Victory, as Kenji Tanaka discovered, was an asset that required careful management. Xiao Yue's tactical success against her brother Zian had stabilized the team's morale, but it had also set off alarms in the market. The competition now knew there was a new player on the board. This, in Kenji's mind, was a positive development. Volatility was an indicator of impact.
However, for "Project Phoenix" to succeed in the long term, he needed a solid base of operations. And his own position within that base—his cover as a low-level servant—was both a shield and a cage. While his protégée restructured her soul, Kenji dedicated himself to the less glamorous, but equally critical, task of optimizing his own environment: the domestic services department.
Specifically, the laundry.
The air in the enormous laundry pavilion was a sensory assault. It smelled of bleach, the sour dampness of dirty laundry, the sweat of a dozen servants, and the thick smoke from the boilers heating water in gigantic copper vats. The sound was a rhythmic cacophony: the splashing of water, the thudding of wooden paddles against fabric, and the squeal of loaded wheelbarrows. To anyone else, it was the sound of hard work. To Kenji, it was the sound of a system on the verge of catastrophic collapse.
He spent a week observing as he performed his duties. His mind, designed to see patterns and flows, didn't see servants washing clothes. It saw a disastrously designed assembly line.
Workflow Analysis: Silver Cloud Clan Laundry Division. His brain cataloged the data with clinical precision.
Failure Point 1: Inbound Logistics. The dirty laundry sorting area was located next to the pavilion's exit, not the entrance. Servants had to cross the entire workspace, dodging those carrying buckets of boiling water, just to deposit their load and then retrace their steps. A 38% waste of motion. Unacceptable.
Failure Point 2: Resource Allocation. The washing vats were arranged in a single long line. Servants queued to use them, creating a massive bottleneck. While they waited, their productive time was zero. An estimated loss of 25% in man-hours. Inconceivable.
Failure Point 3: Outbound Route. The drying yard was on the opposite side of the complex. To get there, servants had to carry heavy baskets of wet laundry down a main corridor that was also used by the disciples. This was not only inefficient but a safety risk and a breach of hierarchical protocol.
The final straw for his analytical patience came on a Tuesday afternoon. He saw two elderly, exhausted maids collide in a narrow hallway. A basket of white sheets, freshly washed and destined for an Elder's quarters, fell to the dusty floor. The panic on their faces, the time lost in gathering and re-washing... The cascade of inefficiency was so painfully obvious that Kenji felt his eye twitch.
That was it. He couldn't stand it anymore. That night, instead of going straight to the library, he sat in his corner of the dormitory and, on a piece of scrap parchment, he drew. It wasn't a talisman or a cultivation diagram. It was a floor plan. A flowchart.
The next morning, with the document carefully folded in his sleeve, he sought out his supervisor. Lao Wang was standing by the boilers, his face beaded with sweat, yelling at a young servant who wasn't stoking the fire vigorously enough.
"Supervisor Wang," Kenji said, his calm voice cutting through the chaos.
Lao Wang turned, his expression of perpetual irritation sharpening at the sight of the 'weird sweeper.'
"What do you want, boy? Did your broom break again?"
Kenji didn't respond to the taunt. He simply took out the parchment and held it out.
"I have completed a preliminary analysis of the laundry division's operational logistics. I have identified several critical bottlenecks that are negatively impacting productivity metrics. This document outlines a restructuring proposal."
Lao Wang stared at the parchment as if it were a snake. He took it suspiciously and unrolled it. His eyes scanned the boxes, the arrows, and the precise script. His brow furrowed into a single hairy line.
"What the hell is this gibberish? Are you trying to get out of work by making up riddles?"
"It is not a riddle, it is an optimization plan," Kenji corrected, his tone as flat as ever. "Observe. The current flow is linear and prone to congestion. My proposal implements a cellular system."
He pointed to a spot on the diagram with his finger.
"If we move the sorting tables here, next to the entrance, create three washing stations in a triangular pattern instead of a line, and designate this secondary service corridor as the main route to the drying yard, we can reduce the total cycle time by 31% and decrease the physical strain on the workers by approximately 45%. It is a net gain for your department's throughput rate."
Lao Wang stared at him, his mouth slightly agape. He didn't understand words like 'metrics,' 'cellular system,' or 'throughput rate.' It sounded like the gibberish of a mad merchant. But he understood 'reduce time' and 'decrease strain.' And, as crazy as it sounded, the stupid diagram... made sense. The path the boy drew was, undeniably, shorter.
"And why do you care about this?" Lao Wang grunted, his brain scrambling to find an angle. "Do you want my job?"
"Your position is irrelevant to my analysis," Kenji replied. "An inefficient system is an offense to logic. I correct the flaws I find. It is my function."
Lao Wang was speechless. The boy's confidence wasn't arrogance. It was absolute certainty, as if he were stating that the sky is blue. He rubbed the back of his neck, confused and strangely intimidated. On one hand, he could punish the boy for insolence and wasting time. On the other... if this crazy plan actually worked, Matriarch Feng might notice. And if he didn't report it and something went wrong, the blame would be his. The fear of the Matriarch far outweighed his confusion.
"This... this is above my authority," he finally mumbled, folding the parchment with surprising care. "Don't move from here. And don't draw any more of these weird lines."
With that, Lao Wang scurried away, leaving behind a perfectly impassive Kenji and a whispering group of servants, convinced the weird boy had finally lost his mind.
The summons arrived an hour later.
As Kenji walked toward the central administration offices, he felt the other servants' stares like needles. Xiong, the burly man he had humiliated on his first day, grinned openly, certain he was about to witness an exemplary punishment. Kenji ignored them all. This outcome was within the 92% probability he had calculated. It was not a surprise; it was a programmed consequence.
Matriarch Feng's office was as silent and immaculate as ever. She sat behind her polished wooden desk, and upon it, spread out like a piece of evidence at a trial, was his diagram.
Her eyes, sharp as obsidian shards, locked onto him.
"Lao Wang brought me this... curiosity," she said, her voice as dry as autumn leaves. "He seems to believe you have invented a new form of martial arts for washing clothes. Explain yourself."
Kenji didn't flinch. He stepped forward, like a consultant about to begin a presentation.
"Matriarch Feng, what you see before you is not art, it is science. The science of process optimization. The Laundry Pavilion, in its current state, operates at an estimated 47% efficiency. This means that for every ten hours of labor invested, more than five are wasted on redundant movements, wait times, and poor logistics."
Matriarch Feng raised an eyebrow. The movement was nearly imperceptible, but Kenji registered it. It was a sign of intrigue.
"My proposal," he continued, pointing to the diagram, "restructures the workflow based on the principles of economy of motion and logical resource allocation. It eliminates the three main bottlenecks, reduces the risks of accidents and cross-contamination, and will increase overall output by a minimum of 30% without needing to increase manpower or consumable resources. In fact, I estimate a 12% saving on firewood and water due to the implementation of batch processing."
Feng leaned back in her chair. Unlike Lao Wang, she was a high-level manager. She had run the clan's domestic services for forty years, an operation more complex than many armies. The words 'batch processing' and 'cross-contamination' were foreign to her, but she understood the underlying concepts perfectly. She saw the cold, brilliant intelligence behind the strange vocabulary.
"Your analysis is... thorough," she admitted, her tone a probe. "But it ignores the human factor. Servants are creatures of habit. Such a drastic change will generate resistance and confusion. Your theoretical 'efficiency' could clash with the reality of human nature."
"A short-term dip in morale during a transition phase is an acceptable cost for a long-term productivity gain," Kenji replied without hesitation. "Resistance can be mitigated with a phased implementation, clear communication of the benefits, such as reduced physical effort, and firm leadership. People do not resist change; they resist being mismanaged through change."
The silence in the room grew thick. Matriarch Feng studied him, not as a servant, but as an anomaly. This boy didn't think like a servant. He didn't think like a cultivator. He thought like... nothing she had ever seen before. She saw a weapon, a tool of a completely new kind.
"And why?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper. "Why do you care so much about the efficiency of my laundry? What are you after?"
Kenji looked her directly in the eye.
"I seek order. An inefficient system is an offense to logic. It is waste. Whether it is a global corporation or a laundry service, the principles of optimization are universal. I am simply correcting a flaw in the system of which I am currently a part. My only motivation is the eradication of inefficiency."
Matriarch Feng remained silent for nearly a minute, her fingers steepled on her desk. A bold idea, an opportunity she hadn't considered, began to take shape in her mind. She had spent years struggling with waste in the kitchens, delays in supplies, the general complacency of the staff. She had always known there were problems, but she lacked the language, the framework, to dissect and solve them. This boy... this boy was a living scalpel.
Finally, she made a decision. She tapped the diagram with one finger.
"This... 'analysis.' It is sound. Unconventional, but sound."
She stood and walked to the window, turning her back to him.
"Your current duties as a sweeper and laundry helper are a waste of your... particular talents. As of tomorrow, you are relieved of those tasks."
Kenji remained impassive, awaiting the new directive. His prediction was coming to pass.
Matriarch Feng turned to face him, her eyes gleaming with a new, calculating light.
"I am creating a new, temporary position: 'Operational Efficiency Analyst.' Your first project will be to implement this plan in the kitchens and the laundry. I am giving you limited authority over the staff in those areas. They are ordered to follow your directives."
She paused, and her voice hardened like steel.
"Do not fail me, Analyst Kenji. The entire domestic services department will be watching. Prove to me that your logic is more than just words on a parchment, or you will find that my method for dealing with 'inefficiencies' is far more... permanent."
Kenji inclined his head in a single, brief, professional nod. There was no surprise on his face. No joy. Only the calm acceptance of a CEO who had just gotten his next major project approved.
"Understood," he replied.
Phase two complete. Infiltration successful. Access to management resources secured.
The hostile takeover of the Silver Cloud Clan had just entered a new, dangerous stage. And he had just received his first official title.