Master, please accept your disciple's bow!

"Of course I won't borrow it."

Xiao Yan answered quickly.

Grandmaster Bodhi merely looked at him without replying.

The boy stood there for a moment, then said:

"I'll go see Father tomorrow morning."

Bodhi nodded slightly. His figure dissolved into a wisp of clear light and slipped into the ring. The suspended corner of the bed curtain finally fell, and the oil lamp began flickering again.

Xiao Yan took the ring out of the Wooden Box and put it back on his finger.

That night, he tossed and turned several times.

Sometimes he thought of Bodhi holding his tea; at other times, he thought of how Xiao Zhan had looked when he left.

The next morning, just after daybreak, Xiao Yan arrived outside his father's courtyard.

The hall door stood open, and someone was speaking inside:

"Clan Leader, the elders have approved the Third Young Master's allotment following his advancement. We can issue it as usual."

The speaker was the Steward.

He flipped through the ledger, then pulled a slip of paper from it.

"But the additional qi-nourishing medicinal ingredients will have to be funded from elsewhere. We haven't collected all the payments for the caravan's goods from the other day, and the ready cash in the treasury..."

Xiao Zhan pushed a money pouch toward him.

"Take it from me."

The Steward weighed it in his hand and said hesitantly:

"Wasn't this what you set aside for your own medicine?"

Xiao Zhan said:

"That prescription can wait a few more days."

The Steward reminded him:

"But last time, the physician said..."

Xiao Zhan said:

"I know my own body."

Xiao Yan stopped outside the door, his fingers slowly curling. Yesterday, when Xiao Zhan had said he would arrange cultivation resources for him, he had assumed his father only needed to give the word as clan leader, and the treasury would send everything over.

But that was not how things worked.

Just then, Xiao Zhan bent to pick up his teacup, only to cough softly. His palm pressed against his left ribs, and his brows knitted for a fleeting instant before relaxing again.

Xiao Yan stepped through the doorway and pinned down the money pouch before the Steward could put it away.

Both men looked over at once.

"Yan'er?"

"Father, don't buy those additional medicinal ingredients yet." Xiao Yan pushed the pouch back. "I've only just become a Dou Zhe. Didn't you tell me to rest for a day? I'll use my usual allotment for now."

Xiao Zhan looked a little amused:

"I told you to rest for a day, not a month."

Xiao Yan said:

"That still doesn't mean you should cover it with your medicine money."

Silence fell over the hall for a moment.

The Steward glanced between father and son, then tactfully took his ledger and withdrew. Only after he had gone far enough away did Xiao Zhan raise his tea and slowly take a sip.

"How much did you hear?"

Xiao Yan said:

"From when you said it could wait a few more days."

Xiao Zhan took a sip of tea and smiled:

"Not too much, then."

Smiling, Xiao Zhan raised a hand to ruffle his hair as he had the night before, but Xiao Yan's gaze fixed on his left ribs. "Father, what happened here?"

Xiao Zhan explained:

"An old injury. Not long ago, I escorted the clan's caravan out of town and took a blow from a Magical Beast along the way. It's mostly healed now."

Xiao Yan said irritably:

"If it's mostly healed, why do you still need medicine all the time?"

Xiao Zhan smiled:

"It flares up occasionally in wet weather. I just need to keep it under control."

Xiao Yan looked at the prescription on the table, creased from being crumpled, and said nothing.

The weather had been perfectly clear these past few days.

Xiao Zhan followed his gaze and finally said with some resignation, "I was busy until late last night and forgot to regulate my breathing. It's nothing serious. Don't look like that."

Xiao Yan remembered the Dou Qi that had flowed into his meridians the night before—deep, steady, protecting him all the way through. At the time, he had only thought that with cultivation like that, supporting a Yao Lao surely wouldn't be difficult.

Only now did he realize that his father could deliver Dou Qi with perfect steadiness, then endure his old injury and regulate his breathing alone where his son could not see.

Although he had only transmigrated here recently, Xiao Yan could clearly feel that Xiao Zhan's love for him was sincere and selfless. A man like this truly was a good father.

He was countless times better than that drunkard of a father next door, who did nothing but drink every day and made a six-year-old child cook for him.

Though he had come here through transmigration, a father like this still deserved his respect!

"Don't divert your medicine money." Xiao Yan smoothed out the prescription, his tone unusually stubborn. "My foundation matters too, but if you keep putting up with the pain, who's going to back me up later?"

That made Xiao Zhan laugh.

"So you're still thinking about having someone to back you up."

"Of course." The boy pushed the teacup a little closer to his father's hand. "Only yesterday, you said the elders should come to you if they had any objections. I can't suddenly have nowhere to take my complaints today, can I?"

Xiao Zhan shook his head, but in the end, he tucked the money pouch back into his sleeve.

Once his father agreed, Xiao Yan used the excuse that he wanted to study the physician's handwriting and copied down the prescription to take with him.

As Xiao Yan turned to leave, his father called him back and pressed two still-warm flatbreads into his hands.

"You came running over first thing to manage my accounts. Have you even eaten?"

The boy looked down at his palms and murmured that he had, only for his stomach to betray him with a growl. Xiao Zhan waved him off, holding back a laugh, and Xiao Yan could only clutch the flatbreads and hurry outside.

Back in his own courtyard, he shut the door, not even stopping to drink the cold tea on the table.

"Senior, I have a favor to ask."

Clear light fell beside the chair. By the time Bodhi appeared, Xiao Yan had already laid out the prescription. Grandmaster glanced at it, but did not immediately examine the names of the ingredients.

"What do you wish to learn?"

Xiao Yan froze.

Divine Abilities? Immortality? Alchemy?

Though last night's answer still hovered on the tip of his tongue, he pushed the prescription forward instead.

"Senior, could you first help me examine my father's injury?"

Bodhi smiled:

"What if I could only teach you to identify medicinal ingredients and brew medicine first, leaving other skills for later?"

Xiao Yan said with utmost sincerity:

"Then I'll learn that first."

Grandmaster watched him for a while, then tapped the corner of the paper.

"Didn't you already calculate last night that his cultivation was high enough to make up for whatever he lost?"

At that, Xiao Yan lowered his head and said, somewhat embarrassed:

"I did. I even thought that as long as his foundation wasn't damaged, I could just give Father a few extra bottles of pills once I learned Alchemy."

Bodhi asked again:

"And today?"

Xiao Yan pressed his fingers against the creases in the prescription and said slowly:

"Only today did I learn that he was already enduring the pain."

The ring felt faintly cool against his finger. Remembering that bowl of hot porridge from the night before, Xiao Yan felt his nose sting, but shedding tears now seemed far too embarrassing, so he drew a forceful breath.

Bodhi extended a finger and pointed lightly above one spot on the prescription.

"His accumulated injuries have not cleared, and his meridians have long been obstructed, but his foundation remains unharmed. This prescription can bring relief. With more careful recuperation, he can recover completely. There is no need to panic."

Only then did Xiao Yan's shoulders relax.

Bodhi said:

"If you are willing to learn Alchemy from me, you can begin by studying the medicinal properties of All Things. Once your mastery is sufficient, you can learn methods of refining pills that nourish the meridians."

Xiao Yan nodded:

"I am willing!"

After answering, he suddenly looked at the ring on his hand and remembered another unresolved matter.

"Senior, I wanted to ask... was there originally someone else inside my ring?"

Bodhi said:

"The one you called for last night?"

Xiao Yan nodded slightly.

The next second, Bodhi opened his hand, and a small lamp floated above his palm. Its body was blue-green, and within its bean-sized flame curled an extremely faint human silhouette, with a cold white glow dimly shining from its depths.

"His soul was injured. When I arrived, I took the liberty of moving him somewhere safe to recuperate."

Xiao Yan leaned a little closer, then quickly stepped back, afraid of disturbing him.

"Will he still absorb my Dou Qi?"

Bodhi smiled:

“With the Soul-Nurturing Lamp tending to him, he has no need of yours.”

Hearing that, the boy finally let out a long breath. Only now had the shadow of those three years as a good-for-nothing truly dispersed for good.

He did not ask what cultivation methods were hidden within the lamp. Instead, he rose to wash the teacup and boiled a fresh pot of water. There were no green leaves appearing out of thin air, only ordinary tea dust he found in the cupboard.

The first time, the water boiled too fiercely, so he poured it away and started again.

The second time, the fragrance of tea finally rose in a steady waft.

Seeing that the moment was ripe, Xiao Yan picked up the cup, walked before the Grandmaster, and sank to both knees. This time, no force lifted him up.

“I, Xiao Yan, humbly ask the Grandmaster to accept me as his disciple.”

Bodhi accepted the cup of rather mediocre tea, took a small sip, then looked at Xiao Yan and said:

"There is some affinity between us, and your character is good. I could consider teaching you a thing or two."

At the Grandmaster's words, Xiao Yan immediately raised his head, his eyes lighting up. Then, still kneeling, he kowtowed three times and said respectfully:

"Master, please accept your disciple's bow!"

Immediately afterward, he asked hesitantly:

“Then should I take a Dharma Name as well?”

Patriarch Bodhi looked a little puzzled:

"You already have a name. Why change it?"

Xiao Yan smiled:

"Then how should I stand in relation to that person you mentioned...?"

The Grandmaster glanced at him:

"Are you here to learn the Dao, or to sort out family ties?"

Xiao Yan hurriedly nodded:

"To learn the Dao, of course."

Xiao Yan immediately straightened his back, though inwardly he repeated the words "senior brother" several times without voicing them. Half an hour ago, he had still been worrying about his father's medicine money. Now, he actually had the right to ponder how he should address that monkey.

He grinned and was about to kowtow twice more when the Grandmaster lightly tapped his forehead with a knuckle.

"The formalities are complete. Remember, you may use your cleverness, but do not use it on your closest kin."

Xiao Yan nodded slightly:

"Your disciple will remember!"

Bodhi set down the teacup, and clear light slowly spread from his sleeve.

"Now that you have entered my tutelage, let us see which path you wish to walk, and which Divine Abilities you wish to cultivate."