After Lu Yuandi left, Peach Blossom Mountain returned to its usual tranquility.
Chu Suiyan continued cultivating the Soul-Devouring Palm and the Six Transformations of Heavenly End, making considerable progress. However, no matter what he tried, he simply could not master the final transformation.
The Six Transformations of Heavenly End, as the name implied, comprised six forms. One who mastered this art could transform into objects, flowers and trees, flying insects, birds and beasts, a doppelgänger, and the Nightmare Prayer.
Of these, the Nightmare Prayer was the most complex. In this form, the caster transformed into whatever the target most desired or feared-a person, an object, an event-using the illusion to confound and defeat them.
Tao Mian tried every method he could think of to teach him, all without success.
Chu Suiyan couldn’t help feeling deflated.
“Master is still the best. You just flip through the manual two or three times and you’ve got it down.”
Tao Mian comforted him.
“Don’t worry about it. There’s no shame in not measuring up to your master. After all, your master is a once-in-a-thousand-years genius.”
Chu Liuxue, standing nearby, was utterly speechless.
“If you don’t know how to comfort someone, just stop talking.”
“What? I can’t even state facts now?”
Chu Liuxue didn’t bother continuing with the shameless Tao Mian. Instead, she turned to Chu Suiyan.
“Could your inability to learn this last form have something to do with your practice target? That meal ticket’s heart looks like a solid lump of iron-nothing in there to fear or desire.”
Chu Suiyan’s face lit up with sudden understanding.
“Oh, that’s true.”
“‘Oh, that’s true’ my foot.” Tao Mian smacked the back of his head. The boy yelped and clutched his skull with both hands. “Your master’s heart is made of flesh and blood, of course. Don’t listen to your sister’s nonsense.”
“I was wrong, Little Master Tao…”
As for Chu Suiyan’s inability to learn the final form of the Six Transformations of Heavenly End, the three of them bickered about it for a few moments and then let it go.
Couldn’t learn it? Then he couldn’t learn it. In Tao Mian’s view, it was no great matter.
At present, the food, clothing, and daily affairs of the three residents of Peach Blossom Mountain fell largely to Chu Liuxue. They had originally agreed to take turns cooking, but everything Chu Suiyan made came out either burnt or oversalted-completely inedible.
Tao Mian was even more catastrophic. He nearly burned down half the kitchen.
Chu Liuxue asked him in disbelief how he had survived before. He said he absorbed the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth.
In other words-he’d been living on air.
Tao Mian wasn’t idle either. He had to walk the chicken.
Under his meticulous care, Attendant Wu grew ever more plump and glossy. One day, Chu Liuxue came out carrying a winnowing basket to sun-dry medicinal herbs and caught Tao Mian squatting on the ground, wiping nonexistent drool from the corner of his mouth while staring at Attendant Wu.
Attendant Wu was, after all, a century-old chicken with a certain knack for reading people. It flapped its wings smartly and ducked behind Chu Liuxue.
Chu Liuxue looked down at it.
“If you’re really that hungry for it, I’ll pluck its feathers and stew it.”
Every feather on Attendant Wu’s body shuddered.
“No,” Tao Mian said, gazing at the chicken with regret. “Keep it. It’s a keepsake.”
A keepsake of what? A reminder of whom? Chu Liuxue didn’t know.
She bounced the winnowing basket lightly in her hands. The herbs gave off a faint, lingering fragrance.
These herbs were prepared for Chu Suiyan.
Chu Suiyan had always been frail, plagued by headaches since he was small. The attacks came at no fixed time, but when the pain struck, it nearly took half his life.
During those days when she wandered with her brother, they had no money for a physician. All she could do was hold him helplessly as he curled into himself, limbs drawn tight with agony.
Now, with Tao Mian around, there were more ways to help. Though the ailment couldn’t be cured at its root, the symptoms were far more manageable than before.
At first, Chu Suiyan hadn’t mentioned the illness at all, afraid Tao Mian would find him a burden and sweep both siblings out the door.
It was Chu Liuxue who sought Tao Mian out and told him herself.
She said her brother suffered from a stubborn ailment and hoped Tao Mian could think of something. She was willing to work herself to the bone in return.
Tao Mian said, “You’re a child. Why would you want to work yourself to the bone? Just be a child. Don’t worry about the rest.”
Little Immortal Tao hadn’t originally had any skill in medicine. His first and second disciples had both been sturdier and more vigorous than their master. Gu Yuan’s early death was tied to his own overwork. As for Lu Yuandi-well, she managed ten thousand affairs of state each day and still had energy left over to imprison her master.
Tao Mian himself rarely fell ill.
Now that the need was pressing, he had no suitable remedy on hand. He put in a request to his Gold Finger, but the Gold Finger ignored him-the disciple skilled in medicine was probably still waiting for him somewhere far in the future.
He didn’t know medicine himself, and the Gold Finger wouldn’t provide. None of that mattered.
Because Tao Mian had money.
Little Immortal Tao actually maintained his own network of connections in the mortal world; he simply seldom made use of it. The mountain estates and shops Gu Yuan had left him, along with the tea houses and wine taverns of various sizes that Lu Yuandi had bestowed upon him-all were looked after by dedicated stewards.
These stewards moved in wide circles. Tao Mian penned two letters, and within a few short days, he received several replies.
Ignoring the complaints about him being a hands-off boss, he sifted through the remaining suggestions and picked out two workable ones. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Drinking medicine was one. The other was channeling spiritual power into the acupoints of the head.
Drying and decocting the herbs was Chu Liuxue’s affair. The latter fell to Tao Mian, and she could not help with it.
Tao Mian told her not to concern herself.
Chu Suiyan’s old ailment tended to flare in the deep of night, lasting as briefly as a single night or as long as seven days.
At first, Chu Liuxue was uneasy and crept to her brother’s room to check on him several times.
When the headache seized Chu Suiyan, it plunged him into a state of chaos. He could neither see nor hear-only clutch his head, his whole body rigid.
At those times, Tao Mian would let the boy rest his head on his lap and slowly guide spiritual power into the acupoints. The power could not be infused all at once, or Chu Suiyan’s head would burst. Throughout the process, the master had to watch over him with absolute focus, not daring to slacken for even a breath.
The pained murmurs that escaped Chu Suiyan’s lips gradually faded. The tension in his sleeping face eased into calm. Even then, Tao Mian did not dare leave his side. He stretched out an arm, took a soft cloth from the table, and wiped the cold sweat from the boy’s brow, waiting for dawn to break beyond the window.
His disciple slept, but he could not. He sat awake like that through the whole night, night after night, until the episode passed.
Once Chu Suiyan recovered, he knew nothing of any of it and went bounding off to find his master for sword practice. But Chu Liuxue had seen everything. She intercepted her brother halfway and told him to come gather firewood with her.
Chu Liuxue had once offered to take Tao Mian’s place, but the master had flicked her on the forehead.
“You slack off during training all the time, and now you want to gamble with your brother’s life?”
Chu Liuxue could only press her lips shut and never raise the matter again.
The boy trailed behind her, still grumbling that his sister was bossing him around and wouldn’t let him go play with their master.
Chu Liuxue didn’t answer. She was quiet the whole way, head down, picking up branches. She gathered more than her brother-a full armload. Her brother didn’t get to slack off either; the entire pile was his to carry back.
On the way down the mountain, Chu Liuxue walked in front as before. This time, she spoke.
She said, “Chu Suiyan, if you ever leave this mountain, I will kill you.”
Chu Suiyan froze, unable to process her words. In his memory, his sister teased him now and then, but it was always harmless. She had never said anything this severe.
He stammered, asking what she had just said.
Chu Liuxue repeated herself.
“Tao Mian doesn’t interfere with anyone leaving the mountain. His feelings on the matter don’t count. But Chu Suiyan-you are not allowed to leave. If you go down, I will follow. And if I follow, it will be to kill you.”
Because if you leave, you will betray him. You will shatter the dream. You will break his heart beyond mending.
At the time, Chu Suiyan was young, and he secretly resented his sister’s tyranny.
Only later did he understand-it was a prophecy, and it was an ending.