A lone lamp burned in the quiet chamber, the air thick with medicinal fumes.
Sixty-seven-year-old Xu Xuancheng reclined against the couch, his breathing faint, gazing at the waning moon outside the window.
Four years earlier, he had suffered grave injuries that damaged his foundation.
Though the Innate Longevity Talisman had extended his life by forty years, his Dao path had been severed.
His cultivation dwindled day by day. Now, he was only slightly stronger than a mortal.
During these years of trials, he had watched his lineage struggle to survive under the oppression of the Blood Refining Hall and the newly appointed prefect. The Azure Mystery Gang's influence had shrunk back, and its businesses had withered.
His father-in-law, Liu Qingtian, had passed away. Xu Huai'en's grievous wounds had proved incurable, and he had departed this life three years earlier.
His son, Xu Yuming, was a lone tree unable to hold up the roof, his temples already flecked with gray.
Though he struggled to keep things going, the Xu Household's glory was no longer what it had once been.
Hundred Fragrance Valley remained relatively peaceful, becoming the lineage's last retreat.
Xu Xuan had long since secretly moved the encrypted jade slips recording the insights of his two lives to numerous hidden locations.
"Forty years of life... in the end, they have run their course."
He sensed the slow ebb of vitality within his body, his gaze calm.
In this life, he had struggled and striven, had once touched the chance for immortality, yet had ultimately been defeated by his foundation and calamity.
He had regrets, but his life had not been wasted.
Xu Xuan took one last look at the quiet chamber where he had lived for decades, then slowly closed his eyes.
His soul left his body, floating upward to enter the unseen Book of Time.
Within the Book of Time, in the wondrous space.
Chaotic mists surged, and Xu Xuan's consciousness gradually coalesced.
Before him, the page representing his second life slowly turned.
Light and shadow flowed across it, finally settling into images:
The young Xu Daocheng distinguished himself in Xu Household Market, improving the Grain Garment Art and awing the surrounding villages.
The middle-aged Xu Daocheng founded the Azure Mystery Gang, explored cultivator markets, forged ties with an immortal sect, and secured the chance for his lineage to become a vassal at Hundred Fragrance Valley.
The elderly Xu Daocheng sat slumped with grievous injuries, yet his gaze pierced the void, looking toward the future.
The images solidified, becoming the second life chart.
At the same time, golden light gathered before him, revealing a new judgment.
"The second life has ended."
"In this life, you possessed a low-grade wood spiritual root and took your first steps on the immortal path. Alas, your fate was fraught with misfortune. You suffered a man-made calamity that damaged your foundation, stopping at meridian opening perfection, unable to glimpse the wonders of the spiritual treasury."
"Though your life was short, you gained something nonetheless. You founded the Azure Mystery Gang, expanded trade routes, became affiliated with Greenwood, and cultivated Hundred Fragrance Valley, forging a foundation for your lineage's immortal path. Your bloodline endured, and the incense of your descendants never ceased. Your achievements served the present, and their blessings reached future generations."
"You are granted the white talisman, 'Earth Spirit of the Eight Directions.'"
"The talisman says: like energies seek one another; nurture the heart through uprightness; dispel calamity and cleanse defilement; seek fortune and avoid misfortune."
The tiny golden characters dispersed, becoming a gentle stream of light that merged into Xu Xuan's true spirit.
"Earth Spirit of the Eight Directions..."
Xu Xuan's true spirit trembled slightly as he understood the talisman's effects.
This talisman did not enhance cultivation, but could improve fortune, dispelling adversity and calamity.
Compared with the life-extending talisman of his second life, this talisman was more valuable to a cultivator.
After all, the notion of fortune was a mystery beyond mysteries.
Believe in it, and it existed; disbelieve, and it did not.
I wonder what my next life will look like?
Xu Xuan was quite curious.
His true spirit was drawn toward the blank page of his third life as it slowly unfolded.
The cultivation world, Southern Region.
Hundred Fragrance Valley, under the jurisdiction of the Azure Wood Sect.
Though the spiritual energy here was not especially dense, it far surpassed that of the mortal world.
Paths crisscrossed the valley between patches of spiritual farmland planted with all kinds of low-tier spiritual herbs and grains.
Many members of the Xu Household worked here.
Though most had poor spiritual roots or none at all, practicing the Green Grain Art had strengthened their bodies, making them skilled hands at cultivating spiritual farmland.
Besides members of the Xu Lineage, the valley also housed a small number of stewards sent by the Yuan Household.
There were also some mortal tenant farmers who depended on the Xu Household.
Wang Tong was one of them.
He was thirty-three that year, with a dark face and rough palms.
He looked every inch the typical farmer.
At that moment, he crouched beside the small patch of poor farmland allotted to his household, carefully weeding and loosening the soil around several rather wilted stalks of dew condensation grass.
He was a distant relative of the Xu Household.
His parents had died early.
Thanks to that slender blood tie, he had been able to become a tenant farmer for the Xu Household in Hundred Fragrance Valley, barely scraping together a living.
Compared with the Xu Lineage members around him, who had more or less practiced the Green Grain Art and looked considerably more vigorous.
Wang Tong seemed especially ordinary, even somewhat dull.
His aptitude was poor. He had failed to grasp even the most rudimentary Green Grain Art, gaining nothing but some physical strength.
Deep into the night, all was still.
Wang Tong lay in his crude shack, staring blankly at the stars through a gap.
There was little worth mentioning in his thirty-three years of life.
His parents' hopes, his own struggles.
In the end, he was still struggling to survive beside these spiritual fields, unable to see the slightest hope of changing his fate.
Is this all my life will ever amount to?
If only I could cultivate too...
A deep weariness and bewilderment welled up in his heart.
As he hovered between sleep and wakefulness, something deep within his mind seemed to... shatter.
Boom!
Countless tangled fragments of memory poured out like floodwaters bursting through a levee.
Kunlun's sea of clouds, the thunder of tribulation, the dawns and dusks of Xu Household Market, the lights of River Sun Prefecture City, arduous cultivation in the quiet chamber, the agony of grievous wounds, the choices before the Book of Time...
The scroll of two lifetimes of reincarnation unfurled with a thunderous crash.
Am I Wang Tong?
No.
I am Xu Changgeng, and more than that, Xu Daocheng...
I am... Xu Xuan!
Thirty-three years after his rebirth.
Xu Xuan finally pierced the mystery of the womb and awakened the wisdom of his past lives.
He abruptly sat up. Not a trace of dullness or murk remained in his eyes, only the calm that came after weathering life's vicissitudes.
Xu Xuan breathed rapidly, feeling this frail body that possessed no cultivation whatsoever.
And the incomparably clear memories and knowledge of two lives in his mind.
Thirty-three years... I actually spent thirty-three years in a muddled haze!
A surge of lingering fear and relief rose within him.
If not for this violent fluctuation in his state of mind, who knew how much longer the mystery of the womb would have held him captive!
Xu Xuan quickly calmed down and examined his circumstances.
In this life, I actually reincarnated as a tenant farmer from a collateral branch of the Xu Household, here in Hundred Fragrance Valley... the pavilion nearest the water gets the moonlight first.
The corner of his mouth curved slightly upward.
The jade slips he had made in his previous life were in the valley, and the lineage's foundation was here as well.
Though his current status was lowly, it was far more convenient than starting from scratch.
Right, my spiritual root!
He immediately looked inward, and his heart sank.
This body's spiritual root was even worse than the low-grade wood spiritual root of his second life,
Mixed and weak, nearly a false spiritual root. No wonder he had been unable to grasp even the Green Grain Art.
No matter. With the accumulated knowledge of my first two lives, especially my knowledge of spiritual plants and insights into the Green Grain Art, even a false spiritual root has a chance!
His gaze fell upon the dew condensation grass in the small patch of farmland outside his shack.
The next day, Wang Tong seemed like a different person.
He no longer merely buried himself in hard labor. Instead, he carefully observed the spiritual herbs' growth, the spiritual energy in the soil, and even changes in the weather.
Drawing on the memories of his previous life, Xu Xuan began attempting some extremely subtle adjustments.
When to water, when to loosen the soil, how to use weeds along the edge of the field to create a simple arrangement that gathered spiritual energy...
At first, the others merely thought him strange.
Yet several months later, the patch of dew condensation grass under his care was growing noticeably better than those in the surrounding fields.
Its leaves were plump, brimming with spiritual energy.
This drew the attention of a Xu Household cultivator responsible for the area.
This cultivator was a grandson from a collateral branch of Xu Yuming's family, making him one of Xu Xuan's great-grandchildren. His name was Xu Jingyun.
Seeing that Wang Tong had suddenly gained insight and that his methods were wondrous, Xu Jingyun asked him about it out of curiosity.
Xu Xuan had already prepared his explanation.
He merely said that he had occasionally gained some insights through years of observation.
He also offered several observations about the spiritual herbs' habits, each striking at the heart of the matter and making Xu Jingyun see him in a new light.
Xu Jingyun was in need of people. Seeing that this distant cousin seemed to have some genuine ability, he promoted him to a minor spiritual field steward, responsible for guiding the cultivation of a small section of spiritual farmland.
Xu Xuan seized the opportunity, putting the knowledge of spiritual plants he had learned in his previous life into practice one piece at a time, steadily improving both the yield and quality of the spiritual fields under his supervision.
His reputation gradually spread. Even Yuan Qiu, a deacon of the Azure Wood Sect, heard about him and summoned him for questioning.
When he saw Yuan Qiu again, the man was already over a hundred and fifty years old.
Qi refining cultivators lived no more than two hundred years.
Now, he had truly grown old, his vital energy, blood, and magical power all declining.
--
There will be another chapter at eleven.