“Cultivation—the most important thing is spiritual roots!”
The white-haired Great-Granduncle squatted on the ridge between the fields and spoke earnestly to the three human heads in the soil.
“Without spiritual roots, you cannot seek immortal arts. If you cannot seek immortal arts, you cannot live long and unfettered. Your ancestor here is one hundred and eighty years old this year. Those old coffin-fillers my age have long since turned into a handful of black earth, and now the grass on their graves is three feet high.”
“And why is that?”
“Isn’t it because they failed to grow spiritual roots and did not receive the Medicine Master’s mercy?”
“As the saying goes, spring gives birth, summer nurtures, autumn harvests, and winter stores. You three are the most talented children in the village, and now you’ve reached the age to take root and sprout.”
“Don’t blame your ancestor for being strict with you. This is all for your own good. The earlier you grow spiritual roots, the better the results when you draw qi into your body…”
After rambling on for a while, Great-Granduncle picked up a gourd dipper, scooped clear water from the bucket beside him, and sprinkled it over the three heads.
The fields in early spring were still icy cold, and with mountain spring water poured over them like that, it felt as if their brains were about to explode.
I really don’t think people can be compared to corn.
Li Qiuchen shivered as he silently grumbled to himself, but he did not dare open his mouth to argue.
Great-Granduncle was the eldest person in the village. Everyone revered him, and his words were not to be questioned.
Right now, what he was pouring over you was mountain spring water. If you dared talk back, who knew what he might pour next?
Based on the experience he had accumulated from reading web novels before transmigrating in his previous life, he felt that there was a serious problem with the village’s cultivation method.
The term “spiritual root” didn’t seem like it was supposed to be interpreted this way, right? Were they cultivating spiritual roots, or actual roots?
But there was nothing he could do. Ever since he could remember, this was how the villagers cultivated.
Maybe this was simply how things were set up in another world.
Buried on the left was Hong Yang. Great-Granduncle said he was born with a masculine yang body, the most suitable for spiritual roots to grow. Unfortunately, his yang energy was too heavy and had affected his brain; ever since he was little, he had been a reckless brute.
Buried in the middle was Yingcao, the granddaughter of Great-Granduncle’s own granddaughter. It was said that she had taken secret medicines since childhood to improve her constitution, pickling her whole body with a floral fragrance. Supposedly, she was the child in the entire village with the greatest hope of cultivating into an immortal.
Li Qiuchen was buried on the far right. He had heard from the villagers that his family had once enjoyed great prestige in the village, with many cultivators among the clan. Unfortunately, ten years ago, his older female cousin went mad from a cultivation deviation while practicing immortal arts, slaughtered the entire household, then fled in fear of punishment.
Only Li Qiuchen, who had still been wearing open-crotch pants at the time, was left behind, stubbornly surviving alone until now.
After Great-Granduncle finished watering them, he raised his head to look at the sun, then rambled a few more instructions and was just about to get up and leave when Yingcao let out a pained moan. His expression changed instantly. With a thud, he dropped flat onto the ground and leaned in front of Yingcao, carefully observing her condition.
“Ancestor, my stomach hurts…”
“A stomachache is normal. Be good, Yingcao. Endure a little longer, and your ancestor will buy you candy!”
“It really hurts…”
Li Qiuchen’s eyes widened. In horror, he watched black blood vessels appear on Yingcao’s face, tearing through her skin at a speed visible to the naked eye. Clusters of emerald-green shoots blossomed from her face, her mouth, and her ears.
“Spiritual roots! Spiritual roots!”
Great-Granduncle was so excited that he danced with joy. He picked up the bucket and poured it straight over Yingcao’s head, then turned and sprinted away.
Li Qiuchen’s gaze passed over Yingcao, who had already lost consciousness, and met Hong Yang’s equally terrified eyes.
This was a spiritual root?
Yingcao growing spiritual roots was a joyous occasion for the entire village. By comparison, those two things that had only been watered without sprouting looked rather in the way.
Only after being buried in the ground for a full three days did Great-Granduncle finally remember Li Qiuchen and Hong Yang, dig them out, and toss them aside.
It was not that he meant to abandon the two of them. He was simply making room for Yingcao.
Now that whole mu of land belonged to Yingcao, and within ten zhang of her, not a single weed was allowed to compete with her for nutrients.
Li Qiuchen was not envious in the slightest.
After returning home, he took a cold bath and changed into a clean set of clothes.
There was no food at home. He did not even know how long it had been since the stove was last lit.
That evening, someone was treating them.
On the way back, Hong Yang had said they would go eat noodles that night.
Although Songlin Village was called a village, it actually had quite a sizable population, roughly three hundred households.
Because those who cultivated immortal arts generally lived long lives, every household was full of children and grandchildren. All told, there had to be several thousand people.
In any other village or town, they certainly would not be able to support so many mouths.
But here, even people could be planted in the fields, to say nothing of other crops.
The village had shops, an inn, and even a noodle shop.
Hong Yang’s only hobby in this life was eating pulled noodles.
Like Li Qiuchen, he was also an orphan, with no one at home to cook for him.
Another reason was that Songlin Village’s pulled noodles genuinely tasted extraordinary.
The noodle shop owner, Guan Damu, was a man with a story.
In his early years, he had gone out to roam the jianghu and learned excellent iron-forging skills. The blacksmith shop next door was also his. Aside from making farming tools for the village, in private he would also forge some extremely powerful mechanical hidden weapons.
But Great-Granduncle regarded them as unorthodox tricks and useless craftsmanship, scolded him harshly for forgetting his roots, and in the end, they were all sealed away.
There was one distinctive trait to Boss Guan’s noodles: the broth had the flavor of meat, but there was not a single shred of meat in the bowl. Noodles could be added, soup could be refilled, but meat was absolutely out of the question.
Meat in the village had to be uniformly supplied to the cultivators. Everyone else could only smell the meaty aroma and gnaw on bones.
Li Qiuchen had always suspected that Boss Guan secretly went out hunting and ate alone in the back kitchen, but he had no evidence.
“No wonder Great-Granduncle is so happy. The village hasn’t produced anyone with spiritual roots in many years. I remember the last child who grew spiritual roots was the eldest girl of the Li family.”
The villagers all cooked at home, so the noodle shop did not have many customers to begin with.
Boss Guan was usually a man of few words. Only with Hong Yang and Li Qiuchen, these two children who often came to eat noodles, would he chat a little.
The eldest girl of the Li family was Li Qiuchen’s older cousin, the one who had wiped out her own household.
Because her methods back then had been far too ruthless, she had now become a taboo in the village, and no one dared discuss her openly.
Li Qiuchen silently ate his noodles, unwilling to delve too deeply into this subject.
He had been too young then and did not even remember what his cousin looked like.
“I don’t think spiritual roots should look like that!”
Hong Yang wolfed down a bowl of noodles and said in a muffled voice.
The villagers always liked to joke about him and Yingcao, saying that when the two of them grew up, Yingcao would be betrothed to him as his wife. He had somewhat taken it seriously.
Now, seeing Yingcao turn into that state, he felt both furious and frightened.
Boss Guan smiled. “Then what do you think spiritual roots should look like?”
“I don’t know, but this definitely isn’t right, is it?”
Hong Yang snorted coldly. “Uncle, you’ve been outside the village before, and you even told me you’d seen immortals. Do immortals outside look like that too?”
“I never said that.”
“You said it that time after you got drunk.”
“That was me bullshitting. You believe drunken talk?”
Boss Guan flatly denied it.
Hong Yang turned his head and stared at Li Qiuchen. “What do you think?”
I’ve never left the village either. How would I know?
Li Qiuchen hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right.”
“Then let’s run!”
Hong Yang lowered his voice. “I don’t want that kind of thing growing out of my stomach. Let’s dig Yingcao out and take her with us!”
Eldest Senior Brother is right.
But just us two little brats, bringing along a half-dead little girl—where do you think we can run to?
It was not as if Li Qiuchen had never had that thought before.
But Songlin Village’s location was far too remote. It was surrounded by deep mountains and old forests, mountain after mountain, and who knew how many jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards were hidden within them? For six months of the year, heavy snow sealed the roads, leaving everything a vast expanse of white where one could not tell east from west, south from north.
Where would you run?
Hong Yang’s brain did not work very well, but it was not completely unusable.
Of course, he had thought of this too. He turned to Boss Guan and said, “Uncle, how did you get out of the village back then?”
Boss Guan gave an honest-looking smile. “That year, during a heavy snowstorm, I got lost in the mountains and somehow stumbled my way out.”
Hong Yang sighed in frustration.
Li Qiuchen thought to himself that there was not a single truthful word in this man’s mouth.
If you stumbled your way out in a daze, then how did you find your way back?
Of course, there was no need to go into detail about such taboo topics with two little brats.
Although Hong Yang had not thought that far, he was not discouraged. After pondering for a long while, he slapped the table and said, “I’ll go find the mountain men!”
Although the village was remote, it was not truly isolated from the world. Every year after spring arrived, mountain men would enter the mountains, and merchant caravans would pass by as well. The village shops that stayed closed half the year and made enough in one opening to eat for the other half were mainly prepared for them.
There were not many people, but they came every year.
Finding the mountain men was indeed one way, but the mountain men might not necessarily be willing to help. In these times, anyone who dared venture into deep mountains and old forests to dig for mountain goods was a fierce person who lived with his blade at his throat.
Li Qiuchen had considered this path as well, but after seeing that group of mountain men last year, who had looked no different from bandits, he had ultimately chosen to give up.
Rather than rely on heaven or earth, it was better to rely on oneself.
After finishing his noodles and returning home, Li Qiuchen sat on the kang, opened a hidden compartment by the wall, and took out a yellowed, thread-bound ancient book.
Everyone in the village cultivated, but their methods were all different.
Some played with insects, some trained their bodies. However, the vast majority of villagers could not read a single character and simply followed Great-Granduncle in worshiping the Medicine Master and seeking his blessings.
This method could not be called especially profound, but it did have some effect. So long as one worshiped devoutly and recited the Medicine Master’s divine name day and night, one could dispel calamities, resolve misfortunes, prolong life, and increase longevity.
To this day, there were a full eighteen elders in the village over a hundred years old. Every one of them had rosy complexions and long, steady breathing, and they could even go down to the fields to work. For ordinary people, this was already a blessing beyond reach.
The Li family also worshiped the Medicine Master, but what they cultivated was an eye technique.
It was said that the Li family’s ancestor had once cultivated a pair of Yin-Yang Dharma Eyes, capable of gazing upward to the jade towers and jeweled palaces of the Nine Heavens, and looking downward into the Yellow Springs and underworld of the Nine Nethers. They could perceive the transformations of yin and yang and distinguish all things in the world, with endless wondrous uses.
In the past, the Li family had once been the foremost great clan in the village. Even Great-Granduncle had to maintain a respectful attitude toward the Li clan members.
Unfortunately, several hundred years of inheritance had been burned clean away by his older cousin in a single fire.
Back then, the Li family had three hundred volumes in its collection. Now, only this Wisdom Eye Collected Essays, dug out from the ruins by Li Qiuchen, remained in his hands. It could hardly be considered a cultivation method; at best, it was a supplementary textbook.
The book spoke only of knowledge related to preparing medicines to care for the eyes. As for the specific cultivation formulas, there was not a single word.
The Li family had originally also possessed a medicinal garden, specifically used to cultivate spiritual herbs for refining medicine. However, those aged medicinal herbs had also been stripped away by his older cousin, who had practically scraped three feet of earth from the ground and left it riddled with holes.
Over the years, relying on the descriptions of medicinal herbs in Wisdom Eye Collected Essays, Li Qiuchen had done his best to gather some spiritual plants and bring them back, finally replanting that medicinal garden and restoring a hint of its former appearance.
The new book is now live! Thank you to all new and old friends for your support and encouragement. Unlike the dark and mysterious style of my previous work, this one tells a healthy, sunny, lighthearted, and humorous traditional xianxia story. As always, there is no system, no grinding monsters to level up, no pretentious literary angst or protagonist abuse. Updates will be stable, and I will never abandon it. Quality guaranteed. Parker needs everyone’s follows, subscriptions, recommendations, and monthly tickets. Love you all~