When Li Qiuchen awoke, he found himself lying by the riverside, soaked from head to toe. His bundle had been washed open as well, scattering gold, silver, and valuables all over the ground.
The few pills he had stolen from his granduncle’s house had all steeped into medicinal soup, and even that cultivation manual was drenched through.
“Wretched” was the only word for it.
Yet Li Qiuchen did not complain. He plopped down on a rock by the river and burst into loud laughter.
He had finally escaped!
For as long as he could remember, he had lived in the village—or rather, in that pigsty.
The more he knew, the more stifled he felt.
Now that he had finally broken free of the cage and regained his freedom, no matter how great the price, it was worth it in his eyes.
Boss Guan and Hong Yang were nowhere to be seen. Presumably, the river had washed them somewhere else.
This was already the best outcome. At the very least, the crawfish spirit had not broken its promise. Being scattered in the end was a matter of its ability, not its character as a demon.
The only pity was Yingcao. She had failed to escape.
Li Qiuchen had never imagined that his granduncle could be so deranged as to lay hands on his own direct bloodline. By the time he realized something was wrong, it was already too late.
The deep mountains and old forests were undoubtedly fraught with danger, but no matter how one looked at it, they were still better than the environment of that pigsty called Songlin Village.
At least now, he could finally cultivate in peace without worrying that some bizarre thing might grow out of his body…
After recovering his condition, Li Qiuchen began gathering up his possessions.
Aside from the things he had swept out of his granduncle’s house, he had nothing on him—not even a hair to his name—and he had not eaten in a long time.
Surviving in the wilderness was a serious problem for a child.
Fortunately, heaven never barred all paths.
While drying the book, Li Qiuchen noticed that the pills which had gone soggy in the water had attracted all the fish in the river. Some fish even flung themselves onto the bank, scrambling to gulp down the medicinal liquid that had flowed out.
Without expending much effort at all, he caught seven or eight fat fish more than a foot long with his bare hands. Then he carefully gathered up the pill dregs again.
Though it seemed they were no longer fit for human consumption, their fishing effect was rather good. During his time in the mountains, he would probably have to rely on them to solve his food problem.
He started a fire, roasting fish while drying his clothes—after this ordeal, the clothes on his body were tattered as well. If the weather had not been warm, he might have frozen to death in the mountains that night.
Li Qiuchen sat beside the fire and sorted through his gains.
There had been plenty of gold, silver, and jewels in his granduncle’s house, but he had only taken a few ingots of silver and nothing more.
First, it was to lighten the load and make it easier to flee. Second, it was out of caution.
There was an old saying: “A child carrying pure gold through a bustling market.” This saying was mainly used to describe an idiot.
Gold was certainly valuable, but right now, he had not even the slightest power to protect himself. Not only would he be unable to spend it, it would also easily bring lethal disaster upon him.
Some of the silver in his bundle had been lost in the river. Now only twenty taels of broken silver remained—not much if one called it much, but not little if one called it little.
The truly most valuable thing was actually the tree core he had snatched from the old peach tree.
This had been a gamble akin to pulling teeth from a tiger’s mouth, but if not for this item, Li Qiuchen would never have been able to drag Boss Guan and the crawfish spirit onto his pirate ship.
The piece of tree core he obtained weighed roughly two or three jin. It was white, soft, and tender like a fresh bamboo shoot, faintly exuding a strange peach blossom fragrance. Just smelling it made him feel as though all the injuries and fatigue accumulated in his body had been swept away.
This was a top-grade medicinal ingredient. It could be gnawed raw like the crawfish spirit had done, or taken back to be used in medicine like Boss Guan intended. Or perhaps, if he met someone who knew its worth in the future, it might even fetch a good price.
In short, it had many benefits.
After filling his stomach, Li Qiuchen picked up the half-dried Jingyunzi and opened the wrinkled pages.
The book had been soaked in water and could no longer be preserved for long.
Fortunately, what it described was the Li family’s unique inherited eye technique. After cultivating it, even at worst, one could obtain the divine ability of photographic memory and memorize all the contents of the book.
After transmigrating and being reborn into this world for many years, he had finally broken free of his shackles and could officially step onto the path of cultivation. Li Qiuchen’s emotions were extremely stirred.
Jingyunzi was not a pure cultivation manual. In truth, it was an autobiography written by the Li family ancestor, Li Jingyun.
When Li Jingyun was young, his family fell into decline, but he had been clever since childhood. Relying on his talent and effort, he tested into Beihai Academy, one of the Four Great Academies of the Northern Border. Afterward, he wandered the four directions and guarded the Shilong River for a hundred years, yet still failed to break through the Golden Core realm and nurture a Nascent Soul.
However, during this period, he chanced upon the Medicine Master manifesting a divine miracle and comprehended the Great Dao of Longevity.
Medicine Master…
Li Qiuchen was somewhat sensitive to this term now.
In the book, Li Jingyun devoted a great deal of space to explaining the “Medicine Master.”
The so-called Medicine Master was, in essence, the Great Dao of Longevity.
Immortal cultivation also pursued longevity, but it was somewhat different from the Medicine Master’s longevity.
In immortal cultivation, longevity was a means; the ultimate goal was freedom and unfettered ease. For the Medicine Master, however, the emphasis of longevity lay precisely in longevity itself.
In the Medicine Master’s eyes, “life” stood above all else. It believed that the root of all beings’ suffering lay in death, and only longevity could grant liberation.
This “life” could be one’s own life, or it could be the lives of others.
The Medicine Master’s Great Dao was inherently without distinction between righteous and evil, good and wicked. One could preserve one’s own purity, or one could deliver all living beings.
But cultivators naturally placed more importance on their own lives. In order to prolong their own lives, they would stop at nothing. Among such methods, the simplest and most effective was none other than plundering the Medicine Master’s blessing from others to extend their own lifespan.
As time passed, these believers of the Medicine Master who cared only for their own longevity and had no moral bottom line became infamous heretics and demons, drawing the pursuit and slaughter of righteous cultivators. It could only be said that they had brought it upon themselves.
Li Jingyun recorded in detail the methods of receiving the Medicine Master’s blessing, as well as plundering the blessings of others.
The Medicine Master’s Great Dao bestowed salvation upon all living beings under heaven. As long as one worshiped devoutly and praised the Medicine Master, one could obtain a blessing and extend one’s lifespan. This method had no hidden dangers whatsoever, but the lifespan obtained was not particularly obvious and was difficult to quantify.
For example, if you were originally destined to live to eighty, but because you believed in the Medicine Master, you lived an extra month, that tiny increase in lifespan was something you simply could not sense unless you checked the Book of Life and Death.
If one wished to further obtain more of the Medicine Master’s blessings, one needed cultivation methods corresponding to the Medicine Master’s Great Dao.
Li Jingyun left behind a set of incantations and three pill recipes in the book.
By cultivating according to the incantations, supplemented with pills, one could obtain an even longer lifespan.
Li Qiuchen skipped this section directly. Right now, he did not want to have anything more to do with the Medicine Master.
Only in the latter half of the book did Li Jingyun begin recording the family-inherited cultivation method for the Yin-Yang Dharma Eyes.
The name of the cultivation method was extremely plain and unadorned. It was called the “Li Clan Method,” and was divided into two parts: body tempering and eye techniques.
It likewise came with several medicinal prescriptions used for body tempering.
As for the medicinal prescriptions paired with the eye techniques, they were not in this book. Perhaps Li Jingyun’s talent had been exceptional, and he felt there was no need.
Instead, it was the later descendants of the Li family who could not reach the ancestor’s level of talent, and thus compiled the Collected Writings on the Wisdom Eye as a supplement.
As for whether this method was high-grade or not… without any other reference for comparison, Li Qiuchen truly found it difficult to judge.
But having one was better than having none.
Besides, as a dignified transmigrator, how could I remain long beneath others, unfulfilled and despondent?
At a time like this, shouldn’t the system come online already?
By the time he finished reading the entire Jingyunzi, the sky had grown dark. Carrying dreams of a wonderful future life, Li Qiuchen curled up beneath a tree root, closed his eyes, and entered dreamland.
Huff…
In the dead of night, Li Qiuchen shot upright, his head covered in cold sweat.
He had been frightened awake.
In his dream, Li Qiuchen had already begun living a wonderful life of eating meat in great mouthfuls, drinking wine from large bowls, with a lovely wife and beautiful concubines in his arms on either side.
All of a sudden, a pair of flawless jade feet appeared before his eyes.
In a daze, he raised his head to look, only to see countless emerald-green shoots and branches rushing straight toward his face.
An ethereal voice, as though coming from an extremely distant place, whispered softly beside his ear.
Thus have I heard…
The hairs on Li Qiuchen’s body stood on end, and he woke with a start. He felt only a stifling pressure in his chest and abdomen, and could not help retching.
A mouthful of fresh blood mixed with undigested roasted fish sprayed from his mouth, mingled with a few tender emerald-green shoots and young leaves…
But I clearly didn’t eat any grass roots or tree bark!
Li Qiuchen was terrified, realizing that he had likely fallen into the same condition as Yingcao.
A spiritual root was growing out from within his body!
But I clearly didn’t do anything…
No, I finished reading Jingyunzi!
Ancestor, you really did me dirty! You actually poisoned the book!
However, what was different from Yingcao’s situation back then was that Li Qiuchen did not lose consciousness, nor did the spiritual root grow out of his body. Instead, it looked as though it had been digested by him.
After calming down, Li Qiuchen closed his eyes and, following the eye technique cultivation method recorded in the book, performed inner sight.
In truth, his eyes had long since awakened the innate talent inherited by his family. He simply had never cultivated it. Now that he had obtained the correct cultivation method, he could use it directly.
Closing his eyes, he silently circulated his technique and turned his vision inward upon himself. His skin, flesh, blood, and bones were all clearly visible; even the meridians through which his energy flowed could be seen with perfect clarity.
Li Qiuchen observed carefully and discovered that extremely tiny, tender shoots were continuously growing within his body. But before these shoots could mature, they were absorbed and digested by his own body.
Like a plant undergoing photosynthesis, even if he did not cultivate at all now, merely relying on digesting these shoots would allow his strength to grow.
Could this be… the Medicine Master’s blessing?
A flash of insight struck Li Qiuchen’s mind, and he immediately grew even more terrified.
What did I even do to receive the Medicine Master’s blessing? I only read a book. Ancestor, there’s really no need to screw me over this badly, right?
But on second thought, he felt it probably was not the book’s problem.
If reading a book were enough to receive the Medicine Master’s blessing, then why would his granduncle have gone to all the trouble of planting spiritual roots? He could have just refined pills and read at home every day.
Then where exactly did the problem arise? How did someone like me, who doesn’t believe in the Medicine Master at all, end up honored with such a distinction…
Li Qiuchen suddenly shuddered. He thought of something.
Jingyunzi recorded that devout worship and praising the deity’s name were only the simplest and lowest-grade means.
As long as one’s actions conformed to the true meaning of the Medicine Master’s Great Dao, one would draw the Medicine Master’s glance and receive a blessing.
And all these years, he had only been single-mindedly focused on doing one thing.
That was surviving!