he was stabbed again for staring at Fang Xing with ill intentions, this time in the leg. That time had marked the end of his rebellion.
Although Wang Zhi had been the former boss of this C-Rank field, he had never really touched a weapon, nor would he ever consider actually hurting someone. The rest of the daotongs—particularly the freckled boy that now trembled when seeing Fang Xing—had been nothing but obedient from that night on.
Still bored, Fang Xing flipped through his Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation without purpose. There was nothing he could get out of the manual. He’d tried meditating in precisely the manner the manual instructed with no result—not even a tickle of anything could be felt. After several attempts, he’d pretty much determined the manual was nothing more than a hoax and simply didn’t work.
It wasn’t just him, either; no one in this entire herb field had felt anything over all these years. Even Wang Zhi later admitted he’d just been bluffing when he said he could already feel the flow of Qi.
Despite this, Fang Xing still couldn’t let it go so easily. Rumor had it there had been daotongs who successfully managed to master the first stage of Qi through this booklet and had become outer court disciples. It happened very rarely, but there were always a few days each year when such rumors filled everyone’s ears.
"Maybe I’m just not practicing it right..." Fang Xing sighed and hopelessly shook his head, reconsidering whether he had the talent for this. His worries were not unfounded, either, as innate ability was quite important in such matters.
Finally giving up, Fang Xing put the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation back into his cloth bundle only to take notice of the book that had been sitting inside for quite some time now, given to him by his ninth uncle before his death. The book didn’t seem to have many pages, but it was this very book that had caused the death of the three hundred or so men in Guiyan Valley, as well as the loss of his nine uncles.
Fang Xing was the sole survivor from Guiyan Valley.
Even Fang Xing knew the only reason he’d been able to escape unharmed was that Xiao Jianming assumed the tenth bandit was a grown man, just like the other nine who’d died beneath his sword—never would he have guessed it was a ten-year-old child. This was the very reason Fang Xing’s ninth uncle had given him the mysterious book and told him to run away from Guiyan Valley as fast as he could once they’d found out how powerful their enemy was.
The title was written in an ancient Chinese writing called Seal Script that his ninth uncle had once taught him, with the imprint reading as "The Book of Revelation".
After the book caught his interest, Fang Xing opened it up only to find nothing. Emptiness. He even went so far as to place the book under the sunlight to see if anything had been written using some of the invisible ink his second uncle had been inclined to use to scam rich traders.
Still nothing.
‘Wait, it can’t be invisible ink; it doesn’t last that long, and this book clearly looks like it’s been through a lot…’ Fang Xing thought to himself. He placed the book back into the cloth bundle and atop his Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation... and then it happened—a faded paragraph appeared.
‘Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation. Suitable for Spirit Stage. A manual for beginner cultivation….’
"What the…." Fang Xing widened his eyes and cursed when he saw the words appearing from out of nowhere. There wasn’t a large amount of writing, but in only a few short paragraphs, it explained what the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation was, the principles behind it, and even went so far as to point out some of its mistakes and what should be done to improve upon it.
Dumbstruck, Fang Xing lifted the book up for a closer look. The words disappeared as he moved the book away from the Qing-Yun’s Qi Formation, only to reappear when the book was placed upon the booklet once more.
Excited, Fang Xing then placed the book on top of his half-eaten watermelon.
Nothing….
"Perhaps that was too ordinary for the book?"
Rummaging through his belongings, Fang Xing noticed the snuff bottle given to him by his fourth uncle and remembered what he’d been told: "The smog it releases is so powerful that not even an adult bull would be able to stay awake!"
Only three short sentences appeared for the appraisal: ‘Low-grade spirit tool. Can be used to contain smog. No refinement category.’
"The snuff bottle is actually a spirit tool? I knew he was the most pragmatic uncle out of them all!" Fang Xing chuckled to himself. He tried a few other things with the book, but nothing else caused a reaction.
"Boss Fang Xing! It’s so hot today, so why don’t we have some booze to freshen up a bit!" Wang Zhi called out as he ran towards the wooden house, interrupting Fang Xing’s train of thought. Oddly enough, the stabbing had actually brought them closer together. As Wang Zhi put it, "One cannot truly know someone without exchanging blows."
Fang Xing calmly put the book aside before giving a mocking reply, "Is drinking all you know? Have you finished with your job yet?"
"Almost! The others can finish up the rest for me and I’ll go buy some wine!" Wang Zhi took a bite out of the watermelon and stood in front of Fang Xing, as though waiting in anticipation.
"You stingy bastard! It’s not like it costs an arm and a leg!" Fang Xing ridiculed, but he took out a small silver chunk and added, "Buy some pork, too."
"Of course!" Wang Zhi beamed with joy as he took the silver chunk. He threw his half-eaten watermelon to the side and rushed off towards the village on the mountain’s hillside. The village near the foot of the Qing-Yun Sect’s mountain flourished with trade and business thanks to the tens and thousands of these daotongs who sometimes preferred fancier meals than those given to them by the sect.
In order to be an effective leader in this world, it was not only necessary to be ruthless, but also to let the subordinates know they would be provided with protection and shared spoils. As daotongs, they all received a small monthly wage of three taels of silver per person. In the months following the stabbing incident, Fang Xing had made sure all of their wages were handed over to him, but in return he’d made sure most of their meals had been supplemented with meat and wine, much to the contrast of Wang Zhi who had hoarded everything good for himself during his time as leader.
After Wang Zhi left for the village, Fang Xing allowed his mind to wander back to the Book of Revelation. The more he thought about it, the more mysterious it became. He speculated it had to be some sort of appraisal book, perhaps only effective on items with spiritual or special properties.
‘But no matter how magical this book is, what good is it to me? It’s not like I want to become an Appraisal Master…’ Fang Xing thought to himself with disappointment.
"Yay! Found some more of these weeds! We can probably make a small fortune out of these!" Freckle-Boy—holding a small bunch of emerald-green plants with purple roots—excitedly exclaimed while returning from the herb field with another daotong nicknamed "Ghost-Face".
The green-and-purple plant was a weed that sometimes made its way into the herb fields, and even though the weed itself was useless for those practicing cultivation, it could usually be sold for a decent price to those in the mortal realm. The weed increased Jing1, which was useful for improving the nightly activities between a man and a woman. For daotongs, this was usually a good find that they’d exchange for some extra silver in the markets.
‘One can first convert the essence of life into Qi….’
Fang Xing didn’t think too much of the weed at first—that kind of topic would have been far more suited for his fourth uncle—but a sentence from the Book of Revelation suddenly emerged into his mind. With a spark of insight, Fang Xing shot up abruptly, his eyes fixing onto Freckle-Boy.
"Boss… I— I swear I’m not goofing off…" Freckle-Boy nervously said beneath the gaze. Fang Xing’s behavior sent chills down Freckle-Boy’s and Ghost-Face’s spines, both assuming they had done something wrong.
"Pass that to me." Before Freckle-Boy even had time to react, Fang Xing snatched the weeds out of his hands, and what happened next left the boys trembling in shock.