I gain ten years' worth of cultivation every day, and even geniuses will only see my doorstep!

Li Qing.

She went because she wanted to know what a world without rules would be like.

She was gone for three months. When she returned, she had a fresh scar near her eye. The wound wasn't deep, but it was long, stretching from her left eyebrow to her right cheekbone. It wasn't a knife wound; it was from being hit by a stone.

Qin Yuan didn't ask her who smashed it. She told him herself.

"The world of the New Freedom Alliance is in chaos. The strong have seized the mines, the fields, and the women. The weak dare not even flee, for the outside world is even more chaotic."

Qin Yuan asked, "You want me to send troops?"

Li Qing shook her head. "I don't know."

Qin Yuan did not send troops. He went to those worlds not as a guardian, but as a passerby. He did not wear a Taoist robe, carry a sword, or reveal his cultivation level.

He helped an old farmer get his land back after it had been taken from him. There was no lawsuit, no violence. He simply stood in front of the monk who had seized the land for a while, looked at him, and then left. The monk returned the land the next day.

He helped a widow who had her house seized get it back. There was no negotiation, no threats. He sat on the man's doorstep for an entire afternoon. The man came out three times, looked at him three times, and on the fourth time, handed the deed to the widow.

He helped a young boy being chased find hiding place. The boy huddled in a dry well, covered in mud, too afraid to make a sound. Qin Yuan sat by the well all night. The pursuers came three times, but each time they saw Qin Yuan, they went around him.

He didn't kill those powerful individuals. He simply let them know—someone was watching.

The radical leader of the Neoliberal Alliance found Qin Yuan. He stood under the old plum tree, two heads taller than Qin Yuan, with shoulders as broad as a doorway. His eyes were red, not from crying, but from the marks left by practicing some kind of cultivation technique.

"What exactly do you want?"

Qin Yuan said, "I want you to learn to live with others."

The leader remained silent for a long time. His red eyes stared at the leaves of the old plum tree for a long time. The leaves were green with slightly red edges.

He turned and left. No one knows where he went. His followers scattered; some returned to the council, some went to other worlds, and some disappeared.

Qin Yuan returned to the Xuan Yuan Sect. The old plum tree's leaves had grown thick and glossy green. Lin Qing'er was washing clothes by the stream, the washboard resting on her knees, her hands pushing against it rhythmically. The wood grain was deep, and the clothes rubbed against it, making a rhythmic sound.

She looked up at him.

Are you tired?

"tired."

He walked over and sat down next to her. A patch of the bluestone was wet from dripping water from his clothes. He didn't move. The water soaked through his trousers and felt cool.

He did nothing. He just sat there.

Ten years after the founding of the Multiverse Council, the arguments continued. But no one slammed their fists on the table anymore, and no one cried. The councilors learned to take turns speaking, and to use "I agree" and "I disagree" instead of cursing. Order didn't fall from the sky; it was forged through ten years of arguing. Qin Yuan attended the council's opening ceremony once a year, sitting in the last row. His chair was wooden, like everyone else's, without armrests or cushions. He sat there, silent. The councilors would occasionally glance at him while speaking, but he never looked at anyone. He looked at the window, at the ceiling, at his own fingers.

In ten years, he used his veto power only once. It was on a proposal that attempted to strip weaker worlds of their voice. The larger worlds united, demanding, in the name of "efficiency," that only worlds with a population exceeding a certain size be eligible to vote. The proposal passed on its second reading, and the Speaker's gavel was about to fall. Qin Yuan stood up and uttered a single word: "No." The proposal was rejected. No one dared to question it, because everyone knew—if he wanted, he could veto everything. But he didn't. He only vetoed once.

Li Qing found him not in the council meeting, but in the back mountain of the Xuan Yuan Sect. A batch of leaves had already fallen from the old plum tree, and new ones hadn't yet grown; the branches were bare. She stood by the stream, not crossing it. Qin Yuan sat on a blue stone, without a teacup in his hand.

"There's something I think you should know," Li Qing said.

"explain."

"In some remote little worlds, things have become even more chaotic after the council was established. It's not a problem with the rules. It's that the old order has been broken and a new order has not yet been established. Before, there were strong people in charge, and although they weren't very good at managing things, at least things weren't chaotic. Now that no one is in charge, whoever has the biggest fist calls the shots."

Qin Yuan asked, "Why don't they come to the council?"

"They don't know what parliament is. They don't even know how big their world is."

Qin Yuan remained silent for a long time. He looked at the stream, the water flowing on, its sound unchanged. "I'll go take a look."

Lin Qing'er came out of the house, carrying two bowls of tea. She placed one bowl beside Qin Yuan and handed the other to Li Qing. This time, Li Qing accepted it. The tea was warm, not hot. She took a sip and said nothing.

"I'll go with you," Lin Qing'er said.

Qin Yuan shook his head. "No need this time. You wait for me here."

Lin Qing'er didn't insist. She went back into the house and brought out a bag of dry rations. It was wrapped in oil paper and tied with hemp rope in her best bow. She put the rations into Qin Yuan's arms and patted it, like patting a child's head.

Qin Yuan is gone.

There is no land in the Muddy Realm. Only endless swamps, withered reeds floating on the gray-green water, and the air thick with the stench of decay. Qin Yuan walked for three days without seeing a single cultivator. The people here are not cultivators—they don't know what spiritual power is, what realms are, or what the Council of Myriad Realms is. Their worries are whether they will have their next meal and whether the next rain will wash away their shacks.

The hut was built of mud and reeds, half submerged in water and half exposed to the elements. The mud walls were plastered with cracked, dry mud that crumbled at the slightest touch. The reeds on the roof had turned black, and rainwater seeped in through the cracks, leaving countless puddles of varying depths on the ground.

Qin Yuan saw a woman at the door of a shed. She wasn't old, but she wasn't young either. Most of her face was covered in mud and water, making it impossible to tell her age. She was holding a baby in her arms; the baby's belly was swollen like a balloon, its lips were purple, and its breathing was shallow and rapid.

"What's wrong with the child?" Qin Yuan squatted down.

The woman looked up, her eyes cloudy. She glanced at Qin Yuan, then looked down at the baby in her arms. "His mother is dead. There's no milk. He's starving to death."

Qin Yuan reached out and pressed his hand against the baby's stomach. It wasn't from hunger. The poisonous gas from the swamp had seeped into the skin, corroding the internal organs. The liver, kidneys, and intestines were all failing. This hadn't happened overnight; it had been accumulating since birth. The baby's cries were weak, like a cat's meow.

"Why don't you move outside the swamp?"

The woman raised her cloudy eyes and looked at Qin Yuan. "Where is it outside?"