Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Old Daoist Priest Leaves

Having healthy children with humans was the hardest part of all. Plenty of great demons could hold a human form and even take human lovers, but almost every child would reveal something inhuman at birth. They were too young to control the demon qi in their bodies, so nine out of ten were born with some trace of their “true form” showing. If the father or mother was a tiger spirit, the child might come out with fur, tiger ears, tiger eyes, or a tiger tail. And because they were mixed-blood—half demon, half human—the rules of this realm rejected them from the moment they drew breath. Eight or nine out of ten never made it to adulthood, dying young from one illness or another.

Someone like Gu Shi Yi—carrying demon blood passed down generation after generation from her birth mother—could only exist because her ancestral founder had been terrifyingly powerful, most likely at the Demon King stage. As the old Daoist priest understood it, only a few rare breeds left behind from the primordial era could produce something like her. That was why he’d said what he did.

The old Daoist priest thought for a moment, then said, “I can’t really explain it. But back when I stayed with the Gu family, I heard plenty of rumors about your birth mother. They said that when she still lived at her parents’ home, she liked strong, brawny men. She never thought much of your father—the thin, refined young-master type. Still, while she was a sheltered girl, she behaved properly and followed all the rules. After she married, though, her temperament changed completely. I suspect her bloodline awakened. She just didn’t have your luck. She only awakened after she married—after she understood men and women. Once that happened, she naturally looked down on your father even more. That’s why she ran off with someone. When you return home one day, go ask around at your maternal family.”

“Oh…”

Gu Shi Yi was so stunned she just sat there with her mouth open, nodding blankly. After a long while, she finally managed, “So… she… she didn’t actually mean to abandon me?”

The old Daoist priest knew his apprentice looked carefree and bright on the outside, but she had always kept a thorn in her heart about her birth mother leaving. He nodded. “I figure she couldn’t help it…”

Her mother was only a mortal, yet she carried ancient demon blood. If that lusty nature flared, the moment she saw a man she wouldn’t care about anything—how could she still remember her daughter?

Gu Shi Yi asked again, “My maternal family was a cultivation household too. Even if they later declined, when my mother was still at home, did no one notice anything?”

The old Daoist priest said, “Bloodlines are the most unpredictable thing in the world. By your generation, your ancestral founder’s bloodline was already thin. But it was still a primordial-era rare breed, and its mysteries aren’t something we can understand. It might lie dormant for several generations, even a dozen, and then suddenly revive inside one descendant…”

He paused, then looked at her with sympathy. “But from what it looks like now, you didn’t inherit any of its other gifts. You just… ahem… inherited its lust.”

A primordial-era rare breed!

Most of them had natural talents—being born close to water or fire, having a strong body with thick skin, that sort of thing. But he had raised Gu Shi Yi for more than twenty years, and aside from her frightening insight into Dao arts, he truly couldn’t find anything about her that differed from an ordinary mortal woman. It seemed she hadn’t inherited anything else at all.

“Ah…”

Gu Shi Yi wore a flat, helpless expression. In her heart, she muttered, [No wonder I like abs, V-lines, and big muscles. So it’s… ancestral inheritance.]

The revelation hit her so hard she stopped crying altogether. She drank with the old Daoist priest for half the night. When he finally couldn’t hold his liquor and slumped onto the table, she hurried over to help him up.

The moment her hand closed around his shoulder, her throat tightened.

“Master…”

He had always been old, but his bones and strength never lost to a younger man. The training he’d done since childhood was still there. His arms weren’t iron-hard, but the muscles were clear and firm. Yet in just one day, it was as if someone had scooped the strength out of him. Under her fingers was nothing but bone—sharp, jutting, painful.

She helped the old Daoist priest onto the bed. Gu Shi Yi stayed beside him, dread curdling in her stomach. She didn’t dare sleep in her own bed. She was afraid that if she closed her eyes, he would be gone when she opened them. So she sat up all night, keeping vigil. Li Yan Er stayed with her, the two of them watching until dawn.

When the first birdcall rang out in the forest, the old Daoist priest seemed to wake. He let out a long sigh and forced his eyes open.

“Shi… Yi…”

Gu Shi Yi snapped awake and leaned close. “Master!”

By then, the old Daoist priest looked like a man already halfway in the grave. His pale hair was scattered across the pillow, and the top of his head was bare—every last strand had fallen out overnight. A dark haze clung to his face. His eyelids drooped so low he could barely open his eyes to a thin slit.

“Shi… Yi…”

His trembling hand found hers, squeezing weakly.

Gu Shi Yi took one look and understood. Tears poured down before she could stop them.

His voice rasped out, “Shi Yi… don’t cry yet… If you want to cry… wait until I’m in the ground, then cry…”

He dragged in another long breath, gathering the last thread of true qi in his body as if he were hauling a rope through mud. “Listen carefully. What I told you before—you must do it. Three days after I die, you must leave this place. Bury me in these mountains. Let this body turn into a handful of soil… and it can still feed the living things here.”

As he spoke, his eyes rolled upward, staring at the tiled roof.

“Ah…”

He exhaled one long breath. His fingers loosened, then slipped from her hand and fell softly onto the bed.

Gu Shi Yi froze. Her mind went empty, like someone had turned the world off.

Then she lurched forward. “Master!”

She cried out and threw herself over him, sobbing until her chest hurt. “Master! Master! Don’t die! If you die and leave me alone in this world, what am I supposed to do…”

For twenty-five years, she and the old Daoist priest had wandered everywhere together. They’d eaten bitterness together, and they’d also lived it up together. The hardship and joy between them weren’t things outsiders could understand. Their bond as master and apprentice ran deeper than most—and Gu Shi Yi knew he had gone so quickly because of her. Pain, regret, guilt… it all twisted together until she cried like the sky had collapsed. She cried for a full day and a full night.

Li Yan Er grieved with her as well. The two of them stayed in the hall beside the old Daoist priest, not eating or drinking a single bite. In the end, Li Yan Er saw that if this continued, Gu Shi Yi would collapse too. She pulled herself together and urged her, “Shi Yi… it’s been a whole day and night. Master should be buried now. You… you should let him rest.”

Master had told them: three days after he died, they had to leave. A day and night were already gone. If they delayed any longer, they would run out of time.

Gu Shi Yi listened. She forced herself to swallow her grief and went outside to find a feng shui treasure spot for the old Daoist priest. After searching and searching, she finally found a hillside five li behind the temple—mountain at its back, facing southwest, deep in an old forest few people ever entered. If the old Daoist priest was buried there, she could still come sit in quiet moments, look at the scenery below, and listen to the mountain wind roaring through the trees.

She went to negotiate with the lonely pine tree spirit standing on the mountaintop.

“My Master died,” she said. “I want to bury him here. Will you guard him for me?”

The pine tree spirit thought, then answered, “No.”

Gu Shi Yi’s temper flared. “Why? He treated you well! If he hadn’t enlightened you, how would you have survived the thunder tribulation two years ago and become a spirit? You’re ungrateful!”

The pine tree spirit thought again, then said slowly, “When you put it like that… I remember. Something like that did happen…”

Its memories from before it awakened were blurry, but her words tugged a few scraps back into place. “Fine,” it added. “So you don’t go around spreading nonsense and ruining my reputation, you can bury your Master here.”

Gu Shi Yi’s face lit up, but the pine tree spirit cut in before she could thank it.

“However… this feng shui treasure spot is special. If you bury a person here, it becomes the only royal-grade lonely grave within a hundred li. The ‘eye’ of the site is right under my roots. And they say one mountain can’t hold two tigers—alive or dead. If you bury him here, you’ll have to move me.”

Gu Shi Yi stared. “There’s a saying like that?”

“I’ve been in these mountains far too long,” the pine tree spirit said, sounding downright aggrieved. “I’m sick of it. Take me outside so I can see what the secular world is like. Anyway, your Master is dead now. I figure you won’t stay in these mountains either. So take me with you. I give your Master my spot, and I get to leave. Both sides win.”

“This…”

Gu Shi Yi hesitated. The pine tree spirit grew impatient and pressed harder.

“If you don’t take me, chopping me down won’t help. My roots run ten zhang deep. If you dare bury him here, I’ll shove him up from underground. He won’t rest even after death. He’ll be left to rot in the wild—and after he dies, he’ll be a homeless stray soul!”

So vicious.

Gu Shi Yi remembered: this pine tree spirit might have lived a thousand years, but it had only awakened two years ago. Basically a baby. And babies—especially bratty ones—were the least reasonable. Push them too far and they would do anything.

Besides… this was a feng shui treasure spot.

A place that could turn a pine into a spirit. If the old Daoist priest was buried here, he would definitely be comfortable. He hadn’t enjoyed much blessing in life. If she could, she had to let him enjoy some after death.

She sighed, torn. “You’re huge. How am I supposed to take you?”

The pine tree spirit brightened immediately. “Easy. Find something to split my body open. I’ll come out myself. After I come out, put your Master inside me. That way you don’t even need a coffin.”

A tree coffin.

Perfect—cheap and “green.” A thousand-year pine spirit used as a coffin? Even an emperor in the secular world wouldn’t get that kind of treatment.

Gu Shi Yi went back, found an axe, and split open the massive pine that two people couldn’t wrap their arms around. Sure enough, a streak of green light shot out, circling her in quick, excited loops. She grabbed a broken earthen jar, scooped some soil into it, and the green light dove inside. A tiny sapling appeared, bright and glossy.

The pine tree spirit wiggled and complained, “This place is cramped. I won’t make it hard for you. I know there’s nothing good on this mountain. When we get down, find me somewhere bigger.”

Gu Shi Yi rolled her eyes. “Got it.”

She spent another full day hollowing out the inside of the pine until it was just big enough to hold a body. She went down the mountain to buy burial clothes, dressed the old Daoist priest with her own hands, then sealed him inside the tree coffin. Crying as she worked, she hammered nails into the outer wood, shutting her Master into that dark trunk forever.

When it was done, Gu Shi Yi returned to the temple feeling like someone had drained her dry. She went into the hall, sat on her bed, and stared blankly at the empty bed in the corner. After a long while, she toppled backward, exhausted, and fell asleep.

Once she was asleep, only Li Yan Er—the clay doll on the table—and the bright green sapling in the broken jar remained, staring at each other.

“Hey,” the sapling said, “I’ve seen you. Gu Shi Yi brought you here before.”

It paused, then added, “I heard her call you Yan Er?”

Li Yan Er nodded. “My name is Li Yan Er. You… what should I call you?”

Earlier, Gu Shi Yi had brought Li Yan Er up to the mountaintop, but the pine tree spirit had put on airs and refused to deal with an outsider. Gu Shi Yi had shouted until she was hoarse and still got ignored. Li Yan Er hadn’t spoken to it either. So even now, she truly didn’t know how to address it. If they went by age, it had lived for a thousand years. But Shi Yi had said plants and beasts counted age from the day they awakened. By that measure, it was only about two.

The sapling looked momentarily blank. “I don’t have a name.”

Then it snapped, fierce as a kitten showing claws, “Doesn’t matter. You just need to know this: from now on, aside from Gu Shi Yi, I’m the biggest one!”

Li Yan Er blinked. “Uh…”

Then she straightened, suddenly inspired. “Right! I’m older than you. From now on you listen to me. Don’t fight me for territory, don’t steal my sunlight, don’t fight me for water. Hear me?”

The tree spirit immediately started fighting for territory like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Inside the jar, the sapling twisted wildly, shaking its few leaves so hard it stirred up a tiny gust. It looked ready to jump out and whip her if she disagreed. Li Yan Er couldn’t help finding it funny. In her heart, she thought, [Just like Shi Yi said.]

Shi Yi had told her: trees were basically like people. Living on the same land meant competition—competition for water, soil, sunlight. That old pine had endured wind and sun all alone on the mountaintop, hogging all the heaven-and-earth spiritual qi until it became a spirit. It wasn’t some kind, gentle pine grandpa from a play.

“Look at that bare mountaintop,” Shi Yi had said. “Not a blade of grass grows. That tells you it’s not a good thing!”

Li Yan Er felt she was human, so of course she wouldn’t argue with a tree. She nodded. “Fine. I won’t fight you…”

Anyway, sunlight and water were things she didn’t even need.

The tree spirit immediately looked satisfied. After thinking, it asked, “Who gave you your name?”

Li Yan Er answered, “My parents did…”

The tree spirit sounded troubled. “I don’t have parents. Who gives me a name?”

It couldn’t even explain where it came from. Li Yan Er thought for a moment and said, “You’re a tree that became a spirit, nurtured by heaven and earth. You’re born of nature. You can name yourself.”

The tree spirit brightened. After thinking hard for a long time, it asked, “How about… I call myself Great King?”

Li Yan Er froze. “This… name…”

If it were a tiger or lion that became a spirit, calling itself Great King would fit just fine. But a pine tree calling itself Great King felt… a bit odd.

“What,” Great King demanded at once, “you think it’s bad? Or you think I’m not worthy to be Great King?”