"Master, tomorrow I'm going to the county seat for my school preparations, and I won't be able to visit you every day anymore. Here is your favorite Huadiao Wine, aged ten years, and your favorite beggar's chicken wrapped in lotus leaves. Today, let's drink and eat to our hearts' content," said a young man in front of a tomb on Baiyun Mountain, holding a jug of Huadiao Wine and placing a beggar's chicken in front of it, along with two porcelain bowls, pouring wine into the bowls while muttering to himself.
This young man was named Ge Dongxu, a villager from Ge Family Village at the foot of Baiyun Mountain. Buried in the grave was his master, Ren Yao.
Ge Dongxu had followed him in cultivation practice from the age of eight until Ren Yao's death at fourteen. Now, two years after Ren Yao's death, Ge Dongxu was a sixteen-year-old teenager. Because he had been admitted to Changxi No. 1 Middle School, he was leaving for the city tomorrow and had come to bid farewell to his master today.
Speaking of Master Ren Yao, although Ge Dongxu had followed him in cultivation for six years, he knew very little about his life, and didn't even know his name until right before he closed his eyes for good. All along, his master had been a crazed old man whose sanity fluctuated.
Ren Yao didn't often appear in the village and mostly lived in a dilapidated small Daoist temple deep in Baiyun Mountain. On the rare occasions he did visit the village, he was usually seen in a demented state. The mischievous children in the village, seeing the old man in such a state, would playfully chase him, throwing rotten fruits and mud at him.
Ge Dongxu, being naturally humble and kind-hearted, was not like other mischievous children. Whenever he saw his peers throwing things at the old man for fun, he always stepped in to shield Ren Yao. As a result, he ended up being the one covered in dirt.
Once, when Ge Dongxu was protecting Ren Yao and got dirty again, Ren Yao suddenly became lucid, drove the other children away, and after staring at Ge Dongxu for a long time, he suddenly asked, "Would you like to accept me as your master and follow me in cultivation?"
Ge Dongxu was about to shake his head, but seeing Ren Yao's white hair and ragged clothes, looking quite pitiful, he inexplicably nodded and agreed.
Ren Yao was overjoyed and immediately took Ge Dongxu to meet his parents to formally accept him as a disciple.
Ge Dongxu's parents naturally refused to let their son be apprenticed to a crazed old man, although he seemed very normal at that time.
Whether it was the shock of being rejected by Ge Dongxu's parents or not, Ren Yao's sanity slipped again right there and he left muttering to himself.
From then on, he would come to visit Ge Dongxu every now and then.
Seeing Ren Yao in his demented state persistently bothering their son, Ge Dongxu's parents were afraid he might harm him. After a few visits, they couldn't help but try to drive him away.
No matter how much they tried to send him away, Ren Yao still came every few days, and Ge Dongxu's parents still insisted on chasing him away, not letting him near their son.
Until one day, when Ge Dongxu suddenly developed a high fever that wouldn't subside, and the doctors were at a loss, Ge Dongxu's parents, tear-filled and desperate, were preparing to send him to the city for treatment, when Ren Yao suddenly appeared, scooped up Ge Dongxu, and ran off.
Ge Dongxu's parents, frantic, chased after him. Strangely enough, although Ren Yao was clearly an old man with white hair, he ran faster than Ge Dongxu's father with a child in his arms, and soon disappeared into the forest.
At the time, Ge Dongxu's parents didn't think much, seeing their son being carried off into the woods by a demented old man and disappearing from sight, tears streaming down their faces, fearing the worst as their son's fever was not subsiding.
But to their utter surprise, while they were desperately searching the mountain and calling their son's name, Ge Dongxu suddenly appeared from a small mountain path running towards them, not only looking very spirited but also moving agilely, nothing like his feverish self before, who was so drowsy and weak that he could barely stand.
From that day on, Ge Dongxu's parents made a significant decision to allow their son to apprentice under Ren Yao, the intermittently crazed and lucid old man.
Interestingly, after Ge Dongxu's parents gave their consent, Ren Yao suddenly became mostly lucid. However, although Ren Yao became mostly lucid, he hardly remembered past events, nor did he know his own name. Later, Ge Dongxu's parents noticed a scar on the back of Ren Yao's head and speculated that he must have suffered some head trauma, which was why he was like this. They wanted to take Ren Yao to the city hospital for a check-up, but Ren Yao stubbornly refused, and there was nothing they could do.
Fortunately, apart from not remembering his past and occasionally losing his mental clarity, Ren Yao remembered the matters of cultivation. He taught Ge Dongxu how to draw talismans, identify various herbs, locate and hit acupoints, and practice breath control.
When imparting these teachings, Ren Yao always took Ge Dongxu to the Broken Taoist Temple on the mountain, forbidding Ge Dongxu's parents from watching. Fortunately, after following Ren Yao in his practice, Ge Dongxu had not fallen ill since then and seemed to become exceptionally intelligent and agile. He learned things much faster than other children his age, and he was also much stronger. Thus, Ge Dongxu's parents let Ren Yao teach their son. Sometimes they were curious, but they thought that Ren Yao must be a mysterious figure from the martial world with his own rules, so they refrained from asking what exactly Ge Dongxu learned from Ren Yao.
As parents, as long as their son was healthy, everything else was secondary.
Two years ago, in a summer, Ren Yao finally succumbed to the ravages of time and passed away. In his final moments, perhaps as a last flicker of brightness before his passing, he suddenly remembered some past events. Regrettably, the time left to him was too short, and Ge Dongxu only learned a small part of these memories; it was then that he finally learned his master's name.
Thinking back on the little details of the past with his master, Ge Dongxu became lost in thought until the wine filled his porcelain bowl and spilled out, at which point he suddenly snapped back to reality, wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes, poured the bowl filled with Huadiao Wine over Ren Yao's grave, and then picked up another bowl and gulped it down until it was empty.
A blush crept over his still somewhat youthful and simple face, but it quickly faded.
"Master, after you left, I have diligently practiced every day and have not slacked off. I haven't shown off the skills you taught me in front of others, nor have I used them for wrongdoing. Rest assured, no matter where I go, I will always remember your teachings," Ge Dongxu said as he poured another bowl of Huadiao for Ren Yao and drank one himself, also eating some beggar's chicken.
"Also, Master, I have some good news for you. During my morning practice today, I finally broke through to the Qi Cultivation Third Layer. You probably didn't expect my progress to be this rapid. This is all thanks to the Bagua Furnace pendant you left me. It contains another universe, holding the cultivation insights of our Pill Talisman Sect ancestor Ge Hong, and also includes the complete volume of the Baopu Nine Pill Mysterious Scripture. Unfortunately, this secret was discovered too late, or else you might have been inspired by this Pill Scripture and not left your disciple so hastily," Ge Dongxu said as he reached for a small Peach Wood Sword pendant hanging around his neck. The Peach Wood Sword pendant looked ordinary, but when Ge Dongxu touched it, a faint green light flowed over it, emitting a slight fragrance of peach wood.
In fact, there used to be another old-fashioned Bagua Furnace pendant hanging there, left to him by Ren Yao when he died. Once, by accident, Ge Dongxu dropped a drop of his blood on it, and the Bagua Furnace reacted to his blood, entered his body, and disappeared without a trace. At the same time, many cultivation-related knowledges, especially on medicine and pill-making, inexplicably filled Ge Dongxu's mind.
Originally, Ge Dongxu had practiced with his master Ren Yao for six years, barely breaking through to the Second Level of Qi Cultivation. But since acquiring the cultivation knowledge from the Bagua Furnace pendant and the complete Baopu Nine Pill Mysterious Scripture, his cultivation speed had increased significantly, achieving the Third Layer in just two years.
As he chatted with his master and ate and drank, Ge Dongxu didn't notice that he had emptied a five-kilogram jar of wine. Despite being only sixteen, aside from a slightly flushed face, he showed no signs of drunkenness.
Seeing the jar empty, Ge Dongxu finally stopped talking, respectfully kowtowed three times to his master's grave, then got up and walked down the mountain along a narrow path.
The path was overgrown with weeds, clearly a trail seldom trodden.
At the end of the path lay Ge Family Village. Ge Family Village used to be a poor and secluded mountain village, but in recent years, Changxi County had vigorously developed tourism. City dwellers liked to escape the summer heat and play in the mountains, and Ge Family Village, located at the foot of Baiyun Mountain, the tallest mountain in Changxi County, had luckily benefited from this development. The village had not only gained paved roads but also, due to the influx of tourists, many villagers had opened small stores or homestays in their homes, effectively earning money without leaving their houses.
To attract tourists, the villagers even promoted their ancestral hall, claiming that Ge Family Village was the birthplace of the legendary Taoist scholar, alchemist, and medical practitioner of the Eastern Jin dynasty, Ge Hong.
Previously, Ge Dongxu had not believed it, thinking it was just a tale fabricated by the village elders to attract tourists. But since the Bagua Furnace pendant merged into his body and his mind filled with various new information, he had realized that he truly was a descendant of Ge Hong, which was why his drop of blood had reacted with the Bagua Furnace pendant passed down by the Pill Talisman Sect ancestor Ge Hong.
Ge Dongxu's mother, Xu Suya, was a private tutor at the village elementary school, and his father, Ge Shengming, ran a homestay at their home, serving both as chef and boss.
It was the end of August. The weather in Jiangnan Province was still scorchingly hot. However, it was cooler in the mountains, and since the children were still on summer vacation, many city dwellers liked to come to Baiyun Mountain to escape the heat and have fun. With the increase in tourists, Ge Shengming's homestay business had also greatly improved.
Thinking of the recent good business at home and that it was now mealtime—an urgent time for help at his father's place—Ge Dongxu quickened his pace.
But before he could reach home, from a distance Ge Dongxu saw many people gathered around the courtyard of his house, pointing and gesturing inside.
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