Anniversary

On this day, Wei Yuan suddenly remembered that an entire year had passed since he arrived at the Palace of Grand Beginning. Were it not for attending classes every day during daylight hours, he might have struggled to tell whether he was a human or a jade toad. In all honesty, the time he spent inhaling and exhaling the moon's luminescence far outweighed anything else. By now dusk had fallen, and a bright moon was rising. A slight chill laced the evening breeze, and tall trees cast mottled shadows across the desolate small courtyard. It was originally an evening of melancholic beauty, but the mere sight of the moon made Wei Yuan want to vomit. Still, on the first anniversary of embarking upon the immortal path, he couldn't just let it pass like any ordinary day, could he? So Wei Yuan arranged cups and dishes on the stone table in the courtyard, poured clear water into a teacup, and placed a single Qi-Ingesting Pill right in the center of a plate. This was the anniversary feast he had prepared for himself. Speaking of which, the last time he had tasted mortal food was at Bao Yun's banquet; since then, Wei Yuan had eaten nothing but plain rice, and had been doing so for an entire year. This year had been exceptionally arduous. The pocket money Perfected Fenhai had given him was gone long ago, and Wei Yuan even owed the Hall of Inspiring Thought over two thousand taels. In addition, there were class expenses that could not be bought on credit, so Wei Yuan had no choice but to borrow from the public fund Bao Yun had established. Over the course of the year, he had borrowed several thousand taels more. Tallying it all up, Wei Yuan was more than ten thousand taels in debt—quite an achievement in its own right. This year had been especially lonely. Ever since meeting Perfected Fenhai, Wei Yuan had seen Zhang Sheng barely a dozen times in total, adding up to less than half a day all told. Aside from attending classes, Wei Yuan spent nearly all his time sitting on the boulder, staring blankly at the round moon. Ah, for a jade toad, sitting and lying down were really the exact same posture. Inhaling and exhaling lunar luminescence? By now, Wei Yuan could do it in his sleep. This year had brought mountain-crushing pressure. At this stage, it no longer mattered whether one tried hard or not; after all, there were only twelve two-hour periods in a day, and one could hardly conjure an extra two hours out of thin air. Looking back over all that had happened in the past year, it took only a single thought to cover it all. Wei Yuan sighed softly, sat down by the table, raised his cup to toast Wei Youcai far away in Yongzhou, then toasted Zhang Sheng, and drained it in a single gulp. Then he picked up the Qi-Ingesting Pill, assumed an air of heroic grandeur, tilted his head back, and swallowed it. "What are you doing?" Zhang Sheng's voice suddenly rang out from behind him. Wei Yuan gave a tremendous start, and the Qi-Ingesting Pill immediately stuck in his throat, neither going down nor coming up. Turning his head, Wei Yuan saw Zhang Sheng's expressionless face. His cheeks flared with heat at once as blood rushed straight to his head, and he wished he could dig a hole and bury himself on the spot. Zhang Sheng simply stared at Wei Yuan, watching until Wei Yuan's face turned from crimson to purple. Just as Wei Yuan looked about to cough up a mouthful of blood from pure mortification, Zhang Sheng suddenly smiled. Wei Yuan felt the ten-thousand-zhang mountain pressing upon his heart vanish without a trace, and a surge of wild joy welled up inside him. He could not remember how long it had been since he had last seen his master smile. Zhang Sheng glanced at the teacup on the table and the neatly arranged empty dishes, and Wei Yuan's face flushed crimson once more. There were two pairs of chopsticks laid on the table. Zhang Sheng could hold back no longer and burst into hearty laughter, laughing so hard that Wei Yuan wanted to smash his head against a wall. Only after laughing until his stomach ached and he could barely straighten his back did Zhang Sheng finally rein in his amusement. Straightening his expression, he said, "The Patriarch divined the heavenly secrets and foresaw that your cultivation would reach completion today. He specifically instructed me to bring you to Sky Azure Hall." "Cultivation reached completion?!" Wei Yuan was overjoyed. A full year! Wei Yuan had inhaled and exhaled lunar luminescence to the point where he almost forgot he was human. Even though the shadow in the full moon remained identical to when he had first begun, since the Patriarch declared his cultivation complete, it could not possibly be wrong. Zhang Sheng had said Patriarch, not Grandmaster. Within Sky Azure Hall, Patriarch could only refer to True Monarch Xuanyue. With the Patriarch summoning him, there was naturally no time to lose. Zhang Sheng released his flying sword and took Wei Yuan into the air. However, chuckles still escaped him from time to time, causing the flying sword to wobble and drift up and down. Every time Zhang Sheng chuckled, Wei Yuan felt like leaping off the sword. As they flew, Zhang Sheng suddenly remarked, "Today marks one year since you entered the palace. It truly is a day worth commemorating." Wei Yuan paused, his nose suddenly stinging with emotion. He hadn't expected Zhang Sheng to remember. Over the past year, he had only seen Zhang Sheng once a month, to the point where he had almost feared his master had abandoned him. In the past year, Wei Yuan had grown quite a bit taller, his height already surpassing the tip of Zhang Sheng's nose; patting his head was no longer convenient. Zhang Sheng patted Wei Yuan on the shoulder and said gently, "Foolish child, the immortal path is long. You and I, master and disciple, still have many days ahead of us." Wei Yuan's nose twitched again, and his eyes grew a little dry and sore. The flying sword wobbled like a drunkard, but it remembered the way after all, and eventually they arrived at the main hall of Sky Azure Hall. Sky Azure Hall's main hall stood eighty-eight zhang high, far more magnificent than the side hall where Perfected Fenhai resided. Wei Yuan and Zhang Sheng took their stand inside the hall, and soon heard a gentle, resonant voice from high above: "You are Wei Yuan? Bring forth your visualization chart and let us see." Wei Yuan sat cross-legged. The cultivation technique was already engraved in his very bones; before he had even entered deep meditation, the visualization chart manifested, and the jade toad eagerly gulped down a massive mouthful of lunar luminescence! At this moment, the visualization chart did not just appear within Wei Yuan's sea of consciousness—it materialized at a one-to-one scale right in the center of Sky Azure Hall. In the middle of Sky Azure Hall appeared a colossal boulder, upon which crouched a terrifying jade toad nearly a hundred zhang tall. Its head already brushed the hall's ceiling, while the round moon was stranded entirely outside the roof! Such a massive main hall of Sky Azure Hall could not even fit a single visualization chart?! Silence filled the great hall. At last, True Monarch Xuanyue's voice sounded again: "Wei Yuan, you have practiced the Jade Toad Gazing at the Moon Chart for three hundred and sixty-five days, but you must expand it no further. I shall impart to you a method that will allow you to enter Body Casting immediately. Go first to the side hall to cultivate." Wei Yuan rose obediently and headed to the side hall to cultivate. He wasn't the least bit surprised by the visualization chart in the hall; after all, he spent every single day contemplating toad life, so there was really nothing novel to look at. After Wei Yuan departed, six figures materialized in the hall, Perfected Fenhai among them. Looking upon that jade toad that connected heaven and earth, the several Perfected were all silent. The great hall suddenly vanished from sight, revealing the complete visualization chart, and everyone seemed to stand suspended in the void. This was True Monarch Xuanyue using divine abilities to conceal the hall so everyone could view the chart in full. True Monarch Xuanyue asked, "Zhang Sheng, you are his master. Did you know he had cultivated to such an extent?" Zhang Sheng said, "This disciple is busy day in and day out and only goes once a month to give guidance. At first I thought the visualization chart was a bit large, but after seeing it enough times, I grew accustomed to it. Moreover, there were no flaws or errors in Wei Yuan's cultivation, so this disciple did not interfere." "And just what have you been busy with?" True Monarch Xuanyue's tone held a faint note of rebuke. Zhang Sheng seemed to cast a casual glance at Perfected Fenhai, but said aloud, "Nothing much." True Monarch Xuanyue did not press the matter, saying instead, "Though the otherworldly fortune remains, Wei Yuan has absorbed it for three hundred and sixty-five days. As the saying goes, excess is as bad as deficiency; he must draw from it no longer." Within the colossal full moon, that cluster of shadow appeared exceptionally distinct. Those of shallow cultivation might perceive nothing, but the Perfected present all felt a faint unease. One Perfected said, "Otherworldly fortune is different from our world's fortune after all. Wei Yuan converting it into his own foundation—is that not tantamount to theft?" True Monarch Xuanyue said, "That is precisely what I worry about. Therefore, I shall personally intervene to seal the passage of fortune." Another Perfected spoke up suddenly: "Having been drawn upon for three hundred and sixty-five days without changing in the least... wouldn't this otherworldly fortune be almost comparable to the grand fortune of heaven and earth?" Only then did the other Perfected realize this point, and each sucked in a sharp breath of cold air. From the air descended a slender strand of lunar luminescence—the signature Daoist art of True Monarch Xuanyue. When the lunar luminescence touched the full moon of the visualization chart, the shadow inside blurred and began to dissipate. As the shadow in the moon dispersed, the several Perfected inexplicably breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as though they had stepped away from a lethal danger. Yet right at that moment, the shadow abruptly expanded at extreme speed, spilling directly out of the full moon, and from within the shadow emerged a three-eyed avian head! The moment it appeared, it swept its gaze across the hall, and finally locked its eyes on Zhang Sheng.