Chapter 76: Back to Back
When Chen Ping'an approached the stone arch bridge, he swallowed nervously, not daring to continue forward. After a fierce mental struggle, he followed the stream upward to its narrowest point, sprinted, leaped across, and only then walked toward the Green Ox's Back. Chen Ping'an had no idea that by taking this detour, he had just missed Ruan Xiu. The girl in blue, carrying a jug of Peach Blossom Spring Brew, dashed across the bridge. On this trip to town to buy wine, she had passed by the New Year's Treats Shop with her head down, hurrying quickly for fear of having her soul stolen by those dazzling pastries—because she had started saving up her private money.
Chen Ping'an first went to Liu Xianyang's house. He lit an oil lamp, carried it around both inside and outside the house, and after confirming that nothing was missing—neither large nor small—he extinguished the lamp, locked the door, and returned to the Clay Bottle Alley. Passing the old house that had collapsed into a hole, Chen Ping'an let out a sigh of relief. The burden on his shoulders was still there, but compared to before he left the alley, it was much lighter. Chen Ping'an couldn't help but secretly grin. Having money in his pocket—not a bad feeling!
In his entire life, Chen Ping'an had only ever seen bits of silver. Heavy silver ingots he had never even glimpsed, let alone gold, which was as rare as immortals.
Chen Ping'an returned to his ancestral home. After opening the door, he ran to make sure the courtyard gate was truly latched. Back in the house, he carefully lit the oil lamp. The dim yellow flame reflected off the cold earthen walls. From a clay jar at the base of the wall, he pulled out three money pouches: Welcome Spring Coins, Offering Coins, and Exorcism Coins. They contained twenty-five, twenty-six, and twenty-eight Golden Essence Copper Coins respectively.
Seventy-nine coins in total.
Regarding these coins of extraordinary origin, Ning Yao had briefly explained that they were an extension of common folk charm coins. The reason they were priceless was simply that rarity made them valuable. But the main reason was that outsiders entering the town needed these coins as tokens. As for the origin of this unwritten rule, it was long ago, and since Ning Yao wasn't from East Treasure Vase Continent, she naturally couldn't explain the details.
Chen Ping'an took out one coin from each type and placed them on the table. The Welcome Spring Coin bore the auspicious words "Great Fortune in the New Year" in four characters. It was openwork carved with flowing auspicious clouds and a armored divine figure beating a drum.
The Exorcism Coin had the five poisonous creatures—snake, scorpion, centipede, gecko, and toad—on its obverse. On the reverse, besides the four characters "Expelling Evil from the Heavens," there was a pattern of a tortoise and snake entwined around a sword.
The Offering Coin had "Sincerity Brings Results" on the front and "Immortals Above" on the back, with no intricate patterns—the simplest in style.
Chen Ping'an picked up a Welcome Spring Coin and examined it repeatedly. The boy found it hard to imagine that such a small coin could buy an entire True Pearl Mountain. Chen Ping'an knew that what Master Ruan called a "little hillock" was the same peak Old Yao had taken him to when he first went into the mountains to find soil. The nature of soil could be divided into many types—lightness, heaviness, fertility, and so on. More complex was the need to identify which kind of soil naturally favored water, fire, metal, or wood. There were many intricacies. Chen Ping'an had only learned about seventy or eighty percent of Old Yao's "soil-eating" knowledge.
At that unremarkable True Pearl Mountain, Old Yao had stomped his foot, then looked down at Chen Ping'an, who was digging there, and said: "This place has the most complete flavor of earth. Unfortunately, it's too small—like a person curled up in a corner. Stretch your head and you hit it, stretch your legs and you stub your toes. Folks call such a place a 'snail shell.'"
Chen Ping'an gently set down the Welcome Spring Coin and picked up the Exorcism Coin, but quickly put it down again. The boy's expression darkened slightly.
The fifth day of the fifth month, when the five poisons emerge. The boy was born on that very day. His neighbor Song Jixin had even said that in many places outside, children born on this day were considered inauspicious, and there was a custom of drowning them in the river.
Chen Ping'an shook his head, picked up the last Offering Coin—simple, just eight characters on both sides.
Suddenly, Chen Ping'an remembered something. When he first met Miss Ning and Fu Nanhua and Cai Jinjian, he recalled that when they entered the town's gate, each had to hand a pouch of coins to the gatekeeper. In whose hands did those coins ultimately end? Did they go into the personal pocket of His Majesty, the Emperor of the Great Li Dynasty?
Chen Ping'an sighed. Setting aside the questions he couldn't figure out even if he racked his brains, he began to calculate in his mind. Master Ruan said that a small hill like True Pearl Mountain only needed one Welcome Spring Coin. Medium-sized mountains like Mysterious Plum Mountain and Lotus Lamp Peak required about ten to fifteen coins. Large mountains like the Withered Spring Mountain Range or Fragrant Fire Mountain needed twenty-five to thirty coins.
After a bit of thought, Chen Ping'an actually understood Master Ruan's unspoken meaning.
First, the Great Li Dynasty greatly respected Master Ruan, so they gave him three mountains for free. Second, since Master Ruan wanted to establish his school, the three mountains should ideally be connected, clustered together. Otherwise, one here and one there would be absurd. This was probably the court's cleverness—knowing that Master Ruan couldn't possibly pick the three most valuable mountains, so they pretended to be generous. Finally, he, Chen Ping'an, would naturally need to follow Master Ruan in selecting mountains. Of course, Chen Ping'an thought it wasn't impossible for him to pick one or two small or medium-sized mountains elsewhere—like True Pearl Mountain, which was very suitable. An obscure little hill that no one cared about—but Chen Ping'an cared a lot. No matter how small a mountain, it was still an entire mountain. Besides, it only cost one coin. Chen Ping'an felt he absolutely had to pocket this little hill. Better to have it safely in hand!
Chen Ping'an wasn't uninterested in the most expensive mountains Master Ruan had mentioned—the Withered Spring Mountain Range, Divine Beauty Mountain, and Fragrant Fire Mountain. But beyond those, he aimed to buy a large mountain that was slightly inferior to them but not by much, expecting to spend at most one pouch of Golden Essence Coins. Then he'd buy a few small mountains like True Pearl Mountain, hoping to spend about ten coins. The rest he would use to follow Master Ruan's bet—once Master Ruan picked three large mountains, Chen Ping'an would buy nearby, buy again, and buy as much as he could!
As for that nameless great mountain with the Dragon-Slaying Platform, Chen Ping'an had completely given up on it. He warned himself never to touch it, even if it remained unknown to others. With such a great opportunity before him, Chen Ping'an absolutely refused to buy it. Now that visitors from all directions came to town, it was no longer the sealed Li Zhu Small Paradise it once was. A few hundred miles of mountain paths—even Chen Ping'an could walk them. In the future, who could stop anyone? Especially those immortals flying around on swords in the sky?
But before spending money to buy mountains, Chen Ping'an planned to go into the mountains himself one more time.
If he spent so much money without knowing beforehand what he was buying, even if he knew it was a sure profit with a hundredfold return, Chen Ping'an would still feel uneasy all over.
This was simply the habit of having suffered hardship.
Chen Ping'an now had eight snake gallstones that hadn't faded at all. The rest, hidden at his own house and Liu Xianyang's, were numerous. Perhaps because they had escaped early from the stream and "survived," their color and luster had faded to varying degrees—no longer as bright and pleasing as when they first came out of the water. Yet they still carried a bit of "spiritual energy." This indescribable feeling was like when Chen Ping'an first saw Gu Can in Clay Bottle Alley or Li Baoping on Fortune Street—he just knew they were clever children.
Chen Ping'an put away the three pouches of Golden Essence Coins and placed them back in the clay jar. Thinking about having to ask Master Ruan for leave to go into the mountains again made Chen Ping'an's head ache.
First Old Yao, now Master Ruan. Chen Ping'an suspected he didn't have luck with elders, especially with teachers.
Chen Ping'an went to the corner and crouched beside the basket, staring at the Dragon-Slaying Platform inside. He reached out to touch the black stone's fine texture. It was cool to the touch. He was very curious—how could such an unremarkable stone be connected to immortals like Miss Ning who stepped on swords? And he couldn't imagine to what degree of sharpness the Dragon-Slaying Platform could grind a sword.
Suddenly, Chen Ping'an remembered something. He pulled out the five locust leaves. Back then, the little girl in the red cotton jacket had picked eight leaves from the old locust tree. Chen Ping'an had given her three as payment. Chen Ping'an examined the locust leaves carefully. They seemed thin but were actually quite tough. Unfortunately, they had lost that dark green glow that flowed along the veins. Chen Ping'an guessed that was probably what they called ancestral blessings. At some nodes, tiny specks of green remained, stagnant.
Chen Ping'an carefully tucked the five locust leaves into the Mountain-Shaking Fist Manual.
After doing all this, Chen Ping'an went to the courtyard and began walking his stake stance.
The neighbors on both sides had already moved away.
Chen Ping'an quickly immersed himself in the fist stance, completely forgetting himself.
His entire being's fist intent flowed like a stream.
Miss Ning Yao had said that practicing a punch a million times was only the beginning of martial arts.
How could Chen Ping'an be willing to slack off?
He inadvertently thought of the red dots and ink characters on the wooden dummy—those acupoints and energy palaces from legends, through which vital energy flowed.
His whole body felt comfortable, rolling with heat. It was as if a fire dragon was rapidly traveling inside, moving from head downward, bumping and stumbling, not smooth. Those acupoints were like dilapidated, crude passes. The roads between the passes were absolutely not main thoroughfares. Some were spacious but rugged, some narrow and steep. When the fire dragon passed through, it wobbled like a pedestrian crossing a chain bridge.
Finally, the fire dragon shuttled back and forth near several energy palaces around the lower dantian, as if searching for the most suitable den to make its dragon palace.
Ning Yao had once said that in martial arts body refinement, there were three realms. In the first realm, the Mud Embryo Realm, when perfected, one generates an internal energy—like a clay idol sitting high on a shrine, with energy sinking into the dantian, unmoving as a mountain. The body then gains a new vitality, starting to nourish flesh, blood, sinews, and bones. The entire person is like a withered tree meeting spring, with many impurities and accumulations slowly being expelled from the body.
Chen Ping'an was walking this path.
Without a famous teacher's guidance, it wasn't exactly groping blindly.
It relied on diligence compensating for clumsiness. Eight full years of going up and down mountains, crossing ridges, and a breathing technique that, though crude, had the right method.
Eight years and still hadn't broken through the first martial realm.
In secular dynasties and the world's martial arts circles, except for Ning Yao's homeland, they emphasized that the poor study civil arts and the wealthy study martial arts. Fortunately, on the path of martial arts, there was no bad habit of competing in the speed of realm advancement. The more one entered the hall, the more profound the master, the more they valued solid steps each time, the thoroughness of each martial step. But someone as slow as Chen Ping'an—though not to the point of being a laughingstock, since countless young men from wealthy families were indeed stopped at the first threshold, spending their whole lives unable to find that energy—still, by current appearances, Chen Ping'an certainly couldn't be linked with martial genius.
Chen Ping'an suddenly "woke up" and let out a gentle breath of turbid air.
He walked slowly in the courtyard, gradually relaxing his limbs.
Looking down, he saw the locust branch leaning against the wall. A wild idea struck him—he wanted to carve himself a wooden sword.
After his parents left when he was little, Chen Ping'an would watch from afar near the Immortal's Grave as other children played. The girls mostly flew kites; the boys used wooden or bamboo swords their fathers had made for them, clashing with crackling sounds, fighting joyfully. Chen Ping'an had always wanted one back then. But later, when he became a kiln apprentice making porcelain, busy all year round, he gave up that thought.
Chen Ping'an crouched in front of the locust branch. He thought making one wooden sword would definitely be possible, but two would be iffy.
He first moved the branch outside the house, then fetched the hatchet he used for clearing paths in the mountains, ready to make himself a wooden sword.
But when Chen Ping'an sat on the doorstep holding the hatchet, he hesitated. After thinking it over, he put the knife back. He felt that the old locust tree couldn't simply be regarded as just an old tree—after all, Mr. Qi had held a conversation with the tree. So this locust branch made Chen Ping'an feel somewhat awkward.
Chen Ping'an put the branch back against the wall. Finding himself without any sleep, he left the courtyard, locked the gate, and walked all the way out of Clay Bottle Alley.
As if possessed, he arrived near the stone arch bridge. Thinking that he couldn't keep jumping into the river to cross every time, he gritted his teeth and walked onto the bridge. Once again, he sat on the middle stone slab, dangling his feet over the water. Chen Ping'an was a bit nervous. Looking down at the dark surface, he murmured, "Whether you're an immortal or a demon, we should have no grievances. If you really have something to say to me, stop coming in my dreams. I'm here now. Tell me."
One incense stick's time. One quarter-hour. One hour.
Aside from being a bit cold, Chen Ping'an noticed nothing unusual.
Chen Ping'an propped his hands on the stone slab, swinging his feet, gazing into the distance. When he was very young, he had always been curious where the stream ended.
Chen Ping'an stared blankly.
Liu Xianyang, Gu Can, Miss Ning, Mr. Qi, Old Yao—all gone.
Chen Ping'an had never been so wealthy and well-off before.
But the boy had also never been so lonely.
――――
On the other side of the stone bridge, with the straw-sandaled boy's back to him, a tall figure in dazzling white clothes, like an immortal or a ghost, also propped his hands on the stone slab, dangling his feet and swinging them, looking up at the sky.
But this scene—let alone Chen Ping'an, who had started talking to himself, even Old Yang and Ruan Qiong couldn't perceive it.