Going Home!

In the days that followed, Wang Ba neither withdrew nor deposited any lifespan.

He was waiting for Old Sun to leave.

Only after Old Sun left could he feel at ease carrying out his plans in Mountain Manor.

He forcibly restrained his urge to use his ability, busying himself each day with nothing more than hauling chicken feed, fermenting it, feeding the chickens, collecting eggs, checking their health, and shoveling their droppings.

Someone collected the chicken droppings too.

They fetched about two-tenths of a tael of silver per jin.

He shoveled out several dozen jin every day.

The dung monopolist who collected it often shouted from below Mountain Manor early in the morning, urging them on impatiently.

He and Old Sun split the proceeds equally, but it was only enough to cover their daily meals.

After all, prices in the market were far higher than down the mountain.

At night, he carefully studied and practiced the Body-Strengthening Scripture in his bedroom.

Although the results were not obvious, he gained considerably more understanding of this cultivation method.

The days passed like this.

Half a month later.

Steward Li arrived as scheduled.

"Oh? Old Sun, you actually raised another Spirit Chicken?!"

The corpulent Steward Li looked at the large hen already placed inside a chicken cage, his eyes lighting up with pleasant surprise.

"I can hardly call it breeding. I don't know how I managed to raise it myself. Perhaps it was chance."

Old Sun did not claim undue credit, answering truthfully.

But since Wang Ba could not step forward to claim the credit, it naturally went to Old Sun.

Steward Li was not surprised to hear this.

The birth of a Spirit Chicken was often full of chance, and there had been quite a few similar cases before.

"You're too modest, Old Sun. I heard you're leaving the mountain?"

"That's right. I'm getting on in years, and even fallen leaves long to return to their roots."

"What a pity. With your wealth of experience, Old Sun, you're a rare asset to our Dingzi Manor."

After briefly trying to persuade him to stay, Steward Li thought for a moment, then said:

"In that case, why don't we change the reward? You've spent decades in the sect, Old Sun, with much hard work and distinguished service. With this Spirit Chicken on top of that, perhaps you could leave the mountain as a steward."

"Oh?! Is that possible?"

Old Sun trembled at these words, his eyes filling with unexpected delight.

"Only an elder can decide on a stewardship. How could I have any say? Whether it succeeds or not, Old Sun need only wait for word from me."

Steward Li's words left not a single gap for water to seep through.

"Thank you, Steward Li. If I can leave the mountain as a steward, it will all have been worth it!"

Old Sun shed tears of gratitude.

Wang Ba, who had remained silent beside them, hurriedly handed the chicken cage to Steward Li.

But when his fingers touched the large hen, he froze.

[Target lifespan: 57.9 years]

Huh? Why is it 57.9 years?

Confusion showed in Wang Ba's eyes.

He remembered very clearly that this large hen's lifespan had originally been 19.2 years.

That night, he had deposited another two years of lifespan into it in succession.

Normally, it should have been 21.2 years.

Yet the number before him had become 57.9 years.

More than double!

But there was no time to think these questions through.

Steward Li had already taken the cage and examined the hen through its bars, nodding with delight all over his face.

"It is indeed a Spirit Chicken, and it's in excellent condition!"

"Rest assured, Old Sun. With this treasure, there's a good chance it'll work out!"

With that, Steward Li gave Wang Ba a few more instructions, then swept his sleeves and left.

"Boy Wang, don't blame me for having the reward changed. You saw the situation just now. I couldn't refuse."

Old Sun turned around, and his tearful gratitude instantly vanished.

In its place was a trace of helplessness on his face.

According to the sect's rules, offering up this Spirit Chicken would exempt them from tribute for a year, which would clearly have taken a great deal of pressure off Wang Ba when he took over.

But now that Steward Li had decided to change the reward to a promotion for Old Sun, it had nothing to do with Mountain Manor.

Wang Ba would still have to pay tribute every month.

Wang Ba bore Old Sun no ill will over it.

The situation just now truly had been beyond Old Sun's control.

That question still lingered in his mind.

Why had the large hen's lifespan become 57.9 years?

Could it have been because he had deposited lifespan into it?

Wang Ba grew thoughtful.

But this was not the time to experiment.

He could only suppress the urge and continue as usual, hauling chicken feed, fermenting it, feeding the chickens, collecting eggs...

He was utterly exhausted.

Another half month passed in a flash.

Word finally came from Steward Li.

Old Sun had indeed been promoted to steward.

The day after receiving his stewardship, Old Sun changed into luxurious clothes and left the mountain with the savings he had accumulated over many years tucked inside his robes.

Wang Ba saw him all the way to the sect gates.

He was the only one who did.

Yet Old Sun, looking like a wealthy old gentleman, smiled with a hint of sorrow.

"Fifty years in the sect, and in the end, the only person seeing me off is a youngster I only just met... What exactly have I been chasing all my life...?"

Wang Ba did not know what to say either.

Everything had been his own choice. He could blame no one else.

But when he thought of how, without his cheat, he too would leave the stage alone and desolate decades later, a chill ran through his heart.

Should I... find a dao companion? Someone to huddle with for warmth?

Forget it. Now isn't the time.

He was too poor.

And it truly was not the time.

Old Sun took a few steps down the mountain, then returned under Wang Ba's puzzled gaze.

Hesitating, he took a firelighter from inside his robes and pressed it into Wang Ba's hand.

Then he hurried down the mountain without looking back.

As though afraid he might regret it.

And as though unwilling to spend another moment in this place where he had invested a lifetime's hopes, only to gain nothing in the end.

He returned to Mountain Manor.

Now, apart from him, the entire Mountain Manor held only a flock of Precious Chickens.

For some reason, this gave him a sense of security and freedom.

He instinctively wanted to experiment on the Precious Chickens.

But he still restrained the urge and first took out the firelighter Old Sun had pressed into his hand before leaving.

Firelighters were extremely common. Ordinary people relied on them to light fires when traveling far from home.

They were generally made by rolling up coarse paper and stuffing it into a thin bamboo tube.

The paper was lit and extinguished beforehand, leaving a little ember. When it was needed, a few quick, forceful breaths would make it catch fire.

What Wang Ba did not understand was why Old Sun had pressed this firelighter into his hand.

And why he had looked as though he had lost a family heirloom.

He thought for a moment.

Wang Ba simply pulled the rolled paper from the bamboo tube, extinguished the ember, and unrolled it.

The moment he spread it open, he noticed something unusual.

"There's... a sheet of gold paper tucked in here!"

Wang Ba's eyes widened. He hurriedly unfolded the gold paper and examined it carefully in the sunlight.

He saw that the gold paper was densely engraved with characters as fine as mosquito legs!

By a rough estimate, there were over forty thousand characters!

Several times more than the Body-Strengthening Scripture.

Squinting, Wang Ba struggled for quite some time before barely managing to make out the characters at the very top.

"Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture"!

"A cultivation method?"

Wang Ba froze.

He immediately felt somewhat disappointed.

The reason was that virtually every cultivation method of the immortal sects required spiritual roots at the very least.

Without spiritual roots, even dogs would pay you no mind.

Something like the Body-Strengthening Scripture was already exceedingly rare.

Naturally, Wang Ba lost interest.

But... Old Sun is a mortal too. Why would he keep a cultivation method?

Out of curiosity, Wang Ba still squinted and laboriously read through it, one character at a time.

That alone took him a full half day.

But after finishing it, Wang Ba could not help showing delighted surprise.

"This cultivation method actually doesn't require spiritual roots!"

"And like the Body-Strengthening Scripture, it relies on patient grinding, like water wearing down stone."

"But there's one major problem with this cultivation method!"