Chapter Eighty-Four: The Taoist Temple's Final Letter

He really did not dare stay at home anymore.

Though Little Night was only a robot, every inch of her was a woman’s temptation. Worst of all, she lived in the same room with him, and she absolutely never resisted any of his outrageous demands.

How was a hot-blooded young man supposed to endure that?

He could only flee.

By the time the little vehicle reached the corner by Mount Ta, Lin Xiaosu stopped, parked the electric scooter at the bridgehead, and followed the road up to Willow Grove Temple.

Willow Grove Temple was as quiet as ever.

His second uncle had already finished breakfast and was sitting on the platform outside the temple, reading a book.

The moment he saw Lin Xiaosu approaching, he laughed. “Xiaosu, you’re here. I made some buns myself, still hot. Want one?”

“You make buns yourself?” Lin Xiaosu asked. “Where are they?”

“In the kitchen. Go get them yourself, and while you’re at it, make me a cup of tea.”

Lin Xiaosu went into the kitchen, and sure enough there were still four or five buns in the pot. They were a pale yellow, plainly shaped with no care for appearance, but the wheat from the mountains and the buns made by hand still carried a natural fragrance of grain.

With a bun in his mouth and a cup of tea in each hand, Lin Xiaosu handed one over to his second uncle and praised him, “Second Uncle, you really do live a leisurely life.”

“I’m not like you. I’m old now, I’ve got a wife, I’ve got a daughter, and I don’t need to earn money for a bride price anymore. If I don’t enjoy life now, when will I?” His second uncle said. “I’ve figured out the stages of life myself. At twenty, one should be wild; to be young and not wild is to waste youth. At thirty, one should be mature, or else one becomes childish. At forty, one needs wisdom, or else people will toy with you to death. At fifty, one must learn to let go, or life becomes far too tiring.”

Lin Xiaosu stared blankly at him. “To be young and not wild is to waste youth. So that was your excuse for spying on Widow Feng bathing when you were young?”

His second uncle sprang up at once and grabbed a willow root stick beside him.

But Lin Xiaosu was faster; he sat down first in the recliner. “No hitting! You said it yourself, twenty is for being wild. I’m in that age group, so I can say whatever I want... Huh? A Taoist Scripture...”

He picked up the book his second uncle had just been reading.

It was a stitched book, with a poster folded over the cover. From a distance, Lin Xiaosu had thought it was some sort of leisure reading, but when he opened it, he realized it was an ancient text.

“This was left behind by Daoist Master Lu Yun!” His second uncle pointed at the book with the willow stick. “I used this book to slowly work out some methods for observing celestial signs, and I can now predict the day of the zodiacal shift with a fair degree of accuracy.”

This book could predict the day of the zodiacal shift.

Lin Xiaosu grew excited. “Second Uncle, may I take a look?”

“Go ahead, as long as you can understand it...” His second uncle tossed away the willow stick, went back into the temple, and brought out another chair. He also carried another book.

By the time he returned, Lin Xiaosu had already turned through more than ten pages.

His second uncle shook his head inwardly. This kind of reading could only skim the surface. How profound could the legacy texts of the Daoist tradition be? He had devoted himself to studying them for a full twenty-three years and had only barely scratched the skin of them. How could one really expect a young man from modern society to understand such things?

And indeed, this did not look like serious study.

But he would never have imagined that, at this stage, this was already Lin Xiaosu’s slowest possible reading speed.

If he were in a library, even when facing the vast oceans of botany and zoology, Lin Xiaosu could read at more than ten times this speed.

This book was too obscure.

Most of the terms inside were unknown to Lin Xiaosu.

Its phrasing also differed greatly from that of modern writing.

Its theories were even more unfathomable: the Way of Heaven had its rules, and the movement of the Way of Heaven left traces. Ordinary people could not see these traces, but they might manifest in many forms—constellations, wind patterns, the changing seasons, the transformations of grain, the changes of mountains and rivers...

A book with at most fifty thousand words took him a full hour.

He could guarantee that he remembered every single character, but only remembered them...

It was terrifying...

“Second Uncle!” Lin Xiaosu set the book down. “How much of this book can you understand?”

“Probably only the barest surface,” his second uncle said. “Daoist Master Lu Yun once said that the ancient heavenly books had three volumes: one called Observing the Way, one called Comprehending the Way, and one called Holding the Way. This Taoist Scripture is actually only a fragment.”

“A fragment? So that’s why it’s all so baffling?” Lin Xiaosu asked. “What about the rest?”

“There is no rest. Daoist Master Lu Yun said that the Way can only be glimpsed in part, never fully explored. That is why the senior who wrote this Taoist Scripture composed three volumes, each of them incomplete—one because he could not, the other because he dared not.”

The Way could only be glimpsed, never fully explored.

Clearly, this was an even more profound theory...

“Observing the Way, Comprehending the Way, Holding the Way...” Lin Xiaosu said. “Comprehending the Way—how does one comprehend it?”

“That’s the realm of immortals,” his second uncle said. “In that realm, one can summon wind and rain, call forth thunder and lightning, make water pierce stone, fly through empty space... all because one has comprehended the laws of heaven and earth. That is what is called Comprehending the Way.”

“And Holding the Way?”

“Holding the Way is even more wondrous, more elusive. It means truly mastering these laws, where time, space, and causality are all contained within them...” His second uncle sighed. “But this is getting too far away. Xiaosu, I still hope you’ll seriously study this Taoist Scripture and see whether you can infer the timing of the Equatorial Fiend Day and the Equatorial Blazing Day, so we can at least be prepared.”

This was probably his second uncle’s longest-standing obsession.

The things Daoist Master Lu Yun had once told him before leaving, he knew only in fragments. To this day, he could only calculate the lowest level, the zodiacal shift day; the higher-level Equatorial Blazing Day and Equatorial Fiend Day were entirely beyond him.

Could Lin Xiaosu accomplish what he could not?

Perhaps. After all, Lin Xiaosu was a university graduate, and his knowledge was much broader than his own.

“All right, I’ll try,” Lin Xiaosu said, his gaze shifting to his second uncle. “What book are you holding?”

“This?” His second uncle lifted the cover so he could see it clearly. “Just a leisure book.”

Lin Xiaosu fixed on it at once. Three words stood on the cover: Sea Abyss Classic.

The instant he saw it, his heart gave a hard jolt.

That typeface, that color on the cover—it was all familiar.

It was very similar to another book he had seen in the Hidden Dragon 101 library room.

That book was the Mountain and River Classic, which recorded three hundred and sixty kinds of exotic marvels. The second time he had looked through the heavenly window and gained the human-fragrance orchid heart, the first thing he had seen was a giant bird. In the Mountain and River Classic, it was recorded as a creature called the Empty Winged Crone...

That had been his first encounter with the Mountain and River Classic.

And now a Sea Abyss Classic had appeared...

“Was this also left by Daoist Master Lu Yun?”

“Yes. He only left behind those two books.”

“Let me see.” Lin Xiaosu reached out.

His second uncle handed it over.

Lin Xiaosu opened the book. It too recorded all manner of primordial strange creatures. The difference from the Mountain and River Classic was that most of the beings here were creatures of the abyss and the dark sea—overall more of a dark-aligned nature, extremely dangerous, extremely brutal, and extremely inscrutable.

If the odd beasts recorded in the Mountain and River Classic were things of the immortal realm, then the creatures recorded in the Sea Abyss Classic were more like things of the demonic realm.

Lin Xiaosu skimmed rapidly through it.

Suddenly, his heart jolted violently.

Ninefold Metamorph Beast, born in the Hell River of the Underworld, naturally bearing a shapeshifting bloodline, at birth like a single leaf of duckweed... then a black worm... on the third transformation, a white serpent, immune to blades and spears, swift as lightning, utterly bloodthirsty... on the fourth transformation, a crimson bird...

When Lin Xiaosu read this page, he was especially attentive, his expression especially grave.

After that, his reading speed noticeably increased, becoming almost a searching scan.

Of course, even at that speed, he still memorized every character.

Only by brute force.

The latter half was filled with all kinds of plants.

Lin Xiaosu again slowed down on one of them...

Boundary Grapes, capable of parasitizing any plant, growing at the border between the two realms, formed under the combined influence of the auras of both worlds. Nine grapes contain unfathomable power; if a strange beast eats them, its bloodline will undergo nirvanic rebirth...

In the latter half of the Sea Abyss Classic, Lin Xiaosu’s speed increased once more. In about five minutes, he had finished the entire book.

He returned the Sea Abyss Classic to his second uncle and stood up. “Second Uncle, I’m leaving.”

His second uncle also stood. “Xiaosu, could you ask around for news of Diandian? I’m not the one truly worried—it’s your second aunt. She nags about it every day, and I don’t even dare go home anymore...”

“Don’t worry, Second Uncle. I’ll ask around right away.”

“All right, all right... Take this book back with you and read it slowly. Just don’t lose it.” His second uncle handed him the Taoist Scripture.

“No need for that.” Lin Xiaosu did not take it and strode down the mountain.

He got on the electric scooter and sped all the way back to Phoenix City.

After entering the detective agency, he greeted Zhou Xi, who was minding the shop, and went upstairs.

He took out his phone and dialed a number.

Far out on the sea, atop a giant island, Long Night sat on a swing. The wind passed over her, and at this moment her face seemed to carry a faintly different color from usual.

An intelligent robot modeled after her had already been delivered to his home.

It had spent its first night there.

The grand experiment had begun; once the bow is drawn, there can be no turning back.

Every day from now on would be unfamiliar, and every day would require the recording of vast amounts of data.

She would experience a life she had never experienced before...

Cooking, washing vegetables, drawing water and watering the garden, planting and picking crops, living day and night with an elderly rural woman...

That little fangirl of a Crescent Moon had even pried open another layer of the paper window. Although Long Night would never admit that she herself also wanted to experience it, deep down she still felt a faint little anticipation...

He did not do that last night.

What about today?

A few days from now?

Eventually, he would do it, wouldn’t he?

On the day it truly happened, should her side share the experience?

From the standpoint of scientific exploration, it truly ought to be shared. Why? Why are humans human? Because they have emotion. When is emotion felt most intensely? Probably only in that matter.

Making love is the thing in which emotion, desire, and the body are most tightly bound together, able to bring forth many strange reactions that even science finds difficult to explain.

Then suddenly, she received a call from Xiaosu.

Long Night gathered away all stray thoughts and answered. “Hi. How do you like the gift I sent you?”

“Let’s set the gift aside for now,” Lin Xiaosu said. “There’s something very important.”

“Go on.”

“How is the white serpent on Mount Lao doing right now?”