When the Wang Family arrived, Lin Jue was running a test in his room.
The Ancient Book lay right in his hand.
Following its instructions, Lin Jue gradually exerted force. From below, he gathered strength from his toes and drove it upward to his dantian. From above, he started at the crown of his head and directed it downward to his abdomen. The two points were not far apart, and under his forceful squeeze, they gradually converged into one.
Next, strictly obeying the book's instructions, he concentrated his spirit and locked the gathered force right there. He held his breath to his absolute limit, holding on until his vision blurred with dizziness and he could barely endure it. Then, all of a sudden, a rolling, searing heat truly surged within his body.
'Could this be the Yang Qi I'm supposed to exhale?'
Lin Jue did not dare breathe it out.
He immediately followed the text's practice method, holding the breath tightly while gradually relaxing his mind. Only when the burning sensation naturally dissipated and retreated entirely into his body did he dare let his guard down.
"Whew..."
He exhaled a long breath of turbid air.
It was actually real?
Without cultivating, even an ordinary mortal could perform "Qi Exhalation"?
Lin Jue opened his eyes wide in astonishment.
The results of his test undeniably told him so.
Was this world truly so miraculous?
Right then, sounds came from outside.
Lin Jue rose and walked a few steps, confirming that his physical and mental state felt no different than before the test. Only then did he open the window to look outside.
The Wang Family of Heng Village was meticulous indeed.
Presumably feeling that sending only the food and wine promised that morning would look improper, they had gathered quite a few other goods to assemble a gift that was exceedingly generous in the eyes of country folk.
The Wang Family's head butler had personally come as well.
Along with him was the servant whom Lin Jue had previously addressed as butler.
His aunt was overwhelmed by the honor and flurried to receive them.
Lin Jue also hurried out to greet them.
The true butler was sharp and capable. After exchanging pleasantries with Lin Jue and his aunt, he went to look in on Lin Jue's uncle. He examined the illness, asked which physician had been summoned, and upon hearing it was that renowned doctor, nodded repeatedly in affirmation of the physician's skill. He then asked the aunt to show him the prescription; one look told him roughly how much it would cost.
With that, he produced ten taels of silver to honor Old Patriarch Wang's promise.
The servant whom Lin Jue had called butler also had a favorable impression of him. He shared how the Wang Family had reacted after Lin Jue left that morning, which helped ease some of Lin Jue's unease over receiving such heavy gifts.
With dusk falling, the visitors did not linger and soon took their leave.
Adding it all up, spending the night in the ancestral hall was supposed to earn him ten strings of cash, but he had ended up with forty taels of silver alongside a generous spread of gifts.
For an ordinary household, this was already a massive fortune.
His aunt put the cloth away, hung the cured pork, set the stinky mandarin fish in the kitchen, and stored the wine properly. All that remained for Lin Jue was the food the Wang Family had brought.
Dried winter bamboo shoots gathered from the mountains the previous year were the most common dish around here. Simmering the tender shoot sheaths with pork belly produced a rich, savory aroma glazed in dark sauce that paired wonderfully with rice. Fresh spring bamboo shoots recently harvested from the mountain slopes were at their crispest and tenderest; boiling only the tips with cured meat made the local specialty known as "knife-board fragrance," yielding a broth so fresh it could melt your tongue.
There was fish head with tofu, and a hearty stew of mixed fish.
Alongside these came steamed white rice from the wooden steamer, each grain distinct and fluffy.
For a time, he did nothing but eat, banishing every other thought.
With the money for his uncle's medicine secured, a heavy weight had lifted from his chest, even though his uncle had not yet recovered. Paired with such a hearty meal, this relief gave him an almost luxurious sense of enjoyment.
Happiness could truly be this simple.
His aunt yielded the meat to Lin Jue and his cousin, sighing, "We told you to study in peace, yet in the end we still had to rely on you doing this sort of thing to bring in money. If your father knew, he would surely scold us."
"He wouldn't..." Lin Jue said, swallowing the bite in his mouth.
"That butler seems reliable," his aunt told them. "He mentioned that in a few days there will be a temple fair in the city. Plenty of merchant travelers from out of town will arrive, including herb peddlers and gatherers, so medicine will be cheaper. Even if we can't tell genuine herbs apart and don't trust those stall vendors, the city's other medicine shops will still be cheaper than usual during those days. The medicine at home is enough for Lin Qi's father for a few days. I was thinking we shouldn't bother with those traveling peddlers since we can't tell real from fake, and just head back to the Hall of World Relief where we bought medicine last time. Hopefully it'll be a bit cheaper then."
His cousin grunted in agreement.
Listening to this, Lin Jue felt a thought stir.
There were two temple fairs nearby.
One was right in Shu Village, the San Gu Temple Fair. It was relatively small and took place on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, which had just passed not long ago.
The other was held in the city, the Luo Xian Temple Fair. It was much larger and took place on the second day of the second lunar month.
Last year during the Luo Xian Temple Fair, Lin Jue had just fallen into the water. After his uncle pulled him out, he spent days confined to bed to nurse his health and settle his spirit, so he had missed out on the fair. His uncle had not been sick back then, and though life at home was tight, they scraped by. It was rare to have fun during the quiet early spring, so a temple fair was something everyone went to enjoy. That Lin Jue couldn't go was his own misfortune; the others had all gone.
Lin Jue only remembered lying in bed back then, bewildered and brooding over his life, while his cousin Lin Qi stood by, teasing him with tales of everything he had seen at the fair.
The statue of Immortal Luo carried through the streets, dancing exorcists wearing demon masks, and a glittering spread of snacks and trinkets. Wandering sorceresses and occult practitioners, fortune-tellers beneath the bridges, and all sorts of marvelous, unfathomable magic tricks resembling immortal arts.
Sorceresses and occult practitioners...
Fortune-tellers...
Tricks resembling immortal arts...
He wondered if those were mere sleight of hand or genuine, uncanny arts.
And whether they would provoke a reaction from the Ancient Book.
"Lin Jue needs to study, and he just spent the night in that family's ancestral hall. Who knows if it damaged his body... Oh... Lin Qi, if you go by yourself, be careful in everything," his aunt fretted, always worried.
"Understood, Mother."
"Aunt," Lin Jue said, looking up with his lips still glistening with oil, considering his words. "I heard Great-Grandfather Shu, who often tells stories at the Lower Bridge Pavilion, say that after someone deals with a demon, they might pick up demonic qi or unclean things. On my way back from cutting grass today, I stopped by to pay respects to San Gu, and I heard people say Immortal Luo in the county city is very efficacious too. I'd like to pay my respects there as well. Why don't I go instead?"
"Oh, that makes sense!" his aunt immediately agreed. "Then Lin Qi should go with you. Since you're well-read, people won't easily swindle you, and you can let him carry the load."
"That works too."
"Did you really see a demon there?"
"I saw it in a dream..."
"What was it like? Tell us!"
People of this era were indeed full of curiosity about such matters, though family naturally showed a good deal more concern.
Lin Jue only wanted to focus on his meal and the temple fair, but since his aunt had asked, he had to set down his chopsticks and thoughts for the moment, recounting the events of the previous night in even greater detail than he had that morning.
...
A few days passed, and the temple fair arrived.
Before dawn, his cousin shouldered a large bamboo basket packed with bamboo shoots and called for Lin Jue to head toward the city.
Lin Jue tucked the Ancient Book into his robes and carried a smaller back-basket.
Shu Village was a four-hour mountain trek from the county seat.
The terrain here was rugged and uneven. Someone had once written a fitting couplet for this place: "Dense forests harbor hamlets hugging streams; few till the earth where half the realm is peaks." The mountains here were vast, and the woods were mostly bamboo—a rare sort that could carpet entire mountain ranges. It was so thick it blocked out the sky even by day, and before dawn, the path seemed darker still.
When the wind blew, the bamboo grove rustled and shook.
Whether from uneasy imagination, weakened vitality from the demon's breath, or some other cause, Lin Jue followed behind his cousin and kept catching fleeting glimpses of strange silhouettes stirring in the woods.
If he had a Firewood Chopper right now, it might lend him some courage.
Fortunately, daybreak was near. Before they had gone far, light gleamed along the horizon, and after another stretch of walking, the day broke fully.
Things felt much better once the sun came up.
At the same time, travelers on the road gradually multiplied.
Gatherings were rare in this era. Buying or selling anything required a trip to the city, so many hard-pressed rural peasants carrying heavy shoulder poles and bamboo baskets gradually emerged from winding country paths to merge onto the main road. Like streams joining to form a river, it made for an impressive sight.
The path immediately grew much livelier.
With such bustling human presence, what demons or ghosts could linger in one's heart or on the road?
Gradually, the city gates came into view.
"Pour the mountain shoots from your basket into mine. I'll head over to Sky Lantern Alley first to sell them, while you go buy the medicine—you're the clever one. By the time you're done, I'll be just about finished too. We'll meet on the street behind the hill of Immortal Luo Temple to watch the magic tricks. If we're late, the show might end. Even if it hasn't, we won't get good spots."
His younger cousin had dug up these mountain bamboo shoots all over the hills, unearthing them when they had barely cracked the soil before their tips even broke the surface. They were remarkably tender, and he was thoroughly confident in his sales.
"All right," Lin Jue agreed.
Walking along, the city was indeed far livelier than usual, growing more crowded the closer they drew to Immortal Luo Temple.
Foreign accents also filled the air.
This kind of temple fair was an annual event, varying in scale from year to year. The largest fairs reportedly drew crowds across several prefectures; in peak years, merchants, curious scholars, and idle gentlemen set out half a month or more in advance just to join the bustle.
The Luo Xian Temple Fair was not exceptionally large, but thanks to the prosperity of local commerce in recent years, it was certainly no minor affair either.
Though it was still early morning, crowds had already staked out spots across the streets and alleys to set up stalls, with out-of-town accents making up the majority. Even the constables patrolling the city had swapped their iron rulers for sabers at their waists.
Lin Jue spotted numerous stalls selling medicinal herbs and medicinal wine.
He inquired about prices but did not linger, sticking to the main thoroughfares and steering clear of side alleys. He briskly made his way to the established Hall of World Relief in the city, using the prices he had just asked about as leverage. Combined with the bulk of his purchase, he got the shopkeeper to lower the price considerably.
By the time Lin Jue stepped out with the medicine on his back, the street outside was far busier than before.
People jostled against one another like a surging river.
The clamor truly sounded like a boiling cauldron; voices of every kind poured into his ears, leaving him unable to make out anything clearly.
He had rarely seen such lively crowds even in his past life.
Lin Jue looked left and right, swung the small back-basket around to hang across his chest, and only then attempted to squeeze into the press of people.
Heading toward Immortal Luo Temple, he had not walked far before he spotted a crowd huddled in a dense circle. Standing on tiptoe, he could see an open space in the middle, from which bursts of amazed cries rang out from time to time, as if someone were performing magic tricks.