Daily life of a cultivation judge

Yang Qing couldn't but sigh in exasperation as he languidly made his way to his abode.

"Why does time always seem to fly on the last day of your vacation.."

Drinking with Dai Chen flew by so fast and it was already just a few minutes to sunrise by the time he was headed to his abode. Officially his vacation was over. When it started he never thought it would end so fast. Thirty days felt like an eternity to him, but that eternity sort of transformed into an instant.

It seemed like it was just the other day he was touring around the continent atop the bluefin ferry and now he was about to resume his daily routine of being worked to the bone. He could feel his soul and bones start lamenting as they faintly crumbled under the overbearing pressure of what awaited him.

"Maybe I should just retire, or ask the seniors at the Judicial Review Committee to employ me to take care of the courtyard there.." thought Yang Qing as he let out another sigh of resignation whilst enviously thinking what it would be like to lead a carefree retired life like those seniors at the committee.

Every time he went to see them, they were either drinking tea, gambling, playing go, trimming a bonsai plant, enjoying biscuits, or soaking in the sun.

When would he get to loaf around like that? He had no intention of waiting till he was old and grey.

"I am already in the palace courts. It's not as carefree as I expected it to be, but the cases are not that many. I will just continue rising up the ladder with my workload reducing in the process.

It won't be long before working and being in retirement will be no different from one another, except for the former, the stingy Order will still have to pay me in respect to my title at the time. I might as well just leach off them instead of retiring. It's the best form of vengeance I can give them for exploiting me so ruthlessly all this time.."

When he finished that thought, Yang Qing began laughing manically as he pictured his coffers filled for doing absolutely nothing.

The Order did allow one to retire, but they needed to achieve a certain level of merit points. Retiring did not mean one could leave the Order. It was less strict than a sect, but in some regards, the Order was no different from one, especially when it came to membership. Once one joined, it was for life, even after they retired, they were still part of the Order, and in case of emergencies, should the need arise, they could be called upon by the Order.

Administrator Mo Guang at the Deer Mountain Range Branch was a clear example. He was already retired, but with the accident that happened at the branch which left it inoperable due to a lack of personnel, as the available veteran, he was requested to volunteer to temporarily step into the role of administrator of the branch whilst also supporting Yang Qing who was an absolute novice as a branch chief.

It wasn't just Mo Guang, when he was a student, some of the classes Yang Qing had, were taught by retirees who stepped in when the Instructor in charge of the subject was absent for one reason or the other. Usually, their absence was cultivation-

related from a sudden epiphany, breaking through, or just heavily engaged in some research they were doing and were at a crucial point. In such cases, one of the retirees would be called upon to fill in.

Considering the huge number of merit points one required for their retirement to be approved,every single retiree was a treasure trove of wisdom born out of their rich experience. Being stand-in instructors was the best role for them.

As for why the Order would allow retirements despite being severely undermanned, it was to prevent an implosion from within its ranks. Considering the nature of their world and how ruthless it was, being a member of the Order was anything but easy. It takes a lot from someone and sometimes the cost becomes too much for one to carry.

For the Order, rather than take the risk of what might happen if more was added to those people than they could bear,they offer respite to them as an option. Even when one retires, the Order still continues to support them with resources, albeit the value is decreased from what they got whilst they were still in service. However, even reduced, it is still more than plentiful to wholesomely their growth at every level of their cultivation base.

It was one of the few things Yang Qing rather admired about them. One of his backup plans was to jump into retirement if he saw the caseloads were not as few as he imagined as he moved up the ladder but before he considered it, he wanted to squeeze as much as he could from them to have a good nest egg.

He had a good life to maintain and a few thieving parasites in Ellie and the Celestial Nesting Weaver to support, if he was not careful, those two would bleed them dry. It wasn't would, they would definitely bleed him dry and when it came to the two at least Ellie would try and be sneaky about it, but when it came to the Celestial nesting weaver, it would gloatingly do it in the open and even mock him for it as it carved him up to his last penny.

Yang Qing could feel his blood boiling at the thought of it. If he wanted to retire comfortably, he could only do it after he had stepped into the outer domain courts at least. At that stage, whatever his earnings were aside, he would be in the domain realm, even retired, he would have a lot of other avenues for earning such as taking a small dive in the Millionsfold Treasure Ocean and scooping out a few valuables here and there that would live him and his parasites set for life.

Yang Qing found himself chuckling as he shook his head,

"It's still too early to think about these things. I need to focus on surviving my first case back, from the way Yu Gen and Xia Ting reacted when I asked them about it, It looks like it will be a handful...Huh, is that? I must be losing it.."