The sun rose over the Thunder Dragon Sect. It was a beautiful morning. Birds were singing. A light mist clung to the pine trees.
Inside the Sect Leader's chamber, the scene was less serene.
Wei Han lay completely flat on his straw mat, looking less like a Sect Leader and more like a poorly executed painting of a wet noodle. He twitched occasionally.
Lei Feng, completely refreshed after a good night's sleep and a stomach full of looted pork, stood over him holding a slightly cracked bamboo broom.
"Get up," Lei Feng commanded.
"I can't feel my legs," Wei Han whispered, his voice thin and reedy. "Or my ribs. I think my spleen filed for divorce."
"Nonsense!" Lei Feng tapped him lightly with the broom. Thwack. "That is the sound of qi struggling to be born! You are just soft! I broke stronger men than you over my knee before I had coffee! You need to push past this temporary paralysis!"
"I have reached my limit," Wei Han groaned. "My body cannot generate qi if I cannot even stand to meditate."
Lei Feng tapped his forehead thoughtfully with the broom handle. He was annoyed. His first disciple was proving to be a highly inefficient training subject. If he broke Wei Han, who would cook the meat and hold the sack?
"Fine," Lei Feng snapped. "You are too pathetic for physical work right now. We will move on to mental labor. Get dressed. We are going to the library."
Wei Han looked confused. "The library? We haven't had a proper library since the great fire forty years ago."
"Then we are going to your private study, you miserable dumpling," Lei Feng hissed. "I need to see the manuals."
The Sect Leader's private study was a small, dusty shed behind the collapsed Grand Hall. Inside, the true legacy of the Thunder Dragon Sect lay in dusty boxes and moldering chests.
Lei Feng started rummaging. He kicked over a box of what looked like bills and old tax documents.
"Where is it? Where is the original complete set of the Nine Thunder Dragon Swords? Where is the Thunder God's Legacy?"
Wei Han nervously pulled a water-stained leather folder from under a pile of discarded lumber.
"I... I think this is it. It is the core volume. My father warned me never to let it get wet."
Lei Feng snatched the folder. His hands trembled, but this time not from anger. This was the work of his youth. The foundation of his very existence.
He opened the folder. The paper inside was yellowed but legible. Lei Feng began to read the first pages detailing the core principle of the sect's internal art, the Celestial Thunder Circulation Method.
He read the first line. His eye twitched.
He read the second line. His jaw dropped.
He turned the page and read the commentary written in the margins by a previous Sect Leader.
Lei Feng slowly lowered the manual. His face was devoid of expression. It was calm. Too calm.
"Wei Han," Lei Feng said, his voice quiet. "Who wrote these comments?"
"Ah... that was my great-grandfather, Sect Leader Wei Ming," Wei Han said proudly. "He was considered a genius! He modernized our techniques for the lower mountain climate!"
Lei Feng didn't scream. He didn't kick. He took the manual and, with agonizing slowness, he began to tear it into tiny, precise strips.
"Master! What are you doing?! That is the Ancestral Manual!" Wei Han shrieked.
"Silence!" Lei Feng threw the shredded paper into the air. It rained down like pathetic, ruined confetti.
"Modernized?! This isn't modernization! This is heresy! This is the work of a blind, illiterate donkey who thought he could improve the sun!"
Lei Feng began to pace the tiny shed, kicking up dust with every step.
"The Celestial Thunder Circulation Method is based on the subtle alignment of the Great Vessel and the Twelve Meridians. It requires the qi to enter the dantian at a 45 degree angle after passing through the lower solar plexus!"
Lei Feng snatched up another scroll.
"But what did this idiot great-grandfather do?! He changed the angle to 90 degrees because he thought it was 'faster'! Faster?! You don't make a masterpiece 'faster'! You don't try to make a dragon fly in a straight line! He changed the entire process into a method for giving yourself explosive indigestion!"
He threw the scroll against the wall.
"And look at the Nine Thunder Dragon Swords!" Lei Feng was hyperventilating now. "The second form, Thunder Echoes, is a defensive technique designed to use the opponent's kinetic energy against them! It requires the blade to oscillate at a frequency of 700 times per second!"
"What did this moron do? He wrote here: 'Too difficult. Just hit the opponent hard on the head.' JUST HIT THEM HARD ON THE HEAD?! IS THIS A MARTIAL SECT OR A GANG OF STREET BRUTES?!"
Lei Feng grabbed Wei Han by the front of his robes and shook him violently.
"Your ancestors, the ones you brag about, are the real villains! They didn't save the sect! They killed it slowly through sheer stupidity! They watered down my divine techniques into something you could teach a dung beetle!"
Wei Han was dizzy and terrified. "B-but Master, the manuals... are they all useless?"
"Worse than useless!" Lei Feng let go of him, pushing him against a wall. "They are toxic! If you follow this garbage, your qi will circulate backward, you will permanently block your meridians, and you will become incapable of ever reaching the Great Realm!"
Lei Feng slumped down onto a broken crate. He rubbed his temples with frustration. This was far worse than he imagined. A sect can recover from poverty. It cannot easily recover from institutionalized idiocy.
He looked at the scattered pieces of the destroyed manuals, then at the pitiful, whimpering Sect Leader.
"Fine," Lei Feng muttered. "Forget the manuals. Forget your ancestors. They are dead to me."
He slowly stood up. A new, terrifying resolve hardened his gaze.
"I will have to start from scratch. I will rewrite the entire Thunder Dragon Sect's martial arts from memory, starting with the core body cultivation technique. And you, Sect Leader, are going to be my test dummy."
He picked up a clean piece of parchment and snatched a brush.
"Now, stop crying! Go sharpen this brush! We have to rebuild a century of genius ruined by generations of idiots, and I need a steady hand for the calligraphy!"
...
Lei Feng spent the next three days in a furious haze of calligraphy and self-pity.
He sat on the damp floor of Wei Han's study, surrounded by stacks of parchment and brushes. He hadn't slept, only pausing to devour large chunks of stolen pork. His hands, still those of a scrawny young boy, cramped painfully as he tried to recreate the elegant, thunderous strokes required for the Celestial Thunder Circulation Method.
"This is ridiculous!" Lei Feng shouted, throwing a brush across the room. It struck a wall and splattered ink everywhere. "My true body could carve these manuals onto steel plates with a flick of my wrist! Now I'm ruining perfectly good paper like some pitiful scholar!"
Wei Han, who had recovered enough to crawl, was tasked with mixing ink and sharpening brushes. He was terrified to speak, occasionally offering an unnecessary and promptly rejected suggestion.
"Ancestor, perhaps... perhaps we could write a simplified version first?" Wei Han offered timidly, shrinking into a corner.
WHACK!
Lei Feng didn't even look up. He simply flicked his wrist and hit Wei Han's shin with a ruler.
"Simplified?! There is no simplification! The truth is the truth! This entire sect was ruined by 'simplification'! Keep grinding that ink, you rotten dumpling! It needs to be blacker than the Demon Lord's soul!"
Lei Feng was struggling. Not with the knowledge, that was flawless in his mind, but with the physical constraints. The handwriting was uneven, the brush control was poor, and the sheer volume of writing required to document the sect's entire internal energy and sword arts curriculum was immense.
"We need help," Lei Feng finally declared on the fourth morning, slamming his palm on the table.
Wei Han flinched. "Help? But Master, who would dare come up the mountain? And we can't trust anyone with our secrets!"
"We don't need a martial artist," Lei Feng spat. "We need a secretary! Someone with nimble hands who can follow dictation and won't leak the core secrets, mostly because their brain is too small to understand them."
He looked at Wei Han. "You, Sect Leader, are going down to the town. Find me the most desperate, poorest, and least observant apprentice you can. Tell them the job pays in 'spiritual opportunity' and 'clean air.' But mostly, tell them we pay in silver!"
Wei Han swallowed hard. "S-silver? We just spent most of the Black Tiger Hall's money on... on meat."
"Then go collect more from them!"
Wei Han fled the study before receiving another corrective trauma.
Sect Leader Wei Han spent an entire day in Green River Town, looking utterly haggard in his faded robes. He approached various merchants, clerks, and errand boys, asking if they knew anyone seeking employment that involved writing and mountain climbing. The "clean air and spiritual opportunity" pitch was poorly received.
As evening approached, Wei Han sat dejectedly on a dusty bench near the market gate.
Suddenly, a loud, high-pitched voice cut through the street noise.
"Thirty copper for this basket of cabbages! Thirty! Are you trying to starve my family, you penny-pinching toad?!"
Wei Han turned his head. A young boy, no older than sixteen, was fiercely haggling with a portly vendor. The boy had thin but wiry limbs, oversized, tattered robes, and an expression of pure, concentrated fury that bordered on demonic. He was holding a large basket of wilted vegetables and fighting for every single coin.
"Forty copper! Not a penny less!" the boy roared. "I spent two hours picking these! They are practically sacred vegetables!"
The vendor, thoroughly intimidated, finally conceded. The boy snatched the coins, shoved them into a worn pouch, and then marched off, muttering about the high cost of living.
Wei Han watched him go. The boy was skinny, desperate, and clearly obsessed with money.
Perfect, Wei Han thought, an uncharacteristic spark of ruthlessness igniting in his eye. He won't leave the mountain if we promise him silver.
Wei Han stood up and hurried after the boy.
"Young man! Wait!"
The boy stopped and turned, his eyes immediately assessing Wei Han's poverty-stricken robes and suspicious aura. He looked hostile.
"What do you want, old man? I don't give handouts."
"I am Sect Leader Wei Han of the Thunder Dragon Sect!" Wei Han announced, trying to sound dignified. "I have a job opportunity for you! A very high-paying opportunity!"
The boy's eyes, which had been narrowed in suspicion, widened into startled circles.
"Thunder Dragon Sect? Is that where the crazy kid with the broom went yesterday?"
Wei Han froze. The news had traveled fast. "Ah... yes! We offer very specialized training."
"Training?" The boy sneered. "I don't have time for useless kung fu. I need cash. I need to buy grain for my sister. How much silver?"
Wei Han took a deep breath. "It is a demanding job. You will be helping transcribe ancient, dangerous manuals. For this sacred duty, we offer... two silver taels a month!"
Two silver taels a month was an absolute fortune for an errand boy. The boy's face went from hostile to ecstatic greed in a split second.
"Two taels?! Every month?! And free food?"
"We have excellent roasted pork now," Wei Han confirmed, drooling slightly.
The boy threw his empty vegetable basket onto the ground. "When do I start? What's your name, Sect Leader? Mine is Xiao Ding! I can write fast! I can write for a year! I can write until my fingers fall off if you pay me two taels!"
Wei Han smiled, a genuine, if slightly anxious, smile. He had found Lei Feng's new secretary.
"Come, Xiao Ding," Wei Han said, gesturing toward the mountain. "Your new master is waiting. He is... very demanding."
Xiao Ding marched up the mountain path ahead of the Sect Leader, humming a tune about silver and roasted pork.
He paid no attention to the ominous, overgrown road or the wrecked Thunder Dragon gates.
He only saw taels.