The Collected Writings on the Wise Eye totaled one hundred and twenty-eight pages, recording the specific identification and handling methods for fifty-six common medicinal herbs and spiritual plants, as well as twelve corresponding prescriptions.
In short, it could be summarized as—the making of eyedrops and the standardized movements of eye exercises.
It was said that the Li family’s Yin-Yang Eyes were an innate talent carried in their bloodline. So long as one possessed the gift, it would manifest, and afterward, cultivating according to the family’s techniques would yield twice the result with half the effort.
But Li Qiuchen had neither talent nor technique. All he had were a few bottles of eyedrops he had concocted by following the book, and the daily persistence to do eye exercises.
After dripping the “Eye-Brightening Water” into both eyes, then applying “Green Herb Salve” externally, Li Qiuchen wrapped a strip of cloth around his eyes and began to sit in meditation.
Following Great-Granduncle every day to pay respects to the Medicine Master was one form of cultivation. Maintaining his eyes at home was also a form of cultivation.
Though neither sounded particularly proper, he did not have a check-in system either, so he could only proceed step by step like this, slowly accumulating, placing his hopes on suddenly stepping in dog-shit luck one day.
Of course, growing a spirit root like Yingcao’s was better left aside.
Even now, Li Qiuchen could not be certain whether she was Yingcao or some sort of cordyceps.
The Li family’s techniques had been lost, and he did not know the correct way to cultivate. This whole set of practices had all been heard from the villagers, and he had no idea whether he was practicing correctly. In any case, he had persisted for the past few years without any effect.
Today, however, was completely different.
The moment Li Qiuchen entered meditation, in the world before his eyes that should have been pitch-black, something indescribable began slowly writhing.
It was a mass of roots, as if alive.
That was a spirit root!
Three days ago, he had been buried in the soil, watching helplessly as those roots grew out from Yingcao’s body.
The appearance of that spirit root had been imprinted in his eyes, and now it appeared again in his darkened vision.
So this was how it was used?
At that moment, Li Qiuchen suddenly understood.
This ancestral eye technique was like a digital camera with no instruction manual and no memory card inserted.
Originally, he had not even been able to find where the shutter button was. Thanks to the terrifying experience of being buried in the soil and personally watching Yingcao sprout, he had accidentally found the shutter.
With a snap, he had seen the spirit root inside Yingcao’s body in all its naked glory.
But seeing was all he could do. He could not touch it.
Li Qiuchen had known with just one glance that from the moment Yingcao grew that spirit root, she was basically as good as dead.
Although he did not know what a spirit root was supposed to look like, according to his stereotypical impression, it ought to resemble some kind of bodily organ that assisted cultivation.
But the complete spirit root that appeared before him possessed a beauty that utterly disregarded whether its host lived or died. It grew out from the heart; one root burrowed deep into the liver, two roots followed the arteries downward, while the new sprout occupied the brain and burst out through the five senses and seven orifices.
Whoever wanted such a spirit root could have it. Li Qiuchen, at least, respectfully declined.
But what could he do?
He was only a powerless child, his family’s inheritance severed, with nothing left but eye-care techniques. His system remained missing to this day, without the slightest news.
Great-Granduncle was anxious.
Any normal person knew that after ordinary crops were planted, it would take at least half a year before they could be harvested. You could not pull up seedlings to help them grow.
Yingcao sprouting was certainly worth celebrating, but even thinking with one’s heel, one would know that such a spirit root would also need time to grow.
Yet Great-Granduncle was still anxious, so anxious that he was like an ant on a hot pan, unable to sit or lie still.
Hong Yang’s escape plan had not even begun before Great-Granduncle called him over, ordering him to burn incense and bathe for three days, then undo the seal on General Lagu in the back mountain.
There was a spiritual spring in the back mountain of Songlin Village, its water clear and sweet, icy enough to pierce the bones. Within the spring was a nine-foot-long lagu spirit. It was said that years ago, it had barged into the village to steal and eat virgin boys and girls, impervious to blades and spears, with boundless strength.
The former village chief—in other words, Hong Yang’s parents—had given their lives to seal this lagu spirit.
To explain for friends who do not know what a lagu is: it is a crayfish, the kind you can cook with garlic or make spicy.
In northern legends, the shrimp soldiers and crab generals in the Dragon Kings’ palaces of rivers and lakes referred precisely to crayfish like lagu, and to mitten crabs with fur on their claws.
Lagu were very difficult to grow large. A nine-foot-long giant lagu could already be called a Godzilla-class colossus, so the locals called it General Lagu. If it were a crab spirit, it would be Marshal Crab.
When you are not sure what rank the other party holds, there is nothing wrong with addressing them higher.
Back then, Hong Yang’s parents had sealed General Lagu with their own lives. Now, Hong Yang had to undo the seal with his own blood.
According to Great-Granduncle, they were going to kill General Lagu and extract its essence to nurture Yingcao’s spirit root.
“I don’t think this is right!”
That evening, while eating noodles, Hong Yang looked grave.
“If Great-Granduncle had a way to kill General Lagu back then, why did my dad and my mom have to die?”
“Makes sense!”
They said that when people did bad things, their brains and their ability to act were limitless.
When Hong Yang made up his mind to flee, that originally not-so-useful brain of his actually began to clear.
Li Qiuchen thought, You only just realized that… Mm, not too late, I suppose.
“Uncle, how exactly did my parents die back then?”
Hong Yang also knew he could not get any answers from Li Qiuchen, so he turned and asked Boss Guan.
“I’m not too sure. Maybe that General Lagu ambushed Great-Granduncle first back then… Or perhaps after being sealed for ten years, its strength has been reduced quite a bit, and Great-Granduncle thinks he can do it now.”
Boss Guan’s answer was very vague.
“I don’t believe it!”
Hong Yang gritted his teeth and said to Li Qiuchen, “How about the two of us sneak over tonight and take a look? I just want to know how much strength that General Lagu still has now. If the seal is undone and Great-Granduncle can’t subdue it, won’t the village be finished?”
“All right!”
Li Qiuchen nodded.
While Hong Yang lowered his head and ate noodles in great mouthfuls, he exchanged a covert glance with Boss Guan.
Deep in the night, when all was quiet, Li Qiuchen climbed off the kang, took the axe used for chopping firewood at home, and slipped out the door on tiptoe.
Hong Yang had already been waiting for him at the village entrance for a long while.
He had brought a fishing net and a sharp boning knife. The two of them left the village by moonlight and felt their way up the back mountain.
The back mountain was forbidden ground, and children were normally not allowed to approach.
But rules like this were, in truth, only said aloud. No one took them seriously.
Adults had always liked scaring children.
If one really wanted to talk about forbidden ground, then everywhere outside the village was forbidden ground, and nowhere was safe. When heavy snow sealed the mountains, old wolves and black bears from the mountains could feel their way into the village and eat whatever they saw.
Even during ordinary farming days, if one dared to leave a child at the edge of the fields, they could easily be carried off by wild beasts.
The spiritual spring in the back mountain was not large, merely a small pond of about two hundred square meters.
The water Great-Granduncle used for brewing tea and watering spirit roots was all drawn from here.
From dozens of zhang away, one could already sense a faint chill, but once they came closer, there was only a pool of clear water, and nothing miraculous could be seen.
This was not Li Qiuchen’s first time here. To manage the medicinal plot left behind by his family, he likewise needed spring water from this place, as well as the herbs transplanted from around the pond.
And also to fish, dig up clams, and catch lagu.
Hong Yang stood silently by the water for a moment, then turned his head and asked Li Qiuchen, “How do you think we can see that General Lagu?”
Don’t tell me that before coming here, you thought that lagu spirit would jump out by itself?
Li Qiuchen tentatively suggested, “Try letting out some blood?”
“Wouldn’t that undo the seal?”
“If simply letting out a little blood could undo the seal, then there wouldn’t be any need to burn incense and bathe for three days, right?”
“That makes sense!”
Hong Yang suddenly understood. He drew the knife and slashed it across his own arm, tearing open a cut a foot long with a ripping sound, blood pouring out in streams.
Fresh blood flowed into the pond. A moment later, strings of bubbles rose from the depths of the water. A black shadow slowly floated up from beneath the surface.
The first things to appear before the two children were a pair of huge yet slender blue-black crayfish claws, supporting an enormous crayfish head as it emerged from the water.
A nine-foot-long great lagu spirit, according to the villagers, could already be counted as dragonkind. There was no problem at all calling it a lobster.
General Lagu rose upright in the water and spoke in human language: “What?”
Hong Yang was stunned.
This thing could talk?
He was so frightened that he went stupid, his mind completely blank. How could he still remember what he had come here for?
Seeing him stammer and hesitate, not daring to speak, Li Qiuchen hurriedly asked, “General Lagu, we came to ask you how you were sealed by someone ten years ago.”
“Huh?”
General Lagu waggled its eyes, its face full of confusion. “What? Sealed? Me?”
“You two little bastards, are you sleepwalking in the middle of the night?”
Hong Yang froze for a moment. After calming down, he hurriedly asked, “I heard Great-Granduncle say that ten years ago, a couple in the village sacrificed their lives in order to seal you…”
“That’s what he told you?”
After listening, General Lagu chuckled. “Not a single truthful word comes out of that old son of a bitch’s mouth. You smell kind of familiar, kid. You should be the cub left behind by that male and female pair, right?”
“Ten years ago, your father and mother were also tricked by that old son of a bitch into coming here to catch me. In the end… Haha, that male and female pair were eaten clean by that old son of a bitch. I didn’t even get a single hair, and I got saddled with this enormous blame out of nowhere.”
Hong Yang stood there like a wooden chicken.
What did he mean, my parents were eaten by Great-Granduncle?
Looking at his deeply shocked and dumbstruck expression, General Lagu sneered twice, then turned its head to glance at Li Qiuchen before slowly retreating back into the pond.
There was no seal… My parents were eaten…
Hong Yang abruptly turned his head, stared at Li Qiuchen, and shouted, “Then what seal am I supposed to undo three days from now? Great-Granduncle, he… does he want to eat me too?”
Li Qiuchen sighed. “Have you noticed that your brain has been working better and better lately?”
Hong Yang’s face was pale, his eyes filled with terror.
“What about you? Have you cultivated your Li family’s eye technique?”
Li Qiuchen nodded. “There has been a little progress.”
Great-Granduncle was right. We have all reached the age to take root and sprout.
Of course, it is also when we are the most tender and delicious.
Anyone who had lived through famine years knew that elm seeds and Chinese toon shoots tasted best when they had just grown out.
Virgin boys and girls were the same for monsters.