Chapter 381: A Nation's Martial Fortune
After standing still, Cui Dongshan wiped his tears and trotted over. "Master, traveling all this way, enduring hardships on the road, roaming the world for a million li or more—it's been too hard, truly too hard. Your student could not accompany you to relieve your worries even a little. I deserve to die, I really do."
Lu Baixiang understood in his heart. He remembered Chen Ping'an once mentioning that he had an "unnamed" disciple studying at Shanya Academy in Great Sui, who knew how to play Go. There might be a chance to have a match.
Chen Ping'an turned around and sat back on the long bench. Pei Qian, who still had a yellow paper talisman stuck to her forehead, hesitated for a moment, then vacated her seat and went to sit next to Sui Youbian.
Cui Dongshan strode across the threshold but did not sit beside Chen Ping'an. Instead, he first went to the kitchen to find a pair of chopsticks and a bowl, and finally sat on the same long bench as Lu Baixiang. Just as he was about to pick up a piece of fermented tofu to go with the porridge, he suddenly put down his chopsticks. "Your student's heart aches so much that I can't even lift my chopsticks."
Chen Ping'an got straight to the point. "Did you follow me based on the content of the letter I sent to Li Baoping? But why are you in Qingluan Kingdom? I was planning to go to Shanya Academy to find you anyway. Is it for this Buddhist-Daoist debate?"
Cui Dongshan laughed. "Chicks pecking at each other over food—what's there to see? I'm afraid if I accidentally..."
In front of everyone, the boastful young immortal suddenly slapped himself. "If I don't brag, will I die?"
After that, since Chen Ping'an didn't ask anything else, Cui Dongshan just ate quickly, not sparing the food.
After the meal, Zhu Lian and Pei Qian cleared the table. Cui Dongshan asked the stooped old man if he needed help. Zhu Lian politely declined. Cui Dongshan said "oh," then followed Chen Ping'an out of the room, strolling gracefully toward the courtyard.
Lu Baixiang asked, "When you have free time later, could we have a game of Go?"
Without turning his head, Cui Dongshan waved his hand. "I don't know how to play."
Once the white-clad youth was out of sight, everyone else sighed with relief almost in unison.
Standing at the kitchen door, Zhu Lian rubbed his hands and wiped off the water, then looked at Wei Xian, who was sitting on the steps, and asked with a smile, "What do you think?"
Wei Xian said calmly, "He who sees into the deep waters of the abyss..."
Lu Baixiang asked Sui Youbian, "Do you think this person feels I'm not worthy to play Go with him, or is he afraid of embarrassing himself?"
Sui Youbian's answer was evasive. "This outer shell of his is somewhat strange."
Pei Qian was peeking out from the main room doorway, still hiding from that handsome young man in flowing white robes, as if afraid that he might come running out from the corridor at any moment.
She was truly terrified of him.
In just one meal, Pei Qian had come to regard Cui Dongshan as a flood or a savage beast.
Chen Ping'an took Cui Dongshan for a walk through the village alleys. The ground was covered in smooth, mirror-like blue stone slabs. Cui Dongshan obediently followed behind Chen Ping'an. In the dim alley between two high walls, with the blue ground, master and student looked like two white sparrows.
Cui Dongshan quickened his pace to walk side by side with Chen Ping'an, one hand behind his back, the other tapping on the wall. He said softly, "I heard that Master obtained a Yang God avatar, an outer incarnation, from the Flying Ascension realm cultivator Du Mao? That's equivalent to an Immortal realm cultivator's physique, tough enough to rival a ninth-tier martial artist. And on top of that, this immortal's discarded shell has already been cultivated and managed by Du Mao to be something like a small blessed land or cave heaven. Whoever manages to usurp that nest and occupy it will gain a sure path to the upper five realms."
Chen Ping'an asked, "Heard? Who did you hear it from?"
Cui Dongshan smiled slightly. "A man of the mountains has his own clever schemes; a disciple has his own connections."
Chen Ping'an asked directly, "Do you want this immortal's discarded shell?"
Cui Dongshan's expression was complex. He shook his head. "My current outer shell is itself an ancient immortal's discarded shell from a bygone era, and moreover, it's the body of some kind of dragon from the ancient Shu region. Compared to Du Mao's Yang God body, its rarity is even greater, if not lesser. But who wouldn't covet such a priceless treasure? If Master takes pity on his student and generously bestows this immortal's discarded shell upon me, your student will surely be overwhelmed with gratitude and will serve Master like an ox or a horse..."
Chen Ping'an asked, "Where can one find a powerful yin entity worthy of matching an immortal's discarded shell? The spirits of ancient battlefields? Or ghost kings and ghost generals from mass graves and burial mounds?"
Cui Dongshan grinned cheekily. "So Master is quite familiar with the art of usurping another's nest. But I have some bad news for you. Whether it's an ancient battlefield where countless ghost soldiers and ghost generals linger, or a mass grave where tens or hundreds of thousands of wrongfully dead are buried, the things that are bred there are still too small. At most, they might reach the Nascent Soul realm as ghostly beings. They simply cannot overpower an immortal's discarded shell. Once they enter, it's like jumping into a cauldron of hot oil or a water dungeon. The two will erode each other, and neither will come out well. So in the end, it still depends on Master's face and luck—whether you can find a yin entity with naturally tough bones and a resilient constitution. The realm of the yin entity doesn't matter much."
Chen Ping'an silently noted this, then said, "We're about to set out for the capital of Qingluan Kingdom. On the way, we might pass by a certain Grand Governor's mansion. We may or may not visit, but the other party might come to us. I'm telling you this in advance."
Cui Dongshan clasped his hands and bowed. "I leave everything to Master's arrangements. Your student has no objections."
In the half month after leaving the village, whether up mountains or down rivers, Cui Dongshan only spoke flattering words to Chen Ping'an. He had almost no interaction with Pei Qian or the four from the scroll, hardly saying a word.
It was as if he were just an extra tag-along, loafing around all day. Aside from the unusual way he had appeared that first day, his subsequent behavior was utterly mediocre and extremely ordinary. When Lu Baixiang and Sui Youbian played Go, he didn't even go near them. When Pei Qian performed her insane sword technique, he didn't even look. When Zhu Lian lit a fire to cook, he never helped. From morning to night, he just tagged along happily beside Chen Ping'an.
One day, they arrived at a small county town that had both a Civil Temple and a Military Temple. The Civil Temple had little incense, while the Military Temple was thriving with incense. It was said that the Military Temple could guarantee wealth and was extremely efficacious—no wonder the incense was so plentiful.
The noisy Military Temple during the day became much quieter after nightfall. Unlike other local temples, these twin temples were typically left open at night. Chen Ping'an, who was resting in the county town that day, took Cui Dongshan to the temples under the cover of darkness, leaving the four from the scroll and Pei Qian at the inn.
They went to the Civil Temple first. It enshrined a civil official from Qingluan Kingdom's history, posthumously titled Duke Wenzhen, who had governed the local prefecture for the people's benefit. Most Civil Temples in the area enshrined this same man.
The reason for visiting the Civil Temple at night was that earlier, Chen Ping'an had looked down from a distant ridge and, focusing his gaze, could faintly see that above two places in the town, dark clouds gathered and baleful energy rose, slowly spreading throughout the town. After Chen Ping'an noticed the anomaly, Cui Dongshan casually revealed the heavenly secret on that side: "It's the work of some cultivator who used the Civil and Military Temples as a bridge to forcibly transfer fortune and steal someone's blessings. If there are any townspeople with a bit of innate aptitude for cultivation, they might have recently either seen blood and tears flowing from the statues of the civil and military saints when they went to burn incense, or received warning dreams from the two local deities while sleeping at night."
But when Chen Ping'an and his group entered the Civil Temple, aside from the slightly heavier yin energy, the deities showed no sign of manifestation. It was dead and silent, just a clay statue with sparse incense.
As they left, Cui Dongshan explained with a smile, "After all, we're outsiders. We've never burned incense at this Civil Temple. This local deity is already spiritually weak and fading. It would be hard for him to appear and talk to us even if he wanted to, and he's also suspicious of us. It's better for him to hide and wait for death than to leave his golden body and be caught by some malicious cultivator, bound and controlled by methods of soul-summoning and deity-commanding. That would be walking right into a trap, and his fate might be worse than having his golden body destroyed."
When they reached the Military Temple, Chen Ping'an's heart tightened. Although there were no longer any commoners lighting incense in the temple, Chen Ping'an could see that the incense was still thick, giving an appearance of prosperity. But beneath the seeming prosperity, there was a chilling, cold aura. It was like a flame being fueled by oil—unsustainable in the long run. Not only that, but when Chen Ping'an went to the large incense burner to examine the remaining incense, he picked up a fragment, which quickly turned to ash between his fingers, emitting a faint, foul smell.
Cui Dongshan had already strode straight through the main hall's threshold. He stood with his hands behind his back, intently gazing at the golden body of the deity, which stood about one zhang tall. Since it was a Military Temple in a small county, there wasn't much gold leaf to decorate it, so the clay statue wasn't very tall. At this moment, the deity, trapped in a mire, was either in a deep sleep, sending dreams to the local people and officials, or struggling to cope with the tainted incense that was seeping in.
When Chen Ping'an entered the main hall, Cui Dongshan waved his sleeve and said with a smile, "Master, you can take this opportunity to see the manifestation of martial fortune in this world."
As soon as he spoke, Chen Ping'an heard a "ding-dong" sound in his heart lake.
Looking up, he saw a single golden drop of liquid fall from above, eventually landing in the incense burner at the deity's feet, causing ripples.
But Chen Ping'an waited for a long time, and no more golden raindrops fell from heaven.
Cui Dongshan sneered. "This is the martial fortune of the Tang clan of Qingluan Kingdom. If it were the Lu Dynasty of earlier years, in any Military Temple, one would see raindrops falling continuously, forming a line. This has nothing to do with the deity's rank. It is only related to the length of a nation's mandate and the thickness of its martial fortune. Ordinary cultivators, even if they are Earth Immortals, cannot see this. I only know some ancient secret arts and have learned a few tricks about incense offerings and divine paths from the old divine lord at the medicine shop, which allows me to manifest it. As for those countries you visited before, like Shushui Kingdom or Caiyi Kingdom, they are even worse than Qingluan Kingdom, which can produce one drop of golden incense liquid in about the time it takes to burn one stick of incense. In those other kingdoms, it might take two or three sticks to condense a single drop."
Sure enough, after Chen Ping'an waited silently for the time it takes to burn one stick of incense, another golden drop of incense, symbolizing martial fortune, fell.
Chen Ping'an felt a sudden realization. Back in Old Dragon City, the sword spirit had called Pei Qian a "martial fortune embryo." That was the first time Chen Ping'an had heard that term.
Connecting it with what Cui Dongshan had said tonight, things became clearer. It was similar to how the River Goddess of the Mo River could see at a glance how many taels of pure incense there were each month, or how mountain immortal caves had spiritual grasses and immortal trees that helped manifest and check the abundance of mountain and river qi.
Chen Ping'an smiled. "Are you waiting for me to ask about the Military Temples in Great Li?"
Cui Dongshan cupped his hands in a bow and lowered his head, smiling. "Master is perceptive to all worldly affairs. Having traveled only a few short years, you already have such insight. Truly a genius, a divine being."
Chen Ping'an looked at Cui Dongshan, hesitated for a moment, but still asked, "The Great Duan Dynasty in the Central Continent, which has its female martial god—would the martial fortune in their Military Temples be even more spectacular than in Yu Lu's homeland?"
Cui Dongshan laughed heartily. "Of course. Otherwise, how could the Liu clan of Aiai Continent, the god of wealth, be willing to bet on the Great Duan Dynasty? Besides the School of Merchants and the School of Diplomacy among the Hundred Schools of Philosophers, there are also many other scholarly traditions that have chosen Great Duan."
Cui Dongshan then added with some regret, "Besides this 'local Military Temple, observing fortune through drops,' in a national capital's authentic Military Temple, one can see even more. One might even observe the increase and decrease, rise and fall, brought about by a single person."
Cui Dongshan walked to the threshold of the Military Temple and sat down, looking up at the deity statue of a military general, which was in a bad state and had a dim aura. He sighed emotionally. "In earlier years, I heard that in Great Duan Dynasty, after a young man with astonishing martial fortune appeared and was taken back by his master to register in Great Duan as a citizen, the already exaggerated martial fortune in various Military Temples turned from a river into a great waterfall. The incense burner, which was like a pool, splashed up countless drops of martial fortune, making a rumbling sound. Even deities outside the temple, far away, could hear that astonishing commotion."
Chen Ping'an smiled. "That person is named Cao Ci. I met him at the Sword Qi Great Wall. I fought him three times and lost all three. I lost with full conviction. I hope I won't fall too far behind him and can fight him three more times."
Cui Dongshan looked at Chen Ping'an, whose expression was calm and smile sincere. Cui Dongshan gave a thumbs-up and praised with heartfelt admiration, "Master is formidable, with lofty aspirations..."
This flattery was the least insincere. If outsiders, like the four from the scroll, had been present, they might have thought that Cui Dongshan's praise was actually veiled sarcasm, mocking Chen Ping'an. But Chen Ping'an knew in his heart that this was probably the most sincere sentence Cui Dongshan had spoken.
But Cui Dongshan sighed sadly, his face full of regret. "Master, living in the same era as this man—what a loss."
Chen Ping'an walked toward the main entrance. Cui Dongshan stood up, and they crossed the threshold together. Suddenly, Chen Ping'an said, "So, did National Teacher Cui Chan detect a change in the martial fortune of the authentic Military Temple in Great Li and send you to be a lobbyist? Because he was afraid that I would take Wei Xian and the other three to switch to another nation's citizenship, such as Great Sui?"
Cui Dongshan didn't flatter this time. He just said, "Mm. The old divine lord got word that you were about to begin cultivation and needed to refine your true destiny objects. That old National Teacher proposed a deal. As long as Master has Wei Xian, Sui Youbian, and the other three join the citizenship of Great Li, then regarding the earth-type true destiny object among the five elements, Great Li can tell Master the final location of the Five Sacred Mountains of Bottle Gourd Continent. They can now reserve the five-colored soil for you. The soil comes from the roots of the Five Sacred Mountains, and they can provide ten jin from each mountain. That's enough for Master to refine his true destiny object twice."
Without waiting for Chen Ping'an to refuse or agree, Cui Dongshan explained, "Master's need to refine a second true destiny object is urgent, but don't worry. As for the soil of the Five Sacred Mountains, now, besides Bei Yue Piyun Mountain, which is under Wei Bo's command and is already legitimate, and Nan Yue under Fan Junmao, which is just beginning, the remaining east, center, and west mountains—although the Song clan of Great Li has long had intentions, they may not be able to enshrine them smoothly in the next ten or twenty years. That's actually a good thing for Master. It makes refining easier now. And since Master has just started cultivating, you don't need a true destiny object of too high a grade. Later, when all Five Sacred Mountains are recognized by the Great Li court and a certain Central Continent Confucian academy, and become firmly connected to the continent's qi, Master's true destiny object will naturally rise in quality."
As they walked out of the Military Temple, Chen Ping'an strode down the dark night street. "This is a deal National Teacher Cui Chan wants to make with me. What do you think, Cui Dongshan?"
Cui Dongshan stopped. "Does Master trust me?"
Chen Ping'an shook his head. "I don't trust you, but I still want to hear your lies."
Cui Dongshan laughed silently. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Then let Master listen to some of my lies for now. In my view, Cui Dongshan, as your disciple, having those four join Great Li's citizenship is nothing but beneficial to Master, with no harm. You might as well use this to negotiate with the Song clan of Great Li. Take the ten jin of five-colored soil from each mountain first. As for whether Master himself will change citizenship from Great Li to Great Sui or some other messy place, you can decide later when Great Li's Five Sacred Mountains obtain orthodox status in Bottle Gourd Continent. As for whether to refine the earth-type true destiny object during this period, Master can do it or not. Either way, it doesn't hurt to take the benefits first. After all, it's safer in the bag."
Chen Ping'an said nothing and continued walking.
After a few steps, he found that Cui Dongshan was still standing there. Chen Ping'an looked back. Cui Dongshan smiled cheerfully. "Tonight, I'll look into the changes in the Civil and Military Temples. If it's the work of some evil cultivator or demon, I'll act on behalf of heaven, earning Master a small amount of yin virtue. If it's due to poor local teaching and the people's own wrongdoings, I hope Master will allow me to stand by and let the incense here live or die on its own."
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Alright."
Chen Ping'an turned and left, intending to return to the inn.
Cui Dongshan suddenly called out, "Master!"
Chen Ping'an turned. "What is it?"
Cui Dongshan said indignantly, "Those four ant-like pure martial artists, acting as Master's attendants, are so disrespectful! As your disciple, I've been observing my duty these days. I could only look on in silent pain, unable to speak. I beg Master to grant me permission starting tomorrow to teach them how to behave!"
Chen Ping'an asked with a smile, "How do you plan to teach them?"
Standing at the bottom of the Military Temple steps, Cui Dongshan declared boldly, "Naturally, in accordance with Master's teachings, with reason to convince others, with virtue to win them over."
Chen Ping'an ignored Cui Dongshan and headed straight back to the inn. On the way, he pondered why Cui Dongshan had come and why he would suddenly leave Shanya Academy in Great Sui.
The matter of Du Mao's coveted immortal's discarded shell, the citizenship deal proposed by Old National Teacher Cui Chan, and the undercurrents of the Buddhist-Daoist debate in Qingluan Kingdom's capital—Chen Ping'an felt that these were all part of Cui Dongshan's purpose, yet still not the main one.
Behind him, in the distance, Cui Dongshan turned and ascended the steps, yawning as he re-entered the Military Temple.