Heh, I've noticed that the brothers reading this book are really sharp. You can all clearly feel every twist and turn in the plot.
But Baili would like to make one thing clear: the Purple Mansion's birth was a little dramatic, but if you look at it another way, no matter what the Purple Mansion looks like, in essence it's just a "field." It's merely a platform for growing "crops," and that's the core of this book. It absolutely won't turn into endless wish-fulfillment. Baili solemnly promises that crops are grown in the fields, and the protagonist of Purple Mansion will build his strength bit by bit.
I hope you'll keep supporting the story with your votes!
To its surprise, a floating island of gray rock had appeared in this boundless void of gray mist.
The floating island was made up of countless incredibly hard gray rocks. Its terrain rose and fell in ridges and peaks, and it covered exactly one square li. Jagged, pointed rocks jutted from its underside.
Only gray rocks covered the island. It was barren, without a trace of life. Beyond it stretched the same heart-chilling expanse of endless gray mist and boundless void.
Overjoyed, it immediately drifted toward the island. It felt like a sailor who had floated across the boundless sea for ages, only to suddenly come upon an island where he could rest. Wild with delight, it rushed toward the island with all its might.
It drifted onto the island and set foot on it. At once, a deep sense of security welled up inside it. It hopped about happily, enjoying the comfort. This place felt like home. It no longer had to drift through the void like a rootless duckweed.
At the center of the island stood a plain, ancient-looking stone stele, about one zhang tall and three chi wide. It seemed to have been there since the island first formed, an inseparable part of it. A halo surrounded the stele, extending nearly a zhang in every direction, like a huge bubble of water.
For some reason, the stele gave it a profound sense of safety.
A thought stirred in its heart, and it drifted over. Easily, it slipped through the halo, like a bubble, and saw what was written on the stele.
Rows of markings covered its surface, like natural cracks and yet somehow like carved characters. Their forms were archaic and forceful, their meaning obscure and difficult to grasp. Strangely, however, it understood the words at a glance.
Reading from top to bottom and left to right, it saw these inscriptions on the stele:
Purple Mansion · Life Primordial Spirit Stele (Wood)
Mansion Lord: Ye Qin
Mansion Domain: One li in radius, flawless.
Mansion Attribute: Wood
Mansion Lord's Five Elements Spiritual Root: Metal 20, Wood 20, Water 20, Fire 20, Earth 20.
Mansion Lord's Lifespan: Initial lifespan: exactly 81 years. Lifespan gained: 0 years. Lifespan consumed: 15 years, 1 month, 29 days. Remaining lifespan: 65 years, 11 months, 1 day.
Mansion Lord's Fortune: Heaven's Secret
Mansion Lord's Fate: Tribulation
It "felt" the markings on the stele. A tremor went through its heart, and countless rumbles thundered in its mind. Memories flooded into its consciousness like a rising tide. At last, it remembered everything from its past.
Ye Qin!
Wasn't it Ye Qin?
It seemed he had been gathering herbs on a mountain when he ate a gray egg he'd taken from an eagle's nest, and then ended up in this boundless void. How strange. How had he wound up in a place like this?
What was this floating island called the Purple Mansion?
And how could he leave?
Was he dreaming? This dream was far too long.
As he thought about it, weariness overtook him. A powerful wave of drowsiness swept over him, and he sank into a deep sleep.
Ye Qin felt terribly stifled! It was as if something had trapped him, leaving him unable to breathe.
"Ah~!"
He couldn't hold back any longer. Struggling with all his might, he threw his right fist forward and slammed it into a solid wall. Crack! His punch smashed a fist-sized hole through it...
A gust of fresh, cold air immediately poured in.
He gulped it down greedily.
"I'm suffocating!"
Ye Qin punched apart the thing wrapped around his body and crawled out.
At the summit, the sky was still pitch-black.
The dim moonlight faintly illuminated the mountaintop, barely enough to make out what was around him.
The sight left him dumbfounded. Beneath a huge boulder lay a strange, person-shaped cocoon, large enough to hold a fifteen-year-old boy. It was made of dry grass, kindling, ashes, and chunks of dirt stuck together.
He had just broken a hole in that sturdy cocoon of dry grass and crawled out of it.
Had that bizarre thing really been wrapped around him?
No wonder he'd felt so stifled. It had taken all his strength to break free.
He seemed to have had a bizarre dream, too—a dream about a strange void and a floating island.
Ye Qin sniffed himself. His short shirt was caked with sticky mud and dry grass, and his whole body reeked of sweat. He pulled bits of grass from his hair and off his face, then quickly rummaged through his large herb basket for a waterskin. He poured the water over himself from head to toe, washing his face and body clean.
The cool water made his small frame shiver. It jolted him fully awake and brought every detail of what had happened that night back into sharp focus.
First, he had eaten the eagle's egg and been poisoned by something unknown, his stomach cramping in agony. Then he had a strange dream of an endless void, gray mist, the perilous Purple Lightning, the Floating Island, and the Life Primordial Spirit Stele. He still remembered every detail of the dream clearly. After that, he woke up and crawled out of the cocoon.
Ye Qin touched his belly. Whatever had happened, at least the deadly poison had stopped taking effect, so his life should be out of danger. As for that strange dream, he couldn't make sense of it, so he decided not to dwell on it. There was no point letting a dream unsettle him.
The sky remained pitch-black, and the wind howled bitterly across the cliff.
Ye Qin crawled beneath the boulder, spread the grass out again, curled up, and fell asleep.
The next day, dawn broke, and the sun began to rise.
Ye Qin stared at the pile of herbs before him, wearing a troubled expression.
When he got up that morning, he had tidied his large herb basket and taken out the herbs to dry in the sun. That was when he discovered the rare little green plant was missing.
He vaguely remembered that the previous night, when his stomach had hurt, he seemed to have grabbed an herb from the basket. But he couldn't remember which one. He figured he must have eaten the little green plant and cured the poison.
He couldn't help feeling a pang of regret.
That little green plant had probably been worth at least one Silver Leaf—enough to make up for three or four days of gathering herbs.
Still, at least the rest of the herbs were fine.
Ye Qin carefully tallied their value again. They were worth about three or four Silver Leaves, which meant he had already completed three-fifths to four-fifths of this month's herb-gathering quota. It looked like he should be able to complete his quota as usual this month, perhaps with a little left over. For the remaining days, he wouldn't have to risk his life gathering herbs in dangerous places.
That morning, he didn't go out to gather herbs. Instead, he found a broad, level patch of rock on the mountaintop, spread out all the herbs, and left them to dry in the sun. Most of them had already withered. Drying them would keep them from going moldy, make them easier to store, and reduce their weight.
While drying and keeping watch over the herbs, Ye Qin didn't sit idle.
He sat in the shade beside a rock, took from his robes the thin booklet he had received from the Herb Gathering Hall back when he was still a Herb Gathering Apprentice, and read the Sitting-in-Forgetfulness Sutra with great interest. Ye Qin had grown used to reading through the mantra once every day before meditating and cultivating.
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Before you continue