The day after the clan children were shown the branches of the professions, the Li manor stirred with unusual activity. Servants hurried through corridors carrying platters and jars, their movements disciplined but brisk. Lanterns along the stone walls burned brighter than usual, fed by larger spirit stones.
The monthly family meal was no small gathering. Though the Li Clan numbered in the millions, this was reserved for the direct line—elders, uncles, aunts, cousins. Several hundred filled the dining hall, a space so vast that the chandeliers above seemed to hang in mist. The air carried the scent of roasted fowl, braised lotus, and spirit rice steaming from jade bowls.
The Patriarch did not appear. His seat at the central dais remained empty, his crest embroidered on the cushion untouched. A herald announced in solemn tones: "The Patriarch continues his seclusion. None are to disturb him until the heavens themselves shift."
Whispers rippled, then faded. No one questioned it. To disturb a cultivator on the verge of breakthrough was unthinkable.
Instead, the elders presided—Heng's uncles, each seated with dignity. Their robes shimmered faintly with protective Qi, and the weight of Golden Core cultivation pressed subtly against the hall. Conversation rose and fell between them, a steady murmur like the rhythm of a forge.
"The western furnaces devoured twice their quota of herbs last month."
"The forging yards demand more ore; steel grows brittle without imports."
"Grain tribute from Xuanhe arrives late. The river floods again."
These were not formal reports but fragments spoken between bites of food, casual as weather yet weighty as law. Most children heard little beyond tone. Heng heard the patterns. Waste in furnaces. Inefficiency in forges. Transport delays. Every flaw is a leak in the system.
He sat midway along the children's table, between cousins. Jian piled meat onto his plate, boasting through a mouth full of bone. "One day I'll sit with the generals up there, eating beside the elders!"
Rou stabbed a dumpling with her chopsticks. "One day I'll forge the weapons they carry."
Wei smirked. "I'll sell you both the rights to use them at ten times the price."
Mei frowned, tapping the edge of her bowl. "If rules allowed such robbery, this clan would fall within a generation."
Qiang nodded nervously, agreeing with everyone in turn. Shun yawned, nearly dropping his chopsticks, and muttered, "Too loud."
The children's bickering earned indulgent glances from nearby aunts. Laughter mingled with the sound of clinking bowls. To outsiders it would seem chaos, but to Heng, it was a system—branches swaying on the same trunk.
Yet his eyes strayed upward. The chandeliers burned bright, but faint wisps of Qi leaked into the air around their spirit stone lanterns, dissipating with every breath. Tiny losses, invisible to others. Multiply them by the thousands of lamps across the manor, and the waste became staggering. One stone wasted every hour becomes a mountain wasted every year.
He lowered his gaze to the servants moving among tables. They carried trays heavy with porcelain, pitchers sloshing with spirit tea, steaming bowls balanced in both hands. Sweat dampened their foreheads, though none faltered under so many watching eyes. Step after step, bend after bend—repeated endlessly. So much strength expended. Could one mechanism replace ten men? A pulley, a wheel, a channel of flow?
"Eat, Heng'er." His father's voice cut through his thoughts, deep and firm.
"Yes, Father." Heng obeyed, raising food to his lips, though his mind gnawed at inefficiencies harder than his teeth bit dumpling.
When candied lotus was served, his mother leaned close, smoothing the crease of his robe with delicate fingers. "You watch too much. Children should laugh louder."
"I am laughing," Heng said quietly.
"Not with your mouth." Her smile was warm but wistful.
The meal stretched on. Elders rose and drifted to smaller circles, discussing trade routes, quarry outputs, furnace repairs. Aunts exchanged notes on births and marriages. Cousins boasted of lessons, argued over tutors, dreamed aloud of which branch they would choose.
But when the final dishes were cleared and the elders dismissed the gathering, Heng's thoughts remained fixed on the lamps above and the sweat of the servants below.
That night, his chamber was lit by a single lantern. The spirit stone within glowed steady, but Heng could almost hear the hiss of Qi seeping out, fading into nothing. He rolled to his side, small hands clutching the blanket.
If the flow could be contained. If the leak could be stopped. A vessel to regulate Qi, like walls guiding water. If mortals could use such a lamp, then spirit stones would not bleed dry.
The image of the chandeliers returned, then the servants, then his uncles' murmured words of waste and delay.
Roots before branches. But what if the roots themselves bleed? Then the tree rots long before it touches heaven.
His eyes closed, but the thought did not fade. It pulsed like the faint glow of the lamp, steady, persistent. Not a vow, not a boast. Just a question carried from a professor's life into a child's rebirth:
How can waste be eliminated?