The sun rose in the east.
Feijianzi sat on the blue stone outside the mountain gate, gazing down.
Bird-Beast Mountain stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction. Wherever he looked, white clouds drifted lazily, mist gathered and dispersed, and the dense forests were faintly visible.
A narrow path had long since been swallowed by wild grass. No one had walked up it for many years, so he was still the youngest apprentice.
To a cultivator, thirty-two years seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Feijianzi still looked like a graceful young man in white, with not a trace of time upon him.
But his senior brother's hair had already turned white.
His senior brother was making his rounds outside the mountain gate, inspecting the array laid across the ground. Before long, he picked up a broken piece of jade, shook his head, and tossed it into the bag at his side. Seeing Feijianzi still gazing into the distance, he urged, "You've said your farewells to your fellow disciples, haven't you? Hurry to Meng City. Gather this year's jade as soon as you can, so I can rebuild the Spirit Gathering Array."
"Yes, senior brother." Feijianzi looked back at the mountain gate. They said it had once been crowded with visitors, but by the time Feijianzi arrived, it was already dilapidated and overgrown with weeds. Back then, the Spirit Gathering Array could draw in the spiritual energy of all Bird-Beast Mountain for them to cultivate. Now, the spiritual energy at Bird-Beast Temple was no longer enough to sustain its dozen or so disciples. The jade used in the array was wearing out faster and faster under the strain, so they had no choice but to go down to Meng City for more jade again and again.
This was Feijianzi's first time going down the mountain in over thirty years. The Spirit Gathering Array had suffered such severe damage that his senior brothers had all been forced to turn their attention to repairing it.
The old crane at the mountain gate had not pulled a carriage in years. As Feijianzi fastened its reins, he noticed bare patches on its long, slender neck. The Cloud Carriage outside the gate was coated in dust, too. But this trip to Meng City would represent Bird-Mouse Temple, so Feijianzi had gotten up early to scrub the Cloud Carriage until it gleamed, then left it outside the mountain gate to dry.
He climbed aboard and urged the White Crane forward. Billowing clouds rose around the carriage and lifted it into the air. With a desolate cry, the crane carried Feijianzi away, tilting against the mountain wind as it flew toward the horizon.
His senior brother lifted his head and watched Feijianzi's retreating figure, unable to help recalling the scene his grandmaster had once described: a thousand cranes soaring into the sky, magnificent carriages filling the clouds. Could such a sight ever be seen again?
Bird-Mouse Temple had, after all, been declining with every generation.
Would his junior brother be able to bring back enough jade? If not, and the Spirit Gathering Array could no longer function, what would become of Bird-Beast Temple?
Was the temple doomed to fall into ruin in his hands? A hundred years from now, what would he leave to the generations that followed?
As he stared blankly at his junior brother disappearing into the clouds on the horizon, his mind wandered.
On the southern slope of Bird-Beast Mountain, on the north bank of the Meng River, stood a city covering several square miles. It was the most prosperous place for hundreds of miles around: Meng City. Today was market day, and villagers from within a hundred miles were making their way toward the city. After paying the one-cash entrance fee at the gate, they lined up to enter, carrying all kinds of goods and wearing hopeful smiles.
Some people didn't want to pay that one-cash entrance fee, so they set up shop outside the city gate instead. Some sold wonton noodles, some made little clay figurines, some offered donkey and horse stabling, some rented out carts and horses, some sold ready-made clothes, and others slaughtered pigs and dogs. The official road outside Meng City's gate, wide enough for eight horses to walk abreast, was so crowded that people could only squeeze through sideways. It was even livelier than the city itself.
Once inside the city, there were several restaurants and inns, with blacksmiths, tailors, silversmiths, and grain shops across the way.
But Meng City's most famous fare was the Lotus Fragrance Steamed Bun by the south gate. The buns were so large they took both hands to hold, with generous fillings and thin skins. One bite and oil filled your mouth. Sold in pairs, they were wrapped in dried lotus leaves and tied with reeds. Wherever you carried them, their fragrance followed. Which passing merchant could eat one without praising it to the skies?
Outside the Lotus Fragrance bun shop, in front of two towering steamers, Little Stone stood with his thin neck and oversized head, his face streaked black and white. He stared at the buns inside with round, shining eyes, both hands pressed over his mouth, but nothing could stop his drool from flooding the Jinshan Temple—it dripped all over the ground.
He had been standing there for nearly half an hour.
The bun shop attendant finally couldn't take it anymore. "Where are your parents?"
Little Stone pointed behind him, but his eyes never left the big buns.
Across the street was a narrow alley. Beyond it, the lights blazed bright, and the air was thick with drunken revelry. At the corner stood a tiny bookshop, bridging the vulgar and the refined, its entrance facing the long street. It was a small place, with only four bookshelves, all packed with neatly bound books of every kind.
"Thank you, sir." Zi Bofeng had finally settled the printing arrangements for Legend of the White Snake. He cupped his hands in a salute, took the few ingots of silver the owner had paid him in advance, and swept out through the door, his robe sleeves billowing. He had silver buried in the courtyard and jade under Blue Stone's bottom, but neither was something he could take out and spend. Life was always tight, so he had to find ways to earn money.
Though the bookshop was small, its owner was the kingpin of Meng City's literary trade, with most of the money changing hands behind the scenes.
"Brother!" At the sound of Zi Bofeng coming out, Little Stone immediately sprang up and gazed at him imploringly. If someone had attached a tail to his backside, it would surely be wagging back and forth.
"Meat buns, just as I promised." Zi Bofeng smiled as he walked over to the restaurant across the street. He took out ten coins and handed them over. "Ten meat buns. Wrap two in double layers of lotus leaf."
The attendant quickly wrapped the buns in pairs, adding an extra layer of lotus leaf to one package. He put them in a net woven from straw and handed them to Zi Bofeng.
"That'll be ten coins for ten Lotus Fragrance pork buns. Here you are!" the attendant called out smoothly. "Sorry, everyone, this customer has bought them all... We only had these few steamers today. Please come early tomorrow. Thank you!"
Zi Bofeng swatted away Little Stone's dirty hand as it reached for a meat bun, then wiped his palm with a handkerchief. The snow-white cloth turned pitch-black in an instant. Just as he was wondering what to do, the chubby bookshop owner smiled and held out a gourd filled with clean water.
The water traced an arc through the air. Two pairs of hands scrubbed together in it, accompanied by a burst of hearty laughter.
One bite of the Lotus Fragrance buns left your mouth full of oil, making you want to swallow your tongue. Zi Bofeng had just eaten one when he saw that Little Stone had already wolfed down two and was staring at him eagerly. Smiling and shaking his head, he broke his bun in half and handed some over.
After finishing his half, Zi Bofeng put the six buns he had left into the straw net and gave it to Little Stone. "I still have a few friends to visit. Take the buns to my father... Four for him, and bring two home for Auntie. Don't sneak any more for yourself."
"I know!" Little Stone answered loudly, clutching the net. He turned and was about to run.
"Slow down, don't fall!" Zi Bofeng shook his head helplessly. The little rascal was surely planning to cadge another half a bun from his father. He had no idea how Little Stone's little belly could hold so much.
Though he had eaten one and a half buns, he somehow felt even hungrier. Zi Bofeng was at the age when he was growing fast and needed a hearty appetite. One and a half buns were nowhere near enough. But those were all the Lotus Fragrance buns left, so he decided he'd find someone to mooch a meal from!
Today was one of Meng City's two monthly market days. Since last night, Little Stone had been pestering him to take him to Meng City for fun. Zi Bofeng knew all his excuses were false. Little Stone missed his wife.
As it happened, Zi Bofeng had plenty of things to do as well, so he planned to bring Little Stone to Meng City.
Zi Jian didn't trust the two brothers to go to Meng City alone. He was also the restless sort, so he brought along his carpentry and masonry tools and came with them.
The journey had been long, and the weather was hot. Zi Bofeng was exhausted. He started thinking that, no matter what, he had to build a relay station in Lower Yan Village. If there was no way to build one, he would at least get a horse carriage. He was sick to death of traveling everywhere on foot.
As he was thinking this, Zi Bofeng suddenly heard a commotion outside. He turned to look and saw everyone gazing up at the sky, so he raised his eyes as well.
Zi Bofeng's mouth fell open, too.
Little Stone struggled through the crowd. He had just caught sight of a shadow passing over the sky when the market erupted into a commotion. People poured out of their homes, shouting, "Immortals have come! The immortals have come!"
Before long, the sound of gongs and drums rang out ahead. Several constables shouted and drove the people back, while a few village guards craned their necks toward the sky.
Under the guards' protection, a snow-white crane came striding forward on its two long, slender legs. Behind it, a Cloud Carriage shrouded in swirling mist carried a young man in a Daoist robe, gazing down at the teeming mortal world.
Little Stone squeezed out of the crowd, one hand protecting the buns he clutched to his chest and the other braced against his knee as he craned his neck to look up. The crane's legs, taller than a man, swung back and forth beside the constables. The Cloud Carriage behind it didn't even have wheels.
"Wow!" Little Stone's eyes lit up at once. Just how many meals could you get out of a crane that big if you made it into meat buns?
"Move aside, move aside!" The crowd kept swelling, and some people were greedily breathing in the mist drifting from the Cloud Carriage, as if hoping to soak up a bit of immortal aura. The constables grew anxious. The magistrate was waiting outside the government office. Making him wait or annoying the immortal would both be capital offenses!
They raised their clubs and swung them in every direction. Cries of pain rose as the crowd packed together again, pushing and shoving one another.
Record of Raising Monsters
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