“Welcome back Mister Shao! You haven’t come since last winter, have you?” Shao Qing lightly smiled and muttered a passing comment about being busy as he sat down in front of the bar’s counter. The cramped building was empty besides himself and the greying bartender. A lone lamp on the counter served as the only lighting, the corners of the bar fading into darkness. “What’ll it be?” “What do you recommend?” The bartender glanced around amongst the cluttered rows of bottles behind him before pointing towards a bright red one that was completely untouched. “I just got in some cherry brandy that you’ll probably like, although I haven’t tried it myself. Besides that I also have a few fruit liquors and meads I can show you…”

Before the bartender could come to a decision on what drink would best suit Shao Qing’s tastes, he was interrupted. “I’ll just take a glass of each of those then.” It’s not like he could get drunk off of normal alcohol anyways. The bartender carefully moved among the crowded bottles to remove the ones he’d previously pointed out while Shao Qing silently watched. Truth to be told, this wasn’t the most productive use of his time, but he thought he’d more than earned it. After two months locked in his workshop wondering whether he was screwed or not, he needed a break. There were a few demented cultivation freaks who could lock themselves off from the world for years, decades at a time even, and gods forbid even be happy about it, but he wasn’t one of him. There was no point to completely ignoring life in favor of the vague hope of getting stronger.

“Here you go sir.” The cherry brandy slipped out of the bottle and flowed into a brown-tinted glass in front of Shao Qing, coloring it with red. The bartender stopped his pour just before the glass filled up and went to place the bottle back. Shao Qing took a small sip of the drink. Sweet, but a little tart. Went down very smoothly. He liked it. A minute later, the next glass appeared. The pleasant taste of honey filled his mouth- mead. Also sweet. He also liked it. Frankly, as long as the booze was sweet he would probably like it- he wasn’t terribly picky. A good thing, he supposed, although so-called alcohol ‘experts’ would say otherwise. Not that he cared what they thought- a layabout was a layabout whether he made a profession out of it or not.

An hour later a few empty glasses sat on the counter. Shao Qing was no longer drinking, but instead quietly playing darts while the bartender sorted things behind the counter. He didn’t use his qi, but even with just bodily strength it was still trivally easy to play a perfect game. He had to come up with unique constraints to make it entertaining for himself.

The bartender interrupted Shao Qing while he was outlining a dog made of darts on the dart board. “You’re a cultivator, right?” Shao Qing resisted the urge to laugh. “I’ve come here since before you were born and barely aged. What do you think?” An awkward expression appeared on the bartender’s face and he stopped talking, so Shao Qing spoke up for him. “Let me guess- you need a favor?” After a few seconds the bartender hesitantly nodded. “A storm hit the village a few days ago and a tree fell on my cousin’s house. We’ve organized an effort to fix the place, but we’re having trouble getting rid of the tree without wrecking the place. Do y’think you’d be able to help?”

That was it? Sure, why not. “That shouldn’t be a problem.” Shao Qing poured himself a final glass and prepared to leave. “Er- you’re covering my tab for tonight though.” The bartender nodded. “No problem. I’ll get my boots then.”

This village was a small place located a few hours flight away from the Ironwood Estate, the main home of the Kang Clan. It didn’t have any special industries, and besides agriculture it made most of its money by serving as a rest stop for mortal travelers going along a nearby trade route. Currently a few trees could be seen knocked down and windows boarded up as a result of the recent storm, but most of the place was in serviceable condition.

After walking to the edge of the village, Shao Qing saw the house in question. It was a two story farmhouse located next to a set of stables and a field covered in heads of wheat. The rest of the farm appeared to be fine, but the house itself had a massive tree which had dropped onto it from the side. Most of the roof was collapsed in, and the wall on the side it fell against was heavily damaged. Given the length and awkward positioning of the tree, he could see why it hadn’t been dealt with yet. Fortunately it was but a trifle for him.

The two of them approached the house, and after a moment the tree began to be cut apart by invisible blades. Fine threads of qi sliced through it, rapidly turning the trunk into uniform planks of wood. The planks of wood were clumsily thrown into a pile behind Shao Qing as he made his way down the tree. After the tree was cut up he turned to the bartender. “Can I use these as construction materials, or should I call it here?” The bartender took a bit to respond, still a bit shocked by the ease of the procedure. “That… No, I believe the wood needs to be dried first. Thank you for the help.” Shao Qing just nodded. He didn’t know carpentry so he’d just take the bartender’s word on it. “Is there a lumber yard or something I can take it to?” “A lumber yard… a ways down the road. Follow me.”

They walked down a dark, muddy road with a large bundle of lumber flying along behind them. Mud splotched against the bartender’s boot with each step, but not a single bit got on Shao Qing’s robe as its hem dragged against the ground. After a few minutes Shao Qing was the first one to break the silence. “How’s your father doing? Haven’t seen him since you took over the bar.” The bartender sighed. “Not too well. He’s spending more and more time in bed nowadays. I’m worried that it’s almost his time.” “Sickness?” “I don’t think so. Old age.”

“I was hoping it was sickness, but as for old age… I can’t help. You can cultivate or drag out extra years of longevity with pills, but you can’t escape mortality. Only run away from it.” Shao Qing shook his head and mumbled the next portion. “Death comes for us all eventually and I only grow more used to it. At least he had a nice run of it.” The bartender merely grunted in response. Shao Qing threw a short glance at him. “Is that a bit cold of me?” The bartender shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. Who can say. My father doesn’t seem to care all that much either. I suppose it’s the young’s privilege to be saddened by death.”

The young’s privilege… he wasn’t the young anymore. Not even among cultivators. In his head he knew he was over 100 years old, but still… it all felt like it went by so fast. Shao Qing couldn’t help but sigh. What a shame. Hopefully the next 100-odd years would be a bit better. It wouldn’t hurt if they went by a bit slower either.

“Oh, we’ve arrived. If you can, save that one plum wine for me.” The lumber fell down in a neat pile, and Shao Qing suddenly disappeared.

Now that Shao Qing had finally had his first real break in months, it was time to start planning. He knew he was going to rob the Kang Clan, and he was fairly certain of his target, but beyond that… everything was a bit fuzzy. How to break in, how to escape- all unthought of. For all he knew it might not even be possible, but given 17 years to prepare a lot of seemingly impossible tasks became a lot more possible.

Shao Qing had considered many targets for his farewell heist. The alchemy division’s storehouse, the refiner division’s armory, one of the clan’s training sites, and so on and so forth. While robbing these places would be profitable ventures, the size of the items presented problems to transport. Even without transport to consider, they weren’t quite alluring enough that they made it worth the time, risk, and antagonism of the Kang Clan. Robbing multiple of such targets might make it more worthwhile, but at the same time it would make the requirements for stealth much higher and would only present more problems in transporting the stolen goods. No, it needed to be a single, preferably small, target. After a bit of thinking, Shao Qing had the perfect target in mind- the Kang Clan’s famous Centennial Fruits.

Centennial Fruits were an extremely rare fruit that took exactly 100 years to grow from infancy to maturity. The Centennial Trees which grew such fruits were even rarer, and only grew at most half a dozen fruits per century- the Kang Clan’s Centennial Tree only grew three. Their rarity wasn’t their only value however- they had an effect that far outstripped pure rarity in value. Simply eating a Centennial Fruit could restore one’s cultivation potential to that of someone several decades younger, and when concocted into a Centennial Pill it could take the imbiber’s potential back a whole century. Of course how helpful this was depended on the talent of the person in question, but it was doubtlessly an amazing effect.

The Kang Clan’s current batch of Centennial Fruits were 20 years from fully maturing. That meant they wouldn’t be quite ripe when Shao Qing was able to strike, but that didn’t matter too much- even if the efficacy of the resulting pill was reduced by 10 or 20 percent, it’d be more than worth it. No, the more important problem was how exactly he was going to pull this off. He’d give it his all, but… he wouldn’t be able to do this himself. One of the pillars of the clan like the Centennial Tree would be protected by formations at all times, and when it was closer to maturing likely a guard patrol. And that’s without even mentioning any traps or security measures that he couldn’t think of.

It might be possible to evade the guards and traps through a mix of luck and cunning, but breaking through one, or several advanced formations like that? Impossible. Maybe if Shao Qing had a few more decades, but even if he started studying formations now AND was a natural at it, it would be almost impossible to plan anything else even if he could stumble his way past any security formations. No, he needed an accomplice. Someone who was trustworthy and who could break past the formations in question. Fortunately there was a way to find just such an accomplice… he just needed to find another servant of the Kang Clan who was under a soul contract, shared a similar dislike of the Kang Clan, and who was at least a Quasi-Grandmaster in formations.

Shao Qing spent the next few days covertly looking through certain Kang Clan records under the pretense of wanting to upgrade some of the formations in his alchemy workshop. This, in combination with certain direct investigations, revealed that there were two candidates that met his requirements: Tao Yun and Qiu Hai. Both were Quasi-Grandmaster formation experts who signed soul contracts that wouldn’t expire for at least 17 years, and from the information he gathered both seemed to dislike the Kang Clan. Tao Yun’s specializations seemed slightly more appropriate for the task of rapidly analyzing and breaking through a formation, so Shao Qing decided to make him his primary target, although he would settle for either.

While it was good to have some sort of plan, there was a bit of a catch- to free either formation master from his soul contract, he had to make a process or pill that could reliably perform the slight damage to the soul which broke his soul contract without informing the contractor. Which probably meant several more years of research.

Shao Qing scowled as he stared at his pill furnace. It had served as his friend for many years, but the more he thought about the sizable period of research before him, the more he wanted to shudder. He really needed that mental cataloguing technique to memorize data. At least he’d be able to take breaks this time.