Chapter Four: The Cultivator Who Sweeps Floors
"Pride is a strange parasite. It starves you while telling you you're too good to eat."— Shen Wei
They made me clean the courtyard today.
That's not a metaphor. I mean they actually handed me a broom, pointed at the outer courtyard, and said, "Sweep. Thoroughly." The broom had fewer bristles than Zhao Gu has functioning brain cells.
I looked the guard straight in the eye and said, "This is a cultivator-level broom. It'll channel my inner dust qi."
He didn't laugh. He added extra sweeping time.
Zhao Gu, naturally, turned this into performance art.
"O exalted janitor of the Eastern Gate," he proclaimed as I dragged the broom behind me, "may your strokes be even and your humiliation grand!"
"Thank you, Elder Gu. May your commentary continue to be utterly useless."
He grinned, shameless. "I do my best."
The truth was… I didn't mind the sweeping. It gave my hands something to do while my mind sank deeper into what had been brewing since yesterday.
The third weight—memory—was beginning to settle. It left behind a strange sort of silence. Like a room just after someone's left and closed the door behind them.
But now there was something else pushing at me.
A voice, not whispering—boasting.
I'd walked the path of cultivation without qi. I'd shed ambition, stared down fear, faced my past. Surely that made me better than most of these fools in prison, right?
Right?
There it was.
Pride.
The fourth weight.
You think it'd come dressed in golden robes, demanding respect. But no. Pride's more insidious than that. It hides in your humility. In the belief that you're "different."
And as I swept the steps of the Eastern Wall, I realized I was standing taller than I should.
A voice behind me interrupted my moment of unwanted self-awareness.
"You missed a spot, criminal."
I turned to see Disciple Lu, a junior outer disciple assigned to "supervise laborers." In other words, he was slightly above us in the hierarchy of dirt.
He was maybe sixteen, with a smug look like someone who just discovered what sarcasm is and immediately overdosed on it.
"You want the corners done too?" I asked.
He crossed his arms. "I want you to act like you're lucky we let trash like you sweep sacred stone."
I smiled. "Then lower your standards."
He looked like he was about to explode.
"You think you're clever?"
"Not particularly. But relative to present company…"
He kicked over my water bucket.
Zhao Gu, who had followed us solely for the purpose of narrating my humiliation, clapped once.
"Oooh. Conflict. Delicious. I give this a nine. Good buildup, solid inciting incident. Let's see how you end it, Wei."
Lu stepped closer. "You may have impressed some guards, but you're still nothing. You think shedding a little fear makes you special?"
That hit harder than I expected.
Because… yes. I kind of did.
I tightened my grip on the broom. Not to fight. Just to keep from letting my ego flare up like a rash.
"I don't think I'm special," I said. "I think I'm… trying not to be."
That confused him. Good. Confusion buys time.
He sneered. "Then stop acting like you're better than the rest of us."
I paused.
Then nodded.
"You're right."
Zhao Gu gasped dramatically. "Character development?!"
I knelt and picked up the bucket.
"I'm not better," I said. "I'm just weird. And I've got a broom."
Lu snorted and walked away like he'd just won something. Maybe he had.
But as I returned to sweeping, something peeled off my chest—like armor I didn't know I was wearing.
Pride isn't always about boasting. Sometimes it's the belief that you're too enlightened to be arrogant. I'd clung to my quiet rebellion, my "I don't belong here" like a badge.
But today, with this broken broom in hand and mud on my knees… I was just Shen Wei.
And that felt okay.
Back in the cell, Zhao Gu was pacing like a playwright with writer's block.
"I don't know if I like this new you," he said. "You're too… settled."
I raised an eyebrow. "I literally just mopped up after a teen."
"Exactly! Where's the drama? The speeches? The cryptic monologues?"
"Maybe I'm cultivating boredom."
He sat next to me with a theatrical sigh.
"So. Another weight down?"
I nodded. "Pride. Or at least a chunk of it."
"How many are left?"
"Three."
"Let me guess. Regret, love, and—"
"Shh."
I lay back and stared at the ceiling.
I had faced myself in ambition, stood through fear, survived memory, and now bent my back under humility.
And still, there was more.
The path of nothingness wasn't empty.
It was just… quiet.