I Cultivate in a Government Office

The three of them quietly discussed the finer details of their plan, like who would be best to send as a scout and how much the initial investment would be. Finally, at four in the afternoon, Yang Wenqing stood up, stretched his limbs, and said to his father and second uncle, "Dad, Second Uncle, you two get some rest. I’m going to take a walk and get some air."

Yang Jianmu nodded. "Go on, don’t go too far."

He said it out of habit, just like he used to, but then a smile touched his lips as if he’d remembered something.

As Yang Wenqing stepped out of the main hall, a cool evening breeze swept over him, scattering the stuffy, smoky air from inside. His brother, Yang Wenjian, and sister, Yang Wenning, immediately swarmed him, with their two cousins close behind Wenning.

"Brother, is cultivation in the county difficult? Do you have to meditate for a long time every day?" Yang Wenjian asked curiously, his eyes sparkling with a yearning for the unknown world.

"Brother, is it like in the stories? Can you leap over rooftops and shoot fireballs?" Yang Wenning’s focus was clearly a bit more practical.

Yang Wenqing smiled. As he led them on a slow walk along the familiar alleyways of the village, he patiently explained, "Cultivation... you could say it’s difficult, but you could also say it’s a joy."

"Meditation is fundamental, just like how we have to till the soil and fertilize the fields in our village. As for leaping across rooftops, once you reach a certain level of practice, your body becomes nimble enough that it’s possible with a bit of a boost. But shooting fireballs? That’s a technique for High-tier Cultivators, and you can’t just do it casually. It requires many specific conditions and a Spell."

He didn’t perform any little tricks of Magic just to satisfy his siblings’ curiosity. Instead, he used the simplest terms to describe the structure and logic of the Cultivation World.

They continued walking, passing by each home and greeting familiar relatives, then strolling along the paths that wound through the fields. Before they knew it, the sun had set, and they found themselves back in the village proper.

Scattered lights had already been lit in the village. By the hazy moonlight and the occasional glimmer of a lamp, Yang Wenqing’s gaze swept over the village where he was born and raised.

The people of the village didn’t lack for food or clothing. Thanks to the relatively fertile land, complementary agricultural Magic, communal teamwork, and the village’s own militia, their subsistence was guaranteed. But that was the extent of it.

For the vast majority of people here, the trajectory of their lives was roughly determined from the moment of birth. Sometime before their sixth birthday, the local town would send someone to assess their innate aptitude for cultivation. But people with such aptitude were one in ten thousand; since the Yang Family Village was founded, not a single one of its children had possessed it.

A little older, and they would be sent to the village’s preliminary school to learn how to read and write, studying the most basic classics and arithmetic to lay a foundation for a possible future county examination.

Most of the children, after muddling through a few years at the school, would learn a handful of common words and how to do simple sums. Then they would follow their fathers into the fields or study under the clan uncles skilled in agricultural Magic like the Spring Breeze and Rain Formulas.

Their futures were preordained: they would inherit their fathers’ few acres of land, marry, have children, and repeat the endless cycle of spring planting, summer tending, autumn harvesting, and winter storing. They would pay their taxes to the town on time. Life would go on, and it could even be stable. But accumulating wealth, broadening their horizons, or changing their personal destiny was an incredibly difficult feat.

Their lives were like fields measured with the same ruler: neat but lacking variation, stable but also dull. Their greatest hope was perhaps for good weather, a few extra bushels of grain for the family, or for a capable person to emerge from the clan who could lift everyone up a little.

As he was lost in thought, Yang Wenning suddenly shouted, "It’s the opera stage! There’s a show tonight!" She grabbed Yang Wenqing’s sleeve and started to run in that direction.

Yang Wenjian also looked interested.

The scene stirred some of Yang Wenqing’s own childhood memories. There wasn’t much entertainment in the village. During festivals or the slack farming season, the greatest pastime for young and old alike was watching the makeshift opera troupe. Organized by a few elderly and young enthusiasts from the clan, they would erect a simple stage in the open square before the ancestral hall. There, they would perform a few long-cherished local operas or plays with sacrificial or prayerful themes.

A crowd had already gathered in the ancestral hall square. In the center, a stage half a man’s height had been built from wooden planks and bamboo poles. A few wind lanterns hung on its four sides, casting a dim, yellow light upon it.

On stage, a few clan members in costume, their faces smeared with simple greasepaint, were droning out the ancient-sounding verses of an opera, telling a story of loyal ministers and great generals from some forgotten dynasty.

Below the stage, the elderly sat on small stools they had brought, listening with rapt attention, their eyes narrowed. The middle-aged stood in twos and threes, talking in low voices, while the younger people gathered mostly at the edge of the square.

On the other, relatively empty side of the square, there was another lively scene. A dozen or so young men, either bare-chested or wearing only short shirts, had formed a large circle. Inside the circle, two sturdy youths were sparring.

They weren’t using any profound martial arts, just the Yang Family Fist—a combination of military combat techniques and the power-generating movements from farm work. The style was unadorned, emphasizing a stable stance, fast strikes, and raw strength.

The two went back and forth, their fists and feet whistling through the air, drawing waves of cheers from the surrounding crowd.

Yang Wenqing didn’t push his way to the front, but just stood at the edge of the crowd, watching quietly.

He saw his father, Yang Jianmu, sitting on a small stool below the stage with a few of his old friends, humming along to the tune every now and then. He saw his second aunt holding his little cousin, who was fast asleep, chatting with several other women as they watched the opera. He also saw many young faces, some familiar and some not, drifting between the opera stage and the sparring match.