Lu Qinghe was furious. The pill and spirit stone the sect owed him were far too important. Without them, advancing further would be nearly impossible.
A vast divine sense descended over him, and Lu Qinghe felt as though he’d plunged into an ice cavern.
The anger drained from his face. He clenched his teeth and answered, “Senior Brother, this junior brother remembered incorrectly.”
The spiritual pressure crushing down on him vanished.
The middle-aged man smiled. “Junior Brother, you mustn’t make such mistakes again.”
Lu Qinghe drew a deep breath. “This junior brother understands. Thank you for Senior Brother’s guidance. I’ve troubled you.”
He turned and strode out of the Affairs Hall before he lost control and did something he couldn’t take back.
Zhou Tong watched him leave. He’d seen the fury smoldering in the boy’s eyes, but it didn’t concern him in the slightest.
A menial disciple-what could he possibly do? Without resources, the boy would spend his entire life wallowing at the early stages of Qi Condensation. He posed no threat whatsoever.
Zhou Tong himself stood only a single step from late-stage Qi Condensation. Once he entered the inner sect, even if the sect learned what he’d done in the Affairs Hall, they wouldn’t bother punishing him.
Lu Qinghe was far from his only victim.
“What right does a five-root menial disciple have to spirit medicine and spirit stones? Better they serve my path to the supreme Dao.”
“And that inferior spirit field-it’s nearly depleted. I just need a scapegoat to face the sect’s inquiry.”
Spirit fields, even inferior ones, were sect treasures. Under normal circumstances, no one would assign a first-layer Qi Condensation menial disciple to manage one.
Lu Qinghe stepped out of the Affairs Hall, and his expression turned dark as a storm cloud. His heart bled. One pill. One spirit stone. For someone like him, that was everything.
He’d tasted the cruelty of the cultivation world. Even within a sect like Taixuan, the strong could openly rob the weak and pocket sect rewards without consequence.
He wanted to report it. But he was a lowly menial disciple-he had no standing to so much as request an audience with an elder.
And even if he could, would the sect punish an outer sect disciple for the sake of a five-root nobody?
Strength. If he had strength-if he were an outer sect disciple-would that man have dared?
Lu Qinghe did not return to the menial disciples’ courtyard. Following the jade slip’s directions, he spent half the day finding the spirit field assigned to him.
The field stretched before him, roughly one mu in size. The spirit rice had already been sown. His duty was to irrigate it with spirit water each day and ensure the field suffered no damage. This story is hosted at g.com.
Spirit rice took one year to mature. One mu of spirit field yielded a thousand jin. As long as he delivered a thousand jin within the deadline, he would earn one hundred sect merit points and two spirit stones.
Any yield beyond a thousand jin belonged entirely to him.
This was a generous assignment. Even a few extra jin would be precious cultivation resources for a menial disciple.
Spirit rice could be sold for spirit stones, and even eating it directly would nourish one’s cultivation.
Lu Qinghe couldn’t understand why that middle-aged senior brother had given him such a good arrangement. His resentment toward the man eased considerably.
He tidied up the small wooden hut beside the field and settled in. For the next year, he likely wouldn’t be leaving this place.
Then he sat down and read the jade slip from beginning to end, absorbing everything about spirit rice cultivation.
Three things demanded attention. First, irrigation-once daily without fail.
Second, weeding. A particular weed grew alongside spirit rice and had to be pulled the moment it appeared, or yields would suffer.
Third, and most critical: pests. Pest damage was spirit rice’s greatest enemy. Once an infestation took hold, the entire crop could be lost in a single stroke.
Lu Qinghe surveyed the field. The immediate priority was irrigation to coax the seeds into sprouting. He possessed a water spiritual root, but he didn’t have the Cloud Rain Technique.
Even if he did, it required second-layer Qi Condensation to cultivate.
Fortunately, spirit rice grew in a spirit field-ordinary water could sustain it. He simply needed to haul water from the spirit spring higher up the mountain.
Lu Qinghe found two buckets and ran up the slope. He carried load after load of spirit water down to the field, back and forth, until the sky went fully dark. Only then had he finished irrigating the entire mu.
A full day of hauling water. Even with a body tempered to the first layer of Qi Condensation, he was utterly spent. There was no energy left for cultivation. He collapsed onto the hut’s wooden bed and sank into dreamless sleep.
The next morning, Lu Qinghe rose and checked the field. No sprouts yet. He didn’t worry-spirit rice needed half a month to germinate.
He picked up the buckets and headed back up the mountain.
Half a month slipped by.
But the spirit rice that should have sprouted across the entire field had produced only a scattering of feeble shoots. Their growth was pitiful-they looked as though they wouldn’t survive at all.
Lu Qinghe reached the only conclusion that made sense: the spirit field itself had gone wrong. It could no longer sustain spirit rice.
The realization hit him like a blow to the chest. He threw his head back and roared at the sky, “That thieving bastard-he dared do this to me!”
Now he understood. Now he saw why such a “generous” assignment had fallen into his lap, why only one task had remained at the Affairs Hall.
Beneath the rage lay a helplessness so deep it chilled his bones. Even if he reported this to an elder, would the elder believe a menial disciple’s word?
And getting an audience with an elder in the first place was harder than ascending to heaven.
Lu Qinghe found himself trapped. When the year ended and he couldn’t deliver a thousand jin of spirit rice, punishment was certain.
Worse still was the charge of damaging a spirit field. That was a crime he could not bear.
“What do I do? Do I flee Taixuan Sect?”
He returned to the wooden hut, his mind churning. He forced himself to sit, to breathe, to think.
And then it struck him.
The mysterious space attached to his dantian. The black soil inside-it was roughly the same size as this spirit field. Could he transplant the rice there?
If it worked, this crisis might yet have a way out.
Lu Qinghe sat cross-legged on the ground and plunged his divine sense into his dantian. He found the faint point of light almost immediately.
When he opened his eyes again, he stood inside the mysterious space.
He stared.
The black soil that had been barren and empty was now blanketed in gold.
Row upon row of spirit rice stalks stood tall, their heavy ears bowing under the weight of ripe grain.
Lu Qinghe rubbed his eyes. He must be seeing things.
A long moment passed before he accepted it. He wasn’t dreaming. Before him stretched an entire field of spirit rice, already mature.
His mind raced. One possibility crystallized.
“This space-it can accelerate spirit rice to maturity.”
As for how the seeds had gotten here, he remembered now. During those days of irrigating the field, he’d occasionally tossed handfuls of loose soil into the space without thinking.
That soil had carried spirit rice seeds. In the mysterious space, they’d germinated, grown, and ripened-all on their own.