Zou Tian had maintained oversight—he much preferred that term rather than spying—on wandering cultivators before. In his experience, such people weren’t much more powerful than regular gang members. Basically, they were trumped up peasants who somehow gained access to the most basic and incomplete of trash tier cultivation methods and techniques and suddenly felt themselves better than anyone else.
Not that Zou Tian thought himself better even than those unfortunates. As an orphan street rat growing up in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, no one was of lower status than him.
No. He definitely didn’t look down on anyone, but his prior experience explained his reasoning when the Meticulous Contradictory Twelfth Gang asked him to maintain oversight on the warehouse and three suspected wandering cultivators who had rented it for three months.
There were, of course, a few red flags. The three were dressed nicer than most wandering cultivators. They had been able to pay the leasing fee of one thousand tael a month for three months up front. And the eldest of the three wore a spatial ring, something nearly no one of his supposed ilk could afford.
It was those points, however, that drew the intense interest of the gang, and it wasn’t like Zou Tian could really refuse. It was stay in the gang’s good graces and eat or not stay in their good graces and perish.
Still, he hadn’t thought much of the assignment, certainly not that it would be exceedingly dangerous. Not even when he caught sight of the three.
All wore very nice clothes, obviously recently purchased. Though he carried no visible weapon, the eldest one looked the fiercest of the three with his stubble-covered dark head and striking blue combat robes. There was just a quality about how he carried himself. The other two were no slouches, though. The young man was big and muscular, obviously much more well fed than a street rat, and the spear he carried was definitely a prime cultivator weapon, not just some stick he’d picked up in the woods.
Zou Tian found it difficult to pay too much attention to either of the men, though, due to the appearance of the girl. Wearing a jade green robe with perfect features and flowering cheeks, she was amazing. As was the bow she carried. He wasn’t an expert on such things, but he bet such a weapon would cost thousands of taels.
Those wandering cultivators weren’t so simple.
Besides their appearance, the next big danger sign was that the eldest one actually noticed Zou Tian.
After he’d been pushed out onto the streets at eight years old following his aunt no longer being able to take care of him, he noticed that he had an uncanny ability to simply blend in. Nothing supernatural or anything, but people seemed to feel that he fit in with crowds even when the people around him were older and better dressed. Ironically, that trait had been what had attracted the gang to him, an occurrence that had made his life both much easier in that he no longer had to beg and steal for food and much more complicated in that failure to do what the gang wanted could easily result in his death.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Most of the very much older gang members tended to treat him like a younger brother, teaching him how to fight with knives, pickpocket, and other useful skills.
The wandering cultivator in blue, however, had looked right at him. Studied him. Zou Tian had shivered like someone was looking at his very soul. His thought had been, “That man is one very scary cultivator.”
The man had then just walked right past, though, and entered the warehouse without any indication that anything was wrong. If Zou Tian had tried to call off the oversight based on that look, he’d have at the very least lost much face. At worst, he might have been physically punished.
Instead, he did the only thing that he could do—made a mental note about it and resolved to be ten times as careful with the mission—and carried about his business.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Hours passed with nothing happening. Whatever was going on inside the warehouse was done in quiet, not that anything other than heavy noises such as hammers and yelling and the like would have made it past the closed doors, but Zou Tian was very observant. He heard nothing.
Finally, he’d waited as long as he could. The gang would insist on knowing what was going on inside. Sacrificing speed for quiet, he ascended the outside until making it to the window he’d prepared with oil the previous evening. Not a single squeak.
Positive that no one inside could possibly have heard a thing, he made his way inside, creeping past several catwalks until he finally had a view of the open interior. The boy and the girl were each seated on top of one of the wooden tables that had been provided, and they were … cultivating quietly.
Why rent a warehouse to cultivate?
And where was the eldest?
Zou Tian saw a flash of motion, and the next thing he knew he was being yanked forward. Which was bad. Because forward led to down, and the warehouse’s floor was far below.
He wasn’t freefalling, though. The eldest cultivator held him in arms that felt like iron straps.
Zou Tian tensed as the ground neared, expecting the worst. The cultivator’s knees absorbed the impact, though, leaving Zou Tian barely jostled. He was quickly and gently placed upright with his feet on the dirt floor before being asked his name.
“Well, Zou Tian,” the man said after a brief conversation, “it looks like you’ve got yourself a choice—work for me or work for no one ever again.”
Zou Tian of course did the only thing that he could do. “This lowly one is the Esteemed Master Cultivator’s servant. This lowly one will do anything.”
The man smiled. “First of all, you’re now my informant and lookout. Tell me about the organization who hired you.”
Zou Tian wasn’t stupid. The man was obviously a real cultivator, not some trumped up field hand with delusions of grandeur, and lying to a real cultivator was the height of stupidity. Such people had hundreds of ways to detect a falsehood. So, he spilled. Everything. The number of men in the gang. Thirty-one not counting him or other kids. Affiliations. Unsure. There was some link to a bigger organization, but nothing had ever been said in his presence as to exactly what organization or the nature of the ties. Likely plans for the warehouse. A raid at some point, either by their gang or a cultivator gang.
“Cultivator gang?” the man said.
“There a several in the city, Esteemed Master Cultivator. Groups of wandering cultivators who have banded together for strength. Basically loose coalitions of thieves.”
“The sects let those exist?”
“This lowly one understands that the sects don’t like them, but the City Lord controls the city. The balance between the sects is such that none wants to make waves.”
“Okay. Here’s how we’re going to play this. First of all, you watched us from a catwalk for a long time. At the start, we were just cultivating. Then I asked Yang Ru for a spar.” He gestured to the young man. “Come, let’s give the boy a show.”
The man used only his fists, fearing the younger man’s spear not at all. The way the two moved was like nothing Zou Tian had ever seen. Such speed. And grace. The man bent backward at the knees as the spear passed over him and somehow righted himself like nothing had happened.
And power. The young man thrust at the older. The older dodged, and the spear struck a twelve-inch-thick wooden beam. The beam cracked.
“Oops,” the man said before turning the Zou Tian. “I think that’s enough of that. Can you honestly report to the gang on our abilities, that we definitely have weapon techniques and can internally manipulate qi?”
Zou Tian nodded vigorously. Who were those people?
“Next, you heard me giving a lecture to my two disciples, Yang Xiu and Yang Ru. I told them that, though we’re currently unaffiliated with a sect, we are not to be treated like trash. Demand face. Bow only to those of a higher cultivation, which I will indicate to them as there is no one in the city whose level I cannot sense. And bow only the exact extent necessary to give face. If they run into any cultivator gangs, feel free to kill those trash without compunction.”
The man shook his head almost like he hadn’t meant to say that. He didn’t countermand the order, though.
“Lastly…” The man drew something from his spatial ring and tossed it to Zou Tian. “When I said work for me, I meant work, and I didn’t mean for free.”
He caught it out of reflex and couldn’t believe what he held when he looked in his hand. A silver tael. A full silver tael. He’d never held so much money at once before.
“One of those every day that you’re in my employ, understand?”
“Yes, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”
“I do not expect you to die for me. If you have to betray me to keep your life, betray me. Tell the gang exactly what happened and that I threatened your life if that’s what you have to do. If you don’t want me to kill you, all you have to do is tell me that you betrayed me. Be open and honest, understand?”
No. Not really, no.
“Yes, Esteemed Master Cultivator.”
“Good. Now get out of here. We have work to do.”