Path of the Sect Leader-Chapter 34: Audience with Zhao Liangde

The Imperial Beast Sect let their tamed beasts roam free in vast numbers. To outsiders, those creatures were walking death sentences. No foreign cultivator dared fly straight in; they hovered at the border, lit the special signal firework, and waited like good children.
Qi Xiu didn’t wait long.
A vicious raptor the size of a house swooped down, its rider clad in scaled leather. One curt exchange of words later, Qi Xiu was hauled aboard. The bird’s feathers stank of blood and musk; talons clicked against the wind as they carved. Then they dove into Beast Sect sky.
Qi Xiu’s jaw nearly dropped.
He’d grown up under daoist orthodoxy—Southern Chu Sect might skip the robes, but everything else screamed “proper sect.” Here? Civilisation ended at the border.
Mid-flight, a couple shot past on another bird. The woman in nothing but cropped beast hide, wheat-brown skin gleaming, bare feet tucked under her, waist flashing with every shift of the mount. The man behind her wore only a striped loin-wrap, muscles rippling like a mortal hunter who’d wrestled tigers since birth. His bare chest pressed tight to her back, arms locked around her midriff, laughing into her hair without a shred of shame.
Thirty years of celibacy and a perfectly stable Dao Heart cracked just a hair. Qi Xiu stared, swallowed, and forced his eyes forward.
They landed in a bustling settlement thick with spiritual qi. Buildings were round hide yurts or bone-and-timber longhalls instead of tiled pavilions. People spoke with rolling, guttural accents. Even the ward arrays used carved totems instead of jade tiles. Everything felt raw, untamed, alive.
The guide dumped him at the back of a queue inside a cavernous hall and vanished without explanation.
Qi Xiu craned his neck.
At the head, lounging on a throne of lacquered beast bone, sat the man himself—Zhao Liangde.
The old fellow looked almost civilised: pale blue scholar’s robe, fair skin, tidy beard. But the eyes—tiny, bright, darting—gave him away. He tilted his head, murmuring to a petitioner while those shrewd little beads flicked across every face in the room, weighing purses and intentions alike.
The queue moved briskly. Cultivators in every imaginable garb—hide, feathers, bone jewellery—stepped forward, offered gifts or s, received a few words, and left smiling. Zhao Liangde dispatched affairs with the bored efficiency of a tax collector who’d seen every trick.
Qi Xiu shuffled forward, palms sweating. Half a shichen later, his turn arrived.
He bowed exactly forty-five degrees—junior etiquette—recited his sect’s name, mentioned Southern Chu and Wang Wan, then politely begged guidance on making a living along the Blackriver.
The speech had sounded flawless in his head.
Zhao Liangde’s face curdled like sour milk. He said nothing, just stared with those beady eyes until Qi Xiu felt his spine crawl. Mocking snickers prickled from the queue behind.
“Er… Esteemed Senior Zhao… this humble sect truly—”
“Cough.” A palace-fan-wielding maid in diaphanous silks cut him off. “Is this how you petition my Old Ancestor?”
Lightbulb.
Qi Xiu fumbled out the Ten Directions Storage Pouch—one whole third-tier spirit stone’s worth—and offered it with both hands. “First meeting, rushed trip, nothing worthy prepared… please accept this trifling gift.”
The maid swayed forward, hips rolling, took the pouch, and passed it over.
Zhao Liangde weighed it once. His entire face rearranged itself into sunshine.
“Aha! So you’re the new master of that little Chu Qin Sect by the Blackriver?”
“Indeed, Senior.” Qi Xiu exhaled in relief. The old man flipped moods faster than a spirit beast shedding skin.
Zhao Liangde chuckled, stroking his beard. “Making a living in that stinking ditch? Tall order. Nothing grows there.”
He turned to the maid. “Fetch the fifth pamphlet, third shelf, left side, first rack in my study.”
The maid glided off. Zhao Liangde’s hand cracked against her rear as she passed; she shot him a half-scolding, half-inviting glance over her shoulder. The old man guffawed. Qi Xiu suddenly found the ceiling fascinating.
Minutes later she returned with a thin, beast-hide booklet. Zhao Liangde flipped pages, copied notes onto a wooden slip, and finally handed it over.
“That river’s a dead zone. Almost nothing survives in it. But the creature recorded here can. Raise them. If you manage a harvest, the Imperial Beast Sect will buy every last one. Fair price, no losses for you.”
Qi Xiu’s heart leapt. He bowed so deep his forehead nearly scraped the floor. “Many thanks, Senior Zhao!”
He clutched the slip like it was forged from pure gold and backed away, still bowing, until the crowd swallowed him again.
Only when the heavy bone doors thudded shut behind him did he dare straighten up and look at the wooden slip trembling in his hand.
The title had been scratched in hasty but legible characters:
【Fragrant Cattail Pig-Fish – Breeding Manual】
He summoned his spirit boat and flew west, toward the black stench of home, the wooden slip clutched tight against his chest like a promissory note written in mud and offal.