Reputation and Planning Ahead

Footprints lay scattered across the riverbank, fading whenever the wind blew.

Lu Yuan crouched by the river, feeling through a pile of pebbles. He gathered his Soul Power into a fine thread and sent it probing inside, stopping when it met a warm, smooth resistance. He pried it out. It was the size of his palm, with pale green veins running across a blue-gray surface.

The first one.

Several children peered over from a distance, whispering to one another. He ignored them and kept searching.

By the time the sun had tilted west, he had found three. He washed them in the river, and their markings seemed to come alive in the shimmering water.

Enough.

He got up and headed back, pausing as he passed the sandy patch.

Qian Xiaohao's staggering footprints were still on the ground.

"He won?"

"Blue Silver Grass can be used like that?"

The chatter still seemed to linger in the air. He looked away.

A reputation like that would give people in Maple Leaf Town something to wag their tongues about for ten days or half a month. The trouble was, the onlookers weren't the only ones wagging their tongues.

Lu Qinghe came home before dinner, his face grim.

Lin Xiu paused with the porridge in her hands. "What's wrong?"

"I ran into Old Chen." Lu Qinghe sat down and lowered his voice. "He was asking about Little Yuan."

"Asking what?"

"What he usually does, what books he reads, whether anyone's teaching him." Lu Qinghe picked up his bowl but didn't drink. "He was hinting that our family might be hiding a cultivation method."

Lu Yuan kept wiping the stones.

"What did you tell him?"

"What else could I say?" Lu Qinghe said gloomily. "The boy likes to puzzle over things, found an old book and scribbled in it. He got lucky and stumbled onto something."

Lin Xiu breathed a sigh of relief. "Did Old Chen believe you?"

"He seemed to." Lu Qinghe scooped up a mouthful of porridge. "But the look in his eyes wasn't right when he left. The grain shop owner came over to ask too, said he'd heard our Little Yuan was impressive."

The room fell quiet.

The fire in the stove crackled.

Lu Yuan lined up the three stones on the table. Their markings met in a perfect fit. A pale green light flowed faintly where they joined.

"Dad," he said, "did Zhao Shi make any moves today?"

Lu Qinghe shook his head. "Didn't see him. Around noon, that tall, skinny fellow under him circled the alley entrance twice."

As expected.

Lu Yuan tapped his finger against the edge of a stone. His rhythm was steady.

As his reputation spread, the attention grew. And with more attention, secrets couldn't stay hidden. Yesterday, Zhao Shi had pointed out that the Blue Silver Grass had hardened and pressed him about what was under the tiles in the backyard. It had been anything but an idle remark.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the Lu family to show a weakness, or for a chance to rip the lid off in one go.

"Little Yuan." Lin Xiu suddenly spoke, her voice trembling. "What if... we stop selling the Energy Soup? I'll go turn Shopkeeper Liu down tomorrow."

Lu Yuan looked up.

His mother's eyes were slightly red, and her fingers twisted the edge of her apron. She was truly frightened. What had happened by the river, the rumors, Zhao Shi haunting them like a restless ghost-all of it was slowly closing around them like a net.

"Mom." Lu Yuan softened his voice. "If we don't sell the soup, what will the family eat?"

Lin Xiu opened her mouth but said nothing.

"We still have to sell it," Lu Qinghe said, his tone hard. "But we can't increase the amount. If Shopkeeper Liu asks again, we'll say there's only so much plant material, and we can't make more."

He looked at his son. "Right?"

Lu Yuan nodded. "Right. Starting tomorrow, deliver one bowl less each day."

"One bowl less?"

"Mm," Lu Yuan said. "Tell him the plant material is hard to find and we can't gather enough anymore. Shopkeeper Liu is shrewd. If he sees we're deliberately limiting it, he'll be more convinced the plant material is scarce. If we readily increase the amount, he'll get suspicious instead."

Lu Qinghe thought it over. "All right."

Lin Xiu looked at her husband, then at her son. At last she lowered her head and silently served the porridge.

They ate dinner in silence.

The porridge was a little thicker, and there were more flecks of oil in the pickles, but no one enjoyed the meal. The pressure in the air rose like a tide, submerging their chests until they could barely breathe.

Lu Yuan finished his last mouthful and put down his chopsticks.

He looked at his father. Lu Qinghe's brows were knitted as he chewed one mouthful of porridge for ages. The joy of his Soul Power breakthrough had long since been washed away by the turmoil. Now all that remained was worry, and something deeper-a nearly instinctive fear of unknown dangers.

Then he looked at his mother. Lin Xiu kept her head down, sipping her porridge in tiny, painfully slow mouthfuls, as though she could stretch out time that way until the trouble disappeared on its own.

Lu Yuan looked away and out the window.

It was fully dark. The stars had yet to appear, and the sky was a somber inky blue. A lone light glimmered at the distant Soul Master Hall, like the eye of a beast lying in wait at night.

He suddenly spoke.

His voice wasn't loud, but in the quiet room it rang as clearly as a pebble dropped into a deep pool.

"Dad, Mom."

They both looked up at once.

Lu Yuan paused, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the edge of the table. The rough grain pressed against his fingertips.

"I want to..." He took a breath. "Go have a look at a Soul Master Academy outside town."

The room went deathly silent.

Lu Qinghe's chopsticks clattered onto the table. Lin Xiu jerked her head up, eyes wide, her lips trembling for a long moment without a sound.

"What... did you say?" Lu Qinghe's throat was dry.

"I want to go to a Soul Master Academy," Lu Yuan repeated, as evenly as if he were talking about something ordinary. "Maple Leaf Town is too small. I've reached the limit of what I can learn and what resources I can find here."

Lin Xiu finally found her voice, sharp and strained. "No! You're only six! Outside town... what kind of place is that? You don't know the people or the place. How would you survive on your own?"

"The academy has rules for providing food and lodging," Lu Yuan said. "I'm not going right now. I'll wait until the academy takes in new students next spring."

"Even then, no!" Lin Xiu stood up, her eyes reddening in an instant. "Little Yuan, it's so dangerous out there! Here in town, at least your father and I can watch over you. Who'll protect you once you leave? Those Soul Master Academies... I hear fighting and brawling are common there. With Blue Silver Grass and only half a level of Innate Soul Power, won't you be bullied to death?"

The words tumbled out of her, and tears fell in streams.

Lu Qinghe said nothing. He stared at his son, his gaze as tangled as a skein of thread. Shock, confusion, worry, and the faintest trace of doubt-even he hadn't noticed it.

"Little Yuan." His voice was hoarse. "Why do you suddenly want to leave?"

Lu Yuan was silent for a few breaths.

Why?

Because Soul Condensing Grass grew too slowly, because he had to search for Green-Veined Stones one by one at the river, because Zhao Shi clung to him like a shadow, because even someone like Qian Xiaohao could throw his weight around with level-four Soul Power.

And even more because the things in his head-Soul Power models, hypotheses about Martial Soul structures, formulas for energy conversion-had no point of reference, no means of verification, and no one he could discuss them with in this little town.

He was like a man guarding a treasure vault while trapped in a dilapidated house with wind blowing through all four walls. No matter how much the vault held, if he couldn't take it out and put it to use, it was ultimately dead weight.

"Dad," he said slowly, "you know my Martial Soul is Blue Silver Grass."

Lu Qinghe nodded.

"Half a level of Innate Soul Power."

Lu Qinghe nodded again.

"In Maple Leaf Town, in everyone's eyes, that makes me trash." Lu Yuan's tone didn't change. "Even though I beat Qian Xiaohao, they only think I used a trick, or that Qian Xiaohao was too useless. No one really believes Blue Silver Grass can amount to anything."

He paused.

"But I don't believe that."

The words were spoken softly, yet landed with a dull thud.

Lin Xiu stopped crying. She looked at her son, at the face that still bore a child's innocence, yet whose eyes were as calm as a deep pool, and suddenly found him unfamiliar.

"There are things I want to understand," Lu Yuan went on. "About Soul Power, about Martial Souls, about why some people have Innate Full Soul Power while others have only half a level. I can't find answers to those things in Maple Leaf Town."

He raised his eyes to his parents.

"I have to go out. Go somewhere bigger, read more books, meet more people. Even if it's only to see what Soul Master Academies teach these days and how they teach it, that's better than guessing blindly here."

The room fell silent again.

The fire in the stove was nearly out, its embers flickering with a dark red glow.

Lu Qinghe stared at that glow for a long time. So long that Lin Xiu couldn't help wanting to speak up and persuade him again. Only then did he let out a long breath.

"The academy... costs money, doesn't it?" he asked, his voice weary.

"Mm." Lu Yuan nodded. "The nearest junior Soul Master Academy is in Green Forest City, a hundred li away. Tuition is roughly fifty Gold Soul Coins a year."

Lin Xiu drew a sharp breath.

Fifty Gold Soul Coins. Even if the Lu family pooled everything they owned, they probably couldn't scrape together five.

"But," Lu Yuan continued, "the academy has rules for tuition reductions. If your Martial Soul is special, or you do exceptionally well on the theory exam, you can get part or even all of it waived."

Lu Qinghe's eyes lit up, then quickly dimmed. "Your Martial Soul..."

"Blue Silver Grass isn't special," Lu Yuan said quickly. "But I can try the theory exam."

He spoke calmly, as though he had a seventy or eighty percent chance of success.

Lu Qinghe fell silent. He looked down at his callused hands. Those hands had tilled fields, carried loads, worked iron, and held a hoe-shaped Martial Soul. For fifteen years, his Soul Power had been stuck at level nineteen, like a hurdle he could never cross.

He had once thought that was how his life would go. Raising his son, watching him marry and have children, and living out the rest of his days in quiet simplicity-that was the best ending he could hope for.

But now his son wanted to leave.

He wanted to see the world beyond the town and understand questions Lu Qinghe had never even heard of.

A storm raged in Lu Qinghe's heart. Was he afraid? Yes. His son was only six, and he would be all alone out there. If anything happened, Lu Qinghe would never forgive himself.

But another voice asked: Should I let my son stay in Maple Leaf Town and follow the same old road I did? Awaken a Trash Martial Soul, be mocked, struggle half his life for a mouthful of food, and finally bow to fate?

He remembered how it had felt when his Soul Power broke through its bottleneck that morning. The instant that hot current surged through his body, he had nearly cried.

Fifteen years. Fifteen whole years.

What if... what if the road my son takes really is different?

"Dad." Lu Yuan's voice brought him back to reality. "I'm not leaving right now. There's still almost half a year. I'll find a way to save money and prepare for the academy's exam. I'll also do my best to make arrangements for things at home."

Lu Qinghe looked up at his son.

The lamplight was dim, and the child's face stood out clearly in the shadows. His eyes were too still, more like those of an old man who had lived for decades than a child.

He suddenly remembered what Zhao Shi had said by the river that day.

"On the night your father broke through, what exactly was buried under the tiles in the backyard?"

Secrets. His son had secrets. As his father, he had sensed it long ago.

But so what?

This was his son. His son, who had changed from the day he awakened his Martial Soul at six. He didn't understand those intricate theories or what his son was trying to do, but he knew one thing-

This child had never thought of bowing to fate.

"All right."

Lu Qinghe said just those two words.

Lin Xiu whipped her head around to look at him, tears welling up again. "His father! You..."

"Let the boy go." Lu Qinghe cut her off, his voice deep but steady. "There isn't much of a future for him here in town. If he goes out, maybe... he really can make something of himself."

With that, he stood and walked over to his son.

His rough, broad hand gripped Lu Yuan's shoulder firmly.

"Half a year." Lu Qinghe stared into his son's eyes. "Your mother and I will help you save money these next six months. If it isn't enough, I'll borrow the rest. But there's one condition-"

He paused.

"Take care of yourself out there. If you really can't manage, come home. No matter how hard things get, there'll always be a mouthful of food for you here."

The hand on Lu Yuan's shoulder trembled slightly.

He looked up at his father. This man, whose back had been bent by life, stood ramrod straight now, with a light in his eyes Lu Yuan had never seen before.

"Mm." Lu Yuan nodded. "I'll remember."

Lin Xiu covered her mouth, her sobs muffled between her fingers. She knew that once her husband made a decision, he wouldn't change it.

She went over to her son and crouched down, touching his face with a trembling hand.

"Little Yuan..." She choked up. "Mom... Mom will make you some new clothes, so you'll look presentable when you go."

Lu Yuan felt a tightness in his throat.

He held his mother's hand. It was icy and rough, yet warm.

"Thank you, Mom."

Outside the window, the night was as thick as ink that wouldn't dissolve.

The light at the Soul Master Hall still shone, like a distant marker suspended in the darkness.

Lu Yuan looked away and down at the three Green-Veined Stones on the table.

The stones lay quietly, the faint light in their markings gone, leaving them looking ordinary again.

Soon.

He repeated it silently to himself.

Once the formation was complete and the Soul Condensing Grass had grown, he would have something to rely on and could leave with peace of mind.

Over the next six months, he couldn't waste a single day.