Li Mutian's funeral was exceedingly grand. It did not look like the death of an ordinary mortal elder, but rather of a commandery commandant or commandery governor. Long banners of white mourning cloth stretched across every village, and the direct descendants of the Li family, dressed in white mourning robes, held the funeral cords and guided the hearse along the flagstone paths.
The news swept through the villages like a gust of wind. Chen Erniu had just gotten out of bed when the word brought back by Chen Sanshui left him dumbfounded.
Setting down the willow branch in his hand, Chen Erniu rinsed his mouth and sat quietly by the table, an indescribable sorrow welling in his chest.
"No matter how great a figure someone is, death is inevitable. If one fails to cultivate immortality, one is nothing more than a mound of yellow earth in the end."
Chen Sanshui curled his lip dismissively. "It's solely because the three Li brothers stepped onto the path of cultivation. How could an ordinary old man warrant such pomp in death? That Li Mutian wasn't anyone extraordinary either."
Chen Erniu narrowed his eyes, snatched up the willow switch, and lashed it hard across Chen Sanshui's body, spittle flying as he cursed, "Fool! You worthless scoundrel, you'll be the death of yourself with that stupidity!"
"Right, right, Fourth Brother is always the best—just because he has a spirit aperture, isn't that so?"
Chen Sanshui muttered a few retorts, picked up his bowl and chopsticks, left the table, and walked out into the courtyard, paying no heed to Chen Erniu's dark, scowling face behind him.
***
Mount Lijing.
Looking out across the courtyard draped in plain white mourning cloth, Lu Jiangxian saw the empty wooden chair in the backyard where Li Mutian used to sit. A sense of bleak melancholy stirred within him. As he watched Li Mutian being laid to rest, his divine sense was suddenly triggered. In the distance, he saw the gleaming light of a flying shuttle streak through the sky, rapidly approaching before coming to a slow halt outside Mount Lijing's grand formation.
"Xiao Yuansi of the Xiao family has come to pay a visit! Please open the mountain gate!"
Xiao Yuansi waited outside the mountain. Even though the mountain-protecting grand formation beneath his feet was as flimsy as nothing to a cultivator who had already broken through to the eighth layer of Qi Refinement, he still stopped courteously.
Before long, the two brothers Li Xiangping and Li Tongya opened the grand formation. Only then did Xiao Yuansi slowly descend into the courtyard. Seeing Li Xiangping and Li Tongya dressed in white robes and the entire yard draped in plain mourning colors, the smile faded from his face, and he asked somberly:
"Could it be that the elder..."
Seeing the two brothers nod, Xiao Yuansi sighed, offered his condolences, and said in a low voice:
"Jing'er and I will depart for Nanjiang in a few days. There may be no word from us for decades. Junior Brother petitioned the sect for orthodox Qi Refinement and qi-harvesting formulas for you. Since I was returning home for a visit, I brought them along."
"This is the third-grade River Unity Qi Formula. It requires swallowing river clear qi. You must find an area crisscrossed by waterways where cattails and calamus flourish. At dusk and dawn, when the clear qi rises and the turbid qi sinks, you can harvest it from the river's surface with the harvesting technique. It takes about six months to collect one strand, and ten strands make up a full portion."
Xiao Yuansi patted his brocade pouch, retrieved several jade slips, and continued:
"As for this second-grade Pure Spirit Origin Method, it uses Xiaoqing spirit qi. Gathering ordinary spiritual energy will suffice. Though it falls short of the River Unity Qi Formula, it is still better than the common cultivation methods on the market."
Li Tongya hastily took the slips Xiao Yuansi handed over and thanked him in a low voice. Only then did he notice Xiao Yuansi let out a soft sigh, his expression turning conflicted as he said:
"Qingsui Peak's protection has its limits. The winds and clouds are shifting, and turbulent waves are rising. Please take good care of yourselves!"
His master Si Yuanbai had gone into secluded cultivation under mysterious circumstances, and the disciples of Qingsui Peak had not been permitted to see him even once. Meanwhile, voices within the sect urging several of them to depart for Nanjiang grew increasingly insistent. All of this gave Xiao Yuansi a keen foreboding that something was deeply amiss.
Suddenly recalling how Xunlin Plain, a territory under Qingsui Peak, had been silently ceded to the Tangjin Sect to be pillaged, Xiao Yuansi felt the hairs all over his body stand on end. It felt as though he were merely a tiny bargaining chip held in the hands of those Purple Palace cultivators, and he lost himself in thought for a moment.
*The immortal sect has made frequent moves in recent years, repeatedly transferring the mortals under its rule. Could the rumors be true—is one of the Purple Palace elders in the sect nearing the end of his lifespan?*
A chill ran down Xiao Yuansi's spine. It took several tentative calls from Li Tongya and Li Xiangping to pull him back to reality. Forcing a smile, he asked:
"What is it?"
Li Tongya cupped his hands and said, "We wished to ask whether the Immortal Master happens to have any of this river clear qi with you. We have saved some wealth and would like to buy a portion."
Xiao Yuansi's troubled expression and cryptic words made the two brothers anxious as well. With the Shanyue restless in the west and the Ji family watching hungrily in the east, Li Tongya wanted to advance to Qi Refinement as early as possible. If he had to spend five years gathering river clear qi and another four or five years breaking through to Qi Refinement, it would likely be too late.
Conveniently, slaying the old Daoist had yielded some valuables that could probably be traded piecemeal for thirty or forty spirit stones. Combined with the old Daoist's storage bag, which measured a full zhang square, they could fetch eighty or ninety spirit stones—more than enough to buy river clear qi.
"I do happen to have some."
Xiao Yuansi nodded, untying a small jade bottle from his waist with a smile. He said softly, "There is still one portion left in this bottle. Xieqi Peak usually sells it for around fifty spirit stones. Can you afford it?"
Li Tongya nodded. With a flip of his hand, he produced the melted chunk of pale-azure metal taken from the old Daoist from his storage bag and asked respectfully, "May I ask what this item is worth?"
Xiao Yuansi glanced at it, furrowed his brows, weighed it in his hand a couple of times, and pondered, "It should be azure-veined steel, a material for the Qi Refinement stage. A piece of this size is worth about twenty spirit stones."
Li Tongya and Li Xiangping exchanged a glance and nodded. He then took out twenty-five spirit stones from the old Daoist's storage bag, combined them with the five spirit stones the family had accumulated over the past few years, and handed them to Xiao Yuansi in exchange for the portion of river clear qi.
The old Daoist's storage bag was a full zhang wide and long, and a zhang high—comparable in volume to an entire courtyard. It was of immense value whether on the march or for storage, so the two brothers were naturally reluctant to sell it.
The two retrieved the jade bottle that had once stored the fire baleful qi to hold the river clear qi. Then they brought out the old Daoist's Yuya Pill for Xiao Yuansi to inspect. Xiao Yuansi merely took a sniff and smiled:
"A fine Qi Refinement resource. It is also worth about seven or eight spirit stones."
The two brothers offered their thanks and conversed with Xiao Yuansi for a while longer before he took his leave.
Once Xiao Yuansi had flown far into the distance, Li Tongya finally opened the jade bottle gently. Looking at the river clear qi, shimmering like river water beneath bright sunlight, the six Embryonic Breathing wheels inside his body stirred eagerly, giving him an urge to swallow this heaven-and-earth spirit qi right then and there.
Li Xiangping smiled softly and whispered, "Once Second Brother breaks through to Qi Refinement, we can deal with that Qi Refinement monster. Then we can offer sacrifices to the magical mirror and try that talisman qi."
Li Tongya also wore a look of irrepressible joy. He took out the jade slip for the River Unity Qi Formula and slowly extended his spiritual sense into it.
Qi Refinement formulas and cultivation methods were often exceedingly lengthy. If recorded on wooden slips, they would likely pile up into a small hill. Thus, jade slips crafted from warm jade were used instead; one needed only to probe into them with spiritual sense to read the contents.
However, these jade slips were delicate and fragile, usually reserved solely for recording cultivation methods, while sending messages still relied on durable materials such as spirit silk fabrics.
Having read through this orthodox formula carefully, Li Tongya raised his head, his spirit radiant, and said in a deep voice:
"Once I regulate my breath for a few days, I can enter secluded cultivation to break through to Qi Refinement!"
Chapter 83