Chapter 81: This Time It's Definitely Making a Sale!

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In summer, rain came without warning to Shiya County.

Rain hammered down.

Accompanied by dull rolls of thunder, Chen Yu bent over his desk, concentrating as he guided vital energy into a piece of stone, letting it slowly seep and bore its way inward.

A faint sizzling seemed to hang beside his ears, but he paid it no heed, devoting himself entirely to the stone before him.

Silver-gray strands intertwined. Though the jade-white vital energy sank deep into the stone, it never escaped the spirit that followed it like a shadow. Chen Yu watched as line after line of pattern took shape beneath his hands. The degree to which vital energy could permeate other things was controllable—a fact demonstrated with particular clarity by his wooden talismans.

It was not complicated. He merely had to use his spirit to wrap around and guide the energy, preventing it from scattering chaotically and striking everything nearby.

Swish!

With the final stroke, he completed the pattern hidden within the stone. As he withdrew his spirit, it carried away the last trace of lingering vital energy.

He would still have to wait a little while. Only when the pattern had fully solidified could the work truly be considered complete.

He could not infuse it with vital energy yet. That would cause the still-fragile lines to shift again, ruining the formation’s entire function.

This was far more difficult than writing ordinary characters. Calligraphy had countless forms and styles; for formation patterns, Chen Yu could only follow the designs he had discovered and analyzed, carving them stroke by stroke.

Even the slightest excess curve would inevitably ruin the intended effect, leaving him no choice but to discard it and start over.

He held the chilly stone in his hand. He had picked it up beside the stream, deliberately choosing one that was flat and rounded.

“I’ve found plenty of stones, but unfortunately I haven’t caught a single fish.”

With August just around the corner, he had hoped to break his record and make a good start on this auspicious occasion of bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new. The result, however, remained disappointing. This time, even his shrimp basket had failed him. It had caught only a tiny young loach and a dozen or so rice shrimp.

Not enough oil and water to make even one dish.

The loach was too small. He had originally intended to release it where he found it, but it seemed to have been scraped by the shrimp basket, so he brought it back.

It was now being kept in the water tank, which had recently been enlarged again. He had also tamped down the surrounding stones to keep the frequent storms from causing a collapse.

Only the newly added fish and shrimp remained in the tank. The earlier ones had long since been eaten.

Rumble!

The rain poured down in torrents.

Thunder shook the air, lightning stabbed at the eyes, and streaks of silver flashed ceaselessly through the wind and clouds. Far away, he could hear the soft rustling of rain drenching the woods beyond the mountain.

In the courtyard, the four water jars—one large and three small—had once again been refilled. A few duckweeds drifted along their edges, trembling as the rainwater churned and spilled over, yet their roots and leaves remained entwined and were never swept away.

The rain was fierce and heavy, but it stopped before long. When the clouds dispersed and the sky cleared, a six-colored rainbow arched overhead.

“It didn’t last long today. About half an hour.”

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Chen Yu rose, took up his broad-brimmed hat, and walked outside in his grass sandals to inspect the mountain fields.

The newly planted Longwhite millet was unlike Autumn Sabre Wheat and did not fear rainwater, so he had come only to check on things—especially whether the drainage ditches had become clogged with silt.

By now, he no longer needed tools such as hoes or rakes, nor did he need to stoop and crawl about bent double. With only a small expenditure of vital energy, he could clear away the accumulated grass fibers, splintered wood, mud, and stones from the ditches in a single sweep.

Without deliberate guidance, vital energy also required a certain amount of time to permeate dead matter. Handling it in this brief, immediate fashion would not cause any transformation.

Living things were actually no different. Still, Chen Yu had always felt it better to be cautious, so whenever he used vital energy to handle anything alive, he also employed his spirit.

Unfortunately, vital energy could be projected fifty feet, while his spirit could currently roam only within ten feet. That was a problem.

“I wonder when I’ll be able to cover the entire Qingtai Mountain.”

In the Daoist path of cultivation, several realms followed the Great Stabilization. The One Who Sits in Oblivion could perceive the body with a spirit no larger than an inch; the Startled Cicada attained insight into the hidden realms; the Tortoise Breather could sustain a single breath for a thousand years and live beyond the span of ordinary mortals.

Yet during the religious assembly, Chen Yu had asked several fellow Daoists, including Daoist Master Jiang Qin’an. They had all said that, after the realm of Sitting in Oblivion, only the sages of antiquity had ever achieved anything further. That was a realm of entering the Dao, whereas they were still traveling the road of seeking and pursuing it.

Chen Yu pondered the matter. His own spiritual power truly did possess the ability to perceive Heaven and Earth and observe things in the finest detail. Whether turned inward or projected outward, it was unquestionably useful.

It did seem somewhat similar to the so-called realms of Sitting in Oblivion and the Startled Cicada.

Yet he was clearly only in the Great Stabilization.

“To be trapped in the dim and unknowable, to find movement and stillness in harmony, to let tranquility and peace settle the heart…”

He had seen those words in the Square Terrace Pavilion. They described the insights of an ancient sage after breaking through the Lesser and Greater Stabilization in his youth.

Compared with his own experience, they could not have been more fitting.

Forget it. These Daoist realms were simply too indistinct to sort out. In the end, Chen Yu abandoned the idea of assigning himself a level within the Daoist hierarchy.

He might as well follow his own path. The rest could serve only as kindling to inspire him. Strictly following established rules would never work for someone who had become increasingly unlike an ordinary person from beginning to end.

At present, his spiritual power was vast and could extend about ten feet. Its sole limitation was that it could not manipulate physical objects or affect anything in the manifest world. He could see, but he could not touch.

He had originally planned to establish a rank for himself and give it a pleasant name. If the method were ever passed on to others, there ought to be some explanation for it.

But after thinking it over, he ultimately gave up. Since he was already in the Realm of Inner Gathering and Feeding on Vital Energy, adding more levels would not change anything. He might as well fold this state into that realm and add a spiritual condition to describe it.

“Gather vital energy inward and refine it through the body; connect the meridians within; gather embryonic breath and spirit, uniting them into vital energy; circulate the energy through the acupoints until the entire body is complete.

“Supplement: At this stage, the spirit must undergo one transformation. Once solidified, it may be projected outward, currently for ten feet, but cannot carry objects.”

Holding a thin booklet, Chen Yu wrote in it. He had bought the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone when he had purchased fruit wine and other seasonings and brought them up the mountain. He did not use them often, especially lately, as he had been experimenting with carving words into bamboo strips with vital energy.

The process was similar to guiding a formation pattern.

However, such writing held little that was extraordinary. He even had to inject it with vital energy from time to time, lest the lines forming the characters dissipate.

Still, it was not without advantages. The writing was completely invisible to the naked eye and could appear only when illuminated by the spirit.

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That effectively kept it hidden from outsiders… though Chen Yu did not know whom he was guarding against on this empty mountain where he was the only person. It certainly could not be that foolish deer, could it?

The thought made him laugh. Given the greedy deer’s nature, even if it someday gained a great opportunity, awakened its intelligence, and learned to read, it would never do such a thing.

Compared with reading, it would probably prefer to use its limited brainpower memorizing food.

…

In the afternoon, Chen Yu directed his vital energy to gather all the standing water in the courtyard into the air and expel it beyond the walls.

The effort left more than half his acupoints completely drained. Fortunately, the yellow-skinned millet ripened with spirit liquid was remarkably filling and also useful for replenishing blood and vitality. Once his body’s blood and vitality were restored, the embryonic breath connected to them recovered swiftly as well.

Unfortunately, he had eaten all the azure spirit roots, and not a single one remained in the medicinal garden. He had recently been considering a trip down the mountain, if only to buy some ordinary vegetable seedlings—cucumbers, greens, and the like.

The vegetable plot was completely bare. He had stripped it clean.

Having made up his mind, Chen Yu carried a hoe to the garden, turned over the soil, and dug up a dozen or so earthworms.

He brought out the spirit liquid and added several drops.

Looking toward the far side of the mountain, he decided that on this fine day, with the rain gone and the sky clear, he would wash away his former disgrace.

The stream was rather far away, and he had gone there only a few days earlier. His bad luck probably had not yet worn off. This time, he decided not to go. Instead, he would return to the place where he had first suffered defeat.

He picked up the fishing rod that had never once tasted the scent of fish. He had put considerable effort into making it; surely it ought to prove useful at last.

At that moment, Chen Yu could not help wondering whether he had somehow offended every fish in this world, or whether he and this fishing rod were simply incompatible.

Either way, it meant that fishing might forever be beyond him. At best, he could become a fish feeder.

“Success or failure will be decided today.”

This time, Chen Yu once again brought out his secret weapon: an earthworm steeped in spirit liquid. He knew very well how strongly spirit liquid attracted living creatures. He was certain he could catch a fish.

Absolutely certain.

He respectfully offered four sticks of incense to the venerable Daoist Ancestor.

He slung a bamboo basket over his back. It was packed full with more than sixty wooden talismans he had rushed to complete recently, along with two stone talismans carved with the Burning formation pattern.

The vital energy within him gradually grew abundant, and his spirit was exceptionally lively.

This time, he was brimming with confidence. He would certainly make a catch.

Blessed Life, Infinite Heavenly Venerable.

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