Chapter 50: Chapter 48: The Man Who Once Loved Alchemy, and Why He Doesn’t Anymore
Jin Kingdom, Dangshan County.
In a dense forest at the foot of Dangshan, outside the county.
A middle-aged man with a resolute face let out a long breath and opened his eyes.
"I’ve finally broken through to the Qi Cultivation Third Layer. This *Three Transition Celestial Dance Scripture* passed down by the Ancestor is truly exquisite. The deeper I study it, the more I feel its uses are endless."
"Unfortunately..." He looked down at his own hands, which had become fair and delicate, the calluses having disappeared completely.
His gaze grew distant.
’My Cultivation speed is getting slower and slower now. I have a feeling that if this continues, I won’t be able to reach the Qi Cultivation Fourth Layer even if I live to the end of my days. My Cultivation might even regress. According to the Ancestor’s writings, I should find a Spirit Vein and cultivate there. But where can I find a Spirit Vein?’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In Five Wishes Mountain.
A monkey bared its teeth and leaped nimbly onto the back of a mountain boar the size of a small hill.
After a few more hops, it reached the top of the boar’s head.
The boar roared in a frenzy, shaking its head violently and even ramming it into the dense woods and rocks.
But the monkey always managed to dodge at the last possible moment.
Then, its claws flashed like lightning, tearing away a patch of fur, then a chunk of flesh. It was simply toying with the boar.
This Foundation Establishment Early Stage boar grew angrier and angrier, but all it could do was rage helplessly.
By the time its head was a bloody mess, it hadn’t even touched a single hair on the monkey.
Finally, as if bored with the game, the monkey stretched out its claw and gouged again.
The boar’s mournful squeal echoed through the valley. A closer look revealed two empty, bloody sockets where its eyes had been.
The incessant squealing was like a coronation hymn for the monkey. It stood majestically on the back of the wildly bucking boar, as steady as if on solid ground.
It even struck various human-like poses, showing off its Martial Arts to the surrounding beasts that had been watching.
The onlooking beasts all bent their knees or exposed their bellies in gestures of submission, acknowledging the monkey’s dominion over the valley.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wu Kingdom, Jingzhou.
Although young Liao Minmin’s eyes were shot with blood and swollen like walnuts, not a single tear fell. There was only bone-deep hatred in her gaze.
She picked up the broken Spiritual Tablet from the ground.
Her hateful gaze softened when it fell upon the three words: "Ancestor Liao Leizhong."
Then she knelt on the ground and began to search through the pile of wood splinters.
She didn’t stop until her hands were a bloody mess from the splinters, but she finally felt it.
A look of joy on her face, she picked up the object. Holding it up to the sunlight streaming in from a crack in the wall, she stared at it obsessively.
In the ancestral hall, which had been smashed to smithereens, this was probably the only thing that had survived intact.
She clutched it tightly in her palm and pressed it to her chest.
A raging fire ignited in her eyes.
Legend had it that one of her ancestors was an Immortal Master of Mighty Powers. To him, controlling the elements was a simple matter, and raising the dead to grow flesh on white bones was just as easy.
It was with the help of that Immortal Master ancestor that Ancestor Lie, Liao Leizhong, had easily become an Innate Grandmaster.
However, after Ancestor Lie passed away, the family’s fortunes declined day by day.
Their nemesis, Cyan Bamboo Castle, constantly oppressed them.
There were petty villains who coveted their family’s Cultivation Technique, lurking in the shadows.
Meanwhile, her own Ancestor Gao, great-grandfather, and grandfather were all unremarkable, and the family was reduced to a second-rate power.
They finally found their chance and annihilated the Liao Family, leaving only her, a girl from a concubine’s line, to survive.
And she was the only one who clearly remembered.
The ancestral teachings spoke of an object hidden within the Spiritual Tablet of Ancestor Lie, Liao Leizhong.
In the family’s hour of peril, this object was to be taken out.
By holding it, one could find that Immortal Master ancestor on Soul-shaking Mountain.
As long as that Immortal Master ancestor was willing to act, he could easily avenge the entire family!
And then rebuild the family!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In the northern part of the Wu Kingdom, the Woniushan Mountain Range.
The mountain forest was covered in a thick blanket of snow.
Pale blue smoke drifted from a small wooden cabin, so crude it looked as if a few logs had been casually piled together.
Outside the cabin, several lines of footprints, some deep and some shallow, stretched into the woods.
Inside, a boy no older than ten, with a large head and a scrawny body, was struggling to skin a skinny rabbit with fingers swollen like carrots from chilblains.
A girl, half a head taller than him, skinny as a bean sprout with sallow, dark skin, was laboriously stirring a suspicious liquid in a large pot with a wooden spoon.
The unpleasant smell still made the famished children swallow their saliva constantly.
"Do you think they’ll be able to bring back a goat?" the boy asked, his head down as he skinned the rabbit, though he couldn’t help but speak. "If they don’t get any more prey, once this rabbit is gone, people will start to starve. There’s no way all of us will survive this winter."
The girl’s shoulders trembled, but she said nothing.
"Sis, I bet you’ll be the first to starve. You don’t have the strength to hunt, and you don’t have any skills. They make you eat the least at every meal."
The girl’s voice, tinged with tears, replied, "Two hundred years ago, our ancestor led an army of hundreds of thousands in this very mountain range, defeated the main force of the Qi Kingdom, and saved the Wu Kingdom and its hundreds of millions of people. That is an immense amount of Merit! The ancestor’s blessing will protect us and help us survive this winter!"
The boy sneered. "Wake up. ’The grace of a gentleman is cut off after five generations.’ Just count how many generations have passed for us. Even if there’s any blessing left, it won’t protect us anymore. We can only save ourselves!"
He looked up, a ruthless, cold glint that didn’t belong to a boy his age flashing in his eyes. "I’ve thought about it. It’s impossible for everyone to survive this winter anyway. Someone has to die. We should strike first! If we kill two people, the food we save will be enough for the rest of us to live."
The girl was startled. She mumbled, "That’s not right, is it?" but didn’t voice any clear objection.
After a long moment, she said dejectedly, "Why don’t I just die? You’re so small and skinny, you’re no match for them. You might get killed instead. If I die, it’ll save one portion of food, and you should be able to survive."
The boy said nothing, just lowered his head again and went back to work on the rabbit.
If his sister had seen the resolute, determined look in his eyes, she probably would have understood his true intentions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Who is first to wake from the great dream? I have known this my whole life."
"From a spring slumber in my thatched hut I wake, to find the sun is slow to forsake the sky."
Stretching his limbs, Du Youqian, who had finally managed to get some sleep, felt refreshed and invigorated.
The sound of a gentle pitter-patter reached him. He looked at the misty drizzle outside his cave abode and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
"Oh, the mood doesn’t seem quite right."
’Let’s see... "Listen not to the rain beating against the trees. Why not stroll on, whistling and humming? A bamboo cane and straw sandals are lighter than a horse. Who’s afraid? A straw cloak in the misty rain is all I need for this life."’
"What a great poem, a great poem indeed!"
After amusing himself for a bit, Du Youqian suddenly remembered his Alchemy task for the day, and his smile stiffened slightly.
’Can the world just end already?’
He used to really enjoy Alchemy.
But that was before he became an official True Disciple.
No matter how much you love something, repeating it by rote every single day is bound to become tedious. You might not get tired after a hundred repetitions, but you’ll definitely be sick of it after a thousand.
Rubbing his face, Du Youqian resignedly got out of bed, ready to start his daily schedule.
"Brother Yuanqing! Brother Yuanqing!"
Little Fatty Guo Mingsheng shouted excitedly, "Great news!"
