The Matter of the Casket

The Clear Frost Osmanthus Garden was the only secluded cultivation site at Luyu University suited to Grand Yin cultivators making breakthroughs. It lay in the northwestern corner of the Central Palace.

Jiang Wangxuan had chosen to make his breakthroughs to Middle and Late Qi Refinement there. The Clear Frost Osmanthus Garden was filled from end to end with Plain Shadow Cold Moon Osmanthus trees.

These osmanthus trees stood about a zhang tall, their trunks thick enough to take two people to encircle.

Their trunks looked as though they had been cast from pure silver, their bark finely patterned with faint traces of flowing moonlight. They felt cold to the touch, but not icy; warm, but not dry. Their gnarled branches lacked the orderly shape of ordinary osmanthus trees, instead slanting like those of old plum trees, their sparse shadows at ease.

Their flowers had nine petals, pale as the moon. They bloomed on the night of the full moon and withered after a single night. Alongside the Dark Soul Toad Moon Osmanthus cultivated at Jielin Hall, they were known as the two great Grand Yin Foundation Establishment spirit osmanthus trees.

Both Plain Shadow Osmanthus Blossoms and Dark Osmanthus Toad Saliva could serve as the main ingredient for the White Hair Moon-Illuminating Pill.

Though the Clear Frost Osmanthus Garden was filled with Plain Shadow Cold Moon Osmanthus trees, only the parent tree, nourished by the Heavenly River that fell from the grotto-heaven, truly deserved to be called a spirit osmanthus.

All the rest were merely offshoots grown from the parent tree's side branches.

The Clear Frost Osmanthus Garden had once been tended with great care by one of the great clans formerly of the Central Palace. Now it fell under Luyu University's jurisdiction, directly administered by the president's office! The Incantation restricting entry to and exit from the garden had remained in Lin Tongjiang's hands all these years.

The two entered the garden once more. Beneath their feet was a narrow path paved with blue-white stone. Osmanthus trees stood thickly on either side, their branches casting slanting shadows and screening the sky above the path until only a thin strip of daylight remained.

Though the garden was full of osmanthus trees, most were short and spindly, clearly only offshoots grown from the parent tree's side branches.

Only the one on the high platform in the distance was different. Its powerful branches resembled a blue dragon reaching into the sea, and its spreading crown was like a canopy holding up the sky. Faint, silvery-white moonlight flowed among its leaves, while its roots plunged into the cracks in the stone beneath the platform.

That was the parent tree, nourished by the Heavenly River that fell from the grotto-heaven. Nearly all the spiritual charm of the entire osmanthus garden rested in it.

They followed the path deeper into the garden, and the view suddenly opened up. A pool of clear green water stretched before them, its surface still and unruffled, reflecting the sky, clouds, and pavilions all around.

There were islets in the water, with islands upon them, linked by nine-bend stone bridges that wound just above the surface. A waterside pavilion stood by the bank, its eaves and corners swept upward, surrounded by water on three sides and joined to the shore on the fourth. Behind it rose a three-story tower with a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof. Its glazed tiles shone blue-green beneath the starlight, and bronze bells hung from its eaves, chiming whenever the breeze passed.

Lin Tongjiang stood in the tower, looking at the parent tree on the white jade platform. Slowly, he said to Jiang Wangxuan behind him, "This time, don't go into seclusion in the quiet room in the tower. Go beneath the platform where that Plain Shadow Cold Moon Osmanthus stands."

He raised a hand toward the white jade platform, pointing at the distant parent tree.

"That osmanthus tree is nourished by the grotto-heaven's Heavenly River. Its roots are planted in the very center of the garden, its branches spread like a canopy, and its leaves draw in moonlight. The entire garden's Spirit Vein passes through it. If you go into seclusion beneath its platform, you'll be sitting right on the eye of the garden's Spirit Vein."

"If you succeed, you'll forge the Autumn Moon Osmanthus Immortal Foundation, and the osmanthus tree will also be nourished by a trace of your spiritual charm. If your Dao perishes and you scatter like clouds, all the true essence and Law Power in your body will serve as fertilizer for the tree. Neither you nor it will lose out!"

Lin Tongjiang suddenly turned around and teased, "Are you prepared for that?"

Jiang Wangxuan smiled freely and replied, "How many people pore over the classics until their hair turns white and still can't reach that osmanthus tree? A great clan can go generations without producing a single seed capable of forging an Immortal Foundation. What more could I want?"

Lin Tongjiang, however, sighed. "Too fast. Your younger sister, Jiang Jinyi, came out of seclusion just a few days ago after refining that strand of Dui White Pure Metal Sha. A few of the old professors at the college have taken an interest in her. What do you think?"

Jiang Wangxuan was delighted at once. "That's a good thing! I know a little about the intricacies of the Dui Metal Aperture Heart Qi Gathering Instruction Jinyi cultivates. Having an old professor lead her along would be a tremendous fortuitous opportunity!"

"You can hardly call it a fortuitous opportunity. It's just the school's normal work of matching teachers and students. Your sister's aptitude isn't especially good, but the Dui Metal Aperture Heart Qi Gathering Instruction has always been rare. The Metal College only sees one practitioner every ten-odd years. Before classes have even started, those old professors have been coming to me, asking all around whose child she is!"

Li Tongjiang added reproachfully, "Isn't it because you, her older brother, set the example like a jewel before her and cultivated too quickly? Holding Jinyi back a little will do her good. I turned those professors away by telling them she hadn't reached Qi Refinement yet!"

How could Jiang Wangxuan not understand Teaching Assistant Lin's reproach now? Had he not, through a coincidence, cultivated that "silvery-white jade disc" in his Qi sea, formed from moonlight in its closest state to its primordial essence in heaven and earth-

Only then had he been able to master the third-grade Cultivation Method, Moon-Worshipping Spirit-Calming Benediction, as well as the fourth-grade Moon Shadows Become Three People. He had first obtained the wonders of an Immortal Foundation, and only then was he confident he could forge one.

Though his chances of forging an Immortal Foundation had already been high before, compared to now, the difference was as vast as heaven and earth!

"Qi Refinement is about steadiness, about polishing the foundation. Single-mindedly pursuing cultivation is instead the Lower Vehicle. Once one's Dao attainment is sufficient, cultivation will naturally follow like water flowing into a channel. Teaching Assistant Lin, I was attached to appearances before!"

Lin Tongjiang waved a hand. "I don't know where you found your fortuitous opportunity, but you've contained all your Grand Yin Qi and comprehended the Moon-Worshipping Spirit-Calming Benediction as well. Since you've already reached this point, I naturally have nothing to say, but we still have to complete the proper procedures!"

With that, Lin Tongjiang took out a green jade casket, clear and emerald throughout, its jade luster soft and warm. It was called a soul casket, made specifically for cultivators to leave their last words before a breakthrough.

When cultivators broke through to Foundation Establishment, they walked a path between life and death, and very few made it through. Those born to great clans naturally had no need to worry about their affairs after death, with relatives to look after them during seclusion!

But for the commoner disciples recruited from all across the world by a place like Luyu University, the arrangements for their deaths when they prepared to break through had to be fully protected by the appropriate institutions!

How had the great clans of the Central Palace stirred up public outrage and been driven out of the grotto-heaven back then? It was precisely because those hidebound clans had reached their hands into the newly founded Luyu University.

Not only had many students' affairs after death gone unprotected, but the property they had saved up had also been entirely embezzled, leaving the whole of Luyu University's reputation stinking to high heaven at the time!

Jiang Wangxuan remained composed. He forced a drop of Essence Blood from his fingertip and let it fall into the jade casket. That single drop of Essence Blood contained all his arrangements for what would happen after his death.

"Teaching Assistant Lin, thanks to Lüyu's support for its students, I still have quite a few Tongbao left in my account. Before I returned home, I left Jinyi two Azure Marrow Origin-Nourishing Pills and one Supreme White Metal-Tempering Pill."

"I obtained them all by trading the rewards the school gave me on the market. The Law sword I have, Autumn Frost, was a gift from Master Tan and is quite precious. Teaching Assistant Lin, please keep it for me. If Master Tan obtains a Divine Ability, please return it to him on my behalf."

Lin Tongjiang turned away and nodded silently.

He had seen quite a few good friends off in his life, all of them vanished like smoke and scattered clouds. Though each had made arrangements for what came after long beforehand, entrusting them to someone face-to-face like this was rare in the end.

That was how it was for those who cultivated the Dao. The further they went, the fewer people remained by their side.

Jiang Wangxuan was only twenty-one by East Asian age reckoning at most. He was the first student Lin Tongjiang had nominally taken in, and Lin Tongjiang had not expected the time for Jiang Wangxuan to entrust him with his affairs after death to come so soon.

"There's no need to say much about the Cavern Spring Talismanic Words Bracelet. It's a Law Artifact bestowed by the grotto-heaven, so it should naturally be returned there. There are also the life-prolonging pills I left for my parents. When I went home this time, I didn't tell the two elders that I was going to attempt Foundation Establishment."

"Jinyi will have to use those pills to care for the two elders in the future. As for my younger brother, ah, a Wood Virtue Spirit Root child's future achievements are far too uncertain. I've already left him enough resources to reach six cycles of Embryonic Breathing. After that, he'll have to rely on his own fortune!"

Having said all this, Jiang Wangxuan seemed to have laid down a heavy burden, his whole body feeling lighter. But among those who cultivated the Dao, how many could truly let go of the mortal world? Otherwise, where had the sprawling webs of relatives and great family names behind those True Lords come from?

With his back to him, Lin Tongjiang was silent for a moment before he spoke. "All right. I've noted everything you said. If you die, I'll delay news of your death for two years, within the limits of my authority. By then, your sister Jinyi should be able to shoulder the burden of your Jiang Household."

He paused there. His fingers curled slightly inside his sleeve, then slowly relaxed, as though he were weighing something.

A moment later, he continued, "I took a liking to Jinyi the moment I saw her. I'll take extra care of her. If she wishes to forge an Immortal Foundation someday, I'll do everything in my power to help her."

A brief silence fell over the tower, broken only by the murmuring streams around the waterside pavilion!

Only at that moment did Jiang Wangxuan truly understand where the bonds of a Lineage came from.

A Foundation Establishment cultivator lived for two hundred years. With proper life extension, adding another sixty was no idle boast. A mortal life lasted only a few decades; however deep a friendship ran, it came to an end after thirty or fifty years at most.

But Foundation Establishment cultivators were different. Befriend one, and the friendship began at a hundred years-a hundred years of cause and effect.

And for that very reason, how many people's burdens did a Foundation Establishment cultivator have to shoulder after their deaths over the course of a lifetime?

Jiang Wangxuan thought of the relatives and great family names behind those True Lords, the great Aristocratic Clans that had endured for hundreds or thousands of years, the tangled webs of relatives by marriage and old friends.

Had they not risen from one entrusted duty after another? When a Foundation Establishment cultivator fell, a Lineage that endured for a hundred years stood behind him to inherit those ties.

And now, he himself had become one of those countless people.

Lin Tongjiang's back remained silent in the shadows cast by the tower window. Outside, the osmanthus tree's moonlight flickered across his shoulders like a thin layer of frost.

"Jiang Wangxuan, all matters are settled, your Dao heart is at peace. You may forge your Immortal Foundation."

Afterward, only Jiang Wangxuan's shadow remained in the tower. Lin Tongjiang had taken the green jade casket away, but had left a glazed cup on the windowsill facing the osmanthus tree.

The cup was half full of clear water. A luminous pearl floated on its surface, shining faintly like a tiny star plucked from the sky.

That was the White Hair Moon-Illuminating Pill.