"Kill me now!"
The thought clung to his skull like a dragon clinging to a gold coin. Anyone could have that thought, especially after gazing at the piles upon piles of scrolls littered across his desk. Tian Shi turned his gaze to the left, and the sight that met him forced him to look back at what lay in front of him. More scrolls awaited him, and the entire room was filled with shelves stacked with problems he needed to solve as the Junior Patriarch. For once in his life, he regretted leaving his courtyard so early.
He needed to sift through all the scrolls and solve their issues within hours, and that would only be the beginning. The amount of work he had today was far more than he had dealt with over the past few days, and he had a faint suspicion of why. A lady with green hair sought to teach him a lesson for disrespecting her the day before—this was why he rarely engaged in verbal arguments with his mother.
Turning his gaze to his assistant, a member of the Tian Clan groomed solely for handling matters he didn't want to, he pleaded with his eyes for help. Promptly, she declined his silent request and smiled. Tian Shi saw the bitterness in that smile and understood its meaning. He massaged his eyes in resignation and got to work.
The first scroll read:
**An Address to the Main Branch:**
For millennia, we have endured humiliation at the hands of the main branch members. Normally, we, as the elders, rarely intervene in disputes between the younger generation and often find it a learning experience for our juniors. Recently, the matter has escalated, and a few promising prospects that should have made it to the main branch within five years have been crippled, with their origins destroyed, essentially forcing them to remain in the Qi Condensation stage for eternity. This is too much of a provocation. We hope that the main branch can resolve this dispute and compensate our losses.
It took him less than a nanosecond to scan the entire scroll's message with his divine sense. His mind worked at speeds matched only by immortals. A solution hatched in his mind, though he wondered if it was good enough. Tian Shi understood the significance of maintaining a cordial relationship between the side branches and the main clan. After all, there had been countless revolts and rebellions that succeeded in the world, with side branches usurping power from the main clan due to the rise of an insurmountable genius within those branches.
Based purely on the absence of a name mentioned, Tian Shi knew that the individual involved wasn't just any main branch member but possibly one of the heirs to other important positions within the clan. Couldn't his seniors keep their disdain to a minimum? Family was family, after all.
Dipping his pen in ink, Tian Shi made a few strokes across the bottom of the scroll—his solution to the problem. As much as he wanted to make an example of the idiots who sought to break the bonds that made their clan supreme, he couldn't. Instead, he chose to reimburse the loss of five geniuses—he doubted they could even be called that. He wrote down a few Saint-level materials that could be used to strengthen the core during the core-formation stage and aid in accelerating the breakthrough speed during the Heavenly Step Realm. The amount was more than enough to elevate ten junior clan members to the Heavenly Step Realm in under two centuries.
Then he took a separate clean scroll from the side of the table and quickly scribbled a few instructions that he placed in the scroll. He simply summoned all the heirs for a meeting a month before the Academy opened its doors and urged them not to engage in any more acts that would tarnish the reputation of the main clan in the coming months.
For the next hour, Tian Shi was embroiled in clan affairs. Some of the problems that landed on his desk almost made him faint in anguish. They were simple issues that could have been resolved with a gourd of alcohol and an earnest chat, yet the idiots somehow managed to escalate them into life-and-death battles. Pride should only matter when dealing with outsiders—there was no need to be overly prideful when interacting with other clan members. The single hour he spent working felt like an eternity of his sanity being tested, prodded, and pulled to the utmost limit.
His assistant simply stood in the corner of the room, passing him scrolls when he needed them, silent. She watched him go through a series of ugly facial expressions that no one in the world would expect the most refined and handsome young man to exhibit. Tian Shi simply didn't care that she saw him like that. If there was one person, aside from his parents, that he trusted, it had to be Tian Yue, his assistant. She was his cousin, and they had grown up together, sharing many lovely moments and experiencing the ups and downs of a strong familial connection—arguments and all. He knew her like the back of his hand, and she knew him—the previous owner of the body—like the back of her hand as well.
Tian Shi, with his recent memories, wasn't naive enough to believe there was such a thing as absolute trust in this world, but he would be a fool to question a relationship without sufficient evidence.
The last scroll for the day caught his eye.
It read:
**Greetings Elders,**
This humble Mo, an Elder from the Tian Clan side branch of the Blue-Volt Plane, would like to reveal certain news that has been troubling my heart. Recently, we've lost track of one of our geniuses, Tian Ni. She left the mountain to experience the trials and tribulations of the secular world to advance in her Soul-Formation cultivation. The Heavenly Step elder we sent with her went missing as well.
Had it been any other genius, we would have simply sought other means rather than contact the main clan, but this particular genius is important to the main clan in her current state. She is this generation's wielder of the Mysterious Yin Physique.
This humble Mo seeks assistance and is willing to face the harshest punishment available for hiding this key information previously.
Tian Shi's blood rose. Just as he thought of ignoring the plea, he realized he couldn't give up this chance. A quill flew from the cabinet into his fingertips; he injected qi into it and quickly wrote down his edict. The Blue-Volt Plane's matter was under his jurisdiction from that moment onwards.
"Yu'er, send this to the Patriarch. It's of the utmost importance to the future development of my strength," he commanded, handing her the scroll brimming with his signature, underscoring its importance.
Tian Yue received the scroll and disappeared in motes of light.