Chapter 267: Approaching Daoxuan Mountain
When Chen Ping'an woke up on the rooftop, he found a piece of clothing draped over him, and the sword-nurturing gourd was placed beside him. In the past, if Chen Ping'an had been drunk and slept soundly through the night, his first move would have been to jump off the roof and check the locust wood sword case that had been left on the table in the room. But today, Chen Ping'an only slowly gathered up the clothing, carefully folding it, without urgency, because he trusted that the wooden case was right there.
Chen Ping'an trusted that old boatman.
Chen Ping'an tucked the sword-nurturing gourd at his waist, sat cross-legged, and turned his head to look eastward. The morning clouds blazed with resplendent color.
Compared to the state of mind Chen Ping'an had when he left Dragon Lizard Trench to chase after Osmanthus Island, it was a world of difference. One had been a restless mind, a runaway horse; the other now had a hitching post for the heart.
Chen Ping'an stood up, raised a hand to shield his eyes, and admired the morning cloud scene. He had once read in a travelogue of mountains and rivers that "morning clouds scattering brilliance shame the clothes rack." Truly, he wondered how literati could conjure such beautiful imagery.
Chen Ping'an suddenly turned his head to look outside the Gui Vein small courtyard. There was a young maiden dressed in the attire of the Osmanthus Island maids, standing under a osmanthus tree with sparse green shade. She looked utterly bored, tilting her head up at a branch of osmanthus leaves, pointing and counting, probably guessing whether the number of leaves was odd or even. Chen Ping'an followed her gaze, focused his eyes, grinned, and shouted, "Miss, it's thirty-two leaves!"
The maiden turned her head in bewilderment. After seeing the young sword immortal with the case on his back on the rooftop, her cheeks flushed crimson. It seemed the morning clouds in the sky also favored beauties a bit more.
The Osmanthus maiden, caught slacking off, suppressed her bashfulness and asked, "Does the young master want breakfast now?"
Chen Ping'an laughed and said, "Yes, please trouble miss to bring more; I'm quite hungry."
The Osmanthus maiden blinked. As her figure drifted down into the small courtyard and vanished in an instant, the maiden's mood suddenly brightened.
In the days before, although this young sword immortal had been polite and courteous, she was still very afraid. She always felt that if she made the slightest mistake or omission, even if he certainly wouldn't go complain to Aunt Gui, he would still see it in his eyes and remember it in his heart. So she was a bit afraid of him. When he had instructed her not to meet anyone, she had obediently turned away many visitors who came to call, bravely refusing wave after wave of mountain immortals, enduring countless dirty looks and rebukes without knowing how many.
After Chen Ping'an finished breakfast, he began practicing his boxing in the courtyard. The morning was spent walking the stake for Mountain-Shaking Fist; the afternoon was spent practicing swordsmanship alone, still holding an imaginary sword, with the offensive Snowslide Style being the majority, because Chen Ping'an felt this sword technique was very exhilarating. After entering the Fourth Realm, his spirit energy began to retreat inward. As he walked the six-step stake, his movements looked light and airy, like a swan's footprint on snow, but every subtle, abrupt pause released fist intent and qi with extraordinary swiftness.
When he transitioned to sword practice, Chen Ping'an discovered that the qi circulation paths of the two were completely different, but that "sense" was common to both. This made Chen Ping'an more at ease, because he found that diligent boxing practice was cultivation, and moreover, it could cultivate many things. When Li Xisheng was in front of the bamboo tower on Fallen Mountain drawing talismans, he had said that drawing talismans was cultivation. When A Liang had punched a man down to the mortal world, he had also said on the Kunpeng ship that when boxing reached its utmost, it was sword practice.
Then the Fourth Realm of martial arts would proceed like this. Previously, Chen Ping'an had felt lost as if treading in a void, unable to find his bearings, but now he was much more determined.
In the evening, Chen Ping'an practiced standing stake at the Sword Furnace.
During a late-night snack, Madam Gui didn't let the Osmanthus maiden appear; the woman herself brought the food box.
This Aunt Gui seemed to have something on her mind, unsure how to speak. Chen Ping'an took the lead and said, "Aunt Gui, this time I helped that Fan kid keep Osmanthus Island. Can you send a flying sword message to him for me? Say that I really like this Gui Vein small courtyard, and from now on, it's mine? Aunt Gui, I think that Fan kid won't be too stingy, but the Fan elders probably won't agree. When the time comes, can you help me argue?"
Aunt Gui was full of suspicion. She carefully sized up the young man; his expression didn't seem fake. For a moment, a hundred emotions surged within her, and she smiled, "At the Fan ancestral hall, if they dare not agree, then Aunt Gui will drag that Fan kid along to cry injustice. One of us will be a shrew yelling in the streets, the other rolling on the ground. It'll definitely work."
Aunt Gui sat beside Chen Ping'an, watching him wolf down his food. Seeming amused by her own words, she covered her mouth and laughed, "Osmanthus Island setting aside a separate small courtyard—this is a rare thing that never happened before. Aunt Gui will go prepare a land deed right now. Following official rules, we'll make two copies. You and I will first sign our marks and then present the fait accompli. When the time comes, let that Fan kid toss it into the ancestral temple and run off. Who cares whether those old men agree."
Chen Ping'an laughed, "Aunt Gui, no need for a land deed. You and I don't need that between us."
Aunt Gui stared into the young man's eyes. "Truly no need?"
Chen Ping'an met her gaze and nodded. "Truly."
The woman sighed softly. Suddenly, she pulled the young man over and hugged him to her bosom. This Madam Gui, though plain in appearance but noble in bearing, said gently, "Although you're about the same age as that Fan kid, when you poled the bamboo raft that time, it was heroic spirit. And today it's so ... ah, truly the hearts of all women in the world would melt."
Chen Ping'an still held his chopsticks, his body tilted sideways, a bit like that crooked old willow tree by the Iron Talisman River. He didn't think much of it, only that Madam Gui had said good things about him. But what exactly was good, Chen Ping'an really didn't understand. Especially this "women's hearts melting"—what kind of refinement was that? Was it another metaphor from those scholarly literati? And Aunt Gui's way of expressing friendly goodwill and elder-kindness was indeed a bit improper. Fortunately, their ages and generations were so far apart; he believed that even if outsiders saw it, they wouldn't think much...
The woman had already released Chen Ping'an. She smiled faintly, looking at the young man who wasn't blushing or his heart racing, only his eyes adorably bewildered. Aunt Gui narrowed her eyes, this ordinarily dignified woman showing a rare, charming, and coquettish expression. She teased, "Oh my, still just a kid, same as that Fan kid."
From beginning to end, Chen Ping'an was somewhat embarrassed. He could only lower his head and eat, occasionally drinking wine.
Aunt Gui laughed and rose to leave.
At the entrance, she encountered an old man reeking of alcohol, his expression playful. He shook his wine flask as he strode into the courtyard, shouting something like, "Wine is the friend of joy, dispelling sorrow and bringing cheer; the toad and rabbit stir in color, the osmanthus tree sways in shade."
Madam Gui smiled helplessly, unfazed, and leisurely departed, the osmanthus tree shade accompanying her all the way.
The old boatman suddenly shed his drunken demeanor, turning serious. "Chen Ping'an, my master suddenly arrived at Osmanthus Island, called for you by name, and said he wants to pass a message to you. Will you see him? I can only confirm that my master is not a bad man; he has always had a compassionate heart. But I also cannot be certain that such a good man might not do a bad thing. As for why he's unwilling to come up to this small courtyard..."
The old man suddenly looked a bit embarrassed. "Logically, as a disciple, I should speak highly of my master. But this matter, never mind, I'll just tell you straight. My master, he was once the first boatman of the Osmanthus Island ferryboat. The dragon-pole, those paper-folded carriages and lofty towers, all those were rules he passed down. But after that, my master quickly vanished without a trace, only appearing once five hundred years ago, when he casually took me on as a nominal disciple. It seemed... my master had some longing for Madam Gui, but somehow angered her, and she forbade him from ever setting foot on Osmanthus Island again in this life."
The old boatman suddenly said, "I speculate that my master is the boatman recorded in Daoist scriptures, the one who goes out to sea for hundreds of years, punting boat for... that person you mentioned. So this time he came to find you. I'm only acting as a messenger. Whether to go or not, Chen Ping'an, think it over carefully for yourself."
Chen Ping'an thought for a moment, then nodded. "I'll go. That Lu..."
The old boatman quickly made eyes and gestures, cutting off Chen Ping'an's words, lowering his voice, "If someone calls his true name directly, a sagely being with immense Daoist powers can sense it. Think about it, in ordinary households, why are people often told not to call out the names of deceased elders? Is it just out of etiquette? Not that simple."
Chen Ping'an said "mm" and descended the mountain together with the old boatman.
The old man joked, "Not afraid that I have ill intentions?"
Chen Ping'an feigned mystery, saying softly, "I can also sense a bit whether others will harm me or not. Senior, could this mean I have sagely potential?"
The old man couldn't help but laugh. Sages and Upper Five Realm qi refiners were actually two different kinds of people. To become a sage, especially a Confucian, Daoist, or Buddhist sage among the Hundred Schools, even if only a Tenth Realm sage, might be more difficult than other qi refiners breaking into the Nascent Realm.
After going down the mountain, approaching that familiar ferry dock, Chen Ping'an and the old boatman were somewhat surprised, yet found it reasonable in its own way.
Madam Gui stood at the dock, sleeves fluttering, transcendent and aloof, as if she were preventing a middle-aged man from mooring his boat and coming ashore.
Madam Gui, as the master of this small world of Osmanthus Island, naturally sensed the approach of the two. Unwilling to continue tangling with this man, she spoke harshly, angrily at the wooden-faced middle-aged boatman, "Leave quickly! If you want to chat, go chat on the sea. Don't even think about setting foot on Osmanthus Island! Otherwise, I'll fight you to the death."
The plain-featured middle-aged man was exactly the boatman who had previously punted the boat far away under the feet of the sword cultivator Zuo You, and was presumably the old boatman's own master mentor.
The middle-aged man was ordinarily as unflappable as a gourd, but Madam Gui at the dock was his fatal weakness. Seeing the woman so cold and unreasonable, even furious at him for the first time, the simple man felt as if the sky was falling and the earth was splitting, his life no longer having any flavor. He panicked, dropped his pole, stamped his feet repeatedly, and wailed, "What's this, what's this! Wasn't it just that after you rejected me that time, I was heartbroken, got drunk on wine, and with liquid courage, snuck around to hug that osmanthus tree a few times! That was me losing control of my emotions, and it's understandable! What kind of person am I, don't you already know? Even my master says I'm honest and simple."
Madam Gui was so angry she could only sneer, "Oh ho ho, layer upon layer: first move him with emotion, then explain with reason, and finally bring out the backing. Impressive! Who taught you this set of rhetoric?"
The man's barely mustered courage vanished completely. He said dejectedly, "Little Qi from the Divine Edict Sect..."
Madam Gui raised her hand and shouted in anger, "You, a grown man, have you no backbone or loyalty? Qi Zhen helps you devise a plan, and you just sell him out like this? Without even a moment's hesitation?! Get lost!"
The middle-aged man sat down heavily in his little boat as if struck by divine punishment, flailing his limbs, shouting, "Can't live anymore! Life has no meaning!"
The old boatman stopped in his tracks, unwilling to move a step further. He covered his face, refusing to look at his master's scene. His master's behavior was so insane, it was a great shame for a disciple.
The old boatman spun around abruptly. "Let's go, let's go! If I watch any longer, my shattered Dao heart, which luckily wasn't broken by that old dragon before, might be returned to my master instead."
The middle-aged man called out to the old boatman, "Little Water Bucket, you see your master and don't even say hello?"
The old boatman, whose childhood nickname was thus called out, stopped, sighed, but after turning around, he resolutely avoided looking his master in the eye. With lightning speed, he bowed and said, "Master, long life. Your disciple takes his leave." Then he immediately ran back up the mountain.
Chen Ping'an walked forward, arriving beside Madam Gui. They exchanged nods and smiles. Chen Ping'an crouched at the edge of the dock, looking at the middle-aged man who glanced at him and then at Madam Gui. Chen Ping'an felt a shiver of unease. This man's gaze was a bit off. How was it like the looks the women from Mud Vase Alley and Apricot Flower Alley gave each other when looking at their own men and Gu Can's mother? Chen Ping'an had a sudden epiphany. This man looked simple enough, but why was he so petty and jealous? No wonder Madam Gui didn't like him.
Chen Ping'an asked, "Looking for me about something?"
The middle-aged man roughly repeated what he had said earlier to the sword cultivator Zuo You.
Before speaking openly, the man lightly stamped his foot. The pole bounced up into his hand, and he struck the deck heavily. In an instant, using astonishing divine powers, he temporarily created two small worlds. The smaller one encompassed just him and Chen Ping'an, within arm's reach. The larger one, in one go, covered the entire Osmanthus Island. Thus, not even certain Daoists from Daoxuan Mountain or sages from Southern Bodhi Continent could investigate this place.
He was, after all, the nominal eldest disciple of Celestial Master Lu Chen.
Unwilling to take the sword cultivator Zuo You's single strike, or acting like a rogue in front of Madam Gui, in all of the Haoran World he was only known by the boatman title found in obscure texts. But that did not mean this man's strength was weak or his Daoist arts low.
Madam Gui knew his background, so she wasn't surprised. Within the adjacent small world, the two figures were blurry, and even their voices did not leak out at all.
After listening, Chen Ping'an nodded. "Okay."
The middle-aged man said slowly, "You're unwilling to become my master's direct disciple? If you agree, I will thank you and owe you a huge favor."
Chen Ping'an looked at this man, simply sat down on the edge of the dock, took off the sword-nurturing gourd, and only drank wine without speaking.
The man held his pole in one hand, leaning on the ground, and looked up at the high sky. He said softly, "Master never regarded me as his disciple. I was just a servant who helped him punt the boat in his early years. Although several of his direct disciples, when they came to roam this world, would actively seek me out and even call me 'Senior Brother,' deep down I know that Master has always disliked me for being dull, of poor aptitude, unable to cut off even the word 'love.' So I searched for countless years on the sea, trying to follow Master's tracks, wanting to go to that Azure Underworld and formally apprentice to Master to learn the arts. But Master refused to see me. Today, if you are willing to accept Master's offer, as long as Master is in a good mood, he will see me. I'm sure of it."
Chen Ping'an yawned lazily, "Then do you know that the disciple your master wants to take on is the current me, not the me after becoming his disciple?"
The man scratched his head, still couldn't figure it out, and was annoyed, "You've confused me. Why do you disciples and students of my master always talk in such strange and roundabout ways, so unsatisfying! Even Xie Shi from Northern Juzhou speaks in a refined, roundabout way. He hides insults within praise. It took me over a hundred years to figure out back then that he was actually calling me obtuse, which is why Madam Gui doesn't like me."
The man then sighed in dejection, "Still, it's my fault for being too stupid. I can't blame others for being too clever."
Chen Ping'an stopped drinking and laughed, "Why not blame the times?"
The middle-aged man stood on the little boat; the young man sat on the dock's edge.
They were exactly at eye level.
The man grinned.
Chen Ping'an had already changed the subject, "Your disciple was so badly wounded, you don't care? It seems he was once at the Nascent Soul realm, then fell back to Golden Core..."
The man said gruffly, "I'm his master, not his father. He's five hundred years old. Do you expect me to still wipe his ass?"
Chen Ping'an set down the sword-nurturing gourd, extended a finger from his left hand and held it still in the air, then stretched his right hand to the right and stopped. Between the two fingers, it was like an invisible ruler. "My reasoning is here; your reasoning is here. They both seem reasonable, but your reasoning actually can't refute mine. Do you know why? Because your reasoning shouldn't have gone this far all at once."
Chen Ping'an slowly moved his right hand to the left, tapped a spot in the middle, then tapped left and right again, smiling. "If your reasoning had only come to about here, stood here, maybe it would have been true reasoning, perhaps deviating a bit left or right... But when reasoning stands at the correct position, how do you measure the weight and size of reasoning? Do you know the School of Calculation? Not yin-yang arts, but counting arts. Add the Legalist school, and with these two smaller rulers, there's a use..."
The man said calmly, "Don't you try to corrupt my Dao!"
He struck the deck with his pole again, heavily.
Chen Ping'an's smile was radiant.
Because he had guessed correctly again.
Chen Ping'an stood up, smiling, and stopped playing mystifying games. In last night's dream, he had had a dream. He had read for a whole night, in the deep and obscure, mysterious beyond mystery.
Seeming to realize he had been toyed with, the man was a bit vexed and scratched his head, but didn't take it out on Chen Ping'an.
Chen Ping'an blinked. "Madam Gui is watching. Are you treating your disciple like this? What do you think she'll think of you? Isn't that the truth?"
The man suddenly seemed to get it, his eyes lighting up. Hesitantly, he took out a stack of gold-leaf pages strung together through holes with a coarse straw rope from his bosom. "I barely managed to pick this up from a seabed. Give it to Little Water Bucket, and make sure you hand it over in front of Madam Gui. Can you do that?"
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Of course! I can even say a few good words for you."
The man laughed. "Then I won't hold you scheming against me in the ledger."
Chen Ping'an took the golden pages without even looking at them, carefully tucked them into his sleeve, and glanced at the woman who seemed close at hand but was actually not in the same small world. She was gazing at the moonlit night over the sea, her expression dreamy. Chen Ping'an withdrew his gaze, a bit curious, and asked in a low voice, "You're so high in seniority, you've lived so many years, why are you fixated solely on Madam Gui? And you know the obstacle to your Dao is the word 'love.' Yet you seem to revel in it?"
Struck in his vulnerable spot, the man grumbled, "None of your damn business!"
Chen Ping'an paced on the shore with his wine flask, then asked, "She can't hear us, right?"
The man nodded.
Chen Ping'an still kept his voice low, "Madam Gui's temperament is, of course, excellent, but her appearance... well, it shouldn't be considered too... outstanding, right? What's the story between you two? Why did you like her back then? Why does she dislike you? How do you know you like someone? And how did you separate and get back together? What made Madam Gui angry? I need to learn from it... Oh, no, I mean I want to help you plan! You don't know, but I know many girls, and I am very familiar with matters of love between men and women!"
The man rolled his eyes. "If you can explain so many intricacies about liking someone, then it's not really liking, is it? Talking with a vulgar person like you is so boring. Little Water Bucket must have been blind to want to drink with you."
Chen Ping'an grimaced.
The man suddenly pounded his chest hard and swore, "And also, in my eyes, Madam Gui is of kingdom-toppling, city-toppling beauty! No one in the world can compare! You better watch your mouth from now on. If you speak ill of her again, I'll pole you into an idiot!"
The man spat at Chen Ping'an, "What kind of taste is that? Can't see beauty or ugliness!"
The middle-aged boatman used his pole to turn the boat around and punted away alone, disappearing thousands of zhang in an instant.
Chen Ping'an patted his chest, happily called out "Aunt Gui," then said, "Come, I got a secret manual from the old senior's master for him."
Chen Ping'an didn't forget to say a few good words for the middle-aged man, and said two sentences. "He is a magnanimous man. Just a bit too honest."
Madam Gui nodded and said with a smile, "Mm. But his appearance is not too outstanding."
Chen Ping'an swallowed his saliva, turned his head stiffly toward the now-vanished man and boat. That man was really unscrupulous...
Madam Gui gently patted the young man's head, clearly not really angry. She said softly, "What are you looking at? Let's go."
They walked side by side along the mountain path. Madam Gui casually asked, "In another month, we'll reach the destination. Chen Ping'an, do you have any acquaintances at Daoxuan Mountain? If not, going to the Sword Qi Great Wall will be a bit troublesome. Our Fan family and Osmanthus Island's name don't carry much weight there. And at Daoxuan Mountain, some matters, even with money, really can't make the ghosts turn the millstone. Because..."
Here, Madam Gui paused briefly, then said helplessly, "That second Daoist set some strange rules. For thousands of years, no one has ever been able to cross that thunderbolt."
Chen Ping'an didn't quite believe it. "Never, not a single person?"
Madam Gui sighed, "Many people have tried in history. Afterwards, their corpses and souls were thrown into a small Thunder Marsh at Daoxuan Mountain by a certain Daoist Great Heavenly Lord. Among those people, almost every one was a top-tier cultivation genius—powerful scions from the Nine Continents, sect immortals, experts from the Hundred Schools... Not one came to a good end. No one could change that Daoist's decision."
So it seemed that when that golden body dharma apparition appeared at Dragon Lizard Trench, the Daoist's true form, far away at Daoxuan Mountain, had also used divine powers to isolate heaven and earth, so that Osmanthus Island couldn't see the truth at all.
Chen Ping'an was worried. He roughly described the appearance of that Daoist. Madam Gui looked surprised. "How do you know this Great Heavenly Lord of Daoxuan Mountain?"
Chen Ping'an bared his teeth and smiled bitterly.
At that moment, a white rainbow streaked across the night sky, sweeping over Osmanthus Island, and left behind a sentence, "All people of Osmanthus Island boarding Daoxuan Mountain are exempt from tolls. If anyone wants to pass through Daoxuan Mountain to go to the Sword Qi Great Wall, the same, no payment needed."
Chen Ping'an suddenly raised his arm, clenched his fist, and laughed joyfully. "He won!"
A month later, the passengers on Osmanthus Island could already see the majestic outline of that inverted mountain peak in the sky from afar.
Moreover, across the sea, at not too great intervals, were various cross-continent ferries of majestic forms.
As time passed, Daoxuan Mountain grew ever more imposing.
With Madam Gui's nod of approval, Chen Ping'an that day, before dawn, sneaked out of the Gui Vein small courtyard and finally sat on a high branch of the osmanthus tree at the mountain peak. He dangled his feet, straining his neck to look up.
He had heard that Daoxuan Mountain was the border pass between two worlds.
He, Chen Ping'an, a pure martial artist, not even a Far-Reaching Travel Realm grandmaster who could ride the wind, could only walk step by step or take a ferry.
From the northernmost Great Li of Vase Continent to the southernmost Old Dragon City, it had already been that far. If he went from one world to another, it sounded even farther.
Chen Ping'an sat on the high branch, laughing and casually throwing punches, his body swaying left and right.
Beneath the tree, a young woman who had come to the mountaintop early in the morning sighed and muttered, "I still think this guy is a bit simple-minded."