Chapter 140: Thousand Wonders (Part 2)
Within the Great Li territory, all mountain and river orthodox deities enfeoffed by the imperial court appeared to the common people as nothing more than a clay statue with a golden body and a shrine temple. Even the Five Great Mountain Gods were no exception.
But outside Great Li, in the Eastern Treasure Vase Continent, it was a different story. Not to mention major river deities like the Dragon Spring Iron Talisman River or the Red Candle Town Chongdan River, even lowly divine beings like Dragon Whisker Creek's River Mother, as long as they could maintain good relations with the local government and had no powerful immortal sects nearby, could openly establish grand river and mountain mansions. Their mansions were often on par with, or even surpassed, the purple and yellow robes of the secular court's nobility.
The Cold Food River Deity, as one of the few notable gods in Yellow Court Kingdom, had spent many years building a lavish mansion in a stretch of the Cold Food River where no towns existed for a hundred miles around. The mansion bore a plaque inscribed with the words "Great Waters" and covered a thousand acres. However, publicly, it was claimed that the owner was a descendant of the Chu clan, founding heroes of Yellow Court Kingdom, who had amassed this vast fortune through clever business. In truth, the real owner was the Cold Food River Deity himself.
That night, the mansion was ablaze with lights, filled with song and dance, and clinking wine cups.
Wealth and honor filled the hall.
On both walls hung rows of ever-burning lamps, rare treasures even in mountain mansions. The precious part wasn't the intricately crafted lamps, but the single drop of ambergris oil inside. Ever-burning lamps were mostly used in imperial secret chambers or tombs. With just an ordinary candle and a drop of oil from the deep-sea ambergris whale dripped onto the wick, if the ambergris quality was good enough, the flame could burn for a hundred years without extinguishing, emitting a lasting, exotic fragrance that calmed the mind, rivaling high-grade sandalwood.
A man in a green robe sat in the seat of honor, holding a white jade wine cup that he gently swirled. The wine was golden, thick, and fragrant.
On the man's robe chest was embroidered a round patch depicting a golden coiled dragon.
Over twenty guests had come from afar, all cultivators of no small status. Yet even they showed humble courtesy before the green-robed man, their eyes and expressions occasionally revealing a hint of wariness—it was more than just respect for a host.
---
Autumn Reed Inn.
Inside the room, the white-clad youth had been gone for some time. By the bright lamplight, Chen Ping'an finished carving the first white jade hairpin. He looked up at Li Huai, who was lying across from him. "Do you want me to carve 'Li Huai' or 'Huai Yin'? If we carve a name, like 'Baoping' and 'Shouyi,' it's simple and clear. 'Huai Yin' has a bit more meaning."
Li Huai, burdened with worries, smiled and said, "Whatever you think. Either is fine."
Chen Ping'an picked up the black jade hairpin. "Then use this one? The color matches 'Huai Yin' pretty well."
Li Huai nodded, then mustered his courage to ask, "Chen Ping'an, would you ever get so angry that you'd punch Lin Shouyi to death? I think even though Lin Shouyi has become some sort of Qi refiner, if he fought you, I bet it'd be over in one or two punches. Actually, Lin Shouyi has a bad temper, he's pretty tight-lipped, and he has more twists and turns in his mind than us, but he doesn't have a bad heart..."
Chen Ping'an was both amused and exasperated. "What are you thinking? Why would I fight Lin Shouyi?"
Li Huai timidly added, "But what if Lin Shouyi picks a fight with you? Chen Ping'an, if you have to fight, just teach him a lesson, but don't hit him too hard, okay? Lin Shouyi is a rich kid, not thick-skinned like me. Li Baoping can punch me all day and I'm fine, but I don't think he can take it."
Chen Ping'an didn't know how to explain certain things about human nature, so he simply said, "I'll be careful."
Li Huai finally felt relieved. He immediately beamed, got up, and ran to the small book box. He pulled out the painted wooden puppet and the silver ingot, then returned to the table. He set the puppet on top of the silver ingot and casually asked, "Lin Shouyi told me earlier that in all states and major cities, according to the ritual system the Confucian school established for dynasties, they build City God Towers for prefectures, and City God Temples for counties. The prefects and county magistrates govern the living in the yang world, while the City God oversees the yin world, patrolling his jurisdiction to prevent ghosts and evil spirits from causing trouble. Chen Ping'an, the City God Temple we went to earlier was huge, and it's inside a prefectural city, so why is it still called a temple? Shouldn't it be a City God Tower? Also, we wandered around that City God Temple for so long during the day—maybe we actually ran into the City God and just didn't recognize him?"
Chen Ping'an thought about it. "You'll have to ask Cui Dongshan about that."
Li Huai shook his head vigorously. "I don't like that guy. He's weird and mysterious."
---
In another room, two girls, one big and one small, sat facing each other across an oil lamp. One was wiping a bamboo flute, the other had her arms crossed, watching warily.
The girl in the red cotton-padded jacket said, "Thank you. You snore at night, like thunder. I sleep in my own tent so far from you, and I can still hear it."
The dark-skinned girl looked up and smiled. "Sorry, but I don't snore when I sleep."
Li Baoping raised an eyebrow. "How do you know you don't snore?"
Xie Xie gently rubbed her bamboo flute with her fingertip, deliberately mimicking the red-jacketed girl's eyebrow raise. "Because I'm a Qi refiner, one of those mountain immortals you hear about."
Li Baoping lifted her chin high. "Do you have a small book box?"
Xie Xie had no reply.
Having won a great victory, the little girl took a stack of books from her book box and began reading by lamplight. It was her favorite journal of mountains and waters, describing strange landscapes, mountain spirits and demons, and scholar-fox fairy tales. She read with intense focus, frowning sometimes, then suddenly understanding, then joyful, then lost in thought.
Xie Xie watched it all, unconsciously reaching out a finger to gently trace her cheek.
---
Lin Shouyi sat with his eyes closed in a small pavilion, calming his mind and focusing his spirit. He breathed and inhaled, carefully sensing the "water currents" between heaven and earth. Like panning for gold in a great river, he took the essence and discarded the dregs, gathering the specks of spiritual essence floating around the old well like drifting water, plucking them one by one into his acupoints.
Even though there was considerable commotion from the old well, the youth remained unmoved. Fortunately, the goblins and ghosts emerging from the well water clearly had no interest in targeting Lin Shouyi. The two sides did not interfere with each other.
The book Lin Shouyi had taken a liking to on Chess Mill Mountain, "The Book of Recitation Above the Clouds," was a Daoist secret manual on cultivating the Five Thunders Orthodox Method. It involved specific cultivation methods in the lower five realms, but only had vague, general descriptions. However, in Lin Shouyi's hands, a master of deduction and calculation, it yielded excellent results.
Soon, several of Lin Shouyi's energy centers felt swollen and full. Yet he still refused to stop. Having traveled over mountains and rivers, he had never encountered such a rich, pure aura, and he didn't want to miss out. Half an hour later, Lin Shouyi's face was flushed, like a starving commoner facing a feast of meat and fish, eating without restraint until he was stuffed.
Suddenly, someone slapped Lin Shouyi on the shoulder. Lin Shouyi belched, expelling a mouthful of turbid qi. It was truly filthy and foul-smelling. The uninvited guest quickly waved his wide white sleeve to disperse the accumulated impurity, complaining, "Kid, you've got some nerve. Aren't you afraid of bloating yourself to death?"
Lin Shouyi was stunned. "Isn't it better for a Qi refiner to absorb as much spiritual energy from heaven and earth as possible?"
The white-clad youth rolled his eyes. "As Xie Xie said, how can a wine cup hold a thousand jin of wine? More is better? By your logic, those founding patriarchs of various schools would have already swallowed all the spiritual energy in the world, leaving no chance for other Qi refiners. No, you have to proceed step by step—open up a few energy centers and absorb only that much spiritual energy."
Lin Shouyi felt a pang of fear and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
The white-clad youth sat cross-legged, looking toward the old well from which spiritual energy rose. This ethereal scene could only be seen by Qi refiners who had entered the door or martial arts grandmasters. To ordinary townsfolk, even if they stuck their heads into the well, they'd only feel it was cooler than elsewhere.
The youth Cui Chan turned his head and smiled. "I saved your life. How about lending me a talisman? Just a loan—I'll return it later."
Lin Shouyi hesitated for a moment.
Cui Chan curled his lips. "Don't worry, not the four most precious ones. Just a very good but not the best gold powder talisman."
Lin Shouyi nodded. "Agreed."
Cui Chan snapped his fingers. A golden talisman slid out from Lin Shouyi's robes and fell into his palm. Cui Chan looked down at it appreciatively.
Talisman paper was one of the fundamental materials in the Talisman School, a major branch of Daoism. Ordinary talisman paper was yellow paper, with the next grade being "yellow seal" hard yellow paper, commonly used by all Daoist sects.
There were special types, like the "Clear Sky After Rain" cyan talisman paper and various colorful ones. Many were exclusively used by the imperial family for edicts and decrees, often used during festivals to reward civil and military officials. Ordinary wealthy families couldn't buy them no matter how much money they had.
Talisman paper was generally used for Daoist talismans. Daoist talismans were the orthodox and fundamental source of all talismans in the world, considered the ancestral vein of many talisman systems. However, talismans were not necessarily limited to paper. Daoist masters and terrestrial immortals could draw talismans in the air without physical paper, creating a spiritual talisman. The Military Strategist school also had killing and suppression talismans. The Confucian school had talismans based on classic texts, slightly more complex than those of the Military Strategists, usually in regular script. Regular script was further divided into the calligraphy styles of seven or eight masters, with terms like "Eight Orthodoxy" and "Orthodox Nine." The Buddhist school excelled in hand seals, and although they had talismans, they were relatively rare.
Lin Shouyi asked curiously, "What kind of technique or divine power is that?"
Cui Chan carefully tucked the gold powder talisman into his sleeve and said casually, "You'll understand when you reach the middle five realms. At that point, a Qi refiner can condense his mind into a mental string. The depth of your cultivation determines the number and thickness of those strings. Picking up objects from a distance is just like that."
Lin Shouyi was currently at the peak of the third Qi Refiner realm. Making such progress in just a few months was like stepping to heaven overnight.
This was partly because the youth was naturally gifted for the Dao, and partly because of that pot of wine from A Liang.
Wealthy people liked to buy large snakes from mountain woodcutters, cut out the gallbladders, and steep them in wine for astonishing medicinal effects.
So what about a pot of medicinal wine steeped with the inner core of a flying-ascension great demon? The profound mysteries contained within were unimaginable.
The white-clad youth stood up, a sly smile on his face. "A Liang is your guide on the path of cultivation. Cherish this opportunity. If you don't..."
Lin Shouyi interrupted directly, "What would you do?"
Cui Chan changed his tone and smiled. "I would be unhappy."
His original wording had been, "I would kill you."
After the feeling of swelling gradually subsided, Lin Shouyi closed his eyes again to concentrate. He used his own body to store the wind and gather the water, building his own Bridge of Long Life.
The white-clad youth leaped onto his tiptoes, vaulted out of the pavilion, and walked toward the old well. He pinched the borrowed gold powder talisman between two fingers.
Lin Shouyi shouted softly, "Cui Dongshan! What are you doing?!"
The white-clad youth wore a mischievous grin. He walked to the well mouth, facing Lin Shouyi in the pavilion. Raising his two fingers high, he gently shook the talisman between them and stepped backward, sliding into the well. At the same time, he murmured, "Water Repelling."