No Calendar in the Mountains, Unaware of Winter's End

Twenty-four years old.

Time flowed on, surpassing Zhu Zhengwei's age in reality.

The family grew increasingly wealthy.

They got electricity and bought a black-and-white television.

They were the only family in the village with a Cell Phone.

In the late 1990s, owning a bulky brick phone was an incredibly prestigious thing.

Every evening, many children gathered outside their house, eagerly crowding around to watch the 1986 version of Journey to the West on the black-and-white television.

Although the territory had continued expanding and now covered over a hundred square kilometers, with children constantly being born and forming a world of its own, the addition of a mere town or city was nowhere near enough to advance its technology.

In the end, it was only a mountain village and county town. After countless years, the civilization here had been completely trapped and sealed in the late 1990s—the era when Zhu Zhengwei had just been born.

There were even signs of civilization regressing, as though it were returning to ancient times.

This backward rural township had no corresponding factories, and machinery could not be manufactured.

The world was already regressing.

Perhaps civilization would only restart once the world kept expanding. They would have to await the emergence of a giant of knowledge, someone like Einstein or Tesla, to forge ahead and usher in a new era.

At this time, at home.

His parents arranged a blind date for Eldest Brother.

"This one doesn't look dependable. His eyes are shifty, and her hips aren't big enough. She won't be good at bearing children."

"This one is pretty. No, she won't do. You can tell at a glance that she has bad intentions. There's something wrong with this girl. Our eldest son is bedridden, yet she still wants him? She must be after our family property."

"Ah, this one is good. She looks honest and dependable. When the two of us grow old and die, she'll definitely take care of Eldest Brother. She won't run off with the family's assets."

The two parents were honest-to-goodness rural folk. As they chose a wife for Eldest Brother, they scrutinized every detail, already earnestly considering what would happen after they died.

In the end, they chose a big, strapping, ugly woman.

Though ugly, she was hardworking and efficient, and highly skilled at raising rabbits. The two married.

Eldest Brother did not like her, but his objections were useless.

Third Brother was physically healthy and counted as a clever Young Man.

Over the years, he too had grown into an adult. He was no worse at farming and raising rabbits, but he did not want to stop there. He longed to study and learn to read.

"Why not become a teacher?"

There were no teachers in the village, so Third Brother opened a Private School.

He repeatedly and eagerly asked Zhu Zhengwei about cultivating Qi Consumption, but he struggled bitterly and never found the way in.

Zhu Zhengwei told him, "Qi Consumption is as instinctive to me as eating and drinking. You are different. The qi of heaven and earth is sparse now, and ordinary people find it difficult to consume qi."

Since it was his own dream, he naturally possessed an innate perception of it.

But Zhu Zhengwei truly did not know how they were supposed to sense qi.

Not everyone could mine Brain Coin. It was a scarce resource.

"Then I'll figure out a method for ordinary people to get started." Third Brother was very stubborn.

He opened and closed his eyes.

Thirty years old.

Zhu Zhengwei continued researching the Qi Consumption Method, but it ultimately only strengthened the body and improved health.

Zhu Zhengwei always felt that something was wrong. The efficiency remained far too low, yet he did not know where to begin solving the problem.

Over the past few years, his parents had already been in poor health despite being barely sixty. One after another, they aged and passed away.

After handling his parents' funerals, Zhu Zhengwei built a small house in the back mountains of Zhujing Village and began a secluded life, peacefully researching the mysteries of this spiritual world.

Almost every year, Eldest Brother and Third Brother came up the mountain to see him.

Third Brother had become an outstanding teacher. He opened an elementary school in the county and became its principal. He had many intelligent students and could be considered influential and powerful. Every year, he brought his prized disciples to visit.

He was highly learned and had already gained great fame throughout the surrounding villages.

Some said that if he had lived in ancient times, he could have entered court as a Prime Minister and great Confucian scholar.

Forty years old.

"This is the birthday gift I brought you."

Third Brother, Zhang Zhi, took out a black Radio, though it could no longer receive any signals.

"Thanks." Zhu Zhengwei nodded and carefully placed it on a nearby shelf, which held the various gifts Third Brother had brought him over the years, including an old Record Player.

"Are these the prized students you've taken in over the years? You said they are hardworking and knowledgeable?"

Zhu Zhengwei sat in a bamboo chair, calmly drinking tea as he watched him bring several students to visit. He could not help giving the three of them a strange look, his eyelids twitching wildly.

The counselor, old but still young at heart, mingled easily with us students and was approachable.

The old professor who taught my programming major was known as the "roll-call maniac," terrifying everyone who heard of him. My dorm had suffered under his "poisonous hands" year-round.

The old professor from the neighboring major taught chemistry and was famous throughout the country, a respected and prestigious figure. He had merely returned to the university in his hometown's third-tier city to retire.

They were all high-quality human Cloud servers.

As expected of you, Third Brother. Your county elementary school's teaching staff was truly formidable!

The timing was about right. The second batch of Servers had entered, and they really were this age now—in their twenties.

Time had truly flown by in the blink of an eye. He was really getting old.

"Greetings, Senior."

"Greetings, Senior."

The students bowed in greeting, their eyes full of curiosity.

So this was Elder Zhang's older brother?

They had assumed that this older brother, whom their teacher deeply respected and often mentioned with admiration, was also a venerable elder.

Surely, like their teacher, he would be white-haired and full of Confucian refinement—an extraordinary recluse living in a mountain village deep in Yunnan-Guizhou. They had never expected him to be an elegant middle-aged man in his thirties, only somewhat older than themselves, with an extraordinary and distinctive bearing.

Most distinctive of all was the unusual Tear Mole at the corner of his eye.

It was beautiful and bewitching, carrying a mysterious quality that could intoxicate others.

"Ahem. I hear you students are doing well in your studies. I'll give you a few questions and test you." Zhu Zhengwei coughed twice and spoke solemnly.

He wants to test my students?

Zhang Zhi was immediately gratified, thinking to himself:

Second Brother has always been indifferent and detached from worldly matters, living deep in the mountains like an Immortal God. Yet he has rarely shown interest in any disciples. It seems these students of mine have truly caught his eye!

Fifty years old.

After his parents, Zhu Family Eldest also passed away at the age of fifty-six, leaving behind a daughter.

That rural child who had once stood outside watching him, sniffling and picking his nose, had spent a life plagued by illness but had nevertheless lived it steadily to the end.

"We're gradually growing old, but Second Brother, you're still so young."

That day, Third Brother had already gone half-gray. The elegant old principal came to visit again, while Zhu Zhengwei still looked like a man in his thirties, filling him with envy.

Zhu Zhengwei merely shook his head, poured him a cup of tea, and said, "I have no worries or attachments, no children, and no need to exhaust my mind. I have spent my life only preserving my health, so naturally I remain young. Yet because of that, I have also lost many of life's pleasures in the Mortal World."

To become a high-quality human male, he exercised every day.

Living was all about preserving his health. Coupled with the Qi Consumption Method, it truly prolonged his life.

In reality, many people in their fifties still looked about thirty if they took good care of themselves. He was not actually that exaggerated.

"Our parents are gone. Eldest Brother is gone too."

Third Brother Zhang Zhi got thoroughly drunk with him.

The next day, he put on his coat and departed amid the endless winter snow.

"Qi Consumption, the Qi Consumption Method... Second Brother, I have felt the care you have shown us since childhood. You taught us to raise wild rabbits and made our family rich, but I also feel an enormous, unfamiliar distance between us."

"I have studied diligently and striven in every way these past years, yet I have always remained far behind you, unable to stand shoulder to shoulder with you. Perhaps when I grow old and die, you will still be like this, hidden in the mountains. Only our descendants will replace us and climb the mountain to see you each year."

"Teacher, we should go down the mountain."

The students from back then had also entered middle age. Now in their thirties, they stood behind him.

Thinking of that extraordinary recluse in the deep mountains, whose appearance had remained unchanged even after ten years, they could not help marveling that the world truly contained all manner of wonders. As they walked along the rugged mountain path, one of them could not help whispering behind him, "Teacher, do you think this world truly has Immortal Gods?"

The counselor and university professors before them did not remember their past lives, but their county had already implemented Nine-Year Compulsory Education.

Electric lights were widespread, along with telephones and newspapers, all proclaiming the progress of social civilization. The wealthy people in the county even carried Cell Phones and wore gold chains. Everywhere was a scene of thriving development.

"Yes."

"There will always be mysteries in this world that science cannot reach."

"Second Brother told me that Immortal Gods once existed in ancient times, but disappeared for unknown reasons." His expression was complicated as he suddenly gripped a crumpled book tightly. It was Treatise on Qi Consumption and Enlightenment that Second Brother had given him.