Awakening the Divine Spark

’What an idiot!’ Lee cursed himself, stuffing cloth in the pants to make his butt look bigger.

A fun and harmless idea was turned into a dangerous obligation in half a day.

And it was his own fault. How could he had known that he was being entitled to receive pay while staying in the library? His financial issues were immediately solved, but the problem was how he acquired this information.

Lee couldn’t forgive himself for not having enough self control that allowed Chi Yanzhen to pick up his intentions. Someone with his experience should be better at that. And he couldn’t even play it off as a joke! The guy, along with his friend, followed him for a whole day to make sure he wasn’t planning something illegal.

Obviously the best course of action was to come clean in some way, but even if his reasoning was somewhat questionable. From now on higher-ups will suspect him no matter what happened in the sect and all his future actions will have to be transparent. It wasn’t the end of the world, but Lee simply didn’t like it.

He liked the current plan, though.

It was quickly drafted, but simple and with relatively low risk. More importantly, he was given the green light by either the elder of the Hall of Ascension or junior elder, and that meant he could, in some capacity, rely on his accomplices.

Lee didn’t have an illusion about him having a strong backing. He knew that a pawn like him will be discarded at the first opportunity, but it didn’t matter. After all he was set on asking Junior Elder Chen to take him back to work in the library when this was over.

This was not Lee’s first time dressing up as a girl, but he had never played the role of a fatty.

Both Chi Yanzhen and Li Hanchen watched him practice walking in confusion, but Lee didn’t intend to hold a lecture about how the smallest details could give him away, ruining the plan and his life at the same time.

Even if after he transformed himself into a fat girl, he needed to make sure he behaved as someone who was twice as heavy. And he needed to look a bit more ugly.

Leng Yanyan, the niece of Mission Hall’s Elder Leng, was about his height but nearly three times his size, with a face marred by acne. Despite her aunt being one of the most important figures in the sect and her job as the aunt’s assistant, Leng Yanyan was conscious and even ashamed of her looks.

Her wearing a hooded robe at all times in order to hide her face gave Lee an idea on how to easily access Elder Leng’s office. And all he needed to do was pick up a single item, not bigger than a coconut.

The problem was – he had disturbingly short time window to prepare. Because of that he was kind of reluctant to go through with the plan, but since the higher-ups gave their blessing and Chi Yanzhen was also involved, Lee made a split moment decision.

He would kill few birds with one stone, while trying to escape a couple of wolves at the same time. It was hard to tell whether he would get any rewards, but his actions might at least in some way serve as a payback to Elder Leng who was behind poisoning the sect master and setting Lee and Xiao Lian up.

***

It was dinnertime and there were not that many people in the Mission Hall. Following the route Chi Yanzhen drew him earlier, Lee walked by the disciples working on the first floor and went up the stairs.

On the way barely anyone looked his way, only a couple of people politely greeted. Every time he responded the way Leng Yanyan normally did – with a barely visible nod.

The only tricky part of this endeavor was to get in the Elder Leng’s office. Almost at all times Junior Elder Ma Biaoshou sat at his desk, doing the most paperwork of the Mission Hall and to get in the elder’s office first Lee had to pass him.

That was where Chi Yanzhen came in. The plan was to create an argument with Junior Elder Ma in order to distract him, and Lee knew Chi Yanzhen was perfect for the role. He had prepared for it the whole life while bantering with Li Hanchen.

And Yanzhen didn’t let Lee down. Already on the other side of the hallway Lee heard them argue, and he quickly rushed over slightly lowering his head.

"I’m sorry, Junior Elder Ma, but this is important!" Chi Yanzhen passionately said, "I personally don’t care if the Mission Hall disciples get their time to cultivate in the Ascension tower, but I bet you do."

"Can’t this wait for a few days?" Ma Biaoshou sounded annoyed and angry, "I’m busy!"

"It can, but do you realize how many requests we received from the other halls?" Chi Yanzhen argued, "After the survival training so many outer disciples have gathered enough contribution points the tower will be fully booked for the next few years!"

"What do you think I’m doing now?" Junior Elder Ma said, smacking his palm on a pile of papers, "Who do you think is calculating all the contribution points?"

"I can’t do anything about it! It’s the Mission Hall’s duty." Chi Yanzhen said, "But this IS a priority if you want your disciples to not fall behind! ... Hello ..."

The last part was directed at Lee disguised as Leng Yanyan, who came in and proceeded toward the left side of the room where was the entrance to Elder Leng’s office.

"Yanyan, could you ..." Ma Bioashou wanted to ask Lee something, but Chi Yanzhen interrupted, "Don’t try to distract me! I’m only going to leave after you go through the list!"

"I said, I have no time!"

"Then you better get started!"

They continued to argue, meanwhile Lee closed the door behind him and heaved a sigh of relief. He was basically half way.

After throwing a quick glance around the large office that was at least ten times bigger than his room, Lee went to the elder’s desk and picked up a small stack of papers. There was nothing on them, but he intended to carry them to make it look like that was the reason he came over.

Afterwards he quickly began to go through the drawers and few shelves to find the item he actually came after.

Chi Yanzhen promised that there was no safe there. In fact, according to him, there were no such things in the sect apart from the sect’s vault that was a huge guarded safe by itself.

Within the span of ten breaths Lee found the item he was looking for – a metallic cube of slightly irregular form, a bit smaller than a coconut. The register wasn’t hidden anywhere, but placed in the middle of the elder’s desk. Apparently the idea of anyone daring to steal something here never occurred to anyone, or maybe simply seemed ridiculous.

A moment later Lee left, not disturbing the heated argument the two had. He could’ve never imagined how stressed out Chi Yanzhen was. The guy had never done anything illegal in his life, but Lee probably wouldn’t care anyway. His task wasn’t over yet.

The sun was about to set, and Lee slowly proceeded towards the inner sect.

Leng Yanyan was formally outer disciple, and according to the sect’s rules had to live in the outer sect. But her aunt’s position was important enough for her to get a private pavilion where the girl spent her afternoons, engrossed in reading.

Probably because of her looks she had inferiority complex and avoided other people, and this was what Lee intended to use.

Before going down this route, he thought through the potential implications to avoid a similar disaster that followed his Project Powel. Chi Yanzhen assured that nothing will happen to her since she had no motive to steal anything, and the fact that the crime was a set-up was too obvious.

But those were politics. Currently Lee was focused on the task at hand – he patiently waited till it became too dark for Leng Yanyan to read. She left the pavilion deep in thoughts, hugging her book, and didn’t notice the shadow slipping in right after.

The rest was the easiest part of the already most straightforward burglary in the history of the Nethermoon sect.

Lee checked the best place to stash the register, looking for loose planks on the floor, then examined the table and the chairs.

In the end, he placed the register in an inconspicuous corner where the wall met the ceiling. Hidden behind a beam its presence was nearly undetectable to anyone who looked up. This was good enough.