Nowadays, every villager in the village, from top to bottom, was following Old Daoist Fang Hong in cultivating the so-called Immortal Longevity Method.
Each and every one of them had blank gazes, mouths twisted and eyes askew, and moved sluggishly, their minds thoroughly immersed in the Immortal Longevity Method, unable to extricate themselves.
Li Qiuchen could very much understand this feeling.
Country folk had never enjoyed a single blessing in their entire lives; the greatest wish of their existence was simply to eat their fill. Downing two liang of home-distilled liquor, paired with a thick slice of fatty pork that sizzled and oozed oil with one bite—to them, that was a pleasure fit for immortals.
Now, true divine enjoyment had appeared, and everyone had begun to inhale and exhale the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
That feeling was like spending a whole day hauling bricks at an outdoor construction site in thirty-five-degree weather, then returning home, opening the refrigerator, pulling out an ice-cold cola, and chugging it down.
A pleasure that ran from the soles of the feet straight to the crown of the head.
Next, the old daoist had originally planned to lead these villagers in worshipping a tree root, using incense offerings to stimulate the root's growth.
But this step was dead in its tracks.
Of course it was stuck—it was nothing but a dead tree root! Feeding it incense was no different from pumping a horse-drawn carriage full of 95-octane gasoline!
It was a complete mismatch!
The old daoist had trained two attendants. They were called attendants, but they looked more like Dharma protectors.
With two robust men standing beside him, they looked just like door gods.
Li Qiuchen had seen them and their father at the mountain stronghold—none of them were good people. Who knew what sorcery the old daoist had used; he had killed their father and then taken the two brothers under his command.
He received the tea that Song Gang offered and took a light sip.
Li Qiuchen set down the teacup and said to the old daoist with a smile, "Senior, this crude tea... is a bit too crude."
The old daoist laughed dryly. "In this rural place, where would one find good tea leaves? I must ask Martial Brother to bear with it."
"Better to drink something good."
"Huh?"
Before the old daoist could react, Li Qiuchen stood up, walked outside, formed a seal with his hand, and pointed three times toward the sky.
Moments later, a resonant crane cry came from the heavens.
A white crane descended from the sky.
The old daoist, watching from the side, was dumbstruck.
What kind of immortal technique was this?
Li Qiuchen walked up to the white crane, whispered a few soft words, waved his hand to dismiss it, and when he turned back around, he was already holding a packet of tea leaves.
"Forgive the display, Senior. This is a spirit pet raised by my master. I asked it to steal some of the good tea my master had hidden away and bring it here to entertain a guest."
"Not at all, not at... no, this poor daoist means it is too extravagant..."
"Let's not speak of that."
Li Qiuchen casually poured out the tea in the cup, placed several leaves of spirit tea gifted by the Mountain God inside, picked up the kettle and filled it with hot water, then pushed it in front of the old daoist. "Since childhood, my master taught me that those who cultivate our path do not have it easy. When you meet a fellow cultivator, as long as they aren't a malicious villain with ill intent, help out if you can."
The old daoist nodded repeatedly, deeply agreeing. He received the tea, placed it before his nose and sniffed, and his eyes immediately went wide.
"This tea..."
"Senior, please."
Li Qiuchen's heart was bleeding, but he maintained a calm, composed smile on the surface.
As the saying goes, one cannot catch a wolf without sacrificing a child. This performance had to be utterly convincing to completely break through this old fellow's mental defenses.
The old daoist didn't stand on ceremony with him at all. Paying no heed to the hot water scalding his throat, he tilted his head back and glugged the entire cup of tea in one go, then completely disregarded his image by sticking out his tongue and licking the tea leaves at the bottom of the cup clean.
"Haah—"
With one cup of spirit tea down his belly, the old daoist was like someone who had drunk half a jin of fake liquor—half-closing his eyes and letting out a long sigh of satisfaction. Thunderous rumbling could be heard from his abdomen, and large patches of dead skin fell from his body on the spot.
"Martial Brother..."
The old daoist, coming back to his senses, looked at Li Qiuchen again with a gaze as fervent and mournful as a widow of many years, and even his voice had become much softer and more tender.
"Senior, actually I have an impertinent request. Please don't be angry when I say it."
Li Qiuchen struck while the iron was hot and directly said, "I wonder which path of cultivation method you practice. Could you lend it to me for a look?"
"Look at what you're saying. How could such a crude and shallow method of this poor daoist catch the eye of an expert?"
The old daoist pulled a small booklet from his bosom without another word and respectfully presented it to Li Qiuchen with both hands.
If anyone else had made such a request, the old daoist would have taken it as farting. How could one's own cultivation method be casually shown to others? Never mind outsiders—even his own biological son or personal disciple couldn't look at it casually.
But when this little martial brother before him made such a request, the old daoist felt not the slightest grudge in his heart; he even felt somewhat apprehensive.
What level was he, and what level were you?
Leaving aside everything else, just this one cup of spirit tea alone was worth years of his bitter cultivation. How could the other party take a fancy to his meager things?
He wasn't afraid of the other party making requests—he was afraid of the other party making no requests at all.
That would mean he had no value whatsoever.
Li Qiuchen remained unmoved, accepted the small booklet and glanced at it, seeing the title *The Yellow Locust Scripture* written on the cover.
Pagoda trees were yin in nature, connected to ghosts.
The contents of this small booklet were very simple. One "Qi Guiding Formula," a cultivation method for the Qi Refinement realm. One "Soul-Entrancing Technique," which explained a spell for using thousand-year-old pagoda tree wood to hook people's souls. And one "Human Pill Formula," which explained a method for using flesh and blood to catalyze a "Human Pill."
In terms of depth, it certainly couldn't compare to the Li family's cultivation methods, but its advantage lay in being sufficiently sinister, and it fulfilled Li Qiuchen's most urgent need to date—it clearly explained what qi refinement was.
Li Qiuchen rapidly flipped through it once, used his ocular technique to memorize all the contents of the book, then handed it back to the old daoist, a reserved yet polite smile on his face.
The old daoist suspected nothing at all. Seeing Li Qiuchen reveal this expression, his heart grew increasingly uneasy.
"Martial Brother, this..."
"You've been cultivating this kind of thing all along?"
Li Qiuchen tapped the table with his hand. "Senior, if I'm not mistaken, this cultivation method of yours is incomplete—only half, or perhaps not even a third?"
The old daoist nodded forcefully. "Yes, yes, yes. Martial Brother sees clearly. This poor daoist only cultivated this Yellow Locust lineage when I followed my master in cultivation. Over the years, I always felt something was off, but I couldn't describe exactly what was off..."
Speaking to this point, he looked at Li Qiuchen, suddenly had a stroke of inspiration, stood up, and bowed his head to the ground. "I beg Martial Brother... ah no, I beg Master to accept me as a disciple and transmit to me the Great Dao of Longevity. This disciple is willing to go to any lengths to repay Master's immense kindness!"
Li Qiuchen smiled. "Senior, your skin is truly thick. You drank my tea, and now you want to enter my master's school. So all the benefits are yours?"
Having seen that small booklet, he basically understood the old daoist's background.
To put it plainly, it boiled down to nothing more than the word "blindness."
A child who grew up in the mountains, illiterate—even if you threw a cultivation manual at him, how much could he understand?