The onboarding form had been sitting on the desk for ten minutes.

Sister Zhao from HR scrolled through her phone three times before finally looking up at him.

"Su Cheng, right?"

"Yeah."

"Education… what kind of school is this?" She frowned. "Never heard of it."

Su Cheng didn't explain.

It was normal that a Qingyun Sect degree wouldn't show up in any secular system.

"Fine." Sister Zhao pushed the form aside. "Go to the Marketing Department. Report to Team Leader Liu."

Twelfth floor. The moment the elevator doors opened, Su Cheng felt it — the air here was wrong.

It wasn't a matter of thin spiritual energy.

It was too many people crammed together.

Everyone carried a layer of tight-wound emotions, like springs cranked to the breaking point. Anxiety. Irritation. Suppression. The ripples of these feelings collided and tangled in the hallway, forming an invisible miasma.

He had never experienced anything like this on the mountain.

The Marketing Department workstations were full. But nobody was talking. Keyboards clattered. Occasional sighs broke through.

A middle-aged man in black-framed glasses was yelling at his computer screen.

"Six revisions on this proposal, and the client still isn't satisfied — you expect me to be a wizard?!"

Nobody dared to respond.

Everyone kept their heads down, pretending to be busy.

The man in glasses spotted Su Cheng and scanned him up and down. His eyes assessed him like merchandise.

"New guy?"

"Yeah. Su Cheng."

"Liu Wei. Marketing Team Leader." He gestured vaguely at an empty desk in the corner. "Sit there. Get familiar with things first. We'll talk about the rest later."

Su Cheng walked over.

The desk had a layer of dust on it.

Liu Wei hadn't told anyone to help him clean it. Nobody volunteered.

He wiped the desk with a tissue. The paper turned gray instantly. He opened the drawer. Empty. Not even a pen.

A female colleague at the next workstation leaned over.

"New here? You brought tissues, right?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She lowered her voice. "Team Leader Liu has a bad temper. Watch yourself. The last intern quit after three days."

"Why?"

"Liu Wei made him work overtime every night until two in the morning." She shook her head. "On the last day, the kid just broke down crying. Never came back."

Su Cheng nodded.

The colleague was called Sister Lin. Around thirty-five. Dark circles under her eyes were obvious. She said her piece and immediately shrank back to her own desk — as if afraid someone would catch her talking to the new guy.

Day one was simple. Copy documents. Make tea. Carry old files.

When Su Cheng walked back to his desk from the storage room, carrying file boxes half his height, a few veteran employees whispered in the hallway.

Their volume was calibrated. Just loud enough for him to hear.

"That new guy? Looks pretty young."

"Intern, obviously. Grunt work."

"Handsome face won't help him here. He'll still be worked like a donkey."

Su Cheng didn't turn around.

On the mountain at Qingyun Sect, he woke at five-thirty every morning to carry water, chop firewood, and practice swordsmanship — ten times harder than moving files. But on the mountain, every drop of sweat had meaning.

Here, sweat was just energy being consumed.

At lunch, Liu Wei passed his desk and tossed out a line.

"Interns do this kind of work. Don't feel wronged."

"I don't."

Liu Wei paused. He hadn't expected such a flat response. Normally interns either forced a smile or dropped their heads. At least some discomfort showed.

But the calm on this young man's face was real.

No pretense.

"Fine. Good attitude." He turned and walked away.

Su Cheng kept organizing files.

The documents in his hands were last year's sales reports. The numbers looked ugly.

He scanned them. His mind processed them instinctively — the sales curve had two clear breakpoints. May and October. The remarks column next to them read "changed distributor" and "price adjustment."

But that wasn't what caught Su Cheng's attention.

It was Sister Lin at the next desk, her right hand shaking while she answered a call.

Her tone was normal. Even cheerful. But her knuckles were white gripping the receiver. A faint tremor ran through her wrist. Not nerves. Nerve fatigue from chronic sleep deprivation.

The Tianyan Manual activated on its own. Su Cheng immediately sensed her qi and blood status: stagnant liver qi, heart blood deficiency.

He didn't say anything.

Everyone in the mortal world carries their own tribulations.

Footsteps approached from outside.

Su Cheng looked up. Not Liu Wei. These steps were lighter. Faster. The soles hit the floor with deliberately restrained force — like stepping on cotton.

A young man in a gray suit stood at the doorway. Mid-twenties. Car keys in hand. He looked at Su Cheng.

"New guy?"

"Yeah."

"Hmm." The young man didn't introduce himself. Casual tone. "Heard we got an intern today. Just wanted to see what he looks like."

Su Cheng stayed quiet.

"People at the next table are all guessing," the young man said. "They say you look decent. But you don't look like someone who can handle work."

"Then they got half of it right."

"Which half?"

"Don't look like it."

The young man smiled. "Bold. I'm Liu Xin. Deputy Supervisor of Marketing. You'll report to me for some tasks going forward."

"Su Cheng."

"I know." Liu Xin turned to leave. "Before you clock out, move that box of samples by the door to the storage room. Don't leave until it's done."

Su Cheng glanced at the box. Forty jin, at minimum. A normal person would need three breaks to carry it one trip.

"Sure."

Liu Xin took two steps, then turned back.

"By the way — where do you live?"

"South side of the city."

"That's far. How'd you get here?"

"Subway."

"Alright." No more questions. He walked into his office.

Su Cheng watched his back.

Liu Xin's aura was different from Liu Wei's. Liu Wei was open exploitation. Liu Xin was probing — feeling out Su Cheng's limits bit by bit.

Both types were everywhere down the mountain.

Five-thirty in the afternoon.

Su Cheng finished moving the box and returned to his desk. It was heavier than expected. But he hadn't stopped once. Done in one trip. The receiving clerk at the warehouse was still puzzled.

"You carried that by yourself?"

"Yeah."

"Strong build, huh."

Su Cheng smiled. It wasn't his build. His inner force was supporting him.

Back on the mountain, Master had said: "Release inner force outward and you hurt people. Draw it inward and it nourishes you." Right now, he was nourishing himself.

Liu Wei and Liu Xin were both gone. Only the cleaning auntie remained, sweeping the floor.

The fluorescent lights on the entire floor buzzed.

He checked his phone.

One message. Saved contact name: "Big Sister."

"Off work?"

"Just finished moving stuff."

"Downstairs."

Su Cheng smiled.

He packed up and walked into the elevator. The fluorescent light made everyone's face look pale. He leaned in the corner and thought of evenings on the mountain — sunset burning across half the sky, senior brothers drilling on the training grounds, Master sitting in a bamboo chair sipping tea. A pot of aged white tea brewing nearby. The aroma carried for thirty paces.

Between that world and this one, there was only an elevator door.

Downstairs at the entrance, a black Maybach idled at the curb.

The window rolled halfway down. A cold, striking face appeared.

Shen Hanyan.

"Get in."

Su Cheng opened the door and slid into the seat. Real leather. Ten times more comfortable than his office chair.

"How was the first day?"

"Not bad."

"Nobody bully you?"

"Not quite."

Shen Hanyan started the engine. "Master said to let you experience the mortal world properly. Three months. I won't interfere."

"Yeah."

"But —" she paused. "If someone really has no eyes, you know my number."

Su Cheng smiled. "I do."

Shen Hanyan glanced at him through the rearview mirror.

"You moved stuff earlier?"

"A box of samples."

"What floor is the warehouse?"

"First floor."

Shen Hanyan didn't say more. But the car clearly slowed down. She took a detour. Deliberately drove past the company's front gate so the smoking security guards could see this car.

"Su Cheng."

"Yeah?"

"The bamboo on the mountain bloomed," she said. "The day you left."

Su Cheng turned to look at her.

"Master called it an auspicious sign." Shen Hanyan kept her eyes on the road. "You'd only been down the mountain three days and the bamboo already flowered."

"That's good."

"You practiced swordsmanship for eighteen years on the mountain. When you go back in three months — don't let yourself get rusty."

Su Cheng watched the city lights blur past the window.

"I won't."

The moment the car drove away, behind the twelfth-floor window, Liu Xin put down his phone.

He typed a message and sent it to Liu Wei:

"Old Three. The person who came to pick him up… was driving a Shen Group car."

Message sent.

Ten seconds later, Liu Wei replied with four characters:

"Are you sure?"

"Shen Hanyan's license plate. There's only one in the entire city."

Silence on the other end.

"Interesting."

End of Chapter 1: The Intern