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All things considered, it really could be worse.

The sun had not even begun to rise, though there were bright blues foretelling a bright morning to come in the far-off horizon. Jun wondered when the last time he’d been active and awake this early and came up blank. No, not even at the end of his second life, when he’d been a starving old vagabond.

But sure, why not? They were supposed to get everything together early in the morning, and not before sunrise, but since they were up and about, they might as well, right? Never mind that, with how things were, if Jun went back to sleep the next time he woke up it might well be because someone died. So, in the interest of productivity and keeping things from getting out of hand, Jun had everyone get their shit and get ready for a trip out to the sticks.

Well, farther deeper into the sticks.

The time before sunrise was strangely still and quiet though, so Jun turned to the person responsible for letting him discover that.

“It was an accident, Young Master,” Jianjun looked away, “An accident!”

Jun, for just a moment, gave him a dubious look.

But no, Jun knew better: Jianjin had been bragging that he “seduced” one of the servants into sneaking off into the barracks the day before. Now, Jun originally thought the machismo might just be an attempt at doing what Lou couldn’t and actually developing camaraderie between them two. But maybe Jianjun genuinely wanted someone to brag to. Given that Jun was his Master, it might have been seen as the guard grossly overstepping himself, but one thing Jianjun did not lack was moxy.

For good and, apparently, bad.

So Jun was in the unique position of knowing enough about the problem to know what the current judgment was…no matter how horrible it looked on the surface.

And boy did it look bad.

He had been sleeping on his bed, Fu and Xia doing the same with their limbs wrapped around his, when he was roused by a consistent knocking on his door.

“Go away,” he said without even thinking about it, his need for a full night’s sleep relegating whatever this problem was to the morning.

But the knocking did not stop.

“I said, go away!” he more forcefully commanded, frowning as he sat up and glared at his door. Xia and Fu roused but did not wake up as he untangled his arms from their hands.

“Forgive me, Young Master,” one of the women whispered furiously from behind the door, “But this is urgent!”

“What is there more urgent than this Young Master’s rest?” Jun sighed as he rubbed his eyes.

“The….Guard Captain just attempted to rape one of the soldiers,” the voice behind the door hesited only for a single moment to speak out.

And, just like that, sleep had fled away from Jun.

After consoling a shaken guard, and talking with the “guilty” party in question, Jun had been more or less forced to make some…changes to his plans.

“How do you accidentally almost rape someone?” Jun, not for the last time, asked.

“I didn’t know it was him!” Jianjun insisted.

“So you would have been happy raping Miss Mi?” Jun asked.

“She agreed to come to the barracks at night.” the Guard Captain groused, “This was an encounter Young Master. An encounter!”

“...so you confused a guardsman for Miss Mi,” Jun said.

“The lights were off!” Jianjun’s hands were in the air and he was looking at the dark sky as if it the heavens had conspired to ruin him, “This was supposed to be a nice smooth seduction, which meant that I had to show confidence bordering on arrogance, you see? She was supposed to come in, I was supposed to order her to get naked. I was supposed to start touching her and she was supposed to resist a little bit. She’s married, so she needs something to feel better about coming into a man’s room late at night after he’s sought her out for sex.”

“And that’s when you fingered the poor man?” Jun asked.

“It was supposed to be Miss Mi!” Jianjun groaned.

And that is the reason why Jun had believed him. He’d actually called for Miss Mi to confirm the story, but she’d denied everything. However, given that Jun had seen how close she and Jianjun had gotten with his own eyes, he couldn’t afford to not dismiss it as the married woman trying to keep this scandal from blowing over her home.

It did absolutely nothing for the guard’s confidence though.

“So,” Jun tried again, trying to feel out the scope of the problem, “The guard came into the room, then you stripped him, got your hands into his ass, and only stopped-”

“-I would have stopped after I felt his rooster and eggs,” Jianjun inadvertently did the unthinkable and interrupted Jun, “I mean, I did stop!”

That, more than anything, convinced Jun that the man was speaking the truth. Actually, he hummed for a while as he considered living up to the entitled easily wounded pride of Nobles and having the Guard Captain punished but, since no one was really paying attention to them or gave any indication of hearing that, he decided to let it go.

Still.

“Leadership comes with many burdens, Jianjun,” Jun sagely nodded to himself, “And privileges.”

“What is that supposed to-” Jianjun began to ask.

“-So I can overlook this sort of indiscretion this once,” Jun paternally padded his shoulder, “If you are willing to learn from it.”

“...thank you lord,” the man looked as if he had swallowed a lemon.

“I am going to have the guardsman in question stay here with half the guard, of course.” Jun cracked his neck as his carriage was cleaned and set ready to go, “Just as well; the constant traveling was starting to wear on Xia-er and Fu-er.”

Originally, he was going to take everyone with him again, minus all his money. But he couldn’t just leave the offended party here alone, with no one to keep whatever stupid ideas he might have in check. That meant traveling with fewer guards which, honestly, shouldn’t be much of an issue. But if he was going to leave a sizable amount of armed warriors behind, he might as well let his concubines finish setting roots and getting comfy with their new home.

Traveling all the time with them made the whole thing pleasant for Jun, but Fu wasn’t someone made for the road and Xia didn’t have a lot to do while traveling except fuck. If he were forced to verbally articulate it, he would say that it was a form of giving them Face or some shit like that.

“Thank you, Young Master,” the man choked.

“Yes, yes,” Jun benevolent waved him off as his servants signaled that they were done, “Just try to hold back the temptation, and don’t molest any more of the men.”

“...very good, Young Master,” Jianjun breathed, his spirit broken.

It lasted until Jun started laughing.

With the horses hitched, and his bodyguards on their steeds, Jun said goodbye to his sleepy concubines and set off.

The morning sun shone upon them as they traveled through the road, the entourage heading north instead of west for once. This was a situation where Jun was thankful that the carriage came with many expensive utilities. Including thick cloth curtains to completely block out the sun.

So Jun could catch up on his sleep if he wanted.

But, instead, he decided to roll the message sent to him.

It wasn’t much, really. A request for help. Hundreds like it must have been sent to the Yan compound every day, with only a small army of bearcats to sort out the things that only Jun’s father could answer. Jun half suspected that this was probably the main reason why Yan family members were appointed to all the corners of the Yan lands. Because if they didn’t, the enemies of Jun’s previous future would have to do nothing except wait and watch the mountain of messages crush the spirit of every single Yan Head.

But this one wasn’t like that. It wasn’t sent to his father, their feudal lord.

It was sent TO Jun.

He read it again.

“To the august Young Master of the Yan, this humble Oujian of Auspicious Fields sends the warmest of greetings and the grandest of apologies, for we must uncouthly impose a request:

Lord, we need help.

Ours is a small village at the edge of the river Rin. Such things must obviously not escape the near-omniscient eyes of the Young Master, but it does mean there aren’t many people we could ask for help. For, you see, a terrible mountain Spirit Beast is laying waste to not only our crops, but those of the nearby villages. We’ve sent the young men of the villages to chase it off or, failing that, wound it, but none have been able to so far.

And those that tried were so ashamed by the Beast in the attempt, that they dare not try again. As no Cultivators walk our lands, and there are no warriors of note nearby, we are at the end of our choices

If something is not done about this, the Spirit Beast might gorge itself on our crops until we have no choice but to starve during winter.

Or, worse yet, be unable to pay our taxes to the Yan Lords.

We once again beg your help.”

Besides the obvious, the first impression that Jun had of it was that it had to, indeed, be written by a rube out on the sticks; he didn’t dedicate a page each for the greetings or the apologies stated at the beginning. There simply was no Noble who wouldn’t use the opportunity to show off their education and “wit”.

The second was that this chief, or whoever wrote the letter for him, nonetheless had some sort of familiarity with Noble etiquette, because he was correctly exaggerating matters as they stood. A Spirit Beast that did not kill anyone was not really what anyone would call an urgent problem.

Then again, since this was sent to Jun, and not to his father, then it wasn’t simply an excuse not to pay their taxes this year. No, they wanted this problem resolved.

Which is why it puzzled Jin why they had sent it to him.

But maybe that is precisely why they had sent it to him? Because he was a Yan lad that could do something about it?

What headache.

During the entirety of his second life, no one had ever asked him for help. No one had requested anything of him. No one had ever thought they could gain anything by getting involved with him. Taking it for granted aside, and the stupid reasons why he did it that way to begin notwithstanding, it was a good setup.

Jun LIKED that life.

But in just a couple of months being back to his old young body, here he was, with people sending requests to him.

What had changed? Well, besides the obvious that was. But that was the thing, two trips out into the Peerless Pearl City shouldn’t have changed anything. Spending money like an asshole on women shouldn’t have changed anything. Buying “Talismans” shouldn’t have made waves. And his Guards?

They were the worst the Yan family could procure. Dealing with them shouldn’t have meant something!

But along the way he had erred because someone out there now thought that he was respectable enough to send a request for help and have it answered.

Now, obviously, Jun COULD just decide to do nothing about it. It didn’t sound like a bad idea actually. But if he didn’t, he would be blind to the shape of his fame. How far were rumors of him going? Auspicious Fields was only two days away from his mansion and so not far at all, but was this going to be the extent of his problems?

Or was it a symptom of a bigger threat?

What were people saying about him and how far had it extended?

These were questions that Jun did not feel he could live without knowing. Not after living a life of complete ignorance led to the downfall of his Yan family in his second life.

As much as he hated it, he could no longer live blind.

Which made it ironic, Jun supposed, that the more things he did with his future knowledge, the blinder he made himself.

He had to be careful how went about handling this. Otherwise, he might start getting messages from the Yan Compound asking for his “input” on things. Or, worse, he might start getting visits from his brothers and sisters.

Or, good gods, he might start getting visits from his mothers.

Aigou Yan was the man who had emerged as the victor of the previous succession challenge, the inheritor of the Yan family after Jun’s grandfather died. And he did so having married no less than three wives. Which was all well and dandy. The problem was that one of said wives was Aigou’s own sister and Jun’s aunt. Now, Jun didn’t care about the incest and Xue wasn’t actually Jun’s birth mother so her influence over him wasn’t total. But she was still essentially his father’s Main Wife and acted accordingly.

You see, Noble families could essentially do anything they wanted. Well, they could do anything the Emperor, too many other Noble families or some Sect did not disapprove of, but that was essentially the same thing. So if Jun’s father marrying his sister was met with disgust, disbelief or even just shock, well, it didn’t matter. The sky didn’t fall down, the rivers didn’t turn red, and people just went on with their lives. However, what Jun didn’t expect was the private acknowledgment of how impressive it was.

It wasn’t like women couldn’t compete to be the next head of a Noble family, but they were more often than not at a very bad disadvantage. Because they not only hide to fight for power, but also at whatever attempts the Family Heads might make to use them as bargaining chips with other noble families. But instead of marrying some other Noble asshole in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, Xue had instead married the Head of her own family. A weird success but, by all accounts, becoming the Yan Lady was a success all the same.

The problem was that the “Mother of the Yan”, or the Main Wife of any Noble family for that matter, was supposed to try and arrange marriages for her children which traditionally included all of her husband’s children. The ones she gave birth to herself and the ones she didn’t.

And, boy, mother Xue took that seriously.

Technically, his own birth mother was supposed to have some input too but, well, Jun’s mother had died when he was about five. He wished he could say that it affected him, but he was essentially raised by his caretakers, so meh. But no, mother Xue was enough.

Not being able to sleep, and not happy dwelling on these thoughts, Jun had his men stop for lunch just before midday.

While they set about cooking and resting, Jun took his spear out of the baggage and moved to a clearing to make good on his daily Spear practice. Jianjun didn’t join him this time, which was just as well.

Going through the paces with someone else was nice, but there was something to be said for being able to think about things.

The spear washed away his worries, the could-be-s and the might-well-be-s. It made him forget how responsible he had to be to handle his latest Guard Captain’s weird and strange fuck up, and it made him forget the prospect of family coming by to say “hi”.

It put a nice burden on his muscles and extremities, made him limber and made him consider the limited endless considerations of combat. As boring as the Yan spear was, there was still beauty to be had in doing something well, no matter how plain it was.

And his thrusts were very well done if Jun said so himself.

Which was a pity when he had to come to a halt.

“What is this?” he gasped out loud as sweat covered his face and ran down his body. The burn was something he welcomed but it was here early.

Far too early.

His usual practice lasted twice as long as this before he started feeling exerted from it, and even then he didn’t usually practice to exhaustion. A mistake, in retrospect, if he was going to tap out like this!

But it shouldn’t even be happening!

Was he…was he coming down with something? Was he getting sick? He didn’t feel sick, but a drop in performance like this just wasn’t normal.

The last time he’d performed this badly was when he’d just gotten his body. Back before he went to town and…

Hah.

Back before he got his girls.

Before Xia.

Extreme Body of Yin, indeed.

He had been constantly having sex with her and generally just being around her that he’d gotten used to her. Apparently that extended to the effects she had on his body. What a strange thing.

“This sucks,” Jun said out loud as he managed to get his breathing under control and wondered what to do. He could stop for now, yes. He’d gotten his body to the point he usually did, and that was maintaining the muscle and muscle memory that he had these days. Though he had noticed he had been attaining greater definition and mass in his muscles since he Regressed.

Xia made it easy, apparently.

But he wasn’t exactly happy with the state of things.

So that’s when an idea struck him.

Taking his spear in hand, Jun resolved to explore the line with the armored swordsman that he had explored with Jianjun two days ago.

He would follow the same moves, assuming the swordsman had a perfect read on him. He would try to put him in a position of inevitable defeat, to see if such a line existed when the swordsman had gotten past his spear.

So he had this warrior rush him faster than Jun could backpaddle.

He would put his spear in the way of a downward stroke, putting his faith that the wood shaft would not give and be cut through, all while taking care to not angle the stick in his hands too much after the impact, lest the blade slide to one of his fingers.

He would choke the spear and devour the reach that he had, all so that he could trap the sword between his chest and his arms, the flat of the blade pressing against his flesh and his hands on the hilt. That he would turn this contest into a wrestling match. Not his forte, but by no means something he wasn’t unfamiliar with. If the swordsman was a better wrestler than him he was admittedly fucked but, at this range, this was all he could do to be on par with an opponent that could perfectly read him.

And he did all of this without breathing.

It was a stupid thing to do, on its face. Breathing was vital to a martial artist because even without the consideration of Chi, oxygen was still very much a necessity to the efficient working of muscles.

Not only did the Carbon Dioxide quickly build up in his blood as his muscle cells devoured all the oxygen in his body, but lactic acid began to make Jun;s whole body feel as though he was on fire. Waste air escaped his lips as a lot of his moves compressed the gas out of his lungs, but he was successful in not letting any in.

So his brain became desperate for a gulp of air, and his body felt as if it were in a sea of pain.

But it wasn’t enough.

His movements became sluggish and his sight started to go away but…no, it still wasn’t enough.

He was about to collapse to his knees and he felt the desperation go to a fevered pitch but, hmmm, no, not just yet.

And then, and there, just as his knees were collapsing to the ground and he failed he was seconds away from losing consciousness, Jun opened his mouth.

And devoured the air.

More than just taking air in, he felt himself rip it into his lungs. It filled every crevice he had, going into his muscles, subsuming the lactic acid away and feeling as though it was going directly into the cells in his body.

His mind cleared up, the day seemed brighter, and Jun rose to his feet suddenly feeling like-like…like…

Like how he usually felt when he was with Xia.

“That’s something at least,” Jun breathed out, getting a feeling for the sensation. It was, hmm, underwhelming he supposed, because this felt nothing like the glory of that night by the lake.

But then it still felt right.

True.

…or True adjacent?

The air was out of his lungs and he felt as tired as he had felt before he made this attempt at True Breathing. It didn’t go as deeply as that time. It didn’t go into every pour of his body, nor fill every niche. But it did fill some.

So, was he supposed to be elated?

Or disappointed?

Jun took a step forward and stabbed as hard as he could, spending as much of his efforts and oxygen in it. Having done that, he breathed and ripped the air again, forcing it as much as he could to replace the little that his attack had spent.

And, for one fantastic moment, he felt like he usually felt when he was with Xia again.

Hmmm.

His next attack was the rare wide sweep that his combat style was loath to make, but that spent more of his muscles and energy due to how much dedication it demanded.

And his next breath brought him back to the “normal” that he’d gotten used to.

And so he went, being at the edge of exhaustion except for when he attacked. Except for when he took air.

Except when his breathing was True-ish.

His men found him practicing like a bipolar maniac as Jun tried, TRIED, to reach beyond, trying to make things be as he knew, knew, how they could be.

Better.

But it was nearly impossible.

This was like sand in the gaps between his fingers, always trying to slip out of his grasp. But the more he made the sand fall through his fingers, the more familiar he became with the feeling. The more he knew not all grains escaped.

Sadly, he couldn’t do this for the rest of the day. He had places to be.

Though he did note how utterly and completely tired he felt once his ass was on his seat, so maybe he was being too optimistic about how long he could have kept at it.

He was, point in fact, so tired that he decided to take a nap that lasted until his guards stopped for the night.

And then he still kept on sleeping.