The living room descended into a stunned silence.
The Lan family had always prided themselves on rationality and scientific thinking, never entertaining notions of spirits or mysticism. The only exception in Lanting’s upbringing had been letting his hair grow long when he was young, raising him with a delicate, feminine touch.
Lanting had never shown the slightest inclination toward superstition before. Hearing him drop such esoteric concepts so casually left everyone momentarily speechless.
Without rushing to elaborate, Lanting simply waited for them to process the words.
After a brief pause, his mother spoke up, her tone a peculiar mix of hesitation and bewilderment. “You are not joking with us, are you?”
She turned to call out to the housekeeper. “Aunt Wang, please pour him a glass of milk.” She suspected he might have skipped breakfast and was feeling light-headed from hunger.
Catching the obvious meaning behind her worried glance, Lanting remained quiet.
Recent events had given him a clear look at the character of the Lan family. In an unfamiliar environment, having a few people he could temporarily trust and rely on for logistical support was hardly a bad thing.
Though naturally reclusive, Lanting understood how to weigh advantages against drawbacks. After careful consideration, he decided it was time to peel back a layer of his disguise for the Lan family.
Meeting their deeply skeptical gazes, he smoothly fabricated a plausible excuse without batting an eye.
“I had a dream not long ago. Someone in the dream told me my destiny is peculiar and my lifespan short. Only by entering the mystic arts and learning those obscure practices can I survive in peace.”
The Lan family exchanged glances, their expressions telegraphing two universal words: Not buying it.
As the head of the household, the father gave a light cough and took the lead, his tone remarkably gentle. “Have you been watching too many television dramas lately and getting carried away?”
Lanting paused, his expression turning faintly complex before he slowly shook his head. “I am completely sober.”
The Lan family’s collective expression remained unchanged: Still not buying it.
Realizing verbal explanations were getting him nowhere, Lanting decided to let them witness it firsthand. Pressing his lips together, he said, “I learned a few minor spells from the person in my dream. Brace yourselves and try not to be startled.”
With that, he extended his right hand. The Lan family’s eyes immediately locked onto his palm, shifting their gaze back and forth between him and his hand.
Judging that they were as prepared as they would ever be, Lanting parted his lips and chanted, “Departing fire, primordial spirit…”
“Vermilion Bird, heed my summons!”
The moment the final syllable left his lips, the expressions of the Lan family shifted. Whether due to psychological suggestion or not, they distinctly felt the surrounding air begin to heat up.
Although it was midwinter and the central heating was running to maintain a comfortable indoor climate, the sudden spike in temperature turned stifling. Within seconds, a bead of sweat formed on Lan Lin’s forehead.
“It is getting a bit hot,” Lan Lin muttered with a frown, reaching up to loosen his tie.
Then, a sight so astonishing unfolded before their eyes that Lan Lin froze, completely forgetting to finish loosening his collar.
First, a crisp, melodious chirp echoed from outside the window. As the family instinctively turned toward the sound, a bird wrapped in glowing dawn light and blazing flames soared into their field of vision.
The bird arrived with startling suddenness, wreathed in fire. Alarmed, Lanting’s mother gasped, “The bird is on fire, hurry and save it!”
Her warning was swift, but the firebird was swifter. Before her voice even faded, the creature darted forward and settled securely into Lanting’s palm, to the utter astonishment of everyone present.
Aunt Wang, blessed with quick reflexes and nimble footwork, had already fetched a fire extinguisher and raised it, ready to blast Lanting with foam.
A vein throbbed visibly on Lanting’s temple. “Aunt Wang, wait!”
Aunt Wang froze in her tracks. By then, everyone noticed the bird was entirely unharmed by the flames. Even as it rested comfortably in Lanting’s hand, the young man remained completely composed, as if the fire possessed no heat whatsoever.
This time, their shock was absolute, shaking the very foundations of their worldview.
The father spoke with profound hesitation. “What exactly is this?”
Remaining silent, Lanting twitched his fingers slightly. The small bird perched on his palm caught the cue, fluttered its wings, and took flight. Ignoring the father’s frantic, clumsy attempts to dodge, it mischievously landed right on top of his head.
Its fiery little claws stepped lightly over the father’s meticulously styled hair, patting it down into a messy nest before settling down and sitting comfortably.
Because the bird was so tiny and nearly obscured by the surrounding flames unless it spread its wings, from a distance it looked precisely as though the father’s head had spontaneously caught fire.
Watching his usually stern and dignified father sport a literal crown of fire, Lan Lin felt an inappropriate urge to laugh bubble up. He bit his lip hard to suppress it and ventured cautiously, “Dad, do you feel any heat on your scalp?”
Stiff as a board from head to toe, the father wanted to reach up and check, but hesitated out of caution. Maintaining a rigid expression, he barked, “Not at all.”
Since when did fire fail to burn?
A living bird leaping about inside a blazing fire was enough to effortlessly dismantle the rigidly constructed worldview of the Lan family.
After allowing them a few moments to slowly digest the spectacle, Lanting spoke again. “This is a Vermilion Bird.”
“A Vermilion Bird?” Lan Lin gasped, his eyes widening. “You mean one of the Four Divine Beasts from mythology?”
“Mm,” Lanting nodded, entirely oblivious to how earth-shattering his words sounded to the family. “This is merely an avatar and projection, a wisp of spiritual essence I summoned using incantations.”
Though the specifics went over their heads, the family understood that this was not a literal divine beast descending in the flesh. With that single realization, they managed to scrape together enough mental bandwidth to accept it.
Sensing the timing was right, Lanting delivered another heavy dose of reality. “When Gu Guixi tried to harm me previously, why couldn’t the hospital find any medical cause? It was because his methods were unorthodox, belonging entirely to the realm of mysticism.”
“Only by stepping into the mystic arts and mastering these principles can I truly secure my own survival.”
Hearing that, the Lan family abandoned any remaining hesitation. Lanting’s mother immediately declared, “Then you must study it properly!”
No matter what principles or worldviews they held, whenever Lanting’s safety was involved, the Lan family chose him without a second thought.
From there, Lanting patiently introduced them to the broader concepts of the cultivation and metaphysical worlds.
He explained Daoist priests and Buddhist monks, deities and ghosts, talismanic scripts and magical artifacts.
As the family struggled to reconstruct their worldview from the ground up, his mother stared blankly into space. “So people really do turn into ghosts after they die?”
Lanting fell silent, leaving them to discuss and digest the revelations on their own. Glancing at the Vermilion Bird, which was currently charming all three of them with its antics, he decided against recalling the summon for the moment.
For him, maintaining a Vermilion Bird avatar of this caliber required minimal effort.
Much later, when the four of them gathered together again, the father took a deep breath, steadying the ball of fire still resting atop his hair, and asked, “Where do you plan to open this shop?”
“In the most prosperous commercial street of Jingchuan,” Lanting replied.
He had already planned it out. Humans were the masters of all living things, and there were countless resources that could be drawn from them to nourish one’s cultivation.
He needed to engage in transactions with these people. Even if he could not unblock his meridians, it would still aid his overall cultivation progress.
The father nodded. “As it happens, your older brother owns a commercial property under his name. Have him take you to look at it tomorrow.”
“There is no rush,” Lanting said.
He cast a critical eye around the Lan estate, a flicker of profound exasperation crossing his brow. “The very first order of business is to completely overhaul the layout of this house.”
He stated plainly, “If not for your habitual charity and the vast reserve of accumulated karmic merit you carry, living year-round in a residence with such chaotic and corrupted feng shui would have long since brought endless disasters upon this household.”
The Lan family stared at him in disbelief.