The lingering scent of celestial starch, like purified ozone and distant thunder, slowly faded from the twilight air. Lu Qingshan, oblivious to the prostrate figures, merely dusted off his hands with a dissatisfied puff. He squinted at the horizon, where the last sliver of the shattered blood-demon’s essence had vanished, leaving not even a faint smudge on the firmament.
“Hmph. Sloppy,” he murmured, his gaze falling to his pristine bamboo pole. “Still, better than a lifetime of scrubbing that mess.”
The assembled masters, foreheads pressed against cold slate, kept flat against the stone. Kuang Shi croaked into the grit. “Illustrious Senior… we… we humble servants of the Vermilion-Eaves Bastion… beg your guidance.”
Lu Qingshan arched a brow, turning his head slowly. His expression remained one of mild annoyance, as if a particularly persistent mosquito had buzzed too close. “Guidance? I guide a scrub brush, not a gaggle of startled geese. What do you want?”
Beside him, Grand Steward Liang Xu, a man usually puffed with self-importance, stammered, “We… we implore the Heaven-Severing Asura to assume the mantle of Supreme Patriarch! Our Bastion is yours to command! Your might… it would elevate us above every peak in the realm!”
Lu Qingshan blinked. Then he snorted, a sound that somehow managed to convey both disdain and a deep-seated weariness. “Supreme Patriarch? Do you know what that entails? Endless scrolls of tedious sect politics, hotheaded youths squabbling over spirit-vein allocations, and a constant stream of supplicants whining over petty slights.” He gestured vaguely towards the main administrative halls, their gleaming jade roofs visible in the distance. “And don’t even get me started on the ventilation in the central palaces. It’s dreadful. The air quality would ruin my sinuses, and I’d be spending all day wiping dust from antique Spirit-Oak furniture. No, thank you.”
The kowtowing officials exchanged bewildered glances, their entreaties dying in their throats. They had offered him ultimate power, and he was complaining about dusty furniture and a stuffy office.
Lu Qingshan’s brows knit, his posture stiffening enough to pin the kneeling men flat against the rock. “Listen closely,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous rumble that seemed to vibrate in their very bones. “My aspirations are simple. A peaceful life. Clean clothes. An uninterrupted schedule. This… *incident*… has already put me three days behind on the weekly Deep-Clean Cycle.” He pointed his bamboo pole, not at any individual, but sweeping across the entire expanse of the sect. “If any of you, or anyone under your command, *ever* interferes with my business again, if so much as a single thread is misplaced, or a droplet of dirty water splashes my premises… I will personally ensure that not even the memory of your sect remains to stain the historical records. Are we clear?”
A collective gasp was swallowed down into frantic nods. Liang Xu, scrambling for words, managed, “Crystal clear, Senior! Your… your wishes are our command. We shall guard your privacy with our lives. Your secret… will remain inviolable.”
Lu Qingshan’s gaze settled on Elder Kuang Shi, who was still trying to melt into the flagstones. “As for you,” he said, his voice devoid of pity. “You broke my shed door. And you’ve got a rather persistent bloodstain on your inner robe that indicates severe spiritual contamination. Consider yourself demoted to permanent Outer Court Scrub-Duty. You’ll spend the next decade scrubbing the sect’s communal bathhouses until they gleam. Perhaps it will teach you some respect for true cleanliness.”
Kuang Shi whimpered, but dared not protest. His demotion from a high seat down to common scrubber stood undisputed.
Lu Qingshan turned then, his attention already drifting from the cowed hall-masters. “Ding Bo! Yao Qinglan! Stop gawking and get back to work! This blood isn’t going to soak itself out!”
Ding Bo jerked upright, snapping to attention. Yao Qinglan, her usual aloof chill entirely melted, clung to his sleeve, gazing upward with rapt devotion. The arena had seen his baffling part in resolving the crisis. He was no longer the crippled pariah; in her eyes, he walked as the chosen inheritor of a primordial terror.
“Yes, Master!” Ding Bo shouted, pulling Yao Qinglan along as he jogged back towards the laundry shed, chin held high. He imagined the next divine art, perhaps a ‘Cosmic Suds-Whip’ or a ‘Heavenly Spin-Dry Cyclone’. His future was clear: he would rise to unparalleled heights, with Yao Qinglan by his side, all thanks to his incredible, if eccentric, teacher.
They found Lu Qingshan already at his washbasin, sleeves rolled up, a fresh stack of blood-soaked robes from the recent invasion piled beside him. He scoured a dark ring on a silk tunic with a stiff brush, muttering under his breath.
“Honestly, the sheer volume of spiritual residue on these battlefield garments is appalling,” Lu Qingshan grumbled, not looking up. “And the iron deposits in the local water source make pre-soaking a nightmare. This invasion has set me back *weeks*. Ding Bo, start on that pile of outer robes. Cold rinse first, then a spot treatment for the spirit-blood. And Yao Qinglan, I need you to separate the darks from the whites. We can’t have any accidental color bleeding. This isn’t a tea ceremony, it’s a wash cycle.”
Ding Bo’s triumphant grin faltered. Yao Qinglan’s dreamy gaze broke. The ‘Cosmic Suds-Whip’ would have to wait. With a shared, slightly deflated sigh, the sect’s newest genius and its top beauty, the future pillars of the Bastion, rolled up their cuffs and took their places by the hampers, under the sharp, unyielding eye of the realm's most exacting washerman. The stains, after all, weren’t going to remove themselves.