Strongest Businessman of the Cultivation World

On a wintry night, a family of three was huddled together in their thatched hut. A thin male, who was also the head of the family, had his arms wrapped around his wife. They cuddled a young boy with black hair and greenish eyes between them, to shield him from the cold.

“Laozi, start a fire. We may not survive the night at this rate.”

The wife spoke, her teeth chattering. The thin gown she was wearing barely provided any warmth. The case for her husband and their child was not any better. The hair on their body stood erect while they shivered from the chilly breeze.

The husband hesitated to start a fire. Their hut was in a field full of dried ears of corn, ready for harvest. The roof above them was made of grass and the walls from dried husk.

One spark was all it would take to start a fire that would engulf everything around them.

“Laozi, the child is young. If he catches a cold what will we do?”

The wife looked at the three year old boy who was shivering. His green eyes also looked at his father with hope. A father’s heart could not bear to see his child cold.

He rubbed his hands and dug a hole in the ground inside the hut. Then he went outside and brought a few burning tinders and put them in the hole. Soon, the hut became warm and color returned to the face of the boy.

Lulled by the warmth and tired from the labor, the eyes of the man and the woman drooped. The tinders in the hole burned out and soon the morning arrived.

“Get to work! I want all the grain harvested by the evening!”

The loud shouts of the farm owner sounded through the field. All the farm hands in the periphery gathered immediately upon his call. Except for one family.

“Where are the Yuan’s?”

The servant of the noble asked other farmhands noticing their absence. Other families looked at each other for answers.

“Maybe they overslept. I will immediately go and bring them.

One of the older men answered the servant. He was the elder in the group of farmhands so he was treated as the leader by others.

The servant snorted and stopped the elder from leaving.

“Wait, here. I will go and punish those lazy bums myself.”

A lackey who was more arrogant than his master strode towards the hut in the distance. He kicked open the thatched door, nearly making the entire hut collapse.

“How dare you sleep when the Master himself has arrived?”

The servant roared, startling the family awake. His eyes went to the hole dug in the middle of the hut. When he saw the ash there, his eyes became cruel.

He picked up the thin man by his neck and yelled in his face.

“Bastard! How dare you light a fire in the Master’s field? Do you want to burn the entire crop this season? I should tell this to the Master.”

The Man was helpless before the servant. His face became pale at the accusations flung by the lackey. If the heartless noble came to know of this, he would definitely use this as an opportunity to take away their wages.

What would they do without the bag of grain they were supposed to receive? Their entire family would starve to death this winter.

Clasping his hands, the thin man begged for mercy.

“Please… Please spare us, lord. The young child was cold. He would’ve caught fever if not for the warmth. This will never happen again.”

The servant sneered. He looked at the woman shielding the child in her arms. She was thin and not to his taste. When he checked out the woman, he saw two green eyes glaring at him from her bosom.

He shoved the husband aside and grabbed at the child.

“Who are you glaring at, you brat? Should I sell your entire family to slave traders?”

The young boy did not answer but still glared at him fearlessly. The servant grew irked by his attitude. He raised his arm to slap the boy when the thin man grabbed his arm.

He could not believe the strength contained in the thin frame of the man. No matter how he tried to move his hand, it stayed in place.

“You dare?”

The servant roared. The thin male did not back down. Though he had stopped the servant, he knew there was no way he could go against the Master behind him.

“Lord Zhu, he is just a child. Why raise your hand on him? I will punish him appropriately for disrespecting you earlier.”

The servant once again tried to move his hand and then glared at the thin man. Understanding his meaning, the man released the servant’s hand from his vice grip.

The servant rubbed his wrist, where five distinct fingers marks had been imprinted. He glared at the family once and turned around to leave.

As the man watched the servant go farther, his face became colder.

“Laopo, we need to leave. We cannot stay here any longer.”

The wife was taken aback by his declaration. She quickly understood his reason. They were not naive enough to think that the servant would let it pass.

She quickly gathered their meager possessions as they prepared to flee. However, they were too late. They saw the figures of a few people aggressively come over.

Realizing they had no way to escape, the mother quickly brought her son to the well nearby. She made him sit in the pail used to draw water. The  young boy could not understand what was happening.

“Pei Yuan, stay hidden. Don’t make a noise, no matter what happens, okay?”

She spoke in a soft voice, holding the tiny shoulders of her son. Pei Yuan nodded in response.

“That’s my goodboy.”

She gently caressed his face and hugged him once before pushing the boy and the bucket into the well.

The wooden pail landed with a splash in the water, shocking the poor boy. He did not drown thanks to the rope attached to the pail but he could not climb up either.

Soon he heard the bad man from earlier loudly shout something. Then he heard a cry from his mother and then his father.

“No! Spare them! I am sorry. I am… Sorry. Mother…. Father….”

Pei Yuan cried from inside the well but his voice did not reach the cruel tormentors outside. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he wondered whether he would see his parents again.

The little boy filled with worry exhausted himself and soon his eyes closed and darkness engulfed him.

——-

“Mother…. Father….”

Xin Ruo heard Pei Yuan cry in the darkness. She looked at the outline of the teenage boy curled up in a corner.  Other kids were not doing any better.

It broke her heart to see the kids suffer but there was nothing she could do. This was their trial. They had to overcome it with their will.

She saw Pei Yuan quieten. It seemed as if he had woken up.

—–

Pei Yuan shivered as he woke up in the hideout. He was still surrounded by the despairing darkness. Many times he felt like giving up and ending his struggles.

Then he remembered his mother’s hopeful smile. He still had to find his parents. He still had to pay back the farmhands who had saved him from the well and helped him escape to the slums.

He had yet to repay Xin Ruo and Feng Yan for their protection; Ikasa for his grace and generosity. He had not even learned the dagger arts from Yin Ying!

Pei Yuan had many things to live for and merely losing his sense of vision and hearing could not force him over the edge.

“I want to see through this darkness. I want to pierce through this veil of silence.”

Pei Yuan’s eyes burned with fire. He sat down cross legged and focused on the Sense Realm Cultivation technique, Tame Your Senses

Surprisingly, his soul responded to his will on the first try.

Pei Yuan became aware of his Spiritual Body. The senses of his spirit were sealed. The translucent white spirit had its eyes shut. The young boy willed for them to open.

It was not easy. He only opened his physical body’s eyes the first few times. He could see nothing but darkness with them.

On his fifteenth try, his eyes opened and a white light flashed through them. He watched the world full of darkness be shaded with colors.

Pei Yuan concentrated on each color and slowly learned to distinguish objects based on the color of their energy.

Grayish energy meant rocks, greenish energy was from Hei Ying. Yan Xiao emitted vermillion energy and Chu Qing had white energy. He saw the outline of Luo Qiqi in dark yellow energy.

Pei Yuan slowly got up and walked out of their hideout and he was greeted by another world. As far as he could see, he saw the red colored energy from land.

The teen saw a blue outline approach him with an even darker blue dot near its chest. He raised his guard but quickly realized who it was.

The figure took his palm and wrote on it with her finger.

“Congratulations on awakening your Spiritual Vision.”