"Lu Liangsheng—"
As far as the sight reaches, there is endless darkness. When the old man's voice sounds, it is accompanied by the faint croaking of frogs.
"Master... Master..."
With a somewhat panicked tone, Lu Liangsheng looked around. The extended darkness gradually revealed the outline of a courtyard. Dim yellow lights were on in the rooms of the nearby courtyard. There was a rustling noise, and figures were looming. People were whispering in front of the paper windows, and some were lying on top of them as if trying to break the paper windows to peek into the outer courtyard.
The atmosphere was eerie.
"Master!" Lu Liangsheng shouted again, and suddenly dodged subconsciously. He took a step to the side, and dots of green appeared in the soil. Then, it broke through the soil and grew rapidly visibly, becoming thick and tall. In the blink of an eye, it became a towering ancient tree. When the night wind blew, the lush branches and leaves swayed gently.
The air flowed, and a stone table and stone bench appeared. Lu Liangsheng rubbed his eyes, and when he opened them, an old man with white hair and beard was sitting there, wearing the gray robe he wore during the day.
"Master... Is this a dream?" Lu Liangsheng asked carefully.
The old man looked at him carefully for a moment, then nodded: "This is a dream, it can also be true, it all depends on your ability." He took the gourd with black patterns from his waist, tipped it on the stone table, and a wine glass appeared out of thin air, catching the wine flowing down.
"Liangsheng, come and try it." He then picked up the wine glass and raised it over.
Lu Liangsheng hesitated for a moment, but still walked over and took it from the old man. The wine in the glass was shaking, crystal clear, and had a rich aroma.
He had drunk a little wine before. When someone in the village got married, a banquet would be held to invite the whole village to dinner, and there would be some wine, but the wine now was particularly mellow.
It's a bit pungent in the throat at first, but the rest is a sweet aftertaste, and a tingling sensation runs through every part of my body.
"It cleanses away the filth of mortals."
Lu Liangsheng held the wine glass and raised his eyes: "Ah?"
“You don’t need to understand so much. Just do everything I say.” The old man had a blank expression on his face. He rolled his wide sleeves to both sides, stood up, walked to the young man, and put his hand on the top of his head.
"I have practiced cultivation all my life and have been kind to others, but I was attacked and seriously injured. I thought you were alone in the old forest, but I didn't expect to have a connection with you. I will give you a good fortune. How far you can go depends on you."
"Then literacy..."
The old man took his hand back, still expressionless: "You already know how to do it."
"Yes?"
Lu Liangsheng touched his forehead and felt nothing at all. When he was half-believing and half-doubting, the old man turned around, turned his back to him, and looked up at the night sky.
"I will now teach you a set of breathing formulas. If there is a bright moon in the sky at night, you should face it and breathe according to the formulas. If you encounter something you don't understand, you can come to the Qixia Mountain Grottoes to find me."
Qixia Mountain is the mountain where Lu Liangsheng often went to collect firewood.
There were only a few dozen words, some of which were dry and difficult to understand. Even though Liangsheng had a talent for writing and drawing, it took him almost half an hour to memorize them.
"Okay, everything is done. The two books I gave you were obtained by my master from him. They are all some small magic tricks. Pick up some and practice them. Remember, don't tell others about them."
After saying this, the old man flicked his sleeves.
The dim lights flickered, and everything around slowly disappeared. The darkness surged in like a tide, and Lu Liangsheng felt as if he was embraced by darkness.
The raindrops slid over the tips of the thatch and fell onto the soil on the eaves. There was an inaudible sound, a soft "pop". On the thatched wooden floor, the boy shouted in his dream: "Master—"
He opened his eyes and sat up from the bed.
In his field of vision, the sun shone through the thick rain clouds. The incense burning by the window had long burned out, and the ashes were scattered all over the ground with water stains. The fresh morning breeze mixed with water vapor blew in through the window lattice, and the slightly cool chill woke Lu Liangsheng up.
Outside, Li Jinhua was calling out to the two hens, and her sister ran over with firewood in her arms, humming a little tune she had learned from somewhere, and everything became real again.
The figure on the bed quickly got down, put on his shoes, took out the two books from under the bed, looked at the words on them, and murmured subconsciously.
“The Remnants of the Southern Water… The Dream of Youth…”
The slight voice suddenly stopped. Lu Liangsheng's eyes widened, he pinched his cheek, and stood there in astonishment while holding the two books: "I... really can read..."
"Liangsheng! It's time to eat."
Li Jinhua's voice came from the kitchen. Inside the house, the young man hid the book again and hurried out. As usual, after breakfast, he went to the fields with his father to work. In the afternoon, he finally had some time of his own. He found the book and quietly turned a few pages. Now that he could understand it, he chewed over every word and every column in his mouth over and over again.
"… There was a man in Nanshui who knew a simple art. A neighbor left something behind, and a lazy man in the village tried to pick it up, but couldn't get it up… At 2:00 pm, he piled up the earth three inches high and chanted a song to the southwest, which he called the Art of Rocks."
Lu Liangsheng frowned and looked at the sky outside: "Isn't it the afternoon now?"
He put the book away, quietly went out and ran to the southwest of the village. At this time, there were still farmers working in the fields. When they saw the young man, they greeted him with a smile, bent down and continued to work.
Liangsheng found a slightly secluded spot, dug up a pile of soil, followed the instructions in the book, sat cross-legged opposite, pinched his fingers, and silently recited the formulas. These were the side skills recorded in the two books. Ordinary people could not achieve any effect by practicing them, and people with profound Taoism would not bother to use them.
But for a teenager who has not even entered the field, it is quite novel.
During the two days, I was very diligent. At night, if the moon was out, I would run outside in the middle of the night as my master said, worship the bright moon, and recite mantras. I would feel the white light pouring down on my whole body, and the slightly cool feeling would flow slowly through my body like running water.
Sometimes when I went up the mountain, I would run to the huge rock and tell it my doubts. When I went to sleep, I would get the old man's guidance. For four days in a row, not only did my body become lighter, but my thinking also changed rapidly. Compared with my previous confused state, I felt like a different person.
Reading those two books didn't feel boring at all.
On the fifth day, at dawn, Lu Liangsheng was called by Lu Laoshi. He originally thought that they were going to work in the fields, but he saw all the men in the village gathered together. Some of them had donkey carts, which were loaded with a lot of things. Lu Liangsheng's own millet and sorghum grains, several animal skins, more than 20 baskets, and several piles of firewood were also in the bed of one of the donkey carts.
"Eat quickly and come with us into the city." Lu Laoshi stuffed one of the steamed buns his wife had spread out for his son, "We have a long way to go, so eat well."
Not long after, Lu Xiaoxian and Li Jinhua came out from home to see them off, and reminded Liangsheng, who had never been away from home before, not to cause trouble for everyone along the way, not to run around everywhere, and so on.
"Your father promised to buy you a pen. Remember, when you are in the city, don't touch other people's things. City people's things are precious. If you break them, our family can't afford to pay for it."
After some instructions, the time was almost up, and the leading men shouted, so Lu Liangsheng followed his father behind the donkey cart and headed out of the village towards the nearest town.
In those days, it was relatively safe to travel in a group. If you encountered a bad guy, at least you would have someone to take care of you. Most of the people in the mountains were fierce. They would hide sickles and hatchets under the boards of their donkey carts. If you really encountered a robbery, they would dare to risk their lives.
The group of more than a dozen people was moving at a fairly fast pace. They even took a rest in the mountains at noon and arrived in the afternoon, only five miles away from Fushui County.
As dusk approached, people from other villages had already gathered at the market outside the city. Many good things were displayed on the roadside, and vendors collecting goods were coming and going.
One night, Lu Liangsheng finished dealing with all the things at home. Early the next morning, Lu Laoshi took him into the city to look for a shop selling pens and ink.