Dao of the Deal

Muchen picked up a few more barrels of wine while he was in Jiuli City, still sticking to the cheapest stuff he could find. After multiple rounds of distillation and filtration most of the original taste would be gone anyway. He still felt pain in his heart as he shelled out the silver. Making liquor was ultimately a profitable endeavor, of course, but it would be so much more profitable once he had his own winery to go with the distillery.

Establishing a new business and putting it on a sound financial footing was hard work. Now that he had to worry about starting up his own sect as well, Muchen found himself wishing he had another pair of arms. Or maybe an extra brain. Unfortunately, he was still stuck within mortal limits on that front. All that he could do was take on his problems one at a time.

With his own cultivation progress stalled, he found himself dwelling on the matter of starting a sect. Xinyi might be happy to muddle through, relying on the power and experience of however many centuries of cultivation she had under her belt, but Muchen couldn't be so carefree. Starting his own sect could save him years of effort if everything went well, but if things started to drift in the wrong direction it could easily end in disaster.

The forest around them looked more familiar every day. It was a relief to be so close to home, but it also meant that Muchen couldn't put off their conversation any longer. He waited until the morning of the day they were due to arrive in the village.

The team carrying the water wheel had set out early. They were slowed down by their heavy cargo and had to make good use of every scrap of daylight in order to make good time. Muchen finished stowing his gear in the back of the cart and came around to the front. Xinyi had already taken her spot on the driver's bench, and Huichen looked just about ready to leave on his own.

Instead of hopping into place and driving the cart down the road, Muchen stood in place for a moment. Xinyi at least looked like she was in a good mood, although that started to fade as he stood there, thinking. Even at this last minute, he was hoping for a bolt of inspiration as to how to broach the subject. When that failed to materialize, all he could do was muddle through.

"We're going to start a sect," he said. "We should discuss how it will run."

"You're the sect leader," Xinyi said, waving a hand dismissively. "You handle the day to day matters. As an honored elder, you can call on me in times of crisis."

"It's not that simple," Muchen said. He wouldn't have been so nervous if the issue was just the division of labor.

Xinyi frowned at him. "You'll have to look far and wide before you find an elder willing to help out with paperwork."

She was right about that. Of course there were elders and there were elders, but sect mainstays who held the title due to their strength were all the sort to spend their time focusing on their own cultivation. It was a rare oddball indeed who had tremendous power and a sincere interest in helping out with mundane administrative tasks.

"The basic structure is fine," Muchen said, "but we need to agree on our mission statement."

Xinyi gave him a skeptical look. Muchen had the feeling that if she were in turtle form she would have already withdrawn her head into her shell.

"Most sect cultivators are selfish assholes," Muchen said. "I don't want to spend my days running an organization that's full of selfish assholes."

"You don't want a sect full of wolves," Xinyi said, "but it will not benefit you to create a sect full of sheep."

Muchen nodded. He'd lived in the Qianzhan Continent for long enough to drop any naive concepts like expecting to live an untroubled life by obeying the law and trusting others to do the same. Even if Xinyi's nature remained unchanged and she was ready and willing to take on hostile interlopers, it was unseemly for a sect to turn to its elders to bail it out of every possible conflict. Not to mention that doing so would quickly wear out Xinyi's patience and good will.

"I don't want our disciples to be defenseless or naive," Muchen said. "I just want them to have a conscience."

"You're the sect leader, you make the rules," Xinyi said. "To be honest, if you can't enforce the rules you set out, you might not be cut out for the job."

"You can't just lay down a rule about being an asshole and leave it at that," Muchen said.

People would sooner or later act according to their natures. Cultivators all the more so, since they were less likely to be constrained by pesky things like laws or societal norms. He might be able to keep bad behavior in check for a while if he set up a beefy law enforcement arm in his new sect, but that kind of thing didn't address the underlying problem.

"As long as they follow your orders," Xinyi said, "all that matters is their strength."

Muchen shook his head. "Can I give them orders for every hour of every day? Even if I could, would anybody follow such thorough orders?"

There was a time and place for authoritarian control. If their sect faced down a military invasion, Muchen would want his disciples to do what they were told. In that case, all considerations other than strength would fall by the wayside.

That was no way to live life, though. Muchen wanted to live an immortal life of comfort and leisure. It would defeat the purpose if the system he set up required him to stare at people like a hawk all day, every day. Not to mention that anybody subject to that level of scrutiny would eventually develop a sense of resentment.

"I want our disciples to do the right thing even without specific orders," Muchen said.

"Have you met the cultivators of the Qianzhan Continent?" Xinyi asked. "If you're too demanding you'll never be able to recruit anybody."

Muchen was silent for a moment. Certainly it was true that it was hard enough to dig up people with cultivation talent who hadn't been snatched up by the major sects. If he started requiring high moral fiber as well, they'd never expand beyond their current roster.

Fortunately, there was more than one way to make people behave. You could watch them as though they were demons. You could try to recruit only angels. But the better method was to design a system that worked for humans.

"Those craftsmen," Muchen said, gesturing towards the smudge off in the distance that was the cargo wagon laden down with the pieces of his water wheel. "I didn't have to force them to do anything. They worked hard while we were in Jiaoqu Town, and they're working hard now. And it certainly isn't out of the goodness of their hearts."

Xinyi peered at him. "You want to set up rewards for cultivation progress? That's hardly a way to bring out the best in people."

The stories of cultivators fighting internal battles for resources were legendary enough to trickle out even to ordinary mortals. When placing first in various internal competitions came with outsized prizes attached, experience had shown that cultivators were willing to do just about anything to take the first prize.

"My point is, people respond to their environment," Muchen said. "If they think the way to get ahead is to bring down the competition, that's what they'll do. If they think the only way to succeed is to work hard and get along with other people, they'll naturally go down a different path."

Xinyi rested her chin on her hand. "So how will Flower Mountain differ from other sects?"

"I have my own plan for a system of rewards and punishment," Muchen said, "to encourage good behavior and discourage bad. Ultimately, though, in order to work we need to teach our disciples to want to do the right thing."

Muchen's main plan for avoiding the cutthroat dog-eat-dog atmosphere so often seen at the major sects was to flatten the prize structure and measure inputs instead of outputs. It was a lot harder to rig a competition based on the hours spent cultivating than it was to influence the outcome of a ranking battle. And if prizes didn't differ by that much from each other, it was a lot less worthwhile to cheat.

Of course it was possible for any type of competition to be subverted in a company with a lousy culture. Muchen would still have to do some work as sect leader to make sure everything was aboveboard. You couldn't be the sect leader if you didn't keep a hand on the tiller. He just wanted to make the job a little easier on himself.

That kind of prize structure would also discourage those geniuses who were able to succeed without putting in any effort, but it wasn't like their sect would be flooded with that type of talent anyway. Besides, the point of building up a sect was to have an organization behind him. If the organization lacked talents, that was a problem, but it would be a much bigger problem if the organization were full of talents who were trying to murder each other in order to get ahead.

Where he needed Xinyi's help was in providing the proper ideological indoctrination for her students. He didn't doubt her ability to impart cultivation techniques and train talented fighters. The question was whether she was able—or willing—to mold her students into useful subordinates.

"Anybody teaching a disciple will have to teach them how to be a good member of the sect," Muchen continued, "not just a good cultivator."

Xinyi rested her chin in his hand, studying him after he finished his speech. Muchen felt a bit of cold sweat at the small of his back as the silence stretched out. He had bargained with her before, chivvied her as best he could into seeing things his way, but this was the first time he had outright told her to do something.

He could picture in his mind all of the ways that this conversation could end up going horribly wrong, but he refused to back down. If he was going to be roped into running a sect, he intended to run it according to his own principles. Otherwise, it was just a lot of effort with no point to it.

"You want me to teach people to be nice."

Muchen bit back a sigh of relief. As long as Xinyi was willing to respond with words rather than actions, there was at least a chance to talk her around.

"As a cultivator follows his dao, it determines how he gains power, how he gains resources that let him continue to walk his path. But it seems to me that most daos allow for some wiggle room," Muchen said. "A talented student of the sword can make the choice to earn a living as a bandit or as a caravan guard."

The Qianzhan Continent, at least as far as Muchen knew, was not plagued with outright demons or demonic cultivators. It was hardly a peaceful place, but there was no cultivation advantage on offer purely for choosing to be evil. Or if there was one, none of the locals had discovered it.

In other words, all of the killing and stealing happened because of selfish choices by selfish people. Selfish people often still ended up on top, but as far as Muchen knew that was a result of purely natural selection. Murdering a bunch of innocents wasn't some kind of shortcut to power.

Of course, neither would the heavens give you a direct reward for saving a bunch of innocent people. Still, all things considered Muchen was just glad that being a decent person wasn't inherently a cultivation handicap.

"I'm not saying our disciples need to be nice people," Muchen continued, "but I think we should nudge them towards the more constructive interpretations of their dao."

Xinyi didn't reply right away. She studied him in silence for a moment. There was a glint in her eyes that Muchen couldn't quite place.

As the silence stretched on, Muchen had to fight to keep himself from backing down. He cursed himself for not leading with the generous compensation package that honored elders would be entitled to once their business took off.

Finally, Xinyi leaned back and smiled. Muchen almost staggered as the weight fell off his shoulders. "All right."

Muchen grinned and hopped up onto the cart. With a flick of the reins Huichen was finally free to fall into their morning routine and start walking toward the horizon. All in all, it felt like a good day to found a sect.