Silence settled over the room.
In the earthenware pot on the stove, the lunch vegetable porridge was still simmering, bubbling softly.
The aroma wafted out, mingling with the scent of soil and herbs from the yard.
Lu Yuan turned around.
“Father, Mother, keep things normal at home for the next few days.
Deliver the Energy Soup as usual, but don’t speak excessively.
If Shopkeeper Liu asks about today, just say Deacon Zhao inspected the garden and found no issues.” Lu Qinghe nodded.
“I understand.” “Also, regarding the herb garden,” Lu Yuan continued, “water the Soul-Gathering Grass and Starlight Vine as usual, but it doesn’t matter if they grow a bit slower.
Don’t let anyone see that we care too much about them.” “Why…
why is that?” Lin Xiu asked in confusion.
“We finally managed to grow them.” “Because Zhao Shi failed to dig them up today, so he’s holding a fire in his chest,” Lu Yuan explained.
“If he notices that we treasure those plants deeply, he might climb over the wall at night to destroy them.
The less we seem to care, the less meaningful it will feel to him.” Lu Qinghe drew in a sharp breath.
“Would he dare?” “A cornered dog jumps over a wall.” Lu Yuan paused.
“Besides, he isn’t cornered yet—he’s just humiliated and angry.” Hearing these words coming from a six-year-old child carried an inexplicable strangeness.
Yet, as Lu Qinghe and Lin Xiu listened, they found it entirely reasonable.
Lin Xiu sighed, stepping over to the stove to stir the porridge.
“Let’s eat first.
The porridge is almost ready.” The family gathered around the small wooden table, silently eating the vegetable porridge.
It was mixed with coarse rice and wild greens, thin and watery, but far better than drinking plain gruel like they used to.
Lu Yuan took small sips, his mind racing.
The root cause of Zhao Shi’s setback today was that he hadn’t mastered the regulations himself, combined with his arrogant assumption that he could intimidate commoners.
The rules of the Spirit Hall were, frankly speaking, designed for the convenience of nobles and sects; lower-level enforcers often possessed only half-baked knowledge, relying entirely on posture and authority.
But what about next time?
What if Zhao Shi actually checked the written regulations next time, or picked a far trickier pretext?
For instance, inspecting for spirit power anomalies.
Lu Qinghe’s bottleneck had loosened, and his spirit power circulated much more smoothly than before.
Although he hadn’t broken through yet, a careful observer could still spot subtle clues.
Zhao Shi’s visit today had originally been an attempt to probe for exactly this.
He needed to accelerate his plans.
Lu Yuan set down his bowl.
“Father, when you cultivate tonight, try speeding up that ‘Vortex’ breathing method by half a beat.” Lu Qinghe looked up.
“Speed it up?” “Mhm,” Lu Yuan said.
“You were stuck for fifteen years, so your spirit power accumulated thick deposits, like a clogged riverbed.
Relying purely on natural circulation won’t flush it open—you need to add a bit of force.
But don’t push too hard.
Stop if your chest feels tight.” Lu Qinghe hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“Alright.” He didn’t actually have much confidence in himself.
The methods his son brought up were entirely unheard of, yet shockingly effective.
The sensation of spirit power flowing within his body again was impossible to fake.
Lin Xiu looked at her husband, then at her son, looking as if she wanted to say something, but ultimately said nothing.
She simply got up to clear the dishes with a quiet clatter.
*** In the afternoon, Lu Yuan went to the back garden as usual to “look at the herbs.” In the patch, seven stalks of Soul-Gathering Grass had grown half a foot high, their tender green leaves shimmering faintly in the sunlight.
Beside them, the Starlight Vine climbed a simple wooden frame, its vines bearing a few silver, rice-sized berries that were not yet ripe.
He squatted down and touched a leaf of the Soul-Gathering Grass with his fingertip.
It felt cool to the touch, carrying an extremely faint residue of spirit power.
Indeed, as the book stated, it could not be directly absorbed by spirit masters, but it was gentle and effective for nourishing the minds of ordinary people.
Zhao Shi calling it a “spirit master herb” today was purely using authority to bully others.
Soul-Gathering Grass was common in ordinary medical clinics—cheap, effective at calming the mind, but completely unrelated to spirit power cultivation.
Starlight Vine was even more obscure; aside from being mentioned in a few folk remedies for “soothing the heart,” almost no one cultivated it.
As he was thinking, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the courtyard wall.
They were very light, but deliberately slowed down.
Lu Yuan didn’t look up, continuing to poke at the soil with his finger as if playing.
The person outside the wall paused for a moment before moving on.
Was it someone sent by Zhao Shi to spy on them, or simply a passing neighbor?
Both were possible.
Lu Yuan patted the dirt off his hands and stood up.
Walking back to the eaves, he picked up the copy of *Illustrated Guide to Common Continental Herbs* and flipped to the page marked by a dried leaf bookmark.
Page 372, beneath the description of Soul-Gathering Grass, contained a line of small print: “If its mature form is long nourished by a specific spirit power environment, there is a tiny probability of a benign mutation occurring, wherein its leaf veins turn into silver patterns.
It can then serve as a primary ingredient for low-grade mind-soothing potions.
However, the cultivation cost is excessively high, yielding little return.” Silver patterns…
He looked back at the stalks of Soul-Gathering Grass in the plot.
Their leaf veins were still ordinary light green, nowhere near “silver patterns.” But what if he used his modified “Spirit Power Saturation Method”?
In his past life’s memories, there existed a low-tier array designed to assist herb cultivation called the “Spirit-Nourishing Formation.” It could slowly regulate the concentration and flow of spirit power within a small area, promoting plant absorption and transformation.
The principle wasn’t complex, revolving mainly around the placement and maintenance of spirit power nodes.
Given his current level of spirit power, setting up a true array was a pipe dream.
However, simplifying it down to the most basic “three-point positioning” to simulate a crude prototype might be feasible.
It didn’t require many materials: three stones capable of weakly storing spirit power, arranged in a triangle around the plant.
One could use “Blue-Veined Stones,” which were common by the river.
These stones had a loose texture with fine internal pores, capable of adsorbing a tiny amount of spirit power.
Although they couldn’t hold it for long, it would suffice.
The issue was how to explain to his parents why he wanted to gather stones and arrange them for play.
Lu Yuan closed the book and stepped inside.
Lu Qinghe was repairing an old hoe while Lin Xiu mended clothes.
Seeing him come in, both raised their heads.
“Father,” Lu Yuan said, “I want to walk down to the river this afternoon.” “The river?” Lu Qinghe frowned.
“What for?
The water is deep and dangerous.” “To pick up stones,” Lu Yuan said.
“I saw the kids at the town school playing stone-tossing games, and I want to try.” Lin Xiu smiled.
“Look at you, finally acting like a child your age.
Go on, let your father go with you.” Lu Qinghe set down the hoe.
“Alright, I might as well check the river to see if any fish escaped the nets.” Father and son left the house together.
*** West of Maple Leaf Town ran a small river called the Qingxi River.
Its waters were shallow and crystal clear.
In the summer, local children often played in the water and skipped pebbles on the surface.
The afternoon sun was pleasant, and few people were around the riverbanks.
Lu Qinghe rolled up his pant legs, stepped into the shallows, and bent over to search through the water.
He used to come here occasionally to catch small fish or shrimp to add some meat to their meals.
Lu Yuan walked along the shore, his eyes fixed on the riverbank rocks.
Blue-Veined Stones were easy to identify—grayish-blue in color, with fine, water-worn veins etched into their surfaces.
He picked up a palm-sized rock and held it in his hand to feel its texture.
The stone was cool, its interior carrying an extremely subtle residue of spirit power, very faint, as if separated by a layer of silk.
He picked up five or six in succession, selecting three with relatively noticeable spirit power residues and cradling them in his shirt.
Lu Qinghe searched for a long time, catching only two finger-length little fish, which he strung up on a reed stem.
“Only this much—not even enough for a bowl of soup.” He shook his head, stepped ashore, and put on his straw sandals.
“Got enough stones?” “Enough,” Lu Yuan said.
The two made their way back.
Passing the town’s main street, Lu Yuan caught sight of the Spirit Hall’s grayish-white two-story stone building.
The door stood open, quiet inside, with no visible figures.
Zhao Shi was likely within.
Returning home, Lu Yuan washed the three Blue-Veined Stones clean and placed them on the windowsill to dry.
Seeing this, Lin Xiu smiled and said, “You really did pick up stones to play with.
Should Mother sew a little cloth pouch to hold them?” “No need,” Lu Yuan said.
“I just like looking at them.” *** At night, after his parents had fallen asleep, Lu Yuan quietly slipped out of bed.
Moonlight filtered through the paper window, casting a hazy glow.
He reached for the three stones on the windowsill and walked softly into the back garden.
The herb garden shimmered with a faint, grayish-green tint under the moonlight.
Squatting down, he pressed the three Blue-Veined Stones into the soil around the Soul-Gathering Grass in an equilateral triangle, leaving only their tops exposed.
Then, he extended his right hand, palm facing downward, hovering directly over the center of the triangle.
Spirit power was slowly drawn out from the single thread in his dantian, flowing along his arm into his palm.
It was remarkably faint, like a candle flickering in the wind.
Closing his eyes, he strove to recall the foundational flow path of the “Spirit-Nourishing Formation.” Three-point positioning: spirit power injected from one node, circulating along the triangular border lines to form a basic closed loop.
The spirit power from his palm seeped out, dividing into three extremely thin streams that targeted the three Blue-Veined Stones.
The first stone caught it.
The inner pores of the stone were like a dry sponge, greedily absorbing that sliver of spirit power.
The second stone caught it as well.
The third…
halfway through, the spirit power stream dispersed.
Lu Yuan opened his eyes, fine beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead.
His spirit power was insufficient, and his control precision was lacking.
Splitting into three streams was already his current limit; maintaining three stable lines simultaneously was simply too difficult.
He caught his breath and shifted his approach.
If simultaneous injection didn’t work, he would do it sequentially.
Gathering his spirit power anew, he first injected it into the first Blue-Veined Stone.
Once it reached saturation—which was merely a tiny fraction—he severed the connection and moved to the second, then the third.
This method was slow, but steady.
After charging all three stones once, he withdrew his hand and sensed the area carefully.
Between the stones, a faint connection of spirit power seemed to form, like three nearly invisible threads connecting into a subtle triangular field.
At the center of the field, the spirit power concentration in the air seemed…
a fraction higher.
It was almost negligible.
Yet, the leaves of the Soul-Gathering Grass trembled slightly under the moonlight.
There was a reaction.
Lu Yuan squatted and observed for a long time until his legs grew numb before slowly standing up.
He tiptoed back into the house and laid down on his bed.
Outside the window, the moonlight was cool and clear.
He knew Zhao Shi wouldn’t wait too long.
A small town like this meant any minor disturbance would spread fast.
Among the neighbors who had gathered to watch today, some were bound to curry favor by bearing news to the Spirit Hall.
He had to gain more cards in his hand before the next trouble arrived.
The silver-veined mutation of the Soul-Gathering Grass was one avenue—though slow, it was worth trying.
His father’s bottleneck breakthrough was another avenue; once successful, the family would have a proper spirit master to hold down the fort, giving Zhao Shi pause before attempting anything.
And then there was his own spirit power.
That single thread was simply too thin.
He had to find a way to make it thicker, stronger.
He turned over, facing the wall.
Models of low-tier spirit power cultivation optimizations from his past life flashed through his mind.
One called the “Spiral Progressive Method” utilized specific breathing rhythms and circulation paths to propel spirit power through the body in a spiral, boosting absorption efficiency.
However, it required at least a Rank 1 Spirit Master’s level of spirit power to sustain that “spiral.” He was still far off.
In that case…
he would set up the framework first.
Much like constructing a house: if materials were scarce, one set the beams and pillars in place first, filling in the rest once the supplies were gathered.
Eyes closed, he simulated the path of spirit power flow within his mind.
Originating from the dantian, rising along the Conception Vessel to the Shanzhong Point where it bifurcated, traveling down the three arm-yin meridians to the fingertips, looping back along the three arm-yang meridians to the shoulders, passing down the Governor Vessel, and returning to the dantian.
A simplified version of the “minor cosmic orbit.” If his spirit power wasn’t enough to complete a full circuit, he would break it into segments.
Running the first half today and the second half tomorrow, like an ant moving its house, nibbling away bit by bit.
As his thoughts drifted, sleepiness gradually washed over him.
The moonlight shifted across the window frame, falling onto the edge of the bed in a bright white sheet.
Distant dog barks echoed from afar, settling back into silence just as quickly.
The night was still long.
Yet certain things had already begun to grow in the dark.
Like the few stalks of Soul-Gathering Grass in the back garden, like the fire burning in certain people’s hearts, and like the unformed path taking shape in a child’s mind.
Lu Yuan fell asleep, his breathing steady.
Unconsciously, his index finger tapped lightly against the wooden bedboard.
Very softly.
As if counting down to something.