Gao Rufeng’s squeak echoed in the sudden quiet, a sound usually reserved for a startled mouse. His eyes, though stained with muck, were wide with a horrifying suspicion. He gestured a trembling, sludge-coated finger at Shen Yimo’s plank. “You… you employed a demonic artifact! What is its unholy name?!” Shen Yimo tilted his head, the plank still held aloft. He peered at the hairline crack, then at the furious, reeking prodigy. “Oh, this? It’s just a standard measurement plank, Master Gao. See, the grain runs lengthwise, not crosswise, which gives it optimal stiffness for a perpendicular check against a vertical surface. And the crack… well, that’s just from checking the structural integrity of the main gate, which is quite ancient. It’s part of the 'Four Essential Checks of the Upright Frame' technique.” He tapped the plank thoughtfully. “Though I might need a new one soon. This one is reaching its stress limit.” Gao Rufeng blinked, then blinked again. His jaw, still caked with manure, worked silently. “The… the Four Essential Checks of the Upright Frame… you call *that* a style?” His voice was dangerously low, a strained rasp. “You dare mock the sacred arts of cultivation with such… such *peasantry*? You shattered my Confluence of Nine Storms, a form honed over centuries by the Azure Cloud Pavilion, with a common piece of lumber, and you have the audacity to call it ‘optimal stiffness’ and ‘structural integrity’?!” Matriarch Pei Wanru, who had been holding her breath, finally let out a choked gasp. She saw the dangerous glint in Gao Rufeng’s eyes, the way his knuckles whitened despite the grime. This was no longer just about the tournament. This was about profound, unforgivable disrespect. “Master Gao, please!” she began, stepping forward, hands clasped. “My disciple means no offense. He’s… he’s new to the world. A little unrefined. His sincerity is not to be questioned!” Gao Rufeng rounded on her, his gaze like twin daggers. “Sincerity? This… this *heretic* just spat upon the very foundations of the Dao! He reduced a supreme sword art to… to *carpentry*! This is not simply unrefined, Matriarch. This is a deliberate, calculated insult! It is a declaration of war against the orthodox sects! And I, Gao Rufeng, will not stand for it!” He took a menacing step forward, dropping clods of muck onto the pristine paving stones. Meanwhile, perched on a peeling porch column, Gong Zui had been halfway through his third steamed bun, enjoying the faint breeze. The shouting, the manure, the flapping robes—it had all served as background noise to the delicate consumption of his midday meal. But Gao Rufeng’s sudden, indignant bellow had startled a flock of roosting sparrows, which in turn had startled Gong Zui. His last, perfect, fluffy steamed bun, still warm from the cookfire, slipped from his fingers and landed squarely in a patch of dry, gritty dirt. A tiny, pristine white cloud now sported a distinct brown smudge. Gong Zui stared at the fallen bun. His brow furrowed. The air around him seemed to grow heavier, not with spiritual pressure, but with the suffocating weight of sheer, pettish irritation. He slowly lowered his fingers, watching the ruined pastry. “Shen Yimo,” he rumbled, his voice surprisingly deep, cutting through Gao Rufeng’s bluster like a dull chisel through soft wood. “You done measuring that hole yet?” Shen Yimo snapped to attention, still holding the plank like a sacred relic. “Yes, Uncle! The aperture is precisely 1.8 meters high by 0.7 meters wide, an ideal size for a single-person passage, though perhaps a bit narrow for freight.” “Good,” Gong Zui grunted, his gaze finally lifting from the ruined bun to fix on the spluttering Gao Rufeng. “Now, there’s a lot of… *debris*… clogging up the entrance. Messing with my lunch break. Go on, sweep it out. All of it. I want to eat my bun in peace.” He pointed a stubby finger toward the sect gates, encompassing the assemble of Azure Cloud swordsmen and their incensed prodigy. Shen Yimo’s eyes lit up with sudden understanding. “Ah, Uncle! The ‘Sweeping Broom Arc’! A profound lesson in maintaining the flow of positive Qi by clearing stagnant obstructions! I understand!” He bowed deeply, the plank still clutched in one hand. “Right away!” He cast the plank aside, retrieved a coarse-bristled broom leaning against a pillar – the same broom Gong Zui used to sweep the courtyard – and adopted a stance. It was a simple, sturdy posture, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, core engaged. He raised the broom, not like a weapon, but like a tool, a simple extension of his will to clean. Gao Rufeng, still fuming, saw the broom. He scoffed. “A common broom? You intend to fight me with a… a *janitor’s implement*?!” His guards, having recovered their composure, began to chuckle, gripping their own elegant sabers. Shen Yimo ignored them. He took a slow, measured breath, the steady rhythm Gong Zui had drilled into him on his first afternoon. The ambient Qi, which had been agitated by Gao Rufeng’s earlier outburst, now swirled around Shen Yimo, drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet. He was not attempting to gather it, simply breathing, existing. Yet, the air began to hum. Dust motes on the ground vibrated. Then, Shen Yimo moved. It was a single, fluid motion, a perfect arc that began low, swept wide, and ended high, as if clearing an impossibly large patch of leaves. He didn’t swing the broom with force; he merely *guided* it, letting the 'Sweeping Broom Arc' unfold naturally. The bristles touched the dusty ground. There was no sound, no dramatic explosion of spiritual energy. Just a gentle, almost imperceptible *whoosh*. But the effect was immediate and catastrophic. A physical gust of wind, not conjured by a spell, but simply *there*, manifested from the broom’s movement. It started as a breeze, then intensified into a gale, then a howling typhoon, all within the span of a breath. It tore across the courtyard, ripping through the very fabric of the air itself. The Azure Cloud swordsmen, caught unawares, were immediately lifted off their feet, their expensive robes flapping wildly like banners in a hurricane. Their sabers flew from their grasp, spinning like toys. Gao Rufeng, mid-taunt, found himself abruptly airborne. He shrieked, a sound swallowed by the roaring wind. He tumbled backward, flailing, his mud-caked body caught in the eye of the localized storm. He was not pushed by an orthodox spell; he was simply *swept*. The typhoon, born from Shen Yimo’s mundane arc, herded the entire contingent of martial elites—Gao Rufeng, his guards, their scattered weapons, even a loose chicken that had wandered in—towards the main gates. It spun them like a child's top, then ejected them with incredible, precise force. With a collective chorus of gasps and yelps, Gao Rufeng and his entire retinue were launched clean out of the Weeping Banyan Sect, sailing over the dilapidated stone archway and landing in a heap somewhere down the winding dirt road outside. The wind died down as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving behind only the frantic clucking of the chicken, which had somehow landed unharmed. Shen Yimo leaned on his broom, breathing easily. “All clear, Uncle! The courtyard is free of stagnant obstructions!” He even managed to sweep a small pile of pebbles into a neat heap by the gatepost. Gong Zui, who had calmly retrieved his now-dusty steamed bun, blew on it, then took a bite. “Good. Now be useful and go fetch another plank. This one’s seen better days.” Matriarch Pei Wanru stared, mouth agape, at the empty road where moments ago a squadron of angry cultivators had stood. The silence was deafening. But far down the path, a furious, bruised Gao Rufeng, having untangled himself from his equally bruised guards, dusted off his robes with trembling hands. His eyes, though bloodshot and teary from the wind, burned with a terrible, absolute conviction. He had seen enough. This was no petty insolent recruit. This was something far, far worse. “A demonic practitioner,” Gao Rufeng spat, his voice raw. “A heretical demon, nesting in the Weeping Banyan Sect, corrupting the very Qi of the land with its unregistered, unspeakable arts! I will report this to the Heavenly Tribunal directly! They will pay for this sacrilege!” He turned, his gaze fixed on the distant, pristine jade halls of the Celestial Peaks, and began to march, casting aside the stunned, quiet Weeping Banyan grounds behind him.

Taking Out the Trash