Daily life of a cultivation judge-Chapter 934: The allure of a story

Still not satisfied with the meal he brought back for Deng Wei, and Gong Jie, Yang Qing still felt famished as he rubbed his stomach as he was leaving his chambers.

"It’s to be expected considering how long the case took," Yang Qing murmured as he used the teleportation array right outside his doorstep to teleport to the hallway.

As he exited the Black Medallion Tower, he paused, turned back, and craned his neck, as he took the massive building radiating a solemn and majestic aura.

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A flicker of worry flashed in his eyes followed by a sigh.

"I hope my journey as a palace court judge won’t be this tiresome," Yang Qing wearily said as he turned away, making his way to the Thousands Flavor Restaurant.

Some part of him couldn’t help but wonder if he was cursed. Ever since the day of his promotion, nothing seemed to quite go as he had envisioned, and when he thought about the events, it didn’t just start on the day of his ceremony, but a few months before that when Lei Weiyuan caught his little ruse.

He faked when he broke through which the old fiend caught on and he got slapped with a fine and no payment and the three months he stole got slapped on him and his ceremony got pushed back as a result of it.

If it only ended there, it wouldn’t have been that bad. The cases in the superior core courts were not that many, and with his experience and even increase in his cultivation realm , he handled them just as easily and as a bonus he got to hang around Mao Mao in close quarters for the better part of the day.

And as far as good things go, other than Mao Yunru, he even managed to snag a few delicious products from one of the cases, the Green Fog Swamp Sect case to be specific. He landed a few tonnes of spiritual rice produced in the rich region, and Feng Xin managed to bag a babirusa which produced some of the tastiest pork dishes he had ever sampled. Haishi and Bolin joining the team were also an added advantage.

It was during that week that he truly believed that his luck was finally turning for the best. Things were looking up for him and in a few days, one of his goals would be partly done with his promotion to the outerpalace courts.

However his old enemy had other plans for him as he sent him outside to do evaluations, subjecting him to one of his worst fears, leaving the protection of the comfy gates of the Order.

It was only for three days, but the ghosts of those three days haunted him to date. On his first stop, Ellie got attacked which triggered the case he had been handling for the past day and a half and unearthed a mountain load of grievances from clan members arranging each other’s assassination, to others harboring pills slaves and human cauldrons and to emperors selling out their own people.

All manner of ugliness was unearthed and he also ended up in conflict with a crazy domain expert and potentially a few others all because of the case.

The troubles didn’t just stop there as he ended up stumbling onto a cold yin lake that housed a dense crab that had horrible judgment in opponents and a crippled core formation cultivator looking to die. Another troublesome case was born of it and he had to decimate an entire sect as a result of it and he and those who joined him all almost got murdered in the process had one of the vice presidents, and the head of inquisitors not appeared.

The events that transpired ended up shaking him so horribly that he needed the assistance of a saint-grade tree to get through it. The positive was he at least got stronger because of it, but while getting better, another event hit him in the middle when something attacked him when he was making rounds at the Medical Valley which caused an inadvertent reaction with his physique.

He was unconscious for a week and couldn’t access his physique for a month, but at least he managed to unlock a few mysteries about his physique in its absence and also refined his understanding on some of his cultivation arts and spells without his physique. Even though he reaped a lot from it, to say he wasn’t worried the whole time would have been a lie.

Some part of him kept wondering what if it became permanent, what if he lost his Yin Yang jade nature bones peerless jade physique? Would he be able to move on? How impacted would he be?

With what it took to acquire it, Yang Qing felt if he lost it permanently he would have never been the same. He wasn’t sure if that was something he could quite recover from easily.

Luckily he didn’t get to live out that grim worry as his physique came back and with improvements at that as he felt a depth to it that was not there. But before he could celebrate his recovery, the Order came knocking again and made him go face to face with his fears again by asking him to take the post as a branch chief, something he had sworn never to do, no matter what was offered.

It turned out that his convictions on the matter were not as deep as he thought and he had a price and the old geezers at the Judicial Review Committee knew exactly what to pay to sucker him into the role and suckered he got.

Though Yang Qing has repetitively told himself that the only reason he agreed to the posting wasn’t because he was someone who could easily be bought, but rather he agreed to it because of his inviolable principles, his loyalty to his friend Hao Da, and the rest from the Deer Mountain Branch who either got killed or injured.

His agreement for the posting had all to do with them and definitely nothing to do with the perks he was offered for the three weeks he was there. Whether that was true, not even Yang Qing knew.

His experience as a branch chief, putting aside the circumstance surrounding his posting, was not all that bad. A fact he intended to take to his grave lest the old geezers at that quaint bamboo cottage get ideas.

He got to relax, cultivate, research ancient tomes and a legacy art, the Order out of the vileness of its heart to ensure he actually remained there even hired a chef from the White Baobab Kingdom for him, so his meals were impeccable.

He also got to make interesting friendships in Mei Feng, the purple flower spore sycamore tree, who would definitely give him an earful for not picking her calls for the past two days, with him being heavily occupied with the case and all.

Through her they managed to get acquainted with some mysterious figure who if Yang Qing was told was an immortal, he would easily believe, otherwise who else gifts someone a wine gourd made out of empyrean world jade tree, a jade tree whose stature was just below the ten thousand dao leaf jade tree of the Jade Leaf Empire.

Then there was also the feat he pulled when he converted the pool in Mei Feng’s lair to have the densest and purest yin energy he has ever seen. In terms of quality that pond was the equivalent of a mature dragon vein in a sect, yet that mysterious figure casually pulled such a feat with a wave of his hand.

These were the feats of an immortal. Of course he had no basis for his guess and was probably blowing things out of proportion, but his intuition told him that figure was definitely an extraordinary person.

Other than Mei Feng, he managed to make another friend, in Gu Xing, the sacred flame swan, a rare spirit beast nurtured by the dao and who guarded, a rare place that Yang Qing never thought he would ever come across, the ancestral torch ground of spirit beast.

The experience with the graveyard was everything an archeologist junkee like him could dream about, along with getting acquainted with a rare spirit beast in Gu Xing. That friendship was something he hoped to never fall on Mao Yunru’s spiritual sense, otherwise who knows what crazy stories that gossip hoarder would cook up.

If he ignored the undercurrents in Deer Mountain Range and the things he uncovered, especially one that touched on how members of the Order got harmed, which had a few fingerprints from heinous organizations like the Blue Soul Flame Syndicate, his experience in Deer Mountain Range as a whole could be considered worthwhile.

He made friendships, he made strides in his cultivation, moving to the peak of the second stage of the palace realm, he met mysterious figures and rare beings, he ate good food, he only ever handled one case the whole time he was there, the schedule was his to decide, he got exposed to ancient secrets and history, which expanded his world view, when it came to the Bi Xie Empire, which Deer Mountain Range was originally a part of, and he also got to cultivate a life testament legacy art.

It was everything he could dream of if it wasn’t outside of the Order, but even with all that, those few positives couldn’t offset the little dread he felt in his heart. It has only been a little over six months since he became a palace court judge, and in that time he has almost died and has been face to face with every conceivable fear he had.

The exhaustion he felt in just these few months had already exceeded the accumulated fatigue during his time as a core court judge from the outer courts to the superior core courts.

Yes, he struggled when he first started when he faced the grim realities that the Order intended to work him like a dog, and his gamble in being a judge had been wrong, or when he handled his first executions, but the instant he stepped onto the outer palace court, his first order of business was a sect destruction to being a branch chief, to threatening a domain expert’s only child.

He couldn’t help but fear for his future. This was barely seven months in, what about a year in. Outer palace court wasn’t penning out as he had hoped it to be.

"Where are the easygoing cases, where is my semi-soft life? Is this happening to me because I keep cursing old Lei in the morning? Should I drop the ritual? " Yang Qing grumbled as he looked around him seeing cultivator of all walks of life walking in and out of the tower and other facilities around the compound, of which Order employees were mixed in.

They all had different expressions, some were serious, others looked leisurely, others were hopeful, others downcast, others angry and distraught, others fearful. Every single one of those faces and emotions had a story to it, and as much as Yang Qing hated troublesome matters, he couldn’t hide that deep down he has always been curious about the stories and the threads behind those faces and emotions, led to.

Deep down he always knew why he chose to become a judge and while the safety of the courtrooms had guided his decision, it was never what steered it.

That same thing was what kept him training with his grandfather despite the harrowing experience, or why he picked up Ma Yuan that night, entertained the Zou siblings, or went to the Deer Mountain Branch and kept roaming around the range despite the apparent dangers.

He just couldn’t hold himself back against the allure of a story. Every story was a mystery to uncover and whether he liked it or not, Mao Yunru had an insatiable lust for gossip, while he had one for mysteries.

Yang Qing couldn’t help but sigh in defeat as he felt the stirring interest in his heart.

He turned his gaze from the crowd around him, making his way to the Thousand Flavors Restaurant. Food was one of the few things that seemed to contain that wander lust in him, though he could argue food was a mystery too.

Every meal contained a story, from the ingredients used, how they were reared and harvested, down to the preparation of the chef. A good cook would take you on that journey from a single bite of the meals prepared by them.