Gan Mao, sect master of the Flaming Bloody Organs Sect, watched the orphanage burn in fury.
Or rather, he watched it fail to burn, for though they’d lit the fire three times now it had yet to catch. It flickered out in stops and starts, spreading slowly, and a simple gust of wind could put it out (fire has no private parts, after all).
The orphans inside had been thumbing their noses at the demonic cultivators outside, as the fire died again and again, although they’d vanished the moment they saw said cultivators heading towards the door. Gan Mao was patiently waiting for them to return with the orphans’ heads, as he watched his not quite loyal followers try and fail to set a fire for the fourth time that morning.
The burly monster of a demonic cultivator stood stock still, arms behind his back. He was a mass of muscle, coiled ropes of flesh standing out against his shirt, with a misshapen, ovoid head, and two dark eyes over a mere slit of a mouth. Unlike most cultivators, he wore no robes - to ensure his muscles stood out to their best effect, he wore only a tank-top and pants.
A fearsome figure, normally, although the repeated failures of the cultivators around him meant that he looked faintly ridiculous, and he could feel the usually terrified stares of the townsfolk behind them slowly turning into stares of disbelief and even derision.
Gan slowly raised one fist in the air, his demonic qi burning three people to ash. The others hurried on their way.
The shattered front door of the orphanage - a testament to his followers’ enthusiasm - fell outwards, clattering to pieces on the ground. Tou Tong, the sect strategist, came out. The crooked, oleaginous man was holding one hand to his head and muttering as he slowly staggered towards Gan.
“Well?” Gan asked, and waited with what might be charitably called barely restrained patience as his sect’s second most important cultivator swallowed a headache pill before responding.
“No luck. Whoever fireproofed the orphanage dug escape tunnels, too. They even used talismans inside, just like on the outer walls, to cultivator-proof the tunnel doors. It will take us a while to break through them, and by that time the orphans will be long gone.”
Gan swore, and went to slam his hand on the table. His hand went through thin air.
He paused in confusion, and then remembered that he was in the middle of the road (much to the vocal chagrin of the passing wagons, who were cursing as they took a detour). Alas, he was not in his office, and there was no table. He sighed and raised one finger into the air to motion for patience.
He reached into a storage ring, removed a spare table, and carefully placed it beside him. Then he slammed his hand on that.
The table was reduced to matchwood.
“Bebother and beblast it! Who keeps fireproofing orphanages? This is the third one this month that’s failed to go up in flames as a result of our perfidious practices… and we’ve only tried to set three on fire this month. If this keeps up, we’ll be a laughingstock across all of the Great Xuan.”
But Tou Tong was not the only sycophant standing near him - there was also Ke Sou, a sickly, insipid-looking cultivator dressed in wool with a funny hat. If Tou Tong was his right hand man, then Ke Sou was his left, the man who oversaw all of the sect’s direct affairs. The latter coughed, and tried to defuse the situation. “Oh, come on boss, I don’t think it’s that bad-”
Ke Sou would, doubtless, have followed this declaration up with a brilliant argument as to why failing to burn orphanages was not a failure per se, but before he could the three demonic cultivators overheard the conversation of a pair of passing pedestrians.
“Hmm. Dearest kettle, is that the Discount Insurance Fraud Sect I see over there?”
“Couldn’t be, friend pot. Even they have class.”
Gan Mao’s left eye twitched. “Not that bad, you say? Not that bad? The desire of this one to see you dead, Ke Sou, is exceeded only by the knowledge that slaughtering my own followers has a deleterious effect on sect morale.”
Ke Sou winced. Gan stewed for a moment, and then continued.
“Tell me - do you know why, exactly, we of the Flaming Bloody Orphans Sect burn orphanages, and slaughter the heartwarming orphans hiding within?”
His followers looked at each other dubiously, debating how best to respond.
“So we can refine the heartwarming orphans into heart-warming blood pills?” Ke Sou said hesitantly.
Gan raised an eyebrow. “Sure. Because we get so much qi from orphans who don’t cultivate.”
“When you put it like that, sure, but you have to admit they are delicious… The pills make a tasty, popcorn-like treat for when we have Slave Gladiator Night.” And Ke Sou involuntarily licked his lips, imagining the taste of refined orphan.
“A fact which, though true, does not explain why we go out of our way to burn the orphanages and slaughter the orphans within in public, when we could simply toss them in the Blood Pits and kill them at our leisure - like we do with all the travellers, farmers, merchants, and anyone else who makes the mistake of entering our territory - then refine them into a tasty, popcorn-like treat after the fact. Try again.”
“Hmmm… Is it because many of those orphans are the children of people we’ve slain, and we want to dispose of them when they’re young before they grow up, discover some rare cultivation technique, unlock a System, meet a mysterious mentor, etc., and then go on to seek revenge?”
“Admittedly, an added benefit, but I will remind you that we have a very, very expensive contract with the Eyes And Toes Munching Sect who hunt down and kill any brave and plucky youths as soon as they start their Epic Quest for the Sake of Revenge. Slaying such people ourselves merely makes our money poorly spent. In point of fact we lose so much money that I’d cancel the contract, if it didn’t act as collateral for when we miss someone. Any other guesses?”
Ke Sou thought about it some more, as the disappointed demonic cultivators started to trickle back slowly, the orphanage unburnt and the heartwarming orphans within (alas) unslaughtered.
“Is it because we’re evil?”
Gan sighed. Clearly, he’d have to take matters into his own meaty hands. “Of course we are evil, but that need not mean we do evil. Is the cardinal rule of our sect not that the Only True Desire is the Desire for Power? Why would I go out of my way to do evil to those orphans, when I can stay home and be just as evil? After all, I’m not going to suddenly become an orthodox cultivator just because some orphans remain unslaughtered. No, it’s not because we are evil… it's so that everyone knows we're evil.”
Gan gestured expansively to the surrounding houses, his posture triumphant. His form seemed to engulf the houses in darkness, his voluminous presence promising nothing if not disaster. It would have been truly impressive, had the gesture not been entirely underwhelmed by the fact that several of the inhabitants in said houses were pointing and laughing. Gan tossed out another wave of demonic fire, politely reminding the nearby mortals that they were not as fireproof as the orphanage, and continued.
“Every time they see us burn an orphanage, every time they see us massacre the innocent matrons and spear the heartwarming orphans… every time they see us waving their tiny, adorable bodies overhead while cackling maniacally… every time we do an act of such utterly vicious evil, does it not stir the ember of fear in their hearts?
“Does the knowledge of how entirely unnecessary, how unutterably gratuitous, the violence which we inflict upon those who have never done us or anyone else the teensiest bit of wrong not fan these flames into a blazing terror? Does it not make them go, ‘Good Heavens, those people are evil’ or, what is better, ‘there must not be any Good in the Heavens or on Earth,’ and then they not only fear, but despair.”
Ke Sou scratched his head. “Right, sure, but it’s not like them knowing I’m evil has any effect on my being evil, as we just discussed. There are plenty of people three counties over, for instance, who have never heard of me, but their ignorance of how sheerly vile I am troubles me not in the slightest.”
Gan Mao grinned. At last, they were getting somewhere. He motioned for the disoriented demonic cultivators milling about to gather around him, and used his cultivation to raise his voice, the ensuing sermon booming across the small field.
(Though not loud enough to be heard by any of the nearby houses, which would, of course, reveal the truth behind the Flaming Bloody Orphans Sect’s despicable actions and thus make them, if not quite mundane, at least the perpetrators of a more pedestrian form of evil.)
Now, he knew, was the opportune time for a speech.
