Life Supplement

Then the old Taoist asked again, "And who is the emperor of the Yan Dynasty?" Lu Zhao answered, "This dynasty has no emperor." "The realm is not yet settled?" The old Taoist seemed certain of it, and asked on with a smile, "Do you, layman, have ambitions for the throne?" Hearing this, Lu Zhao's first thought was not of contending for the throne. He was eligible in theory, but it was still far too distant. A different question concerned him more: to a man of ancient times, what kind of thing were equality for all, and democracy? He took a moment to arrange his words, then explained, "This dynasty was founded by the common people. The one who fills the great seat is chosen by the people, six years to a term. That is why there is no emperor." The old Taoist blinked. Lu Zhao blinked too. The two of them sat silent for a moment. "Absurd!" For the first time, there was rise and fall in the old Taoist's voice. Even a man who saw the changing of dynasties with total clarity found that the very concept of a "nation without a sovereign" lay wholly beyond what he knew. "The succession of the great seat bears on the peace of the state. The sacred vessel of all under heaven—how could it be treated as a child's game and settled by a vote?" "If it is not handed down generation to generation to secure the foundation of the state, then at every change of power, ambitious strongmen everywhere will hoard their armies. Would that not mean turmoil across the realm every six years?" The old Taoist pressed on, question after question, speaking faster than usual, with an almost instinctive repulsion. "Common folk are born in the streets and markets. Their eyes reach no farther than a few zhang; their ears can hardly reach the county seat. Their joys and sorrows are only for food and warmth. How could the common man know the heights of the court? How could he weigh the stakes of the four seas?" Lu Zhao listened quietly, waiting until the other had gone still, then answered in a clear voice, "Master Taoist, times have changed. In today's Yan Federation, everyone can read, knows letters, understands law. I won't claim they all have the ability of a xiucai or a tongsheng, but they are hardly ignorant." Compared against history, a modern person who had finished compulsory education matched an ancient clerical official; one who could enter a key university matched a tongsheng. Education set the floor of what a person could be. Modern people were "smarter" than the ancients, and that was what could sustain a system of popular election. Lu Zhao explained it all to the old Taoist piece by piece, from the education system to how officials and talent were selected and promoted in the new era. The more he heard, the more silent the old Taoist became. He began with a single cry of "Absurd!", moved on to rebuttal, and at last sank into silence and thought. Step by step, following Lu Zhao's explanations, he came to understand this "nation without a sovereign"—universal schooling, then the new era's systems for selecting officials, judging their performance, and promoting them. Once he had the general picture, the old Taoist began to ask questions. He was no longer simply rejecting; his questions struck straight at the core contradictions. First: since succession was not hereditary by blood, and it was proclaimed that the ten thousand people chose their rulers, had the high gates and noble houses of the new dynasty died out? A commoner's son might have talent and learning, but without gold paving his way or a noble to speak for him, could he enter the halls of state? Second: officials raised up by appointment had no footing in old families, and their rank would not pass down through the generations—were they not all the more eager to graft and amass wealth, using office to turn a profit in business? Third: if elites took part in governance in the people's stead, and such men drew salaries of over ten thousand, could they drink from the same well as peddlers and porters? These questions pointed at the fundamental contradictions of society under the brand-new system Lu Zhao described—the very things that could never be laid openly on the table. Lu Zhao perceived that the old Taoist was not wholly a man beyond the world. He understood the great affairs of family and state intimately, and could see through to their essence from beyond his own age. He could not give an affirmative answer, and could only say, "At least compared with before, the current machinery of rule is more advanced." The old Taoist did not dispute it. Then he brooded a moment, and the topic suddenly leapt away from education and elections. "What is the yield per mu in Shenzhou today?" Scholars do not till the soil. To feed so many people at their books, how much grain does it take? In an instant, the old Taoist seemed to have seized the essence. What rules the court kept did not matter. What mattered was where the money came from. Lu Zhao had been a farm boy in both his lives, and he answered without pausing to think, "Counting paddy rice: terraced fields in the mountains, well tended, give seven or eight hundred jin a mu. Level ground with connected paddies yields at least nine hundred jin." "By the old dou of the Ming, the harvest from one mu of good land would fill a little over ten dan. Mountain terraces are poorer, but still... around six and a half dan." He was heartily glad he was a psychic superhuman; otherwise he would long since have given back every lesson his history teacher ever taught him. Then it dawned on Lu Zhao too. The old Taoist had grasped the essence of how social systems change. Democracy is not shouted into being, and civilization is not drilled into being either. If productive power has not grown and the way things are produced has not changed, the Yan Federation is no different from Great Ming. The Taoist master was by no means a man above worldly affairs. The old Taoist fell silent again. The new things in Lu Zhao's words kept his mind working every waking moment. After a long while, he let out a deep breath. "If it is truly as you say, layman, then today's Yan Federation is indeed a land where everyone is like a dragon." He no longer dwelt on "rule without a sovereign." His old detached calm returned, and with a sweep of his sleeve he brushed a patch of ground clean for Lu Zhao; a rush cushion appeared out of thin air. "All the dust of the past is already mist and smoke. Come sit here, layman, and this poor Taoist will teach you the wonders of qi refinement." "The crux of qi refinement is, first, to tell the postnatal from the prenatal. Breathing through mouth and nose guides the postnatal qi—it is but a rung on the ladder of borrowing the false to cultivate the true. Embryonic breathing in the navel warms and nurtures the true prenatal breath; only that is true cultivation." "You are gifted, layman. At a single pointing you took hold of the postnatal qi. The prenatal qi will take more work." The rush cushion was faintly warm. Old and young sat facing each other. The old Taoist chanted no scriptures and made no mystical talk; what he taught was the warp and weft of heaven and earth. Lu Zhao sat with his spine straight, his mind easing a little. It was as if he were back at university, in the psychic-department classrooms where each lecture drew fewer than ten students, listening to an old professor dissect psychic studies. A different place—but that pure silence of people seeking knowledge was the same. Nothing of the border's hardships, nothing of bandits and gun smoke; one had only to set one's heart at ease and be taught. Though Lu Zhao had not been formally accepted as a disciple, the substance of master and student was already there. ----- Early the next morning—that is, May 26—Nanhai West Circuit was hit by heavy rain again. Lu Zhao gulped down life supplement in great mouthfuls and recorded the effects of refining essence into qi. "Yesterday I tried it many times. After converting 0.1 of life, if I kept circulating qi, my whole body ached. In scientific terms it's overdevelopment—the body can't bear it. Every prodigy on record controls the pace of their development." In the ideal state he needed three bottles of life supplement a day to hold the pace of 0.1 life force gained per day. But life supplements were a state-controlled item. Ordinary people could buy only a limited amount, and only with a qualification certificate, and the price was steep. Take the brand Lu Zhao usually drank, Lang: Lang Tequ, five hundred milliliters, ten thousand kilocalories, priced at 1,000. After the economic downturn that followed the Cataclysm, the Federation's average income was 2,800 yuan. Official units enjoyed purchasing privileges; within set quotas they could push the price down to 50 percent of the market rate, or lower still. How much of the discounted quota one could buy was tied directly to one's post, rank, and record of service. Lu Zhao reckoned up his own quota. First lieutenant's rank: a base allowance of 5 doses a month. Stationed in a hardship border region, plus 1. A second-class merit, plus 3. Two third-class merits, plus 2. Eleven doses of life supplement issued each month; his quota at half the market price came to thirty bottles. Lu Zhao's monthly salary, with all its allowances, was 25,000 yuan. Fifteen thousand of it would buy the full quota exactly. What weighed on him more was the household's everyday spending, the steady stream of medical fees for his mother's long-term chronic illness, and his niece, who was in the golden period of life potential development and needed large amounts of resources as well... Not much could be squeezed out just to buy his supplements. Life scan: [35.6] The tiny improvement settled Lu Zhao's heart a little. As long as his life development kept climbing, the problems would be solved in the end. He used his phone to message Zhang Like and borrowed another ten thousand for emergencies. With so many debts already, one more was no burden. There would surely be rich repayment in the future.