One should always be free of desire to observe the mysterious, and always have desire to observe the manifest.
Ink Bamboo Mountain,
It stretched three thousand li, with two mountains and fourteen peaks. Demonic beasts roamed unchecked, poisonous mists choked the land, and people rarely ventured there.
Amid these towering ranges, perilous peaks, and seas of bamboo in the Ink Forest, human hands had carved out a patch of level ground no larger than a single mu.
At its center, a shrine had been erected from thatch and timber. An altar had been raised, and an image of a Demon Venerable had been built: a monstrous figure with eight arms and six heads, nothing like a human.
On all four sides of the altar, forty-nine meditation cushions had been arranged in seven rows of seven, scattered like stars across the ground.
At that moment, only an old Taoist stood before the altar. He wore a black headcloth and a brown robe, and held a three-foot-seven-inch vermilion wood sword in his arms. A leaf of green bamboo stuck from his mouth, and his head drooped as he dozed, nodding off in fits and starts.
He was sleeping soundly when, from deep in the Ink Forest, came three metallic chimes and two bell strikes.
The old Taoist sniffed, raised his head, and flicked his fingers as if plucking a string in the wind.
The bamboo grove rustled. Before long, figures began to emerge from among the stalks: a group of visitors walking out of the forest.
At their head were three cultivators in dark robes and blue crowns, their faces veiled in brocade. The one in the middle had a three-foot-three-inch Copper Coin Sword strapped across his back, slung diagonally over his shoulder with a red cord. The two at his sides followed, carrying a golden bell and a silver chime.
Behind them came twenty-one children, large and small. The oldest was no more than thirteen or fourteen, the youngest only four or five. Some wore fine clothes and jade ornaments; others had coarse hemp tunics and short fur coats. All of them followed the sound of the bells in a daze.
"Master." The three veiled cultivators bowed in unison.
The old Taoist pursed his lips and pointed at the children with the bamboo leaf between them.
The cultivator holding the Copper Coin Sword said, "Some time ago, Jade Toad Granny of Yaoguang Cave came to visit our monastery. She lost a game of chess to the mountain master and threw a tantrum, eating quite a few children. So we disciples were ordered to go into the mortal world and choose another batch of boys with their yang essence intact. We ask Master to inspect them."
The one holding the golden bell added with a grin, "Those without sufficient spiritual roots will be sent to the Outer Sect to work. Those born with the Dao in their hearts will be taken into the Inner Sect to serve. And those with a hidden Devil Embryo, heh heh, will be sent to the mountain master as a drinking snack."
The old Taoist snorted through his nose and pursed his lips, as if in agreement.
The three cultivators bowed again, then ushered the children to their seats and gave each one a cushion. Once they had settled them, the cultivators bowed and left the grove to wait outside.
The old Taoist looked at the boys sitting or lying on their cushions. He spat out the willow leaf, got to his feet, and took up the vermilion wood sword. He walked past each child in turn, drawing a circle around every cushion. Then he plopped back down in his own place, facing the opposite direction from before: no longer toward the bamboo grove, but toward the Demon Venerable statue. He sat clutching his sword, lost in thought.
Silence settled over the grove. The twenty-one children neither cried nor made a fuss. They sat on their cushions like wooden dolls.
They sat for about two hours before one of the children could no longer keep up the act. He furtively turned his head to glance at the old Taoist's back, then sneaked a look at the Ink Bamboo Grove behind him, his face creased with indecision.
Without turning around, the old Taoist spoke as if to himself.
"Sit here for the night and get some sleep. Nothing will happen. If you can't sleep, then no matter what you hear or see tonight, as long as you don't step outside your circle, your life will be safe."
The child was startled. He hurriedly tucked his neck back in and pretended to be dumb, but he already knew that the old Taoist had seen right through his little act. All he could do was bitterly lament his luck.
What the hell was going on here?
What the hell was going on!?
Nuclear fusion was almost ready for civilian use. They'd even started building space elevators. I'd been looking forward to visiting a lunar city, and now you're telling me I've been transmigrated? Heavens above! This made no sense at all!
That's right. Among the twenty-one children was one unremarkable little boy who had transmigrated from another world.
Li Fan was an ordinary wage slave, in every sense of the word: standard, ordinary, and utterly average. Even his transmigration had followed the most ordinary setup imaginable: Ah! I woke up and somehow transmigrated!
Sigh... If he'd landed in an ordinary world, Li Fan might have been able to invent a few things: glass, soap, paper-making, tanks, Zaku, star destroyers, and so on. But no—this was a world of immortal cultivation, steeped in the style of xianxia.
Li Fan only remembered opening his eyes. Before he could even figure out the era or the year, those three masked figures from earlier—who knew whether they were immortals or monsters—had whisked him off to this remote mountain forest in the blink of an eye!
Instant transmission, can you believe it? Spatial teleportation, can you believe it? How could anything be this fantastical? It was seriously driving him nuts!
And then there was that old Taoist over there. He had the pretentious air of a hidden boss pretending to be a humble sweeper. He didn't look like a demon or an evil cultivator, but there was probably no way Li Fan could escape, either...
So he decided to bring out the defining trait of a wage slave: take things as they came and lie flat.
Li Fan half-collapsed onto his cushion, stretching his numb legs. Then, remembering the choice every transmigrator was bound to make, he took a hopeful gamble and gave it a try.
System?
And then the system appeared.
'Welcome to the Transmigrator Mental Health Maintenance System.'
Well, at least there was...?
Mental health? Mental health was important... my ass!
Wait! What was a mental health maintenance system supposed to be?!
Quest-based? Leveling? Stat upgrades? Summons and draws? Daily check-ins? Automatic control?
'Please choose your Innate Talent.'
Oh, oh, good. You scared the hell out of me, Li Fan thought, wiping the cold sweat from his brow. Innate Talent—that sounded like a proper xianxia term. He knew it. Systems weren't supposed to mess with their hosts anymore...
'Unshakable: Greatly lowers the likelihood of your mood dropping.
'Know Contentment: Raises your maximum mood and doubles the value of mood increases.
'Stay Calm: When your mood fluctuates, it only changes by one point.'
"Oh, Stay Calm... Stay calm, my ass! A mental health system really does give you buffs for mental health? What the hell!"
Li Fan couldn't take it anymore. He jumped up and let out a roar like a dragon.
Then he saw the old Taoist turn around and glare at him. He hurriedly bowed and sat cross-legged. "Sorry, sorry! Don't mind me, don't mind me!"
But the old Taoist was already striding over with a grim expression. He stood before Li Fan, looking like a dead tree trunk, his enormous shadow nearly covering Li Fan's face. It was just like a homeroom teacher storming into class to catch students sneaking around during evening study.
Li Fan broke into a cold sweat. He gulped and stared up at the old man.
The old Taoist stared back at him for a while. Then he reached out and pulled several sesame cakes from thin air, tossing them into Li Fan's arms. Without a word, he turned and went back to his cushion.
"..." Li Fan looked from the old Taoist to the cakes in his arms. Before he could react, the system started messing with his head again.
'Confirming host's choice of Innate Talent: Stay Calm.'
Oh my God...
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
Oh, you motherf— What kind of garbage system was this...
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
Shut up, would you?!
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
Li Fan rolled his eyes and flopped onto the cushion, staring up at the sky.
'Li Fan, Mood, 97/100.'
That was it. There were no stats for attack, defense, or speed; no attributes for constitution, spiritual roots, or comprehension; not even the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. Just a mood meter...
What the hell! Which lunatic had developed this piece of junk?!
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
Li Fan wished he could roll his eyes so hard that he killed the system. He had to admit, getting stuck with such a lousy system was pretty frustrating. Grumbling, he grabbed one of the sesame cakes and took a bite... Oh, it was pretty tasty.
'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'
Li Fan: "..."
'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'
Huh. Eating two cakes had brought his mood back up by two points... But now he was full...
Since that was how it worked, wasn't maintaining his mental health as easy as eating something whenever he felt down? So what the hell was this mental health maintenance system good for, besides actively wrecking his mood?!
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
'The system can also perform draws.'
It could do draws?!
'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point.'
Draw, draw, draw!
'The draw function is currently unavailable. Current charge progress: 8/100.'
What the hell! No, seriously, a system that wouldn't even give you a ten-pull at the start had no future. Did it understand that?!
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point.'
'The draw function is currently unavailable. Current charge progress: 9/100.'
Oh... All right, all right, stop talking. I get it.
Li Fan rubbed his temples with a weary hand. Getting saddled with such a lousy system was exhausting...
Anyway, it looked as though the system's points rose and fell according to Li Fan's mental state. Every fluctuation in his mood charged the draw function, and judging by the progress, changes in either direction counted. Once the total reached one hundred points, he could draw once.
He had no idea what sort of useless junk he might draw, but at least the system wasn't completely pointless. It gave Li Fan something to look forward to. Now that there were draws, check-ins, quests, and leveling couldn't be far behind. He could figure it all out gradually.
The awkward part was that Li Fan's initial choice of Innate Talent had somehow ended up being that stupid "Stay Calm" option. His mood only changed by one point each time!
What a rip-off! At this rate, going up one point and down one point, how long would it take to charge the system? Damn it!
While Li Fan sat there frowning as he studied his mood-wrecking system, the sky darkened before he knew it.
"Ha! False Moon hanging overhead!" the old Taoist up front suddenly let out a strange laugh. "Boy! You're unlucky. If you can't take it, gouge out your eyes! And if you don't want to die, don't look up!"
What?
If you didn't want people to look up, you shouldn't have told them not to look up! Too bad the old man didn't understand such a simple principle, so he'd just screwed Li Fan over.
Li Fan was lying on his side on the cushion, picking his nose. Without thinking, he lifted his head and looked toward the Night Curtain veiling the heavens.
Two huge, round moons were reflected in his pupils.
They clearly weren't Earth's moons. One hung to the left, the other to the right; one was large, the other small; one was blue, the other purple. It was as though the eight-armed Demon Venerable were holding two fireballs in his palms, lighting up the sky.
Their light bathed the Demon Venerable's six faces in shades of iron blue and deep purple. The obsidian gemstones set into its heads gleamed with golden light, as if countless eyes had opened.
In the distance, Li Fan seemed to hear the faint ring of a sword that sounded like a dragon's cry. Then black-purple miasma suddenly rose from the ink-colored bamboo grove. Clouds gathered, a gale sprang up, and a tornado whipped across the open ground. It swept around the circle the old Taoist had drawn beyond Li Fan's cushion with his wooden sword, raising layer after layer of smoke until it nearly blotted out the sky.
Li Fan felt as if he were caught in the middle of a storm. Terrified, he clutched his cushion and crouched low. Black winds howled before him, kicking up sand and stones and forming a vortex that reached straight into the heavens, blotting out his entire field of vision. Only the purple-glowing moon remained before his eyes.
Before he could even blink, the whirlwind vanished.
All was silent.
The sandstorm that had just swept through with apocalyptic force, as if it could destroy everything in its path, dissolved like smoke.
The bamboo grove, mountains, altar, Demon Venerable statue, children, and Taoist—all were like parts of some absurd dream. It was as if none of them had ever existed.
All things in heaven and earth, the laws of the cosmos, even the passage of time, seemed to have disappeared in that instant.
Only Li Fan remained, sitting alone on a flat layer of rock beneath a purple sky.
Before his eyes, the heavens suddenly opened up. The purple moon was gone.
The Night Curtain glittered with stars, the Milky Way stretched across the sky, and the river of stars shone brilliantly, boundless and endless, its light raining down.
He could just make out a cluster of deep-purple bubbles among the clouds. They looked like soap bubbles or watery spheres floating in the starry sky. The light cast by the countless stars passed through their curved surfaces and refracted onto his retinas...
Then Li Fan's right hand suddenly grew heavy. Something dropped into his palm, and he instinctively clenched his fist. The sting of pain in his palm snapped him out of his daze.
Li Fan lowered his head and saw a three-inch-long little sword in his hand. It had no guard, and its spine sparkled with flecks of starlight. Both edges were sharpened into narrow, diamond-shaped points, fine as needles and sharp as shooting stars. It was peerlessly keen. He had only loosely grasped it, yet it had sliced open his right palm, leaving a thin line of blood. Then the little sword shot into his palm and clearly traveled up the meridians of his right hand, like a silver fish burrowing into his body!
What the hell was that?!
Before Li Fan could react, he heard his own voice, as if it were coming through a curtain of rain, speak into his ears:
'Charge progress: 100/100. Draw complete!'
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point. Warning! Li Fan, Mood, 8/100. Extreme danger!'
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point. Warning! Li Fan, Mood, 7/100. Extreme danger!'
'Li Fan's mood decreased by 1 point. Warning! Li Fan, Mood, 6/100. Extreme danger!'
Wha— Wh-what was going on?! His mood was dropping every second! Why had it suddenly started counting down?!
Li Fan instinctively grabbed the cakes in his arms and stuffed them into his mouth.
He gulped down three bites so quickly that he nearly choked to death!
Cough, cough! Water! Water!
"Ha!"
A fierce gust swept across his face. Then someone reached out, grabbed Li Fan by the collar, and lifted him out of his circle.
The old Taoist's face suddenly appeared before Li Fan's eyes.
In the few breaths since they'd last seen each other, a bloodied hole the size of a walnut had opened in the old Taoist's forehead, as if something had drilled through his skull. Dark red blood and brains gushed out. His eye sockets were empty, gouged into two bloody pits with his own fingers. His face was twisted into something as horrifying as a demon from hell. Terrified, Li Fan gulped down the mouthful of cake stuck in his throat.
'Li Fan's mood increased by 1 point. Warning! Li Fan, Mood, 6/100. Extreme danger!'
The system was still sounding its alarm, but the drop of one point every second seemed to have stopped.
"What did you see?!" the old Taoist roared at Li Fan, spraying blood and spittle all over him.
"Wh-what did I see...?"
This man had really gouged out his own eyes...
Li Fan stared at the ruthless man before him. Then something else caught his attention, and he shifted his gaze to the old Taoist's back.
His brief, dazed spell, like a hallucination, had lasted only a few dozen seconds. Now he was back in the clearing in the bamboo grove, but the altar was gone.
The eight-armed, six-headed Demon Venerable had been split apart by a single sword strike, cleaved down the middle into two pieces. The statue that had clearly been made of mud and stone was now a pair of mangled chunks of flesh.
In the blind old Taoist's hand, the vermilion wood sword was shining with rainbow light. Blood steamed off its spine in terrifying waves of heat, spraying toward Li Fan like the breath of some enormous beast.
The cushions scattered around the altar were empty. All the children who had come with Li Fan were gone.
But Li Fan could roughly guess what had happened to them. Scattered beyond the circles around him were charred corpses, dried bones, and stillborn monstrosities with seven heads and eight arms, their organs twisted into unnatural shapes. Each and every one of the things—some human-shaped, others not—had been neatly cut in two...
"Chi Qiu said you still had some humanity in you, and that you couldn't be killed. So what did you see?"
The old Taoist thrust his face close to Li Fan's. The bloody hollows of his eye sockets stared straight at Li Fan's pupils.
"Was it a 'thing'? Or a 'Non-Thing'?"
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