"Immortal Master"

"My lord, what immortal master?"

Another servant nearby couldn't help speaking through his tears. "My lord, you've been talking about him for half a year. You keep telling us to go see him, but we've never once laid eyes on this so-called immortal master."

"Doctor Wang said you caught an evil wind, and it changed your temperament..."

He choked back a sob. "My lord, please take your medicine!"

Scholar Lu ignored him. He said nothing, shifting his gaze to the road outside the courtyard.

Under the locust tree.

Li Bai watched and asked in surprise, "Could Scholar Lu really have met an immortal master?"

"What do you think?" Jiang She asked.

In his ears, the servants kept sobbing and pleading. Before his eyes stood Scholar Lu in the garden, gaunt and stubbornly fixed in place.

Li Bai thought for a moment.

"Better that he hasn't."

Jiang She nodded.

"If he means entering fire without being burned, riding the wind through the air, playing a flute while riding a crane, or going without grain, then he hasn't."

He meant the ability to withstand a blazing fire without injury, and to ride the wind through the sky as easily as walking on level ground.

Or the freedom to while away the hours playing the flute, roaming the wilderness on the back of a crane, and living with carefree ease.

Or perhaps the constitution and cultivation that let one survive by refining one's qi, without eating the five grains of the mortal world—rice, millet, panicled millet, wheat, and beans, all of them impure foods.

Scholar Lu had met no such person.

And that also meant—

Someone like that could, more or less, be called what Li Bai had just called him:

An "immortal master."

One could count him among those who studied the way of immortality.

As the young master Jiang spoke of "immortal masters" and mentioned the arts of the immortals recorded in Biographies of Immortals and Traditions of Immortals, his tone so casual, Li Bai grew ever more convinced that he was unfathomably profound.

"Such a person would be more than an immortal master. He'd probably be a true immortal."

Jiang She neither agreed nor disagreed.

He was somewhat interested in the immortal master Scholar Lu had mentioned. He had spent several years in Shu Prefecture—the place where Li Bai would one day write "The Road to Shu Is Hard"—living in seclusion and searching for a way back. After years of getting nowhere, he had finally decided to go out and travel, visiting some sites of the immortals and fellow seekers along the way.

No longer separated from ancient golden swallows and fish, figures in their robes and hats, by the glass of a museum display case... They were right before him.

Though Pang Degong hadn't truly attained the Way and become an immortal, as the ancient books claimed, he had met the Lumen Mountain Deity, who had been alive since the Han dynasty.

Perhaps he could see the people of this age who studied the way of immortality.

Walk a little through this world.

And make this journey with no return date worthwhile.

The "immortal master" Scholar Lu spoke of only tricked the wealthy families and gentry of a single county, and didn't even dare provoke the magistrate.

His true abilities were probably limited, though he might have some clever tricks.

He was worth a look.

Jiang She felt a little anticipation. The courtyard was a noisy commotion. Jiang She and Li Bai stood to one side, having also bought two fruits from a vendor's tray, one each to quench their thirst.

The courtyard was packed with people, and the clamor of pleading and crying filled the air without pause. Only the Lu family's eldest son stood beside a table in the courtyard, silent and motionless, as if unaware that all the pleading and persuasion came because of him.

A string of hurried footsteps approached, mingled with the guests' murmured comments.

Scholar Lu instinctively looked up.

Jiang She took the last bite of his fruit and looked up as well.

"The Grand Matriarch has opened her eyes. She wants to see the master of the house—"

"Careful! The Grand Matriarch just fainted. Don't crowd around her!"

"Go, go!"

"Grand Matriarch, Grand Matriarch—"

"Why has she fainted again?"

The guests chattered over one another, while the Lu family servants rushed about in a panic, at a loss as to what to do.

"Clatter!"

Scholar Lu, distracted, knocked over a porcelain cup on the table. It shattered on the ground.

One of the guests stepped forward and ordered, "Why haven't you gone to fetch a physician? Doctor Luo is Sun Simiao's grand-disciple, and he's best at treating chest tightness and heart ailments."

"Hurry up and move. Go at once."

Meng Haoran stepped forward in his blue robe, bringing the flustered Lu family servants to their senses.

"This humble servant will go at once..."

Li Bai let out a breath. "Thank goodness Brother Meng is here. Otherwise, these people wouldn't even know to fetch a physician. The Lu family used to have two or three cleverer young servants, but I haven't seen them today. They must have been sold."

He had heard what the mountain god said and learned that the Lu family had such a connection to the deity of Lumen Mountain.

Li Bai sighed.

"The family fortune has withered. One leaf falls today, and you know the year is drawing to its close."

The Lu family's eldest son had gone deathly pale. He saw the guests and servants helping his great-grandmother over. He hurried forward a couple of steps, only to see the guests and servants swarm around Old Matriarch Lu, supporting her, massaging her temples, and feeding her pills in a chaotic flurry.

He stopped where he was.

A few breaths later, Scholar Lu regained his composure and called out.

"Steward, come here."

The steward was a short, plump, middle-aged man dressed in blue-green. Since the Grand Matriarch's birthday banquet was being held that day, he had taken particular care to tie a dark red sash around his waist. A headcloth completed his neat appearance.

"What is it, my lord?"

He hurriedly said, "I've already sent someone for a physician. Doctor Luo and Doctor Song will be here shortly. The Grand Matriarch only suffered a temporary rush of qi and blood. Old Matriarch has always been in good health, so nothing will happen this time. My lord, please, please don't worry..."

His last words were already meant as reassurance.

Scholar Lu acknowledged him.

He beckoned. "Go bring the family account books and the list of our properties."

"Remember to bring the deed for those eighty mu of land. As I recall, it's all first-rate farmland, isn't it?"

The steward's smile instantly vanished. His face turned from green to red, until at last it was practically scarlet. After holding it in for a long while, he shouted, "Nonsense! Devil's talk!"

"The Grand Matriarch fainted because my lord angered her, and now you're thinking of selling the fields?"

"What kind of dog of an immortal master is that? A few ghostly tricks, and he thinks he can swindle our money! He won't even spare the last scraps of land we have! What kind of scabby vagrant is he? He's lower than a beggar on the road! My lord, don't let the likes of him cloud your judgment!"

The steward loathed the unknown immortal master who had appeared in his lord's life.

The guests inside the house all turned to look.

Scholar Lu's expression changed, and fear and shock flashed across his face.

He snapped, "Steward, mind your words!"

"The immortal master's arts are profound. He can hear our every move. You may have slighted him in the past, but how can you show him such disrespect?"

After hurling those insults, the steward wiped away his tears.

"That immortal master—fine, if he only tricked my lord into buying books. We could sell some of the harvest and cut expenses; we could still get by."

"But after selling the land and its harvest, the shops, and the manor north of the city, now he wants to sell the last fields our Lu Family has! Where did such a wicked person come from, coaxing people into selling their land? He's worse than a pig or a dog!"

As he spoke of these bitter matters, the steward plopped down on the ground and sobbed, his voice choked with tears.

As the man in charge of the accounts, he had watched the family fortune decline with his own eyes. It weighed heavily on him.

He hated those two "immortal masters" to the bone.

What kind of pig-dog creatures were they, to have brought the Lu Family to this?

The guests had never expected the Lu family's eldest son to be so unfilial. Hearing the steward say that the Lu Matriarch had fainted because her grandson angered her, and recalling what Lu Pei had just said, they quickly pieced things together.

The guests pointed and stared, whispering and gossiping among themselves.

"He's right!"

"This swindler cheats people out of their money. Heaven won't tolerate it!"

"Who knows what dog-rat of a fellow he is? He's swindled the people of Xiang Prefecture, and Lu Pei isn't much wiser. Two people come along claiming they know immortal arts, and he believes them. I could say the same about myself!"

Meng Haoran turned to look at Yuan Danqiu, who had spoken.

"Daoist, what can you do?"

"The Art of Flight, how about that?"

Yuan Danqiu sprang into the air, rose one foot off the ground, then landed again. He strode angrily toward the crowd.

He was a Daoist himself, and detested such idiotic schemes that used the Daoist sect to cheat people.

"Lu Pei, invite that 'immortal master' over. I'll present my Shangqing ordination certificate, and then I can get a good look at this 'immortal master'!"

Only two hours earlier, he had seen on the mountain how that senior—whose clothes stayed dry in the rain and who could make dead wood bloom again—had done something extraordinary. Yuan Danqiu thought coldly, No matter how immortal this master is, can he be as capable as that young master Jiang?

As soon as he finished speaking—

A leisurely voice came from outside the courtyard gate.

"Who is it that wants to see me?"

In the Tang dynasty, both the "large chi" and the "small chi" were in use. The large chi was about 30 centimeters, while the small chi was around 25 centimeters.

So Yuan Danqiu's jump had been about thirty centimeters high.