Chapter 140 - Don’t tell anyone

“Don’t tell this to anyone,” the qi-gathering law enforcer senior sister said with crossed arms. “Just today three more demonic cultivators were apprehended in the city. I’m only telling you guys because Chief Tan trusts you. So you can’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Which Cheif Tan?” Yu Han asked despite knowing the answer. “There has to be more than one.”

“There’s only one on duty,” she replied.

“What about our courtyard members? Can we tell them?” Yu Han insisted, leaving out that they didn’t have a courtyard yet. This law enforcer looked like a pushover with her big eyes and short stature.

“That’s alright,” she replied. She jotted down numbers on a scroll that had excel-like tables on them. After crossing out the full first row, she moved on to populate the second and third.

“What about Senior Wen?” Li Yao asked.

“Which Senior Wen?” she asked back.

“Wen Liujie—”

“Chief Tan should’ve told him,” she said. “What do you think their pillow talk is?”

“Demonic cultivator gossip?” Yu Han guessed.

“It’s not gossip,” the law enforcer said. “It’s first-hand information. Are you here to return the Jade of Moments?”

Yu Han nodded. He took 9 out and separated four of them. They had the recordings of when Wang Daming and Xu Jinshui’s groups hounded them.

Yu Han played the clips.

“Can you bring them to justice, Senior Sister?” He  said with the voice of a wronged wife. “Their arrogance knows no bounds. They don’t care about laws nor rules nor proper behaviour!”

The law enforcer sighed. “We brought these two groups to justice a couple of times already.”

“Since when has the sect ignored such blatant rule-breaking?” Yu Han said, indignant.

“You got guts, Junior Yu,” the law enforcer beamed. “Not only on the outside but on the inside!”

Did this shorty just call me fat—

“It’s useless, glaring won’t solve anything,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s new policy. We should let the outer sect be as it is. The nobles want to see if only commoners get up to trouble—wait, don’t share that with anyone, okay?”

“Why is the place so empty?” Li Yao asked. Usually there would be more law enforcers loitering around with nothing to do.

“The higher-ups moved all but three squads of enforcers to the city because of the demonic cultivators sneaking in. We’re short-handed already,” she said, “and now we can’t even beat up commoners. This is unfair.”

“… why did you join the law enforcers again, Senior Sister?” Yu Han asked.

“I’m a Shu,” she grinned. “Why do you think?”

“A call to morality?” Yu Han said. “An awakening of a profound urge to uphold the strong to the highest standard before the many weak?”

“You’re funny, Junior Yu.” She took away all 9 Jade of Moments. “Now go away I have to tally up all the wrongly apprehended assets from wrongly apprehended peasants—wait. I’m not supposed to share that. Shoo!”

“When will Senior Tan be back?” Yu Han asked one last question.

“I don’t know. Even if I did know,” the law enforcer frowned. “I wouldn’t tell you. It’s top-secret information. Probably.”

It took Li Yao and Yu Han half a good hour to walk back from the main edifice of the Law Enforcement Hall to its gates. It covered a huge area. It had to. It basically acted as the front yard for the Incarceration Hall. The outer sect prison.

When Yu Han was here a few weeks ago, the place had grim-looking police officers with menacingly fashioned waistbands claiming to suppress all under the heavens lazing around with absolutely nothing to do.

Now, they barely saw ten, and all were hurrying about like panicking ants.

“Demonic cultivators…” Yu Han whispered.

“Smells like trouble,” Li Yao said. “Tubs, don’t you dare be caught up in it!”

“Innit,” Yu Han said.

“I’m serious here,” Li Yao patted Yu Han’s back with a bit too much force. “As it were, your big mouth makes enemies left and right. Bullish thugs are fine but demons will kill you.”

They would, wouldn’t they? They killed his family. That skull-masked guy must have killed a lot more people. In the past 6 and a half months, he might’ve killed more if the sword-wielding cultivator didn’t manage to kill him.

Buffalo-mask had run away pretty fast.

Every day Yu Han didn’t file the ‘police report’, someone was probably dying.

“Did Senior Shu say anything about demons?” Yu Han asked.

“I only met the guy recently,” Li Yao shrugged.

“Why are Suppressing Demon Hall cultivators practicing a play rather than heading over to the city and suppressing demons?” Yu Han asked.

“Politics, probably,” Li Yao said. “Or maybe they are and we don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Li Yao.”

“What?”

“You used ‘as it were’ wrong,” Yu Han said. “It should be, ‘as it is.’”

“I broke through level 3 before you,” Li Yao said. “You’re just jealous.”

“I’ll offend everyone!” Yu Han growled. “And you’ll be caught up in it!”

That night, Yu Han tried memorycasting a storage ring. The pearl shattered and he wasted a huge amount of lifeforce and qi, in addition to half his essence.

“I don’t get it,” Yu Han grumbled. “Is it all so random?”

He echoed the demonic dog. The creature lunged, barked, hissed, howled. In exactly the same manner it had during that night.

It burned. In the carriage. Seared into Yu Han’s memories.

He turned to the portal surrounded by yellow tape.

The Mirror Earth called. A silent beckoning.

Two worlds.

One which had greeted him with wet crunches and bloody maws. The other with a lifelong rejection.

One where he now had amazing friends. The other where his dad might be devastated to hear… whatever he would hear.

I can go in, Yu Han glared at the Mirror portal. He echoed a manhole-sized clay lid he’d seen in the marketplace and covered it. I can finish my trial—wait. I can’t.

Right, he still had to practise the Snakemark Array.

He did that before sleeping. How’d he forget? He had stolen Huang Niuniu’s food after breaking into her hut (he had prior permission), given Fei Rui the earth grade spirit stone (the crab was happy), and popped open the travelogue.

The Southern Kingdoms sounded like dope places. There were the common barbarism, of course, the slave burnings and baby sacrifices. But it had a more acidic food culture. The temperature was perpetually hot, the air humid.

The author had been brainwashed or something by a travelling daoist in his childhood. He was convinced that the true path to immortality was to master immortal chants.

From random chants the butchers mouthed before slaughtering draft cattle to those the monks of strange sects and cults hymned while drawing ghost-trapping talismans with the blood of roosters and male black dogs.

According to Shu Boyan, the chants could all move essence. Even in mortals. The essence trapped the intention of trapping ghosts. And if the ghost was weak enough, the talisman could indeed trap it in a straw doll of a headless young man.

The chants.

It was useless to just voice them out mechanically. He had to feel them. Live them. Be one with them.

He had to be zen.

Synaptic Bloom made it easier.

“So why don’t I have an art for it?” Yu Han poked his dao record. This game needed updates.

He was stuck at Level 3 of body-tempering and Level 10 of Initial Step for Thousand Petals Awareness.

I swear to whatever version of a bearded old man there is up in the sky, Yu Han twiddled his dream thumbs. I’m gonna do something bad to Huang Niuniu if I don’t have a breakthrough soon.

The morning came with Fei Rui slapping Yu Han’s cheeks with his crushing claw.

「Is Miao Meow and Fang Fang back yet?」

“How am I supposed to know?”

「Human brain powers?」

“What is that supposed to be?” Yu Han sat up, his head was groggy. “I need to brush my teeth. Can crabs smell?”

「Yes. You need to brush your body too.」 Fei Rui jumped down from the bed. 「I will beat up my tribulation tonight.」

Yu Han snapped to focus. “That’s great!”

「I know,」 Fei Rui sounded happy. 「You don’t have to speak the obvious. But if you want to, you can. Say it again?」

“That’s great!”

「Will you survive without me? I might take a day. Not just a night.」

Yu Han pinched salt and rubbed it on a miswak branch. He brushed, then gargled. The water stones couldn’t produce hot water. He tapped the stone with the stone-tapping rock and the flow of water stopped. After spitting into the bucket, he threw the waste water down the hole in the outhouse.

How much spirit stones will a high commode sell for? One with a flush?

Yu Han had no words. This world sucked. Maybe he should go do his trial.

How could high and mighty cultivators do something as base as squatting while answering nature’s call? That’s something only peasants did. A true blue blood should at least sit while shitting.

Some books claimed that cultivators didn’t have need for water or food if they reached a high enough realm. But to live life without the joys of good food and a glass of cold water after a workout session?

Did cultivators have no need for electrolytes and essential amino acids?

“I’ll live. And after you become a qi-gathering realm Cognizant Collector Crab, I’ll thrive!” Yu Han patted the crab furiously. Pat pat pat. “Bullies tried to bully me yesterday. With you here, they won’t dare. Work hard for me and one day, I’ll be rich.” More patting.

「But didn’t you want to keep me a secret weapon?」 Fei Rui. 「That’s the good kind of objectification right? Not the bad kind like when the harder humans, uhhh male humans objectify softer humans in the centrum.」

“Who told you that?” Yu Han asked.

「Many girls when I visit their dreams. Some like it, some don’t. But most do when the harder humans with geometrically symmetrical face sides and higher talent-things objectify them.」

“Fei Rui, maybe you should learn first about respecting others' privacy before learning about objectification?”

「Is it a sin for a cat to hunt mice? For fish to eat grasshopper larvae? For Cognizant Collector Crabs to drift into dreams?」 Fei Rui huffed away. 「You have so much to learn, Yu Han.」

“Han’er!” Huang Niuniu’s incensed voice came from outside. She punched on his door. “Did you steal my candied hawthorn again?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Yu Han lied. He pushed against the door so that she couldn’t open it.

“Open up you bastard!” Huang Niuniu cried for a few good minutes before leaving. “I’ll bite you during our night soil shift.”

“Night soil Collecting shift, please. And, eww. Can you not? You make it sound like we’re pooping together,” Yu Han said.

“I’ll bite you twice!” Huang Niuniu was still busy trying to lure the Wispstream into the sea like a pervert going after the kids in the park. She even had spirit stone as candy. But she was a high and mighty cultivator. Above the law and all that.

Yu Han took out the travelogue again after that angry shrew left.

“Okay, like I tried it yesterday.”

He reviewed the easiest chant. Sat cross-legged. And closed his eyes.

Synaptic Bloom!

Muted sight. Tick, the sound of Fei Rui’s claw tapping on the boulder. Muted sound. Muted taste. Muted smell.

Amplified touch. Of feeling. Of sensations.

Look inward. Follow the breath. The oxygen. The qi and lifeforce and essence that flows in you.

To move essence with mortal chants, one had to be zen. Was it a flow state? Of being one with the world?

He had no clue.

But with Synaptic Bloom, in these ten odd minutes, his mind would follow the body. The body was at peace, the senses not exciting him. So his mind was at peace.

“With steel, the passage opens. With thanks, the spirit flows. Flesh to the hungry, essence to the cycle. Go clean. Go quiet. Return. By blood, the line is drawn. By straw, the vessel waits. From earth-root, sever! From grievance, break! Heed the mark, heed the name, In this headless effigy, be remade! Breath stills the water. Mind mirrors the void. Essence, awaken from slumber. In the centre, bloom. From the formless, find form. Gather. Settle. Be—”

To speak with the body while the mind wished for stillness was not an easy task. Yu Han barely heard the sound of his own voice, with his auditory senses far muted than normal. But he felt it. The vibrations in his cranium, hitting the tiny bone inside his ear canals.

It was a whisper. Barely a whisper. This was Yu Han’s second day practising the chant.

But there, with his inner awareness that rose with the Qi Awareness trait, he saw his essence move.