Wang Junwei was in his office that morning when the message came.
His younger brother was in trouble again. Asking for help. As usual.
Junwei didn''t hesitate. He sent twenty men to handle it.
The n had been in ce for years-decades, really.
His little brother would enter the kitchen as a lowly servant. He would keep his head down. Endure the humiliation. Work harder than everyone else. Climb step by step until he became a numbered servant-someone trusted, someone with direct ess to the core herbs.
That was the key.
Once he reached that position, he would control the flow.
Then, little by little, he would begin taking small portions of rare herbs. Nothing obvious. Nothing reckless. Just enough to stay invisible.
Small amounts. Regrly.
Everything had been arranged.
Then Alex appeared.
And in a single move, he took the ninth position in the kitchen.
That was when things began to unravel.
Junwei was still thinking about damage control when his office door exploded inward with a violent crash.
The wood splintered.
"Wang Junwei!"
Alex stepped through the wrecked doorway like a storm breaking into a house.
"Where do you keep your dirty record books?"
The question hit like a de.
For less than half a second-barely a flicker-Junwei''s eyes shifted toward the right side of his bookshelf.
Just a reflex.
Just instinct.
But it was enough.
Gaia recorded it.
The micro-movement. The angle. The tension in his shoulder. The dtion in his pupils.
His body had betrayed him.
Alex didn''t hesitate. He followed the trajectory Gaia projected in his mind and walked straight to the bookshelf.
"Get out of my office!" Junwei roared.
He lunged forward, positioning himself between Alex and the shelf. His sword shed out of its scabbard in one smooth motion.
He was at the Fifth Level of Qi Condensation.
In the sect, that meant power. Authority.
But Alex had Gaia.
ws appeared in Junwei''s stance like cracks in ss.
Weight imbnce. Guard too high. Shoulder tight.
Alex lifted his iron wok.
And brought it down.
The impact thundered through the room.
Junwei felt a crushing force m into his shoulder and arm from above. Bone snapped. Muscles tore. Pain detonated through his body.
He crashed to the floor.
The wooden boards cracked beneath him.
"Who-who are you?!" Junwei screamed, clutching his shattered shoulder, his sword ttering uselessly beside him.
Alex didn''t even look at him.
"I just want to stay peacefully in the kitchen,” he said calmly.
His hands were already moving, pulling books from the shelf one by one.
He flipped them open. Gaia scanned the contents instantly.
Wrong.
Alex tossed it aside.
Next one.
Wrong.
Thrown away.
"But your little brother keeps harassing me,” Alex continued, voice steady, almost
bored. "I had no choice but to protect my ce in the kitchen."
Book after book hit the floor.
With every thud, Wang Junwei''s face grew paler.
Sweat slid down his temple.
"Wait wait!" Junwei gasped. "If this is about my brother, I''ll stop him. I''ll tell him to quit the kitchen. He won''t bother you again!"
"Toote."
Alex''s voice was t.
Gaia highlighted something.
At the back of the lowest shelf-barely visible—a hairline crack traced along the wood. So faint no human eye would notice. But Gaia calcted the depth. The hollow space behind it.
Hiddenpartment.
Alex stepped forward and knocked on the panel.
The sound was wrong.
Hollow.
He drew back his fist and smashed it forward.
The wooden cover shattered inward, revealing a small concealed door built into the
wall.
"Don''t!" Wang Junwei shouted, panic flooding his voice.
He staggered to his feet, one arm hanging uselessly, the other reaching out
desperately.
But he was too slow.
Alex turned and kicked him.
The strike hit Junwei square in the chest.
The kicknded with brutal force.
Wang Junwei flew backward, smashed through the wooden window frame, and disappeared into open air.
For a split second, there was silence.
Then his body crashed onto the tiled roof below. The impact echoed across the courtyard. Tiles shattered. He rolled helplessly, sliding off the edge, mming onto the next lower rooftop. Wood splintered. Dust rose.
He kept falling.
By the time he hit the ground, hended hard at the feet of Elder Jun Sik—who had been moments away from striking the seven fatties.
Junweiy twisted on the stone pavement, blood at the corner of his mouth, one arm hanging uselessly.
Elder Jun Sik froze.
"Junwei?"
Junwei forced his head up. His voice was weak, shaking.
"He... he took my ledger book."
Elder Jun Sik''s face drained of color.
The fatties were forgotten instantly.
Without another word, he activated his light-body technique and shot upward, robes snapping in the air as he flew back toward the third-floor office.
Hended inside.
The room was empty.
Books were scattered across the floor like debris after a storm. Shelves broken. The
hiddenpartment smashed open.
The ledger was gone.
"Damn rat... where are you?!" Elder Jun Sik hissed, his voice losing its calm
authority.
For the first time, panic crept into his eyes.
There were things in that ledger that could never see daylight. Bribes. Cover-ups.
Names. Transactions. Secrets that would destroy more than one life.
He rushed back out, scanning the courtyard below.
At the same time-
Alex was already on the first floor.
"Brother First!" he called out sharply. "I need your help with this."
First Fatty turned immediately, sensing the urgency in his tone.
Alex strode toward the main entrance and raised the book in his hand.
"All brothers, protect me," he shouted. "I''m going to read this out loud."
The seven fatties reacted instantly.
They moved as one, theirrge bodies forming a solid wall around Alex. Shoulder to
shoulder. Unmovable. Their presence alone was enough to intimidate most
servants.
But today, the courtyard was already filling.
Word had spread fast—the kitchen had broken into the Discipline Department. Servants from every corner had gathered, whispering, watching.
Alex opened the ledger.
His voice rang out clear and cold.
"The third day ofst autumn," Alex read, his voice cutting through the courtyard, "Wang Junwei epted one thousand spiritual stones from the Huang Family to bury the case of Huang Jie murdering two servants. Two lives erased. No trial. No punishment. Nine hundred stones were delivered to Elder Jun Sik One hundred were divided among the enforcers who helped silence the matter."
The courtyard exploded.
Gasps turned into furious murmurs. Murmurs turned into open rage.
Two servants.
Killed.
Sold for money.
Alex didn''t pause.
"The seventh day ofst autumn," he continued, “a stable worker named Lin Tao lost
three fingers in an ident. Instead ofpensation, the Discipline Department
fined him twenty spiritual stones for ''damaging sect property.'' Failure to pay resulted
in thirtyshes."
A wave of horror swept the crowd.
Alex''s voice grew colder.
"The eleventh day ofst autumn.
Xuan Mei was taken to the Discipline Department after injuring the Gu Family''s first daughter during sparring. She was detained without formal charges. She was forced to serve Elder Jun Sik in his private quarters in his bed-in exchange for her release."
The word serve poisoned the air.
Faces hardened.
Some turned pale. Others trembled with fury.
They had suspected.
They had whispered.
But now it was written. Recorded. Dated.
Proof.
"How dare you force Xuan Mei to serve you!" someone screamed.
"So it was you! That''s why she disappeared!”
"Did you kill her?!”
The usations hit like stones.
Everyone knew the Servants'' Discipline Department was rotten.
But knowing was powerless.
Proof was a weapon.
And now a kitchen servant someone they mocked, someone they thought beneath
them—stood in the center of the courtyard holding that weapon and reading it line by line.
"You filthy animals!" someone screamed from the back.
"You call that justice?!" another shouted.
"You''re supposed to protect the sect, not prey on us!"
A servant pushed forward, eyes red with rage. "I still haven''t gotten revenge! You
extorted ten spiritual stones from me just because I spat on the ground!"
Another voice joined in. "You locked my sister up for three days because she didn''t
bow fast enough!"
"You beat my brother until he couldn''t walk!"
"You took our savings!"
"You destroyed our families!"
"You thieves! You parasites!"
The anger that had been buried under fear for years was rising all at once.
And it wasn''t going back down.
Voices piled on top of each other.
And Alex kept reading.
Wang Junweiy on the ground, pale and trembling. People began spitting on him.
One globnded on his face. Then another. The crowd had swelled to at least three
hundred servants.
If they rushed him at once, he would be beaten to death before anyone could stop it.
"Shut up!"
The roar exploded from inside the main hall.
Elder Jun Sik stepped out slowly, his robes flowing, his face dark with fury.
The courtyard fell into tense silence.
All eyes locked onto him.
"You bastard!" Alex shouted, pointing
straight at him. In his other hand, he
held the ledger high and open. "You extort servants. You torture them. You use them for your own filthy pleasure! Does the sect know what you''ve been doing? have your
records. If hand this to the sect master!"
"You''re lying!" Elder Jun Sik bellowed, his voice shaking the air.
"How can I lie?" Alex shot back. "The proof is right here!"
He raised the book for everyone to see.
For a split second, the courtyard held its breath.
Then Elder Jun Sik moved.
His hand flicked.
A thin sword shot from his sleeve like a streak of lightning. It pierced straight through
the ledger, lifting it into the air. Before anyone could react, a burst of qi ignited.
The book exploded into mes.
Paper turned to ash midair.
The evidence vanished in seconds.
Elder Jun Sik stepped forward, eyes zing.
"You have nothing."
He lunged at Alex, palm striking forward with overwhelming force.
Alex reacted instantly, pulling up his iron wok as a shield.
The collision was brutal.
The wok shattered into fragments.
The force sted through Alex''s defense and mmed into his chest like a charging
bull. His body flew backward, crashing into several servants before tumbling across
the ground. He rolled nearly fifty meters before finallying to a stop.
Pain detonated inside him.
It felt like being hit by a truck.
Air wouldn''te into his lungs. His ribs screamed. Bones in multiple ces were
broken.
Elder Jun Sik walked toward him slowly.
"Now you die," he said coldly. "How dare you nder me.”
He raised his fist.
Everyone knew what that meant.
At his level, one strike was enough to crush a skull.
The seven fatties roared and rushed forward, but Elder Jun Sik waved his hand
once.
A wave of qi burst outward.
The fatties were thrown aside like leaves in a storm, bodies smashing into walls and
pirs.
"Die."
Elder Jun Sik''s fist came down toward Alex''s head.
Alex couldn''t move.
He could barely breathe.