Hou Niao spent his first night at the Daoist residence in just such a muddle. When he met Old Man Baoshi again the following day, the old man looked rather embarrassed.
"My apologies, young friend Hou. I knew you had questions, and I came to explain things clearly. Today, though, we won't drink wine. We'll have tea."
Yesterday he had brought a wine flask; today he brought a tea set, every piece exquisite. He was a man who knew how to enjoy life.
"What would you like to know? Even if we're both at the ends of our lives, seeking the Dao knows no restrictions of time or place. But don't ask me how to attain immortality. I don't know that myself."
Unhurried, Hou Niao boiled water and brewed tea. Only when its fragrance rose before them did he ask, almost casually:
"Nothing else, really. I simply don't understand this so-called Anhe Prayer. I'd like to know just what sort of gate to the underworld it is, to make so many cultivators turn pale as though someone had mentioned a tiger."
Old Man Baoshi took a contented sip of tea, clearing his hungover head considerably.
"Heh, I was overthinking it. True enough, with cultivation like yours, what you lack is the very basics, the most common knowledge. You probably couldn't ask anything particularly profound. The two of us make a matching set: one asks shallow questions, the other gives crude answers. Just right."
Clearly, Old Man Baoshi enjoyed the feeling of being a teacher. In truth, having only just entered Foundation Cultivation, he had had few opportunities in his life to teach anyone apart from hoodwinking children. He was nearly sixty and had only barely reached Foundation Cultivation; talent like his was scarcely better than Hou Niao's.
"This so-called Anhe Prayer is, plainly speaking, a sacrificial rite. It's little different from mountain and water demons offering virgin boys and girls to awaken their bloodlines. It's just that the Daoist Sect has always claimed to be orthodox and finds that description unseemly, so they call it a prayer."
Clearly, Old Man Baoshi harbored deep resentment toward the Daoist Sect. This was also the usual attitude of rogue cultivators toward the orthodox establishment, a very common one.
"The purpose of the prayer is to express one's wishes through such a ceremony and seek Heaven's assistance with the petitioner's cultivation... These prayers aren't unique to the Anhe Kingdom. Other countries and powers have them too. It's an ability exclusive to the exalted immortals of Infant Transformation. No one else can do it."
Hou Niao was puzzled. "Heaven is so vague and intangible. Can it really send anything down? Or is this just for peace of mind? Using an entire country's strength for private ends doesn't seem very proper, does it?"
Old Man Baoshi spoke with absolute conviction. Through decades of struggling in cultivation, he had learned little of the true essence of Daoism, but countless scraps of gossip.
"There really are tangible things! But not always. Sometimes a prayer goes unanswered; that's called an empty prayer. Sometimes a Law Treasure, a cultivation method, some unusual material, or another treasure descends. You don't get whatever you ask for. You get whatever Heaven wishes to give.
"As for using public resources for private ends, that isn't an issue. Old immortals at Infant Transformation are all towering pillars of the Daoist Sect and rulers of countries. If they benefit, their disciples and grand-disciples below them benefit too. They won't keep it all to themselves.
"This Anhe Prayer, for instance, is the work of the Anhe Kingdom's state preceptor, the Daoist Sect's old immortal Xiao True Person. He felt the time had come. With dangers surrounding Anhe on every side, he wanted to use this ceremony to give Anhe's Daoist Sect a little more strength and confidence to face the increasingly rampant demons, devils, ghosts, and monsters."
Hou Niao felt bitter. He had arrived at a fine time indeed. "You mean we're part of this offering?"
Old Man Baoshi nodded. It was a truly heartrending subject to discuss. "They hold the knife and chopping block; we're the fish and meat. What can we do?
"The Demon Race must take lives when sacrificing to Heaven. That's a feature of their bloodline inheritance. The Daoist Sect is far more hypocritical. What they offer isn't life, but heaven-bestowed spiritual roots!"
"Heaven-bestowed spiritual roots?" This was the first time Hou Niao had heard of the concept.
"Yes. Essentially, it's a cultivator's ability to sense the spiritual currents of heaven and earth! In this world, those who can sense them possess tremendous opportunities and fortune. Among mortals, they're as rare as phoenix feathers and qilin horns. Calling it heaven-bestowed is no exaggeration.
"Every cultivator is heaven-bestowed. The Daoist Sect offers up the black sheep among these heaven-bestowed people to win Heaven's favor, proving their tradition's devotion to the Dao and protection of the people, while picking up a few rewards along the way."
Hou Niao looked thoughtful, and Old Man Baoshi snorted again.
"That's the origin of the Daoist Sect's prayers. I've studied the Dao for decades. I wouldn't dare claim mastery of Daoist learning, but I can still see human hearts clearly. The Daoist Sect's account may not turn black into white, but it certainly contains things that are incomplete, untrue, and only seemingly plausible. Which parts are true and which are false, though, is hard to distinguish. Without reaching that realm, guessing is pointless."
"I've sought the Dao for years without so much as glimpsing the doorway of Daoism, and somehow I've become a black sheep... Elder, most of the people in this residence seem to be rogue cultivators, with very few actual members of the Daoist Sect. Could this also be understood as a way of eliminating outsiders?"
Old Man Baoshi stroked his beard and smiled. This young fellow was still too young. His observations were keen, but he always approached things from a mundane perspective rather than that of the Daoist Sect. It was hardly surprising. A novice cultivator from a small place stood low and naturally could not see far.
"No. Earlier I spoke of heaven-bestowed spiritual roots, but there's another kind in this world called heaven-borrowed spiritual roots. These belong to those favored children of Heaven who have cultivation resources to rely on from birth.
"They have elders and lineages to depend on, resources and wealth to draw upon, cultivation methods and paths to follow. They eat spirit cuisine, study the great Dao, and meet True Persons. Growing up in such surroundings, their chances of eventually sensing spiritual currents are more than ten or a hundred times those of ordinary people.
"Once they step onto the Dao Path and enter Pulse Movement, who can say whether their spiritual roots were bestowed by Heaven or nurtured afterward? That's why they're called heaven-borrowed spiritual roots.
"These people include both those whose spiritual roots truly were bestowed by Heaven and those whose roots were induced afterward. They're nothing like us, who grew up wild and untended. Which of us didn't rely on Heaven's gracious favor?
"To receive Heaven's gracious favor is to be heaven-bestowed! That's why we can't accept this!"
As Old Man Baoshi grew impassioned, his spirit rose. "The Daoist Sect's prayers have existed in this world since ancient times. Their history is long. After countless such prayers, the Daoists discovered that offering genuine heaven-bestowed spiritual roots seemed to produce better results than offering heaven-borrowed ones.
"And so we rogue cultivators fell into terrible misfortune. The slightest misstep could mean being offered up by the Daoist Sect. Then there are those vicious fiends of the Demonic Sect, who don't care whether you've committed any grave crime at all. Once the time for a prayer comes, they'll seize you first and worry about the rest later, regardless of anything. It's a tragedy in the mortal world.
"The Daoist Sect is hypocritical and affected; the Demonic Sect is savage and direct. It's people like us who suffer..."
Hou Niao was speechless. "No wonder they'd take an interest even in someone like me..."
Old Man Baoshi stood and paced, easing the pent-up frustration in his heart. "Of course they would! In terms of heaven-bestowed spiritual roots alone, a little Pulse Movement cultivator like you is no different from those higher cultivators in Grain Avoidance or Foundation Cultivation! In Heaven's eyes, you're all ants. There's no distinction!"
Sharing the same affliction, the two sighed in sympathy and sank into sorrow. Bound together for this desperate end, they could not help grieving.
As the verse went:
The old man's face bore the hues of rivers and seas; the Buddhist's mouth melted an icy, snowy draught. Both were travelers unreturned in the west wind, burning incense and brewing tea to mark the Double Ninth.