Chapter 81: Terrible Timing

Cultivators lived long lives. Sometimes a single secluded meditation session could last for decades or centuries, so they naturally weren’t very enthusiastic about celebrating the New Year. In a major sect like Yonglu Mountain, it was generally only the disciples in the Qi Refining Stage and Foundation Establishment Stage who cared about holidays. The higher one’s cultivation, the more blurred their concept of the mortal world became.

However, Gu Wufang was a sect master who valued a sense of ceremony. Thus, on the first day of every Lunar New Year, he would set aside his work to take a walk in Langyuan City. Along the way, he would visit Foguang Temple outside the city to burn a stick of incense, praying for a smooth year ahead and that a certain Grand-Uncle Master would cause fewer headaches.

For a Daoist cultivator to occasionally pray to the Buddha wasn’t asking too much, right?

Gu Wufang proceeded to insert the expensive incense he had bought into the censer, and then… the incense snapped.

Refusing to accept this bad omen, he tried a few more times. Under the increasingly terrified gaze of the young novice monk nearby, he calmly used brute force to shove all the broken pieces of incense into the ash together. Excellent, it worked this time.

The young novice monk: Help! Master, someone is here to cause trouble!!

Looking at the neat row of short, broken incense sticks, Gu Wufang barely managed to comfort himself that his wish had been successfully made. Besides, because he walked away quickly enough, the reinforcements summoned by the young novice monk arrived too late.

“Where? Who dares to come here and cause trouble?”

The young novice monk pointed a chubby finger. “Look, Martial Uncle! If this isn’t causing trouble, what is?!”

The martial uncle looked closely and fell silent. This… just how much did the Buddha not want to hear this wish? To snap like that and still… It was his first time seeing someone with such a meager affinity with the Buddha.

After a moment of silence, he patted his young nephew’s bald head. “…Our Buddha does not save the hopelessly unlucky. Just ignore it.”

The young novice monk: Really? I feel like Martial Uncle is pulling my leg.

…

After leaving Foguang Temple, Gu Wufang went to the City Lord’s Mansion. He spent over half an hour venting to City Lord Xia about how hard it was to be a sect master, and then spent another half an hour listening to the other man complain about how hard it was to be a city lord. Finally, he left Langyuan City, thoroughly satisfied.

That was enough. He felt he could hold out for another year.

Gu Wufang was at the early Soul Transformation Stage. Among his fellow disciples, excluding those who had passed away, his cultivation was on the lower side. Of course, he was also the youngest. Since the requirement to step down from the position of sect master was reaching the peak of the Soul Transformation Stage, he would have to remain in office for at least… another few hundred years.

Thinking about it, it was quite a joyful prospect :).

Gu Wufang rode a cloud back to the sect. From afar, he saw the doors of Juyong Hall wide open. The Mountain-Protecting Grand Array was exceptionally active today, radiating thousands of auspicious lights. It looked quite grand.

Except, Juyong Hall had been formed from an array plate left behind by the founding ancestor, which was later modified to create this hall. The hall was not particularly ornate; rather, it was simple and solemn. So… if he remembered correctly, Juyong Hall shouldn’t have any roof ornaments, right?

Then where did those three little black dots come from?!

Could there be a flaw in the Mountain-Protecting Grand Array?

At that thought, Gu Wufang’s heart turned cold. How bold, he thought. For such scoundrels to take advantage of my absence from the sect to spy on Yonglu Mountain’s Mountain-Protecting Grand Ar-

“Why is it you three?!”

Gu Wufang couldn’t help but look down at the layers of cloud steps. The nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine steps had originally been set up to prevent low-level disciples from getting too curious about Juyong Hall. Later, the sect tacitly agreed that the Floating Cloud Steps were not to be climbed. But now… Sect Master Gu fell silent.

“Did you climb up the Floating Cloud Steps?”

The three of them nodded in unison. As the saying went, it was easier to go up a mountain than to come down. It had taken a lot of effort to climb up, and now that it was daytime, going down would guarantee they got caught.

No one wanted to add to the Punishment Hall’s workload on New Year’s Day.

After discussing it, the three of them decided to wait until nightfall to go down. If they were lucky, they could slip away unnoticed. With that in mind, Wen Xu couldn’t resist climbing onto the roof ridge to take in the scenery.

Naturally, he had gone up, and Bian Chunzhou and Chen Zui had followed, both somewhat captivated by the beautiful view.

And then, they were caught red-handed by the sect master. Caught right in the act of crouching on the roof ridge, they had absolutely no way to talk their way out of it. It was just… terrible timing.

Who could have guessed that Sect Master Gu would return to the sect on the very first day of the New Year?

Wen Xu was the first to speak. “Reporting to the Sect Master, the decision to climb Juyong Hall was entirely my doing. It has nothing to do with the two of them.”

“Your doing alone?” If not for his status, Gu Wufang would have rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Oh? Did you hold a sword to their necks to force them up here?”

Wen Xu nodded without batting an eye. “Yes. The Sect Master is wise.”

…You kid, looking so upright and honest, yet you’ve been completely corrupted by your master! Gu Wufang was so angry he wanted to lash out. Every single one of them; it was only the first day of the New Year, and they were already causing trouble for him. No wonder his incense-burning had gone so poorly today! It turned out the bad omen had manifested right here!

Oh, wait. The master of this honest-looking kid was…

“Sect Master is wise, but the Little Grand-Uncle Master did not force us to come up. I accept my punishment.”

Chen Zui followed immediately after. “I accept my punishment as well. Watching the sunrise was the wish of all three of us.”

Wen Xu looked utterly exasperated.

“Fine, so the three of you actually came to watch the sunrise! Is there nowhere else to watch it? Why didn’t you go to Guochun Peak, huh?! Of all the peaks on Yonglu Mountain, why did you have to choose Juyong Hall?!” Gu Wufang lost his temper. “Speak. Who gave you this terrible idea? Was it…”

“No, it wasn’t!” Bian Chunzhou was the first to deny it, which was practically a confession in itself.

Wen Xu had already silently covered his face.

The Little Grand-Uncle Master, who had always been proud and dignified, finally realized he couldn’t carry his teammates. As for these two… forget it, he would just accept the punishment. Life was long; he would take it one day at a time.

“Still denying it? I haven’t even said a name yet, and you’re already denying it? What, do you want to taste my fists too?”

Bian Chunzhou lowered his head meekly. “This disciple wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t dare? I think you are all daring indeed!” Hmph, did they think he was blind? The one on Guochun Peak knew the arrays of Juyong Hall best. This idea had clearly been cooked up by that Lord Dragon on Guochun Peak. To think he actually dared to instigate the younger disciples to do such a thing. Honestly… such a fine genius with a Mutated Spiritual Root was going to be completely led astray!

No, they had already been led astray!

With the Five Sects Conference just around the corner, if this… if this got out, wouldn’t it…

Gu Wufang imagined it. Just thinking about the teasing look in the eyes of that old geezer, the Sect Master of the Hehe Sect, made him… How about they just pretend nothing happened? After all, what else could they do? The sunrise had already been watched. It wasn’t as if he could drag Little Martial Uncle Wen to the Punishment Hall, right?

Given the Punishment Hall’s usual methods, the three of them would probably have to miss this year’s Five Sects Conference.

For a moment, a fierce war between duty and selfishness waged in Gu Wufang’s heart.

No, he couldn’t set such a precedent! He had sacrificed far too much for the sect. This went completely against his principles, and he would not make an exception for anyone.

But on second thought, there didn’t seem to be any sect rule explicitly forbidding Yonglu Mountain disciples from watching the sunrise on Juyong Hall. Gu Wufang looked at the three “ridge beasts^[1]” bowing their heads in apology, and a perfect solution suddenly popped into his mind.

Didn’t they like playing ridge beasts?

It just so happened that Sect Master Peak was short-handed lately. Since they dared to do it, they had to face the consequences. Sect Master Gu made a decision on the spot: drag them all back to work as manual labor. Not a single one would be spared.

And so, because of a single sunrise, the three of them began their punishment of forced 996^[2], or rather, 007 labor. To put it mildly, the workload was terrifyingly, shockingly massive!

Did the Sect Master of Yonglu Mountain really have to do this much work every single day? Even a robot would go on strike! Sure, cultivators had incredible physical strength and endurance, but they shouldn’t be worked like this, right?!

Bian Chunzhou never expected that even after coming to the cultivation world, he would still get to experience the “delightful” mental state of a corporate slave.

“I’m fine. I’m okay, really.” He gave a tired smile.

Chen Zui held a basket of jade slips, their spiritual light faintly flickering. They were all greeting letters to the Sect Master that even a dog wouldn’t read, sorted and sent over from Kaiyuan Peak. Because they were formal greetings to the Sect Master, this tedious, mechanical task of reviewing them had now fallen onto his head.

Chen Zui: The urge to murder is completely leaking out.jpg.

“I’m not okay!” Chen Zui swore to himself that he would never watch another sunrise again.

Wen Xu “looked” at his two friends with concern, his voice laced with obvious guilt. “Are you two alright? How about I…”

“No need! It’s not like you forced us.”

“…No need.”

Really? Wen Xu felt like his two friends were about to shatter. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. The work was just excessively tedious. As long as it was categorized, it was just basic clerical work.

Gu Wufang, who had originally just wanted to dump his workload, was pleasantly surprised. In fact, he was absolutely thrilled. It was just a pity that someone from Guochun Peak couldn’t become the successor to the Sect Master. Otherwise… what a great prospect.

What a pity, what an absolute pity. If he had known earlier, why would he have gone to all that trouble? Wouldn’t it have been better to take the boy in as his own disciple? With Wen Xu’s talent and comprehension, why would he have to worry about waiting hundreds of years to step down as Sect Master?

What a miscalculation. Sect Master Gu’s mood suddenly darkened.

“…What’s wrong with the Sect Master now?” Bian Chunzhou whispered.

Wen Xu was silent for a moment. “It’s normal. Don’t try to guess the Sect Master’s mood.”

True. The Sect Master fell into a sudden depression for a period of time every day. This was probably the hardship of being a Sect Master. Bian Chunzhou said with some sympathy, “Even being an emperor is probably only like this. So busy.” Even a dog wouldn’t want the job.

“Chunzhou, do you think being an emperor is bad?”

“I can’t say it’s bad, only… my family doesn’t have a throne for me to inherit. Sigh.”

“What if they did?”

Bian Chunzhou’s answer was quite unique: “Then pretend I never said that.”

Wen Xu: …

As they were talking, a senior brother from Kaiyuan Peak brought over official business yet again, all of which required the Sect Master’s personal review. Bian Chunzhou couldn’t help but look back at the Sect Master, whose expression had visibly darkened once more.

It really wasn’t easy. The title of Yonglu Mountain’s number one model worker was well-deserved.

As it happened, the arriving Senior Brother Li had a very good relationship with Bian Chunzhou. Seeing his close junior brother, he couldn’t help but feel a bit surprised. “Junior Brother Bian, what are you doing here?”

Bian Chunzhou took the jade slips from his senior brother’s hands. “Well… because of some matters, as a disciple of Yonglu Mountain, I’m helping the Sect Master share his burdens.”

“You got caught doing something wrong by the Sect Master, didn’t you?” Senior Brother Li indeed understood him perfectly. Just as he was about to tease him, he spotted the figure of the Little Grand-Uncle Master. He couldn’t help but look in the direction of Guochun Peak, immediately wiping the grin off his face. “Junior Brother, these all need the Sect Master’s review. Don’t forget!”

Wow, huge news for Yonglu Mountain! The Little Grand-Uncle Master had fallen into the Sect Master’s hands. This was urgent! Someone well-informed needed to report immediately! Within three sticks of incense, he had to know the whole truth!