Simultaneous traversal: All Abyss difficulty.

Chapter 691 Cultivation Methods
The north wind was like a knife, sweeping across the vast mountains, swirling up scattered snowflakes that pelted our faces, icy and biting.

Fang Yu, wrapped in a thin, coarse cloth jacket that smelled of the countryside, followed the guide, stepping into the territory of the so-called "Golden Gate".

Contrary to expectations of ethereal beauty, pavilions, and towers, what met the eye were only bare, cold rocks and a cluster of low, somewhat rough stone houses carved into the mountainside, exuding an air of desolation and bleakness.

The air was filled with a richer spiritual energy, but unfortunately, this richness only made Fang Yu's stagnant spiritual root in his dantian look even more pathetic.

The guide was an outer disciple named Li Ermou, who was thin with high cheekbones, wearing faded gray sect robes, and had an inconspicuous little gourd hanging from his waist.

He didn't say much along the way, until he stopped in front of a bare, windswept cliff platform. Then he turned around and looked the last new "handyman" up and down with his narrow eyes, which were devoid of emotion.

"Kid, listen up, I'll only say this once."

Li Ermou's voice, like his personality, was dry and hoarse, carrying a hint of barely perceptible arrogance. "Once you enter Jinmen, you are a Jinmen person in life and a Jinmen ghost in death. The mark you are left on this life can never be washed away! If you want to live and breathe here, the first rule is that you must pay the monthly gate fee of five qian of spirit sand, not a single coin less! The second rule is that the rations of three dan of coarse grains and two dan of fine grains must be delivered to the warehouse on time."

Fang Yu's face, which was already stiff from the cold, turned even whiter upon hearing this.

He abruptly raised his head, his eyes filled with disbelief and a deep sense of betrayal: "What? Money? Food? Are you kidding me! Before I came up the mountain, that fat deacon Wang told me that food and lodging would be provided here, and all I had to do was meditate and practice my skills every day! Otherwise, why would I have come to this godforsaken place with you? Let me go! I'm not going to cultivate this damn immortality anymore!"

"Heh," Li Ermou let out a short, ambiguous laugh, as if he had heard the biggest joke in the world. "Leave? Once you enter this mountain gate, let alone not wanting to cultivate, countless people would be scrambling to squeeze in! Let you down the mountain? Fine!"

Li Ermou suddenly moved closer, his long-suppressed, chilling aura emanating from him. He pointed to the bottomless, cloud-shrouded cliff beyond the platform, his tone turning menacing: "See that down there? There's only one way down the mountain: you'll be grabbed by the back of your collar and thrown off with a 'whoosh'! Whether you land face-first or feet-first depends on your luck! Otherwise, your life, your bones, are sold to the Golden Gate! From now on, you'll serve the inner sect's immortals well, doing all the dirty and hard work until you die! If you have any complaints..."

Li Ermou poked Fang Yu's thin chest with his finger, his fingernails still covered in black dirt: "...It's all your fault for not having the affinity for immortality! 'Inferior, attribute-less'? When the test came out, it was already a mercy from the elders that they didn't throw you into the back mountain to feed the monsters on the spot! Did you think you were some kind of hot commodity? A trash spiritual root is a trash spiritual root, understand? Accept your fate!"

These hurtful words, each one like an ice pick piercing Fang Yu's heart.

He recalled the dull, lifeless stone sphere on the testing platform, and the white-bearded steward's disgusted pronouncement: "Trash! You'll be cleaning toilets from now on!" A chilling despair mixed with the anger of being looked down upon surged in his chest.

As they spoke, the two turned a corner through a mountain pass that was even colder, and arrived at a shady mountain hollow.

At the bottom of the valley, clinging to the cold mountain wall, stands a dilapidated woodshed, barely constructed from crooked logs and frozen thatch. It is drafty on all sides, with the cold wind swirling and seeping into the house, making it even more biting and eerie than outside.

"Here, from now on this will be your 'immortal abode'."

Li Ermou gestured with his chin towards the woodshed, introducing it coldly, as if describing a pigsty, "Two meals a day, you collect them yourself from the General Affairs Hall on the shady slope of the mountain. It's all thin soup and water, just enough wild vegetables to keep you alive. Oh, and most importantly," he emphasized, "every day, the chamber pots in the rows of outhouses on the east side of the sect must be cleaned until they shine, not a single stain can be left! That's your job; if you mess it up, tsk tsk."

Hearing this inhuman treatment, Fang Yu's heart sank. He suddenly remembered the most crucial thing: "Money! What about my five qian monthly allowance? I'm penniless, even my bundle has been taken away!" Li Ermou finally revealed a very realistic, slightly mocking smile: "Hehe, that's very simple. There are plenty of wealthy people in our outer sect. As for methods, there are plenty—those senior brothers and sisters who have some connections and are doing a little better always need someone to do their bidding. Go! Wash their smelly socks, tidy up their broken magic tools, run errands and deliver dirty things. If you serve them well, even a few specks of spiritual sand leaking from between their fingers will be enough to keep you alive."

He patted Fang Yu's stiff shoulder, but his words were colder than a knife: "Remember this, kid, your monthly allowance is your lifeline. The rules of Kinmen are ironclad, and even the Heavenly King himself cannot break them. Not handing it over? Hmph, at the bottom of that cliff, they don't care if you're face down or ass down, you're just another piece of 'trash'!"

After Li Ermou finished speaking, he glanced again at the gloomy and dilapidated woodshed and Fang Yu, whose face was ashen. There was no sympathy in his eyes, only a numbness of habit and a hint of mockery of "another resigned good-for-nothing." He turned and left, leaving that frail figure and the heavy threat of death in this bone-chilling cold and shadow.

Fang Yu stood stiffly at the door of the woodshed, the cold wind blowing in through his tattered collar, raising goosebumps.

He stared intently at Li Ermou's retreating figure as he disappeared at the end of the stone steps, his teeth grinding together, a fire of despair, rage, and resentment burning fiercely deep within his chest!

The next day, before dawn, the frost was biting cold, and the howling north wind blew into Fang Yu's dilapidated woodshed, taking away the last bit of warmth.

He practically crawled to his feet with sheer grit, put on his thin, coarse coat, and grabbed a cold, broken wooden bucket and brush from the corner—his "spiritual training" for the day had begun.

As Fang Yu groped his way to the row of outhouses on the east side of the ravine, which emitted a strong stench, his stomach churned.

"Ugh—!" He retched several times, tears and snot almost coming out from the stench, and his vision blurred.

The stench, a mixture of stale filth and putrid odor, assaulted the very core of my being, so intense it seemed to have a physical form.

He leaned against the cold earthen wall with one hand and covered his mouth and nose with the other, cursing under his breath: "Pah! Damn it, they claim to be immortals, superior beings who can fly and escape into the earth, yet their shit still stinks so badly! It's suffocating me!"

Every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth, carrying a heavy sense of resentment.

Despite the churning in his stomach and the biting cold, he gritted his teeth and slowly cleaned the filthy wooden tubs.

The cold, pungent excrement splashed onto his worn-out shoes and cuffs, and the humiliation he felt was even worse than the stench.

By the time Fang Yu had finally scrubbed all the buckets until they were sparkling clean, he was completely exhausted.

He leaned against the cold rocks, panting heavily, gazing at the last glimmer of dawn on the horizon. His disheveled appearance, covered in filth, was completely out of place in this "Golden Gate" paradise.

(End of this chapter)