The first payday

Ever since winning that Back-Scrubbing Competition, Wen Ning had bitterly regretted winning such a ridiculous contest.

His agency had gone completely off the rails. His reputation as the king of back scrubbing had spread far and wide.

Before, he had at least had a few mortal-world jobs—rental listings and scalping concert tickets—to keep up appearances.

Occasionally, he could even brag to Gong Kai that he ran a comprehensive, cross-sector service company.

Now look at it. Putting up the sign for the "Heavenly Court Bathhouse Human-Realm Branch" had already thinned out his mortal clientele. Winning that back-scrubbing contest had driven away the rest.

Business bathing monsters, on the other hand, was booming. The electric kettle he had bought for thirty yuan at a student secondhand market had completely burned out. It had practically exploded, leaving a crack in the bottom that sprayed water like a fountain whenever he boiled any. Fine, he could live with bathing monsters, but what kind of customers were these? Sparrows, mushrooms, weasels.

Couldn't at least one female monster who had cultivated a human form show up?

And opening the bathhouse had increased Wen Ning's expenses, too.

Gritting his teeth, he withdrew over two thousand yuan from his account and bought a proper electric water heater to install in the corner.

The old weasel happened to come for a bath the day it was installed. Looking at the new equipment on the wall, he marveled at it for quite a while.

"I've been bathing here for some time now, and this is the first time I've seen a proper appliance in this dump."

Wen Ning sat in his chair and surveyed his headquarters.

Three new towels were stacked on the coffee table beside a bottle of concentrated medicinal bath solution sent over by Xiong Batian.

The electric fan still wheezed as it swiveled back and forth, a few golden retriever hairs clinging to its blades. Who knew how much longer it would last?

By the entrance, the big golden retriever lay beside the roller shutter, basking in the sun and idly swishing his tail against the ground.

The only thing that looked out of place in the bathhouse was the gleaming statue of the Heavenly Venerable of Universal Thunder, Originator of the Nine Heavens, on the offering table.

Wen Ning addressed the statue.

"Godfather, hasn't my office strayed a little off course? Can I change its name?"

As usual, Wen Zhong ignored him.

Just as Wen Ning found himself scrubbing the backs of at least a dozen monsters every day,

his first month's salary arrived.

When his phone screen lit up, he was scrubbing the back of the veteran actor, the big golden retriever. He pulled out his phone and saw a message from the Heavenly Court Personnel Department's number.

Heavenly Official Wen Ning of the Thunder Department Celestial Registry, your salary for this month has been issued: base salary, 5,000 merit points. Please check the Thunder Department's internal system to claim your 5,000 merit.

There were three zeroes after the five. Wen Ning counted them twice to make sure he hadn't misread it.

That figure was several times the seventeen hundred points he had received for the Zhou Hu incident. He had worked himself ragged scrubbing backs for a whole month.

In return, he had received a genuine Heavenly Court salary—merit points, not yuan.

This was the Heavenly Court's hard currency, something he could use directly for cultivation.

Before Wen Ning could even compose a poem to celebrate, Lu Ming's messages burst into the group chat.

Lu Ming: Payday! Wen Ning, has your salary arrived? If it has, come to the Heavenly Court Shopping Center with me. There's a sale today—buy three, get one free on Mount Tai Specialty Dried Lingzhi!

After finally making it to payday, there was no way Wen Ning was going.

"No. I'm using my merit points to cultivate."

Lu Ming: Cultivate? You can cultivate whenever you want! The shopping center's sale only lasts three days. Three days! Miss it and you'll have to wait another year. Besides, do you know how much good stuff they have there now? Last time, I spotted a Spirit Silkworm Silk bathrobe. Water won't stick to it while you're scrubbing backs. It's perfect for you.

Even Bai Lu had perked up now that payday had arrived.

"Have you bought it already?"

Lu Ming sent a reply, sounding noticeably less confident than he had during his earlier payday spending frenzy.

"N-not yet. I thought it was a little expensive, so I wanted to wait until payday. But after getting paid, I realized I still didn't have enough, so I was hoping Wen Ning could lend me some."

He followed it with a pitiful deer-head emoji.

Wen Ning read Lu Ming's messages, ignored him completely, and slipped his phone back into his pocket. Borrow my merit? Dream on.

Wen Ning also took three incense sticks out of a drawer, lit them, and placed them in the incense burner. Then he stepped back twice and solemnly kowtowed three times.

"Godfather, I want to use my merit points to cultivate. Didn't you say they could directly raise my cultivation? I'd like to know how."

This time, Wen Zhong did not ignore him.

The incense smoke rose straight upward, paused slightly in midair, and then a faint spark of lightning appeared between the statue's brows.

At the same time, Wen Ning's phone screen lit up. Wen Zhong had sent a message containing just one instruction: sit down.

Wen Ning sat cross-legged before the offering table and closed his eyes. A moment later, he felt a slight warmth between his brows.

It felt exactly like the last time he had received the Baptism of Enlightenment, but this time the stream of information was not an overwhelming sea of lightning.

Instead, it was an extremely fine, sharply defined golden thread. It entered between his brows, traveled slowly downward through his meridians, and finally flowed into the warm vortex of qi in his dantian.

The thread traced a circulation route through his body that he had never noticed before. It was not the lightning path of the Five Thunder Righteous Method, but something more fundamental—a cycle more like breathing itself.

Following that route, he guided the qi in his dantian into a slow circulation. With every circuit, he felt it grow a little more condensed.

He lost track of time as he immersed himself in cultivation. When he opened his eyes again, evening had already fallen outside.

He looked down at his palms. His skin was still the same skin, and his joints were still the same joints.

But he could feel that the warm mass of qi deep in his dantian had grown considerably denser. It had been the size of a fist before; now it was almost as wide as the mouth of a bowl, and its rotation was clearly steadier.

With a thought, an arc of electricity sprang from his fingertips.

It was no longer the hair-thin arc he had produced before. It was thicker and brighter, carrying a greater weight of power as it crackled between his fingers.

He kept it going for over ten minutes without his legs weakening or his breathing growing labored. He even felt he could continue for much longer.

Wen Ning looked down at his hands, then addressed the statue on the offering table.

"Godfather, did I level up?"

The statue certainly wasn't going to answer him, but Wen Ning's phone screen lit up. Wen Zhong had sent a brief message.

"Mid-stage Earth Immortal."

Another message followed.

"Five or six thousand merit to advance from the early stage to the middle stage. Reasonable value. Reaching the late stage next time will require twelve thousand merit. Save it up yourself."

His tone was as matter-of-fact as if he were reviewing official paperwork, but Wen Ning felt there was praise hidden in those words.

Seeing that his godfather seemed to be in a good mood, Wen Ning hurriedly sent another message: Godfather, could I change this Heavenly Court Bathhouse Human-Realm Branch sign? It makes me look nothing like a proper immortal.

Wen Ning waited over a minute for Wen Zhong's reply. Just as he was about to give up, thinking Wen Zhong wouldn't bother answering him,

Wen Zhong replied.

You can't take down the sign, so forget it. Do your job properly down there. Did you think you were sent there just to scrub backs? You need to identify problems and solve them.

Great, more stock phrases. It looked like that sign wasn't coming down. Wen Ning was pretty curious, too. His godfather seemed so serious—how had he come up with a sign like that?

The Thunder Department office in the Heavenly Court.

Wen Zhong was still looking at his conversation with Wen Ning when he suddenly sneezed. "Who's thinking about me? They'd better hope I don't find out. I'll send a lightning bolt straight at them."

Seeing that Wen Ning had stopped replying, he thought, Silly boy, my master's master ordered that sign put up. Your godfather can't do anything about it, either.

(Damn, they're not giving this any traffic at all.)