Having settled on the venture with Qin Xiaopang, Li Banfeng prepared to head to Bitter Mist Mountain to harvest snake-spot chrysanthemums.
That evening, Qin Xiaopang went back to pack his gear and invited Li Banfeng to spend the night at his place, but Li Banfeng politely declined.
A dwelling cultivator had to spend at least two hours each day inside his dwelling; that was the most fundamental rule of cultivation. With Qiao Yuesheng's example right before him, Li Banfeng dared not break the rule.
The two agreed to meet at eight the next morning at the noodle shop. But Li Banfeng had no watch, nor any other timepiece. By the time he reached the shop, it was already close to noon.
He couldn't really be blamed for oversleeping; inside the Portable Abode, there was no telling day from night, and the sleep quality was simply too good.
Qin Xiaopang was frantic with worry. "Brother Li, why are you only getting here now? We need to hurry. First we have to make a trip to Ligou."
"What are we going to Ligou for?"
"To buy some handy gear."
Puzzled, Li Banfeng asked, "Aren't we going up the mountain to gather herbs? Wouldn't a trowel and some burlap sacks be enough? Do we really need to go all the way to Ligou to buy those?"
Qin Xiaopang shook his head. "There's no time. I'll explain when we get there."
Treating Li Banfeng to two bowls of plain noodles, Qin Xiaopang downed eight bowls himself. Summoning all their energy, the two ran off toward Ligou together.
Li Banfeng used only thirty percent of his strength, and Qin Xiaopang barely managed to keep pace behind him. So long as a Food Cultivator was well-fed, both their speed and stamina far surpassed ordinary mortals, just barely allowing him to keep up with a journey cultivator.
Earlier, walking slowly from Ligou, Li Banfeng had spent the better part of a day. Running back now, they reached Ligou in under two hours.
Qin Xiaopang was so winded he couldn't speak, leading Li Banfeng straight to Paifang Street.
The moment they entered this street, Li Banfeng grew a bit tense, because the He family ancestral residence was nearby, and Lu Xiaolan was still inside the house.
Qin Xiaopang knew nothing about the He family ancestral residence; his destination was Feng's Grocery Store.
The shopkeeper was dusting the shelves with a feather duster. Seeing the two enter, he promptly came forward with a beaming smile. "Boss Qin, haven't seen you around lately! And to this honored guest, thank you once again for your patronage."
He recognized Qin Xiaopang, and also recognized Li Banfeng, who was still wearing the fedora purchased from him.
Qin Xiaopang was in no mood for pleasantries and asked directly, "Shopkeeper Feng, got any good stuff? I'm heading out on a run."
Evidently, Qin Xiaopang's business was not suitable to discuss over the counter. Shopkeeper Feng called over an assistant to watch the door, then turned to Li Banfeng and Qin Xiaopang. "Gentlemen, please come into the back room for a cup of tea."
Li Banfeng and Qin Xiaopang followed Shopkeeper Feng into the back room. The so-called back room had even more shelves than the front, stacked high with layered tiers of goods and terribly cramped. If not for a tea table sitting in the center, it was purely a warehouse.
The three took their seats around the tea table. Shopkeeper Feng poured the tea and lowered his voice. "Pardon my prying, but may I ask what sort of business you two are undertaking?"
"Bitter Mist Mountain, picking flowers," Qin Xiaopang answered straight out.
After a moment's thought, Shopkeeper Feng took down a small sickle from a shelf.
The blade was less than ten centimeters long, and the handle was even shorter, just enough for a single hand to grip.
Qin Xiaopang stared at the miniature sickle, dumbfounded for a long while. "Shopkeeper Feng, what are you giving me this sickle for? This thing isn't even fit for harvesting wheat."
Shopkeeper Feng seemed equally taken aback. "Boss Qin, didn't you say you were going up Bitter Mist Mountain to pick flowers? This sickle is just the thing for harvesting flowers."
Qin Xiaopang scowled. "I didn't treat you like an outsider, but you're treating me like a fool. If I wanted to buy a sickle, would I need to come to you?"
With a look of helplessness, Shopkeeper Feng said, "Boss Qin, you said you were going to pick flowers, so I brought you a tool for picking flowers. Where did I go wrong?"
Growing anxious, Qin Xiaopang snapped, "Are you truly playing dumb, or just pretending? Can the flowers on Bitter Mist Mountain be picked just like that?"
Shopkeeper Feng shook his head repeatedly. "This time I truly don't understand. If you want this sickle, take it; if not, forget it."
As the two bickered, Li Banfeng began to see the crux of the matter.
Qin Xiaopang knew a little of the inside story regarding Bitter Mist Mountain, but not much.
He also understood a bit of the worldly ways of the Jianghu, but his grasp was limited.
Having grown up in a welfare home and worked odd jobs to put himself through college, Li Banfeng had met many kinds of people and weathered many kinds of situations. He could tell at a glance that the true old veteran of the world was this Shopkeeper Feng.
Stepping in to smooth things over, Li Banfeng said to Qin Xiaopang, "Brother, I don't follow either. What exactly do you want to buy?"
Qin Xiaopang frowned. "Weapons!"
"What do you need weapons for?"
Qin Xiaopang offered only one sentence of explanation: "Flowers are easy to pick, but the mountain is hard to descend."
That single line laid bare the hidden truth.
Snake-spot chrysanthemums were precious. Many people wanted to climb the mountain to pick them, and presumably just as many wanted to snatch them away. Qin Xiaopang wanted to buy a weapon for self-defense.
Shopkeeper Feng naturally understood Qin Xiaopang's meaning, and he countered with a single line of his own: "Carrying a sickle, it's easy to come down the mountain; carrying a Green Dragon Blade, the road becomes hard to travel."
Li Banfeng asked, "What do you mean by that?"
The shopkeeper smiled. "A man carrying a sickle is a farmer; a man carrying a Green Dragon Blade is Lord Guan.
"A farmer keeps his head down and walks quietly. At most, he runs into a petty thief or two; one slash, and the matter is settled.
"Lord Guan walking with a Green Dragon Blade must cross five passes and slay six generals. Without Lord Guan's peerless might, could you ever make it back down that mountain?"
As he spoke, the shopkeeper ran a thumb over the sickle's edge. Li Banfeng truly had an eye for quality and could tell it was a fine blade.
Li Banfeng said, "How much for this knife? I'll buy it."
Beside him, Qin Xiaopang glared wide-eyed. "What's the point of buying this? Let's check out other shops; I have plenty of connections."
Shopkeeper Feng made no move to detain them. "Boss Qin, go ahead and look elsewhere, then. The weapons you're looking for aren't here."
This Shopkeeper Feng was a decent man; he didn't want to bring harm upon Qin Xiaopang.
Li Banfeng insisted on buying the sickle. The shopkeeper asked five hundred, and Li Banfeng didn't haggle, preparing to borrow five hundred dollars from Qin Xiaopang.
It pained Qin Xiaopang to no end. "Five hundred dollars for a tiny thing like this?"
Li Banfeng's tight purse hadn't escaped Shopkeeper Feng's notice.
When he had given him directions the other day, the young man had bought a fedora and a feather duster. Shopkeeper Feng remembered clearly that this was a sensible and reasonable person.
"Honored guest, how should I address you?"
Li Banfeng replied, "My surname is Li. Call me Li Qi."
"Boss Li, I'll give you this knife on credit. Once you return from picking flowers, settling the bill will do just fine."
*On credit?*
Li Banfeng was stunned.
Shopkeeper Feng's smile remained unchanged. "You're a man who can get things done. I trust you."
Li Banfeng expressed his thanks and put away the sickle.
From beneath the counter, Shopkeeper Feng brought out a small trowel around a dozen centimeters long and handed it to Li Banfeng. "Some flowers take deep root and are hard to gather. Do you think this trowel is suitable?"
Li Banfeng took the trowel, inspected its shape, and felt its edge. "How much for this trowel?"
Shopkeeper Feng smiled. "In terms of materials and craftsmanship, this trowel is a cut above that sickle. By rights, asking eight hundred wouldn't be excessive. You know your goods; if you find it suitable, seven hundred and it's yours."
"Seven hundred..." Li Banfeng hesitated. It was indeed a fine piece, but taking yet another item on credit felt inappropriate.
Shopkeeper Feng understood his predicament. "Take it and use it first. If it suits your hand, bring the money by later; if not, just bring it back."
Li Banfeng accepted the trowel, then asked to buy a few cloth bags from the shopkeeper.
Shopkeeper Feng gave him only two. "Two cloth bags are enough. Flowers are easy to pick, but hard to carry down the mountain."
Li Banfeng took the advice. Shopkeeper Feng asked with a smile, "Is there anything else you'd like to buy?"
The Portable Abode had no windows, offering no view of the sun or moon and leaving him unable to tell day from night. Li Banfeng wanted to buy a watch.
Shopkeeper Feng produced a pocket watch. Its body was two sizes larger than a one-dollar coin, its polished silver casing shiny enough to reflect a face.
*Snap!*
Pressing the case open revealed a white dial with twelve exquisite raised markings.
The crown—the stem used to wind the pocket watch—was situated at the twelve o'clock position. Pinching the stem, Shopkeeper Feng turned it several times, then pulled it outward by two notches.
Li Banfeng had seen mechanical watches before. Keeping the crown pushed in was for winding; pulling it out one notch was for setting the time, and two notches was for adjusting the date.
There was no date on this dial, so why had he pulled it out two notches?
*Tick-tock, tick-tick-tock—*
The pocket watch began to play the tune of a music box.
A remarkably familiar melody, one he seemed to have heard somewhere before.
A department store? A restaurant?
*"One honored guest for upstairs?"*
Li Banfeng had worked in all those places; the tune had left a deep impression on him, yet he simply couldn't recall its name.
It had been a long time since he last heard music.
The sound brought him a warm wave of familiarity.
"How much for this watch?"
Shopkeeper Feng held up the watch chain. "A Cheman pocket watch. Authenticity guaranteed or your money back. Two thousand two hundred. This one I can't offer on credit."
Li Banfeng was tempted, but the price was staggering.
Qin Xiaopang grumbled impatiently, "What's the use of buying this thing! You'd be better off buying a clock!"
Shopkeeper Feng merely smiled without answering.
As Qin Xiaopang urged him to leave, Li Banfeng swept his eyes across the shelves to see if anything else might prove useful. His gaze suddenly came to a halt on a strange object.
It was a wooden cabinet—an antique-styled mahogany cabinet about the size of two stacked bedside tables. Protruding above the cabinet were three metallic morning-glory horns.
To be precise, they weren't flowers at all, but three actual speaker horns: one large, its flare wider than a dinner plate, and two much smaller ones, their mouths roughly the size of a fist.
"Is that a record player?" Li Banfeng's eyes lit up. He had seen such things on television; they were machines that played music from vinyl records.
"A record player?" Shopkeeper Feng shook his head. "That's not what it's called."
What it was called didn't matter.
If there was an electric record player, that proved electricity existed.
If there was electricity, he could charge his phone.
Once his phone was charged, this world would be complete!
Even without a cell signal, at least he wouldn't need to buy a watch.
Yet Shopkeeper Feng's answer dashed Li Banfeng's hopes: "We don't have electrical things here. This is a phonograph; it doesn't run on electricity."
Li Banfeng couldn't fathom it. If it didn't run on electricity, how could it produce sound?
Only today did he learn that the most primitive phonographs had nothing to do with electricity or magnetism; they relied on just two things: a needle and a record.
Shopkeeper Feng placed a shellac record onto the platter, pulled a hand crank from a drawer below the cabinet, inserted it into the machine, and turned it vigorously a dozen times.
This was winding the mainspring.
Once fully wound, he flicked a pin, and the record began to spin rapidly on the platter.
Shopkeeper Feng set the stylus down onto the record, and singing accompanied by a gentle hiss of crackle drifted out from the horn.
"Floating clouds disperse,
The bright moon shines on people,
A blissful reunion,
Drunk today—"
*Full Moon and Blooming Flowers.*
The mechanism of an antique phonograph was exceedingly simple.
There were grooves of varying depths cut into the record, carved by the stylus vibrating along with the sound of the song as it was recorded.
Now, allowing the stylus to trace along those grooves on the record, the sound produced by friction reproduced the song as it had sounded back then.
Such was the acoustic principle of the phonograph.
One couldn't claim the audio quality was pristine; in fact, it was rather rough.
Yet Li Banfeng loved the tune, listening with immense pleasure.
Unfortunately, the time was brief; in under three minutes, the stylus reached the end, the spring unwound, and the record ground to a halt.
Qin Xiaopang looked on disdainfully. "What's so great about that? To hear a single tune, you have to crank that handle forever. It's more trouble than it's worth."
"If you don't want to wind it, you can still listen," Shopkeeper Feng said, placing a new record onto the platter.
Fetching an iron cup, he poured two measures of water into the small horn beside the large one.
Shopkeeper Feng struck a match and opened a small door on the lower-right side of the phonograph.
Behind the door was a concealed compartment holding a fixed iron box containing half a tin of grease, with a candlewick standing upright in the center.
Once he lit the wick, a cluster of fire filled the entire compartment.
Li Banfeng had no idea what kind of oil that was, but he could feel its searing heat from quite a distance away.
*Chuff! Chuff! Chuff!*
The small horn to the right of the large one began puffing rhythmically with jets of steam.
The small horn on the left took in water, while the small horn on the right vented steam.
What kind of contraption was this?
Could it be...?
The record on the phonograph began to spin.
A steam-driven phonograph?
Just how intricate a piece of machinery was this?
Li Banfeng stared wide-eyed, his past decade and more of education once again challenged.
After waiting about a minute, the rotational speed of the record gradually stabilized, and Shopkeeper Feng lowered the stylus onto it.
"Butterflies fly away,
The heart is gone too,
In the bleak, cold night, who will come
To wipe away tears covering the cheeks—"
*Wild Grass and Stray Flowers Greet the Spring.*
What a beautiful tune.
Chapter 27