Chapter 88 Taiping Qingling: One fears his younger sister will go astray, while the other is actually hoping for it...
The three searched three nearby villages that day, but to no avail. This village, nestled against the mountain and beside the water, was the last place they could reach that day. The setting sun bathed the village in an orange-red hue, and wisps of smoke rose crookedly in the twilight. In the distance, they could see a dozen or so thatched huts surrounding a refined house with blue tiles.
"Let's rest here tonight." Deng Zhao reined in his horse. "I'll go find the village chief to arrange accommodations. You all continue to inquire about the mine."
The two nodded and dismounted. As they approached the village entrance, they heard the sound of chanting.
Upon closer inspection, one could see a banner reading "Taiping Qingling" hanging under the eaves of the hermitage. Beneath the banner knelt about twenty villagers, their eyes closed in devout prayer.
"Are there still people doing their homework at this hour?" Deng Jie frowned. He had seen similar situations in the three villages he had visited before, but most villagers were working and there weren't as many people chanting scriptures.
Guo Jia raised his hand to signal her not to comment rashly. He glanced at the incense burner outside the monastery, noting its design and the runes it was engraved with. It was no different from the one in the village. Upon closer reflection, he realized that he could occasionally see similar patterns in the houses in the city. It was indeed the belief of this area.
Deng Zhao wandered among the houses and finally found the village chief under an old mulberry tree.
"Greetings, sir." Deng Zhao went to bow and showed him his merchant's token. "We are merchants from Wancheng and would like to ask to stay overnight in your village."
The village chief squinted at Fu Chuan, then looked in the direction Deng Zhao was pointing and glanced at Guo Jia and Deng Jie, who were peeking around the village. "Old Zhang's family in the east of the village has an empty thatched hut, but it's a bit far away..."
Upon noticing the five-zhu coin Deng Zhao had pulled out, he immediately changed his expression, straightened up, and cleared his throat. "I told him to clean it up properly."
Having found nothing, the two returned to Deng Zhao's side and followed the village chief to the east of the village. The thatched hut was simple but tidy. Old Zhang's family busied themselves arranging thatched roofs for the three of them to keep warm and even gave Deng Zhao a quilt.
Deng Jie looked around the thatched hut, then sidled up to Deng Zhao and whispered, "Brother, do you have any weapons for self-defense?"
Deng Zhao was taken aback for a moment, then smiled with relief. He pulled a short blade from his boot: "You're being cautious. The blade is sharp, don't hurt yourself."
In the twilight, he demonstrated a few self-defense moves, and Deng Jie followed his movements and learned a few of them.
Guo Jia leaned against the mulberry tree watching their rehearsal, and a gratified smile appeared on his face.
The meal consisted of millet rice with pickled vegetables.
Deng Jie swallowed in small sips, clearly not used to it.
Seeing this, Deng Zhao asked Lao Zhang for an extra wheat cake, and Deng Jie broke it in half and gave it to Guo Jia.
Even when Guo Jia was at home, things weren't as good as they were now. He chuckled and shook his head, refusing to let Deng Jie eat by herself. But then he noticed that the girl looked rather forlorn. So he reached out and took a small piece of food from her hand that she had bitten, and put it in his own mouth. This sudden intimacy made Deng Jie's cheeks burn.
Just as Deng Zhao was secretly amused by the sight of the two eating pancakes, a man at the next table suddenly collapsed and began vomiting loudly, startling everyone who rushed over. In the struggle, the three noticed the gold pendant around his neck.
Deng Zhao parted the crowd to let Deng Jie squeeze in. Deng Jie quickly grabbed the man's body, tore off the gold pendant, and handed it to his family: "Wrap it in red cloth and don't let him get close again. This is a 'golden evil' ailment!"
Even so, out of caution, she still took the man's pulse to confirm that it was the same as the poison she had seen in the city before asking the others, "Do you have any licorice or soybeans?"
The woman who looked the most nervous stepped forward and nodded repeatedly: "Yes! Yes!"
The crowd then slowly dispersed.
The woman finally brought over the earthenware bowl. The burly man, panting heavily, slowly drank it down. The woman patted his back and asked, "Is...is this really effective?"
This was Deng Jie's first time trying this formula, and not wanting to disappoint them, he nodded while avoiding eye contact.
But not long after it was poured down his throat, the big man vomited it up again. The woman was sweating profusely with anxiety, and Deng Jie was also worried.
Just then, a clear and melodious bell rang out from the village entrance.
The woman's eyes suddenly lit up, and she comforted the burly man, saying, "The immortal master has arrived! The immortal master has arrived!"
Then a tall, thin, pale-faced old Taoist priest with a long beard came to Guo Jia, surrounded by a crowd.
Guo Jia scrutinized him closely. He wore a dark blue turban, a plain-colored straight-hemmed robe, and a coarse hemp outer robe. He had a cowhide belt around his waist, a blue cloth bag and a gourd tied to his left side, a bronze talisman mirror on his right side, and a bamboo staff in his hand.
The crowd clamored for the immortal master to treat him, inevitably punctuating their complaints about Deng Jie. The chattering annoyed Guo Jia, so he pulled Deng Jie behind him.
"Please, Immortal Master, save my husband's life!" The woman knelt on the ground. "I have been chanting scriptures for you every day!" As she spoke, she pulled out a talisman embroidered with the word "Peace" from her sleeve and showed it to the old Taoist priest.
The old Taoist priest twitched his white eyebrows slightly, picked up the earthenware bowl, glanced at it, then looked at Deng Jie hiding behind Guo Jia, and chuckled, "Since you know it's a case of metal evil entering the body, how can you use such an ordinary object to resolve it? Make a record of it!"
With a wave of his sleeve, he led the crowd toward the hermitage. The villagers busied themselves, moving altars and burning incense. Women helped the burly man kneel behind him, quietly waiting for the immortal master to perform his magic.
The old Taoist's outer robe billowed in the evening breeze. He made a hand seal with his left hand, held a staff in his right, and chanted an incantation. Suddenly, he pointed the bamboo staff at the bronze cauldron on the incense table. The two struck together with a crisp sound, and a burst of sparks erupted from the incense inside the cauldron. The noise was so loud that the villagers all stepped back. Deng Jie, however, curiously pushed her way forward. Guo Jia, close beside her, caught a fleeting glance from the old Taoist at Deng Jie and couldn't help but stare intently at the old Taoist's hand movements.
The old Taoist priest took off his blue cloth bag, took out a wooden talisman, dipped his hand in cinnabar, and quickly drew incomprehensible runes on the wooden slip before placing it on a bronze cauldron to smoke it.
As the wooden slip cracked, the old Taoist took the pottery bowl with his left hand and casually swept it with his bamboo cane in his right hand. Guo Jia clearly saw yellow powder falling down.
He held up the earthenware bowl, deliberately wiping it in front of Deng Jie's eyes, and bestowed it upon the kneeling giant.
When Deng Jie noticed that the bowl had just passed in front of her, a drop of liquid had splashed onto her wrist. She gently lifted her wrist and licked it, but Guo Jia saw this and hurriedly slapped her hand.
But Deng Jie seemed to taste a hint of sweetness in that drop of water.
Just as the burly man drank the talismanic water, the old Taoist threw down his bamboo staff and shouted, "Swallow!"
Raising his hands, he applied pressure to the sides of his neck. The burly man swallowed the talisman water, his throat bobbing, and then exhaled heavily, without vomiting again.
He touched his throat, trembling, and shouted joyfully, "I'm alright? I'm alright!"
The woman beside him was so astonished that she couldn't close her mouth, and she kowtowed to the old Taoist priest while crying, "Thank you so much, Immortal Master, for your miraculous intervention!"
The old Taoist priest raised his hand, waited for the boy to hand back the bamboo staff, then took the woman's hand and smiled with satisfaction: "There's no need for such a grand ceremony. Just abstain from meat for three days and recite scriptures facing east every day at dawn and dusk."
The two men repeatedly expressed their gratitude, leaving the surrounding villagers in awe.
As the crowd dispersed, Deng Zhao was about to return to his thatched hut when Guo Jia stopped him, saying, "I think we should go somewhere else..."
He gave Deng Zhao a wink, signaling for the old Taoist priest to come closer. Deng Zhao glanced at Deng Jie and said, "Okay."
"Young friend, please wait a moment."
The old Taoist priest actually left his attendant behind and greeted them alone. Deng Zhao and Guo Jia stepped forward at the same time to block Deng Jie.
"What brings you here, Immortal Master?" Deng Zhao raised his hand in a respectful gesture, but his hand remained on the hilt of his sword as he lowered it. The old Taoist raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Young man, please don't be nervous. I've only come to greet this young lady."
"It is beneath your dignity, Immortal Master, to greet the young lady like this. We are in a hurry to continue our journey, so we must take our leave." Guo Jia turned to urge the Deng siblings to leave.
The old Taoist priest wasn't annoyed. He said loudly, "Did you come here after obtaining the Yuanhua formula?"
All three were startled and stopped in their tracks.
Deng Jie immediately rushed back to see him, "Does the Immortal Master know this prescription?"
Guo Jia snatched the bamboo cane from the old Taoist priest's hand and showed it to Deng Jie, saying with displeasure, "What he's hiding here is probably what we're looking for!"
The old Taoist priest laughed heartily, stroked his beard, and put away his bamboo cane: "Young master, your eyesight is quite sharp. I am Yu Ji, and I have been traveling in Jiangdong for decades, practicing medicine and spreading the Tao, curing diseases and warding off evil spirits for the people."
Guo Jia's gaze sharpened as he confronted Yu Ji, demanding, "What exactly do you intend to do?"
Yu Ji smiled and looked at Deng Jie: "This old man wishes to take this young lady as his disciple and pass on my Taiping Divine Art."
Deng Zhao immediately frowned, his hand involuntarily tightening its grip on the knife hilt: "My younger sister is not skilled in magic, but I appreciate your kind offer, Immortal Master."
Yu Ji took out a bamboo scroll from his bosom and slowly unfurled it. “During the Jianning era, I traveled to Yangzhou with Hua Yuanhua. At that time, we happened to obtain a datura flower and studied the formula for anesthetic powder together; we also used realgar as medicine to explore methods to neutralize arsenic poisoning. You are looking for this sulfur only because of that ghost gold matter, which I can tell at a glance.”
Guo Jia took the bamboo slip and examined it closely. It was indeed identical to the handwriting of Hua Tuo that he had seen in the medical clinic.
"Even if there is a connection..." Guo Jia still had doubts. How could he allow Deng Jie to learn medicine from such a wandering sorcerer?
“Your prescription is not bad,” Yu Ji said earnestly, turning to Deng Jie. “If you hadn’t first used licorice and soybeans to detoxify and induce vomiting, my talisman water wouldn’t have worked so quickly. It’s a pity that people only believe in ‘immortal masters’ and not in you.”
He paced slowly, the bronze mirror at his waist shimmering in the nearby candlelight. “Over the years, I have traveled all over Yangzhou and know that the people need healing not only for their bodies but also for their hearts. Those tricks that you can see so clearly…” He looked at Guo Jia, “are nothing more than means to gain people’s trust.”
"Gain their trust?" Guo Jia scoffed. "Making the people exhaust their savings to build elaborate temples, causing them to miss the farming season and chant scriptures, is this also the immortal's way of healing the heart?"
“In such chaotic times, people’s hearts are like fish out of water.” Yu Ji shook his head slightly, his bamboo cane slamming heavily into the ground. “I have seen too many people die before they even fall ill. Giving them a thought, even if medicine is ineffective, at least allows them to live on with hope.”
Deng Jie was taken aback upon hearing this, and the image of a seriously ill person refusing medication during a free clinic flashed through his mind.
Even though she had diagnosed his illness, when it came time to prescribe medicine, he questioned why she wasn't charging him. When she suggested he buy medicine at another clinic, he complained about the cost, muttering "life and death are predestined," and ultimately never came back.
She tightened her fingers, hesitating to speak, but Deng Zhao grabbed her arm: "We're heading back in three days, how can we have time to learn these things? Besides..."
He looked at Yu Ji meaningfully, "With such a noble spirit as you, it would be difficult to convince the public if you took in a young girl."
Yu Ji laughed heartily, “What I seek is nothing more than to spread the Way of Peace and to promote the name of my Taoism.”
He took off the bronze mirror from his waist and said, “Young lady, you don’t need to actually become a disciple. Just wear this when you practice medicine. When the people see it, they will know that you are from the Taiping Dao lineage. Those who believe will believe you even more, and those who don’t believe will naturally not be able to see it.”
Deng Jie reached out to take it. The front was covered with rough runes, and when he turned it over, the five characters "Taiping Qinglingjian" were clearly visible in seal script on the back.
Yu Ji saw Deng Jie tie the bronze mirror to his waist, his eyebrows relaxed, and said, "Tomorrow at dawn, this old man will take the three of you to find sulfur."
The thatched hut sheltered him from the mountain chill. Deng Jie lay on the reed mat and took out the orange cat medicine pouch from his bosom.
I'm going up the mountain tomorrow, should I give this to him or not...? Maybe I should wait a little longer, I just can't seem to make up my mind.
She pressed the medicine pouch under the mat, and as she turned around, she was startled by the bronze mirror at her waist.
She took off her Taiping Qingling mirror and examined it closely. Looking at herself in the mirror, she recalled the villagers' doubts about her and their trust in Ji. Her eyes couldn't help but look downcast.
People only believe in the divine master, not in the girl...
She pondered those words over and over, then slowly closed her eyes.
Guo Jia pretended to go to the latrine and passed by Deng Jie's thatched hut. After confirming that there was no sound inside, he returned to his own room and whispered to Deng Zhao, "Tomorrow we're going to look for minerals. Perhaps we should let your sister stay in the village."
Deng Zhao held up the candlestick and looked at the topographical map that Guo Jia had recorded on horseback during the day. He nodded and said, "I was just thinking about this too. The way she looked at that old Taoist priest just now, I'm afraid she still wants to learn something from him."
“Although Yu Ji is not a righteous person, his medical skills are genuine. It wouldn’t hurt to let her learn from him for a few days; it’s better than him having to come with us and trek over mountains and valleys,” Guo Jia added.
The two exchanged a glance and stood up simultaneously. Guo Jia casually took the cloth bag he had taken off.
They found a thatched hut still lit by candlelight, its wooden door ajar.
"Have you two come here to search for minerals?" He put down the bamboo scroll and invited the two to take their seats.
"Does the Immortal Master have drawn a map showing the exact location of the sulfur mine?" Guo Jia asked first.
Yu Ji laughed out loud, "I travel all over the world, and I judge matters of medicine and stone entirely based on the terrain and water veins. Why should I care about a fixed place?"
"Then the mineral veins around here..." Deng Zhao hesitated, did he really remember how to get there?
"What? Aren't we supposed to leave together tomorrow?" Yu Ji asked, puzzled.
“My younger sister is, after all, a young woman, and it would be inconvenient for her to travel over mountains and valleys, so I thought…”
Deng Zhao cupped his hands and took out a jade pendant from his sleeve. "Immortal Master, why don't you take this opportunity to teach her some real skills?"
Yu Ji pushed away the jade pendant and laughed, "Teaching her is fine, but this is unnecessary. Wearing these things is inconvenient for this old man. Your sister is sincere, and this old man is willing to give her some pointers."
Deng Zhao was slightly surprised; he didn't accept it as readily as ordinary people. He had no choice but to withdraw it, then suddenly seemed to remember something and raised his hand, saying, "But please don't teach her those pretentious tricks..."
Guo Jia instead pressed down on his fist and interjected, "Hey? In chaotic times, learning some skills to protect yourself is not a bad thing!"
Yu Ji's gaze shifted between the two men, and he laughed loudly: "You two are quite interesting. One of you is afraid that your sister will go astray, while the other is hoping that she will use tricks."
After laughing, he nodded and said, "I know what I'm doing."
Guo Jia avoided Deng Zhao's glance, coughed lightly, and took out a piece of silk from his bag, spreading it out on the table: "Then please tell us the location of the mine based on your memory, Immortal Master?"
Yu Ji then recalled the direction he had taken from the village and the features he had seen along the way. Guo Jia followed his words with his brush, and wherever his brush touched, mountain streams, strange rocks, and unusual trees appeared one by one.
"Young master is indeed meticulous." Yu Ji praised Guo Jia for drawing such a detailed picture based on his description. "I haven't even asked your names yet, so I won't even know how to address you tomorrow."
After Deng Zhao introduced the three people, Yu Ji nodded: "Alright, I will be Jie'er's master for three days starting tomorrow. However..."
He then said to the two men seriously, "There have been mountain tribes roaming this area recently, so you must be careful."
Deng Zhao adjusted the sword at his waist: "Two grown men like us, are we afraid of being robbed? We'll scout out the route tomorrow and come back to hire people to mine it. It won't be long."
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