Chapter 1: Reincarnation

“Hoo…”

Fang Qing let out a long breath and looked up at the bright, pristine moon hanging high in the sky, his expression somewhat dazed.

The moon was still that same moon, yet he seemed to have… transmigrated!

This was really something he did not know how to begin explaining.

He remembered that in his previous life he had not met with any freak accident or sudden windfall.

It had seemed to be just an ordinary night’s sleep—close his eyes, open them again, and then he had arrived inside the body of this fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy.

“No… not possession, but more like… reincarnation? As if I’ve just broken through the mystery of the womb?”

“What does this even count as? No great fortune delivering me here—I just took advantage of sleep to cross the nine heavens?”

The boy’s face was blank as he rubbed the corner of his brow.

In his mind surfaced memories from the previous dozen years, along with a mother tongue that felt instinctive.

The land of Ancient Shu, Ba Commandery, the Ba language…

Natural disasters and man-made calamities, displacement, Old Uncle…

When he thought of Old Uncle, a face deeply etched with ravines, eyes vacant all year round yet occasionally flashing with the crafty shrewdness unique to an old farmer, appeared vividly before him—so close it was as if it were right in front of him.

“Boy, are you alright?”

Old Uncle, who had been leading the way ahead, turned around, his gaze carrying a hint of worry.

Their hometown had suffered disaster;

among the clansmen, nine out of ten had died.

Only this single sprout remained.

“Old Uncle… I’m fine.”

Fang Qing fell silent as a stretch of memory emerged.

The mountain ravine where his family had lived for many years, ‘Three-Waters Hollow,’ had suddenly been struck by a plague this year.

He had become an orphan and was now fleeing famine and disaster together with Old Uncle.

‘If this were just an ordinary ancient alternate world, starting off as a refugee would be miserable, but it seems there’d still be a path of rebellion to take?’

‘But according to my shallow knowledge, most ancient peasant uprisings ended up as cannon fodder paving the way for kings. You’d have to wait until small and medium landlords and scholars joined in before it could really take shape…’

Fang Qing complained silently to himself.

Fortunately, he possessed memories and could answer a few questions casually, and Old Uncle did not notice anything amiss.

The two fell silent again and, by moonlight, arrived beside a stream.

The moonlight was hazy, the stream murmured on, like a ribbon of jade.

“Old Uncle, what are we doing here?”

Fang Qing went to the water’s edge.

Even in early summer the stream was still icy cold.

Faintly reflected in it was a youth dressed in coarse hemp clothes, his face somewhat grimy and darkened.

Only his pair of eyes shone with lively brilliance, full of spirit, like the finishing touch on a painted dragon.

He had gradually come to understand his situation.

He just did not know why Old Uncle had brought him away from the main group so mysteriously tonight.

‘Hmm, fleeing a plague but still gathering together… more importantly, no one in the group has fallen ill. That’s strange too…’

With modern hygiene knowledge, Fang Qing felt suspicious.

“What do you know?”

Old Uncle gave a smug grin, then his expression turned somewhat gloomy.

“We fled from a plague-ridden land. Even if we reach Heavenly Prefecture City, they might not take us in… We’ve got to scrape together some travel funds. With money in hand, the heart won’t panic.”

Fang Qing was momentarily speechless.

Reality was even darker than he had imagined—ten, a hundred times darker.

Once, he had thought that escaping the plague zone was already a blessing.

Even if he had to sell himself to a big household as a tenant, at least he would have food to eat.

But he had forgotten… this was an era where one could not obtain servitude even if one wished for it.

Even if they wanted to sell themselves, there might not be anyone willing to take them.

What was more, if there were any choice at all, who would want to kneel and become a servant?

“So…”

Fang Qing looked at Old Uncle, his eyes lighting up.

His earlier memories had been clouded, and he had been seriously ill, muddled and inattentive.

Now that he looked at it, most of the family’s former resources were probably on Old Uncle’s person.

Truly worthy of someone seasoned with age… cough cough, that is to say…

Under the moonlight, Old Uncle carefully and solemnly took out a bundle from his bosom.

When the bundle was opened, there was another layer of floral cloth, tied with who knew how many knots.

When Old Uncle reverently unfolded it, Fang Qing finally saw that it was a… book?

“This is… the one enshrined in the ancestral hall… a calendar?”

Fang Qing recognized it.

Although this book was missing more than half of its pages, it had always been enshrined at the highest place in the Fang family ancestral hall, visible every year during ancestor worship.

In his memories, whenever there was a major matter, the clansmen would all come to the ancestral hall, and the old clan head would solemnly invite out this tattered booklet and flip through it…

Thinking of those faces from memory, Fang Qing’s heart could not help but ache, his mood turning gloomy…

“What calendar? Bah… This is an Immortal Calendar! An Immortal Calendar, get it?!”

Old Uncle spat, as if the old clan head had possessed him, and reverently opened the ‘immortal artifact’ in his hands.

Fang Qing leaned closer, feeling fortunate that he was actually literate.

This was no small thing—literacy rates in ancient times were generally low.

With literacy, he could find work in the city as an accountant’s clerk or something similar and at least not starve.

He swept his gaze over it and saw that although the pages were old, they were extremely smooth, clearly cherished by every previous owner.

On the title page, there was a line of neat, orderly writing:

“Abundance or dearth of the years, the circulation of numinous influences, the transformations of yin and yang—these are but the trifling achievements of the Warden of the Year…”

“‘【Warden of the Year】?’”

Fang Qing’s heart stirred.

Back when he had been caught up in it, he had not felt anything special.

But now, looking again, each word seemed to carry a great terror, as if revealing some secret of the world.

The night was quiet.

Only the soft rustling of Old Uncle turning pages could be heard.

“Found it!”

Suddenly, his expression lit up.

He pointed at a page.

“Boy, look here… The clan head was my second father. I personally saw him mark this page back then—afraid he’d forget!”

Old Uncle’s tone carried a bit of pride.

“Our Fang family being able to occupy ‘Three-Waters Hollow’—that was thanks to our foundations!”

Fang Qing half-understood.

The clan did indeed seem relatively well-off.

They had even been able to let children of the right age, like himself, attend elementary schooling to learn characters.

That investment alone was no small thing.

Peasant farmers who faced the yellow earth with their backs to the sky could never afford that on a few meager fields alone, so there must have been other income.

‘Most likely some craft passed down only to sons… recorded in a book, no less? Old Uncle wants to use it to make money?’

‘As expected, it’s truly a clan’s foundation…’

Fang Qing glanced at it and read aloud, “In the near ancient era, year eight thousand four hundred and twelve, Kang Metal held the year. Fifth month, fourteenth day. Favorable for dragons and snakes. Suitable for travel, breakthrough, gathering qi… This?”

He was astonished.

This page was written in a calendar format.

He recognized all the characters, but when they were strung together, it was somewhat incomprehensible.

“Could it be… cultivation? Do immortals really exist in this world?”

Fang Qing’s heart burned with excitement.

“Don’t look at those words. They’re from a hundred years ago. Look at what later generations added!”

Old Uncle prompted him.

Fang Qing nodded.

Sure enough, in the gaps between the characters on this page, he saw several more lines of ink:

“…Take ancient blades or swords. On the night of the full moon, immerse them in stream water. Recite the ‘seven-character secret mantra,’ and one may obtain a wisp of ‘Moonflow Radiance’… A hundred wisps form a filament;

a hundred filaments form a Path…”

“Right, right. This is our Fang family’s secret qi-gathering art. This qi-gathering art is passed down only to the clan head. If their entire household hadn’t died out from the plague, it wouldn’t have fallen to the two of us.”

Old Uncle was beaming.

“Our old Fang family had immortal affinity in our ancestors. A hundred years ago, we received the qi-gathering method from an immortal. Each year we offered up several blades or swords containing ‘Moonflow Radiance,’ and the rewards we received were extremely generous. It’s a pity I didn’t know the seven-character secret back then… and that it’s only useful on this one day.”

He sighed, took down the ring-pommel saber he had kept at his side these days, and prepared to immerse it in the stream.

“So… this is a calendar from a hundred years ago? It’s been expired for a hundred years, brother!”

A sense of absurdity arose in Fang Qing’s heart.

“Is it still useful?”

“What brother? I’m your Old Uncle!!” Old Uncle glared.

“Besides, what’s a hundred years? The great sun rises in the east and sets in the west. The twelve 【Warden of the Year】 govern the months. These are things that have been so since time immemorial. Even in another thousand or ten thousand years, they won’t change… The old clan head did this every year on this very day. It can’t be wrong!”

As he chanted the true mantra under his breath, he devoutly immersed the blade into the stream.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Fang Qing seemed to see wisps of flowing light gathering along the blade, like the meridians of a human body.

……

“Haha… it worked.”

He did not know how much time had passed.

Just as Fang Qing’s legs were starting to ache, he saw Old Uncle raise the ancient, rust-speckled blade in his hand, his face full of delight.

“Taking this to the Luo family, it should sell for at least seven or eight taels of silver…”

“That’s all it takes to gather one wisp of Moonflow Radiance? Why not gather more? Or just go all the way—collect a hundred wisps to refine a filament, or even ten thousand wisps to form a Path?”

Fang Qing was somewhat surprised.

“That won’t do. Gathering qi devours earth qi and numinous resonance… It takes at least half a year to a year to recover from one attempt.”

Old Uncle shook his head.

“We used to occupy Three-Waters Hollow, with three streams. Even then, we only produced three items a year… let alone gathering a filament, a Path?”

He looked at Fang Qing and then snorted, tossing the blade slightly.

“Everyone knows immortals cultivate by devouring qi, but you don’t have mana… Even if I put it right in front of you, could you ‘combine qi’? Even if you somehow combined it into a ‘true qi,’ could you gather it?”

“No mana means you can’t combine qi? Old Uncle, tell me more about immortals. Do they really exist?”

More doubts arose in Fang Qing’s heart, and at the same time he secretly marveled.

This Old Uncle truly lived up to the rumors of having gone out into the world—well-informed and experienced.

“Of course they do. I even know that the first realm of immortals is called ‘Devouring Qi’!” Old Uncle grinned proudly, then his expression dimmed again.

“Boy, listen to my advice. Immortal affinity is hard to come by… Although our family has an ancestral qi-gathering method, without an immortal stepping in, it will never be possible to combine a true ‘qi’ and, by relying on it, step into the Qi-Devouring Realm… The tools we get each year can only be sold, that’s all.”

“So, that means… to cultivate, one must devour qi, but true ‘qi’ can only be finally processed into a finished product by cultivators themselves?”

Fang Qing guessed silently.

“To step onto the path of cultivation, setting aside whether there’s any aptitude requirement or not, and not even mentioning techniques, the most crucial thing—‘one Path of true qi’—is enough to block countless people…”

He felt speechless.

“Without mana, you can’t combine true ‘qi.’ Without qi, you can’t enter cultivation and develop mana… Isn’t this a self-locking dead loop?”

According to his experience from novels in his previous life, cultivation should have been about a widely circulated manual—anyone with a spiritual root could cultivate.

Why was it so troublesome here? It had turned into a chicken-and-egg Möbius loop problem.

Fang Qing shook his head and decided not to dwell on it for now.

“Then did our Fang family ancestor become an immortal?”

“Of course… not.”

Old Uncle shook his head.

“That ancestor supposedly lived for two sixty-year cycles and passed away peacefully, without illness. He wasn’t a cultivator either…”

“Looking at it this way, what our family got doesn’t even count as immortal affinity. At most, we’re just the hard labor cattle and horses under the immortals…”

Fang Qing felt speechless.

Wasn’t this just a modern workhorse? Eating grass, producing milk.

“You can’t quite put it that way…”

Old Uncle also looked somewhat conflicted.

“Sigh… at least our family did get some returns. We had quite a bit of income every year…”

Fang Qing touched the hard object against his chest, his heart burning with fervor.

“I must step onto the path of cultivation, see this higher scenery, and even… take a look at the secret of the 【Warden of the Year】!”

Having arrived in a transcendent world, how could he not pursue longevity and unending sight?

Without a doubt, if the Qi-Devouring Realm was merely the entry level, then the Twelve Wardens of the Year must already have become ‘immortals’ to remain prosperous without decline!

Fang Qing immediately felt as though he had gained a grand, distant goal.

“‘Kang Metal,’ then? The title of one who holds the year?”

He was still a mere mortal, yet he already knew the name of an immortal dao great power—even if it was only a title.

Thinking about it, it also felt oddly reasonable.

After all, in his past life he could not name many governors of the Eagle Nation’s states, but he would definitely know who the Eagle Nation’s president was.

Converting it over, it was the same.

Just at this moment, a sudden change occurred!

“Here they are!”

Along with the shout came a rush of chaotic footsteps, rapidly approaching.

“Not good—it’s Ma Old Three, that mangy dog!”

Old Uncle’s expression changed drastically.

“That damned old bastard—he’s been keeping an eye on your old man this whole time!”

He drew his blade and turned back, stretching his legs to run.

“We’re outnumbered. Split up and run!”