Expendables, human resources

[Subject of inquiry: fortune and misfortune]

[Deduction complete. Since you belong to Crimson Flame Peak and work primarily in the Quenching Room and Forging Room, several possibilities are provided...]

Jiang Yi woke and summoned the heavenly book, his eyes reflecting its dense, tadpole-like script.

He spent half an incense stick scanning and digesting it, thoughts churning in his mind:

Sure enough, living among demonic cultivators, I need to be careful whenever the end of the month rolls around.

Without the heavenly book's warning, how would I have known an inner-sect administrator would come to inspect Crimson Flame Peak today? I might well have suffered a calamity.

The heavenly book had answered Jiang Yi's question. After deducing various possibilities, its golden page revealed a sign of danger.

Inner disciple Xu Yan is in a bad mood. Proceed cautiously, and do not provoke him.

Jiang Yi silently committed this to memory, rose, opened the door, and went out to find He Laohun, who was preparing for work.

"Brother He, do you know any mortal laborers willing to work a shift for someone? I've gained some insights into my cultivation lately and want to take a day to consolidate them."

He Laohun had always been good at arranging such things. His acquaintances were plentiful, with familiar faces in every Work Dormitory.

He immediately said:

"Making progress again, Brother Yi? Tsk, looks like all that nourishment hasn't gone to waste! Sure, leave it to me. But the price of a substitute..."

Jiang Yi smiled.

"I'll pay the going rate. No haggling."

It was rather funny. Work on the Outer Sect's Four Peaks was grueling, and mortal laborers toiled like beasts of burden. Some tried every means possible to rest a little longer and catch their breath;

yet others felt their own work was not enough, and were willing to take on another job to earn more talisman money.

Thus, the practice of "paying for a substitute" had emerged.

An ordinary mortal laborer worked a full eight hours and earned around fifty in talisman money a day. Working an entire month without rest earned them a little extra.

But hiring someone to cover a shift cost at least eighty Talisman Money, regardless of the workshop. If the work was exhausting, the price rose to a hundred.

It was a thoroughly losing proposition.

Unless their bodies truly could not hold out and the overseer refused them leave, few were willing to spend money hiring someone to work in their place.

"See? Wasn't I right? Keeping your talisman money to spend on yourself feels much better."

He Laohun still thought Jiang Yi's recent comfortable life was due to Luo Qian'er being out of the picture.

"I'll cover the Talisman Money first. Pay me back after work. Keep at it, Brother Yi. I'm still waiting for you to reach the fifth level of Qi Refining."

He Laohun had meant it as a joke, but Jiang Yi nodded earnestly.

"I certainly won't disappoint you, Brother He."

I was joking. Why are you taking it seriously?

At the fifth level of Qi Refining, you could be a workshop overseer!

How could it be that easy?

He Laohun paused, thinking Brother Yi really was rather wooden, without much sense of humor. No wonder he could not win Luo Qian'er's affection.

He shook his head and went straight to work.

Brother Yi had spent heavily this month. Next month would probably be hard to get through.

Today he was hiring a substitute; another day, he might be working as one.

Watching his fellow laborers leave the shared courtyard one after another, Jiang Yi finished breakfast, wrapped himself in his drab gray Daoist robe, and headed for the private residence belonging to Yang Xun's son at the foot of the mountain.

The Qianji Sect was under demonic rule, strictly observing the order of its Dharma Lineage rather than engaging in indiscriminate slaughter and devastation.

According to the so-called Orthodox Lineage regulations, cultivators admitted into a Dharma Lineage, regardless of their school or sect, could not casually massacre cities, destroy nations, treat human lives as weeds, or damage the earth's veins... Even if they did so, they had to make restitution afterward.

Jiang Yi had once heard that a demonic sect leader in Northern Mang Ridge, fighting another cultivator, had extracted the souls of an entire town's people to fuel his Spell Refinement at a critical moment. After winning a costly victory, he had paid out his entire fortune in "fines."

"Orthodox Lineage..."

He mulled over those words, increasingly feeling that they held extraordinary significance.

The area around the Qianji Sect was densely populated. Many mortal laborers, after completing their terms and descending the mountain with enough talisman money to fill their purses, simply settled nearby and did business with the cultivators on the mountain. Gradually, they gathered into towns and villages.

With an overseer for a father, even if entering the inner sect wasn't guaranteed, he could at least live very comfortably on an outer peak without being bullied.

Unfortunately, Young Master Yang is a passionate soul. Of all the people he could fall for, he had to choose his own father's young wife.

Jiang Yi grumbled inwardly.

The young wife Yang Zhi had fallen in love with was his father's concubine-his "stepmother," in common parlance.

He had learned this secret between the Yang father and son through the heavenly book's guidance.

Family scandals were not to be aired in public, and Yang Xun had kept outsiders from learning of it.

The affair had made things awkward between father and son, and Yang Zhi had simply moved to the foot of the mountain to live alone.

Lucky for me. If it were on Crimson Flame Peak, even knowing where that ninth-grade Qi Refining cultivation method was wouldn't let me get my hands on it.

Jiang Yi moved swiftly, reaching the mountain's foot without any trouble along the way.

The residence stood near the market. Its gates were locked tight, and all was quiet inside. Clearly, no one had visited in a long time.

At the Qi Refining Second Stage, his sinews and bones were strong. Scaling a courtyard wall was naturally nothing difficult.

As though returning to his own home, Jiang Yi, familiar with the layout, pushed open the study door.

A little later, he retrieved the ninth-grade Qi Refining cultivation method he had longed for from a hidden compartment in a bookshelf.

"Lesser Forging Origin Fire-Control Art."

"If only it were a jade slip."

During He Laohun's idle chatter, Jiang Yi had once learned something.

When inner disciples cultivated high-grade methods, they could press a jade slip to their foreheads to imprint the contents in their minds, making them difficult to forget.

There was no need to memorize and repeatedly read the text themselves, chewing over its essential meaning.

Having obtained the cultivation method, Jiang Yi did not return to Crimson Flame Peak immediately. Instead, he booked a fine room at an inn in the market.

The Lesser Forging Origin Fire-Control Art counts as stolen goods. I can't explain where it came from, and it can't see the light of day.

I'll simply memorize it, cultivate it, then destroy it.

So Jiang Yi thought.

He had always held firmly to the principle of caution. Living among demonic cultivators, he tried to avoid taking a wrong step wherever possible.

The Proper Meridian Qi Circulation Art has no grade. It's the most rudimentary sort of cultivation method, too low to rank.

I wonder exactly what separates an ungraded method from a ninth-grade one.

Jiang Yi closed the door, told the waiter not to disturb him, and settled down to read the Lesser Forging Origin Fire-Control Art.

Compared with the circulation cycle of the Proper Meridian Qi Circulation Art, this ninth-grade Qi Refining method involves quite complicated variations.

Better still, it contains the essentials for opening the "inner mansion of the origin gate"... But why do great swathes of obscure language suddenly appear when it gets to the actual cultivation?

Jiang Yi's brow furrowed. Faced with incomprehensible phrases such as "gather lead to replenish Li, use lead to replenish mercury" and "forge the Primordial Truth, command Qi to produce fire," he grew increasingly muddleheaded as he read.

By the final pages, the inked characters spun before him, swelling to the size of bushel measures and filling his vision.

"A top student who passed the civil service exam in my previous life, reduced to an illiterate among demonic cultivators. Where am I supposed to seek justice for that? The Dao Academy's compulsory education must have been inadequate. It never gave me a proper foundation..."

The reading left Jiang Yi dizzy and his head throbbing. Unable to continue, he could only put it aside for the moment.

It seemed that without an accomplished teacher's guidance, hoping to get started with a cultivation manual alone was no different from a fool babbling about his dreams.

No wonder Yang Zhi had so casually hidden it in a bookshelf compartment rather than keeping it somewhere more secure and secret.

Without a deep grounding in cultivation knowledge, anyone who obtained it would still be lost in a fog, as though reading a heavenly book.

Huh?

The heavenly book!

That reminds me!

Jiang Yi rubbed his temples twice to ease the cruel blow of his own illiteracy. A gleam flashed through his eyes, and golden light appeared.

"Since I can't understand it, I'll leave it to the heavenly book... Inner disciples spend talisman money to have elders teach them. How could the understanding they glean compare in solidity to direct instruction from the heavenly book?"

[I humbly beseech the heavenly book to reveal the essential meaning of this cultivation method.]

[Additional condition: record the entire cultivation method and present it in a form I can read and understand.]

Light flowed across the golden page, and tadpole-like characters gradually emerged.

[Time required for deduction: one day and eighteen hours.]

"I'll just have to wait a little longer."

Jiang Yi picked up the thin volume of the Lesser Forging Origin Fire-Control Art and held it over the oil lamp. The flame caught the paper, turning its words to char.

The heavenly book had already recorded the entire text. There was no need to carry it around and add unnecessary risk; he could destroy it outright.

"Sure enough, a demonic cultivator turning his fortunes around through personal effort is a bit of a flight of fancy."

"It still comes down to 'fortune' and 'destiny.'"

Understanding rose in Jiang Yi's eyes.

What he called fortune and destiny could, in short, be summed up in four words.

Heavenly book, help me!

When Jiang Yi returned to Crimson Flame Peak, a few streaks of sunset still lingered on the horizon, like nearly spent coals that occasionally flickered with lingering red. They were not dazzling, but looked rather warm.

Two or three jackdaws startled from the mountain woods, carrying the pale red light on their backs as they slowly flew home to their nests.

The shared courtyard was loud with voices. He Laohun's booming voice could be heard from far away.

"...Who knows how the lad angered Senior Brother Xu? Ah, it's all fate!"

Jiang Yi crossed the courtyard gate and saw He Laohun, Widow Qin, and Old Li's family gathered as though holding a meeting.

Seeing the string of paper packages in Jiang Yi's hand, Widow Qin asked:

"Back to your room, Brother Yi? Did you go down the mountain?"

Jiang Yi nodded.

"I took a stroll down the mountain after cultivating and brought everyone some pastries to try."

He then asked:

"What happened?"

Old Li sighed.

"Someone died in the Quenching Room. Senior Brother Xu from the inner sect came down today to inspect and push production along. He said we had to produce forty-two 'law artifact blanks' this month."

"Little Gao from the B-Class Work Quarters was working too slowly, and he was just... beaten to death."

"These are water chestnut cakes, soft and smooth on the tongue. Try one, Sister Qin."

Jiang Yi unwrapped the brown paper and handed pastries around to his fellow laborers, asking:

"How was it handled afterward? Did Little Gao die for nothing?"

He Laohun spread his hands.

"What else could they do? Follow the rules. Little Gao was at the first level of Qi Refining. His skin was valued at twenty-eight hundred in talisman money and sent to Sewing Peak;"

"his flesh and bones were valued at fourteen hundred Talisman Money and sent to the Quenching Room;"

"if Herb-Gathering Peak and Soul-Nourishing Peak were willing to take what remained, that would fetch three thousand altogether."

"Added together, that comes to seventy-two hundred in talisman money."

"No idea whether Little Gao still had relatives down the mountain. If he did, they can collect the money as compensation."

After distributing the packages of pastries, Jiang Yi picked up a chestnut cake and chewed it slowly, but the taste was complicated.

So a mortal laborer at the first level of Qi Refining was worth only seventy-two hundred in talisman money, skin and flesh included?

"After Senior Brother Xu killed him and cooled off, he didn't try to weasel out of it. He left a note for eight thousand in talisman money."

He Laohun continued:

"Our contracts as mortal laborers spell it out: life and death are decreed by fate, and everything belongs to the sect."

"If Northern Mang Ridge's lineage rules weren't fairly strict, there probably wouldn't even be compensation."

Not only Jiang Yi but everyone felt a shared unease, a tightness in their chests.

Once someone was gone, no amount of compensation would help.

Besides, quite a few mortal laborers had neither family nor friends. That talisman money might not find a recipient at all.

"Let's break it up."

Widow Qin was the first to rise and return to her room. Old Li's family thanked Jiang Yi for the pastries and left as well.

The courtyard fell quiet again.

Jiang Yi asked:

"Brother He, how much did today's substitute cost? I'll get the Talisman Money for you."

He Laohun said:

"Ninety. He wanted a hundred, but I bargained him down a little."

Jiang Yi took out a hundred in talisman money, handed it to He Laohun, and casually added:

"Keep the extra for your trouble, Brother He. By the way, I'd still like to visit the inner sect and broaden my horizons. Do you know anyone who could arrange it?"

Unless sent on an errand, mortal laborers from the Outer Sect's Four Peaks found it difficult to enter the three inner peaks.

It was not that the Qianji Sect expressly forbade mortal laborers from setting foot there. Rather, the three inner peaks rose thousands of feet high, steep and difficult to climb. Even apes would despair of clambering across; only riding a flying crane could get one there.

True to his reputation as the Qianji Sect's know-it-all, He Laohun immediately said:

"Zhou Guang, the Forging Room overseer, does that business specifically. Elder Zhou, who raises the flying cranes in the inner sect, is his maternal uncle."

There truly were business opportunities everywhere among demonic cultivators. They just required family connections, depending on one's background and contacts.

Jiang Yi sighed with feeling and cupped his hands.

"Sorry for the trouble, Brother He. Please introduce me."

He Laohun let out a long sigh.

"Ah, still won't give up, Brother Yi? Fine, I'll put in a word for you. The inner sect's teaching elder holds a lecture every ten days. Go listen to one sometime, and you'll understand."

Jiang Yi thanked him sincerely. Although he held the heavenly book, which examined cause and effect and could reveal anything, a "tool" had to be used well rather than relied upon blindly.

He would enter the inner sect to attend a lesson, learn more about the Demonic Path Lineage and the essentials of Qi Refining, and thereby find a direction and establish a path for himself.

Otherwise, with his horizons confined to the Qianji Sect, he would ultimately be gazing at the sky from the bottom of a well.

Back in his room, Jiang Yi thought again of the mortal laborer Little Gao. Even if he had gone to work as usual today, he might not necessarily have run afoul of Senior Brother Xu from the inner sect and died.

But such "calamities" were best avoided whenever they could be, escaped whenever possible.

He Laohun's calculating words echoed in Jiang Yi's mind, and dark clouds seemed to shroud his heart, breeding gloom:

"At the First Level of Qi Refining, skin and flesh together fetch less than eight thousand Talisman Money. We really are like cattle and horses set out in a butcher's shop to be slaughtered and sold.

"At my current Qi Refining Second Stage, I'd fetch fourteen or fifteen thousand Talisman Money at the very most.

"Most inner sect senior brothers could probably afford that..."

Jiang Yi suddenly laughed aloud. Was the Fifth Level of Qi Refining that Mortal Laborers yearned for so desperately merely meant to make an inner sect senior brother weigh whether he could afford the compensation when anger flared and murderous intent arose?

"Consumables, consumables-materials meant to be consumed. Just like firewood fed into a stove to cook rice and boil water, they were meant to be used in the first place."

Jiang Yi pondered this. Under the rule of the demonic tradition, rewards and punishments seemed clearly defined, everything orderly-not the mutual slaughter and collapse of moral order of common stereotypes.

Yet viewed from below, it was like the deep night outside, thick as ink, with black clouds hanging low, pressing people down until they bent at the waist and knelt, unable to raise their heads.

"It really does bear out what Brother He said. Only by 'contending' and 'seizing' can you wrest a path forward."

Jiang Yi sat quietly, letting his thoughts rise and fall. Gradually, his inclination to drift with the current solidified into resolve.

He absolutely could not remain a "consumable," to be used at will.

"To shed the status of 'Mortal Laborer' and change my fate as a 'beast of burden,' I first have to become 'talent.'"

Jiang Yi grasped this point. Consumables were everywhere; if he refused to be a Mortal Laborer, there were plenty of people scrambling to do it.

To escape the "bottom-rung environment" established by this Dharma Lineage, he had to demonstrate his usefulness.

A useful person was "talent," someone who would not be casually consumed, someone who could draw a few more breaths.

"With the Heavenly Book in hand, standing out shouldn't be difficult."

Recalling He Laohun's words-"We have to produce forty-two Law Artifact blanks this month"-Jiang Yi began to see the outlines of an idea.

For a bottom-rung demonic cultivator to turn his fortunes around, he first had to become "talent"!