“In the two hundred and sixteenth year of the Dali Era, the Manyue chieftain Jianixi advanced east, plundering the two towns of Lichuan and Lijing, before breaching the mountain gate and departing.”
Li Jingtian held the brush with fingers as fair and slender as scallion stalks, carefully setting down the records on silk while pausing now and then to count the dates on her fingers.
“Beset by the Shanyue, the Lord advanced west into Dajueting, repeatedly breaking out from dead ends and throwing fifteen villages into turmoil. The barbarian commander was struck with immense terror and cursed him to death. The Lord vomited blood, and locusts poured from his mouth. He then passed away at thirty-nine years of age. The eldest son of the eldest branch, Xuanxuan, took charge of the household affairs.”
Having finished this passage, Li Jingtian let out a sorrowful sigh. Her plain white mourning robes fluttered gently in the breeze. Beside her, Li Tongya looked up and saw her continue writing on the silk:
“In the seventeenth year, during the fourth month of summer, a great drought struck. The fifteen Shanyue villages suffered a plague of locusts that swarmed from the south, blotting out the sky.”
“Good.”
Li Tongya gave a slight nod. He had wanted to set about compiling the clan history a few years ago, but affairs at home had been frantic and demanding, with descendants of every main branch saddled with important duties. It just so happened that Li Jingtian had free time now, and coming from the direct line of the main branch, the task was entrusted to her.
Li Jingtian raised the brush to dip it in ink, set the finished sheet aside, and drew out another piece of silk. Just as she was about to write, a voice announced from outside the courtyard:
“Chen Donghe requests an audience!”
“Come in.”
Li Tongya watched Chen Donghe stride into the courtyard with brisk, heavy steps, also clad in mourning white.
Chen Donghe stole a downward glance at Li Jingtian behind the curtain, clasped his fists, and said, “This subordinate has an important matter to report.”
Pausing, Chen Donghe hesitated as though struggling to speak. It had already been several months since his return to the village, but Li Tongya was always coming and going like the wind, making it rare to cross paths with him. Gritting his teeth, he said, “The clan head once instructed… that this matter must be reported to Senior Tongya alone.”
Behind the curtain, Li Jingtian looked up abruptly. Setting her brush down gently, she bowed and withdrew. Li Tongya’s expression grew grave as he dismissed the attendants around him. Then he saw Chen Donghe produce a crystal-clear pearl from his robes, kneel, and say in a low, solemn voice, “The clan head told me that this pearl must be delivered into Senior’s hands in person. Donghe did not dare slacken along the way, nor have I spoken of this to anyone else.”
Li Tongya took the pearl and lifted it gently. Sealed within the translucent crystal was a thumb-sized, pure-white rhombus fragment, glittering brightly in the sunlight and quite lovely to behold.
Just as Li Tongya was about to speak, the Xuanzhu talisman seed within his body gave a violent jolt, jolting his heart with shock. He shut his mouth at once, regained his composure, and replied with an even expression, “I understand. I have noted this contribution.”
Dismissing Chen Donghe, Li Tongya tapped his storage bag, only to discover that the treasure could not be put inside. Left with no choice, he tucked it into his robe, nodded to Li Jingtian as she stepped back into the courtyard, and strode out toward the side courtyard.
***
Lu Jiangxian’s divine sense had already coiled around the pearl. Seeing Li Tongya hurry toward the rear courtyard and sensing his own connection with that fragment, he was even more astonished.
‘So the magical mirror was nothing more than an ash-gray base plate, and what seemed to be a mirror surface was merely its own reflective polish… The original mirror surface shattered long ago, entirely lost!’
And that very fragment inside the pearl in Li Tongya’s hand was one of those lost shards of the mirror surface!
The magical mirror itself was only the size of a palm, while the fragment was the size of two fingernails, already accounting for a tenth of the entire surface. Lu Jiangxian looked upon it with immense longing, but he suppressed the urge to snatch it over and waited quietly behind the courtyard.
Li Tongya bowed slowly and set the pearl upon the altar. Lu Jiangxian immediately stirred his dharmic power. Blazing white light surged forth from the mirror as the ash-gray body hovered upward.
The twelve seal characters encircling the mirror’s edge lit up one by one. The blazing white radiance rose and fell like rippling water across the surface, and an overwhelming pressure blanketed the courtyard, suffocating Li Tongya.
Lu Jiangxian drew up the pearl. Great Yin profound light gushed forth, melting the crystal shell like snow meeting a raging inferno until it dissolved into a white ribbon of light—astonishingly, a strand of talisman qi at the Foundation Establishment level.
As the mirror shard slowly bonded with the mirror’s body, an intense drowsiness and profound sense of fulfillment washed over him. Busy entering hibernation to integrate the shard, Lu Jiangxian caught that strand of talisman qi and cast it into Li Tongya’s Shengyang Mansion.
Lu Jiangxian’s vision blurred momentarily, and several lines of bold characters emerged.
At the very top, traced in strokes of pale gold, weighty and steady, each word stood out in heavy ink:
“Vast Ocean Leviathan.”
Below it, in dark gray strokes, sharp and biting as if chiseled from iron and stone:
“Exhaust Life for Success.”
Back then, Li Xiangping had three types of talisman qi to choose from, whereas Li Tongya only had two. It seemed the available types were tied to the recipient’s inherent aptitude, while the rank of the talisman qi determined only its potency upon conferral.
Sinking his divine sense into the phrases, Lu Jiangxian could roughly sense the differences between the two talisman qis.
The Vast Ocean Leviathan Talisman endowed the recipient with enduring dharmic power, making true essence as profound and vast as the sea, allowing them to recover dharmic power between breaths at several times the speed of an ordinary cultivator.
The Exhaust Life for Success Talisman allowed the recipient to expend lifespan in exchange for dharmic power, unleashing several times their normal strength for a short period.
Having read through both, Lu Jiangxian chose the Vast Ocean Leviathan Talisman without hesitation.
He hoped Li Tongya could walk further along the path so the Xuanzhu talisman seed inside him could be nurtured for several more decades before being reclaimed. Moreover, given Li Tongya’s temperament, he was hardly the sort to throw away his lifespan to wage desperate battles; the Vast Ocean Leviathan Talisman was far more practical.
“I’ve set you up with your edge. Guard the clan well; I’m going to sleep for a while…”
Lu Jiangxian muttered to himself and slowly sank into slumber. Down below, Li Tongya felt only a stream of white qi sink into the space between his brows. Within his Shengyang Mansion, a pale white strand of talisman qi emerged, bearing four glittering golden characters:
“Vast Ocean Leviathan.”
“A white talisman?!”
Before Li Tongya could even react, the spiritual wheel in his Qi Sea trembled, and his cultivation erupted like a volcano.
“Qi Refinement third level… Qi Refinement fourth level… Qi Refinement fifth level…”
The deep pool within his Qihai acupoint expanded violently, growing five to six times larger than before. The aura that had previously brimmed with true essence dropped away, leaving Li Tongya feeling as though only twenty to thirty percent of his total cultivation remained filled.
Shaken beyond self-control, Li Tongya parted his lips and muttered to himself, “What an exaggerated talisman qi… So there was a strand of talisman qi within that pearl… Vast Ocean Leviathan Talisman, how formidable!”
Seeing the ash-gray mirror slowly settle down before him, Li Tongya respectfully offered three deep bows. He then stepped out of the courtyard, sat cross-legged, and began to condense his true essence.
Yet the moment he settled down, he was nearly startled out of his meditative state once more.
‘The Qi Sea is five or six times larger, yet the rate of true essence recovery has accelerated by more than tenfold! I thought restoring it would take four or five shichen, but now it seems it won’t even take a single shichen!’
Sitting cross-legged in meditation, it took Li Tongya barely half a shichen to complete his breath regulation. Feeling the true essence within him as deep as an abyss and as vast as the sea, he muttered under his breath, “Even if three of my former selves were bound together, they would struggle to surround and kill the me of today; instead, they would be ground down to death by me…”
Riding the wind into the air, Li Tongya’s spirits lightened considerably, and he thought to himself, ‘That large karst cave in the lake is brimming with spiritual energy. Once hands can be spared, we can renovate it. It spans well over a dozen mu in size, surely matching many cave abodes on Meichi Mountain. We won’t have to worry about a place of cultivation for the future.’
He touched his storage bag. His share from wiping out the Ji family had yielded fifty spirit stones, which, combined with the proceeds from selling goods and their surplus over these years, came to around seventy spirit stones in total.
*Clang…*
Li Tongya drew a spear gleaming with chilling light from his storage bag. It was the Foundation Establishment magical artifact obtained from the serpent cave. Strands of electric light flickered across the gleaming snow-white shaft, stinging Li Tongya’s palms with numbness.
“Sigh…”
Li Tongya gave a bitter laugh. Not only did he know nothing of spear techniques, but without the corresponding cultivation base, a Foundation Establishment magical artifact could not be wielded anyway; it could only gather dust in his storage bag.
‘The clan’s grand formation has yet to be erected, so I’ll keep it on me for now.’
Putting the spear away, Li Tongya brought out another jade slip.
This jade slip differed from ordinary ones. It was purple throughout, cold to the bone to the touch, and its hardness far exceeded imagination; Li Tongya estimated that even using his full strength, he could not damage it in the slightest.
‘According to Zhang Yun, this is the River Daling Classic lost after Lingyu Gate was wiped out. I wonder what kind of cultivation method it is.’
This jade slip was locked by a dharma seal. When his spiritual sense brushed against it, it felt like striking an iron wall. Li Tongya had no choice but to put it away and wait until he had gathered more information in the future.
Stepping into the front courtyard, he saw Li Xuanxuan absorbed in reading wooden slips. Li Tongya sat down gently beside him and asked in a low voice, “How are matters at home?”
“Fairly well.”
Li Xuanxuan nodded and explained, “The Shanyue refugees have reached twelve hundred. Added to the Shanyue already in the village, the total exceeds five thousand.”
“The village population under our jurisdiction has reached thirty thousand. Lijing Village alone has gathered ten thousand people, with over eight hundred of the Li clan and more than three thousand descendants of the Ye clan.”
Li Tongya glanced at the wooden slip in his hands and mused, “With numbers like that, there will likely be quite a few born with spirit apertures next year. Keep a close watch; do not allow these Shanyue to stir up trouble in secret.”
“Your nephew understands.”
Li Xuanxuan nodded firmly and explained, “I have already issued an order prohibiting marriage between Shanyue. Their women are to be married to our villagers, and their men must marry into farming households as matrilocal husbands. The Shanyue have no concept of family names, so they bear little aversion to adopting new ones. In just two or three generations, the distinction between Shanyue and villagers will cease to exist.”
“Good.”
Li Tongya let out a soft chuckle, then shifted the topic, teasing, “I hear you have six concubines?”
Li Xuanxuan froze, then nodded somewhat awkwardly and hurried to explain, “Those were from the year before last, arranged for me by Third Uncle…”
“Branching out and multiplying is a good thing; our main branch still has too few members.”
Li Tongya smiled and nodded. “Just do not become so indulged in carnal pleasures that you neglect your cultivation.”
Li Xuanxuan nodded repeatedly and said, “Nephew has recently touched the edges of the Yujing Wheel, the fifth layer of Embryonic Breathing. Before long, I will be able to enter seclusion to break through.”
Li Tongya stood up, looked toward the setting sun outside the window, and said in a heavy voice, “What did the people sent to the Lu and An families report?”
“Word has come back from both sides. The Lu and An families each govern over twenty thousand people; one has occupied Mount Huazhong, and the other has taken Mount Huaqian…”
Li Tongya listened as Li Xuanxuan recounted the details of both families, then spoke up: “At present, the villagers under our clan’s rule have nearly run out of land to reclaim, and our population growth has reached its limit. For now, keep an eye on these two families and await an opportunity.”
“Yes…”
Li Xuanxuan complied. Raising his head, he pondered for several breaths before speaking in a strained voice, “There is just one more matter.”
Li Tongya furrowed his brow and asked gravely, “What else is there?”
“I see that Donghe… seems to hold feelings for Jingtian.”
“Donghe.”
Li Tongya sank into thought, a flicker of sorrow crossing his expression as he replied, “Donghe has good talent and an upright character. But Xiangping has only just passed, so it is not fitting to discuss marriage now. Ask Jingtian whether her heart is set on anyone first, and we can discuss the rest later.”
***
Late at night, moonlight draped gently across the stone path, and the cool mountain breeze was remarkably refreshing.
By candlelight, Li Jingtian carefully read over the records she had written over these past few days. From outside came a series of gentle knocks on the door, followed by the voice of a clan soldier standing guard:
“Young Miss, the clan head summons you to the main courtyard.”
Li Jingtian paused, only then realizing that the ‘clan head’ he referred to was Li Xuanxuan. Blowing out the candle on her desk, she answered softly, “I understand.”
Tidying her things, she opened the door gently, only to be slightly startled upon seeing the youth before her. She raised an eyebrow. “Donghe?”
Chen Donghe nodded somewhat awkwardly, murmuring, “Jingtian… the clan head sent me to fetch you.”
Her brows knit slightly, and she asked in confusion, “Why trouble you to make the trip? Did the clan head mention what it is about?”
Chen Donghe gritted his teeth, his hands clenching tightly as he stammered, “I… you… ah! The clan head asked me if I wanted to… become a pair with you…”
Li Jingtian’s eyes widened slowly, her almond eyes staring straight at him in obvious shock. A single word escaped her slightly parted lips:
“Ah…?”
The two exchanged glances for several seconds, and Li Jingtian had already read the answer in his burning gaze. Walking silently along the paved path, she felt slightly breathless, her hands turning cold as though she already understood what she was about to face.
From Li Jingtian’s silence, Chen Donghe understood as well. The longing and bright hope in his eyes were extinguished like a fire pit drenched by rain, reduced to a cold, stirred puddle of ash.
Pursing his lips, he saw Li Jingtian into the main courtyard, then slumped down by the courtyard gate, staring blankly at the bright, clear moon.
Her heart pounding with trepidation, Li Jingtian stepped inside. Li Xuanxuan was the only one seated above, holding a wooden slip and reading it quietly and attentively.
Unlike Li Xiangping, who had always preferred to sit upright in that seat, Li Xuanxuan spent far more time standing beside the desk, as if someone were still seated in the grand chair, causing him to constantly check his own conduct.
“Jingtian…”
With just a glance, Li Xuanxuan had read the answer from Li Jingtian’s eyes, yet he still spoke gently from his position of authority, “How do you view Donghe?”
Li Jingtian saw the faint glimmers of anticipation in Li Xuanxuan’s gaze and understood that her eldest brother wished to form a marital alliance with a capable subordinate like Chen Donghe, bringing such bloodlines into the Li clan.
“He possesses valor, is reliable enough, and has good talent. Not yet fifteen, he is already at the third layer of Embryonic Breathing, with hopes of Qi Refinement.”
Li Jingtian answered calmly. Li Xuanxuan nodded as well, stepping down and speaking in a low, coaxing voice, “Among the men of the various towns, who else could compare to him? Spend more time with him, and interact with him often…”
Li Jingtian listened as Li Xuanxuan offered his well-meaning counsel, her mind utterly blank, and she walked out in a daze.
Chen Donghe was nowhere to be seen before the gate. Walking along the paved path for a while, Li Jingtian suddenly felt a deep sense of insignificance and unease. Raising her head to gaze at the bright moon, she thought to herself quietly:
‘If only I possessed a spirit aperture as well.’
Chapter 104