Chapter Text
WARNING: CASUAL DISCRIMINATION CAUSE ANCIENT FANTASY CHINA!
My third life began in a small rural village with nothing of importance on it. My mother died when I was little and I ended being one of the many war orphans that no one wanted to take care of.
Imperial Rural China definitely is a step down from even the magical World War from my previous life, as much as life as a starving orphan in my second life sucked, at least I got to eat every day, it just wasn't enough.
Here? Forget orphanages, no one cares about starving children so I had to resort to crime to survive... then I caught the attention of a Cultivators sect and discovered my life was not as bad as I thought, it was worse.
To be a Cultivator is to defy the Heavens, to risk your life and your very soul every day in hopes of power and inmortality. Just like becoming a Gold Medal Olympic Winner in my past lives or being the Emperor very few can actually reach the top as a Cultivator. But for those very few who do... they basically become gods.
A way to power I can't afford to ignore as an orphan with nothing to my name.
Yet by being a Cultivator not only do I risk dying yet again but also my very soul being destroyed. Unfortunately, it was that or death by starvation. Even worse trying to leave the sect will mean someone will hunt me down.
Thankfully I ended up being quite average, impressive for an orphan from the middle of nowhere but in an important Sect, despite not being one of the big twelve great sects.
Save for one detail.
Once more I was born a girl.
And while I was more into shooters and military videogames in my first life, I briefly got caught reading terrible web novels "where numbers go up" and one of those was about Xianxia, the Cultivation genre. If things in this world are half as bad on women as they were in that terrible web novel then I am basically doomed.
Only thing I can feel grateful so far is my young age and lack of the typical things that paint a target target on women in a Cultivation setting. Neither a jade beauty, nor a cultivation genius, I also don't have water roots, pure Yin constitution or any of those things that make women a target, as far as I know.
But being a fellow cultivator is enough to be a target. And even being an ordinary woman, by Cultivators standards, makes it worse.
Of course is not like I have completely resigned myself to live such a dangerous life, I have plans on how to get out of the sect without being chasen down or crippled, but only time will tell if they will bear fruit or not.
*♡*
To leave the Howling Wolf Sect can be only done in three ways, money, crippling and death.
If I had a rich enough relative and my cultivation was not high, I could be basically be bought from the Sect by my relative, something actually more common than usual in these post war times. But even if I had been that lucky, that only applies to men, because of course Fantasy Imperial China values men way more than women.
The second was not really an option for me, I got picked by the Sect itself and due to how sickly I was just before I joined, losing my cultivation would kill me.
So my only option is to fake my death.
Unfortunately that also involves putting myself at risk so it is believable.
That's how I found myself on an herb gathering mission, to get as many Moonlight Herbs as possible.
The catch? The herb only grows on the Howling Mountains, the same that give the name to my sect because of the Howling Wolf Spirit Beasts that live there.
For my Master or one of the Inner Circle Adepts dealing with these creatures is as easy as squashing a bug.
For an Outer Circle Initiate it is a death sentence to face just one of them. For someone like me, who is in the Outer Circle but considered an Apprentice because I have a Master who occasionally gives me pointers? A single Wolf is no problem.
But Howling Wolves always travel in packs.
So that's why I am not alone in this task.
It is me and six others, as the number seven is considered sacred by my sect.
For this task and this task only we were given swords, plain steel swords without any decoration that despite not being anything special, can be deadly in the hands on a cultivator, even an Outer Circle Initiate... as long as they don't face more that one Spirit Beast.
So for this task the most logical and best choice is to work together to survive, but this being Cultivators only one follows my idea to work together to avoid death, Fatty Wang, called that way because he is so fat it is hard to believe he is a cultivator at all.
In fact I am sure the only reason he decided to team up with me is so I can save him since he is so slow due to being so big.
For a few hours we get lucky and face no Spirit Beasts, but then as we are leaving an entire pack of Howling Wolves attacks me and Wang. And while leaving him behind is tempting, losing someone means I will get punished so I am forced to fight with him to fend of the wolves while we run away, right?
Hahaha... no.
What I end up doing is picking the fatass up and running, making sure we don't drop the bags of Moonlight Herbs while doing so.
My Master makes me carry heavy giant stones every day; this Fatty weighs nothing!
What's not nothing is Wang screaming as I carry him and almost throwing up all over me.
Only the fear of my Master's punishment made me avoid dropping Wang. That and the fact I would most likely lose most of the Moonlight Herbs.
Just as my arms were tiring and the beasts had almost caught us, we reached an outpost of our sect and arrows rained on the Spirit Wolves.
It turned out all seven of us survived and there weren't any major injuries.
Although I heard of a Zhao Cheng killing several Howling Wolves on his own despite being just an Outer Circle Initiate.
Curious but not something of importance to me.
I had failed to fake my death, but then again considering my Master, it wouldn't have been believable.
I would have to Cultivate harder and take on a more dangerous mission if I wanted to escape.
*♡*
My student Tan Nian survived just like I knew she would and even was soft hearted enough to save a useless fatty. The fact she carried so much weight so causally means that I have to increase her training. As someone with a Yang body, she needs all the physical training possible. Later on I will seek a way to give her the Yin energy she is lacking.
Maybe the Yin Lunar Lotus? Mmm that one only grows during the night of the Blue Moon and the Sect Master tends to hoard them to give to his daughter, so I will have to search for one outside the Sect lands, should be a good training trip if I take Tan Nian with me.
But for now I will have to borrow that hag's forge and make my student some weights to further her training.
*♡*
Meditation is annoying, because my justified paranoia makes it really hard to empty my mind. But meditation is a needed part of cultivation, even if a Cultivator only uses pills meditation is needed to focus the body in cleaning impurities while also taking in the World Qi.
Also because I only have one good set of clothes, due to technicaly still being in the Outer Circle despite having a Master, all extra clothes must be paid by myself.
But taking jobs to get money to buy extra clothes takes time away from my training and cultivation, more so as my Master has forbidden me to take any pills.
So that means I have to train harder and cultivate more to keep up and not lose having a Master.
Anyway that's a long way to say my meditation is done while naked, to avoid ruining my clothes with impurities, so I make darn well sure to lock the door of a meditation chamber when I use it.
After twelve hours of meditation, I have only two more hours reserved, so I use the Destruction technique my Master taught me to get rid of most of the impurity gunk covering my body then take a shower.
A cold shower as that helps to "temper the body and soul" despite it being winter. If I wasn't a cultivator said shower would probably kill me since the water is almost freezing.
Once done, I use the basic Reinforcement and Repair techniques on my clothes and get dressed.
Then I leave and flip the sign to show that the chamber is not being used.
Just after I leave an ordinary looking kid enters the chamber, he has a bag of cultivation pills. I ignore him despite him also being in the Outer Circle because he is still just an Initiate. That's not out of arrogance, he would get beaten up for "daring to speak to someone his superior". I can't wait to fake my death and leave, the work culture of a sect is quite toxic.
*♡*
I, Zhao Cheng was born with nothing, abandoned at birth by my mother and only saved by the kindness of the Jade Serpent. But that kindness has a price, I must eat humans or I will die, the jade egg placed in my heart will kill me. Unfortunately no one died to the Howling Wolves and I could sense we had one of the Elders watching over us, so I had to feed the egg with my own blood to delay my death.
I will have to take a more dangerous mission to feed the egg, at least the cultivation pills I got as a reward for my "bravery" will delay my death long enough.
Worse, Tan Nian once more ignores that I, Zhao Cheng exist, despite the fact she ran away while I killed five Howling Wolves! All just because she has a Master while I don't! But I can't do nothing about that bitch yet, I have to eat these cultivation pills and purify myself so the jade egg in my heart doesn't kill me.
But soon, soon I will gain enough merit and fame to not only get a Master but get into the Inner Circle, then she will have to bow to me and do as I say!
*♡*
At least twelve hours! Tan Nian endured cultivating twelve hours in a row while even Outer Circle Adepts usually fall asleep at eight! And that's with stronger bodies used to the hardships of cultivation due to many years of cultivation! Is this what having a Yang body is like? I don't care about the soul degradation, surely being a man I will endure it better? Sadly she has a Master so I, Guan Be can't just steal her Yang body constitution. Also since she is a girl it may not even be compatible with me.
That Zhao Cheng is rising fast in power too, but there is something weird about it, he doesn't have anything special about his body so it may be talent or just luck, that's something I cannot steal.
Maybe he has some sort of artifact? Unlikely, there is no privacy at all for Outer Circle Initiates like us, unless he has the artifact inside his ass? I've heard of people doing worse just to cultivate faster.
"Hey girl boy! It's your turn to help with the dishes!" The annoying Fatty tells me. He got saved by Tan Nian, the lucky bastard, so he didn't get mauled by those stupid wolves like I did. Why do the heavens have to smile on this pig?
"My name is Guan Bei you fat bastard!"
"And mine is Li Wang, I will start using your name when you start using mine! Now hurry up or they will get you lashed for being late."
"Fine! I am going!" Stupid fat pig, once I can steal a good body constitution I will ruin his face!
*♡*
At this time in Winter, the only way I could find to get permission to take Tan Nian outside sect land is to make it about hunting Iron Deer. The spoiled princess that our Sect Leader calls daughter likes their meat.
I will have to give my student a few sword lessons or she will die upon the Iron deer horns even with her Yang body.
And borrowing a mere steel sword won't be enough, I will have to take my student to meet the forge hag to negotiate for something better.
Ah the things I have to do for my student, now I understand how my old Master felt about me.
AN: Tanya: I won't speak to this guy so he won't get beaten up.
Zhao Cheng: How dare she not speak to me! I will gain power and merit and make her my slave!
Guan Bei: This Zhao Cheng may literally have an artifact up his ass, were else would he hide it?
Edited by Gremlin Jack