That night, Xu Changshou tossed and turned, sleep eluding him.
Zhang Zhengyuan’s words had opened his eyes to a greater ambition.
Before this, his highest aspiration was to become a wealthy old landlord like Landlord Wang, spending his days with a full belly and no worries.
Now, a new dream had taken root: he would become an Immortal.
He even began to indulge in a petty fantasy. One day, once his Cultivation reached its peak, he would come soaring back on a flying sword to find Landlord Wang and that wretched shrew, just to flaunt his power before their very eyes.
Lost in these thoughts, he eventually drifted into a deep slumber.
He dreamed of two powerful immortals locked in a world-shaking battle. They were titans; with a mere flick of their sleeves, they tore the heavens asunder and made the earth groan in agony.
One was a middle-aged man draped in snow-white robes, the other an elder in a pitch-black Daoist cassock.
The man in white possessed an ethereal grace, graceful as a banished immortal and about forty years old.
The black-robed elder was a creature of shadow and malice, exuding an aura of pure evil that made one’s soul shiver.
For reasons he couldn’t name, Xu Changshou felt a profound sense of kinship with the man in white-a resonance that seemed to thrum within his very blood.
Naturally, he willed the white-robed Immortal to emerge victorious.
The scales of fate soon tipped. The elder was no match for the man.
“Wang Mang, you were never my equal,” the white-robed man declared. “Not in the past, and certainly not now. Even with your vile, forbidden arts, you are nothing.”
“Xu Gan! I’ll drag you to hell with me!”
Under the relentless onslaught, the elder staggered, coughing up thick gouts of blood.
“Die!”
The man in white summoned a golden flying sword, which streaked through the air like a lightning bolt toward the elder.
The elder’s eyes flared with a desperate, vicious light.
“Xu Gan… if I am to perish, you shall know no peace!”
His aura suddenly swelled, turning jagged and violent.
“I, Wang Mang, hereby sacrifice a lifetime of Cultivation! I curse the Xu family bloodline-let it be sealed for a hundred thousand years!”
“Cursed wretch! Stop!”
The white-robed man’s face paled with horror.
Boom!
A column of black light erupted as the elder’s body detonated. A mass of foul, shadowy energy surged into the man in white, and the dream dissolved into darkness.
Then, a new vision took shape.
The man in white sat in a lavish hall, surrounded by a crowd of elegantly dressed kinsmen.
His hair was now streaked with grey at the temples, his face etched with bone-deep exhaustion and futility.
The air in the hall was suffocatingly tense; the family members kept their heads bowed, draped in a heavy silence.
“How stand the numbers this year?” the man asked.
An elder stood, bowing low. “Ancestor… three hundred and eighty-nine infants were born to our Xu family this year. Not a single one possessed a Spiritual Root.”
The hall fell into a deathly silence.
Despair clouded the man’s eyes. “What manner of heresy did Wang Mang unleash? If this truly lasts for a hundred thousand years, our Xu family is finished…”
“From this day forth, the Xu family shall withdraw from the cultivation world. We will hide ourselves within the mortal realm.”
“Ancestor, no!”
“We cannot leave!”
“Ancestor, please reconsider!”
The Xu family was in an uproar. To retreat into the mortal world meant abandoning all Cultivation resources; their progress would stagnate.
Xu Gan swept his sleeve through the air, his expression iron-cold. “My decree is final. Speak no more. I intend to enter Secluded Cultivation to forge a Bloodline Jade Talisman for our house.”
“Ancestor… what is a Bloodline Jade Talisman?”
“I will seal our family’s supreme treasure within our very veins. I shall gamble everything to preserve a single sliver of providence for our descendants.”
…
“I, Xu Gan, offer ten thousand years of my own Cultivation to seize a chance for my kin. Bloodline Jade Talisman-Form!”
Xu Changshou hovered in a daze, watching a colossal jade talisman manifest above his head. It was rectangular and loomed larger than a mountain peak.
The character ‘Xu’ was carved on the front. On the back was an ancient, intricate script-a complex array of hundreds of strokes that looked like a primordial talisman.
With his meager literacy, Xu Changshou couldn’t hope to decipher it.
Boom!
The mountain-sized talisman suddenly plummeted toward him. Xu Changshou jerked awake, drenched in a cold sweat.
His throat was parched, and a searing heat radiated from his chest.
Wait… what is this?
He reached for the source of the heat and felt the smooth surface of a mutton-fat jade pendant.
He gave it a gentle tug. It was strung on a gold thread, and it was hanging around his neck.
“How did this get here?”
He pulled the pendant free and held it up against the moonlight. His heart skipped a beat. The dream hadn’t been a dream at all.
The front bore the character ‘Xu’, and the back held the same labyrinthine talismanic script.
“The Bloodline Jade Talisman!”
His mind was a whirlwind of confusion. What did that dream mean? What was his connection to the Xu family of old?
And what exactly was this treasure?
Maybe it was always inside me, he mused. Maybe it only manifested because I finally sensed the flow of Qi.
It was strange-utterly bizarre. The ancestor, Xu Gan, had called it the Xu family’s greatest treasure. What could it be?
He didn’t have the answers, but he knew one thing for certain: this talisman was something important. It was tied to the ancient secrets of his bloodline.
I cannot tell anyone about this—not even Zhang Zhengyuan.
He suspected that only by mastering a true Immortal method could he unlock the talisman’s mysteries.
Sleep was now impossible. His anticipation for the “real” Cultivation techniques burned hotter than ever.
As the first light of dawn touched the horizon, he was already standing outside Zhang Zhengyuan’s door.
A moment later, the door creaked open. Zhang Zhengyuan stepped out, his expression unusually grave. “Changshou.”
“Disciple is here, Master.”
“Starting today, I shall impart to you the true path of Cultivation. However, before I begin, you must agree to one thing.”
“What is it?” Xu Changshou asked, tilting his head.
“The techniques I shall teach you belong to the Green Immortal Sect,” Zhang Zhengyuan said solemnly. “I am a member of that Sect, and for you to learn our ways, you must also join our ranks.”
“Oh?”
Xu Changshou hesitated, his mind racing.
He knew nothing of this Green Immortal Sect. What if they were some heretical path? The elder in his dream had proven just how terrifying evil Cultivators could be.
Seeing the boy’s hesitation, Zhang Zhengyuan’s voice grew sharp. “Kid, do not refuse a toast only to drink a forfeit. Joining a Sect is the dream of countless people. Once you are part of the Sect, you will have plenty of cultivation resources at your fingertips. You can study any technique you desire and obtain whatever Magical Artifact you want.”
Xu Changshou’s eyes brightened. “Is the Green Immortal Sect truly that grand? Is it powerful?”
Zhang Zhengyuan nodded with absolute conviction. “The Green Immortal Sect is not only a bastion of the righteous path, it is the preeminent Sect in all the world. You should be laughing in your sleep for even getting the chance to join.”
“In that case… I’ll do it! I’ll join!” Xu Changshou agreed, his excitement bubbling over.
If the Sect was half as glorious as his master claimed, it was a hundred times better than being a cowherd for Landlord Wang.
“Excellent. I shall now grant you the supreme method of our order.”
Zhang Zhengyuan tapped the small cloth pouch at his waist, and a jade slip appeared in his hand.