With that, Fang Zheng left the clan's primeval spring.
If he had some free time, it was usually now to wash the walls of his aperture. But, today was a day laden heavily with paperwork.
Fang Zheng spent his late morning reviewing ledgers.
As a youth, he had envisioned the Clan Head's life as one of glory - fighting monsters and leading men to victory against impossible odds, whether they be wild beasts or other Gu Masters.
The reality was far more boring and mundane. If anything, those 'blaze of glory' moments happened very rarely.
At least, a good Clan Head would ensure that they happened rarely. If the clan really was going into dire straights that often, the Clan Head probably wasn't right in the head or something, or they were just very unfortunate.
As such, his days were filled with tedious but time-consuming tasks like these.
He could have pawned the accounting off to others, but he remembered Fang Yuan reviewing the books personally when he was Clan Head, even if only with a cursory glance.
If an elder was taking advantage of their position and Fang Zheng failed to sniff it out, he would become a laughingstock. Fang Yuan could detect any such problems with a single look given his experience, but for Fang Zheng, it took until noon with him pouring over numbers and making small notes beside them before approving them to be kept in the clan's storage.
At least, he approved of most of them. There was a sheet that he kept aside from the main pile, folded it when he was done, and then placed it in his sleeve as he walked out.
After a late lunch, he surveyed the village as he exited the pavilion.
Walking down the bone-paved streets, he recognized two of his former classmates in the crowd - Yu Sai and Li Mei.
He spoke to them occasionally out of a sense of connection of them being together in the academy, but they were never truly friends even back then. They had been part of "Fang Yuan's faction" back then, though he doubted Fang Yuan even knew that they existed.
The clan tended to host class reunions every ten and twenty-five years after graduation so that classmates could catch up with each other. If their academy elder was alive at the time, they would also be present for this small meet-up. So much of their class had died already though that it would be nothing like a proper reunion.
It was not uncommon for classes to die out by those points. Usually only about two-thirds would be still alive by the twenty-fifth year. It was just that Fang Zheng's class had died out far too soon that made them unique.
For that matter, the most illustrious student of their class, Fang Yuan, likely wouldn't even attend such an event if they organized it.
Fang Zheng didn't say anything to the two of them, but for whatever reason Yu Sai glared at him with something border on suspicion as he tightened his grip on Li Mei.
If they were still in the academy such a thing might've bothered him.
But now?
Whatever.
Fang Zheng had far more important things to do than worry about small fry like them.
He passed the Academy Hall, which was still a decrepit building holding only twenty or thirty students. If anyone from a different village passed by the Academy Hall, they might think that the Gu Yue clansmen were fools for not investing more in their children's education.
But this was all they could do.
As it was, given the small class size and the fact that several of the 'student's were adults (mortals who had chosen to become Gu Masters) this was more than enough.
The outlook on this front wasn't very good in the short term.
Even if the population bounced back, it would be fifteen years before those children became Gu Masters.
Finally, he reached the Medicine Hall. Gu Yue Yao Le was there as usual, waving at him with a bright smile. Fang Zheng waved back politely.
Thankfully, other than the issues with people not being able to digest some of the mountain's food, casualties had been rather low. As such the Medicine Hall was thankfully not that busy. Gu Yue Yao Le spent this extra time perfecting alternative healing methods, having managed to even think of a new Rank 2 Bone Path gu worm recipe on her own that could be used for healing. She called it 'Bone Lobster Gu.'
This gu worm took the form of a white lobster. When attached to someone's limb, it would transform into a cast, turning into a exoskeleton-like shell outside the limb and functioning much like a cast. Over a few hours, it would mend the bone and then fall off on its own once the healing was done. Not only could it fix the bone in question, but the nerves as well. If used to join a severed limb to a body, it could also rejoin that limb in question. It would also recover any blood lost from hemorrhage as well as fixing open wounds. It could fix burns as well.
For a Rank 2 gu worm, that was quite impressive. It fed on simple milk much like most of the gu worms they had gotten from the Flesh Bone Lord, and so was easy to rear and raise. The only issue was that it took some time to work, the fact that it was single use limiting its cost-to-effectiveness ratio, and that it could only work on a single limb at a time.
Still, this was an incredible advancement to have made.
Without a doubt, she was one of the most promising youth figures in Gu Yue Village.
Fang Zheng wasn't sure if there was a deeper meaning to her smiles and the way she oftentimes went out of her way to speak to him.
'She's probably just being nice,' he told himself. 'She probably smiles at everyone.' That was just the kind of girl that Yao Le was.
And even if she was interested in him it would likely only be for his position.
His fist still clenched when he thought of Shen Cui and how she had mislead him. Good thing both she and his aunt and uncle were dead.
Fang Zheng was here to speak to the Medicine Hall Elder. As he found the person in question, he unrolled the piece of paper form his robes.
"I noticed something off in the records," he told the Medicine Hall Elder, "regarding the resources used for healing gu worms and their totals."
"Hmm... is that so? Let me check with my own records," the Medicine Hall Elder said.
There was no discrepancy there either, but something didn't match with what was being brought in and their current stockpile when you considered how much they had spent.
"Let me verify if this stockpile number is correct," the Medicine Hall Elder said.
They wandered to where the supplies were kept, counting over them twice only to reach the same figure as documented.
So the problem wasn't in counting of the stockpiles.
An hour later they found the cause after eliminating all other possibilities - missing entries.
Someone was using things without documenting that they had been taken. Either they were stealing them for their own use, or had wasted them somehow and not documented this.
Regardless, it was manufacturing a fake account.
The Medicine Hall Elder was furious. "I will find the culprit and have them severely punished. Stealing from the Medicine Hall is an attack on the foundation of the village!"