[HOST INTEGRITY: 8%]
[LOCATION: THE YE CLAN ESTATE - NORTHERN DISTRICT]
[TIME: 12:30 PM]
The Ye Clan Estate did not look like a home. It looked like a mausoleum where the residents had forgotten to die.
Ren Wu stepped out of the taxi. He didn't have enough physical coins for the return trip, so this was a one-way ride.
He leaned heavily on a black umbrella he was using as a cane. His legs felt like they were filled with lead and broken glass.
8% Integrity.
If he coughed too hard, he might actually dismantle.
"Buddy," the taxi driver muttered, eyeing the massive iron gates guarded by two stone lions. "You sure about this? That's the Ice Demon's house. People go in, they don't come out."
"Keep the change," Ren rasped, handing over a handful of loose coins. "I'm here for a health inspection."
Ren looked up at the estate.
To the naked eye, it was a sprawling traditional compound with sweeping tiled roofs and high walls covered in frost, even in the midday sun.
To Ren's [Spirit Sight], it was a disaster zone.
The spiritual aura of the house wasn't circulating; it was stagnating. Massive jagged spikes of uncontrolled Yin energy pierced the roof like icicles. The feng shui was so constipated it made Ren's chest hurt just looking at it.
"Inefficient," Ren muttered. "They aren't cultivating. They are slowly refrigerating themselves to death."
He walked to the gate.
Two guards in white silk robes stepped forward. They held hands on the hilts of long, frost-rimmed swords.
"Halt," one guard barked. "This is private territory. The Ye Clan is not receiving—"
Ren didn't stop. He didn't look at them. He looked at the clipboard he had brought (the one with the fake handwritten ledger).
"I have an appointment with the Board," Ren said, his voice bored and raspy. "You are delaying the audit. Name?"
The guard blinked. "What? I am Guard Captain Li. Who are you?"
"Ren Wu. Independent Consultant. Move aside, Captain Li, or I will note 'Obstruction of Efficiency' in my preliminary report."
The sheer bureaucratic audacity confused the guard. He hesitated.
That hesitation was all Ren needed.
The heavy iron gate groaned open.
Ye Lingshan stood there.
She wasn't wearing her school uniform. She wore a formal white training robe embroidered with blue frost patterns. She looked like a princess of winter—beautiful, cold, and incredibly dangerous.
"Let him in," she commanded.
The guards bowed instantly. "Young Miss! But he is a mortal. He smells of... poverty and factory smoke."
"He is my guest," Ye Lingshan said. She looked at Ren. Her eyes narrowed, scanning his pale face and the umbrella.
"You look terrible," she noted. "Worse than yesterday."
"I'm managing a crisis," Ren replied, limping past the guards. "Lead the way. I don't charge by the hour, but my patience has a meter."
The Hall of Frozen Breath
The main hall of the Ye Estate was freezing.
It wasn't air-conditioning. The temperature hovered around -10 degrees Celsius. The tea on the table had a thin layer of ice on it.
Ren sat in a wooden chair, shivering. He wrapped his ruined tuxedo jacket tighter.
Integrity dropping. 7%. Need heat.
Across from him sat three old men.
The Clan Elders.
They looked like statues carved from dry ice. Their skin was translucent, their beards stiff with frost. They radiated power—Core Formation Stage pressure that weighed on the room like a physical block of lead.
In the center sat the Clan Head, Ye Gucheng.
He was skeletal. He sat in a wheelchair covered in snow-leopard furs. His breathing was a wet, rattling wheeze. Every time he exhaled, snowflakes formed in the air.
"So," Ye Gucheng wheezed. His voice sounded like cracking glaciers. "This is the 'Expert' my granddaughter spoke of? A crippled boy with no cultivation base? A boy who is currently wanted by the Administration?"
The Elder to his right slammed a teacup down.
"This is an insult!" the Elder roared. "Lingshan, you bring a street rat into our sanctum? He claims he can fix the Heavenly Frost Art? Our technique was gifted by an Immortal three hundred years ago!"
"It wasn't gifted," Ren interrupted calmly.
The room went silent.
Ren didn't stand up (he couldn't). He just tapped his finger on his clipboard.
"I checked the public records," Ren lied smoothly. "Your ancestor, Ye Tian, didn't receive a gift. He found a damaged jade slip in a 'Nether-Rift' near the Kunlun Mountains in 1720."
The Elders froze. That was a family secret.
"How do you—"
"That jade slip," Ren continued, ignoring them, "wasn't a Heavenly Scripture. It was an Employee Handbook."
Ren looked at the Clan Head.
"Specifically, it was the basic training manual for the 14th Battalion of the Frost Hells. It was written for Ice Demons, not humans. And your ancestor... he couldn't read Ancient Nether-Script."
Ren chuckled dryly. It hurt his lungs.
"He mistook the character for 'Flow' with the character for 'Freeze'. For three hundred years, you haven't been circulating your Qi. You've been jamming it into your kidneys."
Silence. Absolute, stunned silence.
Then, the Elder on the right stood up, his face purple with rage.
"Blasphemy! You dare mock the Ancestor? I will cut out your tongue!"
He drew his sword. The air in the room screamed. A wave of ice shot toward Ren.
Ren didn't move. He didn't even flinch. He couldn't afford the stamina to dodge.
He just looked at the Elder and whispered one word.
"Kidney."
The Elder froze mid-swing.
His face twisted in agony. He dropped the sword and clutched his lower back, falling to his knees.
"Argh! My... my back!"
"Meridian blockage on the 4th lumbar," Ren diagnosed coldly, making a mark on his clipboard. "Every time you channel Qi, it backfires into your renal system. That's why you pee blood on Tuesdays, isn't it?"
The Elder gasped, terrified. "You... how..."
Ren turned his gaze to the Clan Head in the wheelchair.
"And you," Ren said softly. "You're worse. You tried to force the breakthrough to the 'Glacial Heart' stage. But because of the translation error, you didn't create a Glacial Heart."
Ren tapped his own chest.
"You froze your own lungs. You aren't dying of old age, old man. You're drowning in your own spiritual condensation."
Ye Gucheng trembled. He looked at Ren not with anger, but with the desperation of a dying man who just saw a lifeline.
"Can... can you fix it?"
"I am an Auditor," Ren said. "I fix organizational inefficiencies."
Ren held out his hand.
"Give me the manual."
Ye Lingshan hesitated, looking at her grandfather. The old man nodded weakly.
She went to a safe in the wall, unlocked it, and brought out an ancient, decaying scroll.
Ren took it. He didn't treat it with reverence. He opened it, glanced at the first line, and sighed.
"Garbage," Ren muttered. "Look at this syntax. Who translated this? A goblin?"
He pulled a red marker from his pocket.
Scritch. Scratch.
He crossed out an entire paragraph. He drew arrows. He corrected the grammar.
"You're circulating clockwise," Ren narrated as he vandalized their sacred text. "Demons circulate clockwise because they have no souls. Humans must circulate counter-clockwise to filter the Yin energy through the liver."
He finished. He tossed the scroll back to Ye Lingshan.
"Try it," Ren commanded. "Read the third line. Reverse the flow."
Ye Lingshan looked at the red ink. It seemed like madness.
But she trusted the feeling she had felt in the Bell Tower.
She closed her eyes. She took a breath.
She channeled her Qi in reverse.
WHOOSH.
Instead of the room getting colder, a sudden heat radiated from her body.
The frost on her eyebrows melted. Her pale skin flushed with a healthy pink color.
She opened her eyes. They were glowing.
"It... it doesn't hurt," she whispered. "The ice... it's moving. It's fluid."
She pointed her finger. A beam of ice shot out, hitting a vase.
The vase didn't just freeze; it shattered into dust.
"Power output increased by 40%," Ren noted. "And no kidney damage."
The Elders stared. They looked at Lingshan, then at the scroll, then at the cripple in the cheap suit.
Ye Gucheng tried to stand up. He couldn't, but he bowed his head in the wheelchair. A gesture of supreme respect.
"Master Ren," the Clan Head rasped. "You have saved the Ye Clan. Name your price. Gold? Jade? We have vaults."
Ren stood up slowly. He checked his watch.
"I don't want your money. My accounts are frozen anyway."
Ren leaned forward, his green eyes burning with the last of his energy.
"I need a Board Member."
He pointed at the empty seat beside the Clan Head.
"I am forming a Union. The Ministry Union. I want the Ye Clan to be the first signatory. You provide the political shield. You tell the Administration that Ren Wu is a protected consultant of the Ye Family."
"And in return?" Ye Gucheng asked.
"In return," Ren smiled, "I will translate the rest of the book. And I will show you how to conquer the Southern Peaks and destroy the Wang Family."
The Clan Head didn't hesitate.
"Lingshan," he barked. "Get the seal. We are signing."
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[QUEST COMPLETED: THE CORPORATE SHIELD]
[NEW ALLY: THE YE CLAN (ANCIENT NOBILITY)]
[POLITICAL INFLUENCE: +500]
[WARRANT STATUS: CONTESTED]
Ren buttoned his coat.
"Pleasure doing business with you," Ren said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a factory to run. And I believe..."
He looked at his phone. It was buzzing.
Unknown Number.
"...I just missed a call from Nether-Core. They must be wondering why their subpoena just bounced."