THE DAO OF LIES AND DECEIT

CHAPTER -5

Jang woke up in his bed with a sudden start, yanking his covers violently off him. His body was covered in sweat and and a disagreeable scent assaulted his nose , which he soon realized was coming from his own body. He hadn't felt this dirty in years ever since he entered into the life of a cultivator after having expelled most of the mortal impurities present in his body.

Despite the disagreeable circumstances of his waking, Jang couldn't help but be glad that he had woken up. That was such a horrible and realistic nightmare that he had had last night. He had truly believed that he was going to die. Feeling kind of disgusted with the state of his body and blinking away some flecks that seemed to have accumulated in the corner of his vision, Jang wasted no time in washing away the mixture of filth, sweat and some other things he couldn't identify from his body, which was really perplexing since cultivators generally only expelled waste from their body when they ascended realms.

checking the Qi inside his body was enough to confirm that Jang hadn't even advanced a layer, much less jump an entire realm. His body felt more or less the same, except that after washing up, the flecks in his vision seemed to have solidified to a blue dot in the edge of his vision. This,   along with all the other weird things confirmed that a visit to the sect healer was overdue.

Jang changed into a new attire, feeling more like himself since waking up and stepped out into the corridor. He was surprised to notice that the low level spirit stone attached to his mail box, which was attached to the side of his door was blinking red , indicating that he had unopened mail inside. Jang didn't have any regular currospondants and it seemed unlikely that any of his seniors who had been sent off to the frontier had actually survived and further bothered to write him a reply.

It was unlikely that it was from the sect itself either, considering the fact that he hadn't completed any missions lately that had any payment due, unless you counted his disasterous half completed nightmare last night as a mission. Jang was daring himself not to hope that this was something from Zhao who might have felt some remorse about the ruthless reply Jang had recieved in reply for his plea for some cultivation aids.

Jang slowly opened his mailbox using his Qi signature, all the while telling himself not to get his hopes up. Zhao simply was not the kind of guy who would extend him a helping hand. Jang was surprised to see that the letter was sealed with the emblem of the mission hall of the outer sect before tearing open the envelope.

Jang's face want from disbelief to shock as he studied the contents of the letter. It was a notification of reward transfer for a successfully completed patrol mission, the one he thought he had dreamed about. Even more concerningly, the date on the letter was two days ahead of what should have been. If he wasn't still stuck in a nightmare, then this meant that Jang had simply skipped 2 days of his life .

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Mako was enjoying his morning as he stood at the counter of the sect's mission hall. He had only 3 more days to serve at this post before he was relieved. Unlike a lot of his sect brothers and Seniors, Mako actually enjoyed working here and interacting with people. It helped ease some of the loneliness he felt  following the path of a cultivator. His father had always said 'A cultivator faces the heavens alone', but it didn't really hurt to have some good company along the way.

Maho had just assigned a convoy guard mission to one of the new entrants of the sect, when he noticed brother Jang hurrying into the mission hall. He had a really troubled expression on his face.

" Good morning, brother Jang • How may I help you today? " Mako greeted him with a smile.
" Good morning brother Mako, I'm actually here about this" Jang said while holding up an envelope with the outer sect mission hall emblem.
" Ah yes , the payment for your last patrol mission. I apologize if it was delivered a bit late, but we didn't receive the transmission containing the watch captain's confirmation until today Morning" Mako said with a polite smile, hoping that brother Jang hadn't been offended or inconvenienced by the slight delay of his hard earned payment.

" You... You recieved the watch captain's confirmation today moring?" brother Jang asked with no small amount of surprise in his voice.
" Yes, he had messaged the hall today morning just like you said he would yesterday evening whenyou came in to report the completion of the mission.  What's wrong brother Jang?, was he supposed to report earlier?" Mako asked , noticing that brother Jang's anxiety seemed to grow even more with each statement.

" No, I mean... Yes, he was supposed to report this morning. I'm glad he did ha ha ha", brother Jang ended with a laugh that was so obviously  fake that it was really concerning for Mako.
"Are you okay brother Jang?" Mako asked
" I'm fine brother Mako ... totally fine, just a bit tired from all the travel you know?", Jang said.
" Yes, the distance was a bit farther than where you normally used to go if I remember correctly. Do you want me to escort you to the sect healer's office brother Jang? I can spare a couple of hours" Mako offered since he was somehow getting the feeling that brother Jang needed some emotional  support.

" Thank you for your Offer  brother Mako , but I'm okay" brother  Jang said.

Mako offered once again and was met with the same response. Brother Jang didn't stick around for much longer before exiting the hall.
Mako really wished that brother Jang would open up to him a bit more, as it was really obvious that there was something troubling him.

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Healer Lung was having a relatively quiet day in his office. The last patient that was under treatment for Qi deviation from a demon encounter on a patrol mission had left three days ago and he found himself facing a relaxing afternoon where he could perhaps catch up a bit more on his studies.

He was just about to reach for a book on his shelf when he heard the annoying sound of a bell being rung. Years of being in this office left him no doubt as to the source of the sound. It was his mortal assistant signalling him that a new patient had appeared at the front desk. It was a single bell, which signified that it was not an emergency case .which, in turn meant that he could refuse if he wanted. But, Lung saw no reason to deny himself valuable sect tokens just because he was slightly annoyed, so he promptly signalled for his assistant to let the patient through to his office.

A few moments later, a cultivator who looked to be in mid 30's entered his office. It was fairly obvious that the man was a bit too old to still be in the outer sect. In the past, Lung have had to attend more than a few cases involving desperate cultivators try unwise things to boost their cultivation. considering the fact that this man was still standing and walking up right, whatever he did cannot have been  too serious.

After the standard greetings were out of the way, during which the only observation Lung could make was that the man named Jang seemed slightly agitated.
"What is it exactly that's troubling you brother Jang?", Lung asked.
Jang took a steadying breath before replying.
"When I woke up today morning, my body was covered with sweat and impurities, also my vision seemed a bit clouded and I could see some blue specks in my vision field. After cleaning myself up, the specks in my union were gone, well not exactly gone, but they seemed to have been condensed to a blue dot at the corner of my vision ".

If whatever Jang said was to me was true , then this was truly an intriguing case. cultivators generally only rejected impurities from their body accompanied by sweating only when they became a cultivator or when they ascended to the next realm. Since the man sitting in front of him was clearly not a recruit and definitely still in the vapour Qi realm , this shouldn't have been possible.

" What were you doing last night that might have elicited such a reaction from your body?" Lung asked.
Jang seemed to be considering the answer a beat too long than what was necessary before replying
" Nothing much, just got back from a routine patrol mission".
" Are you certain that nothing happened during your mission that could have adversely affected your body?" Lung pressed a bit more.
"Yes, I'm certain" Jang said with a bit more resolve in his voice.

Lung went over   Jang's body with a fine toothed comb, and at the end of 2 hours of examination he hadn't yet found anything wrong with Jang's body. The only surprising thing was that this meridians seemed to have a higher level of purity than what would have been the norm for a Vapour Qi cultivator. But even this anomaly wasn't so far out of the normal range to elicit any  concern.

In the end, Lung just ended up prescribing him two whole days of rest with no cultivation after assuring him that both his body and his vision were in good order. As he watched Jang exit his office, he couldn't shake the suspicion that there really was something deeply disturbing about the cultivator that just left his office.