Cultivate By Losing Money

When Chen Ren first found himself in the cultivation world, he'd entertained a few fantasies about what his path might look like. Would he become a sword-wielding prodigy, cleaving through sect rivals gracefully and skillfully? Or perhaps he'd find his calling in the intricate arts of arrays, mastering their complexities to shape the battlefield? And, like any man might in this strange, mystical world, he briefly considered the idea of amassing a harem— after all, that seemed to be a common theme in stories about powerful cultivators.

But making noodles? He'd definitely never expected that to be where he ended up.

Yet, here he was, running a noodle stall that had, in just a week, become the talk of the marketplace.

Every day, a steady stream of customers came by, drawn by the novelty of an eastern delicacy that no one else in the region was offering. It wasn't just the taste of the noodles that brought them in— Chen Ren's marketing tactics had spread his name throughout the streets like wildfire. Free samples, word of mouth from his customers and the curious spectacle of his stall with the long queue had made it impossible for anyone to miss it.

The man selling noodles, a dish unfamiliar to most, stood out even among the countless food vendors.

And then there were the kids.

Chen Ren had never been one to encourage child labour, but in this case, he saw it differently.

The group of street children who helped him were hungry, and for them, assisting with his stall wasn't about earning coins— it was about earning a meal.

According to them, there had been days when they hadn't eaten at all. Though Chen Ren hadn't lived a life on the streets, he understood enough to sympathise with them. The thought of them going hungry left a bitter taste in his mouth, and he saw this as a way to offer them something better, however small it might be.

Over the days, he'd gotten to know the kids better. The leader of the group was a girl named Mei Lin, small but fierce, with sharp eyes and an even sharper tongue. She was the one who had organised the others, making sure they didn't cause too much trouble around the stall.

The boys followed her lead: Chun, the quiet one who always worked the hardest; Bo, who often tried to sneak extra noodles when he thought no one was looking; and Jian, the smallest but the one with the loudest laugh.

Thanks to his noodle business, the kids seemed to be in far better shape now. Their cheeks looked a little less hollow, and their energy had doubled, quite the difference from when he'd first met them.

From selling sixty bowls of noodles a day, Chen Ren's business had doubled. He now dished out a hundred and twenty bowls, sometimes barely keeping up with the demand.

The small pot he used to cook noodles wasn't enough anymore, and every morning, he had to haul back twenty pounds of noodles just to meet the appetites of his growing customer base. It wasn't just the number of bowls sold that had increased— his profit margins did too.

All the ingredients were cheap, and thanks to a little bit of ingenuity (and the connections he had through Tang Xiulan), Chen Ren had managed to cut costs even further. Vegetables, which should've eaten into his profits, were basically free compared to the other costs.

Tang Clan regularly bought high-quality vegetables to serve to guests, but often, the excess went unused and would have spoiled if no one ate it. He figured he was doing them a favour by taking the leftovers off their hands. With the vegetables thrown into the mix, the noodles appealed more and even when they cost more, there was a steady base of customers who were willing to pay for them.

Still, despite his booming business, the road to clearing his debts was long.

Feng Ming's threat had not disappeared, and even if Chen Ren managed to sell a hundred twenty bowls every single day for the next two months and save every last copper coin, he still wouldn't be able to pay off everything. But that wasn't the point.

The fact that he'd gotten this far at all was something worth celebrating. It was a start— A damn good one at that!

His noodle stall was only going to get bigger and better, proving that his earthly knowledge could, in fact, give him an edge in this world. This world wasn't just about swords and qi, he thought to himself with a small smirk. Sometimes, noodles could prove to be effective, too.

There was something else, too. Despite being busy from dawn until dusk with the noodle stall, Chen Ren couldn't help but notice that his cultivation had improved.

Just a week had passed since his breakthrough, but it felt like he had already made progress. It wasn't much, but the flow of qi in his core was smoother, more natural. It was as if, somehow, the act of running his business was feeding into his cultivation.

"As I said before, progressing in one's dao helps advance one's cultivation," the familiar voice of the cat echoed in his mind, a sly purr lacing her words. "Since you're working on your stall, making money every day, you're progressing your dao, and that's why you're seeing these changes in your cultivation."

Chen Ren frowned, considering her words. He'd heard about martial daos before, but… no matter how much he thought about dao of money, it felt like something completely different than those. Far more powerful even. "So, you're saying my cultivation's improving because I'm selling noodles?"

"Yes, that's what I'm saying", the cat confirmed, her tone nonchalant. "But I've never seen such a dao in my lifetime. It's an esoteric dao, something I don't quite understand."

Chen Ren's frown deepened at that. "Esoteric dao?"

"Yes," the cat continued, her voice tinged with frustration as if she was explaining something common. "Esoteric daos are unconventional paths. They pop up every so often, but they're rare. Few practitioners of these daos ever make a name for themselves because they don't follow the usual paths— like swordsmanship or alchemy. The last one I heard about was a century ago. Some guy managed to merge to the dao of farming… I think he had a giant chicken that guarded his barn and annihilated a few sects."

He blinked. "A giant chicken?"

"That's right," she purred, amusement bubbling in her voice. "He and the chicken wiped out entire sects that tried to mess with him. At least that's the rumour that travelled to my ears. So, while these esoteric daos aren't common, they can be powerful in their own way."

He briefly moved his eyes away from her and watched the stall. His eyes drifted over the crowd. Business was booming, and his plan to expand was coming together. But it wasn't just the money that interested him anymore.

To his eyes, all these people seemed as if they were giant balls of qi, his to claim.

"So, it means the more money I make from my stall, the more I'll progress in my cultivation?" He asked, his voice echoing in his mind, aimed at the cat who was in the process of stretching her body after half of a day just lying around.

The cat's voice responded in his head, her tone unimpressed. "Not exactly. You'll progress for a while, but it'll get harder. You'll hit a point where the stall alone won't be enough." She flicked her tail lazily. "Even in martial daos, you can't just rely on the same moves forever. You have to learn new techniques, face new challenges, or do something meaningful to advance. It's the same for you… whatever-you're-calling-this-dao. Money dao? Business Dao? Noodle Dao?" She chuckled softly in his head. "Either way, just selling noodles won't be enough in the long run."

"So, you're saying I'll need more businesses than just this noodle stall to keep progressing?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Yalan purred, her voice amused. "It gets harder, not easier. Eventually, the stall won't cut it, and you'll have to find new ways to challenge yourself. Even the best cooks can't give the same dish to their master everyday. They will lose their heads if they do so."

Chen Ren's eyes flicked to Xiulan, who was handing out bowls of noodles to another satisfied customer. She was running things smoothly, which was good because it gave him time to think.