"Fifty years ago," I whispered, the dim light of our office casting long, dramatic shadows across my face. "I was an old man. I had spent two centuries as a Litigation Master, amassing wealth, ruining young masters, and mastering the Heavenly Code. But physically? I was still a leaky bucket. A bottom-tier Foundation Establishment cultivator whose Dantian drained faster than a cracked teacup."
He Lu leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, completely enthralled. Even the goat had stopped chewing its paper to listen.
"I had accepted my fate," I rasped, packing a fresh pinch of cheap tobacco into my pipe. "I believed the door to higher cultivation was permanently locked. Until... she walked into my office."
"A client?" He Lu asked.
"Not just a client. A force of nature," I said, my eyes growing distant and misty. "Her name was Fairy Zhan. They called her the Blood-Soaked Blade of the Northern Wastes. She was a rogue bounty hunter. Seven feet tall, scarred, and built like a siege engine. She had just spent seven consecutive days and nights hunting a demonic sand-worm through the deepest, hottest deserts of the province."
I held up a single finger, emphasizing the gravity of the timeline.
"Seven days, He Lu. No rest. No shelter. And absolutely no bathing."
He Lu blinked, his modern hygiene standards immediately causing him to visibly recoil. "Oh, Dao..."
"She came to me because during the hunt, she had accidentally cleaved an entire luxury tavern in half, and the Golden Coin Sect was suing her for property damage," I explained smoothly. "She had no spirit stones. She offered me beast cores, weapons, even her own services as a bodyguard. But as I sat across from her, my Hollow Meridian twitched. My Dantian... it resonated."
I closed my eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath.
"She was wearing heavy leather armor that hadn't been unbuckled in a week. The ambient Qi around her was so thick, so heavily saturated with the sheer, unadulterated musk of her survival, that it was practically a liquid. I didn't want her beast cores. I looked at her, and I demanded the only retainer that made sense."
"The... the gusset," He Lu whispered in horror.
"I told her it was for the Oopsie-Daisy precedent," I said, a dark, shameless chuckle escaping my lips. "I told her I needed to analyze the 'psychic stress-imprint' of her undergarments to prove she wasn't in her right mind when she destroyed the tavern. She thought I was a madman. But she was desperate. She stepped into the back room, unlaced her armor, and handed it to me."
I slowly opened my eyes, locking my gaze onto He Lu. The atmosphere in the room grew terrifyingly heavy. The air pressure dropped.
"She left the office. I locked the door. I walked to the center of the room and slowly lowered myself to the floor, crossing my legs into the supreme, meditative Lotus Position."
I raised my hands, demonstrating the pose for my Junior Associate.
"With my right hand, I gently pinched the stiffened fabric between my thumb and index finger, forming the sacred Mudra of Absolute Acceptance. My left hand flattened perfectly beneath it, hovering in the air like a smooth jade pedestal supporting an ancient, holy relic."
"Like a Buddha," He Lu whispered, his eyes wide.
"Exactly like a Buddha," I nodded gravely. "I sat in perfect, motionless equilibrium. I brought the desert-seasoned garment to my nose. I closed my eyes. And I inhaled."
He Lu gripped the edges of his stool, his knuckles turning white.
"I breathed in," I rumbled, my voice dropping to an ancient, echoing bass. "It was not just a scent. It was a physical strike to the soul. It possessed staggering terroir. Notes of iron, sun-baked leather, desperate evasion, and the heavy, fermented musk of absolute, unapologetic survival. And the moment that heavy Yin-sweat hit my lungs... the Heavens answered."
I stood up, my arms spreading wide.
"The ambient Qi in the room didn't just react; it achieved absolute, degenerate resonance! A massive, glowing golden Mandala materialized directly behind my head, spinning with the slow, majestic weight of the cosmos! Ancient Daoist runes flared to life, rotating rapidly around my wrists like glowing bracelets of pure energy!"
"No way," He Lu gasped, visualizing the sheer, cinematic absurdity of the moment.
"Yes way!" I roared, the ambient Qi in our current office suddenly flaring to life, rattling the teacups and blowing He Lu's hair back. "At the center of my stomach, a glowing, three-dimensional Yin-Yang symbol projected outward, spinning violently! For two hundred years, my wind-attribute Qi had leaked out of my body. But the sheer, unapologetic viscosity of Fairy Zhan's week-old, fermented Yin-sweat... it was heavy. It was thick! It acted as a spiritual caulk!"
I slammed my fist against my chest.
"The heavy Yin-musk sank directly into my Dantian and completely sealed the leaks in my meridian! It coated the walls of my spiritual lake with the unyielding grease of the Northern Wastes! The wind could no longer escape! The bucket was patched!"
He Lu threw his hands in the air, his mind completely broken by the physics of my breakthrough. "You fixed a genetic cultivation defect with the smell of swamp-ass while glowing like a deity?!"
"I achieved the Dao of the Unwashed!" I bellowed. "The moment the leak was sealed, two hundred years of stagnant, trapped wind-Qi suddenly pressurized! My Foundation crystallized! The sky above the red-light district turned pitch black!"
"The Tribulation!"
"A bolt of crimson lightning tore through the roof of my office, aiming directly for the top of my head! The Heavens were trying to strike me down for my perversion! But I remained in my glowing Buddha pose, and I simply held up the stiffened, week-old gusset!"
"The lightning hit the gusset?!"
"And was instantly grounded by the sheer density of its earthly musk!" I laughed, a booming, maniacal sound that echoed off the walls. "I absorbed the tribulation! The Mandala behind my head shattered into a million points of golden light! In a single breath, I broke through the early stage. Then the middle stage. Then the late stage. I reached the absolute Peak of Foundation Establishment in three seconds!"
I slowly lowered my arms. The wind died down. The oppressive, terrifying aura in the room dissipated, leaving only the faint smell of cabbage and old tobacco.
I sat back down on my stool, casually picking up my pipe.
"I won her case, of course," I said smoothly, dusting off my sleeves. "And from that day forward, I understood the truth. Orthodox cultivation is a scam designed to keep the masses poor. True power lies in the loopholes. The Heavens are just a bureaucracy, He Lu. And every bureaucracy has a back door."
I pointed my pipe at him.
"That is why I demand the sweaty silks, the torn bindings, the Amazonian boots. I am not merely a degenerate, Junior Associate. I am performing routine maintenance on my soul. I am keeping the caulk fresh."
He Lu sat on his stool in absolute, stunned silence. His mouth opened, then closed. He looked at the massive, sweaty leather boot of Fairy Sno-Snu sitting on my desk. He looked back at me.
His modern, logical brain was desperately trying to reconcile the epic, soaring highs of a glowing, Mandala-wielding martial arts breakthrough with the lowest, most depraved depths of human fetishism.
Finally, He Lu took a deep breath. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead.
"Boss," He Lu whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of profound respect and utter disgust. "That is... the most inspiring, horrifying, legally questionable thing I have ever heard in my entire life."
I smiled my missing-tooth smile. "Enlightenment is rarely pretty, boy."
He Lu looked down at his own smooth, un-calloused hands. He clenched them into fists. A new fire burned in his eyes—a dark, cynical, thoroughly corrupted fire.
"So," He Lu said, his voice hardening. "If orthodox cultivation is a lie... and the Heavens are just a corrupt legal system..."
"Yes?" I prompted.
"Then I don't need a Flawless Meridian to survive in this world," He Lu declared, standing up and puffing out his chest. "I just need to find my own loophole. If you can reach Peak Foundation Establishment by striking a Buddha pose and huffing a bounty hunter's laundry... then I can conquer this entire realm by weaponizing the Daoist Millennium Copyright Act."
I leaned back, a genuine smile of pride crossing my face. The boy was finally starting to understand.
"Well spoken, Junior Associate," I rasped, tossing him a freshly inked legal scroll. "Now. Go fetch the goat. We have two days before Magistrate Chen returns from his mental health retreat, and we need to prepare our opening arguments. Scholar Kon-Trol-C is about to learn what happens when you plagiarize the Reversed Lotus Helicopter."