Chapter Ninety-Seven

Digging bamboo shoots was no difficult task; it took very little time to fill a back-basket.

Crack—snap!

Accompanied by a teeth-setting, harsh tearing sound, a round bamboo stalk slowly toppled over. Halfway down, it was caught by branches, hanging horizontally in the bamboo grove without moving.

Thud, thud, thud!

Chen Yu bent over and continued chopping, his woodcutter's axe moving without pause. He deliberately picked the thickest, sturdiest stalks, swinging vigorously.

Soon, six long bamboo stalks were felled. He looked up at the tops crisscrossed and tangled with branches and leaves, dropped his axe, and wrapped his arms around the cluster of bamboo stalks, hugging them to his chest. He grabbed the split end and dragged them to the clearing outside the bamboo grove, stacking them together.

He trimmed away the branches and leaves, and shaved off the joints.

After lopping off the tops and tails and processing them until they were sleek and smooth, he shouldered the back-basket, embraced the bamboo, and headed back down the mountain.

Splitting them into bamboo strips would have to wait until he descended, and the strips still required several processing steps. Merely scraping, shaving, and sun-drying freshly made bamboo strips was not enough; they would become too brittle and unsuitable for carving.

Presently, his Qi was unusable, but without the need for engraving, he had plenty of time to busy himself with these tasks.

……

Days passed leisurely, and in the blink of an eye, it was mid-August.

Beneath the nameless mountain forest, beside the babbling stream.

A fine mist of rain fell, and the fishing float on the stream drifted slightly with the wind.

With a splash, a small fish two fingers wide was pulled out of the water. Leaving three or five ripples, it was reeled into the young man's palm.

Pinching its gills with a shake and a flick, the hook, baited with half an earthworm, slipped free and dangled beside his hand.

Chen Yu turned the fish over and felt along its spine down to both sides of its belly; it was rather lean.

Thinking of the one back at the Daoist temple that ate and drank well all day and loved sunbathing, this small fish seemed much slenderer, far from plump compared to the black fish.

That fellow was now kept in a large ceramic jar, yet within that tiny space, it appeared even more carefree than it had in the pool.

Plop!

Without much thought, he tossed it back into the stream.

Although an old saying went that a crucian carp the size of an inch is a delicacy of the world, Chen Yu did not care much for it. Compared to these little fellows not even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth, he still preferred larger catches.

At least they offered a few more bites to savor.

"Remember to come back."

Having said that, since the favor of a drop of water should be repaid with a gushing spring, he hoped this small fish would grow up before patronizing his hook again.

The sky was hazy, and threads of rain hung from his eyebrows, gradually growing heavier. After a few more glances, he stood up and reeled in his line.

The harvest was sufficient.

As the creel was lifted, a pair of palm-sized fish tails thrashed amidst a burst of spray.

Once they settled and he took a closer look, he realized they were dark-backed fish weighing at least half a jin and heading toward a jin.

Known as winter-nurtured cyan-fish, they were at their plumpest and most tempting during the depths of winter, sustaining many mountain dwellers through the bleak and cold days. Near the outer edges of the mountains, they had been fished almost to extinction, and could now only be found in the depths of the streams within the mountain forests.

Also called the Great Cyan, they grew quite large. In his memory, the largest could grow to fifteen or sixteen jin, with slender bodies that looked even more impressive than ordinary bighead carp, silver carp, or grass carp.

The ones in his creel were nothing compared to those, but this was a mountain stream, incomparable to great rivers and lakes, so he could not expect them to fatten up too much.

To be able to land two such fish today was, for Chen Yu—a half-baked fisherman who had only recently started out—quite a satisfying and joyous occasion.

Looking at the two large fish with a smile, Chen Yu couldn't help wondering inwardly whether that black scoundrel had truly ruined his fishing luck previously.

Look how easily he had reeled them in now!

His fruitful harvests several days in a row restored a modicum of confidence in his angling skills.

Stowing the creel, he walked a hundred paces down along the stream to a pebble-strewn shallows where three or five shrimp traps were set in the water.

Perhaps the large cyan-fish had exhausted his good fortune for the day, as the shrimp traps were all empty, save for one that yielded a tiny loach. It hopped twice in his palm, leaped, and jumped back into the water seeping through the stone crevices.

Allowing it to escape, he rinsed the shrimp traps in the stream and gathered up his various belongings.

The rain was getting heavier, and the mountain paths were slippery; if the mountain torrents rose, it would spell trouble. It was no place to linger.

……

In mid-August, the rain increased.

Ever since his return from wild fishing, it had rained for four consecutive days, three of which saw steady drizzles. Although the rain wasn't heavy and far from fierce, the sky overhead remained perpetually overcast and rather oppressive.

Another day of falling rain draped the mountain forest in a thick layer of water mist, coating the verdant garments of the trees like floating ribbons and silk veils, lending the scene an ethereal, immortal charm.

On Mount Qingtai, apart from Master Chen, who resided here, not a soul had been seen for months.

Yet today, just as the dark clouds dispersed and less than two hours had passed since the rain cleared, stumbling shouts echoed from the mountain outside the courtyard, reaching Chen Yu, who was holding a bamboo piece and pondering how to carve it more aesthetically.

They sounded somewhat familiar.

Following the sound, he looked toward the door and saw a figure stepping gingerly in front of the courtyard gate, not daring to enter.

A thick-browed middle-aged man stood at the entrance. After shouting once, he occasionally poked his head in to look inside, but never caught sight of the familiar figure, only dimly glimpsing a tall and a short tree.

His gaze lingered for a moment on the pear tree, and the middle-aged man squinted at it—the color of these fruits was truly vibrant.

"Which lay devotee might you be..."

Before long, Chen Yu arrived at the front, feeling that the visitor looked somewhat familiar.

Shortly after, a woman stepped out from behind the man. She wore coarse cloth garments, her hair bundled up with a thin string, and stray strands clinging to her sweaty forehead.

Her features were plain, but her complexion was ruddy and healthy.

"Daoist Priest, you've finally come out." Upon seeing him, the middle-aged man hurried forward. This proximity instantly reminded Chen Yu of the man's origins.

Facing the respectful and excited greeting, Chen Yu waved his hand, smiled without a word, and looked at the woman beside him, already guessing her identity.

"Has your abdominal distension and pain been troubling you lately?"

"Gone, it's all gone, it got better long ago. I was thinking, since Eldest Daw brought down a Daoist monarch from the heavens, we simply had to offer something in return."

The older sister who, in the words of the middle-aged man Liu Da, had once suffered from a belly as big as a bushel, tossing and turning unable to sleep, was now standing safely by his side, her words tumbling out like pouring beans, nonstop.

"We must thank the Daoist Priest. If not for the Daoist Priest requesting the decree of the Divine Lord and Sage, this illness wouldn't have cleared up so easily!"

"Hahaha, where is that spoken? The eradication and cure of this illness have nothing to do with this poor Daoist. If you want to thank someone, thank that divine doctor You Kewei more."

Chen Yu truly did not believe his own efforts had anything to do with her recovery. He had indeed gone down the mountain back then, but let alone not having time to act, even if he had, he would have remained doubtful whether such an illness could be cured.

Now that he had read more books and ruminated over them, his understanding of the medical texts brought back from the temple was much deeper. He increasingly realized how somewhat laughable his initial thoughts had been.

Birth, old age, sickness, and death—what virtue or ability did he possess to dare make a judgment simply by skimming through two volumes like swallowing dates whole?

Moreover, looking at it now, whether the mutated peach blossoms would even be useful remained an unknown. They could heal internal injuries, but pathological changes in the internal organs were far more complex than mere damage.

Unless he possessed miraculous skills to surgically excise the diseased tissue inside the woman's belly and then rely on the peach blossoms to restore it—assuming the wound wasn't too large.

On the other side, seeing the Daoist priest remain silent, the woman tugged at Liu Da's arm, and the honest man seemed to react at last, hastily turning around to bring forward a blue cloth bundle.

The woman continued, "We wouldn't dare look down on the Daoist Monarch. The divine doctor's medicine and treatments are indeed marvelous, but who can say there wasn't also the divine power of the Daoist Monarch descending to earth behind it?"

"..."

Chen Yu rubbed his temples, momentarily unable to keep up with her logic.