Chapter 35: Sandalwood and Illusions
Chapter 35: Sandalwood and Illusions
In the evening, Wen Sheng called to invite Li Zian for dinner, but Li Zian politely declined.
He had cooked a pot of Great Benefit Phoenix Claw Soup and prepared several other dishes. Just as he finished preparing dinner, Yu Meilin came home. She put down her briefcase, tied on an apron, and came to help serve the dishes.
“Is work going smoothly?” Li Zian asked.
Yu Meilin wore a worried expression: “Not smoothly. For New Star Company to develop, it needs a complete overhaul. Most of the people in the company have to be let go.”
“Take it slow, no need to rush,” Li Zian comforted her.
“I want to take it slow too, but I don’t have much time. The copper mine in Yun Di hasn’t found the vein yet, and I’m very anxious. Today several creditors called to demand payment. I suspect Yu Jiahao is behind it.”
“Did he come to the company to cause trouble for you?”
“No, he didn’t. Come with me to Yun Di tomorrow. I want to go see the mining site myself. You have many ideas, maybe you can help,” Yu Meilin said.
Li Zian was surprised: “If I go to Yun Di with you, who will take care of Xiaomei and Grandma?”
“I’ll have Xiao Tang stay at our house these few days. You go talk to her and invite her to stay for dinner. I’ll go serve the rice,” Yu Meilin said, putting down a plate and leaving.
Li Zian smiled wryly. She arranged such things without even asking if he was willing. However, he couldn’t bring himself to refuse. She was going through a difficult period. Even though theirs was a marriage of convenience, he still needed to help when necessary.
The door was slightly ajar. From inside came the sound of Li Xiaomei reciting poetry: “The moon sets, crows caw, frost fills the sky, by maples and fishing lights, I face my sorrowful sleep…”
Li Zian peeked through the crack in the door.
Li Xiaomei sat at her small desk, holding a “Children’s Poetry” book and reciting poems. Her little head swayed back and forth. Her voice was childish, but her movements had a hint of an old scholar’s demeanor.
Tang Qing was half-sitting, half-kneeling on the carpet. Her black bodycon skirt seemed a bit “revealing,” with her long legs completely exposed to the air, fair and delicate like snow under sunlight.
She was holding a pen, correcting Li Xiaomei’s homework.
Li Zian knocked on the door and entered.
Tang Qing stood up, instinctively tugged at her bodycon skirt, and greeted him with a smile: “Brother Zian is here.”
Li Zian said: “Dinner is ready. I came to call you down to eat.”
Hearing about food, Li Xiaomei immediately put down her book and dashed out the door: “Charge!”
Li Zian covered his forehead. This mischievous child was getting more and more unruly, not acting like a girl at all.
“Brother Zian, I won’t stay. I’ll go back and make something simple to eat,” Tang Qing said.
Li Zian said with a smile: “We don’t treat you as an outsider. Meilin and I both see you as a little sister. The food is already prepared, and if you say you’ll go back to eat, that would be treating us as strangers.”
Tang Qing’s lips moved, but no words came out.
Li Zian said: “Your Sister Meilin and I need to go to Yun Di tomorrow. No one will be home, so we have to ask you to help take care of Grandma and Xiaomei. Can you stay here for the next few days?”
“Okay, Brother Zian, don’t worry. I will definitely take good care of Grandma and Xiaomei,” Tang Qing agreed, relaxing a bit.
Li Zian smiled: “Then let’s go downstairs.”
His background was the same as hers, so he completely understood why she had felt a little awkward earlier. If it were him, receiving favors for no reason would also make him uneasy; he would only feel at ease after doing something for the other person.
“Brother Zian, wait. Let me show you Xiaomei’s homework.” Tang Qing picked up the homework she had just corrected and handed it to Li Zian.
Li Zian took the homework book and looked at it.
In the homework book were sentence-making exercises Tang Qing had assigned, using “yesterday,” “today,” and “tomorrow.”
The outstanding little girl’s first sentence was: Yesterday, Daddy performed a magic trick for me.
The second sentence was: Today, Daddy performed a magic trick for me.
The third sentence was: Tomorrow, Daddy will perform a magic trick for me.
Li Zian reached out and covered his forehead.
He had a headache.
“I won’t show this to Meilin. From now on, perform fewer magic tricks for the child. I know your magic trick is just chocolate,” Tang Qing said.
Li Zian smiled awkwardly: “I’ll try my best.”
Tang Qing said quietly: “I’ll teach you a method.”
Li Zian’s interest was piqued: “What method?”
Tang Qing said: “Melt the chocolate and put a vitamin C tablet inside, or even two. The medicine is bitter. If it doesn’t taste good, she won’t ask you to perform magic tricks anymore.”
Li Zian was filled with respect and immediately gave Tang Qing a thumbs-up: “Xiao Tang, you’re a master! This method is great. I’ll dose the little one tomorrow and see if she still craves chocolate.”
Tang Qing said with a smile: “Don’t say I taught you.”
“No, no, I wouldn’t say even if beaten,” Li Zian said with a sincere expression.
Tang Qing covered her small mouth, holding back her laughter.
After dinner, Tang Qing and Yu Meilin cleared the table and washed the dishes. Li Zian played with Li Xiaomei for a while. After putting the little ancestor to sleep, he returned to his room.
He practiced his boxing, his punches and kicks creating gusts of wind.
Branch-Breaking Boxing was ancient and simple, but every time Li Zian practiced, he gained new insights and rewards.
The so-called masters and great artists simply repeated what they were best at over and over, taking it to the extreme. For example, Kato’s fingers, Butcher Ding carving an ox, or Ijima’s love.
Although Ji Da had only passed down one style, Branch-Breaking Boxing, to him, as long as he practiced it daily and mastered it completely, he could become a great master of boxing.
After half an hour of practice, Li Zian was covered in sweat. He went into the bathroom. Before showering, he scraped off the dirt from his body and carefully placed it into a plastic bag. The Furnace Body Mud was a precious medicinal ingredient to him; he couldn’t bear to wash it away for nothing.
In the future, he couldn’t spit out saliva casually either; he needed to find a way to store it, because his saliva was also the Furnace Body Liquid, another medicinal ingredient.
“If things go on like this, will I become like Tang Monk, my entire body an elixir of immortality, where eating me grants eternal life?” When Li Zian came out of the bathroom, this bizarre thought popped into his mind, and he himself was amused by it.
Maybe having a seven-figure private stash had unleashed his imagination.
Before getting into bed, Li Zian lit that stick of sandalwood incense.
The sandalwood incense smoke wafted upwards.
Li Zian got into bed. A wisp of smoke drifted into his nostrils.
Boom!
There was no preamble at all. The moment the first trace of Sandalwood Smoke entered his nostrils, the Great Sluggish Cauldron woke up. It didn’t feel like its usual lazy awakening, but more like a car idling suddenly having its accelerator slammed to the floor.
Natural air entered his lungs and circulated throughout his body via his blood.
The Great Sluggish Cauldron seemed like another lung, releasing streams of Zhenqi, delivering it to every cell in his body.
His blood grew hot, his organs grew hot, every cell was bathed in the heat generated by the circulation of Zhenqi!
All sorts of subtle sounds flooded into Li Zian’s ears like a tide.
The night wind blew outside the window; the sound against the wall was one tone, against the glass another, and flowing through the air yet another.
On the road downstairs, vehicles sped by; fifty kilometers per hour had one sound, seventy kilometers per hour another, and braking still another.
In the living room, the pendulum of the European-style clock swung rhythmically: tick, tock, tick.
Upstairs, someone’s bedsprings squeaked rhythmically, accompanied by the sound of clapping and a woman’s muffled, restrained sounds.
And many, many other sounds.
Li Zian lay motionless, yet it was as if he had entered a magical world of sound. He was lying in bed, yet he grasped everything around him, both natural and man-made, all under his control.
“This is the correct way to activate the Great Sluggish Cauldron! I only found out today. When I go grocery shopping tomorrow, I must buy a pack of sandalwood incense. From now on, I’ll light one every time I sleep,” Li Zian thought to himself.
With the Great Sluggish Cauldron, sleeping was cultivation, but cultivating while burning incense was clearly several times more effective than without. Setting aside the reason why this was the case, just for the cultivation effect alone, even if the sandalwood incense cost a thousand yuan per stick, he would still burn it.
A series of faint footsteps approached, very light, very soft, but they couldn’t escape Li Zian’s ears.
It wasn’t the footsteps of the Old Matriarch Lin Shengnan; her footsteps were slower and even lighter.
It also wasn’t Li Xiaomei’s footsteps; hers were quicker and even lighter.
Besides Lin Shengnan and Li Xiaomei, whose footsteps were they? Tang Qing’s or Yu Meilin’s?
The footsteps came closer and closer, finally stopping outside his door.
Li Zian already knew whose footsteps they were; it was Yu Meilin’s, because Tang Qing wouldn’t come to his door at this time.
“She’s coming now? Could it be she wants to collect ‘homework’?” This idea popped into Li Zian’s mind, and he felt inexplicably nervous. He had been lying comfortably, but somehow he sat up straight, staring intently at the door.
If she came to collect homework tonight…
Should I hand in seven times or eight to prove how amazing I am?
Should I act gentle and romantic, or wild and unrestrained?
This imagination had nothing to do with his seven-figure savings; it was only related to the speed of his blood flow and the desires within his body.
“Zian, are you asleep?” Yu Meilin’s voice came from outside.
“I… I’m not asleep!” Li Zian threw off the covers and got out of bed. The whole process took one second.
“I came to tell you, our flight tomorrow is at nine. We need to leave for the airport at seven to check in. Pack the necessary things. Kun Li will pick us up at six fifty tomorrow to go to the airport. Don’t be late,” Yu Meilin said.
Li Zian, who had been about to open the door, froze instantly. His current feeling was like a piece of red-hot charcoal, ready to contribute its light and heat to the cause of human reproduction, when suddenly Yu Meilin threw a bucket of cold water over him, causing him to steam all over.
“Did you hear me?”
Li Zian snapped back to reality and replied listlessly: “Mmm… I heard.”
“Then rest early. I’m going back to my room,” Yu Meilin said, followed by the sound of her footsteps gradually fading away.
Li Zian collapsed back onto the bed.