Chapter 665: 379: Paying Respects

Chapter 665: Chapter 379: Paying Respects

“Moyan!” Li Shiming looked at the man who kept kowtowing to him with a head full of grey hair and still recognized that this was his manservant Moyan.

Twenty years had passed, and Moyan, who was about the same age as him, had already begun to show signs of age.

“It is me, young master, the young master still remembers me!” Moyan said with a smile, tears streaming down his face, thought of something, moved aside to open the gate, and said, “Young master, please come in quickly. The old master’s health has been very poor recently; he’s been talking about the young master!”

Li Shiming smiled and walked through the gate.

Moyan’s loud voice had startled several people inside.

Li Shiming saw a middle-aged woman and the young man beside her, just like Moyan’s former self. He couldn’t help but look towards Moyan.

“Young master, Moyan is now a steward. This is my wife, and this is my boy, both working at home!” Moyan bowed and introduced, then turned his head to scold the middle-aged woman and the young man, “Have you not come to pay respects to the young master!”

“Have seen the young master!” The middle-aged woman and her son knelt down and kowtowed to Li Shiming.

“Get up!” Li Shiming, nearly having forgotten the worldly etiquette and unaccustomed to such formality, waved them off.

He looked at Moyan’s family, realizing the true decline of his household. He sensed that there were only six people in the mansion, with Moyan’s family accounting for three, a small number for a residence of three courtyards.

Moyan led Li Shiming towards the second gate. Since there were no female family members at home, the rules were not so strict. He led Li Shiming past the second gate.

Li Shiming saw a figure holding a basin of water, a thirty-something woman with a maiden’s hairstyle.

The woman dropped the basin with a clang upon seeing Li Shiming.

“Young master!” The woman called out the long-missed address incredulously, as if it were twenty years ago.

“Si Qin, you have grown up!” Li Shiming looked at Si Qin with a smile on his face.

He then took a closer look at Si Qin’s hairstyle, slightly furrowing his brow.

With Si Qin’s age, she should have been married by now. Why was she still wearing that hairstyle?

“Cough cough cough!” A violent cough came from the master bedroom.

Li Shiming patted Si Qin’s shoulder and walked into the master bedroom.

In the bedroom, a fifteen-year-old boy was supporting a frail old man, whose severe coughing caused his white hair to tremble incessantly.

Suddenly the old man stopped coughing, his eyes brightening instantly upon seeing Li Shiming enter.

“A disobedient son, Li Shiming, pays his respects to father!” Li Shiming knelt down and kowtowed heavily, speaking with agitation.

“Shiming, you are back!” The old man struggled to leave the bed, but his gaunt body could not support sitting up.

The boy beside him tried to prop up the old man, who, unable to leave the bed, reached out to touch Li Shiming.

Li Shiming crawled to the bedside, bringing his head close to the old man’s hand.

“You have not changed, not at all. You were right; the choice to cultivate was the right one!” The old man said slowly with a smile, followed by another bout of violent coughing.

Li Shiming’s Divine Thought scanned the old man’s body; with his realm, coupled with the wealth of medical knowledge in his natal treasure the IBMz15, he quickly diagnosed the old man’s condition.

The old man had suffered an injury, dragged out for too long and wounded at his foundation.

He cast a spell, and a white light fell upon the old man.

The white light inside the old man’s body treated the inflammation and lesions caused by the injury. After a moment, the old man’s complexion grew rosier.

Li Shiming did not rejoice; his father’s body was fundamentally damaged, added with old age, he was at the end of his lifespan.

Although he was a Golden Core cultivator, even possessing unbeatable strength within the Golden Core, he could do nothing about lifespan.

The Life-extending Elixirs of the Cultivation World were extremely precious and rare; even if he had them, he could not give them to his mortal father.

Heavy-hearted, he thought of another matter; he knew his father’s health, although he was very weak when he left. With the Spiritual Tea he had left behind, his father’s health should not have deteriorated so much in twenty years.

Moreover, how his father got injured was the primary reason leading to the end of the old man’s lifespan.

He suppressed the thoughts in his mind, maintaining a smile on his face.

“Father, how do you feel?” Li Shiming stepped forward, taking over from the boy to inquire after his father.

“I feel much better, much lighter all over!” Li WenYuan’s gaze never left Li Shiming, as if feeling his own body was less important than looking at Li Shiming.

“That’s good. I will help you recover for a while, and you will be able to move freely!” Li Shiming said with a smile.

However, he clearly knew that his father would not live more than a year. Human effort was fruitless against destiny, and life span was determined by the Heaven and Earth Rules.

“Shijie, call your brother quickly!” Li WenYuan, thinking of the boy beside him, said to the teen.

“Brother!” The teenager named Shijie called out somewhat shyly.

Li Shiming looked perplexedly at his father; he did not sense much of a close blood relation from the boy. Although the bloodline was from their lineage, it was definitely not that of his brother.

In such matters, cultivators have special means of verification, and Li Shiming did not need complex verification as his sense was even more acute.

“This child was adopted from our clan after I returned to the capital, a good boy, who has been taking care of me all along!” Li WenYuan said as he affectionately stroked Shijie’s head.