Leaving the Towering Ship, as he rode his sword into mid-air, Zhang Qianren sensed Fu Qingfeng's gaze watching him off, and he couldn't help but sneer inwardly.
A Nascent Soul Stage Great Power who could ascend the Heaven Ranking, yet he could be so childish.
If word got out, no one would probably believe it.
In his view, the path of cultivation grew harder with every step, and fortune, talent, and temperament were all indispensable!
Even so, the slightest carelessness could cost one their life.
Before he had conversed with Fu Qingfeng, he had always believed that those who could overcome countless hardships to reach the Nascent Soul Stage were, without exception, people of unshakable will, sharp methods, dark schemes, and superb skill.
And the carefree, unrestrained air Fu Qingfeng occasionally displayed when he appeared, in his view, was a sign of the man's unfathomable depth—fearing nothing, and thus transcending the mortal world, free and at ease.
But after spending these two days together, he discovered that Fu Qingfeng was simply a strange anomaly among Nascent Soul Stage cultivators.
Put nicely, the man's character was pure-hearted; put bluntly, he was brainless.
Zhang Qianren had no doubt that if this Vice Sect Master lived in the Mortal World, he would surely be a widely-connected, famous talent of his time.
But in the Cultivation World, such a person wouldn't last a month before turning to bone.
And yet this Vice Sect Master had managed to survive a thousand years, and had even become a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator.
This left Zhang Qianren unable to help but marvel at the depth of the man's fortune.
Thinking now of the words the man had spoken to him so earnestly before, his thin, gaunt, weathered face was full of mockery.
"If this old man were a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator, those small sects and influential families and great clans that Fu Qingfeng spoke of would already have had their souls sent to the Nine Netherworlds."
"Even an ant clings to the will to survive, yet he, a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator no less, received an order and confined himself to that broken ship, doing nothing but sighing, never once thinking to flee."
"That such a person could become a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator is simply laughable."
Musing on this in silence, he plunged into the East Sea, and from beneath the waves made his way to Baizhou City, a little over four hundred li from Guanhai City.
Fearing the Patrol Inspectors of the Demon Suppression Division, he did not enter the city.
Instead, at the shore, he smeared himself filthy all over, blackened his face, bent his Jade Hairpin into a crooked wooden stick, and dipped it in mud and sand to tangle his graying hair into a mess.
Then, hunching his back and lowering his head, he pretended to be feeble and slumped down beneath a crooked old tree.
His original plan had been to take advantage of the fact that cultivators from across the realm had gathered at the East Sea to gather some news, since he hadn't paid any attention to such things for the past two days.
But to his surprise, he learned little news—instead, he received quite a bit of silver and food.
Fortunately, he did manage to learn the information he wanted.
"The Great Yu Dynasty Court has not only restricted metal transactions among the common people, but has also placed restrictions on the metal deposits near every sect and faction?"
He squinted, watching through the strands of his hair as those Fellow Daoists of the Immortal Path soared high above, and fell into quiet thought.
"With the deposits on land restricted, and the Dragon Lords of the West, South, and North Seas also having led their aquatic clans to the East Sea under Imperial Edict, it seems this old man could actually go take a look around those three seas."
With that thought, he left at once, continuing by water toward the South Sea.
……
Guanhai City, in a courtyard not far from the Demon Suppression Division's Yamen.
Uncle Cang sat in a chair, his expression complicated as he looked at the paper covered in writing in his hands.
Qin Mu stood beside him, his face full of anticipation.
What Uncle Cang was reading now was the opening, over three thousand words long, that Qin Mu had racked his brains to write for his novel.
After a while, Uncle Cang finished reading the content with a complicated expression, then raised his head and glanced at Qin Mu.
After mulling it over in his heart for a long moment, he hesitantly spoke up. "Owner, I have to say, those few lines of poetry you wrote are quite good. Take this line, 'two or three stars fall before my chest, a hundred thousand peaks lie green beneath my feet,' or this one, 'Above the heavens lies the Heavenly Jade Capital, twelve floors and five cities. An Immortal caresses my crown, and I bind my hair to receive Longevity.'"
"It's just this line, 'the whole hall drunk on flowers, three thousand guests, one sword's frosty chill across fourteen provinces'—you didn't get it quite right. We have the Nine Provinces; fourteen provinces was how the previous dynasty divided things."
Qin Mu gave an awkward smile and asked again, "And the content? How's the content?"
Uncle Cang's expression twisted with conflict as he tugged at a few strands of his beard. "The content... speaking of the content, your handwriting is also quite good. This old man read through it all in one glance and didn't spot a single wrong character."
Hearing this, Qin Mu naturally understood that those several thousand words weren't very good, and with a soft sigh he turned and went back to his room.
Watching Qin Mu shut the door tightly behind him, and hearing no sound from within for a long while, Uncle Cang couldn't help but grow worried.
He got up at once, walked slowly to the door, and called out toward the inside, "Owner, this old man looked it over carefully again, and realized your ideas are actually quite good."
"But if we're going to sell books, we first need to win over the scholars. What you've written is all plain vernacular, the kind of content even the common people can understand—those scholars won't buy it."
"Why not just write poetry instead? The poems you write are better than most people's!"
Inside the room, Qin Mu lay on the bed with his arms pillowed behind his head, his thoughts churning.
Before, he had only tried writing a novel because he wanted to improve his living conditions, having realized he was good at nothing else.
But this morning he had come into a large sum of silver, and not long ago he had also been recruited into the Demon Suppression Division.
Although he hadn't officially begun his duties yet, he no longer needed to worry about his basic living expenses.
As for the novel content he had racked his brains over before, he now carried a desire for it to be recognized, but Uncle Cang had praised his poem lines and then praised his handwriting, without ever once mentioning the content—which left him feeling somewhat down.
It was at that moment that he heard Uncle Cang's voice drift in from outside the door.
"The kind of content even the common people can understand—those scholars won't buy it."
Hearing this line, Qin Mu suddenly let out a light laugh, recalling a poet named "Bai Juyi."
Whenever that man finished a poem, he would read it aloud to an illiterate old woman—if she could understand it, he kept it; if she found it hard to follow, he revised it; and if after revision it was still incomprehensible, he discarded it entirely.
Compared to Bai Juyi, the attitude of the scholars here in Guanhai City only made him want to laugh.
Thinking of this, a thought suddenly struck Qin Mu.
Since Uncle Cang thought those poems were good, why not simply transcribe the poems he still remembered—not to print or sell for money, but simply to savor for himself.
He could take them out and look at them again once he achieved Eternal Life and Vision in the future.
He imagined that by then, he would surely have some new insight into them.
With that thought, Qin Mu immediately got up, sat down at his writing desk, and began grinding ink and picking up his brush.
"For the title... let's just call it Anonymous Poetry Collection."
"I myself don't have that kind of talent, so to avoid embarrassment if anyone asks about it later, I'd better write an opening beforehand."
With that thought, he picked up his brush and wrote a passage.
"In a dream I beheld a Great Sage, a Supreme Sage, and here I record his literary brilliance."
Then, he began to transcribe.
"Seafarers speak of Yingzhou, lost in mist and waves, hard to find. Yue folk speak of Mount Tianmu, glimpsed sometimes through shifting clouds and glow. Tianmu towers to the sky, slanting across the heavens, its might surpassing the Five Peaks, overshadowing Mount Chicheng. Tiantai stands forty-eight thousand zhang tall, yet before this it seems to lean and fall toward the southeast. Longing for it, I dreamed of Wu and Yue, my spirit flying overnight across the moonlit Mirror Lake. The lake's moon lit my shadow, and carried me on to Shanxi. Xie Gong's old lodging still remains, where clear waters ripple and gibbons cry..."
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