Near midday, Chen Mu and Chen Duo finally returned home.
They had been gone for nearly half a year, and dust covered every corner of the house. The courtyard was overgrown with weeds.
Returning to the place where he had grown up, Chen Mu felt a surge of emotion. He turned to look at his younger sister beside him. She seemed very tired.
"Duoduo, are you hungry? If you are, we can go to Eldest Uncle's house and get something to eat first."
To his surprise, Chen Duo shook her head, looking quite serious.
"I'm not hungry! I want to clean the house before we eat."
Seeing how stubborn his sister was, Chen Mu could tell that, just like him, she felt a deep attachment to this place.
"All right! I'll go fetch water. You wipe down the tables, and I'll mop the floors."
They set to work at once. Since getting her glasses, Duoduo had become much more cheerful, and Chen Mu no longer had to worry about her falling because she couldn't see where she was going. With both of them working, the house soon looked as good as new.
But while Chen Mu was mopping the floor in his parents' room, he noticed something odd in a corner. When his mop passed over the innermost floor tile, there was a faint echo.
If his five senses hadn't improved after he became a talisman master, he might not have noticed it.
He crouched down and gently tapped the stone tile with his hand. The echo grew more distinct.
"Hollow? Could there be something inside?"
Just then, Duoduo, who was wiping the windows, noticed that Chen Mu had stopped.
"What's wrong, Brother?"
"Duoduo, there seems to be something here. Go outside and bring me my short knife."
"Mm, okay!"
Before long, Chen Duo found Chen Mu's iron short knife on a stool in the living room and handed it to him.
The gap around the stone tile was so narrow that an ordinary stone blade couldn't fit into it. He could only use the short knife to pry it out.
After prying out the tile, Chen Mu discovered a square wooden box inside. He hurriedly lifted it out.
The wooden box was crudely made, with unsanded splinters along its edges and no latch. It was probably a container made on short notice; otherwise, burying objects underground would easily attract insects and ants.
When he opened the box, he found a thick book and two small, pale green stones inside.
Chen Mu probed them with his Divine Soul and discovered that the two stones were unusual.
"These stones... Such dense Spiritual Power. These must be Spirit Stones!"
He had long heard that high-level martial artists in the outside world used Spirit Stones as currency.
Martial artists who had cultivated Internal Force needed to draw in Spiritual Power from their surroundings to strengthen themselves. Absorbing Spiritual Power from the air alone was far too inefficient, while using Spirit Stones could greatly reduce their cultivation time. As a result, Spirit Stones had become something they needed every day.
Spirit Stones were extremely valuable. There probably weren't even a few in all of Chen Village, so this was undoubtedly a windfall.
Next, Chen Mu picked up the book beside them.
"Acala Heart Sutra!"
He skimmed through its contents, growing more shocked the further he read.
"It's actually a martial cultivation technique! What's going on? How could Father and the others have a martial cultivation technique hidden away?"
This was his parents' room, and they were obviously the only ones who would have hidden something so carefully.
"Why did Mom and Dad hide these things? Were they afraid someone would try to take them?"
Chen Mu shook his head, unable to make sense of it.
He knew his father very well. If his father had obtained a martial arts manual, he would definitely have handed it over to the clan chief instead of hiding it in secret. There had to be something else involved.
In any case, though, this technique was a good thing for both Chen Mu and Chen Duo. They would definitely learn it first and worry about the rest later.
After some thought, Chen Mu put the book back in the box, returned the wooden box to its hiding place beneath the floor, and sealed it with the stone tile.
"Duoduo, don't tell anyone about this. Let's go eat at Eldest Uncle's house first."
Chen Duo had been watching silently from the side the whole time. Hearing Chen Mu's instructions, she obediently agreed.
Eldest Uncle's house was right next to Chen Mu's. They only had to step outside and turn a corner to reach it.
During the day, most of the men in the village went out, so only Eldest Aunt and her underage children were in the village now.
When Chen Mu arrived at Eldest Uncle's house, Eldest Aunt had just finished cooking. She welcomed him warmly.
Starting at the age of six, the village children attended group training in the village square every morning. Eldest Aunt's children had gone to training and had yet to return.
Chen Mu and Chen Duo waited a while, and the meal only began once everyone had come back.
"Little Mu, the Heavenly God truly blessed you! When your eldest uncle said you'd gone missing, I worried for a long time. I never expected you'd gone to bring Duoduo back! This is wonderful..."
Eldest Aunt was a typical mountain farmwoman, kind and straightforward but also superstitious and ignorant. She believed that Chen Mu's sincerity must have moved the Heavenly God, who had then cured Chen Duo's eyes and let her return.
Eldest Aunt had three children. Besides Chen Zihu, who had gone out, she had a daughter named Chen Zishan, three years older than Chen Mu, and a son named Chen Zilang, one year younger than him.
Chen Zishan and Chen Zilang were very curious about Chen Mu's experience and kept asking him about what had happened in the Heavenly God Cave.
"A Mu, did you see the Heavenly God? What did the Heavenly God look like?"
Chen Mu found it quite a headache. He didn't dare make up too much about the Heavenly God Cave, for fear that it would be hard to tie up the loose ends later.
So he said that Duoduo's eyes had suddenly gotten better and that he had been asleep at the time and hadn't seen the Heavenly God.
The meal was a happy one. They had grown up together, and although Chen Mu was usually rather withdrawn and didn't like playing with them, it didn't affect their relationship. They were all delighted that Duoduo had returned.
Chen Mu felt helpless too. When he was little, he had been forced to pretend to be like an ordinary child so the villagers wouldn't take him for a monster. But he really had no interest in ordinary children's games and often snuck off to learn about the knowledge and writing of this world instead. In time, everyone else came to think he was withdrawn by nature.
After the meal, Eldest Aunt took her two children to do farm work that afternoon. She knew the village chief had assigned Chen Mu a special task, so she didn't take him along. In the past, though, she would have taken him with her.
The village didn't support idlers. Children generally had to start helping with farm work once they were six, and if a family raised a loafer, the whole village would scorn them.
Although each household in the village prepared its own meals, the village collectively distributed all the game, wild fruit, daily necessities, and so on. The process was open, transparent, fair, and impartial, so the villagers had a strong sense of collective pride, and everyone worked conscientiously.
After Chen Mu left Eldest Aunt's house, Duoduo said she wanted to go play with her friends, while he went to look at the talisman-making room the village chief was building for him nearby.
The village chief clearly placed great importance on Chen Mu. He had only given the order that morning, but he had already sent several villagers skilled in construction to build his talisman-making room.
The talisman-making room was being converted from an abandoned house. It was very spacious, and the rough outline of its layout was already visible inside.
After Chen Mu arrived, he spoke with the carpenter in charge and discovered that they were surprisingly familiar with the facilities a talisman master needed. The layout was very well designed, with a furnace, a talisman-making table, a deduction table, and so on.
Although resources were limited and it would take them some time to gradually add these facilities, Chen Mu was already delighted. He would have a talisman-making room like a true talisman master, something he had never imagined before.
Afterward, Chen Mu had the carpenter make a few adjustments to the room's layout according to his requirements, then left.