"Eldest young master, time for your medicine..."
A gentle woman's voice sounded, drifting softly into Lu Sui's ears.
He heard it clearly, his eyelids trembling slightly, yet he could not open them no matter what.
His head felt heavy and muddled, aching terribly, as though a hundred-jin lump of pig iron were pressing down on it.
His soul and body seemed to have been cleaved apart, unable to join into one.
No matter how Lu Sui tried to move, the body lying rigid on the bed remained utterly still.
I... didn't die?
I took so many bullets, and I still survived?
No wonder that fortune-teller at the village entrance said my birth chart was tough, that I was born with great fortune...
Alongside his relief, Lu Sui felt a measure of panic.
He seemed to have become a wandering soul, drifting through boundless darkness.
Fragments from before he lost consciousness flashed past like flowers viewed from horseback.
The vicious, brutal poaching gang, the fierce exchange of gunfire, the roar of an explosion, police sirens drawing closer from afar...
If I'm not dead, why can't I move my body? Could I be... paralyzed?
At that thought, Lu Sui's heart sank.
If he had to spend the rest of his life eating, drinking, shitting, and pissing in bed, there would be little to look forward to.
"Eldest young master... oh no! He's stopped breathing!"
The gentle woman's voice sounded again, its pitch suddenly rising.
Immediately afterward, someone gave that stiff body two hard shoves.
"Ah..."
Lu Sui felt as though he had fallen from the clouds. A violent sensation of weightlessness struck, and his soul slammed solidly back into his body.
Before he could open his eyes, he heard faltering words choked with sobs:
"Hurry and tell the master! The eldest young master... isn't going to make it!
"You can't just leave us like this, eldest young master! How could you make your gray-haired father bury his black-haired son!"
Hold on, I can still be saved!
His eyelids felt as heavy as lead. It took tremendous effort for Lu Sui to lift them a crack, while his throat was so dry and raw that he could not utter a single word.
He could only watch helplessly as the weeping woman rushed out the door.
They won't take me for a corpse and cremate me, will they? And where the hell have I ended up?
His vision gradually cleared. Everywhere Lu Sui looked, he saw tables, chairs, stools, a large carved bed, calligraphy, paintings, incense burners...
Every furnishing had an antique elegance.
Before he could think further, waves of weakness washed over him.
So I didn't survive. I transmigrated...
As that thought flashed through his mind, Lu Sui passed out again.
In the blink of an eye, seven days had passed.
"Circulate the Lesser Celestial Circuit, chant spells and form hand seals~"
"This humble Daoist came from Mount Longhu, a little immortal who attained the Dao~"
Lu Sui gazed up at the azure sky, his rocking chair swaying to his off-key tune, and sighed inwardly:
The Land Beyond the Pass, Yongning Prefecture, Changle County... all places I've never even heard of!
What a tragedy. There goes that huge first-class merit citation!
"Young master, that song sounds really nice. But where is Mount Longhu?"
Lu Sui looked up. The speaker was a little maid, no more than fourteen or fifteen.
She wore a short blue-cloth jacket with a silk sash around her waist. Her cheeks were rosy, a lock of black hair hung over her forehead, and she looked quite lively.
"A famous mountain within the pass. Not many people know about it."
Lu Sui sat up slightly, a smile on his face:
"Ginseng soup again? Tell Father I'm already seventy or eighty percent recovered. I can't keep taking tonics like this."
Holding the porcelain bowl, the maid tucked her neck down:
"I wouldn't dare speak out of turn! If anyone's going to say that to the master, it has to be you, young master."
Helplessly, Lu Sui accepted the porcelain bowl. The soup was a clear, pale yellow, steaming with a rich medicinal fragrance.
He took a sip first. Beneath the slight bitterness was a sweetness; presumably, his father's concubine had added a few pieces of rock sugar.
He gulped down the ginseng soup, and warmth soon rose in his stomach before spreading throughout his body.
Lu Sui smacked his lips:
"Fifty-year-old ginseng really is nourishing, but drinking it every day has my internal heat raging."
The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener read something into it.
Who knew what Xiaohuan thought of? Two crimson patches bloomed on her cheeks, and she shyly lowered her head:
"Young master..."
"I'm a bit carb-drowsy. I'm going back to my room for a nap."
Lu Sui paid no attention to the little girl whose thoughts had gone astray. He picked up the cane beside his rocking chair, slowly straightened his back, and stood firmly with its support.
Xiaohuan hurried forward to help him, asking anxiously:
"Drowsy? Young master, are you feeling dizzy? I'll have the master send for Doctor Lu..."
Lu Sui felt rather glum. He really missed those goofy netizens who could catch any meme he threw out.
He shook his head:
"I'm not dizzy. I'm sleepy."
Only then did Xiaohuan relax, letting out a soft, long breath.
He was the Lu family's only sprout, and the master had always treasured him greatly.
If even the slightest thing went wrong again, the servants attending the young master would surely suffer along with him.
Creak~
The door closed.
"I've upgraded from a two-person dorm room to a traditional Chinese mansion, too."
Lu Sui surveyed the room. In the sleeping area stood an alcove bed assembled from solid red sandalwood, carved with a design of a hundred sons and a thousand grandsons, hung with two layers of curtains, and partitioned off by three screens;
An antique display shelf stood in the middle, its assorted porcelain vases arranged pleasingly, with a long writing desk beside it.
The value of the brush stand, brush washer, and other items on the desk was hard to estimate, but the qilin paperweight carved from Hetian jade was plainly expensive.
The whole place proclaimed one thing: wealth!
Leaning on his cane, Lu Sui walked slowly over to a full-length mirror.
He wondered how far technology had developed in this world. They already knew how to make glass.
The mirror was bright and clear, reflecting a distinct figure.
In it stood a boy of fifteen or sixteen, with thick black brows and hair and a fair, clean face.
His phoenix eyes tilted upward at the outer corners, lending him a natural touch of delicate handsomeness. Only his pale lips gave him a sickly look.
"This face really isn't bad. A handsome young fellow by the standards of Changle County and all the surrounding villages."
Lu Sui raised a hand and touched that face.
No wonder the original owner had been so intent on entering the opera world. With looks this pretty, he was the very image of a born female-role performer.
"Lu Sui, the Lu family's eldest young master..."
Lu Sui sighed.
Buried deep in his heart, the image of the forest policeman who had maintained order in the forest region gradually blurred.
His former life was like wisps of smoke, scattered by the wind in the end.
The original owner's fragmented memories surfaced in its place.
The Lu family's ancestors had been mountain adventurers, traveling year-round through the towering mountains and precipitous ridges of the Land Beyond the Pass.
Only after generations of hardship and danger had they established a foundation.
By the time of Lu Sui's grandfather, they had founded the Ganzi Gang and put down roots in Changle County.
The so-called Ganzi Gang was a band formed by herb gatherers, ginseng gatherers, and merchants who bought their goods.
Most came from the same villages or hometowns, huddling together for warmth, watching over and helping one another to avoid being plundered by mounted bandits.
Later, the Lu family's business grew larger and larger, and their banner rose higher and higher.
By the time Lu Sui's father took over, the family already owned more than five hundred iron-covered wagons and employed over a thousand workers and errand runners.
"A proper local big shot..."
Lu Sui could not help marveling.
Within Changle County's little patch of land, saying "even a copper coin falling from the sky has to bear the surname Lu" was no exaggeration.
Yet this comfortable life of fine clothes, rich food, hawk training, and dog fighting was not entirely secure.
The people of the Land Beyond the Pass had always been fierce and bold. The Lu family could hardly have amassed such an enormous estate in just a few generations through amicable business dealings alone.
Making enemies, breeding resentment, and starting feuds had all been unavoidable.
Since Lu Sui's grandfather's day, the Lu family had been feuding with a nest of mounted bandits known as the Wind and Sand Saber, trading blows several times.
Both sides had lost many brothers, relatives, and friends, turning it into a blood feud that would end only in death.
Lu Sui's father had originally been named Lu Hansheng, but on an expert's advice, he had changed his given name to Yulin.
Lu Yulin appeared forthright and generous, with a wide circle of acquaintances, but was actually ruthless and vicious. He had once earned the sinister nickname "Saber-Wielding Ghost."
In the second year after Lu Sui was born, he had spent money and effort to enlist various parties, wiping out the Wind and Sand Saber with thunderous force. He had cut off the bandit chief's head and brought it to the ancestral hall as an offering to console the ancestors.
The matter should have ended there.
Unexpectedly, the grass had been cut without rooting it out, and a surviving remnant suddenly emerged seeking vengeance.
About half a year earlier, that person had used some unknown method to leave the original owner seemingly stricken with a terrible disease, spraying blood from his mouth and nose and bedridden with severe illness.
"Taking over this body means not only gaining a bargain father I have to honor, but inheriting a generations-old blood feud too."
Lu Sui bared his teeth, feeling he had gotten a terrible deal.
He had traded a first-class merit citation for this. Couldn't they have arranged a better identity for him?
Besides, having already walked once to the gates of death, he naturally treasured his life all the more.
He absolutely did not want to die again.
"Can this bargain father keep me safe?"
During his days in bed, aside from sorting through his memories, Lu Sui had been planning how to "survive."
Without anyone noticing, the enemy had managed to make "him"-who always had household guards and servants accompanying him outside-fall mysteriously ill, beyond the help of medicine.
Such methods were truly inconceivable, chilling him to the core.
"A person has to rely on himself!"
Lu Sui slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes flickering as though he were gazing at some point in the void.
As he focused his thoughts, a mighty rumble sounded beside his ears, like an ancient bell tolling.
Immediately afterward, he felt as though his soul had left his body and been dragged into a dilapidated old temple.
The temple was exceedingly strange. Its three stone walls were riddled with openings of varying sizes, as dense as a honeycomb.
The largest were eight or nine zhang tall, while the smallest were only a palm's width across. Within them stood shrine after shrine.
Lu Sui looked toward the main shrine directly opposite the temple entrance. It was about nine zhang tall, with large gilded characters emblazoned on either side.
"Encompass the changes of the celestial circuit, transform the origin of myriad arts... These characters look like talisman scribbles, yet somehow I can read them. How strange."
Muttering inwardly, Lu Sui looked at the main shrine.
Inside stood a pitch-black wooden tablet, nearly rotted through. Tadpole-like secret characters writhed and emerged upon it, giving off flecks of radiance.
[Lu Sui] [Martial arts: not recorded] [Methods: not recorded] [Talent: none]
"If [Martial arts] means martial training, then could [Methods] mean spells? Could I cultivate to immortality?"
Lu Sui pondered:
"The Land Beyond the Pass, bandit scourges in troubled times, saber fighters and traveling merchants... Even if I can't learn [Methods], I'll have to train in [Martial arts], or I won't be able to gain a foothold!"