On the second floor of the Patriarch’s home, Shen Jian looked over to the destroyed door with a thoughtful look on his face. The kid was stubborn. Of that, Shen Jian was sure. He would never be able to hold his tongue, no matter how many lessons Shen Jian gave him. If he ever spoke with Yang Shao in public, he would just be asking to lose face.
Yet Shen Jian kept thinking about the end of their “fight,” and it gave him hope that the kid could survive at Shigong Temple for longer than a week. Even after breaking his fist on Shen Jian’s ki-enhanced body, Yang Shao attacked once more. Shen Jian had counted on the kid giving up after hurting himself, but he just kept going. Yang Shao probably would have broken all four of his limbs if he hadn’t been knocked out.
Shen Jian saw a brief glimpse of the most important factor in any cultivator’s success: tenacity. He saw it once more when he taught Yang Shao the Crashing Star technique. When he was motivated, the boy would go after his goal with a single-minded devotion.
All he needed was the right motivation. Shen Jian thought this and sighed heavily. He knew that he could not just tell the boy what to do, and he couldn’t merely take him to the Shigong Temple by force. In the long term, Shen Jian wanted to turn the boy into a useful ally. After three years of training, the boy would become indispensable. He would have to be much more subtle when dealing with Yang Shao.
As the cultivator considered his options, the background noise of villagers conversing started getting louder. Shen Jian tried to ignore it at first, but the exclamations of excitement suddenly intensified like they were the crowd at a fighting tournament witnessing a knockout.
The noise completely broke Shen Jian’s focus. In an annoyed huff, he got to his feet and walked over to the window facing the village square. He wondered if some traveling charlatan had come to the village and was dazzling the local hicks with misdirection and sleight of hand.
When Shen Jian looked through the wooden slats that they called “windows” in that part of Haishan, his annoyed grimace shifted into a smile. A large crowd had formed in the village square, and Yang Shao stood on an elevated platform in the center of the crowd. He held a long iron staff firmly in both hands, and nearly a dozen villagers - young women, mostly - were hanging from the staff. Yang Shao slowly curled the staff holding ten people up to his chest, slowed more by concern that the villagers would lose their grip than any actual exertion.
Villagers on the edge of the crowd were starting to gather every heavy thing they could get their hands on. One villager was dragging a massive stone toward the platform in the center of the village square and another was stacking heavy bags in a large pile.
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The scene in the center of the village square made Shen Jian’s day. Yang Shao was just a normal teenager. It felt like a load had been lifted off of Shen Jian’s shoulders as he realized that he would have no trouble motivating the boy. Pride was the easiest emotion to manipulate, after all.
The next day, Shao walked through the forest with his iron staff grasped loosely in one hand. For the first time in his life, he woke up in the morning with aching muscles. The mixture of learning Crashing Star of the Southern Heavens and the various feats of strength he went through later in the day had really tired him out.
The ache in his muscles made him not want to work that day, and the attention he received from the other villagers made him seek out solitude. The villagers were starting to treat him like Shen Jian, as if they had completely forgotten that he was just like them. He wasn’t any different than he was the day before, yet Shao could not walk down the street without receiving countless gifts.
Shao wore new clothing, and he carried a new leather bag over his shoulder that was completely filled with fruits, meats, and jewelry. The gifts held within the bag were just those gifts he received on his walk to the forest, as he had already given most of what he received the day before to Lin Daiyu.
He reached the small stone mountain that he had struck the day before and placed his iron staff and leather bag on the ground. He sat with his legs crossed and his face resting against the palm of his hand.
Thinking about his situation for a moment, he realized that he held no disdain for cultivation itself. Rather, he hated the society of cultivators. There was nothing wrong with him using his strength to protect the people of Bluecrest Village, and, if the villagers insisted on giving him lavish gifts in return for his protection, who was he to turn them down?
Perhaps Shen Jian was right, Shao thought with a deep frown. A moment later, he mentally amended this thought to “Shen Jian was right about one specific thing.” The people of Bluecrest Village wanted a protector. It wouldn’t be subjugation to give them what they wanted.
Shao smiled happily and rolled onto his back with his hands clasped behind his head. He breathed in the fresh autumn air and looked up at the clear blue sky. He thought about Chu Peijing and realized that the excuse he was using to hold off on asking her on a date was quickly disappearing. If he were to become the village’s Divine Guardian, he would be the second richest man in the village.
He promised himself that, once Shen Jian left and the village’s safety was secured, he would ask Chu Peijing on a date. The thought filled him with both fear and elation, and those strong emotions caused him to jump up to his feet and shout out a loud, wordless exclamation.
With the images of a joyful future in his mind, Shao began his training in earnest.