The Damned Heavenly Dao Won't Let Me Lie Flat

Borderstone Town, Idle Cloud Teahouse.

Lin Xian had been selling rough tea on this street for three years, two copper coins a bowl. He had never raised the price by a single coin.

There were seventeen knife marks on the doorframe. They were debts he owed. He had it all worked out: save for three more months, scrape together five hundred taels, settle the debt, then hang a wooden sign reading "Permanently Closed" on the door. From then on, no matter who knocked, he wouldn't open it.

At noon that day, just after he hung up the sign, a line of golden characters came crashing down from the sky.

[Idleness Warning: A person with a spiritual root has been detected intending to cease working permanently. Resume business within ten breaths, or be annihilated.]

He had an exceptionally fine spiritual root, yet had not cultivated for a single day in three years. Just like that, Heaven branded him with the sin of "being forbidden to laze around."

From then on, the teahouse was never peaceful again. First came people who smashed the place, then those who cut off the water, then those who tore off his roof in the middle of the night. One wave followed another.

All the townsfolk saw was this: the teahouse owner, who had never even touched a sword, swept a prodigy from the Hidden Dragon Ranking thirty yards away with a broom, worked out the price of a life with an abacus, and knocked out an entire squad of outer-sect stewards beyond the threshold with a bowl of overnight cold tea.

Every time he fought, a line of golden characters appeared in the sky, announcing it to cultivators across the world.

His neighbors all urged him: "With skills like yours, why not compete for a place on that ranking and seek a position in one of the great sects?"

Lin Xian simply wiped the threshold clean and looked up.

"What would I compete for?"

"I just want to keep this teahouse open."

But Heaven wouldn't allow it.