Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing poured a sliver of his spiritual essence into Bai Chen's jade slip, allowing its contents to play in his mind.

The first piece of information to hit him was Bai Chen's age and cultivation realm. At 1,086 years old, Bai Chen was a fifth-stage Palace Realm expert. Yang Qing's earlier estimation of his strength had been close—he had pegged him to be at the fourth stage from seeing him briefly in action at the ferry, which would have been accurate if the evaluation had been made a year earlier. Bai Chen had only broken through to the fifth stage nine months ago.

After noting his age, Yang Qing's interest shifted to the details of Bai Chen's formative years. The records of his early childhood, from infancy to the age of 12, were sparse. They only mentioned that he was the son of a merchant who had perished during a succession battle for control of the family business.

The merchant company was sizable by any standard, both in wealth and influence. The report suggested that, if ranked, it would have been classified as a mid-tier Rank Three organization—respectable, though not exceptional, within that grade.

The stakes in the succession battle were high, and the resulting conflict was a bloody one. Eight contenders vied for control: five were the children of the company's aging leader, whose numbered days had necessitated the need for a successor, while the remaining three were his personal disciples.

On paper, a succession battle between the eight individuals, many would have expected it to favor the descendants rather than the disciples, since in the end, blood still speaks volumes in certain matters, especially in matters of succession, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Those familiar with how true merchants operated would never make such an assumption. A genuine merchant was someone who never accepted a loss, making them ruthlessly pragmatic individuals. They wouldn't hesitate to sever even their own appendage if it meant avoiding a loss or securing a profit. This principle was ruthlessly applied in the succession battle of that merchant company.

The leader of the company leveled the playing field so that only the truly worthy would prevail. He cared little whether his children perished in the process or whether the personal disciples he had painstakingly nurtured and invested in were sacrificed. To him, their lives held value only insofar as they could protect or advance his true legacy—the merchant company itself.

This cold pragmatism wasn't unique to merchants. Sects, ancient clans, kingdoms, and empires—any organization with a long history—often displayed the same ruthless detachment. Individual lives were dispensable as long as the overarching legacy could be preserved or enhanced.

With all contenders starting on equal footing, the battle for succession quickly turned bloody.

There was a common saying: a father begets his son, and a master influences the habits of his disciples.

Under a calculating, detached, and ruthless father and master, it was no surprise that the eight contenders reflected those very traits. They didn't hesitate to devour one another, holding nothing back in their bid for supremacy.

Bai Chen's father had been one of the three personal disciples and had been slated as one of the favorites to emerge victorious due to his performances. He had eliminated one of his fellow disciples and two of his master's children very early in, but ultimately he still fell short as he got killed himself, along with his wife and those loyal to him

Yet, despite his calculated and ruthless nature, Bai Chen's father differed from his master in one crucial way: he cared deeply for his child. While the merchant leader saw his children and disciples as tools for ensuring the company's survival, Bai Chen's father had a softer side that prioritized his son's well-being.

He only had one child, Bai Chen. During the succession battle, he went to great lengths to ensure his child's safety, entrusting Bai Chen to someone in a place his competitors would never think to look.

As Yang Qing read through the slip, he nodded in agreement. The location Bai Chen's father had chosen to hide his son was one of the most dangerous places for cultivators, especially human cultivators—the Green Fog Region, Haishi's and Bolin's old stomping grounds.

The Green Fog Region was an ideal place to hide someone or something, particularly from humans, due to the countless spirit beasts that called it home and their overwhelming strength. However, those same factors also made it a terrible hiding spot.

In Yang Qing's judgment, a perfect hiding place had to meet three conditions: it had to be unpredictable, well-concealed, and safe. While the Green Fog Region satisfied the first two, it failed catastrophically in the third. The region wasn't even safe for the spirit beasts that lived there, let alone an outsider and a human baby at that.

Most would see Bai Chen's father's decision as no different than offering his child to the spirit beasts as a meal, and they wouldn't be wrong—if he had gone there unprepared. But Bai Chen's father hadn't gone in blind.

There was a saying in the cultivation world: a local snake is sometimes mightier on its home turf than a visiting dragon. While impractical when considering their actual abilities, the saying carried a clear message.

For Bai Chen's father to even consider the Green Fog Region as a viable hiding place, he had to have a compelling reason—and one of those reasons was undoubtedly the "local snakes" of the Green Fog Region.

No one could better keep his son safe there than someone who had lived in the Green Fog Region their entire life and knew the ins and outs of survival in that treacherous place. The only question now was which of those "snakes" Bai Chen's father had entrusted his son to.

If Yang Qing had come into this situation without certain pieces of information and suspicions, he would have assumed the "snake" Bai Chen's father chose was one of the human organizations operating in the region.

Human organizations in the Green Fog Region were rare, which was understandable given the nature of the place. Yet, despite the countless lethal spirit beasts that swarmed the area, there was still a human presence, albeit a small one. Case in point, the Green Fog Swamp Sect—Peng Zhen's sect—which had called the region home for the past 11,000 years.

Despite the overwhelming dangers, the sect had managed to carve out a place for itself and endure for over ten thousand years. They weren't the only ones, either. While their numbers were not large, other human organizations existed in the region.

From what Yang Qing had read, there were about 30 recorded and ranked organizations in the Green Fog Region. That might not seem like much in other contexts, but for a place as perilous as this, it was a significant number.

With that information, it would have been easy for anyone to assume Bai Chen's father would have likely entrusted the protection of his child to a human cultivator or organization based there. But he didn't. He entrusted his child to a spirit beast instead, and it came as no surprise to Yang Qing when he read the species of the spirit beast in question.

It was a bluefin spine-tailed swift bird.

Hiding his child in the Green Fog Region and entrusting said child to a spirit beast, no less, made it the perfect hiding spot.

Few would think to look there, and even fewer would suspect that the child would be under the protection of a spirit beast. In the unlikely event that someone insightful or capable enough pieced it together, they were even less likely to act, considering the dangers of the place.

Targeting a human in that place was already hard enough, let alone targeting a spirit beast.

Yang Qing's eyes couldn't help but sparkle with interest as he wondered how Bai Chen's father had managed to pull such a thing off. Luckily for him, he didn't have to read too far down to find out.

It turned out that, on top of being a capable merchant, Bai Chen's father had been a gifted alchemist. From what was listed in the slip, when he was alive, he had already touched the realms of blue grade.

However, the report insinuated he had kept that breakthrough a secret from his master, fellow disciples, and the rest of the merchant company. Everyone in there assumed him to be a top-tier orange-grade alchemist.

This made Yang Qing curious as to why he kept it a secret. If he had revealed his talents, maybe his master would have given him the reigns to the company without a fight, after all, a blue-grade alchemist was a valuable asset wherever they went.

Yet Bai Chen's father had kept it a secret from all except his secret investors, which was yet another detail that came as no surprise to Yang Qing when he read their name. It answered one of the few questions he had about Bai Chen.

The secret investor mentioned in the slip was the Gold Earth Bank.

Ever since he stumbled onto Bai Chen's missing case and the details involved, there were a few curiosities that jumped at him and one of them was how deep his relationship with the Gold Earth Bank went, as it didn't seem like a normal contractual one between an organization and its client.