The Ten-Year Term Ends

Old Zhang, the monk who kept the accounts, was named Zhang Cheng.

He had a red, bulbous nose and reeked of liquor. His clerical robes were wrinkled, and who knew how long it had been since he had washed them.

Judging by his appearance, he was at least seventy.

If Zhang Cheng were an ordinary man, he would have been exceptionally long-lived by Great Qian standards.

Experts of the upper third grade, whether from the orthodox Mystic Sect or the unorthodox side paths, all touched upon the path of spirit refining to some degree.

The intangible soul became a tangible Yin Spirit. At first, it could only wander at night, then later by day. Legend had it that at the first-grade realm, the soul was already no different from an ordinary person.

The body nourished the soul, and the soul nourished the body in return, granting a lifespan of at least three to five hundred years.

Lifespan was closely tied to one's cultivation method. Generally speaking, the Divine Dao offered the longest average lifespan, Buddhism and Daoism fell in the middle, and the Martial Dao and demonic paths offered the shortest.

The Martial Dao was an unorthodox branch that emphasized the physique over the soul and had a low threshold for cultivation. Without also cultivating a Daoist Yin Spirit or a Buddhist School Śarīra, even an upper third grade practitioner would live only a hundred and fifty years.

Demonic cultivators were short-lived for another reason. With all their fighting and killing, they made enemies everywhere, and sooner or later, their boat would capsize in a gutter.

In a world teeming with demons, ghosts, and monsters, there were plenty of ways to cling to existence rather than die. Even Martial Dao experts could become ghost cultivators.

Zhang Cheng's magical aura felt familiar to Zhou Yi, making it likely that he belonged to an orthodox Daoist lineage.

Daoist cultivation methods excelled at nurturing the body and temperament. Retaining eternal youth was no challenge for an upper third grade expert, yet Zhang Cheng tottered about as though he might kick out his legs and roll his eyes in death at any moment.

Zhou Yi guessed that either he was deliberately disguising himself, or he had lived for centuries and was nearing the end of his lifespan.

"Our Ministry of Works doesn't have that many rules. A clerk's job is to record the demon materials put into storage each day."

Zhang Cheng led the way, introducing the departments as they went: the Fur and Hide Department, the Claw and Fang Department, the Ear and Eye Department, the Strange Objects Department...

Each department had one or two clerks, most of whom were buried in their writing. They all greeted Zhang Cheng when they saw him. Clearly, he was an old hand in the Ministry of Works.

"Our place is a little out of the way. It's the Five Viscera Department, where we classify and record the Demon Race's internal organs."

Zhou Yi almost thought he had entered some underground illegal clinic. Fortunately, the demon materials were sealed in specially designated boxes, keeping the bloody stench from spreading. Otherwise, it would have become an underground slaughterhouse instead.

Most of the Ministry of Works staff were warehouse clerks and examination clerks. The former handled storage and safekeeping, while the latter performed the finer processing.

They numbered less than half the staff of the Punishment Office, yet every one of them was strong, at least at the middle third grade qi refining realm.

From the demons' memories, Zhou Yi had learned that a middle third grade cultivator counted as an expert in the provinces, powerful enough to become famous throughout a county and make his name thunder across a hundred li. Yet in the Ministry of Works, he could only serve as a lowly errand runner.

Zhang Cheng took Zhou Yi around to familiarize him with the rooms, then explained several restricted locations and rules within the Ministry of Works before finally returning to the Five Viscera Department.

It was a fairly spacious room, piled full of all sorts of ledgers, many covered in thick dust.

Zhang Cheng handed Zhou Yi a stack of ledgers. "Time to start working. These are yesterday's accounts sent over by the examination clerks. You need to classify and transcribe them so they're easy to look up later."

"The classification method is simple. Follow the order of the first character of each name in the Ten Thousand Demons Record, then enter them in the five viscera ledgers..."

After Zhang Cheng explained it once, Zhou Yi immediately understood. Essentially, they recorded the demon materials stored each day in dictionary order.

Later, whether someone needed materials for refining pills or artifacts, or for stir-frying, pan-frying, or deep-frying, they could quickly find their storage locations by body part, date of entry, and demon name.

It was tedious, time-consuming work.

Puzzled, Zhou Yi asked, "Lord Zhang, why haven't I seen anywhere to sleep or eat?"

"We're officials of the Ministry of Works under Great Qian's Demon-Slaying Bureau, entered in the official registers. Why would we have that confinement business they use in the Punishment Office?"

Zhang Cheng said, "You can eat at the Demon-Slaying Bureau's dining hall, but there's nothing we can do about lodging. Living in the Capital isn't easy. On your salary, you'd need at least fifty years to buy a little courtyard house."

A clerk's salary was one string of coins a month, already a high wage in ordinary people's eyes.

"Do I still have to sleep in the People's Shelter after ten years?"

The People's Shelter consisted of thatched sheds built by the court, where displaced people could stay for free so they would not wander everywhere and become difficult to control.

Zhou Yi had slept in the People's Shelter back then. When the Demon-Slaying Bureau's Punishment Office recruited workers, he had passed several tests and signed a contract selling himself into service.

Zhang Cheng said, "You could also go to the Punishment Office dormitories. You're used to living there anyway."

Zhou Yi gave a bitter smile. "You're joking, Lord Zhang. I'd rather sleep on the streets aboveground and look at the moon and stars."

Zhang Cheng chuckled and lowered his voice. "I'm only teasing you, lad. I'll lend you two strings of coins. Make do for a month, and by then you'll know the perks of our Ministry of Works."

Zhou Yi looked puzzled, but Zhang Cheng gave him no chance to ask. He took out a wine gourd, swallowed several mouthfuls, and found a comfortable position to lie down on the floor.

"Old Zhang here is feeling a little tired. You're young and strong, so get to work. If you're slow with the copying, the chief clerk will punish you."

"All right."

Zhou Yi was in no hurry to put brush to paper. First, he sorted through the stack of ledgers, examining Zhang Cheng's previous entries and comparing the formats of the daily records.

Zhang Cheng's handwriting was excellent. His strokes flowed like drifting clouds and running water, graceful and expansive. Such skill could only have come from long years of practice.

There was just one flaw. Apparently, he rushed through the latter half of each day's work, so his running script became cursive, then finally turned into a doctor's scrawl.

Page after page of ~~~~~~~ symbols.

No wonder the chief clerk repeatedly told me not to take up drinking.

Zhou Yi could already remember everything he read, and he soon knew what to do.

A clerk transcribed and organized written catalogs; he was not researching mathematics.

Hrrr-

Hrrr-

Zhang Cheng's snores drifted through the Five Viscera Department. To sleep so soundly in this eerie underground place-he truly lived up to being an upper third grade expert.

Time trickled past.

After classifying and organizing yesterday's seven hundred and eighty-five entries of demon materials for the Five Viscera Department, Zhou Yi began leafing through the older ledgers.

These were the original records sent over by the examination clerks. The ledgers organized by the clerks would be handed in, and the warehouse clerks would store and safeguard the materials according to their entries.

Soul-devouring worms burrow into human brains, consume their souls, and control their bodies just like living people. They can actually remain undetected for decades.

There's a true dragon lurking in Great Qian. Most mixed-blood dragons within its borders trace back to a single ancestor. One dragon bred an entire race. Impressive!

The demon king of Black Wind Mountain is actually a half-demon. His son died at the hands of the Demon-Slaying Bureau, and they only discovered it when the examination clerks tested his bloodline...

The oldest of these ledgers recorded events from one or two hundred years ago. Countless demons had died in the Demon-Slaying Bureau, yet they still had not filled the Demon Refining Cavern.

The many strange demons recorded within broadened Zhou Yi's horizons. If he encountered them in the future, he would know how to deal with them.

"Ah, that felt wonderful..."

Zhang Cheng slowly opened his eyes and stretched.

Pretending not to know that he had been feigning sleep, Zhou Yi handed over the organized ledgers.

"Lord Zhang, you're awake. These are today's records. Could you check whether anything is wrong?"

"Hmm? You've finished copying already? Let me see."

Zhang Cheng leafed through them and randomly selected several entries to compare. Finding no problems, he praised him. "Good, good. From now on, you'll handle the copying, and I'll proofread."

"All right."

Zhou Yi did not mind. If he had not restrained his writing speed for fear of Zhang Cheng noticing while pretending to sleep, he could have controlled the brush and paper directly with magic and finished in no time.

"Your handwriting is quite good. Who taught you?"

"I imitated your handwriting, Lord Zhang. I've only captured its form, not its spirit. I hope you'll offer me guidance in the future."

The Demon-Slaying Bureau's files listed Zhou Yi as possessing the Butcher's Art of Demon Dissection. His wrists were extraordinarily nimble; using them to imitate handwriting was putting a great talent to trivial use.

"Excellent. I've got high hopes for you!"

With the day's copying finished ahead of time, Zhang Cheng took Zhou Yi to hand the ledgers over to Warehouse Clerk Wang.

"Be frugal with those two strings of coins. They'll be enough to last until the end of the month. Remember to pay me back next month."

Humming an unfamiliar little tune and bobbing his head, Zhang Cheng walked down the passage toward the underground exit.

Zhou Yi followed behind him, gazing with a complicated expression at the lingering sunset glow by the exit, both strange and familiar.

"Ten years in the blink of an eye. I'm finally out!"