Jin LiJuan tried not to hate spirit beasts, but the task was difficult. She was highly motivated, though. Master didn’t ask much of her. In fact, he’d only really asked two things—to obey him and to not hate.

She hadn’t understood why Master even asked her not to kill beasts in anger. The strong sect members killed beasts wherever the creatures were found, and the entire sect had trained so hard learning weapons and techniques for what seemed like the sole purpose of killing beasts.

Mistress Zhong has patiently explained to Jin LiJuan that the issue wasn’t with what she was doing but why. Killing beasts was fine. Admirable even. Being so consumed with hatred that she couldn’t live a normal life and devoting her entire being to a singular pursuit were what Master wanted her to avoid.

She’d also been told that she would never feel the satisfaction she expected to feel from the act. That she’d feel colder and more dead inside with each act of vengeance.

Jin LiJuan didn’t know if she believed any of those explanations, but in the end, the reason didn’t matter. Master wanted it of her, and she owed him everything. He was the only reason she could finally cultivate.

Still, the task was extraordinarily tough. While the other sect members fought against the tide, she’d clenched her fists, too weak to participate. All she could do was feed the barrier protecting the village—an important job that she performed with all the diligence she could muster but one that ultimately wasn’t what she wanted.

People in the village didn’t actually know a lot about spirit beasts, but Pan Jiang was different. The Poison Claw Sect member had been educated on that subject and many others from the time he was a small child. He said that the beasts were driven by an instinct to grow stronger and would do anything it took to advance.

She understood that motivation. The pursuit of strength was paramount. If you advanced far enough, no one could ever hurt you. No one could ever hurt those you cared about.

That motivation did not explain why her parents had been killed, though. They were as mortal as mortal could be. None of her family had a single mote of qi inside them. The beast knew that. It hadn’t consumed them, just killed them and left their broken and bloody bodies laying on the dirt.

She told that to Pan Jiang.

The boy had looked so sad. He’d gotten down on one knee to speak to her and told her that her family was dead because cultivators had not done their duty. When an area wasn’t regularly culled, beasts grew aggressive. When nothing was available that could fuel their advancement, they sometimes lashed out at mortals, killing for the sake of killing.

He told her of the destruction of the Righteous Rain Sect, how the village was part of their territory, and how none of the other sects could move into that territory without breaking the tenuous peace that existed between the big three.

She understood little of what he said other than that cultivators had a duty to protect mortals from spirit beasts, and the cultivators had failed her.

Jin LiJuan wanted to be a cultivator who protected mortals, one who never failed. She wanted to be like Master. He would always diligently and successfully do his duty, whatever it was.

She strove to follow his example. Even though she wanted to strike out at the beasts in any way possible instead of passively feeding coins to the formation, she did not complain. Not a peep.

And she’d come to realize how necessary her job actually was. Without the barrier, many villagers would have been killed. Without her, the barrier would have failed. She felt important. She was contributing.

Master trusted her with that important and necessary task.

Then, the badger had gotten inside. It had wanted the bag of spirit coins and would go through anything in its path, including her. She had proved that, even if she wasn’t as strong as the others, she was just as brave.

But she had failed Master. When she looked at that badger attacking her brothers and sisters, she had hated it. She’d wanted with every fiber of her being to kill it. And in that moment, her desire had nothing to do with protecting protect her fellow sect members.

It was a spirit beast. She wanted it dead. Period.

After Kang Lin had delivered the killing blow, Jin LiJuan stared at the corpse. Even though it was already dead, she wanted to stab it until there was nothing left but tiny little pieces.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

It was then that she realized the depth of her failure, just how much hate she still had inside of her. She had a lot of thinking to do.

The aftermath of the beast tide helped her some. Processing the beast parts, separating out the cores and the meat and the skin and all the pieces useful for crafting had given an outlet to her anger, and it turned out that she was good at the job.

She’d always been small and agile, and her small, nimble fingers guided the knife almost perfectly. With every beast she processed, she grew better. It was almost as if she was in a meditative state as her hands flew over the corpses, quickly and efficiently breaking them down. All the mortals and even some of the cultivators were amazed by her progress.

Contributing made her happy. She owed Master so much, and her failure loomed large in her mind.

Master called a council meeting, and so many amazing things had happened. Tribulation lightning had struck Master! And he’d shrugged it off as if it were nothing. He was like a hero in a story.

And everyone was really excited about the new Trials Pagoda. She didn’t one hundred percent understand what it was, but it sure sounded impressive.

The really amazing thing was the improvement to her spiritual roots. Master had said hers were the worst of the worst and that there was no way to make them any better. But he’d found a way.

Was it arrogant to thing that maybe he’d came up with the idea just for her? It did help everyone, but all the others were so much better off than her.

The actual process had hurt. A lot. But by then, she was used to such pain. She didn’t utter a single sound. Not one tear slipped from her eyes.

Soon after they all returned to the village, rumors spread that each of the Foundation Establishment cultivators would choose a team to gather the beast corpses that Master had left behind.

Despite her newfound skill at processing, Jin LiJuan did not expect to be picked for such a prestigious duty. She was, after all, the lowest ranked and weakest cultivator in the sect. It would not have surprised her if all fifty of the newest inductees were already stronger than her.

When Yang Ru, the senior-most brother of the entire sect, requested that she be on his team, she was elated. Another chance to contribute. Another chance to repay some of her debt.

There ended up being three of them besides Jin LiJuan on their team—Senior Brother Yang Ru, of course; Huang Yimun, a guard who had been really nice to her during the beast tide; and a newly inducted villager who Jin LiJuan had seen before but whose name she couldn’t remember.

Master could cover incredible distances in a single step. No one else in the sect could match his speed, but after him, the three who had reached Foundation Establishment were pretty fast. With two very junior cultivators along, however, Senior Brother had to keep the pace slow. The trek to find the rank eight beast corpses ended up taking many days, and it was late afternoon before they neared the spot Master had described.

“I found the location,” Senior Brother said after returning from scouting ahead. “It’s not far now. Huang Yimun, make camp. Jin LiJuan and Luo Daiyu, come with me to begin processing.”

While Huang Yimun stayed behind at a location near a creek, Senior Brother led them to the site of the battle. Well, not really a battle. More like a massacre.

Jin LiJuan had been told these beasts were of the eighth rank, unbelievably more powerful than the badger. She had been given special knives that Master had inscribed with formations to be sharp enough to cut the beasts’ bodies because her normal knife wouldn’t have been able to even scratch them. Senior Brother, Senior Sister, and Kang Lin together wouldn’t be able to stand against one of these beasts for a second had the creature been alive.

Eleven of them were dead in a tight grouping, killed by Master within seconds of each other. Jin LiJuan couldn’t even imagine how strong he’d have to be to achieve such a feat.

He was truly unfathomable.

While Senior Brother scouted the area to make sure no other spirit beasts approached, the other girl, Luo Daiyu, moved to one end of the group to start processing, and Jin LiJuan took the other.

Besides being bigger and tougher than the rank one, two, and three corpses she’d learned on back at the village, there wasn’t much difference in the process of breaking the bodies down. Their size and toughness, though, made an impact. Her hand tired quicker because, even with the formations, she had to apply more force, and because the beasts were bigger, it took a lot longer to finish one. It was nearly dark by the time she got through with the second one.

She looked at Luo Daiyu, who was only halfway through her second. The girl showed no sign of stopping, so Jin LiJuan moved on to her third, a wolf. The beast was massive, though, so she was still in the process of skinning it when her partner completed hers.

“Should I start another?” Luo Daiyu said.

Jin LiJuan looked at the sky. Darkness hadn’t fallen yet, but it was rapidly approaching. With the tide finished and Senior Brother patrolling, though, there was no danger.

“Go to camp,” Jin LiJuan said. “I’ll just finish skinning, and I’ll be right behind you.”

The other girl nodded and left, and Jin LiJuan returned to her work. Making the cuts actually was no longer the problem. It was just that the wolf was so big it was hard to move it around to pull off the skin.

The corpse was lying on its stomach, and she had to really put her shoulder into it to topple it onto its side. As soon as she did, the stomach moved.

Jin LiJuan tensed, fearing for a moment that the massive, powerful spirit beast could somehow still be alive. But that was stupid. It wasn’t breathing. Its eyes were lifeless. It was clearly dead.

Why, then, was its stomach moving?

There was one way to find out. She took a formation-enhanced blade and sliced it open near the movement.

Jin LiJuan was a very brave little girl, but she wasn’t stupid. As soon as the cut was made, she took several steps back to carefully observe whatever emerged from inside.

A small round shape tentatively pushed out of the bloody slit. The form was dark and covered in fluids.

At first, Jin LiJuan thought it was some kind of parasite. As more and more of the shape struggled out into the fading light, she realized the truth.

It was a cub. A baby. The wolf’s baby.

She tossed down her knife and ran to it, grabbing it with both hands around its neck. Her hands tightened, squeezing.