Daily life of a cultivation judge

"Tell Me Again! Who did you say you assassinated?! Who Did You Kill?!.."

In the group of elders, one particular individual instantly exploded the moment Shen Mu made his statement about assassinating someone at the behest of Store Owner Song Ba.

"Say it! Who did you kill?! I WILL KILL YOU!!!"

With a thunderous roar, the elder exploded with violence, his qi exploding in the process as he charged toward Shen Mu his expression livid, maddened with anger. However, the clash that was expected to happen, didn't. That elder was forcibly frozen in place by Yang Qing, who used his cultivation realm force to hold him in place. That elder couldn't so much as blink under the restriction.

The elder felt like a massive hand bearing the weight of the heavens had held him in place. No matter how much he tried to fight against the force with all his might, he felt like he was using a ball of snow to try and topple over a massive mountain.

Unable to move, all he could do was glare hatefully at Shen Mu as he struggled to process the realities of what he had just heard. Thanks to the restriction, he managed to calm down somewhat though it was a different kind of calm. This calmness had a coldness to it like an active volcano building up its pressure until the opportune moment when it will erupt with all its fury bringing havoc to its surroundings.

"Elder Gutian, please try and contain yourself. Attacks are not allowed in the courtroom.." Yang Qing softly said when he saw a hint of rationality return to the elder's eyes.

"Sorry for my earlier outbursts, Judge Yang Qing.." said Elder Gutian though one could tell his mind wasn't even there and had just said those words out of perfunctory politeness. Even as he made the apology, his eyes were still glued on Shen Mu, who despite being sent death glares by the elder seemed unperturbed, only sighing in pity as he looked back at the elder whose body was still frozen in motion.

Yes, the elder who just had a massive outburst, was Elder Gutian, the elder in charge of Misty Caldera County which had the least number of pill slaves and human cauldrons, and was also the uncle to the current patriarch of the Chen Clan, Chen Zian.

Chen Zian who had been silent all this while, spoke up.

"Judge Yang Qing, pardon my insolence, but could I ask something of him?" Chen Zian said as he pointed to Shen Mu.

"You can.."

"Thank you for your accommodation.." Chen Zian said as he gave a polite bow before turning to face Shen Mu.

"Is what you said true? Were you the one who killed Chen Xue?" calmly asked Chen Zian.

Even though he tried to contain himself as much as he could as he asked the question, a lethal coldness was mixed in his tone, one that spoke of his fury.

How could he not be when Chen Xue had been one of the most promising geniuses of the clan before he died unceremoniously?

Had he been alive, with the talent he showed, the next patriarch would have been automatic. It would not have mattered whether he gained the approval of the supreme elders or not, the fact that he had received the recognition of their clan founder, Chen Fu was more than enough to guarantee him the spot of clan patriarch when he came of age. But, alas, he died.

"More or less..." answered Shen Mu.

"What do you mean, more or less? Did you or did you not kill Chen Xue?" asked Chen Zian, the limits of his patience close approaching.

Shen Mu looked at Chen Zian, then Chen Gutian whose gaze was completely cold and almost apathetic, before finally falling on Song Ba, who was already pale, but not from Shen Mu's reveal but for the explanation given earlier by Mei Xiling, the disciple of the Medical Saint Garden. Her testimony and explanation that left no loopholes had damned him already, and everybody in the courtroom knew it, especially, him. From then on, as the clock ran on, all he felt was an increasing dread of his impending fate.

Shen Mu couldn't help but sigh at the look of desperation and dejection, store owner Song Ba showed. In Red Maple Empire, while he was wary of the noble families, it wasn't to the point of being terrified of them. If push came to shove and he had to act, he would not hesitate to draw his fangs against them, but he couldn't say the same about the subsidiaries of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion. That identity alone was enough to strike terror in most and Shen Mu had been one of them.

Their personal abilities aside, the level of deterrent they had from being associated with the Golden Bamboo Pavilion was to the extent that most feared them even more than the royal family of the Red Maple Empire despite the latter having palace realm experts and countless cultivators under their control and the former having only a handful cultivators and those at the top being only in the core formation expert.

It was for this reason that those subsidiaries operated as kings in the Red Maple Empire, lording it over everyone within the Empire, including even the nobles of the Empire themselves, with their noses up the sky. About the only one they spared any though was their fellow peers and their relationship with one another was anything but cordial. Just like the noble families of the Red Maple Empire were constantly at each other's throats trying to devour, so were the subsidiaries of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion, and their competition could be said to have been more fierce and ruthless when compared to the one the noble families of the Red Maple Empire had.

At least when it came to the noble families, they kept each other in check, and also the royal family that stood above them, was even more so. Their feuds though occasionally spilled over to bystanders, it was more often than not restricted to members of these noble families, but the same couldn't be said of these subsidiaries.

Those subsidiaries treated the entire Red Maple Empire as its chessboard, and everyone in it as pawns in their game of dominance. Only the royal family seemed to be outside their game, but the rest, be it the major noble families to underground bosses like Shen Mu, to regular citizens..they were all pawns for them to use as they pleased.

The major noble families could at least resist being pawns to some extent, but when it came to people like Shen Mu and the rest, they had no option but to become pawns if they wanted to survive. But here they were, all equal under the might arm of the Order.

"Store owner Song Ba hired me to kill a few passengers, at the time he didn't reveal their true identities and only said they had some ties to the Chen family and had cheated him on some deal by using their relation with the Chen family.

The excuse was outrightly flimsy. Who would dare cheat the Red Flaming Lotus Alchemy Shop? Being associated with the Chen family is nowhere near enough to give someone such guts.

But I was in no position to ask any question not when he offered a tri-essence elysium clover that was 20,000 years old and a chance to consult one of the executives of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion to offer pointers in my cultivation.

The fact that the request was made by someone from a subsidiary of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion already made it difficult for me to refuse and the two things he offered, with my stagnated realm, turned the situation impossible to reject.

Maybe that is why he brought the request to me in the first place instead of the other underworld organizations around or using his connections. He knew I was timid and desperate enough to accept..." said Shen Mu.

Yang Qing agreed with his assessment. For someone whose cultivation realm has stagnated even one who hasn't, most peak core formation experts, to quasi palace realm experts would do anything to get their hands on the tri-essence elysium clover which was a monarch-grade natural dao treasure.

It was a clover that formed three petals which over time condensed dew drops on each petal that were condensed liquified forms of dao. The type of dao contained within the three petals was the same in each petal, but it varied from clover to clover. One clover would have condensed dew drops containing the dao of illusions through water, while another would contain the dao of regeneration through the wood element.

The type of dao formed by the clover was ultimately up to chance and wasn't something one could predict. Using the clover was simple, as one only needed to place the petals on their lips which would dissolve upon contact, releasing the dao dew and essence within in the process.

For peak-stage core formation experts or long-stagnated quasi-palace realm experts, that essence would give them the impetus needed to take the step forward by giving them a small dose of concentrated dao insights contained in the dao dew essence. How much they harvested, or how great a step they took was ultimately dependent on their powers of comprehension. If they were lacking in that regard, then no matter how many petals they consumed, the dao dew essence it contained would be lost on them, but if they had decent powers of comprehension, then even a single petal would be more than enough to help them take that giant step into the palace realm.

The petals of the tri-essence elysium clover were nothing more than a key and not a guarantee, but it was precious nonetheless, as it offered a chance to enter the doors on the other side and Yang Qing could see why someone like Shen Mu would agree to Store Owner's Song Ba's request.

"So after he made the request, even though I had my reservations about the request because of how vague he was acting with the details, I decided to go through, but I couldn't shake the feeling of the oddness of it all, especially, with how cagey he was.

Ultimately unwilling to do the deed myself, I hired an assassin organization by the name of Fog Cloaks Assassins to do the job. I fed them the information Owner Song Ba had given me which included travel plans, the ferry they'd use, the route, the targets which were everybody on that ferry, and their skills and cultivation bases.

Thinking back, I should have been suspicious of how thorough he had been with the information he provided about them, but back then I chalked it up to his extensive intelligence network as a seasoned merchant.

Knowing their unconscious fighting habits should have been a dead giveaway that something was off. No matter how developed his intelligence network was, he should not have known the tell signs they had when they transitioned from defense to attack, or feigning an attack, or all the trump cards they had on them.

It was so thorough that the Fog Cloaks Assassins even suspected I was laying a trap for them with how detailed the information had been. In the end, I had to tell them it was a job Owner Song Ba had requested for them to agree to go through with it but in exchange, they said I had to be present as they did the job, and I also had to give them one of the recordings I had made of the deal, luckily I had made five copies, so trading one wasn't an issue and I also had to give them one petal of the tri-

essence elysium clover.

Because of the information provided, the assassination went on smoothly. Not a single person from that ferry left alive..." Shen Mu paused as his eyes fell on Chen Zian and Chen Gutian.

"At the time, I didn't know who it was, though even if I did, with how desperate I was, I honestly don't know if I would have been able to resist the temptation.

But I truly didn't know the real identity of who would be on that ferry. Your son and the rest used fake names and the fight itself was finished quickly tha.. because of the information provided. They didn't have a chance to fight back.

It was only later when I came back and saw the uproar that came from his death that I realized the friends of the Chen family who cheated Song Ba were none other than Chen Xue and his guards.

But by the time I realized it, it was already too late, the damage had been done, a fact that Owner Song Ba used to keep me tightly under his control. Same as how I recorded the whole thing, he had a recording except his was of me striking a deal with the Fog Cloaks Assassin.

They sold me out and even doctored the recording to make it seem that I was the instigator of the whole thing. Owner Song Ba made me an offer, as long as I did jobs for him, and told him of the deals I made with the Chen family, as he already knew I had some dealings with some of them, then the recording would never see the light of day.

With no other choice, I agreed. Other than the information I fed him on the dealings I had, he never asked anything else of me.. though I had a feeling sometime in the near future, he would have, given how tense things had got between him and the owner of the Earthvine Restaurant.

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