Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 12: Lifting Heavy as if Light, Lifting Light as if Heavy

The water vat weighed easily over two hundred pounds. No matter how much Lu Yang had roamed the mountains in his youth—scaling ancient pines and diving into rushing rivers—he simply did not possess the raw physical strength to hoist such a massive vessel.

Yun Zhi casually traced a glowing talismanic rune against the clay surface. Instantly, the vat’s oppressive mass plummeted, settling at a weight Lu Yang could just barely manage with a single, trembling hand.

She summoned a wooden puppet to serve as his overseer.

“Lift it for a day. We shall observe the results.”

With that airy command, she vanished into the mist. Lu Yang stared into the lifeless eyes of the puppet. He sighed, stripped off his tunic, tied it around his waist, and surrendered to his agonizing new reality.

The puppet was a merciless taskmaster. The moment Lu Yang paused for breath, it forced him back to the vat, wringing every last drop of stamina from his mortal frame.

When his arms turned to lead, the puppet shoved two Great Tonic Pills down his throat. When his muscles screamed in agony, two more Great Tonic Pills. When his vision blurred with exhaustion… two more Great Tonic Pills.

By dusk, Lu Yang’s legs quaked like leaves in a storm. His arms hung utterly dead at his sides, stripped of all sensation. If his torso swayed left, his left arm swung like a morbid pendulum; if he swayed right, the right arm followed suit. Finally, his knees buckled, and he crashed into the dirt.

The puppet dutifully shoved two more pills into his slack mouth. Receiving no response, it concluded the day’s regimen. It fetched a wooden wheelbarrow, unceremoniously dumped Lu Yang inside, and tossed a woven straw mat over his body as if hauling a corpse to the potter’s field.

***

The rich, savory aroma of roasted meat pierced the veil of his unconsciousness. Lu Yang’s mouth watered, and his mind slowly clawed its way back to the waking world.

Thank the heavens he could still eat. Had he been denied meals, he would have assumed he hadn’t joined an immortal sect at all, but had instead committed some unforgivable sin and was being tortured in a subterranean water dungeon.

As a disciple of the Sect Leader, his diet was beyond reproach. There was no need to choke down chalky Inedia Pills. Instead, rare, unrecognizable spiritual ingredients were masterfully prepared into exquisite delicacies, silently purging the impurities from his mortal flesh.

He still couldn’t lift his arms, so the puppet spoon-fed him the entire feast.

After dinner, Yun Zhi brewed a massive cauldron of Body Tempering elixir. The sheer potency of the medicinal fumes wafting through the courtyard nearly knocked Lu Yang off his feet.

“Take this.” Yun Zhi handed him a hollow reed.

“What is this for?”

“To properly temper the flesh, the body must be entirely submerged. Since your head would otherwise remain exposed, you will bite down on this reed, sink beneath the surface, and use it to breathe.”

Lu Yang marveled at his Senior Sister’s meticulous foresight. Even when subjecting him to unimaginable torment, she always had his best interests at heart.

Once Yun Zhi departed, Lu Yang stripped bare, clamped his teeth around the reed, and plunged into the wooden barrel.

An instant later, a bloodcurdling, pig-slaughtering shriek shattered the tranquility of the peak.

“Senior Sister! Are you boiling me alive?!”

***

A gentle evening breeze swept through the courtyard, carrying away the lingering scent of medicinal herbs clinging to Yun Zhi’s robes. She paused, her brow furrowing slightly as she reviewed her pedagogical methods.

Having been raised within a blessed immortal grotto, her entire existence had been surrounded by cultivators. After joining the Dao Seeking Sect, she had devoted herself entirely to the Dao, remaining utterly detached from the mundane world. Her knowledge of mortal frailty was, admittedly, lacking.

To properly instruct Lu Yang, she had acquired a mountain of mortal literature. While he studied the fundamentals of Cultivation, she studied the fundamentals of being human.

Unfortunately, none of those ancient texts had specified the optimal bathing temperature for a mortal.

Listening to Lu Yang’s hoarse, agonizing screams echoing from the bathhouse, Yun Zhi pondered the situation. It was far too late to cool the water now. The only logical recourse was…

She produced a jade bottle of burn ointment from her sleeve, placed it neatly by the door, and knocked.

“Junior Brother, I have left ointment at the threshold. Do remember to apply it.”

***

Time flowed on. Under the grueling trinity of forced, tireless labor, spiritual beast meat, and flesh-searing medicinal baths, Lu Yang evolved. He shed his peeling, blistered mortal skin and transformed into a physical marvel—a man who could easily make a living as a master street performer.

Three water vats, each weighing over two hundred pounds, soared through the air like weightless sandbags, tracing elegant arcs above his head.

Simultaneously, Lu Yang paced the rim of a rolling vat, his feet executing flawless Bagua steps as though strolling across a flat courtyard. He could even stand atop a horizontally rolling vat, immovable as Mount Tai, while effortlessly juggling the other three!

With this skill alone, he could draw thunderous applause in any mortal city.

“Acceptable. Your body refining progress has exceeded my initial estimates,” Yun Zhi said, offering a rare, light applause that swelled Lu Yang’s chest with pride. Though she seldom showed herself, she had been meticulously monitoring his every breakthrough.

“Can I begin Cultivation now?” Lu Yang dropped the vats, his eyes shining with eager anticipation. He stood perfectly still, not even breathing heavily, awaiting her judgment.

During his grueling physical conditioning, Meng Jingzhou had come to visit. They had barely exchanged a few words before the puppet ruthlessly chased Meng Jingzhou away. Lu Yang had heard the rumors: Meng Jingzhou, Man Gu, and the rest of his peers had already drawn Qi into their bodies. They were true cultivators now, meditating daily, exuding an aura of transcendent grace.

Meanwhile, he was still sweating in the dirt, juggling clay pots. The psychological gap was a chasm, breeding a quiet, gnawing anxiety within him.

Yun Zhi did not answer. Instead, she reached into her spatial storage and produced a single block of tofu.

The white cube rested upon her fair palm. It was a terrifyingly delicate construct, its structural integrity so compromised it trembled like a water-filled balloon at the slightest breath.

“Palm facing down. Seize it.”

Lu Yang blinked. A trivial task. He reached out and grasped the tofu. But the moment his fingers twitched, the molecular fragility of the curd gave way. It exploded into a mushy paste, slipping through his fingers to splatter upon the earth.

Yun Zhi’s expression remained impassive. She handed him a second block, silently commanding him to try again.

Lu Yang gritted his teeth. The first was a fluke; the second would require molecular precision. He focused his intent.

*Squish.*

The tofu disintegrated once more.

By the third catastrophic failure, realization dawned on Lu Yang. His raw physical power had grown exponentially, rendering his fine motor control utterly obsolete. He had only survived this long because every object on this peak was forged for cultivators. Had he been using mortal tools, he would have snapped his chopsticks into splinters and pulverized his rice bowls into dust with every meal.

His muscles had outpaced his nervous system. His mind could not regulate the terrifying force his body now generated, resulting in microscopic spasms of his fingers.

To capture something as fluid and structurally volatile as tofu was a monumental impossibility.

Yun Zhi withheld the fourth block. Instead, she inverted her hand, her fingers clamping down on the tofu. She shook it violently. The block wobbled with terrifying elasticity, yet its structural integrity held firm.

Suddenly, she released her grip. The tofu plummeted. In a blur of terrifying speed, her hand shot down, arresting the block in mid-air!

Lu Yang’s eyes nearly bulged from his skull. To snatch a falling object of such extreme fragility without obliterating it?

Under his Senior Sister’s absolute dominion, the delicate curd might as well have been forged of solid iron. She manipulated its physical state with terrifying grace.

“You have achieved ‘lifting heavy as if light,'” Yun Zhi said, her voice a cool bell. “But you are leagues away from ‘lifting light as if heavy.'”

Lu Yang fell into a profound silence. He understood now. His foundation was still deeply flawed. The path of Cultivation could not be rushed. Meng Jingzhou and the others had been subjected to rigorous clan conditioning since birth; of course they could step directly into the Dao.

To bridge that gap was no simple feat.

He was a wild boy of the mountains, devoid of early tutelage. Yet here he stood, receiving the personal, undivided attention of his peerless Senior Sister, nourished by heavenly treasures and earthly wonders. His rate of growth was already monstrous. What right did he have to harbor discontent?

He recalled Yun Zhi’s earlier wisdom: *Cultivation is a lifelong endeavor. A momentary advantage means nothing. The true victor is the one who laughs at the end of the age.*

Lu Yang took two deep, centering breaths. He purged the toxic anxiety from his heart, realigning his mindset. He would no longer obsess over the speed of his progress. He had found inner peace.

Then, he watched in horror as his Senior Sister commanded the puppet to wheel over an entire wheelbarrow overflowing with tofu.