The air in the Vermilion-Eaves Bastion's lowest laundry shed hung thick with steam, smelling of lye and lavender, a curious blend that spoke of both brutal cleansing and delicate care. Lu Qingshan, a man whose hands moved with an almost surgical precision, ignored the cacophony of distant arena shouts and the rhythmic clang of the outer court's forging hammers. His world, at this moment, was a shimmering bolt of iridescent Cloud-Mist Silk, draped over a polished basalt washboard. A stubborn rust-red smear, the residue of a particularly virulent demon’s ichor, clung to the fabric.
“Insolent sludge,” Lu Qingshan muttered, his brow furrowed deeper than the lines etched by years of sun and steam. He tapped a glass vial of viscous, emerald liquid against the silk, then dabbed it with a fine badger-hair brush. “A pH imbalance of 6.8. Too acidic for protein-based stains, but this isn't mere blood. This is… demonic secretions. Requires a counter-alkaline of no less than 9.2, buffered with a mild ethereal solvent.” He consulted a worn, leather-bound book filled with cryptic diagrams and meticulous notes on fabric types and stain compositions. It was a tome no less intricate than any cultivation manual, though its wisdom pertained solely to preventing shrinkage and preserving weave integrity.
He hummed, a low, tuneless sound, as he gently massaged the emerald liquid into the stain. The red bloomed, thinned, and vanished under the bristles. Just as the last vestiges of ichor faded, leaving the Cloud-Mist Silk pristine and glowing with its inherent sheen, a deafening splintering crash tore through the shed. Timber shrieked, clay tiles exploded inwards, and a shower of dust and debris rained down.
Lu Qingshan didn't flinch. His gaze, sharp as a honed blade, fixed on a new, more egregious defilement. A ragged young man, no older than fifteen, tumbled through the gaping hole in the roof, landing with a sickening thud amidst a freshly pressed, pristine stack of white outer court vestments. His thin frame convulsed, and a guttural cough tore from his throat, expelling a stream of viscous, black blood that splattered across the starched fabric. The black ichor pulsed faintly with a corrupt necrotic energy, a tell-tale sign of advanced Shattered-Meridian Syndrome.
Lu Qingshan’s calm shattered. His eyes, usually placid as a mountain lake, blazed with an intensity that would have made even ancient demon lords reconsider their life choices. “My linen!” he roared, his voice low and dangerous, far too potent for a mere washerman. He ignored the boy’s pained gasps, ignored the lingering taint emanating from the black blood. His focus was singular, absolute. “Do you have any idea the painstaking effort involved in achieving that crisp fold? The precise heat of the flatiron? And now… now you’ve introduced a fungal spore variant, I believe, directly onto the starch! Irresponsible! Utterly criminal!”
Ding Bo, the young man now writhing on the soiled garments, looked up with wide, pained eyes. His face was pale, his lips tinged purple. He’d expected anger, perhaps a beating, but this… this primal fury over laundry was beyond anything he’d ever witnessed. He tried to speak, but another racking cough seized him, spattering more black onto the pristine white.
Lu Qingshan moved. He closed the distance in a single step, silent as an executioner. Before Ding Bo could even register a thought, he found himself seized by the scruff of his neck, lifted bodily off the tunics, and summarily dunked head-first into a steaming vat of bubbling, emerald-green lye soap. The heat was searing, the alkali stinging his exposed skin, burning away the clinging grime.
“Soak out those impurities, boy!” Lu Qingshan commanded, his voice echoing with an authority that vibrated through Ding Bo’s very bones. “If you ruin another thread, I’ll have you scouring the Bastion’s latrines with your tongue!” He held Ding Bo submerged for an agonizing minute, occasionally agitating the boy with a wooden paddle, ensuring the lye permeated every pore, every strand of his grimy hair. The black rot hissed and dissolved in the alkaline broth, a faint, foul-smelling steam rising from the vat.
Ding Bo, choking and spluttering, felt a bizarre sensation. The burning was intense, yes, but beneath it, a strange, invigorating warmth began to spread through his shattered meridians. The chronic ache that had plagued him for years, the constant sensation of rot, began to recede. His vision, normally blurry, sharpened. He gasped, pulling his head out of the vat, water streaming from his hair and face, his eyes wide with a newfound awe.
“Master!” he croaked, his voice stronger than it had been in years. “This… this is the legendary Nine-Cycles Fiery Cleansing Art! The Ember-Heart Forging technique! You… you are a grandmaster of body-tempering! You cured me!” He coughed again, but this time, the sputum was clear, not black. His eyes, once clouded with despair, now shone with fervent admiration. “Please, Master! Accept me as your student! I will sweep your floors, scrub your garments, even polish your washboards daily! Just teach me this peerless divine art!”
Lu Qingshan stared at the dripping, enthusiastic boy, then at the lingering black stain on the ruined tunics. His nostrils flared. “Apprentice? You speak of learning after ruining three high-grade cotton gowns and a hemp smock with your foul humors? Your ‘peerless divine art’ has cost me three days’ wages and the patience of the Bastion’s Quartermaster. You will work off this debt, boy. Every stitch, every ruined fibre. And don’t think for a moment this is some ‘art’. This is called lye soap, and it removes stains. Get to it.” He thrust a bristle brush into Ding Bo’s hand, pointed to a pile of blood-soaked robes, and turned back to his precious Cloud-Mist Silk, inspecting it for any lingering phantom smudges.
Just then, the entrance to the laundry shed, already weakened by Ding Bo’s ungraceful entry, burst open with a resounding crack. A figure strode in, radiating an aura of cold arrogance. It was Jian Li, an outer sect blade known for a vicious temper, clad in impeccably tailored azure robes. He stopped dead, his gaze sweeping over the chaos: the hole in the roof, the ruined tunics, and finally, Ding Bo, still dripping lye soap onto his polished, dragon-hide boots.
“You!” Jian Li snarled, his hand already on the hilt of the ornate sword at his hip. His eyes, narrowed to slits, were fixed not on Lu Qingshan, but on Ding Bo. “You dare bleed your peasant filth onto my freshly polished boots? And where is my Cloud-Mist Silk robe, you incompetent wretch? It had better be spotless, or I’ll cut you down right here!” He drew the gleaming blade, its edge catching the filtered light, aimed directly at Ding Bo’s chest. The air in the shed grew suddenly cold.