The Dragon-Shaped Meridian Diagram

Before long, Mama Hu brought out Hu Mang's "grave-robbing haul."

Four Liang dynasty antiques, an ancient book, a silk diagram, and a fragment of unknown material.

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"What about Old Daoist Shen's corpse?"

"Mom, whose corpse can last a thousand years? Not even a Golden Core cultivator's corpse could."

"Besides, even if there were a corpse, how did you expect me to bring it back?"

Hu Mang opened his phone and showed his mother the photos he had taken of the "tomb beneath the mountain," but Mama Hu only glanced at them a few times before ignoring them.

There really wasn't much to see. Rather than an "immortal's cave abode," it was more like a large cavern, with barely a trace of human habitation.

It was also hard to understand why Old Daoist Shen had gone there back then.

"What are these things, Mom? Do you recognize them?"

"What's not to recognize? These are Old Daoist Shen's own Five Thunder Seal and Gold-Facing Evil-Warding Compass. This is a gilt-bronze standing Guanyin statue, and this is an ice cup. Huh? A jasper ice cup? Wasn't this that brat Xie Xianyu's favorite? I was wondering why I couldn't find it when I was clearing things out back then. So he gave it to that old Daoist."

Mama Hu spoke knowledgeably about the Liang dynasty antiques.

"A standing bronze Guanyin statue."

Hu Mang casually picked up a bodhisattva statue with rather indistinct features and said:

"As I recall, during the Liang dynasty, those great Aristocratic Clans all seemed to worship Buddha to some extent. Did Daoist cultivators worship Buddha too?"

"What cultivation did those monks have? Did you ever meet them, Mom?"

Mama Hu thought back carefully.

"I never met a monk with cultivation, but I did meet a few with spiritual attainments. Still, back then I'd only recently come out of the deep mountains and old forests, and I was still learning to read. That monk and Xie Xianyu rattled on and on, and I didn't understand a single word."

"Buddhism and Daoism side by side." Hu Mang finally managed to recall a little of what he had learned in his limited history classes.

"Mom, if there weren't many monks with cultivation, why did those bull-nosed Daoists want to get along with those bald donkeys?"

Weren't the two sides competing for the same market?

Mama Hu replied:

"I think there were a few large-scale 'Buddhist miracles' back then, the old emperor dreaming of arhats coming from the west and things like that. I actually saw one myself."

"You saw one too?!" Hu Mang said in surprise.

"Yes. I was licking my fur on a wall in Black Robe Lane when I saw a golden glow on the horizon. Then Buddhist chants came from the sky and lingered around the rafters for three days without fading. That year, every fruit on every tree in Jiankang City turned into a little arhat."

"Maybe that's why those bull-nosed Daoists thought the bald donkeys had someone backing them and weren't to be trifled with."

That was Mama Hu's simple way of looking at it.

"Oh, right, that brat Xie Xianyu thought so too."

"Oh. Are any of these things useful, then? They're antiques, right? Are they worth collecting?"

Hu Mang asked.

"Are they?"

The uncultured mother and son looked at each other, both a little dumbfounded.

"Let's leave that for now."

More than making a fortune, Mama Hu cared whether Old Daoist Shen had left behind a "Golden Core Cultivation Method," so she eagerly opened the ancient book.

"Huh?"

"What is it?"

"I can't read these characters."

"Uh, Mom, didn't you say you could read ancient Liang dynasty writing?"

"Wait a moment. I'll get a magnifying glass."

Mama Hu, who was a little nearsighted, went thumping back to her room, then dug out a magnifying glass and held it close to the book.

Hu Mang, meanwhile, unrolled the silk diagram of unknown material. Though he had already looked at it who knew how many times, it still struck him as a little strange every time.

It was an incomplete Dragon-Shaped Meridian Diagram.

The New Heavenly Gate had risen through rebellion by relying on the Human Dao Dragon Vein.

At the Heavenly Gate, the evolution of Dragon Veins was a major topic in "governance class."

In any case, Hu Mang only vaguely remembered a few things. There were several dragon forms: three-clawed, five-clawed, and even eight-clawed.

Apparently, the "dragon forms" of the past hadn't been limited to serpentine shapes; there had been other forms too. The further back into High Antiquity one went, the stranger the forms became.

But he had forgotten almost everything that came afterward, about the Dragon Vein's connections to the workings of the economy, social customs, and even the ancient cultivation system.

The dragon on this Dragon-Shaped Meridian Diagram was also serpentine, but it had no claws, whether three or five.

In fact, not only did it lack claws, it had no scales, no whiskers, no head, and not even eyeballs.

Hu Mang could tell it had "no eyeballs" because, in front of its empty neck, there was a pattern resembling an eye socket.

It had no head, but it had an eye socket, and the socket was empty.

As Hu Mang understood it, the artist was emphasizing that "the dragon had no eyes."

Just as, to emphasize that "the dragon had no claws," the artist had drawn only half its legs.

No claws, no scales, no whiskers, no head, no eyes.

The "dragon" was drawn so abstractly that it resembled the carved patterns on unearthed pottery, vague and indistinct.

So Hu Mang hadn't sensed any particular bearing or presence from it.

But perhaps because he had looked at it for so long, Hu Mang seemed to be getting a hint of something from it.

At that moment, his mother finally deciphered something.

"Tribulation... Qi... movement... vein."

Mama Hu had managed, with some difficulty, to recognize those four characters among a mass of complicated writing.

"This definitely isn't 'ancient Liang dynasty writing'!"

Mama Hu sounded quite certain.

"When I learned to read back then, there weren't this many characters I couldn't recognize."

"Not 'Liang writing,'" Hu Mang murmured. Mother and son looked at each other, their eyes lighting up.

"Writing from High Antiquity?"

"Did Old Daoist Shen really find his ancestors?!"

"The Ten Immortals of High Antiquity?!"

If the five dynasties of Yu, Chen, Liang, Shen, and Yu still belonged to official history, then High Antiquity belonged to the realm of unofficial history.

That was because it involved a whole series of things, such as the Ten Immortals of High Antiquity descending to the mortal world, creating the world, and making humans.

During the five dynasties, the strongest had only reached Golden Core.

And according to what he had learned in geography class at the Heavenly Gate, as well as his mother's firsthand account, even where the great Aristocratic Clans resided during the five dynasties, the concentration of Spiritual Qi couldn't match that of a small third-tier county town.

The environment in High Antiquity had been even harsher than during the five dynasties, with turbid Qi rolling everywhere and Spiritual Qi unable to take form.

The "Tribulation Oil" and "Tribulation Qi" of today were simply products of that period when the turbid Qi sank.

In an era when cultivation was impossible, had immortals really fallen from the heavens?

But perhaps it was possible!

Hu Mang glanced at his mother.

His own mother was living proof.

But his mother wasn't an immortal. She was a fox spirit.

A thousand-year-old fox from the Liang dynasty!

"Let's go!" Mama Hu slapped her thigh and made a snap decision.

"Let's go find Old Ma!"

Hu Mang was taken aback. Had Uncle Ma been a tomb raider before?

Did he have that kind of expert eye too?

As it turned out, Uncle Ma wasn't a tomb raider. He was merely an enthusiast of ancient spiritual objects.

The sort of "amateur collector" who had watched thousands of episodes of antique appraisal shows and liked to hunt for ancient treasures on the street in his spare time.

"Is there something wrong with your eyes, Old Ma? These are genuine Liang dynasty antiques, and you're telling me they won't fetch a price?!"

Uncle Ma looked at Mama Hu, who stood with her hands on her hips, and said helplessly:

"Auntie Hu, I can't say for sure whether these are Liang dynasty antiques. The patterns and style do look right, but someone at my level certainly can't tell from the details. What I can say for sure is that they won't fetch a price."

"Never mind that they have no Spiritual Qi. The key is, they don't have even a trace of spirituality."

At that moment, Uncle Ma, who was testing the antiques on a "secondhand spirituality testing table," shook his head helplessly.

"By the standards for antiques, they need at least some spirituality to be worth collecting. No cultivator who likes collecting would keep mundane objects, and testing 'spiritual activity' is an important standard in appraising antiques. Yours don't just have low activity; they don't have any at all."

To prove his point, Uncle Ma picked up a secondhand broken flying sword and placed it on the table. Before long, the spirituality reading rose from 0 to 5.

"Rent any shared flying sword on the street, and its spirituality would be at least 20. That's the lowest-grade, stripped-down version of a Spirit Artifact."

Mama Hu pursed her lips and said, unwilling to give up:

"What about this book, then? Do you recognize the writing? What dynasty is it from?"

"I don't recognize it. I've never seen it on an antique appraisal show, anyway." Uncle Ma hesitated, then continued:

"Auntie Hu, let's suppose everything you've said is true, the ancient treasures are genuine, and this ancient Golden Core method is genuine too. Have you considered how long the ancient who practiced this method had to cultivate before forming a Golden Core?"

At those words, not only was Mama Hu taken aback, but Hu Mang was stunned too.

"It seems, it should have been, over two hundred years, or was it over a hundred? Anyway, I remember he was pretty old-"

"Then let me put it this way. In our era, a university graduate like Hu Mang, from a top academy, could get a job on duty at a decent spiritual enterprise. Wouldn't it be considered late if he still hadn't formed a Golden Core after thirty years?"

Uncle Ma raised the silk diagram and waved it, frustrated that she wouldn't see sense:

"Do you have to make him seek far and wide when what's close at hand will do, and study this old antique of yours?"

"..." Mama Hu.

"..." Hu Mang.

Mama Hu, who had taken the brunt of the blow, was so angry that she shut herself off.

As soon as she got home, she began sighing and groaning, and didn't even play her beloved mahjong.

Hu Mang, meanwhile, sat on the sofa, the corners of his mouth twitching several times before he finally picked up a glass of water and drained it.

What a rip-off!

Oh, sorry, his own secondhand dad was right there in the room.

What a rip-off.

It was one thing to have been screwed over by his own mother.

But the key question was, how had someone with his IQ fallen for it?

Hu Mang pondered for a long time, then suddenly realized that ever since learning as a child that his mother was a thousand-year-old fox demon, he had harbored a sense of superiority deep down from keeping such a great secret.

On top of that, his mother had gone on about a Liang dynasty old Daoist and the Ten Immortals of High Antiquity, making him nervous too. He had kept feeling that some great fortuitous opportunity was about to fall from the sky!

Once he got carried away, he completely forgot what little history he already knew.

The waves behind drive the waves ahead in the Yangtze; each new generation surpasses the old.

Ancient people's cultivation was actually nothing special, just like their material standard of living!