The morning sun broke through the emerald canopy of the ancient spirit willow. He cast dapples of golden light across the terrace flat stone slabs.
Deacon Xue San and his seven scouts remained kneeling before the low table, their heads bowed low. The empty fine china teacups and clean bamboo steamer were proof to the complete disarmament of the Blood Sea Sect’s elite sneaking squad. Having confessed every detail of Elder Han Gu’s grand ritual, the eight men waited for judgment.
Lin Xiao hopped forward, resting on the edge of the low cedar table. He extended a thin, semi-clear blue slime arm, gently touching the center of Xue San’s forehead.
A cool, refreshing pulse of spiritual senses entered Xue San’s skull.
“Dao Spirit, run a full living test,” Lin Xiao commanded internally. “What’s going on inside their spirit vein pathways? Their qi breath flow feels like a clogged sewer pipe full of gravel.”
“Ding.”
A crisp chime sounded as the Dao Spirit’s analytical screen showed up directly in Lin Xiao’s mind.
“Test complete, Host,” the Dao Spirit reported with clean, steady care. “All eight subjects exhibit advanced stage-three Blood-Parasite Infestation. Internal organ walls and spiritual spirit veins are colonized by Blood River Parasite Larvae. Tiny carnivorous nematodes engineered by the Blood Sea Demonic Sect. The parasites eat thirty-five percent of the host’s daily body-energy intake, secreting neurotoxins that induce unending paranoia, manic aggression, and chemical dependency on demonic blood-elixirs.”
Lin Xiao retracted his slime arm, his curved eyes narrowing with deep disgust.
“Leech-like mind-control worms,” Lin Xiao thought, shaking his blue body in revulsion. “This isn’t training. This is an abusive multi-level marketing scheme where the guy at the top literally eats his downline’s marrow. How anyone can look at these poor folks and think ‘yes, this is the path to immortality’ is beyond me.”
“S-Sovereign?” Xue San whispered, noticing the blue slime’s solemn silence. “Is... Is our execution at hand?”
“Execution? Don’t be ridiculous,” Lin Xiao sighed, bouncing lightly on the table. “You boys don’t need a headsman. You need a heavy dose of deworming medication and a decent breakfast. Your insides look like a termite-eaten fence.”
Lin Xiao turned toward the courtyard. Expanding a small sky-slit on his flank, he drew forth several bundles of fresh healing herbs stored in his void dantian. Wild silver-needle grass harvested from the mountain crests, bitter pond lotus bulbs dredged from Xiao Long’s pool, crushed mountain ginger, and several flagons of dew collected from the spirit willow at dawn.
With easy control, Lin Xiao gathered the herbs into his internal refining chamber.
Grumble-whirrrrr.
Within his semi-clear core, a warm, golden soft glow flared. The Ancient Chaos void dissolved the cellular plant walls, extracting the active healing principles with flawless potion-made purity while eliminating all dirt and harsh plant toxins. In less than forty breaths, Lin Xiao opened a small tap on his side, pouring eight steaming, dark golden bowls of healing broth onto the table.
A sharp, intensely bitter aroma filled the pavilion. It carried an undercurrent of fresh pine needles and crisp spring rain.
“Drink it down to the last drop,” Lin Xiao commanded warmly. “It’s going to taste like boiled tree bark and old copper. But it will kill every single parasite crawling in your guts.”
Xue San didn’t hesitate for a heartbeat. If this divine entity wanted them dead, he could have crushed their skulls with a single swat of the shadow wolf’s paw hours ago. Grabbing the baked-clay bowl with both hands, Xue San tipped his head back and swallowed the dark, bitter brew in massive gulps.
The other seven scouts followed his lead, draining their bowls without a single complaint.
For ten breaths, silence hung over the pavilion.
Then, Gu She’s eyes bulged.
“Ugh... URKKK!”
The young scout doubled over, clutching his belly as a violent, churning sensation erupted in his gut. It felt as though an army of hot needles was scraping the lining of his stomach. Xue San and the other six men collapsed onto their hands and knees, gagging and retching. Violent spasms shook their torsos.
“Hold your breath and let it out!” Lin Xiao instructed calmly. “Don’t swallow!”
HUUUUUURRRRRK!
Xue San vomited onto the flat stone slabs.
A thick puddle of foul, tar-like black sludge splattered against the stone. Writhing within the black bile were hundreds of tiny, thread-like red worms, each no longer than an eyelash, shrieking with faint, tiny hisses. The golden healing essence melted their cursed flesh into gray foam.
Beside the terrace, Xiao Hei stepped forward. He opened his maw to exhale a controlled puff of cold, black glass shadow flame.
FWOOSH.
The pitch-black fire swept across the flat stone slabs, vaporizing the foul black tar and demonic parasites into a wisp of odorless white smoke, leaving the stone perfectly clean and sanitized.
All eight men lay sprawled across the terrace, gasping for air.
Yet as the nausea subsided, a deep, miraculous change washed over their bodies.
Xue San slowly pushed himself up on his elbows. He drew a breath—and froze.
The unending, burning fire that had gnawed at his liver for twenty years was gone. The constant, buzzing static of manic rage that had clouded his thoughts since his youth had vanished into crystal-clear, ringing stillness. For the first time in his adult life, cool, clean, uncorrupted spiritual qi flowed freely through his spirit veins like a clear mountain brook flowing over polished river pebbles. The waxy, dead-lard pallor of his skin cleared, replaced by a healthy, warm bronze tone.
Gu She looked at his hands, wiggling his fingers with tears running down his cheeks. “The worms... The voices in my head... They’re gone. It’s so quiet. It’s so peaceful.”
Xue San pressed his forehead to the flat stone slabs once more. His voice shook with respectful, weeping devotion.
“Sovereign... You have cut the chains of our souls,” Xue San choked out. “We were bred as blood-cattle, fed on venom, and treated as disposable animal fat for Han Gu’s cooking pot. We have no homes. We have no families. If Your Eminence casts us out, we have nowhere to go under heaven.”
Lin Xiao bounced down to the floorboards, coming to a halt directly before Xue San’s bowed head.
“Nobody is casting you out,” Lin Xiao said, his voice practical and matter-of-fact. “However, you did trespass on our bamboo groves with intent to commit vandalism. In our Safe hall, everyone works for their keep. You eight are hereby sentenced to three months of community labor.”
Xue San looked up, his bloodshot eyes wide with eager hope. “Community labor? We’ll fight on the front lines! We’ll throw our bodies against the beast horde—”
“Good grief, no,” Lin Xiao interrupted with a wet sigh. “I don’t need you getting trampled on the front lines. That’s far too dangerous. Look over there.”
Lin Xiao extended a slime arm, pointing toward the northern sunlit hills.
Carved into the mountain slopes were dozens of wide, beautifully terraced gardens. Lush emerald rows of giant spirit turnips, crisp autumn cabbages, golden sweet potatoes, and sweet mountain pumpkins basked in the morning sunlight, irrigated by wooden aqueducts.
“Our northern vegetable terraces are expanding,” Lin Xiao explained cheerfully. “Old Ba, our chief badger gardener, has been complaining of a sore back and needs sturdy hands to weed the turnip rows, turn the compost heaps, and harvest the autumn melons. You eight are reassigned to the Agricultural Cohort. Report to Old Ba, take your tools, and make sure those turnip patches are spotless.”
Xue San and his men blinked, fully stunned.
They were elite shadow killers, trained in throat-slitting, poison-brewing, and soul-flaying. And their divine punishment... Was to weed turnips?
“We... We get to grow turnips?” Gu She whispered, his voice trembling as if offered the royal throne.
“Only if you weed them properly,” Lin Xiao replied, his crescent eyes twinkling. “Old Ba is very strict about soil aeration. Now off you go. Breakfast is served in the lower field pavilion.”
***
By mid-afternoon, the northern terraces of the Myriad Spirit Safe hall witnessed a sight that would have struck cold terror into the heart of any traditional sect elder.
Eight former shadow killers of the Crimson Phantom Unit were working the soil under the warm autumn sun.
They had discarded their shadow-leech cowls and bone skull masks, wearing wide woven straw hats and clean, rough-spun hemp smocks with their sleeves rolled to the elbows. Deacon Xue San, formerly feared across three commanderies as the ‘Ghost-Faced Flayer,’ was on his knees with a small iron trowel, carefully extracting every stray dandelion root from a bed of giant purple spirit turnips with razor-sharp, Foundation-Establishment care.
“Careful with the taproots, Gu She!” Xue San barked at his subordinate three rows over, pointing his trowel with grave power. “The Sovereign said the spiritual sweetness is packed in the bottom third of the turnip! If you bruise the skin with your hoe, you’re wasting the gifts of heaven!”
“I know, Deacon—I mean, Brother Xue!” Gu She shouted back happily, carefully wiping rich, black potting loam from a fat, glistening turnip. “Look at the size of this one! It’s as big as my head! I never knew dirt could smell so clean!”
Old Ba, an elderly badger-spirit with grey whiskers and a short pipe clenched between his teeth, strolled along the terrace path with his hands clasped behind his back. He inspected Xue San’s weeded row, tapped the turned soil with his walking stick. Then he grunted with test.
“Not bad for city folk,” Old Ba mumbled. “Keep this pace up until the fourth watch. There will be braised turnip cakes and cold peach cider for dinner.”
Xue San wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his dirty sleeve. He looked out over the flourishing green valley below. A broad, peaceful smile spread across his face—the first genuine smile he had worn in thirty years.
“Brother Xue,” Gu She called out. She leaned on his wooden hoe with a fierce, determined gaze. “If Elder Han Gu brings his blood horde to trample our turnip patches... What shall we do?”
Xue San gripped his trowel until his knuckles whitened. His eyes burned with an intense, fanatical agrarian fury.
“If that old bastard touches a single leaf of these turnips,” Xue San growled with total conviction, “I’ll personally bury him under the compost heap.”