Huizi Market

This was Zheng Qing's first time at Huizi Market.

Huizi Market was a marketplace, very small in scale, with only one street.

The entire street was less than ten meters wide, roughly trapezoidal, looping around in a circuit and only two or three li long.

Ancient, shabby shops lined both sides of the street, their fronts uneven and disorderly. One pharmacy even had its door half shut, with its windows still closed. As he walked along, Zheng Qing could see vendors setting out practice stalls wherever the sides were a little more open, making the market seem poorly managed.

"Our Sanyou Bookstore has a branch here. When I'm not around, you can come by when you have time and keep an eye on it." Mr. Wu walked ahead, giving Zheng Qing the instructions casually.

Zheng Qing murmured his agreement, but his eyes were fixed on the goods displayed by the street vendors.

Long worms with horns, Three-headed Dogs, rabbits with scorpion tails, mermaids lying in bathtubs—it was as if he had wandered into a fairy tale. Zheng Qing stood there with his mouth open, clutching the hem of Mr. Wu's clothes as he stared blankly at those bizarre sights. Yet he felt little surprise in his heart, only boundless curiosity.

Mr. Wu was very pleased with his reaction. Even the sight of several alluring young women on the street failed to make the old man's smiling eyes open any wider. He slowed down and introduced the shops on both sides in a gentle voice as they walked.

"This Daodi Ben Cao mainly sells authentic raw medicinal herbs. Aged Hundred-Whiskered Ginseng from Shangdang, bitter orange from Shangzhou, Pleiades gizzard lining from Sudi, as well as Sichuan ginger, Shu pepper, licorice—most ingredients used for brewing decoctions and refining powders can be found here."

"If you need to see a doctor or buy prepared medicine, you'll have to go to Huichun Hall. Its current master is Deng Xiaoxian. He graduated from university not long ago and originally wanted to make his way in the outside world, but Old Mr. Deng dragged him back. Their pharmacy is right next to our bookstore. You can go take a look later."

"This Fendian Suoqiu sells nothing but old papers nobody reads. It's full of tadpole script and oracle bone script. Nothing interesting."

"You can visit Luxi Fang once in a while. It sells clothes, though the styles are all rather old-fashioned and unfashionable. I doubt you'll be interested."

As he spoke, Mr. Wu occasionally clasped his hands and bowed to a few elderly men, exchanging pleasantries and greetings.

Zheng Qing stood obediently beside him, glancing at a toddler of two or three nearby. The child's parents were nowhere to be seen, leaving the little fellow in a red bellyband and twin topknots to ride a two-foot-long toy wooden sword through the air, cackling wildly.

"Why isn't he riding a broom?" Following behind Mr. Wu, Zheng Qing rubbed his nose and watched the little brat with envy.

"Because his mother will come over and beat him in a while. If he rides a broom, she'll conveniently use one to whip him." Mr. Wu spoke consolingly. "He can barely walk, yet he wants to fly around. That's an easy way to get beaten."

Zheng Qing felt that Mr. Wu was implying something.

"Today is your twelfth birthday. I should give you a gift." Stopping in front of a shop, Mr. Wu rubbed Zheng Qing's head and smiled. "Don't refuse. A gift from an elder must not be declined."

Zheng Qing grinned, unable to hide his excitement. He had no intention of refusing at all.

Doesn't know what gift Mr. Wu would give him.

The little animals he had seen earlier would have been nice. Three-headed Dogs and scorpion-tailed rabbits might have been a little dangerous, and his family certainly would not let him keep them. That little mermaid was still possible, though. He could put a bathtub in his bedroom and work hard at changing her water every day.

The Candy House sold at the stall they had passed earlier was also nice. The colorful garden mansion, flowers, trees, insects, fish, birds, beasts, and even the little people who occasionally ran out of the house to play on the lawn were all made of candy. They looked exceptionally delicious. Still, that sort of gift was a consumable. It would probably disappear after his birthday.

There was also the wooden sword that little brat had been riding through the air. It was too small for him to stand on, but there was still a hamster at home. He could hang it from the sword and let it fly.

Before Zheng Qing could finish thinking, Mr. Wu had already come out of the shop.

He opened his palm and held it out before Zheng Qing, smiling. "This is your birthday gift."

In Mr. Wu's palm lay a silver-white Pocket Watch, engraved with intricate patterns. With a light press of the button at its crown, the case would spring open and reveal the ticking hands inside.

Zheng Qing accepted the gift in delight, though a tiny bit of disappointment lingered in his heart.

Mr. Wu pointed at the watch, his tone solemn. "Remember this: your most precious wealth is your time."

Zheng Qing looked up, somewhat confused.

"See my hand?" Mr. Wu turned his palm over, revealing the wrinkled back of his hand. Its skin was waxy yellow and dotted with age spots. It was not beautiful.

"Can you imagine how smooth and elastic this skin once was? And now, it has withered."

"Between life and death lies not great terror, but great danger and great excitement. True great terror is silently feeling time slip away and your body grow old, yet being powerless to stop it."

"When I was young, whenever I saw old people, I would easily let my gaze pass over them. Carelessly, as though they were far away from me."

"But with the tick-tock footsteps of time, I suddenly realized that old age was so close to me."

"I do not fear death, nor do I fear old age. I only occasionally worry about my own helplessness. That I will be unable to leave behind my own traces, to prove the meaning of having once lived."

After returning from Huizi Market, Zheng Qing locked himself in his bedroom and practiced Rune Characters like mad for an entire night. The next day, the two dark circles under his eyes gave his whole family a fright.

From that day onward, besides teaching Zheng Qing to practice Rune Characters, Mr. Wu also taught him a Guidance Technique.

According to the old man, congenital weakness required strengthening one's foundation and nourishing one's vitality.

Runes strengthened the foundation, while Guidance cultivated vitality.

And so, the first thing Zheng Qing did every morning was practice the Guidance Technique once. Then, before breakfast, before his noon rest, and before going to bed, he copied several dozen Runes.

Just like that, the days slipped through the world like flowing water.

The pain from his last headache gradually faded beneath the washing of time, until it seemed like a dream. Even Zheng Qing himself could no longer be sure whether those unbearable days had truly existed.

Zheng Qing was already eighteen this year.

Studying under Mr. Wu did not take up much of Zheng Qing's time. According to Mr. Wu, haste made waste in all things, especially on the path of seeking the Dao. He practiced the Guidance Technique no more than three times a day and Rune Characters no more than three hundred times. Any more than that would drain his energy and trigger his old illness.

As a family of educators, although his family no longer demanded that Zheng Qing study himself ragged, he could not do without the ordinary life of a student. Under the combined demands of his family and Mr. Wu, Zheng Qing steadily completed elementary school, middle school, and high school.

To his sorrow, he discovered that he had truly become the kind of person he had mocked since childhood: from elementary school to high school, he had never strayed far from the neighborhood.

University had to be farther from home!

But surely not so far that even he himself had no idea where it was.

After finding his admission letter in his bedroom, Zheng Qing returned to the living room.

That was because, when Zheng Qing's parents came home at noon that day, they brought back a golden-haired blue-eyed guest.

From the brief conversation between his parents and the guest, Zheng Qing learned the foreign friend's background.

He was the interviewer sent by that strange First University.