Wandering (Part 2)

Liuyun and Xiao Wan'er lived in the Xiao residence for some time.

This was a rare period of relaxation for Xiao Wan'er since she entered the sect. No training, no sparring, and she could sleep until she woke naturally. Madam Xiao seemed to want to make up for the five years she had lost, so she took her out every day, either to enjoy the scenery or to go to the market for food and shopping.

She had been indulging herself for too long, and Liuyun could no longer bear it, so he finally solemnly resigned to Mr. Xiao after breakfast one day.

"Master, please stay a few more days. You saved my daughter's life and taught and raised her. I would like to express my gratitude to you."

Mr. Xiao tried to keep him warmly, but Liuyun was determined.

"I still have a disciple staying in the temple. It's not advisable for me to leave for too long, so I won't stay any longer."

Mr. Xiao felt regretful, but it was inconvenient to keep anyone here any longer, so Xiao Wan'er followed Liuyun and left.

"Master, are we really going back?" After leaving the Xiao residence, Xiao Wan'er asked her master, and then was hit on the head with great force.

"I took you away because I saw that you were happy and didn't want to leave. If you stayed any longer, I was afraid you would return to secular life."

Xiao Wan'er covered her forehead and pursed her lips, "Disciple, I haven't seen my family for a long time, and I was so happy that I lost myself for a moment."

As they were talking, they passed by the young master of the Liu family, whom they had seen while escorting the caravan's goods. They had only glanced at each other that night, and hadn't made a deep impression. Now, he was wearing a brocade robe, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, and looked very handsome.

"Master," Xiao Wan'er greeted Liu Yun in a low voice, "Aren't you going to take another look at your brother's descendants?"

Liuyun didn't answer, but quickened his pace. Xiao Wan'er also quickened her pace to keep up.

The two left the Divine Capital and headed north quickly. At nightfall, they arrived at a large city and found a guesthouse to stay in. They had limited funds, so Liuyun took Xiao Wan'er into the city the next day after the market opened.

"So, Master, how do you earn money for food and lodging?" Xiao Wan'er looked left and right but couldn't see any way to make money. She was curious about how Liuyun would get the money, when she saw a scene that stunned her.

A powerful man who had transcended the ordinary world and was regarded as an immortal in the eyes of ordinary people actually found an empty corner, covered his eyes with a white cloth, and then pretended to grope his way to an open space by the roadside with his things in hand and set up a fortune-telling stall.

"What are you still standing there for? Come here quickly." Seeing Xiao Wan'er staying where she was, he actually sent a message to ask her to come over.

Xiao Wan'er wanted nothing more than to run, but she couldn't. Her feet suddenly felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds. Blindfolded Liuyun gave her a kind smile, and she immediately, seemingly willingly, walked over to the stall.

"Master, what should I do?" She was confused and asked Liuyun through voice transmission.

"Stupid! You're asking me for a fortune-teller!" Seeing Xiao Wan'er still hesitating, Liuyun urged her in a voice transmission, "Hurry up, or you might miss out! Ask anything, and pay with the money your mother gave you!"

It turned out that he knew everything. Xiao Wan'er had no choice but to walk up to him and said, "Hello, fortune-telling."

Liuyun immediately put on an air of immortality and asked gently, "What do you want, young lady?"

Xiao Wan'er thought for a moment and made up the content to be calculated.

"My master is ill and no matter how he is treated, he won't get better. I want to ask you if there is any solution."

Liuyun's mouth twitched. His disciple was really filial.

But he couldn't show anything, and he had to ask about the details with great concern. Then he listened to Xiao Wan'er make up his birth date and illness from beginning to end. In order to make it more realistic, Xiao Wan'er even forced out some tears.

"I am the only disciple of my master. Although he is usually mean to me and won't give me food if I don't obey, I would have starved to death if he hadn't picked me up." His tearful speech indeed attracted some onlookers and also made the veins on Liuyun's fist hidden under his sleeves stand out.

"That's enough, no more words." Liuyun interrupted Xiao Wan'er's performance with a voice that sounded a bit gritted.

Liuyun wrote down Xiao Wan'er's fictitious horoscope and carefully deduced it. He then took out the tortoise shell. Afterward, he picked up a pen and paper and wrote down a prescription.

"Thank you!" Xiao Wan'er took the prescription, left a handful of silver coins, and ran away. As she ran, she asked Liuyun in a voice transmission, "Master, do I need to perform the whole act?"

"As a cultivator entering the Dao realm, can't you escape the attention of ordinary people and return to the guesthouse unnoticed?" Liuyun's voice was far from friendly. "You're asking me this question, even a master who's always rude to you and refuses to feed you if you don't obey?"

Xiao Wan'er said embarrassedly, and Liuyun immediately turned off the voice transmission.

Liuyun didn't return to the guesthouse until the market closed. The first thing he did after seeing Xiao Wan'er was to throw the still hot Hu pancake to her.

"Even if you make me angry, I will still give you food, remember?" Although he said that, Liuyun was not angry. He even returned the money he had paid to her as a babysitter.

Xiao Wan'er touched her nose, put the silver coins away, and began to nibble on the Hu pancake. As she nibbled, she asked, "Master, how was your harvest today?"

"Not bad," Liu Yun was very satisfied with the harvest. "With your help, we will attract more customers. I will set up a stall for a day tomorrow or two. You should stay in the guesthouse and practice well."

After saying this, he tossed a book beside Xiao Wan'er. Xiao Wan'er took a closer look and discovered it was an introductory book on divination. Thus, Liuyun, leveraging his first day's fame, earned two more days of money. While staying in the guesthouse, Xiao Wan'er gained a basic understanding of divination.

After leaving the city, Liuyun continued to test Xiao Wan'er while taking her on the journey. Seeing his disciple answering questions fluently once again, Liuyun's expression became somewhat complicated. "I used to think you entered the Dao through ice magic, but now it seems that's not the case."

"Why do you say that?" Xiao Wan'er was curious.

"My master entered the Dao through divination, and since then, his talent in divination has far surpassed all others. Your senior brother was similarly gifted. After entering the Dao through swordsmanship, his talent in swordsmanship far surpassed all others, and he was even limited to using the sword as a weapon. This is a common situation for cultivators after entering the Dao. You still don't have any particular expertise, but you've learned almost everything very quickly, which is quite rare. So, what exactly was your method of entry?"

Unfortunately, Xiao Wan'er couldn't answer this question either.

Fortunately, Liuyun did not dwell on this issue. Since Xiao Wan'er could learn, he could teach her. When the two arrived in Bingzhou, Xiao Wan'er had already mastered divination.

After entering the city, Liuyun threw the burden of earning money to Xiao Wan'er.

"I have already earned the money for food and lodging before. This time it is your turn to find a solution." After he said that, he threw a handful of silver to Xiao Wan'er and disappeared.

Xiao Wan'er sighed and went into the city to look for job opportunities. After walking halfway through the city, she saw a notice for a medical clinic seeking a medicine boy. Xiao Wan'er walked over and took the notice.

Inside the clinic, the doctor looked at the girl dressed as a Taoist priest and felt a bit troubled. However, since he had received the notice, he should arrange for her to take the test, so he asked his assistant to take her to identify medicinal herbs. After the assistant brought back her results, he no longer felt troubled.

"My dear friend," the doctor looked at Xiao Wan'er, rubbing his hands with shining eyes, "Have you ever studied medicine before?"

"Yes." Xiao Wan'er nodded. How could the medicine of monks not be considered medicine?

Seeing this, the doctor immediately pulled her aside to discuss the knowledge in the medical books, starting from the basics and progressing to the in-depth level, to see how much she had learned. After the two of them finished their conversation, Xiao Wan'er immediately became a medicine boy at the clinic. Besides the irregular hours and daily salary, the doctor was very satisfied.

Xiao Wan'er then settled down at the clinic. The clinic also provided her with daily meals, and the cost of her board and lodging was fully covered.

The next day, after breakfast, Xiao Wan'er officially began her work as a herbalist. Her duties primarily involved preparing herbs, organizing medicines, and assisting with their preparation. After the doctor wrote a prescription, Xiao Wan'er would dispense the medicine according to the prescription. Sometimes, in urgent cases, she would boil the medicine in the clinic and administer it to the patient. On the fourth day of work, the clinic received a batch of herbs, and it was Xiao Wan'er who processed and sorted them. To speed up the preparation process, Xiao Wan'er employed some subtle techniques, which the doctor noticed but ignored.

Occasionally, when encountering difficult and complicated cases, the doctor would ask Xiao Wan'er to come and see him. If scientific methods couldn't solve the problem, they could still seek help from metaphysics. Using divination or trying their luck with medical techniques could alleviate the patient's pain to some extent. Thus, Xiao Wan'er was certain that the doctor already knew her identity.

After staying in the clinic for fifteen days, Liuyun finally came to the door.

"Master! I am honored that you can visit my small clinic!" When the doctor saw Liuyun, he walked straight up to him and saluted, which made Liuyun stunned.

"Have I seen you before?"

"When I was eight years old, I was seriously ill. It was you, Immortal Master, who saved my life, right here in Bingzhou City," the doctor said, expressing immense gratitude. "It was thanks to you that I survived, and it was also because of you that I decided to become a doctor."

Liuyun recalled carefully and finally found the shadow of the child from the corner of his memory.

"So it's you. I saved you back then, and now my apprentice is training with you. It's truly fate."

At the doctor's enthusiastic request, the two stayed in the clinic for another day. After leaving the clinic, Liuyun took Xiao Wan'er into the city and bought the supplies needed for the Taoist temple before leaving Bingzhou.

Outside the city, in a deserted area, Xiao Wan'er watched Liu Yun create a space. He placed the supplies he had purchased into the space and then hid it. In front of her was also a small amount of supplies, which Liu Yun had just given her.

"Now I will teach you how to create a portable storage space." Sure enough, after Liuyun finished doing it himself, he was about to teach Xiao Wan'er.

Space magic wasn't easy, and Xiao Wan'er spent the afternoon studying it before she finally created a portable space large enough to hold her meager supplies. After a brief rest, the master and disciple set off. This time, they didn't venture elsewhere, but instead returned directly to Biyun Temple.

Arriving at Biyun Temple late at night, Liuyun instructed Xiao Wan'er to retrieve the supplies from her personal space and then return to her hut to meditate. He then proceeded to do some simple sorting. The next morning, Xiao Wan'er and Pei Yingguan joined him in making breakfast. Liuyun put away what needed to be stored and placed the items for his two disciples in front of their doors, continuing his work until breakfast was ready.

Looking at the breakfast already on the table, Liuyun was very pleased and picked up the bowl to eat the soup noodles. After taking a bite, he stopped.

"Who made this soup noodle today?"

"I made it," Xiao Wan'er raised her hand weakly. "Master, is there anything wrong with this soup dumpling?"

"No problem, it's good, just eat it yourself."

Xiao Wan'er was suspicious, so she picked up the soup noodle and took a big bite, but then stopped - this soup noodle had too much salt.