Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 36: Not a Single One Is Easy to Manage

“Eldest Senior Sister might look like a picture of serene tranquility, but beneath that mask lies a tempest of unpredictable fury,” Lu Yang lied smoothly, his voice trembling with just the right amount of manufactured trauma. “As the mortal saying goes, ‘To serve a ruler is to sleep beside a tiger.’ And let me tell you, staying by her side is infinitely more terrifying than any beast!”

He paused, letting a hollow, haunted look enter his eyes. “Sure, she’s a peerless beauty. Probably the most stunning woman I’ve ever seen. But a fair face hides a dark heart. Can you fathom the horrors I endure? Every single meal, she forces me to gorge on the severed limbs of wild beasts and the mangled corpses of spirit herbs! In the dead of night, she makes me submerge myself entirely in vats of water steeped with the remains of your fallen brethren, claiming it will ‘strengthen my physique’!”

“And that’s not all. Once, I simply asked to learn spatial divine abilities to make traveling easier. Instead of teaching me, she forcibly shrank my body, pinched me between her fingers, and played with me in the palm of her hand like a toy!”

Lu Yang’s vehement denunciation of Yun Zhi’s “atrocities” struck a deep, resonant chord. The little Medicine Kings practically wept in sympathy.

The Ginseng Baby slammed a tiny fist into its palm. “If that’s the case, we strike from both sides! You be our inside man, and we’ll provide the external muscle. Let’s overthrow that female demon right now!”

Lu Yang nearly choked. He hurriedly waved his hands. “Absolutely not! We must play the long game. Senior Sister is the undisputed top disciple of the Dao Seeking Sect. Her cultivation is an unfathomable abyss. With just our meager numbers, we’d be marching to our deaths.”

He adopted the solemn tone of a seasoned tactician. “For the sake of absolute certainty, we must bide our time. Wait until I reach the Tribulation Transcendence stage. Our odds of survival will drastically improve. Then, we strike as one, counterattack the Senior Sister, and claim victory in a single, glorious sweep!”

“When that day comes, blood will pay for blood, and every grievance will be settled. Isn’t that the superior strategy?”

The little Medicine Kings nodded in profound realization. Humans truly were devious creatures.

“I initially assumed your intellect was vastly inferior to mine,” the Ginseng Baby admitted, stroking its chin. “I never expected such a meticulous, foolproof scheme. It seems we are intellectual equals!”

Bound by their shared hatred of the “female demon,” Lu Yang and the sentient flora became fast friends. They howled and clamored, their tiny voices echoing through the garden as they plotted their eventual coup. With Lu Yang in their ranks, the little Medicine Kings felt invincible. Victory wasn’t just assured; it was practically already in their pockets!

Meanwhile, at the entrance to the Medicine Garden, Uncle Ba stared blankly at a shimmering water mirror. He watched Lu Yang’s impassioned, treasonous speech and let out a long, weary sigh.

Yun Zhi had explicitly instructed him to monitor Lu Yang. Make sure no accidents happen in the Medicine Garden, she had said. If anything goes wrong, inform me immediately.

Uncle Ba rubbed his temples. Did organizing a botanical rebellion count as an accident?

If he actually reported this to Yun Zhi, the resulting fallout would definitely become an accident.

“Why is it,” the old man muttered to the empty air, “that not a single young person these days is easy to manage?”

***

Back in the dirt, Lu Yang stretched his shoulders. “All this talk of rebellion, and I haven’t even shown you my technique yet.”

He activated his unique variation of the Shrinking Earth to an Inch technique, struck a flawless Olympic diving pose, and plunged headfirst into the solid ground.

The towering Enlightenment Tree King reacted much like Yun Zhi had—with baffled awe. In all its ancient, sprawling years of existence, it had never witnessed such an absurd technique. On the surface, it mimicked the spatial folding of Shrinking Earth to an Inch, but the actual execution felt distinctly like a Five Elements earth technique.

To invent an entirely new, logic-defying technique at such a young age… the boy was a bona fide cultivation prodigy.

Beneath the surface, Lu Yang was in his element. He transitioned smoothly from a breaststroke to a butterfly, then into a rapid freestyle crawl through the loam. He breached the surface occasionally for air before diving back down with the fluid grace of a dolphin. Watching him, one could easily suffer the hallucination that the earth had turned to liquid.

Nearby, the Kirin Immortality Herb and the End-of-Ages Flower had finally ceased their brawling. After hearing the Ginseng Baby and the Three-Leaf Star Grass recount Lu Yang’s “tragic” backstory, they too were swept up in the righteous indignation.

“The Medicine Kings finally have a sleeper agent planted in human society!” they cheered.

The four legendary herbs perched on a low-hanging branch of the Enlightenment Tree King, clapping their leaves and roots in rapturous applause.

Drunk on the adoration, Lu Yang let out a wild whoop. He kicked off the ground, launching himself ten feet into the air. He spread his arms into a perfect cross, initiated a rapid-fire 3,600-degree aerial spin, and promptly lost all sense of equilibrium.

Thud.

He plummeted like a stone, planting his face squarely into the dirt.

The attempt to look cool had failed catastrophically.

The little Medicine Kings shrieked in panic, scrambling down the tree to hoist Lu Yang’s limp body out of the crater. Fortunately, for a Foundation Establishment cultivator, a ten-foot faceplant was merely a superficial scratch. He healed in moments.

Realizing Lu Yang was essentially a high-speed, human rototiller, the Medicine Kings produced a detailed map of the Medicine Garden. They tasked him with aerating the soil along a specific route.

“The root systems in this sector run deep, extending up to ten feet into the soil,” the Ginseng Baby instructed, pointing a stubby root at the map. “You must be careful not to brush against them, lest you cause a terrible misunderstanding. I highly recommend you maintain a cruising depth of ten to sixteen feet. Consider that the Safe Zone.”

“In the other sectors, the roots only reach about a foot to six feet down. Just dig below the six-foot mark and you’ll be fine.”

Lu Yang brushed the dirt off his robes. “Just out of curiosity, what happens if I do touch the roots?”

The Ginseng Baby stared at him with deadpan severity. “We would assume you have a foot fetish.”

Lu Yang blinked. “…What?”

The End-of-Ages Flower nodded sagely. “It’s true. You humans harbor many perverts. We’ve heard tales of cultivators who love nothing more than to suck the skin off our plant feet while drinking wine. They claim it’s ‘delicious’ and ‘pairs well with alcohol.’ They even cultivate massive plantations of them just to satisfy this sick urge.”

Lu Yang stared blankly. “What plant are you talking about?”

“Peanuts.”

Lu Yang decided right then and there to stop trying to follow the logical leaps of sentient shrubbery.

Pushing the bizarre conversation aside, he dove back into the earth, following the Ginseng Baby’s designated route.

The little Medicine Kings, having long grown bored of watching the local earthworm couples till the soil, found this human submarine routine endlessly entertaining. They dove into the dirt behind him, trailing his wake like a school of fish.

Naturally, the Medicine Kings possessed their own earth-evasion abilities, but their method involved seamlessly merging with the soil. Lu Yang’s brute-force method of physically displacing the earth left behind a trail of perfectly aerated, soft loam that the plants found delightfully comfortable.

Above ground, the Enlightenment Tree King watched the subterranean parade with a heavy sigh. Trees, unfortunately, could not swim through the dirt.

It tilted its massive canopy toward the blazing sun, feeling the oppressive, scorching heat on its leaves. It sighed again. “Why did I have to grow so damn tall? I don’t even have a patch of shade to sit in.”

The Enlightenment Tree King couldn’t help but feel that the universe was fundamentally biased against it.

The little Medicine Kings spent the entire day tailing Lu Yang’s subterranean laps. By the time evening fell, they were still roughhousing and giggling on the walk back.

“Bath time! Let’s boil some water!” they cheered.

The Enlightenment Tree King had already prepared several large wooden barrels, filling them to the brim with fresh water drawn from the garden’s irrigation stream.

The Kirin Immortality Herb stepped forward. A brilliant, searing light ignited within its abdomen, traveling slowly up its throat until it opened its maw and exhaled a stream of pure Kirin True Fire.

With its scales and draconic features, the herb looked exactly like a miniature, living Kirin. It was no wonder ancient cultivators who stumbled upon it swore they had seen a mythical beast.

The temperature of the Kirin True Fire was apocalyptic. In the blink of an eye, the water in the barrels was brought to a violent, rolling boil.

Without a second thought, the little Medicine Kings gleefully hurled themselves into the boiling cauldrons. They closed their eyes, floating blissfully on the bubbling surface like they were in a hot spring.

Lu Yang watched the scene unfold, a profound sense of deja vu washing over him. He had definitely seen this exact setup in the sect’s kitchens.

Right. It was called making a medicinal stew.

Though, to be fair, this was the first time he had ever seen the ingredients enthusiastically boil their own water and jump into the pot.

Within moments, a rich, intoxicating medicinal aroma wafted from the barrels, saturating the evening air. Lu Yang merely took a single, deep breath, and his mind instantly cleared. He could actually feel the bottleneck of his cultivation trembling, threatening to break through just from the secondhand steam.

Truly worthy of the title ‘Medicine Kings,’ he thought, awestruck. Their passive medicinal potency is utterly terrifying.

He sat by the barrels, watching the ancient, mythical flora splash and play in the boiling water like toddlers. A soft, weary smile touched his lips.

He recalled something Eldest Senior Sister had once told him. Longevity is a poison, she had said. It is a torment that the mortal mind was never meant to bear. Only those with a nature entirely detached from ordinary humanity can endure the crushing weight of eternal life.

These little Medicine Kings had existed for untold eons. They had lived through eras that were now nothing but dust and myth. They had witnessed the rise and fall of empires, the births and deaths of peerless heroes. Every person, every event recorded in the ancient annals of history had long since faded into oblivion.

Yet, the Medicine Kings remained.

Looking at them now, Lu Yang finally understood. Perhaps this eternal, unyielding innocence—this childlike ignorance—was the only defense mechanism that kept them from going completely insane under the crushing weight of time.

It was a beautiful, tragic thought.

It was just a shame they were so incredibly easy to scam.