The third lifetime

"Auntie can take it!"

The room was dim, heat rising as the infatuated pair reveled in their stolen pleasure.

Before he even opened his eyes, he heard Pan Shi's warm, familiar moans.

Pan Shi's family had come from elsewhere, so whenever passion ran high, a few words in her native dialect would slip out.

[Hundred-Life Reincarnation]

[Second lifetime: lifespan of eighty-one years]

[Inscription: the times make the hero.]

[Available talents: Vast Knowledge and Strong Memory, Golden Spear That Never Falls, Martial Arts Prodigy]

The times make the hero? That appraisal was neither high nor low, but it certainly sounded a little snide!

There were three talents to choose from this time. Meng Yuan reached into it with his consciousness and learned that "Vast Knowledge and Strong Memory" meant never forgetting anything he had seen.

His own memory was not bad. Though he could neither read ten lines at a glance nor remember everything he saw, he made up for it with diligence.

As for Golden Spear That Never Falls, there was little to say. It was merely a method of brute force, whereas he had already been tempered into steel through a hundred trials and possessed an extraordinary technique that bordered on the Dao: the Prolonged Battle Method.

"Martial Arts Prodigy," meanwhile, improved his bones and sinews and cleared his meridians, greatly benefiting the practice of martial arts, especially internal arts.

In his previous lifetime, Meng Yuan had read many books, dallied with many women, and practiced martial arts diligently.

These three talents did indeed correspond to things he had kept doing and never ceased thinking about in his previous lifetime.

Without much thought, Meng Yuan chose "Martial Arts Prodigy."

At once, Meng Yuan felt a tearing pain throughout his body. It felt as though fire were burning inside him and his whole body were swelling, with a succession of cracks and pops.

Only after a long while, when the abnormalities inside him gradually subsided, did Meng Yuan let out a relieved breath. His whole body felt remarkably light.

With no time to savor it further, Meng Yuan wiped away his sweat, stood up, extorted money, and offered a warning, all as smoothly as drifting clouds and flowing water.

"Come back to harvest wheat for my family next year. Auntie will be waiting! I'll save up and give you all my money!" For some reason, Pan Shi had become rather heedless of life and death.

Give me all your money? What do you take me for, someone selling himself?

Sneaking back to his lodgings, Meng Yuan fetched water and washed himself, then sat cross-legged, silently recited the instructions of the Pure Yang Dragon-Controlling Art, and slowly circulated his Qi.

After one full circulation, heat steamed from Meng Yuan's entire body.

He had practiced the Everlasting Spring Skill for an entire lifetime, yet achieved very little. Now, practicing the Pure Yang Art, he felt somewhat like a bird soaring into the blue sky.

A faint thread of internal power slowly formed in his Dantian. His whole body felt pleasantly warm, and his strength seemed inexhaustible.

Before Meng Yuan could rejoice, he began considering what path to take in this lifetime.

Though he had yet to uncover the immortals' secrets, he now had a lead and knew whom he should seek out.

Of course, seizing Lü Yinglong's fated opportunity went without saying.

Neither matter could be pursued without dealing with one woman.

It seemed he would have to get entangled with Chen Yuyin again in this lifetime.

"Chen Yuyin, you dead pig. Let's see whether you really are a dead pig..."

The next day, after collecting their wages, Meng Yuan and Old Yang returned cheerfully to Niujia Village.

A youth once more, Meng Yuan had grown young at heart as well. He felt only that heaven and earth were vast, and he could roam wherever he pleased.

"I'm planning to venture out into the world, save up some money, and get myself a wife!"

"Sister-in-law, I bought this candy for my niece. Don't you sneak any!"

Once home, Meng Yuan left all his wages behind and prepared to leave.

Without staying even one night, or getting a chance to hear his eldest sister-in-law scraping the bottom of the pot, Meng Yuan was already off.

He bypassed the county town and headed straight for Huai'an Prefecture. Dressed in old clothes, riding an old donkey, and carrying battered writing supplies, a shabby sword, and worm-eaten books, the young harvest hand had become a dark-faced scholar.

In his previous lifetime, Meng Yuan had collected quite a few internal and external arts, including sword and saber techniques. Though he still remembered them, his hands were rusty. After a few days of diligent practice, however, they came back to him much more readily.

His internal arts, however, had to be practiced from scratch, grinding out progress little by little.

Because of this, and the hot weather, Meng Yuan sought secluded places to practice the Purple Pure Yang Art during the day and traveled in the cool of the night.

It took Meng Yuan over two months to reach Pear Blossom Province, then another three days to arrive at Chen Yuyin's hometown, Spring Radiance Prefecture.

Meng Yuan did not go straight to intercept the fated opportunity. Instead, he first rented a house in Spring Radiance Prefecture, intending to learn about Chen.

According to the information from his previous lifetime, Lü Yinglong would not enter the mountains for another two years or so. Thus, Meng Yuan wanted to wait a while, see the splendor of Chen of Pear Blossom Province, and investigate her background.

Meng Yuan had never visited Spring Radiance Prefecture in his previous lifetime, and his knowledge of Chen was vague. He knew only that she belonged to a local family of physicians and apothecaries.

After spending a little over two months, Meng Yuan had more or less figured out Chen's connections.

Chen's ancestral home was in Pear Blossom Province, which had also been the fief of the Ancient Chen Kingdom.

After the Chen Kingdom fell, many of Chen's people died, but there were too many descendants left. They split into over a hundred branches, most scattered throughout Pear Blossom Province.

Chen Yuyin's branch, located in the prefectural city of Spring Radiance Prefecture, had few members.

As a great aristocratic clan, Chen naturally wielded considerable influence. Every generation had members who entered official service, but most were military men or minor clerks, and their positions were not high.

Still, with several centuries of cultivation behind her, and medicine and martial arts passed down through the family, Chen had clinics and medicinal gardens throughout Pear Blossom Province and possessed immense wealth and standing.

Of course, in terms of influence within Pear Blossom Province, Chen was not at the very top, but neither could anyone bully her.

Meng Yuan had made inquiries among several of Chen's collateral branches, but they did not remember being descendants of immortals at all. They knew only that their ancestors had belonged to the royal family of the Ancient Chen Kingdom.

That was worth little, however. There had been Eighty-One Kingdoms in ancient times. If someone stood atop a gate tower in a bustling marketplace and pissed down below, half the people he pissed on would be descendants of ancient royal houses, and whoever got a mouthful might even belong to a direct line.

Whose ancestors had not been royalty? Meng Yuan's, of course. His ancestors had been nothing of the sort, just ordinary commoners.

Chen Yuyin's branch was not prominent within Chen's family, nor did they claim to be the direct line.

Her father, Chen Qingyuan, had never entered official service at all. He was a resident physician at a clinic.

On reflection, however, they were descendants of an immortal's disciple and had their own pride. It was perfectly normal for them not to enter official service. Burying themselves in medicine could be considered a modest retreat from the world amid the city.

As for Chen Yuyin's elder brother, Chen Yucheng, though he held no official position, he was on excellent terms with people in the government. He was chivalrous, generous with money to help those in difficulty, and loved making friends above all. He was well known throughout Spring Radiance Prefecture as Chen the Eldest, the Timely Rain.

Combining this with what he had learned in his previous lifetime, Meng Yuan reckoned that Chen Qingyuan's plan was for Chen Yucheng to cultivate connections with powerful people high and low. Once the realm changed, they could retreat and protect their household, or advance and contend for the realm.

In his previous lifetime, Chen Yuyin had said that becoming emperor had been her father's and brother's dying wish.

But what respectable family spent its time thinking about becoming emperor? They had not thought of rebelling for hundreds or even a thousand years, yet this generation suddenly wanted to rebel?

The Pei Clan and the Bai Clan were also descendants of immortals, but Meng Yuan had never heard of their people coming out to fight for the realm in his previous lifetime.

What Meng Yuan also found strange was that, though he had seen Chen Yuyin's father, Chen Qingyuan, from a distance, heard about Chen Qingyuan taking Lü Yinglong as his son-in-law, and heard that the Chen Household's young lady excelled at gynecology, outsiders all said Chen Yuyin had disappeared after marrying.

"Yuyin, Yuyin. There really is something to that name. She actually went into hiding!"

Meng Yuan did not know what Chen Yuyin had gone off to do either. After half a month of fruitless investigation, he stopped troubling himself over it.

Taking dry rations and buying ample supplies, Meng Yuan disguised himself as an herb gatherer.

He entered the mountains to the southwest, crossed several towering mountains and perilous cliffs in succession, traversed an exceedingly dangerous stretch of mountain path, and climbed to a summit.

Farther ahead, he could see a deep mountain hollow surrounded by sharp peaks. The hollow stretched a hundred zhang from north to south, but only a little over ten zhang from east to west.

Though called a mountain hollow, it was actually an enormous fissure in the mountains.

Looking down, he saw only pitch-blackness within the fissure, as it was already afternoon. It resembled a bottomless abyss.

The fissure was long from north to south and narrow from east to west. He estimated that sunlight could reach inside only at noon each day.

Moreover, a place like this rarely saw human footprints. Even if someone came here, unless they deliberately searched inch by inch, they probably would never find such a strange place.

"Ah, it took Dayong four or five years to find this. He really did work hard."

Meng Yuan sighed.