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Chapter 12 - Silver Lining

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Zhujiao sighs again, shaking off the frustration. He was no stranger to hard work, but it was hard to scrounge up motivation when the task was this disgusting.

As if to punctuate his thoughts, a random passerby staggered into the mouth of the alleyway, vomited against the side of the clinic, then staggered off again. Zhujiao gaped in disgust at the sight and started breathing shallowly through his mouth. It certainly shed new light on some of the strange stains he could see.

There was no way he was going to be doing anything about that particular mess without at least some water to wash things down with. Judging by how Lao Yi had locked him out, this was meant to be a test of some kind, but he had his limits and dealing with bodily fluids without equipment was well past them.

Now, he just needed a way to phrase that notion to Lao Yi that didn’t make him seem like he was just avoiding work.

With that in mind, he rolled up his sleeves and set to work on the larger debris. He had no real idea what to do with any of this stuff – he would be shocked if there was any kind of trash pickup service, and as far as he knew there wasn’t a dump anywhere, so instead, he just started to separate the detritus into neat piles.

If nothing else, it should be easier to sort out later.

It didn’t take long for him to sink into a sort of semi-meditative state as time passed in a blur of lifting, dragging, and stacking.

The wooden crate in the best condition was put off to one side and used to store the remains of the other crates once he had broken them down. His cultivator strength, even without active reinforcement, was more than enough to dismantle the sad remains of the cart to pieces and pluck out the rough nails holding it together.

The various metal debris got a curious glance from him – any sort of worked metal was at least a little valuable – but any possible tools were rusted enough that identification was all but impossible.

He idly wondered what Lao Yi was thinking giving a task like this to an apparent child. If his skin were less tough, or if he was a little less mature it was entirely possible that he would have cut his hand open on something by now, not to mention the general risk of infection considering the unhygienic nature of the environment.

Then again, from what he had seen, this world puts a lot less stock on safety standards. It was also worth mentioning that, culturally speaking, the age of majority was significantly younger.

Technically speaking, a fifteen-year-old could get married, own property, get a job, or legally drink. That wasn’t always the case, of course, with most children staying with their parents until the age of sixteen or seventeen, but the fact that it was a possibility took some time to wrap his head around.

By the time he had finished clearing the alleyway – or at least, as much as he could manage without any cleaning equipment – his muscles were aching and his back was rather stiff.

He frowned to himself stretching as best he could and rubbing the small of his back. From the position of the sun, he gathered he had probably spent around three hours getting everything sorted. For a normal eleven year old, the effort would have been quite respectable, but for a cultivator it was downright pathetic.

Of course, he had spent the last month or so – had it already been so long? – without much in the way of physical activity, so it wasn’t too strange that his fitness would have dropped a little, but this much…

Clearly, his passive reinforcement had made a more significant difference than he had thought.

He hesitates for a moment before closing his eyes and mentally reaching inwards. In the month since he had used the beast core, he had yet to try anything to do with cultivation.

Even now, he could feel the ache of his strained channels and dantian, like a muscle that had been overworked but somehow less… physical. There was no easy way to describe it, which is why he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. That, and considering how his mother had reacted when she first learned he was a cultivator, he was a little wary of telling random people.

He swallowed down the sudden ache of loss, allowing it to wash over him for a moment before pushing through it. Crying about the past wouldn’t solve the problems of the present.

To his mind’s eye, his channels and dantian appeared as a complex network of conduits and a central reservoir. The channels were faintly glowing, their usual bright luminescence dulled and flickering intermittently, a clear sign of their overstrained state. The dantian itself was more stable but showed signs of stress, with tiny fractures running through its structure, slowly mending as they pulsed with a subdued, rhythmic glow.

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The damage was extensive but not beyond repair. He could sense the slow but steady progress his body was making in healing itself. Each pulse of his dantian sent minute waves of energy through his channels, knitting the tiny fractures together and reinforcing the weakened sections.

The relief he felt is hard to describe.

It’s like a massive weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He doesn’t want to push things yet and delay his recovery further with impatience – that’s a lesson that he’ll never forget – but just knowing that it’s possible is incredible.

It means that even if things don’t work out with the clinic, even if he can’t find any other form of income, and if all else fails, he can at least still join a Sect.

He pauses.

Probably, anyway. He doesn’t actually know anything about Sects, beyond what he’s learned from stories at least. He knows that they are basically groups of cultivators that come together to learn/teach, and that they provide protection to the villages and towns in the area.

He also knows that some of the people from back in the town were more than a little leery about the cultivators. There was never anything concrete, of course, but the vibe was that they were something to be respected and occasionally feared. Combined with his mother’s concerns, he resolves to leave it as a last choice.

He straightens from where he was leaning against the wall and opens his eyes just in time for the door to the clinic to click open and Lao Yi to poke his head out.

The old man looks around the alleyway with a judging eye before breaking into a grin. “Well, it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen it!” he chirps, turning and moving back inside but leaving the door open.

Zhujiao ducks through it before he can be locked out again, almost running into the old man’s back.

“Alright then, now that you’re all nice and warmed up, you can start cleaning in here!” Lao Yi calls over his shoulder, only pausing to pin Zhujiao with an intense look. “And I would be very disappointed if you poisoned yourself,” he admonishes sternly, wagging a finger.

‘Then why don’t you tell me which things are poisonous!?’ Zhujiao yells in his head. He doesn’t say it out loud, though. Despite the clear lack of safety, he is an adult, so he should be fine as long as he’s careful. Besides, complaining about things is a quick way to get kicked out, and even though he has the safety net of cultivation once more, everything will be much smoother with some kind of income.

He’s going to make this the neatest workspace the old man has ever seen.

***

A few hours later, he’s rather glad he kept his bluster to himself. On the surface of it, cleaning the workspace should have been simple, but the lack of any proper storage, the lack of labels, the lack of anything resembling any sort of organisational system, has rather stymied things.

Not to mention that Lao Yi keeps wandering back, plucking some random jar from where Zhujiao just organised it, humming distractedly, and putting it in a random location.

He has no idea if the old man is doing it on purpose, if he actually has dementia, or if those particular jars are especially dangerous or valuable. The lack of information means he has no choice but to leave those specific jars where they are, just in case, and try to work around them.

He’s getting… mixed results.

Lao Yi’s constant and seemingly random interference makes it feel like he’s working against a mischievous ghost. Every time he thinks he’s starting to make any headway in establishing a working system, Lao Yi totters back in and shuffles a few items at random.

His eye has started to develop a twitch every time he sees the old man. He tries sorting the jars and bottles by size, shape, colour, and apparent viscosity. Nothing. The herbs and raw materials used to make the various remedies are a little easier – while he is far from an expert, the education he got from Wei and Jin is enough to recognise at least a few of the herbs.

It gets an approving hum from Lao Yi, at least, which would have been encouraging if the old man hadn’t immediately changed everything anyway.

By the end of the day, he feels like he has achieved very little. The room is marginally neater, but he’s pretty sure that everything has somehow ended up exactly where it started.

He doesn’t know if this is meant to be Lao Yi’s version of a teachable moment, a way of showing that he knows best or if the old man is just screwing with him, but either way, he’s thoroughly sick of it.

Ironically, he has Jin to thank for his perseverance. The first week running through the forest was also hellish, albeit in a different way, but it’s given him the determination to outlast the old healer.

***

As the last rays of sunlight filtered through the grimy windows, Lao Yi finally seemed to take pity on him. The old man ambled over, peered critically at the room, and then nodded as if satisfied. He reached into his robe and pulled out a small pouch, handing it to Zhujiao.

“Here,” Lao Yi said. “Your pay for today. Make sure to find someone to guide you back to the orphanage. It’s not safe to wander alone through the slums.”

Zhujiao looks down at the two tiny coins clinking together in the palm of his hand. He has a terrible suspicion.

“And is there anyone you would recommend I ask?”

Lao Yi beams at him. “As a matter of fact, there is! There’s a young man – even younger than yourself, if you can believe it! – who should be sitting just outside the door.”

He pauses, and for a moment, Zhujiao feels a flicker of hope.

“Of course, it’s customary to offer a little tip to helpful young men.” Lao Yi peers down at the coins in Zhujiao’s hands in apparent surprise.

“Ah yes, that looks like just the right amount! How lucky!”

“Yes. Lucky.” Zhujiao deadpans back.

He’s stubborn, but not stubborn enough to try making his way back to the orphanage in the dark. Hell, he wouldn’t even be particularly game to try in broad daylight, considering how some of the rougher sorts were looking at him this morning.

He heaves a deep breath, holds it for a long count, then pushes through the front door. Sure enough, there’s a tiny form dressed in rags slumped against the building opposite. Despite his reticence, Zhujiao feels himself sagging. The young boy makes for a rather pitiable sight, so if his hard earned coins have to go to anyone it may as well be someone who needs it.

The boy in question already has his hands out to accept payment, the cheeky sod, but Zhujiao is too focused on the thought of his bed to care.

The trip back passes in something of a blur, and before long he’s collapsing on the hard timber frame of his bunk. He’d somehow managed to forget that he still didn’t have a mattress. Or a pillow. Or a blanket.

Or a change of clothes.

Honestly, if it weren’t for the knowledge that his cultivation hadn’t been shattered, buoying his mood, he may have entirely given up.

As it was, he just snuggled down into his sad little bed frame and dropped off to sleep.