Immortal Moon Township
Green mountains flanked a river of muddy water, and work chants rang out without cease. More than a dozen lean, sinewy men worked bare-chested, their skin tanned purplish brown by the sun.
The old boat tracker at the front hunched at the waist, a short lead call bursting from deep in his throat. The trackers behind him leaned forward as one, answering his call, their voices merging into a low roar:
"Heave-ho!"
The golden crow sank in the west, and the full moon hung high. The boat drifted in midstream while the trackers lay sprawled along the bank. Suddenly, the old tracker at the front caught sight of something flashing on the river shoal.
He braced himself on his knees and stood, then bent to pick it up. It was a stone carving of a person.
The statue must have been quite old. The lines carved into its face had long since blurred, leaving its original features indistinguishable. Only a vague human shape could be made out, seated cross-legged with its hands gathered before its knees.
While the others weren't looking, the old tracker took off his worn hemp shirt, wrapped it around the statue, and quietly tucked it into his robes.
On the fifteenth day of the first month, the old tracker took leave of the boat crew and returned through the gathering dusk to his home in the reeds. The children playing at the door swarmed over, chattering and clamoring all at once.
That evening, his elderly mother also sat with difficulty in the little courtyard, eating dinner with the family. Every meal like this was one fewer they would share.
His son and daughter stared at the plate of pork on the table, a sight they saw only a few times a year, swallowing their drool in craving.
That night, the full moon lit the inner room brightly, and the woman's gasps rose and fell as long as the work chants.
The man held the woman's rough hand, tenderly rubbing her calluses. He thought of the stone statue he had found a few days earlier. It was a fine thing, something he could keep as a family heirloom.
Another autumn moon came around, the full moon hanging high. The reed marsh was still the same reed marsh, and the old tracker sat in the wicker chair before the courtyard.
His wife had passed away the year before, his sons had all grown up and started families, and his daughter had married nearby, so she often came back to visit! His grandchildren ran all over the house and courtyard, while the old tracker slept peacefully in the wicker chair, just like his old mother.
At some unknown point, a corner of the full moon in the sky had gone missing.
The human-shaped stone statue in the reed marsh fell into the water once more. It sank into the mud by the riverbank and watched as rows upon rows of houses rose along both banks in Jiangbei. Earthen walls became brick, thatched roofs became tile, and then they became high-rises.
It heard the neighing of warhorses trampling the earth in the distance, like muffled thunder rolling across the river.
A scholar with frost-white temples sang "Spring River, Flowers, Moonlit Night" on the bank. When he reached "Who by the river first beheld the moon? In what year did the river moon first shine on man?" his voice was drowned out by the roar of machinery.
The lonely moon grew dim.
The river that had flowed for a thousand years was now a small muddy ditch. The murky water blocked the last sliver of moonlight the statue could see. Jiang Wangxuan's consciousness awakened in that dim, shadowy gloom, then sank into deep sleep again.
"Clack."
A black stone landed on the Go board. The crisp sound echoed for a long time through the empty moon palace.
A white-haired immortal sat upright before the board, his figure lean and clad in a plain white robe. His left hand was tucked into his sleeve, while his right hovered over the board, a white stone held between his fingers, yet he did not play it.
The moon palace had neither walls nor roof. No stars could be seen in the heavens, nor sun or daylight. Only a faint silver radiance streamed in from every direction, and a gigantic silver-white moon disc hung in the void.
In the distance stood a palace, carved entirely from moon essence glazed glass, with upturned eaves and tier upon tier of towers and halls.
Before the palace stood an osmanthus tree.
The osmanthus tree was immense, its crown spreading like a canopy to cover nearly half the sky.
Its trunk was silver-white from top to bottom, and the patterns in its bark were identical to those on the moon disc. A winter cicada rested on one of its branches, its body transparent as ice crystal and its thin wings slightly spread. It lay motionless, as though asleep.
At some point, heavy snow began to fall in the moon palace.
The snow descended soundlessly from the depths of the void, settling over the osmanthus tree.
The jade rabbit left a string of shallow footprints in the snow, extending from the roots of the osmanthus tree to the back of the palace, only for fresh snow to slowly cover them. In the distance, a toad croaked into the wind and snow, its cries deep and drawn-out.
As though roused by the sounds outside the moon palace, the faceless stone statue slowly rose to sit upright on one side of the Go board. It had no face or features, only the indistinct outline of a person, covered in a thin layer of moon crystal.
The immortal across from it gave it a glance, then resumed pondering with the white stone in hand.
Jiang Wangxuan's consciousness returned once more.
He saw black and white stones interspersed across the nineteen-by-nineteen board, deadly threats lurking on every side. In the lower left corner, the Flying Dagger held endless variations, like a ko fight that could never be resolved.
In the lower right, the Great Avalanche had already swept into the center, a black mass advancing with the unstoppable force of an avalanche. The white stones had been scattered, yet they still struggled to hold on, refusing to admit defeat.
This game again.
Without realizing it, the stone statue formed another white stone.
The white stone took shape at its fingertips, turning from illusory to solid, from frost into jade. The statue raised its hand and boldly drove the stone into the center, amid layers upon layers of deadly threats.
The instant the white stone landed, the moon palace turned dreamlike and illusory, the light of the heavens darkening and turning over.
The silver-white moon disc suddenly flared, then dimmed to a deep azure. The osmanthus tree, palace, winter cicada, jade rabbit, and toad all blurred in that instant.
The board had changed!
Its nineteen-by-nineteen grid became twenty-five by twenty-five. All the stones on the board scattered, then reappeared.
A mournful sigh from the immortal echoed through the empty space, and the statue's consciousness sank into boundless chaos.
The clatter of a keyboard roused Jiang Wangxuan from his infant-like slumber. At some point, the Rising Yang Mansion had grown more expansive, its "heaven" and "earth" farther apart.
"Oh, Master, you're awake! Great, the operation was a success! You're now a qualified..."
Big Fat Fish took off the headphones, but before the words were finished, the newly awakened Jiang Wangxuan subconsciously sent Big Fat Fish flying with a slap.
As soon as Jiang Wangxuan's Spiritual Sense awakened, it sank into his Qi sea.
Within the Qi sea, moonlight stretched boundlessly, its silver-white radiance filling the four corners like a tide. Above the original silver-white moon disc, it had transformed into a small world with a round heaven and a square earth.
The sky arched overhead like a canopy, round and boundless. The Waxing Crescent Moon cast its light in every direction from the vault of heaven, a silver-white curtain veiling the world like gauze. Below, the moon disc had become a vast expanse of land, its breadth unknown.
In the west, an immense desert spread out like a sea, its dunes rolling into the distance and glimmering silver-white beneath the moonlight.
At the desert's edge, the terrain gradually rose, finally swelling into a plateau of towering, snow-capped peaks, with glaciers coiled between the ridges like silver dragons.
Under the moonlight, the ice mountains melted into clear streams that wound down through the lofty ranges. The streams joined into brooks, then rivers, converging in a broad valley to form a great river.
Its waters were silver-white and vast, surging eastward.
Forests filled the valleys on both banks, and birds and beasts gathered in flocks and herds among the trees. All of them were silver-white from head to toe, like spirits formed from moonlight.
The great river flowed east, past a few thatched cottages scattered along its banks. As the river widened and its current slowed, the villages on either side joined together into market towns.
Downstream, the river spread as vast as a lake, water and sky merging into one. Cities lined its banks one after another, stretching into the distance until, where the river met the sea, the "skyline" of a modern city stood beneath the Waxing Crescent Moon!
All things passed like this, never ceasing by day or night.
Only the bright moon hung high, through the ages waxing and waning, clear and obscured, yet always remaining itself. The moon seen in days gone by those of old was also the path by which today's moon had come.
People today could not see the moon of ancient times, yet today's moon had once shone upon the ancients. Thus, the Immortal Foundation "Immortal Moon Township" was forged this day.
"Immortal Moon Township" was not only an Immortal Foundation, but also a Dao Foundation, and a world unto itself.
And at the very center of the heavens, the Waxing Crescent Moon hung like a hook, looking upon the mountains and rivers of days past and the mortal world of today, remembering everyone who had ever walked beneath it.
Immortal Moon Township was the home to which that eternal bright moon returned.
At a thought from Jiang Wangxuan, the Waxing Crescent Moon in this Immortal Foundation slowly began to grow round.
At first it hung in the center of the sky like a silver hook. Then its arc stretched outward, its ends slowly curving as though an invisible hand were redrawing its outline across the heavens.
The moon gradually waxed.
The silver radiance in the sky grew brighter with it. The Waxing Crescent Moon grew into a half moon, then from a half moon into more than three-quarters of a circle. Moonlight rose like a tide, washing over the world in wave after wave.
The moon was finally about to reach its fullest, round as a disc. Within the silver-white moonlight, a trace of profound gold actually emerged. That would be the full moon.
But just as it was about to become complete, Jiang Wangxuan halted the changing of the moon's phases. A small corner was missing from that not-quite-full moon; this was his current limit!
Jiang Wangxuan had already gained a clear understanding of the cultivation method for "Immortal Moon Township" at the Foundation Establishment Realm. He had to bring the moon hanging in this small world through one complete cycle of its phases, through brightness and obscurity, waxing and waning, to attain its full course from beginning to end, so that it could endure for ages untold!
And now Jiang Wangxuan was just that tiny corner short of the perfect full moon! As the saying went, a miss by a hair's breadth led astray by a thousand miles!