Chapter 2#
Chapter 2#
A deity had arrived in Donglai Village, residing in the Daoist temple at the foot of the mountain.
That day, Xue Jingci had forced the river demon to explain the “murders,” finally bringing a touch of joy to the village that had been mired in grief for days, making it even livelier than the New Year.
Although Xue Jingci repeatedly stated he was merely a passing cultivator, he nonetheless became the “immortal” in the villagers’ mouths.
A-Su would run over from time to time. At first, he only dared to steal glances from a distance. Only after seeing that Xue Jingci didn’t have three heads and six arms did he believe that he was just a somewhat powerful mortal.
Xue Jingci could naturally sense someone peeking. He beckoned to A-Su outside the door and handed over a piece of ciba (glutinous rice cake) sent by the villagers.
A-Su swallowed hard and shook his head, saying, “Mother won’t let me eat things from others.”
Xue Jingci spoke, “It’s not from an ‘other’; it was sent by your mother.”
A-Su was starving for it, so he finally said thank you and accepted it.
He was very well-behaved and had been taught well. As Xue Jingci watched him eat, he felt hungry himself, so he took out some ciba and ate with him.
“Why did those children go to the river?”
Xue Jingci’s voice was indifferent, as if he were asking about an inconsequential matter.
A-Su lowered his head. After a long while, seeing that no one was outside the door, he whispered to him, “Because there are spirit stones in the river.”
Xue Jingci looked at him: “Spirit stones?”
A-Su nodded. Reluctant to finish the last bite, he said slowly, “We saw them before. As long as you fish out spirit stones, you can go to town to exchange them for money. Then Father wouldn’t have to work so hard. But I’m afraid of water, so I didn’t dare to go.”
Go to town to exchange for money?
Seeing A-Su reluctant to eat, Xue Jingci handed him another piece of ciba and asked, “Exchange with whom?”
A-Su said, “I only saw him once from a distance. The person looked roughly like this…”
He started gesturing on the ground: “One spirit stone gets thirty wen.”
Xue Jingci lowered his eyes.
The market price for one spirit stone was five hundred wen. It seemed someone was deliberately instigating children to go down to the river to dig for spirit stones.
After A-Su left, Xue Jingci continued his repairs in the Daoist temple.
Compared to the thatched huts the villagers lived in, the Daoist temple was much more “luxurious.” At the very least, it looked like a proper temple, small but complete with everything it needed. The cushions in front of the Daoist Ancestor statue were somewhat worn, but they were still passable.
In this world, the reverence for deities was deep. People devoutly believed that there must be gods above the Nine Heavens.
The village head, Mo Lin, came to visit several times. Initially, seeing his cold and detached temperament, Mo Lin thought the immortal master might be hard to approach. Later, he found him busy all day hammering and repairing the temple, even getting covered in dust, so he finally gathered his courage to come in and help.
Seeing that Xue Jingci would always look at the large stone in front of the temple, Mo Lin went to explain: “This is our Donglai Village’s clan stele. It’s nothing special; we just want the younger generations to remember where we came from.”
Characters were carved on the stone, clearly stating that during the Qianfeng era, a great fire in Lincheng left nine out of ten households dead. The remaining survivors fled south, passing through Mang Mountain and Chuanqiong… before settling here.
Xue Jingci raised his hand and brushed it lightly, as if he could sense the emotions of the person who carved it across time. He couldn’t help but praise, “Vigorous and forceful, good calligraphy.”
Mo Lin laughed: “It was written by my grandfather. I heard from my father that before the disaster, our family’s ancestors had produced a Juren scholar. Later, after being stranded here, my grandfather always taught the village children to read, hoping they could go back someday—back to where we came from.”
He naturally knew the origin of Donglai Village.
Most people in Donglai Village were refugees who migrated from Lincheng in the east. And when he first arrived in this world, he had landed in Lincheng.
In the year of the Lincheng disaster, Xue Jingci had just received a system mission to take the protagonist, Xie Zheng, as his disciple. He immediately flew toward the imperial city on his sword.
But shortly after he left, demonic cultivators caused chaos and a great fire burned the city. Lincheng was turned into scorched earth overnight.
When he heard the news, he was applying medicine to Xie Zheng’s fractured hand bones.
That night, he did not practice his sword. He sat until dawn, looking in the direction of Lincheng.
Countless people died in Lincheng back then, yet those who escaped struggled like this, regaining vitality like wild grass.
Xue Jingci withdrew his thoughts.
Mo Lin thought for a moment, then suddenly bowed to him: “I wonder if the Immortal Master could bestow some calligraphy?”
Xue Jingci turned to look at him: “Bestow calligraphy?”
“After this incident, everyone pooled some money together to buy a piece of rare wood. We want to engrave scriptures in the temple to show our devotion and pray for the protection of the gods.”
Mo Lin straightened up and laughed somewhat sheepishly: “It’s just that there are few people left in Donglai Village who are good at writing. I only know how to write basic characters. I’m afraid of wasting the good wood everyone pooled money for. So I would like to ask the Immortal Master to engrave it on our behalf. As for the payment…”
Xue Jingci shook his head: “I can write it. There’s no need for payment. Just bring me some food every day.”
Mo Lin was overjoyed and quickly called people to carry the wood over.
Although he had an estimate in his heart, Xue Jingci still didn’t expect that they would actually be willing to buy expensive Yang-wood.
With the earth lacking sunlight, plants had somehow been divided into Yin and Yang. Nowadays, Yin-wood could be seen everywhere, while Yang-wood was quite valuable.
He didn’t dare to put brush to paper lightly. He wrote a few templates for Mo Lin to see. Only after a choice was made did he start writing and carving seriously.
The beginning read: “Heaven is dark, Earth is yellow; the universe is vast and chaotic.”
The tender voices of children reciting verses came from the ridges of the fields, faint among the scent of rice carried by the wind, drifting into the Daoist temple.
Xue Jingci continued writing, thinking that it should be a harvest year.
However, after several days of painstaking engraving, while he was away for just a moment to pick herbs on the mountain, the newly carved divine tablet had a hole dug into it!
Who would do such a thing…
For a rare moment, Xue Jingci felt a spark of anger. Then he saw A-Su peeking sneakily at the door.
Seeing he was discovered, A-Su turned to run but was easily picked up by the collar. “What’s going on?”
A-Su respected him greatly and didn’t dare to lie. After hesitating for a long time, he pulled two pine nut candies from his pocket.
The candies had already melted a bit, likely held in the child’s hand for a long time—he wanted to eat them but didn’t dare.
A-Su stood on his tiptoes to get close to his ear and said in a tiny voice that it was done by a hoodlum from town.
Xue Jingci immediately went to find him.
The night was silent. Only a few dens of iniquity in town were still lit, with the sounds of silk and bamboo instruments drifting out.
A long alley was piled with hemp sacks. A boy about twelve or thirteen years old sat on a sack with one leg crossed.
He wore black clothes. Unlike other boys who were covered in patches, his clothes were at least decent, though they didn’t fit well—it looked as if they had been stripped from someone else.
His head was slightly turned, and the end of his eyebrow had a small gap, looking as if he had been struck by a blade. Any deeper, and it would have split his head open.
“Boss, I’m still a bit scared.”
A tall boy swallowed hard: “That… that is an immortal after all…”
“What bullshit immortal? He’s just a bit stronger. If he drinks the wine I brewed, I guarantee he’ll sleep like the dead.”
The boy in black patted the child’s head and said, “Do as I say, and there’ll definitely be no problem.”
He leaped down from the hemp sack, hooked a leather cord with his right hand, and tied it around his waist in a couple of moves. The originally loose clothes now clung tightly to his body.
Soon, irregular footsteps were heard in the alley.
A cultivator was seen reeking of alcohol, walking unsteadily, clearly quite drunk.
His appearance was somewhat similar to the person A-Su had described as collecting spirit stones.
The boys who had been standing previously had all crouched onto the walls at some point. Just as the cultivator passed by, the boy in black pulled a hemp sack down over his head.
Flour rustled down, instantly getting into the cultivator’s eyes.
He gave a furious shout, but his vision grew even more blurred. Finally, he was completely covered by the sack and fell into darkness.
The boy in black waved his hand, and the others leaped down, striking the back of the cultivator’s knees hard with wooden sticks. Immediately after, two more boys jumped down and struck the back of the cultivator’s neck.
This was “borrowing momentum.”
By using the force of the fall and retreating immediately after a strike, they could exert greater power than they originally possessed.
The fight continued.
The cultivator finally snapped out of his hangover and made a sharp grab for his waist, and a silver light flashed.
It was actually a Dharma tool.
The boy in black clearly hadn’t expected him to have such a move. Although he dodged, the hidden weapon turned around and pierced straight into his shoulder.
The sharp pain made his face turn pale instantly. One boy couldn’t help but cry out in alarm, but in the next second, the boy in black firmly covered his mouth.
“Who is it!!”
The cultivator was exasperated, trying hard to listen to the surrounding sounds to remember the attackers.
But the alley was exceptionally quiet, with only a few hurried breaths.
The boy in black pursed his lips. A dense pain radiated from his shoulder, making half of his body go numb.
Yet he still didn’t make a sound. Instead, he pressed his hand on the wound, hardened his heart to pull out the hidden weapon, and stabbed it back into the cultivator.
The cultivator let out a scream and finally collapsed to the ground, passing out completely.
Several boys gathered around. The boy in black raised his one movable arm and made a gesture, telling everyone to search the cultivator’s person.
Only after they had walked far away and were sure the cultivator couldn’t hear them did the boys say in surprise:
“So many spirit stones.”
“There’s actually even a body-tempering manual.”
The boys were overjoyed.
The tallest child among them had a face full of hatred and said, “He was the one who tricked my little brother into digging for spirit stones in the river before. Beast!”
They distributed the spirit stones and quickly scattered. Silence returned to the alley under the bright moon.
The boy in black walked out of town, carrying a bag of spirit stones. Even the sharp pain from his wound seemed soothed. He walked toward the mountains, muttering under his breath.
“Where in this world are there immortals? Just a bunch of bullies who… ah!”
Before he could finish, golden light suddenly appeared on the ground. Before he could react, he felt his ankles bound, and the next thing he knew, the world was upside down—he was hanging from a tree.
The boy thought the cultivator had woken up, and a glint of ruthlessness and annoyance appeared in his eyes. To his surprise, a cold man dressed in moon-white stepped out from behind the tree.
The two were forced to face each other, exposing the boy’s fierce gaze.
Xue Jingci walked closer to look at him, staring down at the scar on his brow, and said, “A wolf cub.”
He spoke softly and gently, but it made the boy feel afraid.
Because he recognized this person—the immortal master living in the Donglai Village temple.
“Why did you catch me!”
The boy struggled, making the rope swing back and forth, but Xue Jingci simply tapped his forehead with a finger, rendering him unable to move.
Xue Jingci looked at him quietly: “Was it you who damaged the divine tablet?”
The boy felt a cold sensation on his forehead, and his limbs felt as if they were frozen. Knowing that the person in front of him was different from the third-rate cultivators he had seen before, he softened his tone and played dumb: “What divine tablet? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A chill appeared in Xue Jingci’s gaze. He flicked his fingertips, and a cluster of fire appeared beneath the boy.
“Lie again, and I’ll burn you.”
His killing intent was completely at odds with his temperament, but his words were extremely calm and certain, causing the boy’s inner panic to boil.
The flames grew larger and larger. Soon, the boy smelled a hint of scorching, and waves of heat steamed above his head.
His heartbeat pounded against his eardrums like a drum. Before the flames could completely close in, the boy finally couldn’t help but yell: “Don’t burn me! I’m sorry! It was… it was me…”
Xue Jingci flipped his palm, and the flames vanished instantly.
Children are indeed easy to trick.