Daily life of a cultivation judge

Xie Rong's eyes turned cloudy and his vision seemed to change along with it. He was no longer in the courtroom but in a different place. He was inside a modest home made of azure hearth clay, which gave the house a beautiful blue and orange glow, giving the illusion that one was seeing the formation of a rainbow.

However, as aesthetically pleasing and homey as the house seemed on the outside, inside was a different mood. The inside was permeated with a stifling atmosphere. It was tense and rife with strife, which resonated perfectly with the gloomy weather outside. Rain was already pouring heavily and thunder crackled with venom every few seconds, and inside the house wasn't any different.

Xie Rong and his father were arguing, each trying to outdo the other, and the thunder rumbling outside. Their faces were all beet red, veined, fury clear in their eyes. However, there was also something in there, something Xie Rong was only now discovering as he was watching the whole thing play out.

Did he just discover it, or had he always known, but had been unwilling to admit it up until this moment?

He and his father were arguing, and they were getting heated by the second as their voices trembled, their words blazing like an unquenchable inferno that burned them up with every syllable uttered, scattering their rationality an inch at a time, with every word they spoke.

This wasn't the first time they had argued but they could already feel it, deep within, they could already tell this one was different. This was why behind the fury-filled eyes there was another emotion hanging on to dear life within the tumultuous tempest. That emotion was fear, and it grew stronger with every rise in their voices.

"Stop"

"We need to stop."

"Please don't say it.."

"Dad, I don't mean it.."

"Son, I don't mean it.."

"I take it back.."

Xie Rong had a pained look in his eyes as he placed his hand over his chest and mouth, being flooded with the raw emotions he felt that night. Even the words he kept in his heart before everything exploded, came full force to the front.

"Xie Rong, stop, stop saying those words, apologize, stop it, look at mom, she's crying, look at dad. Stop, Xie Rong.."

Xie Rong wholly absorbed in those memories did not realize he was mumbling those same words outwardly at the center of the courtroom, drawing curious looks that were full of pity. However, no one moved to interrupt him.

Tears started tricking down Xie Rong's face as his lips quivered when the scene he dreaded most drew near.

"It's here.." he muttered with a cracked and trembling voice.

He wanted to close his eyes for the scene to come, but he had already opened that door and it was already past the point of being closed again.

His mother, just like them, could already feel it, something was different this time. Just like how birds and other animals could feel an earthquake or some natural calamity was about to erupt in their habitat, his mother could already feel something dangerous was about to happen to her family, which made her agitated and desperate as the two at the center of that storm.

She tried to use words of reason, but her words were no more useful than trying to use a spit to quench a wildfire that had already claimed acres of space, and whose flames were growing in magnitude. When her words failed her, she did the next thing that came to mind which was to try and pull one of them aside, as long as one element was removed, the danger would be averted.

The person closest to her was Xie Rong's father. Out of a sense of urgency and desperation, she couldn't control her strength and pulled Xie Rong's father like a predator lunging on prey.

With how extremely on-edge Xie Rong was at the time, someone gripping his arm like a snake, he reacted by shoving whatever danger had assaulted him as far away from him as possible which resulted in Xie Rong's mother tripping over the table that was next to them.

That was the trigger. Xie Rong despite telling himself to stop, his very soul yelling, his body refused to listen. Chaos and fury took over, especially when he saw the befuddled look in his mother's eyes which at the time he misinterpreted to be because of what his father had done. However, now he could see it clearly, with his view as a spectator, he could see her eyes filled with worry were centered on him as she mumbled something which back then he was too heated to hear or listen.

"Don't do it, Rong'er, please don't do it.."

Deluding himself that he was fighting for his mother, vanquishing an unforgivable foe, in his father, he threw a righteous punch and hit his father squarely.

Despite being only eleven, Xie Rong had already taken a small step in his cultivation. He was in the iron body stage of his cultivation, his father languishing at the same stage too, which was yet another reason he always argued with his father.

He always felt every time his father stopped him from leaving, or told him to be diligent in the small things first before dreaming of the big things, he always believed his father didn't say those words out of kindness but a heart filled with envy born out of his mediocre talent. His father was already in his mid-thirties and he was eleven, yet they had the same cultivation base.

What right did his father have to speak about his cultivation journey when he was clearly inept at it?

Somewhere along the way, his father was no longer the hero he admired and idolized as a child, swinging on his powerful shoulders, but had instead turned into the very picture of mediocrity. A mediocre person blocking his path to greatness.

All that pent-up frustration exploded forth as he rained punch after punch on his father, who clearly showed even if they were at the same level, experience still mattered. He retaliated in kind, instantly overwhelming Xie Rong who decided to rely on boiling rage rather than technique to pull him through.

It wasn't long before the fight just wasn't a brawl between a heated father and son, but it was approaching something dangerous, the danger that the depths of their soul had warned them all about. Luckily their mother in the end managed to pull them both from the brink by risking her life along with theirs.

She threatened to take her life if they didn't stop which was the cold water both needed to regain their sanity. They stopped instantly after her threat as if all that happened before was nothing but a play but the bloody faces and the wariness and shock in their eyes showed that it wasn't.

They exchanged a look both knowing what would have happened had it been just the two of them, and just the idea of that thought sent shockwaves throughout their body and made them unable to even look each other in the eye for long.

As if his body was possessed, Xie Rong couldn't even hear what his mother was telling him, he just turned, his bloodied hand shaking as he reached out to the door. It felt heavy, heavier than it had ever been.

Were his hands heavy from being worn from the fight, or was it because he knew once he opened those doors, he would never come back?

He could remember what he told himself that night, at that door,as he lied to himself that he was leaving to really live so he would have no regrets, but now, seeing and reliving it all again, he knew guilt was what drove him out the door that night and it continued to guide him every day since, and now here he was,a human cauldron with less than a hundred years to live.

While he was glad the Order was helping him, some part of him felt dejected at the thought. He felt like the Order was denying him the chance to pay back the debt he owed for what he did that night and the days of bitterness, resentment, and foolishness that led to it.

The memory cloud of that night disappeared and the courtroom regained its true form to Xie Rong.

"I punched my father that night, and everything went downhill from there. Out of my cowardice, which I didn't realize was what guided me at the time, I left home and never looked back.

With my paperweight determination, I was determined to be a renowned cultivator which I deceived myself would validate and vindicate my actions that night. How naive I was.." Xie Rong said as he smiled bitterly.

"As for what happened next, well.. things happened exactly as what was expected to happen to an eleven-year-old too wet behind the ears to know of the ways of the world. I realized how unforgiving this world was to the weak. I starved, got beaten, sinking deeper and deeper into the mud with my list of fears growing along with it.

I wandered for months, drowning in despair as I did. I was tempted to go back home, but, with the way I left things, I couldn't bring myself to and I still held out the hope that my talent would shine through and I would make something of myself.

I tried joining some sects for those months, but none would have me. The reason.. same for all of them, which was I had no talent for it. Not even rank five sects were willing to accept me.

I on the other hand didn't want to believe it and just kept telling myself those sects were the blind ones, they didn't know what they were saying but despite what I told myself, I became more desperate with the growing rejections and in the end, I ended up joining some unranked sect called Silver Severing Dagger Sect.

That sect accepted me, but..... only as a servant.." Xie Rong said as he lowered his head in shame.

"Determined to prove myself, I secretly tried to cultivate their techniques despite being forbidden to do so, and eventually I was caught, got beaten within an inch of my life and then was cast away.

A few weeks down the lin when I was teetering between life and death,some cultivator approached me and said he admired my tenacity, which is something that those who wish to scale the great heights of cultivation need. He offered me a chance to cultivate and change my fate and show up those who rejected and laughed at me. A chance to be a dragon among men.

With how broken and desperate I was, I accepted without a second thought. That man led me to Blacktear County. I couldn't believe it when I saw those farms, rich in spiritual qi, flooded with spiritual herbs that evoked a sense of grandeur.

I honestly thought I was at some immortal's lair which is why I didn't even question them when they handed me some cultivation art and a strict diet to follow. I felt lucky, especially when my cultivation base started rapidly improving. Not once did I question it, even when I was dizzy and growing weak, I attributed it to my own incompetence with the art. Only when a few of my colleagues started disappearing after long periods of weakness, and the moon starcap mushrooms grew even more resplendent after their disappearance, did I suspect something was off going on..."

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