Chapter 2: The Hard Labor of Cultivation
The heavy mud of the West District excavation pit was a suffocating, freezing slurry that clung to Lin Fengâs cheap boots like wet cement. Every step required a conscious pull of his calves, drawing a burning ache from his unconditioned thighs.
"Move it, college kid! If that cement mixer finishes its cycle before you haul those rebar bundles down to the trench, Old Man Liu is going to skin us both alive!"
The voice belonged to Lao Wang, a weathered laborer in his late forties whose skin had been turned into wrinkled leather by decades of harsh Jiangnan sun and concrete dust. He didn't look up as he spoke, his thick arms moving with rhythmic precision as he threw shovelful after shovelful of gravel into the industrial hopper.
"On it, Uncle Wang," Lin Feng grunted.
He bent his waist, his thin fingers wrapping around a bundled stack of rusted steel reinforcing bars. His current physical limitations hit him like a physical blow. In his past life, a single strand of his refined Qi could have shattered these steel bars into microscopic dust. Now, merely lifting forty kilograms of dead weight sent a violent tremor through his forearms, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He dragged the rebar forward, his breath ragged, his vision swimming slightly in the dim, yellow glare of the construction siteâs halogen work lamps.
To any casual observer, Lin Feng was just a pitiful, desperate student destroying his health for a meager hourly wage. But beneath the surface of his sweat-drenched skin, something entirely miraculous was taking place.
Lin Feng was using the manual labor to force open his meridians.
Every time his muscles screamed in agony, he coordinated his ragged breathing with the rhythms of the Nine Heaven Circulation Scroll. He wasn't just pulling air into his lungs; he was using the intense mechanical strain of his physical body to act as a bellows. Deep beneath the bedrock of the construction pit, the microscopic, invisible currents of pre-awakening spiritual energyâthe faint, leaking lifeblood of Earth's fracturing fault linesâwere being drawn upward by his rhythmic exhalations.
The ambient energy was incredibly thin, almost non-existent to an ordinary person. But to the Nine Heaven Circulation Scroll, it was raw fuel.
As Lin Feng dropped the heavy rebar at the edge of the trench, a tiny, microscopic thread of icy coolness bypassed his lungs, sinking directly into his lower abdomenâhis Dantian. It was smaller than a strand of silk, completely fragile, but the moment it settled, a wave of profound relief washed over his exhausted limbs, instantly repairing the micro-tears in his muscle fibers.
Itâs working, Lin Feng thought, wiping a mixture of sweat and muddy water from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. His eyes gleamed with an intense, quiet satisfaction. The human body is a vessel. By exhausting the mortal flesh to its absolute limits, the meridians are forced to dilate to survive. Using this manual labor, I can cleanse forty percent of the calcified impurities in my bloodstream before the Spiritual Seed even awakens.
"Hey, kid. Take a break," Lao Wang muttered, tossing a dented plastic thermos toward Lin Feng.
"Youâve been hauling non-stop for three hours. Even the experienced guys don't rush like that in this damn cold."
Lin Feng caught the thermos, his hands steadying. He took a sip of the lukewarm, bitter tea inside, feeling the warmth spread through his chest. "Thanks, Uncle Wang. The mud down here just feels unusually cold tonight. I figured if I stopped moving, my joints would freeze up."
Lao Wangâs expression darkened slightly as he looked down into the deep, excavated pit. The trench stretched nearly twenty meters into the earth, a dark, yawning maw where the foundation pillars of the future luxury commercial complex were meant to be anchored.
"You feel it too, huh?" Lao Wang lowered his voice, leaning against a stack of wooden pallets. "The crew that worked the day shift said the same thing. The deeper the excavators dig, the colder the mud gets. Yesterday, one of the drill operators swore he hit a pocket of water that looked bright blue under his flashlight. Before he could show anyone, the corporate overseers from the Zhao Group arrived, cordoned off that entire section, and told everyone to keep their mouths shut or lose their bonuses."
Lin Fengâs eyes narrowed slightly behind his messy hair. Bright blue water. The spiritual vein is already fracturing ahead of schedule. The high pressure subterranean Qi is liquefying as it hits the atmosphere.
"The corporate suits always hide things," Lin Feng said casually, testing the waters. "Probably just some old industrial chemical leak from the textile factories that used to sit on this land."
"Chemical leak my foot," Lao Wang spat, wiping his mouth. "Old Man Liu tried to argue with them because the cold is making the concrete set incorrectly, but those Zhao Group managers didn't care. They brought in their own private security guards tonight. Have you seen them? Stationed right by the main drainage shaft. They don't look like ordinary rent-a-cops. They look like professional thugs."
Lin Feng followed Lao Wangâs gaze toward the far end of the construction site. Standing under the shadow of a massive tracked excavator were three men in tailored, dark grey tactical uniforms. Unlike Big Qiang at the front gate, these men stood with military posture, their eyes constantly scanning the laborers with cold, predatory alertness. Their hands rested casually near their belts, where heavy, high-voltage batons were secured.
Lin Feng recognized the insignia on their collars: Zhao Vanguard Corps.
In his previous life, this specific unit would evolve from a corporate security detail into a ruthless, paramilitary execution squad that specialized in liquidating independent cultivators who refused to sign away their inheritance rights to the Zhao family. Right now, they were already being deployed to guard the anomalous site.
The butterfly effect is already starting, Lin Feng realized, his pulse tightening. In the original timeline, the Zhao Group didn't send their elite internal security until the laborers actually cracked the bedrock open thirty-six days from now. My presence hasn't changed anything yet, which means the spiritual node itself is unstable. Itâs leaking faster than it did in the past.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic screech echoed from the depths of the excavation pit, followed by the violent grinding of iron against stone.
The industrial drainage pump positioned at the bottom of the trench shuddered violently. A thick plume of black smoke erupted from its exhaust vent, and the heavy diesel motor died with a pathetic, metallic clunk. Within seconds, the dark, murky water at the bottom of the pit began to rise, bubbling up from the floorboards with unnatural speed.
"Dammit! The main pump is clogged again!" Old Man Liu, the night foreman, came rushing out of the maintenance shed, his face pale with panic. He waved his clipboard frantically toward Lin Feng and Lao Wang. "You two! Grab the submersible backup pumps from the shed and get down there! If that trench floods before the foundation concrete is poured, the inspectors will halt the entire project!"
Before Lin Feng could move, one of the dark grey-uniformed Zhao security guards stepped forward, his voice cutting through the noise like a whip.
"Hold it." The lead guard, a man with a jagged scar running across his jawline, blocked the path to the pit. His eyes locked onto Old Man Liu with terrifying coldness. "No one enters the lower sector of the trench tonight. Our instructions are absolute. The area is locked down for technical evaluation."
"Technical evaluation?" Old Man Liu stammered, his voice shaking with anger and fear. "Manager Zhou, if we don't pump that water out right now, the structural walls of the pit will cave in! Itâs a massive safety hazard for the whole site!"
"I don't care about your safety hazards," Manager Zhou replied indifferently, tapping his fingers against his heavy tactical baton. "The Zhao Group will handle the structural integrity. All laborers are ordered to retreat to the upper perimeter immediately."
The workers began to mutter in fear and frustration, slowly backing away from the rising water. But Lin Feng stood perfectly still in the shadows, his gaze fixed on the bottom of the dark trench.
Through his refined senses, he could feel it. The sudden failure of the pump wasn't an accident. The rising water wasn't just mudâit was carrying a dense, suffocating concentration of raw, unrefined spiritual energy. The Spiritual Seed was about to breach the surface tonight, weeks ahead of schedule.
If he retreated to the perimeter now, the Zhao Group would secure the seed by morning, and his path to an undefeated foundation would be shattered before it even began.
Lin Feng took a deep breath, letting the icy spiritual energy in his lower abdomen circulate one full loop through his unawakened channels.
A mishap, he thought, his lips curling into a faint, invisible smile amid the darkness. But a mishap is just a compressed opportunity.