Daily life of a cultivation judge



Since the noises were still chaotic, Zou Liqin decided to isolate each individual noise once she had confirmed their order by wholly focusing on one type of animal noise. She started with the Bull. Just like the swallow, at first, the noises seemed like they came from all over the place and came from many bulls. With her prior experiences, she calmed her heart and focused her ears on those sounds until the number was reduced to just one Bull, and the direction of the origin of the voice was highlighted.

Just like that, she isolated each and every animal voice she heard, from the Bull to the goat, as she made sure to confirm the direction each noise was heard from.

Once she was done, she opened her eyes and picked up the broken branch, and used it to draw a circle on the ground she had dug up earlier. She divided that circle into ten segments, and in each segment, she wrote the name of an animal. She started with the swallow, then moved on to the Bull, crane, cricket, heron, wolf, cicada, katydid, swan, and finally, the goat.

Once she was done drawing, she looked it over once more to confirm everything was in the right place and then sat in silent contemplation as she examined the drawing.

"Mmh, some of these noises overlap in direction, even though only just. 

Now how do I go about using them? Is there anything more to them other than direction?

As it stands, it still doesn't give a concrete direction on what I should do," muttered Zou Liqin as she cupped her chin in her palms while tracing her stick on the circle.

The noises she heard only gave her random directions that she still couldn't make use of. If she only followed the direction, she would end up in circles. She could only hope the clues she had were sufficient enough to shine a light on the next step.

She muttered to herself as she added notes around the map, and almost thirty minutes went by without her moving.

"Did I miss something?" muttered Zou Liqin when she saw even after an hour, she didn't seem like she was any close to figuring out what to do next.

"Maybe I did. It can't hurt to try again," she said as she closed her eyes in preparation to discern those noises again.

One minute, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, till finally twenty minutes passed by when Zou Liqin opened her eyes in shock.

"I can't hear them!" she yelled in shock, almost ruining her drawing as she hurriedly woke up.

"No, no, no, there must be something wrong."

Unwilling to believe that the animal noises she had just heard before had disappeared, she once again sat back in almost silent meditation to try and see if she could hear them again. 

Ten minutes pass by with nothing but the breathing sounds of Zou Yi and the rest to keep her company.

She almost went into a panic again but quickly calmed herself down as she told herself to work with what she had. She struggled at first but was quick to find her rhythm as she wrote down every single idea that came to mind.

Once she was satisfied, she had written everything. She immediately proceeded to evaluate her ideas, as she debunked which were unfeasible and separated them from which were feasible. From the feasible ones, she meticulously went on to evaluate each and every one on their merits before she finally settled on the one with the most merits, which was to follow the noises.

With this as her focus, she calmed her mind as she recalled everything she had heard. It wasn't too difficult for her to do so. Luckily not much time had passed by since she heard the animal noises, and her ability to recall even the minute of details was one of her strongest qualities.

Time slowly passed, with the wind brushing on Zou Liqin as she silently dissected each and every voice she heard within her mind.

"The frequencies, that's it!" Zou Liqin hurriedly said as she got up and started scribbling numbers over each animal within the circle.

Swallow had (13) next to it, Bull had (8), Crane had (7), Cricket had (10), Heron had (14), Wolf had (21), Cicada had (3), Katydid had (5), Swan had (9), and lastly goat had (6).

Zou Liqin looked over the numbers once more as she did mental calculations of her own and muttered,

"96."

"I Should start off from there," she said as she pointed in the direction she had the swallow noises from.

Just like before, she grabbed the coat containing the trio in one hand while the other held a mallet and walked in the west direction of where she was, which she had deemed as the area she had heard the swallow noises coming from.

Once she was at the boundary of the grassland with the trees, she took a deep breath with eagerness in her step as she walked forward while counting numbers with every step she took.

"1…. 2...3…." 

She slowly walked forward, counting every step she took from the moment her feet left the patch of grassland.

"Huh!! Why am I here again?! It's barely been ten steps…" yelled Zou Liqin in disbelief when she found herself in the same patch of grassland.

"No, the direction is right," she said as she recalled the noises the in her mind.

"Was the order wrong?" she wondered.

"Let's try the goat," she said as she took the southeast direction and started counting her steps the moment her feet left the grassland.

"Barely three steps," said Zou Liqin in frustration when she felt the scenery change, and she was once more back at the grassland.

"I'm missing something…"

After two failures, it was already evident to her that her process was wrong. Whatever confidence she had built from deciphering the noises was quickly crumbling.

She stood in utter silence as she went over everything in her head. It didn't take long before a look of realization hit her.

"I hope this works," she said as she fastened the coat holding Zou Yi and the rest to herself and walked in the direction she had started from, which was the direction the swallow noises came from.