Chapter 4 : Chapter 4
Chapter 4. Small Clique
After Feng Xiao left, he left the menial servants behind to practice on their own.
At that moment, Fatty Wang walked over and cast them a cold sideways glance.
“Remember this clearly. You only have this half-hour of free time each day. Once you finish practicing, go back to work. Do not delay the proper business.”
He had absolutely no faith that any of these menial servants would ever rise above their station.
Just look at what they ate every day.
Where would they possibly find the extra strength needed to temper themselves and break through the bottlenecks in their meridians?
Still, this was a matter decided by the higher-ups, and he certainly did not dare make private remarks about it.
Watching Fatty Wang head back into the kitchen, the gazes of the menial servants only grew firmer.
The emotions that had been on the verge of slackening tightened once more.
Xu Yuan recalled the movements and slowly practiced them to reinforce his memory.
Once the form had more or less taken shape, he planned to run through a complete set.
But unexpectedly, at that moment,
a thin, undersized servant walked over.
His face carried the smooth, worldly air of a petty opportunist as he smiled ingratiatingly.
“Brother, my name is Chen Sanli. How about we practice together?”
Xu Yuan was briefly stunned when he heard that, then lifted his head and glanced in the other directions.
Seeing that quite a few people had already gathered around the servant and maid who had gone up earlier, he immediately understood.
He shook his head and said matter-of-factly,
“Sorry. I’m a bit slow-witted. I still haven’t figured out all the movements Instructor Feng taught earlier, so I’d better not mislead anyone.”
Chen Sanli still wanted to say something, but Xu Yuan had already moved to another corner, clearly showing that he had no intention of teaming up with him.
Chen Sanli touched the tip of his nose, his smile unchanged.
After all, he was just casting out a line on the off chance he might catch something.
Time was short, and it was always better to become a little more proficient if possible.
Watching him leave, Xu Yuan felt perfectly clear-headed.
His family had been poor in his previous life, and during school breaks he had often taken sales jobs and the like.
He had seen all kinds of people.
The man had dressed it up nicely, talking about practicing together, but only a few of them had actually gone up and received personal instruction.
If they teamed up, would it not just turn into Xu Yuan giving him private guidance?
The abacus in that man’s mind had been clicking away loud and clear.
With neither friendship nor shared interests between them, he simply wanted Xu Yuan to spend time teaching him for free.
Not to mention,
if his practice went badly in the end, what if he pushed all the blame onto Xu Yuan?
For menial servants, after all, this was a chance to change their fate.
If something went wrong, the consequences would definitely not be pretty.
Xu Yuan had only practiced a few moves when two more people came over.
They said they were willing to pay him a little money if he would give them pointers, but he sent them away one after another.
Naturally, the reason was that he did not want to take on any risk for such trifling sums.
“Brother, my name is Li Shan. How should I address you?”
Suddenly, a rather sturdy servant walked over with an honest, simple smile on his face.
Seeing that the other party had also gone up earlier, Xu Yuan nodded and introduced himself.
“Xu Yuan.”
“Brother Xu, Instructor Feng taught too fast. There are still some places I’m not fully clear on. How about we compare notes?”
“That’s right. Right now, the few of us understand the stance art better than anyone else here, so naturally we should pool what we know.”
That maid also quietly squeezed her way over.
Her voice was crisp and lively.
After speaking, she gave a small curtsy, revealing a face that was somewhat delicate and pretty.
“My name is Sun Rong. I seek your guidance, little brothers.”
Xu Yuan raised a brow.
After thinking it over for a moment, he felt this arrangement was actually quite good.
There were still some parts he himself did not fully understand.
So he agreed.
“All right. Let’s team up and practice together.”
And so the three of them formed a small clique and began practicing with real enthusiasm.
In truth, once they started, there was not much Xu Yuan could help with.
The other two had already gone up and received pointers before, and only a few parts remained unclear to them.
After a few reminders, they each continued practicing on their own.
Still, at least they could complement one another.
Outside the three of them,
quite a few menial servants and maids also watched and learned.
Xu Yuan naturally had nothing to hide.
It was not as though he could shut the door and practice in secret.
But unless someone had truly exceptional talent,
imitating them from afar was naturally far less effective than having Feng Xiao personally point out their flaws and fill in the gaps.
During the process, some people gathered their courage and stepped forward to ask questions.
Neither Xu Yuan nor Sun Rong paid them any attention.
Only Li Shan generously went over and pointed out their mistakes one by one.
And once people saw that someone was willing to teach, a whole crowd immediately surged over asking for guidance.
Li Shan accepted everyone without refusal.
Xu Yuan and Sun Rong exchanged a glance.
Both of them shook their heads.
By the time Li Shan finished helping the others and returned, the half-hour had already passed, and the menial servants had to start working again.
As Sun Rong left, she complained to Li Shan,
“Brother Li, we already have so little time to practice. And you still went off to teach other people. How much time did you waste for nothing like that?”
Li Shan froze for a moment, then smiled helplessly.
“It can’t be helped. They’re all friends from the same dormitory. It really wouldn’t have been easy to refuse them. I’ll just squeeze out a little more time to practice tonight.”
Xu Yuan shook his head inwardly.
This man did have a warm heart, but he was using it in the wrong place.
Right now was the critical period when these menial servants had a chance to change their fate.
Everyone else wished they could split their time in two just to practice more, yet he had thrown a large portion of his away with his own hands.
“You...”
Sun Rong stamped her foot in irritation.
She said nothing more and turned to leave.
“Sun Rong, she...?”
Li Shan looked toward Xu Yuan, completely baffled.
Xu Yuan merely spread his hands and said nothing more.
Their friendship was still shallow.
If he said the wrong thing, he might only sour the relationship instead.
Seeing that, Li Shan did not think too much of it.
As he rubbed his stomach with his left hand, he said with some feeling,
“This stance art really takes a lot out of you. I only ate this morning, but in such a short while, all of it’s already been burned through.”
Xu Yuan nodded.
He deeply understood that feeling.
After completing one full set of stance art, strength poured out of the body in a rush, as though he had just run two kilometers of cross-country with weight on his back.
A fierce wave of hunger surged over him, so strong that he felt as though he could swallow an entire ox.
“In the future, eating only vegetables won’t do. We still need some meat in our diet. Otherwise, the more we practice, the more exhausted we’ll become, and our efficiency will only get worse.”
After saying that, Li Shan arranged with Xu Yuan to meet again next time, then walked to the area he was responsible for and started working.
Xu Yuan turned and looked around.
The reactions of the other menial servants varied as well.
Most of them were torn and hesitant, wondering whether they should grit their teeth and spend money on a few meals with meat to replenish this intense drain on their bodies.
Those with families were thinking about whether they could ask for an advance from home.
Those without families could only grit their teeth and force their bodies onward.
On top of that, Xu Yuan even noticed one or two people showing confident expressions.
As they spoke, words like Vein-Nourishing Soup occasionally slipped out here and there.
“So even among the menial servants, family circumstances still vary greatly.”
Xu Yuan sighed over this, though he also felt a little puzzled.
Logically speaking, if their families were already in that kind of situation, then why come here as menial servants at all?
Why not go straight to the front courtyard and become martial students instead?
The key was that there would be plenty of time there to practice.
When lunchtime came, he curiously asked Li Shan about it.
Li Shan grinned and carefully explained,
“So that’s what you mean. Of course it would be best to go to the front courtyard to study martial arts, but the fees are also very expensive. Each monthly term costs a full tael of silver, and if you still haven’t broken through to the First Meridian Realm by the end of it, you still have to roll up your bedding and leave.”
“Compared to that, a bowl of Vein-Nourishing Soup only costs two mace. It’s still quite expensive, but it brings all sorts of benefits for martial training...”
At that point, Xu Yuan nodded and continued the thought himself.
“So for families that have a little money, but not much, they send their children into the Shangyang family as menial servants.”
“If there’s a chance to learn martial arts, they scrape together money and go all in.If they don’t have the aptitude, then they honestly remain menial servants. And if they do well later on, they can still climb into better positions. After all, with the Shangyang family as a great tree to lean against, it’s always better than taking whatever random work can be found outside. You could say it’s the option with the best value for the money.”
Li Shan saw that Xu Yuan understood immediately and praised him.
“Brother Xu really does have a sharp mind. That phrase, ‘the option with the best value for the money,’ is especially fitting.”
“For people like us, there were never that many choices to begin with. When an opportunity appears, you grab at it a couple of times. Even if you come away with nothing, at least you’re not left with no road forward.”
“That’s exactly how the Shangyang family does things too. Every few months, they recruit a new batch of menial servants, then regularly sort them into different places based on their aptitude. The good ones climb upward, while the poor ones go serve those family members and martial instructors.”
“The Shangyang family really does value talent.”
Xu Yuan thought this to himself, and then he could not help sighing again.
Practicing martial arts was nothing but burning money.
The more money you had, the more chances and methods you had to succeed.
It was easy to see that these menial servants with slightly better family means would at least be much faster than most others in the very first step of sensing their qi and blood.