Burning Wood to Warm Wine

Seeing that the old man made no move, Su Mo rather unceremoniously helped himself and poured another cup.

The old man did not mind.

This cup, he savored slowly... it cost over ten taels of silver, after all.

The old man in blue pursed his lips, set down his wine, and studied Su Mo for a long while before saying, "You've only just recovered from a grave injury. This wine has a powerful kick. One cup should be enough. Drink any more, and you won't be able to handle it."

"A grave injury?" Su Mo blinked. He did not remember being gravely injured. He should only have been exhausted... how had that turned into another grave injury?

"I don't remember being injured."

The old man in blue shook his head. "A great Dao wound is still a wound."

A great Dao wound meant damage to a cultivator's Dao heart. In plain terms, their worldview had collapsed, and they had begun questioning life itself.

"A great Dao wound..." Su Mo smiled. "I'm not a cultivator. How could I have one?"

The old man in blue sighed. "Though you have yet to enter the Dao... you're too deeply entangled with certain things. You already show signs of entering the Dao."

"Entering the Dao..." Su Mo looked at the old man in blue, whose expression remained kindly and serene. "Are you a cultivator too, sir?"

"You could say that..." The old man in blue nodded.

Su Mo lowered his head in silence.

Watching his reaction, the old man in blue asked curiously, "You don't want to cultivate immortality?"

Su Mo nodded.

In the months since coming to this world, he had witnessed the ugliness of its cultivators.

They looked down from on high and treated mortals as ants.

They treated human lives as playthings for their amusement.

In their eyes, there was only themselves and their so-called great Dao...

And this time, he had even seen cultivators use mortal blood to refine blood pills, all for the sake of supposedly entering the Dao!

To Su Mo, all living beings were equal. No person was inherently noble or lowly.

Yet this world's rules had revealed to him, in an utterly brutal fashion... what the law of the jungle meant.

Those who followed different paths could not make common cause.

The old man in blue seemed to understand what Su Mo was thinking.

"You're being too obstinate..." The old man in blue shook his head.

Su Mo raised his head. "How so?"

"Cultivating immortality is, in truth, cultivating the heart!" the old man in blue said slowly. "The great Dao has countless paths, and people can be good or evil. Cultivators are still only people, when all is said and done. Since they're people, how could they escape ordinary human failings?"

"Not every mortal is diligent, and naturally, not every cultivator is selfish."

"You must understand that the hardest thing in this world to fathom is the human heart..."

"Isn't it the human heart that gives this world its many colors and forms?"

"The Immortal Path is bitter, yet rich with color. You and I are merely insignificant streaks of color in the long river of time. Why cling so stubbornly to what you've seen?"

"I can see that there are things in your heart you wish to uphold. Why not do something for those things?"

Do something... do something...

The woman's wandering soul had also said, "Do something. Give this world a clear sky beneath which justice reigns!"

Su Mo had also said, "All right!"

Since I promised you, I'll do something... Su Mo broke into a smile.

"Thank you for your guidance, sir!"

The old man in blue nodded in satisfaction.

"After all that..." the old man in blue asked, "have you heard of the Academy?"

Su Mo paused, then shook his head awkwardly.

The old man in blue rolled his eyes... Well, that was a wasted question... ask him anything, and he knows nothing.

"Since you've decided to enter the Dao, have you considered joining the Academy?" the old man in blue asked.

Su Mo shook his head. "I haven't!"

"Why not?"

"I don't know much, but I've heard that the people at the Academy aren't very respectable..." Su Mo admitted frankly.

The old man's face darkened almost imperceptibly.

"That's a misunderstanding some people have about the Academy. Its legacy spans a thousand years, and it has weathered countless storms to stand in this world. It's simply that the nature of its Dao arts invites criticism."

At that moment, Su Mo remembered that Gu Yu was the Academy's third disciple, and immediately asked with curiosity.

"Sir, do you know much about the Academy?"

"A little. Ask whatever you like!" The old man in blue raised his noble head.

"The Academy has stood in this world for a thousand years. It must be an enormous sect, right? How many people does it have?"

At those words, the old man in blue immediately lowered his proud head again.

"Several thousand outer disciples, and full disciples... six!"

Su Mo was astonished.

"Only six?"

The old man in blue curled his lips disdainfully. "The Academy pursues perfection, constantly refining excellence. Every disciple admitted is someone who rises above the ordinary."

"Oh..." Su Mo sighed and drained his cup in one gulp. "Then could a scholar like me get in?"

With an inscrutable air, the old man in blue pointed at the wine pot warming beside them.

Peachwood burned beneath the pot, gently warming the fine wine within as its fragrance wafted everywhere...

Su Mo suddenly seemed to grasp something...

"Do you mean that wood burns and wine warms, each with its own strengths?"

The old man in blue sighed. "I mean this wine is expensive. Drink more slowly!"

"..."

Su Mo was speechless for a moment, then shook his head again. "But I don't know what sort of academy the Academy is..."

"I guarantee that even if the Academy's aims differ from yours, they won't run counter to them," the old man in blue said with a smile.

"Oh? You know what I seek, sir?" Su Mo asked curiously.

The old man in blue shook his head. "I don't."

Before Su Mo could speak, the old man in blue continued, "But I know what sort of person you are."

Su Mo poured himself another cup and drank it slowly... Even I don't know what sort of person I am.

"You prefer people to live peacefully together. You dislike slaughter and violence," the old man in blue began slowly.

Su Mo froze.

"You seem accustomed to living within rules, unable to adjust to the helplessness of a world where nothing is governed by them."

"You place yourself between cultivators and mortals, neither a cultivator nor willing to be a mortal."

"You grieve over mortals' helplessness, and you find cultivators' lofty arrogance even harder to stomach."

The old man in blue looked at Su Mo, deep admiration in his eyes.

"But... the Academy is a cultivation sect too," Su Mo said.

"You're mistaken... there's a fundamental difference between the Academy and cultivation sects," the old man said with a smile.

"What difference?"

"Many of the cultivators you've seen are merely rogue cultivators. They care only about cultivation, seeking to climb one realm higher. That's why their temperaments vary so greatly."

"True cultivation sects withdraw from the world, contend with no one, and transcend worldly affairs, searching for elusive traces of the great Dao between heaven and earth."

"The Academy follows another path: entering the world... becoming part of it. What it seeks is... the relationship between humanity and this heaven and earth."

Seeking the relationship between humanity and this heaven and earth... Su Mo was deeply moved in an instant.

"This path is difficult to walk, but it accords with the Academy's true heart."

"And with your Dao heart..."

Su Mo raised his head, looked at the old man in blue, and spoke each word distinctly.

"Where is the Academy? I want to go there!"

"Have you made up your mind?" the old man in blue asked with a cheerful smile.

"I have!" Su Mo said firmly.

"Then..." The old man in blue stood, flicked his sleeves, and clasped his hands behind his back, radiating an immortal air.

"Kneel and accept me as your master!"

"..."

Su Mo stared wide-eyed, as though realization had dawned on him. He felt as if the whole thing had been a setup... uncertainly, he asked, "You are...?"

"Mo Shangao, Dean of the Academy!"

Su Mo laughed!

When a like-minded elder went to such lengths to make you his disciple, what reason was there to refuse?

A flicker of absurdity passed through Su Mo's heart, but with it came a little warmth.

The Academy is like me.

Su Mo rose unsteadily, knelt, and cupped his fists...

He felt a little dizzy...

"This disciple, Su Jingyan, pays his respects to his mas..."

Thud!

The wine rushed to his head, and Su Mo collapsed to the ground, drunk...