"Immortal Master"

"Young Master, what immortal master?"

Another servant nearby couldn't help but choke out through tears, "Young Master, you've been saying this for half a year, telling us to go look—we've never seen any immortal master."

"Doctor Wang said you were struck by an evil wind, which changed your temperament..."

He sobbed: "Young Master, take your medicine!"

Scholar Lu ignored him, offering no reply. He shifted his gaze, fixing his eyes on the road outside the courtyard.

Beneath the locust tree.

Li Bai watched and remarked in wonder, "Could Scholar Lu have truly met an immortal master?"

"What do you think?" Jiang She asked.

In his ears were the servants' ceaseless sobbing pleas; before his eyes stood Scholar Lu in the garden, his frame thin, his gaze stubborn.

Li Bai thought for a moment.

"Better that he hasn't."

Jiang She nodded.

"If one seeks to enter fire without burning, ride the wind, play the flute while perched on a crane, and abstain from the five grains—then such a one should not exist."

This meant the ability to be scorched by raging flames without harm to the body, or to walk through the air as if treading solid ground.

Or perhaps the leisurely realm of idly blowing reed pipes and riding cranes on wild excursions.

Or the constitution and foundation of one who does not eat the five grains of the mortal world—millet, glutinous millet, broomcorn millet, wheat, and beans—those impure foods, but instead sustains life solely by refining qi.

Such a person, Scholar Lu had not met.

It also meant.

Such a person could barely be called what Li Bai had just named.

What the masses called an "immortal master."

One counted among those who study immortality.

Li Bai listened to this Young Master Jiang speak of "immortal masters," bringing up the divine arts recorded in the Biographies of Immortals and Traditions of Immortals with such an ordinary tone, and found him all the more unfathomable.

"That would be more than an immortal master—that would be a true immortal."

Jiang She neither confirmed nor denied it.

He was still somewhat interested in the immortal master Scholar Lu spoke of. He had previously spent several years living in Shu Prefecture, the place where Li Bai of later ages would write The Difficulty of the Shu Road, dwelling in seclusion, trying to find a way back. After years without results, he decided to stir himself and travel, visiting traces of immortals and fellow seekers along the way.

Without the barrier of museum glass, swallows and goldfish, figures and robes from thousands of years ago... were right before his eyes.

Though Pang Degong had not truly attained immortality as the ancient texts claimed, he had still met the mountain god of Lumen Mountain, who had lived since the Han dynasty.

Perhaps he could observe the immortality seekers of this age.

Walk through this world.

It would not be a wasted journey, this trip with no return.

The "immortal master" Scholar Lu spoke of only fooled the wealthy gentry of a single county, not even provoking the magistrate.

His true skill was likely small, though he might have some clever tricks.

Worth a look.

He felt a flicker of anticipation. The courtyard was noisy and bustling; Jiang She and Li Bai stood to the side, and he bought two fruits from a tray, one for each of them to quench their thirst.

The yard was crowded, clamorous, filled with endless pleas and sobs. Only the eldest son of the Lu Family stood alone by the table in the courtyard, silent and wordless, as if unaware that all this weeping and persuasion filling the yard was because of him.

A rapid patter of footsteps approached, mixed with the murmured muttering of guests.

Scholar Lu instinctively looked up.

Jiang She bit the last of his fruit and also raised his head to see.

"The matriarch has opened her eyes—she wants to see the master of the house—"

"Careful, the matriarch just fainted, don't crowd around her!"

"Move, move!"

"Matriarch, Matriarch—"

"Has she fainted again?"

The guests chattered in a jumble, the Lu Family servants running in frantic circles, at a loss.

"Clatter!"

Scholar Lu, dazed, knocked over a porcelain cup on the table, which shattered on the ground.

One person stepped forward and directed:

"Hurry and fetch a doctor—Doctor Luo is Sun Simiao's disciple's disciple, the best at treating chest tightness and heart ailments."

"Hurry up, move quickly."

Meng Haoran stepped forward in his blue robe, steadying the anxious Lu family servants.

"This lowly one will go at once..."

Li Bai exhaled. "Thank goodness Brother Meng is here, or these people wouldn't even know how to fetch a doctor. In the past, the Lu family had two or three clever servants, but I didn't see them today—they must have been sold."

He had heard what the mountain god said and knew that the Lu family shared such a history with the deity of Lumen Mountain.

Li Bai sighed:

"The family fortune is in decline. One falling leaf today tells of the year's approaching end."

The Lu family's eldest son's face was deathly pale. Seeing his grandmother being helped over by the crowd, he hurried two steps forward and watched as the guests and servants swarmed around the old Madam Lu—some supporting her, others pressing her head, still others feeding her pills, all bustling in a flurry.

He stopped in his tracks.

After a few breaths, Scholar Lu steadied himself and called out.

"Steward, come here."

The steward was a short, stout middle-aged man in a blue-green robe. Because today was the old madam's birthday and a feast was to be held, he had tied an extra dark red cloth belt around his waist and wore a headscarf, looking quite spirited.

"What does the master need?"

He hurriedly said, "This lowly one has already sent someone to fetch the doctor. Doctor Luo and Doctor Song will arrive shortly. The old madam only had a momentary surge of blood and qi. The old lady has always been healthy, so nothing serious will happen. Please, master, rest... rest assured..."

His last words carried a tone of reassurance.

Scholar Lu grunted in acknowledgment.

He waved his hand. "Go bring the family account books and the property ledgers."

"And remember to bring the deed for those eighty mu of farmland. I recall they're all top-grade fields, aren't they?"

The steward's smiling face instantly fell. His complexion turned green, then red, and finally flushed crimson. After holding it in for a long while, he burst out with a scolding:

"Nonsense! Devil's talk!"

"The old madam was angered into fainting by the young master, and now the master still wants to sell the fields?"

"What kind of dog immortal master is that? Using some ghost tricks to swindle our family's money, and now he won't even let go of these last meager fields! Which gutter rat is this? Lower than the beggars on the road! Master, don't let your heart be fooled by such petty men!"

The steward was utterly disgusted with the unknown immortal master his master had encountered.

The guests in the hall all looked over.

Scholar Lu's expression shifted, both startled and fearful.

He rebuked, "Steward, watch your words!"

"The immortal master's arts are profound—he can even hear our every move. It's one thing for you to have been negligent toward them all along, but how dare you be so disrespectful?"

After cursing those words, the steward wiped his tears.

"If that so-called immortal master only tricked the master into buying books, that would be one thing—we could sell some harvest, cut expenses, and still get by."

"But I never thought he'd make us sell the harvest fields, then the shops, then the estate north of the city, and now he wants us to sell the Lu family's last fields. Where did such a wicked person come from, coaxing people into selling their land? Worse than a pig or a dog."

Speaking of these heartbreaks, the steward simply plopped down on the ground, sobbing and choking on his words.

The steward was the one who kept the accounts, and watching the family fortune decline firsthand weighed heavily on him.

He absolutely loathed those two "immortal masters."

Whatever pigs and dogs they were, they had brought the Lu family to this state.

The guests hadn't expected the Lu family's eldest son to be so unfilial either. Hearing the steward say that the old madam had fainted from anger at her grandson, and connecting it with what Lu Pei had just said, they quickly pieced things together.

The guests pointed and whispered among themselves, exchanging murmurs.

"Well said!"

"That villain swindling people's money—heaven and earth cannot tolerate it!"

"Who knows what kind of dog-rat scum this is, fleecing us folks of Xiang Prefecture. And this Lu Pei isn't much of a judge either—anyone who shows up claiming to know immortal arts gets believed. I could say I do too!"

Meng Haoran glanced sideways at Yuan Danqiu, who had spoken.

"What arts do you practice, Daoist?"

"The art of levitation—how about it?"

Yuan Danqiu leaped up, rising a foot off the ground, then landed again. He strode angrily to the front of the crowd.

He was a Daoist himself, and nothing disgusted him more than these charlatans using the Daoist path to cheat and swindle.

"Lu Pei, go fetch that 'immortal master' of yours. I hold the Supreme Purity Dharma Register, so I'd like to properly meet this 'immortal master'!"

Two hours ago, he had witnessed on the mountain the power of that senior who could walk through rain without getting wet and make withered trees bloom again. Yuan Danqiu thought coldly to himself, No matter how great an immortal master, could he be greater than that Young Master Jiang?

No sooner had he spoken.

Than a leisurely voice came from outside the courtyard gate.

"Who is it that wants to see me?"