Daily life of a cultivation judge

Some of the thirty six winners were left beaming with excitement as the lotus was handed to them, while others received theirs with an expression of nonchalance, as though what they had been handed wasn’t some precious treasure but a glass of water or some complimentary item of little value. As for those who weren’t successful, some adopted a look of indifference.

Cultivators were not known to show their emotions easily, even on their best of days; some would maybe show a subtle nod to convey that they were pleased, so one could imagine what they would be like in disappointment. Almost all of the thirty seven who had failed wore an indifferent look, as though it hadn’t been them who lost out, or who had not tried to use anything and everything within their power to get the nectar seeker to choose them. In fact, some of them had been so desperate that they abandoned all face and started making bird noises eerily similar to that of the nectar seeker. The nectar seeker heard their call alright, and even answered it... only thirty six sweet dew vines later.

It was a wonder, and great credit to some of those guests, that they didn’t take a swing at the bird as it greedily flew past for the vine after ignoring them. In fact, some of them looked inches away from attacking it; more so those who had thought it wise to try and bait it by mimicking its call.

Yang Qing couldn’t help but chuckle as that particular scene flashed in his mind. Clearly those cultivators didn’t know the nature and character of the bird they were dealing with. The call of another nectar seeker was liable to scare or agitate it rather than attract. It was a universal rule that one of the things a glutton feared was another glutton showing up when they had good food they didn’t want to share.

That was how it was for Yang Qing. He was always on guard within his abode whenever he brought out his food; spiritual sense fully deployed, eating fast and anxious, fearful that Feng Xin’s gluttonous presence might pop out of a corner the instant he brought out the pork buns and pan fried dumplings.

He had no doubt the nectar seeker had the same considerations the instant it heard those familiar bulbul noises from its ’kin.’ It had likely chosen the best path a glutton could in such a scenario, and that was to ’surrender’ the sweet dew vines already in those ’bulbuls’’ hands while doing its very best to consume the ones that weren’t.

If anything, those cultivators had likely sabotaged themselves with that mimicry bird call. But Yang Qing wasn’t going to tell them that. He knew what the sting of a failed bid felt like, and doubly so what it felt like to be angered and shamed by a bird that took from you with zero conscience. He was of half a mind to go comfort them, but decided against it as his sympathetic gaze quickly turned excited from the events happening on the podium.

Within Yang Qing’s eager eyes was the reflection of a guava fruit that looked as though it had been carved entirely of smooth white jade, its surface continuously releasing white mist.

"What a thing of absolute beauty," Yang Qing shamelessly murmured as his eyes grew more heated and his grin wider. I wonder what I told Li Gang to sell them for, he suddenly wondered, his expression morphing from one of greedy excitement into one of deep worry and contemplation.

"It was forty thousand," Yang Qing murmured as the number came to the fore of his mind. "Forty thousand," he said once more, only this time it felt more forceful, with a not so subtle regret fueled emotion creeping into his tone. "Forty thousand!" he squealed in disbelief.

"Forty thousand?! What made me go for forty thousand?!" said Yang Qing, almost in tears as he pulled at the hairs on his head, wearing the look of someone seriously contemplating breaking the window before him, jumping through, quickly knocking Li Gang unconscious before he said anything, and taking over the hosting duties himself.

He’d already studied how Li Gang did it; the shameless noble smile, the little jokes here and there, the deliberate pauses to build tension as he spread out bits of pertinent information like bait to reel the crowd in. Yang Qing was confident he could do that. In fact he strongly felt he should do that; after all, it wasn’t Li Gang’s safety and sanity hanging in precarious balance. It wasn’t him whose privacy of his abode was being violated by a very dangerous instructor with an unhealthy obsession with breaking through people’s homes, breaking their minds, befriending their victim’s traitorous father, and a seasoned history of more than normal obsession for hunting assassins... going into equally unhealthy and very much unneeded detail of how they successfully pulled off those assassinations.

Li Gang didn’t have any of that hanging over him, so why should he be the one handling the auction? He didn’t know what was at stake.

Yang Qing was almost in tears as he covered his eyes in regret, and when the anxiety of the darkness got too much, moved to cover his mouth instead; his regret filled eyes falling on the three neatly tucked silver ice guavas being carried over to the podium.

Despite doing everything he could to avoid it, ignore it, pretend it wasn’t hanging at the back of his mind, his current mood and the natural propensity of his mind to so comfortably assume the darkest of things had other ideas; some pretty scary imaginations immediately started fighting for dominance in his mind.

"Senior Instructor Lu Yuan is likely making himself comfortable in my abode isn’t he?" Yang Qing thought, smiling bitterly, tears slowly pooling in his eyes as his once excited gaze slowly turned bleak.

Seemingly sensing his declining mood, the resting spirit root oak sapling perched on his shoulders stretched one of its little supple vine branches and gently poked his chin, almost as if asking what was wrong and whether it could help.

"Don’t worry, everything is okay," Yang Qing gently whispered to the sapling, smiling assuringly at it, even though inwardly he felt like one of the death row prisoners of Requiem, slowly counting their days till execution. At least they knew when their day was coming. He didn’t.

Maybe the bid will turn out okay, Yang Qing quietly thought, trying to lift his spirits as he brought his full focus back to the auction, his expression growing more determined.

"Do well, Li Gang, my fate and sanity lie in your hands," Yang Qing murmured as he clenched his fists. "Otherwise I will have to betray a friend," he thought, smiling guiltily as the image of a certain honest faced friend, sharing the same fears as him, flashed in his mind. He didn’t want to do it, but if upgrading his formation array proved difficult, he might have to. He was his father’s son after all.

Oh, Fei Chen... Yang Qing murmured emotionally before his guilt ridden face turned determined. "I will ensure you have the most beautiful wedding ever, old friend, even if it is the last thing I do," he said with quiet determination, his voice falling into something soft and requiem like. "I will do it for you."