By the time Chen Mu returned to Heavenly God Cave, evening was drawing near.
His eldest uncle and third uncle had learned that he was back in the village, and both had tried to stop him from leaving. He had pleaded and argued, and in the end, he had slipped away while they weren't looking and run back up the mountain.
Duoduo's severe nearsightedness was indeed difficult to cure, but Chen Mu had mastered his middle-school physics thoroughly back then.
In modern society, what was the most common way to deal with nearsightedness?
That was right: glasses for nearsightedness!
As things stood, the hardest part of making them was producing concave lenses.
The first material Chen Mu thought of was crystal.
In nature, crystal was the only naturally occurring transparent crystal, so it should be usable for making lenses.
But he had never seen crystal in the village. He figured it must be quite valuable, and perhaps he could buy some at the market more than a hundred kilometers away, but there was no way for him to get any at present.
He turned it over in his mind and thought of something else: ice!
Of course, ice would melt, and its temperature was so low that wearing it for long periods would damage the eyes. That was a problem.
But Chen Mu was no ordinary person. He was a talisman master, and one who possessed the Rune Ancestor's inheritance at that.
Although he still had no idea how to proceed, independent study and research were what he did best.
In his previous life, he had taught himself and become a fairly well-known programmer.
He liked this familiar feeling. Sometimes it made him mistakenly think he had returned to the past, to those monotonous yet fulfilling years.
Three days later, Chen Mu placed the Profound Ice Talisman leaves and wooden glasses frame he had made on the stone table and had Duoduo sit beside him.
Since there was no talisman paper in the mountains, he had to gather some large leaves to make Profound Ice Talismans. Though their effect would be somewhat weaker, they were more than sufficient for condensing Profound Ice.
He picked up a Profound Ice Talisman leaf and activated it. The leaf transformed into a piece of ice with a concave surface.
"Duoduo, hold still."
Chen Mu fitted the ice into the wooden frame, then put the glasses on Duoduo.
"All right, Duoduo, look at the characters on the wall. Can you see them clearly?"
Duoduo stared blankly for a moment, then shook her head.
"It's too far away... I still can't see them clearly..."
Chen Mu frowned.
"But... I think I really can see them a little more clearly than before."
Only then did Chen Mu breathe a sigh of relief. Although he had guessed that Duoduo was nearsighted, he couldn't be a hundred percent certain.
If the concave lens had no effect, Duoduo might have had some other eye condition, and all his efforts over the past few days would have been wasted.
The lenses weren't having much effect yet, but as long as they worked, that was enough. He figured the depth of the concave lenses probably didn't match the strength Duoduo needed; he just had to adjust them some more.
He immediately switched to another Profound Ice Talisman leaf, fitted the new piece of ice into the frame, and put the glasses back on Duoduo.
"How about now?"
"Wow! It's so much clearer! I recognize that character. It's the character 'Mu' in your name, Brother!"
"Haha, good! Great job, Duoduo! What about below it? Can you see that row of small characters clearly?"
"This... I can't see this clearly."
"All right! Wait a moment, I'll get you another piece of ice."
After dozens of trials, Chen Mu finally determined which lenses suited Duoduo best. He committed the method for drawing that Profound Ice Talisman firmly to memory, then picked up the wooden frame and began making more adjustments.
After more than two hours, the glasses best suited to Duoduo were finally complete.
Chen Mu had made the frame from branches of a sandalwood tree he had found on the mountain. Sealing Runes were carved into it, sealing the Profound Ice's chill inside the frame and preserving it, making the Profound Ice inside less likely to melt.
Chen Mu still couldn't make Spirit-Gathering Runes, so he needed to reinforce the runes on the glasses with Soul Power every three days. Otherwise, the Profound Ice on them would melt.
This was no small drawback. Only when Chen Mu's strength broke through in the future and he could draw Spirit-Gathering Runes would the frame be able to draw in the Spiritual Power of heaven and earth to sustain itself, allowing the glasses to last forever.
Considering that Duoduo would often run and exercise in the mountains, Chen Mu also added a cord to the back of the frame, so the glasses could be tied around her head and wouldn't easily fall off.
When Duoduo received the finished glasses, she was so happy she couldn't stop smiling.
"Haha! I can see! I can see so, so far... Choudan and Erniu can't call me blind anymore! Haha..."
Seeing how happy his little sister was, Chen Mu smiled too.
In his previous life, he had been an orphan. His adoptive father, who made a living collecting scrap, had taken him home, treated him as his own, and paid for his schooling, allowing him to grow up healthy and strong.
Sadly, not long after Chen Mu started working, his adoptive father had died of a serious illness before he had even had the chance to enjoy a comfortable life.
Chen Mu had been overcome with grief, and his company had been rushing to finish a project at the time, so he couldn't get leave. Mentally and physically exhausted, he had suddenly died while working overtime through the night.
That was why he valued family ties all the more in this life. He didn't want to follow the same old disastrous path, and he desperately hoped to take control of his own destiny.