Chapter Twenty-Eight: Return to the Mountain

Because the county seat was not far off, he handed the group over to the county yamen, and as for how the magistrate judged them, that was no concern of his.

Long before he came upon them, the band had already run into several other caravans and parties. Some were well guarded and dared not approach, but others traveled alone and could not avoid a round of intimidation. Losing money to avert disaster was the least of it. From what Chen Yu had learned, five of the bandits, including their leader, had blood on their hands.

They deserved death.

Perhaps his mind had simply gone blank for a moment. In any case, Chen Yu did not strike hard, utterly unlike the ruthless methods he had once used against the White Fruit bandits.

Of course, it was not for any other reason than that he simply did not want to kill.

Moreover, without seeing their crimes with his own eyes, only hearing them described by mouth, there was always something lacking in the indignation. Better to leave them to the county lord of Central Chen.

As far as he knew, the man was a greedy wretch.

The sort who plucked feathers from geese in flight.

And yet the scattered copper coins on the bandits’ persons had already been stripped away by him and flung to the city’s widows and orphans, which meant they had been left with no capital at all for bribery and escape.

They could only wait to be devoured whole by that skinning county lord.

Probably no easier than death.

...

After traveling a while longer, he reached the Three-Legged Water that he had heard of not long before.

Avoiding the widely rumored river bandits, Chen Yu took the dry road instead.

Along the way, he went, then stopped, and by evening he had arrived.

“Rest here for the night, for now.”

There was no City God Temple here to put him up, so he had no choice but to find a cave. After tidying it roughly, he spread some dry grass within, then sat down cross-legged.

The transformation art turned, rumbling endlessly within his belly. The inner training continued without pause.

Over the past few days, as his mastery of the organ transformation art deepened, Chen Yu had also begun trying to refine it, hoping to push it further, much like the body-strengthening art.

Compared with the beginning, the Spirit-Calling Body-Strengthening Art had somewhat weakened in its ability to draw in spiritual power, but in terms of strengthening and enhancing the body, he had not yet seen any cultivation method with such effects.

Especially now, with the fetal breathing aiding him beyond his limit, the spiritual liquid was nearly drained dry. Only a shallow layer remained in the skin bag; the rest had all become nourishment for his liver.

“My liver is formidable.”

Chen Yu chuckled. From the looks of it now, the body-strengthening art would not be of much concern even if it were run thirty-six times, or even kept going without pause at all.

No more reed ginseng paste? He would never need it again.

Probably.

By the looks of things, the expected limit had not come upon him once more, perhaps because of the vital force that had merged into the liver organ.

By now, much of the fetal breathing gathered in his liver had already been melted away, the greater part transformed into vital force and condensed together. It truly looked more and more like a seed.

It had already grown to the size of a mung bean. From the perspective of spiritual power, it was thick and dense, surging and curling and shifting.

Yet it never left the liver by so much as a step, nor did it react to spiritual power the way fetal breathing did.

Still, the one thing he could not quite determine was how to make use of this small mass of vital force.

Chen Yu tried to urge it into motion, but it could only remain within the liver organ. It seemed faintly linked to the liver, having brought about some change there and become fixed in place. Even after the liver later absorbed a great deal of vital force and was strengthened considerably, he still could not draw it out.

By comparison, the scattered vital-force seeds wound around the dantian outside did not have this trait.

He had some guesses about it, though further verification was still needed.

The next day, two dark clouds drifted into the sky.

The wind blew gently at first, then grew stronger and stronger, until at last it had the trees by the roadside rustling and hissing in the gusts.

Crash!

One section of tree could not hold, snapped cleanly at the waist, and fell upside down onto the ground, blocking half the path.

Chen Yu leaped over it. He did not care how the winds and clouds shifted above, because there were many stone caves and rocky hollows on either side where one could shelter from rain, and there was no need to worry too much.

What occupied his thoughts now was everything at his mountain temple.

He had been away for ten days. There was much to deal with, and he would need to sort things out first, lest he rush about like a headless fly.

“I wonder how the chicks are doing.”

The chicken shed had been expanded, and around it had been planted medicinal herbs such as wild cassia and drool grass to repel insects and snakes. But fearing they might affect the chicks’ foraging and insect-catching, he had set them at a distance, several paces away from the coop.

Before descending the mountain, he had left a trough full of rice, hoping only that they would eat sparingly. Ten days, and with more than a dozen chickens, that trough would not have been enough. But there was nothing to be done. If it were any larger, it would not bear the load. Under that weight, the chicken coop might collapse at the slightest mistake.

“May nothing be wrong.”

As Chen Yu hurried along, keeping an eye on the ground beneath his feet, he thought of the fields on the mountain. Apart from the chicken shed, the half-acre plot was the next thing most worthy of concern.

The spring millet needed weeding. Ten days without tending it, and it was probably already lush with wild growth, crowding out much of the grain’s space. This season’s harvest would likely fall somewhat short, much lower than expected.

Fortunately, before descending the mountain he had already planted seeds cultivated with spiritual liquid. After feeding a few to the rooster brother, he had planted the rest in the soil. He did not know whether they had sprouted by now.

At the time, their growth had been too slow. It might have been because the spring millet absorbed too little of it. Ten days had passed now, so it ought to have grown somewhat.

In addition, there were also a batch of spring millet seeds catalyzed by spiritual essence. Some had perished in the womb, while the rest had been given one more drop of spiritual essence and left there all this time. Once he returned, he could take a look; perhaps they had already sprouted.

Compared with those, the ones cultivated with spiritual liquid were still the ones he valued more. After all, they were the only seeds he had ever obtained after cultivation, and surely they would not fail to live up to expectations.

And the medicinal fields also needed to be planted again. Before coming down the mountain, Chen Yu had already been considering the fourth batch of transplants and cultivation. Originally, since the absorption limit for spiritual liquid had been reached, both green spirit root and orchid court divine fruit had been left off the list. But the appearance of fetal breathing and the dantian made him realize anew how important they were, and he decided to plant more of them once he returned.

“If only green spirit root could also bear seeds.”

Including gut-soothing grass, none of the crops presently transplanted and catalyzed with spiritual essence produced seeds that could be directly planted.

Even string beans were the same. Once mature, if they were not picked in time, they would wither, rot, and die, rather than split open and set seed.

“Oh, right, string beans!”

Speaking of string beans, Chen Yu suddenly remembered that, because they were not easy to preserve, he had carried them with him when descending the mountain, intending to use them as food to fill his stomach.

But when he touched his bag now, he found that he had lost a small pouch of them at the Emerald Blossom Courtyard.

“...”

Helplessly, the mutated beans he called fasting beans had not usually shown much presence, after all. The city of Ping was full of food and drink, and he himself had never quite grown used to filling his belly with such things.

Once or twice was fine. Eating them meal after meal was truly torment.

This time, too, he had not taken them seriously enough and left them behind in the courtyard.

Still, thinking back carefully, there did not seem to have been much left, only seven or eight beans. And the difference between these spiritual-essence creations and spiritual liquid was that they did not inspire any great desire in ordinary living creatures.

That stupid deer back then had simply been gluttonous. Otherwise it would not have ignored the other plants and eaten only the gut-soothing grass. After all, in terms of flavor, gut-soothing grass really was not as good as green spirit root or orchid court divine fruit.

Mm... then again, perhaps it was, since he was not a sika deer. Who knew how the other fellow’s taste buds were built?

“Let it be if it was lost.”

He thought about it. The fasting beans looked almost no different from ordinary beans, and if a stranger dropped some beans at their lodging, the Daoists at the Origin True Temple probably would not be bored enough to sample them.

Besides, the beans were somewhat dry already, so no one would likely be able to bring themselves to eat them. Even if someone picked them up, they would probably be thrown away or used to feed cattle and horses.

Thinking this way, Chen Yu immediately stopped worrying. After all, fretting was useless. He could hardly turn back now.

A few beans, that was all.

Could they really turn the world upside down?

...

In the blink of an eye, more than half a day had passed. After a day and a night, he entered Stone Fang County, and Green Terrace Mountain could be seen faintly ahead.