Knocking in the Moonlight

The room fell quiet.

The clay pot on the stove still held the vegetable congee from lunch, bubbling as it simmered. Its aroma drifted out, mingling with the scent of earth and herbs from the courtyard.

Lu Yuan turned around. "Dad, Mom, keep eating and using things at home as usual these next few days. Keep delivering the Energy Soup too, but don't say much. If Shopkeeper Liu asks about today, just say Deacon Zhao checked and found nothing wrong."

Lu Qinghe nodded. "I understand."

"And the herb garden," Lu Yuan said. "Water the Soul Condensing Grass and Starlight Dew Vine as usual, but it's fine if they grow a little slower. Don't let anyone see that we care about them especially."

"Th-this... why?" Lin Xiu asked, puzzled. "We had such a hard time getting them to grow."

"Because Zhao Shi failed to dig them up today, and he's got a fire bottled up inside him," Lu Yuan said. "If he finds out how much we treasure those plants, he might climb over the wall in the middle of the night and destroy them. The less we seem to care, the less interested he'll be."

Lu Qinghe sucked in a breath. "He'd dare?"

"A cornered dog will jump over a wall." Lu Yuan paused. "Besides, he isn't even cornered yet. He's just furious from embarrassment."

Coming from the mouth of a six-year-old, the words were strangely hard to describe. Yet Lu Qinghe and Lin Xiu actually thought they made sense.

Lin Xiu sighed and went to stir the congee by the stove. "Let's eat first. The congee's almost ready."

The family sat around the little wooden table, quietly drinking their vegetable congee. It had brown rice and wild greens mixed in and was very thin, but it was much better than the gruel they had been living on not long ago.

Lu Yuan drank in small sips, his mind racing.

The real reason Zhao Shi had been thwarted today was that he hadn't fully understood the regulations himself, yet had presumed he could push commoners around. The Soul Master Hall's rules were, plainly put, meant to make things convenient for nobles and sects. Those at the bottom who enforced them often had only a half-baked understanding and relied entirely on what came out of their mouths.

But what about next time?

What if Zhao Shi actually looked up the regulations next time, or came up with a trickier excuse?

For example, investigating unusual Soul Power.

Lu Qinghe's bottleneck had loosened, and his Soul Power flowed a little more smoothly than before. Although he hadn't broken through yet, someone looking carefully could still spot the signs. Testing him for precisely that had been Zhao Shi's original purpose in coming today.

He had to speed things up.

Lu Yuan put down his bowl. "Dad, when you cultivate tonight, try speeding up that 'whirlpool' breathing method by another half beat."

Lu Qinghe looked up. "Speed it up?"

"Mm." Lu Yuan said, "You were stuck for fifteen years, and your Soul Power built up too thick, like a silted-up river channel. Natural circulation alone can't break through it. You need a little more force. But don't push too hard. Stop if your chest feels tight."

Lu Qinghe hesitated, then nodded. "All right."

He actually wasn't sure of himself. The methods his son spoke of were unheard of, yet they worked. The feeling of Soul Power flowing through his body again couldn't be faked.

Lin Xiu looked at her husband, then at her son, as if she wanted to say something but held back. In the end, she only got up and gathered the bowls and chopsticks with a clatter.

That afternoon, Lu Yuan went to the backyard to "look at the plants," as usual.

In the herb garden, the seven Soul Condensing Grass plants had grown half a foot tall. Their tender green leaves glimmered faintly in the sunlight. Beside them, the Starlight Dew Vine climbed a simple wooden trellis, with a few silver fruits the size of rice grains growing on its tendrils. They weren't ripe yet.

He crouched down and lightly touched a Soul Condensing Grass leaf with his fingertip.

It felt slightly cool, and there was a trace of exceedingly faint Soul Power left in it. Just as the book said, Soul Masters couldn't absorb it directly, but it was gentle and effective at nourishing ordinary people's spirits.

When Zhao Shi had called it a "Soul Master medicinal herb" today, he had simply been draping himself in a tiger's skin to raise a banner. Soul Condensing Grass was commonly used in clinics for commoners. It was cheap and good for calming the mind, but had nothing to do with cultivating Soul Power. Starlight Dew Vine was even more obscure. Aside from mentions in certain folk remedies as something that could "calm the heart," almost no one grew it.

As he was thinking, footsteps suddenly sounded outside the courtyard wall.

They were soft, but had deliberately slowed.

Lu Yuan didn't look up. He continued poking at the soil with his fingers, as though he were playing.

The person outside the wall stopped for a while, then walked away.

Had Zhao Shi sent someone to keep watch, or was it simply a neighbor passing by?

Either was possible.

Lu Yuan clapped the dirt off his hands and stood up. He walked beneath the eaves, picked up the Illustrated Guide to Common Herbs of the Continent, and turned to the page marked with a leaf.

On page 372, beneath the description of Soul Condensing Grass, there was a note in small print: "If a mature specimen is nourished over a long period in a particular Soul Power environment, there is an extremely small chance of a beneficial mutation. Its leaf veins will turn silver, and it may be used as the main ingredient in low-grade calming potions. However, the cost of cultivation is too high to be worthwhile."

Silver veins...

He looked at the Soul Condensing Grass in the herb garden. The veins were still an ordinary pale green, a long way from "silver."

But what if he used his improved Soul Power Infusion Method?

In his memories of his previous life, there was a low-grade formation called the Spirit-Nourishing Formation that aided in cultivating medicinal herbs. It could slowly adjust the concentration and flow of Soul Power within a small area, promoting plants' absorption and conversion of Soul Power. The principle wasn't complicated. It mainly involved arranging and maintaining Soul Power nodes.

At his current level of Soul Power, setting up the formation was a fool's dream. But if he simplified it, using only the most basic "three-point positioning" to simulate a rudimentary version, it might be possible.

Not many materials were needed either: three stones capable of storing a tiny amount of Soul Power, arranged in a triangle with the plants in the middle. He could use Green-Veined Stones, which were common by the river. Their texture was porous, with tiny holes inside that could absorb a small amount of Soul Power. They couldn't hold it for long, but it would be enough.

The question was, how could he explain to his parents that he wanted to bring stones home and set them out to play with?

Lu Yuan closed the book and went inside.

Lu Qinghe was repairing an old hoe, and Lin Xiu was mending clothes. Both looked up when he came in.

"Dad," Lu Yuan said, "I want to go down to the river this afternoon."

"The river?" Lu Qinghe frowned. "What for? The water's deep. It's dangerous."

"To pick up stones," Lu Yuan said. "I saw the children at the town school playing jacks with pebbles, and I want to play too."

Lin Xiu laughed. "You child, you're finally acting a little like a child. Go on, go on. Have your dad go with you."

Lu Qinghe put down the hoe. "All right. I can check the fish basket by the river and see if anything got past the net."

Father and son went out, one following the other.

A small river called Green Creek ran west of Maple Leaf Town. It wasn't deep, but its water was clear. In summer, children often came to play in the water and pick up pebbles to skip.

The afternoon sun was pleasant, and there were few people by the river. Lu Qinghe rolled up his trousers, waded into the shallows, and bent over to feel around. He used to come here now and then to catch a few small fish and shrimp, adding a little meat to the family's meals.

Lu Yuan walked along the bank, his eyes on the stones along the riverbed.

Green-Veined Stones were easy to recognize. They were grayish-green, with fine patterns on the surface worn by running water. He picked up a palm-sized one and held it to feel it.

The stone was slightly cool, and there really was an extremely faint trace of Soul Power inside, so pale it was like sensing it through a layer of gauze.

He picked up five or six in succession, chose three with relatively noticeable traces of Soul Power, and carried them in the front of his robe.

Lu Qinghe searched for a long time but caught only two finger-length fish, which he strung together with a grass stem and carried. "That's all. Not even enough for soup." He shook his head, came ashore, and put on his straw sandals. "Got enough stones?"

"Enough," Lu Yuan said.

The two headed back. As they passed the town's main street, Lu Yuan glimpsed the Soul Master Hall's small, grayish-white, two-story building. The door was open, and it was quiet inside, with no figures clearly visible.

Zhao Shi was probably in there.

Back home, Lu Yuan washed the three Green-Veined Stones and set them on the windowsill to dry. Lin Xiu saw them and smiled. "You really did pick up stones to play with. Want Mom to sew you a little cloth bag to keep them in?"

"No need," Lu Yuan said. "I'm just going to set them out and look at them."

That night, after his parents had both gone to sleep, Lu Yuan quietly climbed out of bed.

Moonlight filtered hazily through the paper window. He felt his way to the windowsill, picked up the three stones, and walked softly into the backyard.

The herb garden glimmered a faint grayish-green in the moonlight. He crouched down and buried the three Green-Veined Stones in the soil around the Soul Condensing Grass, positioning them at the points of an equilateral triangle and leaving only a small portion of each exposed.

Then he extended his right hand, palm down, and held it directly above the center of the triangle.

He slowly drew Soul Power from the tiny thread in his dantian, guiding it along his arm to his palm. It was exceedingly weak, like the dying flame of a candle in the wind.

He closed his eyes and tried to recall the most basic Soul Power circulation path of the Spirit-Nourishing Formation. With three-point positioning, Soul Power was fed in at one point and circulated repeatedly along the edges of the triangle, forming the simplest closed circuit.

Soul Power seeped from his palm and split into three extremely fine streams, each directed at one of the Green-Veined Stones.

The first caught it. The pores inside the stone were like a dried-out sponge, greedily absorbing that bit of Soul Power.

The second caught it too.

The third... the stream of Soul Power dispersed halfway there.

Lu Yuan opened his eyes, fine beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. He didn't have enough Soul Power, and his control wasn't precise enough either. Splitting it into three streams was already his current limit. Maintaining three stable lines at once was too difficult.

He caught his breath and tried a different approach.

If he couldn't do them simultaneously, he would do them one at a time.

He gathered his Soul Power again and infused it into the first Green-Veined Stone. Once the stone had absorbed all it could-which was really only a tiny bit-he cut off the connection and turned to the second, then the third.

It was slow, but steady.

After infusing all three stones, he withdrew his hand and carefully felt for any change.

There seemed to be an exceedingly faint Soul Power connection between the stones, like three nearly invisible threads joined into a weak triangular area. The concentration of Soul Power in the air at its center seemed... the tiniest bit higher?

It was almost negligible.

But the leaves of the Soul Condensing Grass trembled gently in the moonlight.

There was a response.

Lu Yuan stayed crouched there watching for a long while. Only when his legs went numb did he slowly stand up. He crept back inside and lay down in bed.

Outside the window, the moonlight was cold and clear.

He knew Zhao Shi wouldn't wait long. The town was only so big; the slightest rustle of wind or movement in the grass could spread. Among the neighbors who had watched today, there might well be someone who would pass word to the Soul Master Hall to curry favor.

He needed a few more cards in his hand before the next trouble arrived.

The silver-veined mutation of Soul Condensing Grass was one path. Though it would take a long time, it was worth trying. His father breaking through his bottleneck was another. Once he succeeded, the family would have a proper Soul Master to stand up for them, and Zhao Shi would have to think twice before making a move.

And then there was his own Soul Power.

That tiny thread was too thin. He had to find a way to make it thicker, stronger.

He turned over to face the wall.

The optimization models for low-level Soul Power cultivation from his previous life flashed through his mind. One was called the Spiral Gradual Progression Method. Its principle was to use a particular breathing rhythm and Soul Power circulation path to make Soul Power advance through the body in a spiral, increasing absorption efficiency.

But it required Soul Power at least at the level of a rank-one Soul Scholar to support that "spiral."

He was still a long way off.

Then... he would build a framework first.

It was like building a house. If he didn't have enough Soul Power, he would first mark out where the beams and pillars belonged, then fill them in once he had the materials.

He closed his eyes and simulated the Soul Power circulation path in his mind. Starting from the dantian, it traveled up the conception vessel and branched at the Shanzhong acupoint, following the three hand yin meridians down both arms to the fingertips. Then it turned back, following the three hand yang meridians to the shoulders, descending along the governing vessel, and returning to the dantian.

A simplified Lesser Heavenly Cycle.

He didn't have enough Soul Power to run the full course, so he would divide it into sections. He would run the first half today and the second half tomorrow, gnawing away at it bit by bit like ants moving house.

As he thought about it, drowsiness gradually came over him.

Moonlight moved across the window lattice and fell in a pale patch on the edge of the bed.

A few dogs barked in the distance, then all fell quiet again.

The night was still long.

But some things had already begun to grow in secret: the Soul Condensing Grass in the backyard, the fire burning in certain people's hearts, and the path in a child's mind that had yet to take shape.

Lu Yuan fell asleep, his breathing steady.

His index finger unconsciously tapped the bed board once.

Very softly.

As though counting something.