CHAPTER 54: 51, PAST EVENTS

Old Yao had lived his entire life being accustomed to all sorts of turmoil, yet he had never seen the Water Solidification technique.

Above, a crow looked on for a long time before it couldn’t help but fly to the counter to take a closer look.

When Wu Yun tried to take advantage of the situation to pounce on it, the crow effortlessly brushed it away with a wave of its wings.

Old Yao looked up at Chen Ji, "What is the principle behind this?"

Chen Ji was in a dilemma.

When the temperature of a saturated solution decreases, the solubility lowers, and crystals precipitate out.

It was a simple statement for him but explaining it to someone from the Ning Dynasty would require starting from a distant beginning.

Old Yao fiddled with the small crystal, wondering how a bowl of water could boil and boil yet eventually turn into ice—it didn’t even feel cold.

"What is this thing, lad?" Old Yao asked in confusion.

Chen Ji smiled, "It is exactly what you just described—the robust and domineering thing."

Old Yao grew more perplexed, "Which school of alchemy did you learn from, Huangshan Mountain or Laojun Mountain? But those Taoists wouldn’t spread such a thing... Could it be Wuji Mountain and Taiji Mountain?"

Chen Ji remained silent; he couldn’t explain where he had learned it from.

Old Yao scoffed, "Alright then, if you won’t say... I only ask you, how powerful can this thing be?"

Chen Ji pondered for a moment and cautiously said, "... It hasn’t been made yet, but if it were, destroying a building shouldn’t be a problem, I guess?"

Stroking his beard, Old Yao seemed to carefully choose his words of caution, "Although our school is also known as ’Dragon Swallowing,’ we must proceed slowly and shouldn’t rush. Once you learn medicine, plenty of officials will invite you to diagnose them on their deathbeds. Avoid hasty desire for success, for greed brings loss."

Chen Ji understood; his master was worried about him being crazed, using this device to murder Ning Dynasty officials to obtain Ice Flow...

He quickly said, "Master, I’m not doing this to accelerate my cultivation path but for self-preservation."

"Oh..." Old Yao nodded and lay back down in the bamboo chair, "That’s good then, carry on."

In the main hall, the laid-back old man on the bamboo chair, the young man bustling about with rolled-up sleeves, and the crow and cat playing quietly together, it was peaceful.

Suddenly, Chen Ji said, "Thank you, Master."

"Thank me?" Old Yao raised his eyebrows, "Did the six silver taels I charged you addle your brains? Don’t go mad in the middle of the night. Once money enters my hands, it doesn’t come out; no playing on sympathies."

Chen Ji, smiling, asked, "Master, ’Sky and earth obscure and dim, the tough and the yielding first meet, and it is hard to give birth amidst dangers; water over thunder, Accumulation.’ How should one interpret this hexagram?"

This was the divination Old Yao had made before Chen Ji went to Late Star Garden.

Lying in the bamboo chair, swaying with closed eyes, Old Yao took a long time before saying, "New opportunities are gestating in desperate circumstances; he who gets this hexagram proceeds from death unto life."

Chen Ji nodded, "So, that night at Late Star Garden, it wasn’t that you feared danger, but you divined that I could harvest Ice Flow there."

Old Yao did not answer.

Chen Ji continued, "You say danger should not be courted, but that night at Zhou Chengyi’s Mansion, you still came to save me."

And, this master, cold on the outside but warm on the inside—if he really had a detached attitude to others’ affairs, why would he allow Liang Gou’er to stay in the medical hall teaching himself sword skills?

The Medical Hall was quiet, and the crow watched Chen Ji silently with a look of approval.

But Old Yao spoke up, "This is all your wild guess, stop daydreaming at such a young age."

Chen Ji earnestly said, "No matter what you say, thank you."

"Thank me for what? Just don’t hate me later, that’s enough," Old Yao said with a weathered voice.

"Hate you?"

Old Yao chuckled, "You think I’m teaching you the cultivation path as a kindness? Everyone thinks when they’re young that if they possess abilities beyond the mundane world, they can become great heroes in Jianghu. But what do you think the cultivation path is? It’s a curse and a prison that ensnares all the executive officers in the world."

Chen Ji fell silent.

Old Yao sighed, "After gaining the cultivation path, a master must guard against his disciple, a father against his son, a brother against his brother, tearing a good family apart. Do you think Liang Gou’er is happy? If he were happy, he wouldn’t need to drink...Furthermore, what you ought to be worried about now is what to do if you encounter other executive officers from the Mountain Lord Sect."

Chen Ji muttered softly, "You didn’t even kill them all before passing it to me, leaving some troubles behind..."

Old Yao glared, "Are you blaming me now? What am I supposed to do, give me ten thousand taels of silver and I’ll go kill him for you!"

Chen Ji shifted the topic, "How many Mountain Lords do you think are still out there?"

Old Yao thoughtfully replied, "Currently, how many stoves can you light with one ginseng root?"

"Two."

With his eyes closed on the lounge chair, Old Yao breezily said, "It’s easy to calculate. Before I become a Mountain Lord, I could light three stoves with one ginseng root... So, there should be only one Mountain Lord left. After I die, you’ll be able to light three stoves; if you kill the other Mountain Lord, you could light six stoves with one ginseng root. Does that tempt you?"

Indeed, the increasing or decreasing number of people had such a direct impact on cultivation.

Thinking of this, Old Yao slowly sat up, looking at Chen Ji with uncertainty and alarm, "You haven’t created this formidable substance to use against me, have you?!"

Chen Ji couldn’t help but laugh and cry, "What are you thinking, sir? I definitely wouldn’t stab you in the back, rest assured."

Old Yao remained noncommittal, "The heart is separated by the belly; only you know what you’re truly thinking."

Leaning against the counter, while refining the saltpetre, Chen Ji pondered that his master wasn’t as indifferent as he appeared on the surface; however, whomever tried to get close was actively kept distant.

"Master, did you really..." Chen Ji began to ask but then stopped, unsure if he could continue.

Old Yao calmly said, "You want to ask if I personally killed my own son? Yes. You’ve been holding that question in your heart for a long time, haven’t you? You finally couldn’t restrain yourself from asking."

"Why did you kill him?"

Old Yao sneered coldly, "Because he was hindering the progress of my cultivation. Though as an imperial physician I don’t rely on a stipend, the consultation fees from officials and nobles alone bring in hundreds of silver taels each year. But who could afford the costly ways of the Mountain Lord Sect’s scripture? One less co-practitioner, naturally means spending less money. So, I personally killed him."

By this time, Chen Ji had just finished refining all the saltpetre. He picked up a cloth to wipe his hands and casually tossed it onto the counter, "You don’t need to scare me. If you were that kind of person, you wouldn’t have passed on the inheritance to him so early."

...

...

After a long silence with his eyes closed, Old Yao said, "In my life I’ve had no wife, no son, no daughter. In December of the 14th year of Zhengde, I was returning home from the Imperial Hospital, and a heavy snow began to fall as I walked along the road. I saw a little beggar collapsed under the eaves, frozen. Back then I was still kind-hearted, so I went home, boiled a bowl of hot ginger soup, and brought it to him."

"The little beggar woke up and begged me to take him in, so I asked him how he became a beggar. He said his parents died from corvee labor, and he was chased out of his home by his uncle and aunt."

"I hadn’t married at that time, and taking in a beggar seemed trivial, so I hesitated. I had just started learning divination and cast the divination ten times, all indicating misfortune, but I thought it was because my skills were not sharp enough, so I did not believe it. Eventually, I decided to take a chance on fate and asked him for his birth time."

"The fourth year of Zhengde, the twelfth day of the twelfth lunar month, born at 1:45 AM," Old Yao seemed touched, "It just so happened that he was born at the time of inheritance of the Mountain Lord Sect’s scripture. At that moment, I thought it must be destiny given by the heavens, so I raised him as my own son."

At this point, Chen Ji had stopped what he was doing, sat cross-legged next to the rocking chair on the ground, quietly listening; Wu Yun was perched on his shoulder.

Old Yao continued slowly, "I had no interest in pursuing the Path of Immortality, so I passed on the Mountain Lord Sect’s Scripture to him early when he was sixteen. I remember the first stream of Dragon Energy he absorbed was from Yang Jiancheng of the Ministry of Works."

"The kid was very smart, catching on quickly to anything he learned, including the fine medical skills I taught him. There are many prominent and high-ranking individuals in the Imperial Capital; whenever I was too busy, I would let him go for consultations. But gradually I realized that all the critically ill officials he treated... not one was saved. I began to suspect and went to verify one night... Imperial Censor Liu was suffering from emphysema. It was treatable, but the kid prescribed a poisonous formula instead."

"He was too smart, smart enough to master pharmacology thoroughly, even if he prescribed contraindicated poisons, other doctors couldn’t detect it. People, once too clever, tend to take shortcuts..."

"I scolded him, punished him to kneel in the snow for three days and three nights. At that time, he knelt and cried, admitting his wrongs, and I thought he truly repented, so I didn’t send him to the Dali Temple’s government office. But this act of leniency was a monumental mistake."

"Over the next year, he acted even more secretly and even secretly poisoned my meals—my first crow was killed by his medicine."

After finishing his account, Old Yao looked at the crow in the Medical Hall, "The first one accompanied me for twenty-one years; this one has been with me for fifty-three years."

The crow flapped its wings and landed on Old Yao’s shoulder, gently combing his white hair with its beak. Wu Yun also jumped onto the armrest of the lounging chair, softly patting Old Yao’s hand with its fluffy paw.

Chen Ji curiously asked, "What happened after you were poisoned?"

Old Yao shook his head, "I don’t want to talk anymore; I’m tired."

Old Yao didn’t say what happened after he was poisoned or how he eventually killed the foster son, but it seemed he was still hiding other secrets.

Chen Ji suddenly recollected the night he left Zhou Mansion when Old Yao had cast divinations to avoid the little beggar—it was the same December from the 14th year of Zhengde when the big snow had completely chilled the old man’s heart.

The warmth and kindness of this world seemed always to dissipate into a mere sigh.

Old Yao opened his eyes and looked at Chen Ji. In his deep, calm eyes, he seemed to see through Chen Ji to another person, as if looking through Chen Ji to his former self.

Old Yao slowly got up to return indoors, "Don’t worry, I won’t impede your affairs for long, and there’s no need for us to have a master-disciple relationship."

After Old Yao disappeared into the main house, Wu Yun meowed softly, "He’s afraid you are the next little beggar."

Chen Ji hummed, "That won’t be the case."

Old Yao had brought him to the vicinity of Prince Jing Mansion, meticulously arranging for him to collect Ice Flow and also taking in Liang Gou’er to teach him sword skills. No matter what the other’s attitude was, Chen Ji would never forget what he had done for him.

Wait a second.

Yun Yang mentioned that Old Yao was highly respected at the Imperial Hospital in the Imperial Capital but suddenly chose to come to Luocheng City, living next to Prince Jing Mansion...

Prince Jing Mansion?!

Chen Ji suddenly realized something: according to his conjecture, Old Yao wanted to find another disciple before his death to pass on the Mountain Lord Sect’s scripture.

But how could he ensure his disciple grew rapidly? He needed the rapid acquisition of Ice Flow.

If it were someone else, they would just have to rely on luck, waiting for officials and nobles to die.

But Old Yao, proficient in divination, could precisely calculate where there would be disasters and where Ice Flow could be absorbed!

Old Yao’s sudden resignation and move to Luocheng City must have been because he predicted a great disaster at Prince Jing Mansion!

...

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