Daily life of a cultivation judge

That desperation drove him to the doors of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion. As a matter of fact, they were the ones who came to him, citing their feud with the Zou clan as the reason for their help.

They did offer the Red Maple Empire to come under their umbrella as one of their subordinates. The terms of subordination were highly lucrative, but Duan Hu's pride and fear would not let him, and thus they settled on a loose partnership in which the Red Maple Empire would borrow just the name of the Golden Bamboo Pavilion and the promise that if for any reason the Zou clan became directly involved in their war against the Five Clovers Kingdom, then the Golden Bamboo Pavilion would intervene.

In exchange for borrowing their name, the Empire would firstly allow the pavilion to open a branch within their territory along with other subsidiaries, then the others were tributes and special discounts offered to the Pavilion for the various spiritual herbs they produced, especially the herbs grown in the core region of their territory, where the red maple spirit lair had been.

In addition, the pavilion also asked for one legacy from the red maple spirit. Other than pouring its life and nature essence into their ancestor along with its insights, it also left her the bulk of the treasures it had amassed. The Golden Bamboo Pavilion asked for the chance to pick one treasure from the pile, and they had to be the one to choose it.

Duan Hu had been reluctant to agree to that part of the deal until the envoy promised they would not take any cultivation arts or artifacts. They would only be taking a single item, and it was one of the founders who would be doing it. If he didn't find anything to his liking, he would leave the pile untouched and the deal would still be considered fulfilled.

Hearing that one of the domain leaders would be involved, Duan Hu had no option but to agree. He had no idea which leader came, or when he came, only that a few days after that, there was a continent-wide announcement that the Golden Bamboo Pavilion was in partnership with the Red Maple Empire.

He may have not known when the leader came but as someone who knew every single treasure within that pile, he knew what was taken. The item taken was a weathered sword that looked to have been made of some sort of jade material. But its luster was faded and looked no different than a weathered clay sword.

Before Duan Hu broke through to the palace realm, that sword never stood out to him and just looked like any regular old junk that had suffered the wear and tear of time.

It was only after he reached the second stage of the palace realm, that he felt there was something weird about it. Though the feeling was always fleeting and ephemeral, it sometimes gave him the sensation he felt when he faced his tribulation when breaking through to the palace realm. He always felt like he was staring into that calamitous cloud. The feeling wasn't as distinctive as the real thing and was subtle, and it didn't appear often. He only felt that way on the nights the clouds were heavy.

Over the years he did try to see if he could uncover any mysteries but other than that weird sensation he discovered nothing of note from it. When he realized that was what the founder had taken, other than slight curiosity about what mysteries it held, he wasn't all too bothered that was what was taken.

In fact, he felt relieved. Whatever mysteries the sword may or may not have held mattered little to him, especially when it seemed impossible for him to decipher those mysteries. He would rather trade it for tangible benefits, like gaining a partnership with a rank two organization like the Golden Bamboo Pavilion. Everything else was immaterial. He would not gamble the future of his clan and the empire on the potential of an unknown, not when they were staring down the barrel of possible eradication.

Thus, the partnership was formed. The branch was created, and the subsidiaries soon swarmed his cities. With it already announced, the return to the Xin faction's momentum was halted.

He may have succeeded in averting the fate he feared would await them if they went back, but in exchange he had brought another, right to their doorstep. As the weaker party in the partnership, he knew they would always be at a disadvantage with the Pavilion.

They needed the Pavilion's name for protection against the Zou family, but the Pavilion didn't need them. It was the reason he ended up turning a blind eye to the subsidiaries and all the things they did, and even getting personally involved in covering up their misdeeds.

The reason he tried to form a deep friendship with Yao De the branch manager who got assigned to the empire was in the hopes of leveraging that friendship to at least improve the circumstances a bit.

But looking at Wu Mingli, his mother, hearing his case, there were already millions of others in the empire experiencing a similar fate. Before he made the deal he had resolved himself to sacrifice anything and do whatever it took to ensure the Duan family and the Red Maple Empire remained standing.

But with how things devolved, he couldn't help but feel rather than saving it, he had accelerated the rate of decline of the Empire.

He couldn't help but sigh as he wondered what would be next for him, his clan, and the empire. Even with one of the founders alive, would he be able to undo the rot that had already seeped into every inch of the empire?

Only now, did he dare admit it to himself that the empire was genuinely and truly broken.

"Maybe it might be too broken to restore.."