Chapter One — The Drudge of the Mortal-Dust Pavilion
Morning fog clung to the seventy-two peaks of the Mortal-Dust Pavilion like a shroud of dirty silk—
and it clung just as stubbornly to the three low-grade spirit stones in Jiang Muchen's hand.**
He crouched on the cold stone steps outside the alchemy hall, thumb brushing repeatedly over the coarse cloth pouch—warm, slightly hot, soaked with three months of sweat and blood. Blood from shielding others during tribulation backlash. Tremors from ninety sleepless nights spent copying *Foundations of Cultivation*. Stench from the armored rhino stable that still haunted his clothes as he forced himself to smile and say, *"I'm fine."*
Mist beaded on his shoulders, seeping through the worn hemp shirt.
The heavy red-lacquered door creaked.
Steward Wang lumbered out, yawning a foul mix of burnt herbs and alchemy smoke. Jiang Muchen sprang to his feet—back bowed with the posture drilled into him over three years: respectful, never fawning; humble, but not pathetic.
"Good morning, Steward Wang."
He raised both hands, offering the cloth pouch. "One bottle of Qi-Gathering Powder, sir."
Wang didn't even look at him. The fat man weighed the pouch lazily, nostrils flaring in a derisive snort.
"A drudge wanting Qi-Gathering Powder?" he muttered, but still fished out a rough porcelain vial and tossed it.
The vial arced through the dim air.
Jiang leapt, arms folding instinctively around it like catching a newborn child. The porcelain was cold enough to sting, yet his heartbeat thundered—
*When Senior Sister Lin Yueyao takes it… will she smile at me? Even just a little?*
He didn't see the pity in the eyes behind him.
Nor the mocking glances exchanged by Wang and his colleagues behind the window.
"Again? Giving it to the Jade-Sword Peak girl?"
"Three years and still dreaming. That vial's filled with leftover dregs and cheap powder—take enough of it and his meridians will clog."
Jiang tucked the vial carefully against his chest. Even through the rough fabric, the faint spiritual ripple felt like a burning coal.
A tiny flame in a sect that swallowed people whole.
---
Mid-slope of Lingyun Peak, the morning fog thinned, revealing an enormous practice ground paved with ancient stone. Dawn hadn't fully broken, yet hundreds of disciples were already cultivating—breath, qi, swords, fists, all rising in a thunderous chorus.
Jiang slipped along the edge of the crowd, eyes locked like a hawk on a splash of soft yellow.
Lin Yueyao.
Her hair was tied in a flying-immortal knot today, her yellow dress drifting like sunlight as she laughed with other inner-sect girls. At her waist hung the "Autumnwater Sword"—the one Jiang had spent eight months' spirit stones to buy for her. The sheath's jade ornament, cold as winter, was something he'd retrieved after three days and nights searching under an icy lake.
She looked radiant. Untouchable.
Jiang drew a breath.
The porcelain vial seared against his chest.
He stepped forward—through the stares, the whispers, the amused looks—and stopped exactly three paces before her.
He had practiced this distance countless times: not too close to offend, but close enough for her to see the sincerity in his eyes.
"Senior Sister Lin." His voice cracked.
Her laughter died.
Several inner-sect girls turned toward him, eyes skimming over him like he was a muddy footstool.
Lin Yueyao finally looked up. Her brows tightened slightly—those almond eyes he once dreamed about were now distant, cold… and faintly irritated?
"Senior Sister," Jiang said, bowing as he offered the vial with both hands, "I came across this Qi-Gathering Powder. Since you're advancing to mid-stage Foundation, it might help. My cultivation is shallow, so it's useless for me. If you would—"
*Crack.*
Not acceptance—a swat.
Her pale hand swept the vial aside. It flew, struck the stone ground, and burst open.
Brownish powder mixed with dark residue splattered like dirt.
The three spirit stones he had warmed with months of toil rolled across the ground, hitting a stranger's boot.
Silence.
Then soft, suppressed laughter spreading like mold.
Jiang froze in place, hands still cupped. The cold that lingered on his fingertips burned hotter than fire. His face flushed—not with shame, but with something deeper tearing open.
Lin Yueyao withdrew a white silk handkerchief, wiping her fingers slowly, as if she'd touched filth.
"Jiang Muchen."
The first time she had ever spoken his full name. His heart lurched.
"Put away those pathetic little thoughts."
Her gaze flicked over the shattered vial with open disgust.
"I may be 'only' a true disciple of Jade-Sword Peak, but do you truly think I need trash medicine scavenged by a Qi-Refining nobody?"
She stepped forward, her skirt brushing the air near his knees. Her voice dropped—soft, but colder than frost:
"Three years. You swept the snow outside my cave, blocked tribulation backlash for me, copied scripture for me, even tested questionable pills for me. You think I didn't know that 'Dew-Condensing Pill' was defective? I simply didn't care enough to mention it."
Jiang's pupils constricted.
"You follow every inner-sect disciple around like a tail-wagging stray dog—running errands, taking blame, doing their dirty work for scraps of spirit stones. Then you trade them for garbage like this and present it to me…"
Her smile cut like ice.
"You call that devotion? That's not devotion."
She leaned closer, breath fragrant, words venomous:
"That's disgusting."
Laughter finally burst through the crowd. Someone kicked a spirit stone, sending it rolling into a drainage trench where mud swallowed it whole.
Lin Yueyao turned away. Her voice drifted back, airy yet heavier than a hammer:
"Get lost. Don't let me see you again."
The crowd dispersed like retreating tidewater, leaving Jiang alone in the broken sunlight.
At his feet: shattered porcelain, filthy powder… and something inside him collapsing under its own weight.
He knelt slowly, picking up shards one by one. Sharp edges sliced his finger, blood welling.
He barely felt it.
So the icy lake, the nights of coughing blood, the trembling wrists after copying scriptures…
In her eyes, all of it was simply—
*"Disgusting."*
Three years, a thousand days and nights—
he had knelt and licked the soles of countless boots, believing that if he offered everything, he could get close to her light.
But the light had never been his.
He had been licking nothing but a cold wall—
a wall that reflected nothing but his own pathetic shadow.
---
Night fell by the time Jiang returned to the drudge dormitory. Ten men, snoring, muttering, sweating.
He curled into the darkest corner, tracing a single word over and over on the rough straw mat:
*Lick.*
What was licking?
Kneeling?
Groveling?
Handing over everything you have in hopes of a scrap of mercy?
Outside, the wind howled from the back cliff.
A summons.
He rose silently, bare feet cold on the stone, and slipped into the night.
The back cliff of the northern peak was barren, lit only by a thin, cruel moon. The wind cut like knives, shredding his thin clothes.
He stood at the edge.
Darkness churned below—bottomless, hungry.
Her words echoed:
*Disgusting.*
*Get lost.*
*Don't let me see you again.*
He stepped forward. Pebbles tumbled into the abyss; no sound returned.
*Maybe this is enough.*
No more stables.
No more copying scriptures until his fingers cramped.
No more smiling while people tossed "rewards" at him like feeding scraps to a dog.
He leaned forward—
And the wind changed.
A gentle yet immense force yanked him sideways. The cliff crumbled under his feet—he fell—but instead of death, a narrow crack in the cliff face opened and swallowed him whole.
He crashed hard on stone. Air burst from his lungs; blood filled his mouth. Dizzy stars swarmed his vision.
When he pushed himself up, he found himself in a stone chamber—empty except for a single seated skeleton.
Its bones glowed faintly like polished jade, serene rather than sinister.
Jiang's scalp tingled. He backed away—
The skeleton's brow flared with gold.
A hazy figure formed—an elderly man with flowing white hair and child-bright eyes that held the depth of centuries.
The figure looked at him.
"Countless ages… and someone finally triggered my last 'Desperate-Edge Survival Seal.'"
The voice echoed directly in Jiang's mind—ancient, weary.
Jiang froze.
The old man drifted closer, staring straight into him. Into his fear, shame, despair, and all the twisted knots he had hidden for years.
"Tsk, tsk." The old man chuckled, part amusement, part pity.
"For a girl, you've twisted yourself into quite the miserable shape, boy."
Jiang swallowed hard.
"Pitiful. Truly pitiful."
The old man shook his head.
"But what you've been doing? In my eyes, it doesn't even qualify as licking."
Jiang jerked his head up.
The old man tapped his brow—golden light burning.
"People called me Bai Gui, the 'Ancestor of Commerce.' Said I only bargained and schemed."
He snorted.
"Idiots. My path was never about begging or flattering. It was about *seeing what the world truly needed*, valuing the worthless, and making the priceless common! This cultivation world is just another marketplace. Every being has needs."
His voice thundered suddenly, shaking dust from the ceiling:
"True Dao is never begging. True Dao is—
**seeing what others lack, creating irreplaceable value, and letting the world come to *you*.**"
"That—
is the real art of licking."
Golden radiance exploded from the skeleton's brow, flooding into Jiang's mind—
*The Codex of Resonating Spirits—Volume One: Insight of Needs.*
A galaxy of symbols spun open inside him.
From the skeleton's sleeve slid a jade flute—cool, alive, pulsing faintly in his palm.
The old man's final whisper echoed:
"This flute has followed me for years. It calms the heart and anchors the mind. Remember—value lies not in the object, but in understanding… whose need it fulfills."
The apparition faded.
Darkness returned.
Jiang knelt alone, clutching the jade flute as golden light swirled behind his eyes.
He looked down at the warm, living flute—
and laughed.
A broken, shaking laugh that spilled into sobs.
So that was it.
He had been wrong.
Utterly, spectacularly wrong.
Outside, the wind wailed across the cliffside.
Deep below, the hidden entrance of the Qingming Medicine Valley shuddered faintly—as if awakening.
Far away on Jade-Sword Peak, Lin Yueyao felt her heart jolt. She looked north into the night, frowning.
"…An illusion?"
She closed her eyes again.
Unaware that the boy she swatted aside like dirt had just stepped onto a path that would one day overturn the entire Mortal-Dust Pavilion.
Jiang Muchen rose.
The jade flute pulsed warmly in his grasp, like a second heartbeat.
He looked into the darkness—
but saw the world anew.
**Three years of crawling.
One moment of awakening.**
The true path began with understanding what others lacked—
not with begging for scraps in their bowls.
---