Chapter 51: Past Events

Master Yao, having lived a lifetime, prided himself on weathering countless storms, yet he had never witnessed a technique that could turn boiling water into ice.

Perched upon the house beam, the crow had observed the scene for a good while before finally succumbing to curiosity, fluttering down to the counter for a closer look.

Dark Cloud, attempting to pounce, was effortlessly waved away by the crow's light wing.

Master Yao raised his head, fixing his gaze upon Chen Ji. "What principle is this?"

Chen Ji felt a pang of embarrassment.

*When a saturated solution's temperature drops, its solubility decreases, causing precipitation and crystallization.*

This was a simple concept to him, but explaining it to the inhabitants of the Ning Dynasty would necessitate a journey through realms of knowledge far beyond their ken.

Master Yao twirled the small crystal, utterly bewildered. How could a bowl of water, boiled and boiled, ultimately transform into ice? And yet, it wasn't even cold to the touch.

"Young man, what is this?" Master Yao questioned, his voice laced with doubt.

Chen Ji chuckled. "Precisely what you just spoke of – something fierce and overbearing."

Master Yao grew even more bewildered. "From where did you learn this method of refining gold? Huang Mountain or Lao Jun Mountain? But those Daoists would never transmit such secrets... Could it be Wu Ji Mountain and Tai Ji Mountain?"

Chen Ji remained silent, unable to reveal the source of his knowledge.

Master Yao sneered. "Fine, if you won't speak, then don't... I shall only ask you this: how great can the power of this thing be?"

Chen Ji pondered for a moment, then stated cautiously, "...It is not yet complete. If finished, destroying a building should pose no problem, correct?"

Master Yao stroked his beard, as if weighing his words before offering counsel. "Though our sect is called 'Swallow Dragon,' we must plan slowly and not act with undue haste. Once you master the art of medicine, a multitude of high officials will invite you to their homes in their dying moments. You must not seek quick success and instant benefit. Know that greed for more leads to loss."

Chen Ji understood. His master was concerned that he might lose his head and resort to using this substance to murder officials of the Ning Dynasty in a bid to gain Ice Flow.

He quickly replied, "Master, I do not seek to accelerate my cultivation speed. This is for self-preservation."

"Oh..." Master Yao nodded, reclining back into his bamboo chair. "Very well, continue then."

Within the main hall, a leisurely old man reclined on a lounge chair, a young man with rolled-up sleeves diligently working, a crow and a cat playfully chasing each other. A sense of peace and tranquility pervaded the scene.

Chen Ji suddenly spoke. "Master, thank you."

"Thank me?" Master Yao raised an eyebrow. "Did taking six taels of silver from you make you foolish? Don't go mad in the middle of the night. Money in my hands won't be returned. Don't play the emotional card."

Chen Ji smiled and asked, "Master, 'Heaven creates chaos, just and soft begin to intersect and difficulty is born, move in danger, water thunder 屯'. This hexagram, how exactly should it be interpreted?"

This was the hexagram Master Yao had divined before Chen Ji had gone to the Late Star Garden.

Master Yao lay on the bamboo chair, rocking back and forth with his eyes closed. After a long silence, he finally spoke. "In an absolute situation, a new opportunity is bred. One who receives this hexagram, moves towards death and is born."

Chen Ji nodded. "So, on the evening you went to the Late Star Garden, it wasn't that you feared danger, but that you divined that trip would yield Ice Flow."

Master Yao did not reply.

Chen Ji continued, "Though you say to avoid danger, on the evening I was at Zhou Cheng Yi's mansion, you still came to save me."

Furthermore, this master, though cold on the surface, had a warm heart. If he truly held no concern for matters unrelated to him, how could he allow Liang Dog Er to live in the medical hall and teach himself knife skills?

The medical hall remained quiet and peaceful. The crow watched Chen Ji silently, its eyes seeming to convey approval.

But Master Yao spoke. "These are all your own blind guesses. Don't indulge in wild thoughts at your young age."

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

"Thank me for what? It will be good enough if you don't hate me later," Master Yao said with a沧桑 (cāngsāng, meaning weathered or vicissitudes of life) tone.

"Hate you?"

Master Yao chuckled. "Do you think the cultivation path I gave you is a good thing? Everyone at a young age thinks that as long as they possess abilities beyond the mundane, they can become a great hero in the Jianghu. But what do you think the cultivation path is? It is a cage and a curse that traps the world's officials."

Chen Ji remained silent.

Master Yao sighed. "Once you embark on the cultivation path, masters must protect their apprentices, fathers must protect their sons, brothers must protect their brothers, causing good families to fall apart. Do you think Liang Dog Er is happy? If he were happy, he wouldn't need to drink alcohol... Moreover, what you should be worried about now is what to do if you encounter other officials on the cultivation path, the 'Mountain Lords'."

Chen Ji murmured softly, "You didn't say to kill them all and then pass it down to me. You still left behind some aftereffects..."

Master Yao glared. "This is still blaming me? Then what? Now give me one hundred thousand taels of silver, and I will go kill him for you!"

Chen Ji changed the subject. "How many other Mountain Lords do you think are still outside?"

Master Yao seemed to be deep in thought. "How many furnace fires can you light with one ginseng now?"

"Two."

Master Yao, lying on the chair with his eyes closed, said lightly, "This is very easy to calculate. Before you became a Mountain Lord, I could light three furnace fires with one ginseng... Therefore, there should only be one Mountain Lord left outside. After I die, you can light three furnace fires with one ginseng; if you kill the other Mountain Lord as well, you can light six furnace fires with one ginseng. Tempted?"

It turned out that the increase or decrease in the number of cultivators so intuitively influenced cultivation.

As this thought crossed his mind, Master Yao slowly sat up, looking at Chen Ji with surprise and uncertainty. "This fierce and overbearing thing you made, you're not going to use it to deal with me, are you?!"

Chen Ji couldn't help but laugh and cry. "What are you thinking? I definitely won't betray you. Rest assured."

Master Yao was noncommittal. "Human hearts are separated by belly skin. Only you yourself know what is in your heart."

Chen Ji leaned against the counter, purifying the earth nitrate while contemplating. His master, in fact, was far from as cold as he appeared on the surface, but no matter who tried to approach him, he would actively keep them at a distance of a thousand miles.

"Master, you yourself did not..." Chen Ji's words trailed off halfway, for he did not know if he could ask.

Yet, he heard Master Yao say calmly, "Are you asking if I personally killed my own son? Yes. You've held this question in your heart for a long time, haven't you? Finally, you couldn't help but ask me."

"Why did you kill him?"

Master Yao laughed coldly, his voice 森然 (sēnrán, meaning chilling or grim). "Because I disliked him hindering my cultivation progress. Imperial Physicians do not solely rely on their salary. The consultation fees from high officials and nobles alone can amount to several hundred taels of silver each year, but how can that withstand the money-burning demands of the Mountain Lord path? With one less fellow practitioner, naturally, there is less money to spend. So, I personally killed him."

At this point, Chen Ji had finished purifying all the earth nitrate. He picked up a cloth, wiped his hands, and casually tossed the cloth onto the counter. "You don't need to scare me. If you were that kind of person, you wouldn't have passed the inheritance to him so early."

...

...

Master Yao closed his eyes, remaining silent for a long time. "In this life, I have no wife, no son, no daughter. In the twelfth month of the fourteenth year of Zheng De, I was walking home after finishing my duties at the Imperial Hospital. It was snowing heavily. I saw a little beggar freezing under the eaves. At that time, I still had a kind heart, so I boiled a bowl of hot ginger soup from home and brought it to him."

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

"I was not yet married at that time, so taking in a beggar was no big deal. I was hesitant and undecided. I had just learned divination then and divined ten times, all bad. But I thought my skills were not proficient, so I didn't believe it. Finally, I decided to gamble on fate and asked for his birth date."

"'Born in the fourth year of Zheng De, on the twelfth day of the twelfth month, at the three-quarters of the丑时 (Chǒu shí, the hour between 1 am and 3 am) at night'," Master Yao seemed emotional. "It was such a coincidence, born at the time of the Mountain Lord path inheritance. I thought at that time that this was perhaps a destiny granted by heaven, so I took him in and raised him as my son."

By this time, Chen Ji had stopped his work and sat cross-legged on the ground beside the rocking chair, listening quietly. Dark Cloud squatted on his shoulder.

Master Yao continued slowly, "I had no intention of seeking the great path of longevity, so I passed the Mountain Lord path to him early, when he was sixteen. I remember he absorbed his first dragon qi from the Supervisor Yang of the Ministry of Works."

"The child was very smart, learning everything instantly. He learned a good hand of medicine from me. There were many high officials and nobles in the capital, and I was too busy, so I let him go to consult with people. But I gradually discovered that the critical officials he treated were not saved. Doubt began to rise in my heart, and I went to his door at night to investigate... Supervisory Court Imperial Historian Liu suffered from lung emphysema, which was clearly curable, yet he prescribed a poisonous prescription."

"He was too smart, so smart that he had thoroughly mastered the principles of medicine, even to the point of prescribing conflicting poisonous medicine that other doctors could not discover. This person, once too smart, easily takes shortcuts..."

"I reprimanded him and punished him by making him kneel in the snow for three days and three nights. At that time, he knelt and cried, admitting his mistake. I thought he was sincerely repentant and did not send him to the Supreme Court yamen. But it was this softness that led to an unforgivable mistake."

"Within the following year, he became more covert, even secretly poisoning my meals. My first crow was poisoned to death by him."

Having said this, Master Yao looked at the crow in the medical hall. "The first one accompanied me for twenty-one years. This is the second one, which has accompanied me for fifty-three years."

The crow flapped its wings and landed on Master Yao's shoulder, gently helping Master Yao comb his white hair with its beak. Dark Cloud also jumped onto the armrest of the lounge chair and patted Master Yao's hand with its furry paw.

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

Master Yao shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it anymore, I'm tired."

Master Yao did not say what happened after he was poisoned, nor did he say how exactly he killed that adopted son. It seemed there were still other secrets hidden.

Chen Ji suddenly recalled that on the night he came out of the Zhou mansion, Master Yao had divined to avoid a small beggar. It turned out that the heavy snow in the twelfth month of the fourteenth year of Zheng De had chilled the old man's heart.

The passionate blood and kindness in this human world seemed to always turn into a sigh.

Master Yao opened his eyes and looked at Chen Ji. In his沧桑 and calm eyes, he seemed to be looking at another person through Chen Ji, and also at his past self through Chen Ji.

Master Yao slowly got up and went to the back room. "Rest assured, I will not hinder your matters for too long. You and I do not need to have master-apprentice affection."

After Master Yao disappeared into the door of the main room, Dark Cloud meowed. "He fears you are the next little beggar."

Chen Ji hummed in response. "I won't be."

Master Yao brought him to the vicinity of the King of Jing's mansion, meticulously arranged for him to harvest Ice Flow, and even took in Liang Dog Er to teach him knife skills. Regardless of the other's attitude, Chen Ji would not forget what the other had done for him.

Wait.

Cloud Sheep said that Master Yao, highly respected in the capital's Imperial Hospital, had suddenly chosen to come to Luo City and live next to the King of Jing's mansion...

The King of Jing's mansion?!

Chen Ji suddenly realized something. According to his speculation, Master Yao wanted to find another apprentice before he died and pass on the Mountain Lord path.

But how could he make his apprentice grow quickly? He needed to quickly obtain Ice Flow.

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

But Master Yao was proficient in divination and could naturally calculate accurately where disasters would occur and where Ice Flow could be absorbed!

Master Yao's sudden resignation and move to Luo City must be because he had calculated that the King of Jing's mansion would face a great disaster!

...

One chapter today.