Chapter Thirteen: Problems That Can Be Solved with Money Are Not Really Problems

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After leaving the Lan Apothecary, Feng Xue continued on with the heavy backpack strapped to his shoulders. He had no intention of finding an inn and setting it down. Although this county town seemed to have a simple, honest populace, he could not shake the feeling that something about it was unreal.

How should he put it? It was like watching a small coastal town in the late Qing period, as portrayed by a screenwriter with a poor grasp of history, where everyone had ample food and clothing and the nation enjoyed peace and prosperity. The defining feature was that everything ran counter to common sense.

Thus, even though everything he had seen so far suggested that the people of this county were straightforward and kindly, the distrust engraved in his instincts toward an era so similar to the Republican period led him to choose to carry his belongings on his back, even if it meant enduring a little more fatigue.

Now that he had already paid a visit to Doctor Lan, Feng Xue gave the matter some thought and decided to visit the charity mortuary first.

For one thing, he had a definite address: the Charity Mortuary in the north of town. For another, a “Daoist priest” sounded more reliable than a “spirit medium,” especially when that Daoist priest’s surname was Qian.

Feng Xue was not the sort of person who discriminated based on surnames, but having watched all kinds of films and television dramas in his previous life, he always felt that people named Qian ought to be rather greedy for money. Add in the fact that the man was a Daoist priest, and Feng Xue could not help picturing someone who would “take a client’s money and work himself to death to ward off disaster.”

Any problem that could be solved with money was no problem at all. Since crossing into this world, Feng Xue had deepened his understanding of that saying with every passing day.

In Yingzhou, where mahjong was played for real money, his golden finger could easily have made him a Gambling God, a Saint of Mahjong, or something of the sort, allowing him to command a vast fortune. Yet he had still chosen to gamble on a stroke of luck, because he knew perfectly well that completing a pure Nine Lotus hand in a matter of days was a matter of fortune. He could not guarantee that he would always manage it.

People lived for peace of mind. Compared with spending every day in a mahjong parlor merely to grind out another nine years of life, Feng Xue was more inclined to stake everything on a single gamble.

He followed the street northward and soon came upon a relatively run-down district. It was not exactly a slum, but there were far fewer people here than in the southern part of town. The only ones he could see along the road were a few children running about and making a racket. Presumably, the adults had gone out to work.

“Hey, little one. Do you know where the charity mortuary is?”

He casually called over a child who was running wildly about while shrieking at the top of his lungs, then took out a fruit-flavored hard candy from his emergency sugar supply and held it out.

The child stared at the candy and immediately pointed farther ahead, speaking in a childish voice.

“You have to go a little farther that way. My ma won’t let me play over there.”

“Thanks! Here, this is for you. Remember to take off the wrapper first!”

Feng Xue handed him the candy. The child hesitated, then accepted it, though he did not eat it. Instead, he tucked it into his pocket.

Feng Xue did not ask why. He simply continued in the direction the child had indicated. As the houses around him grew increasingly sparse, he finally caught sight of what was probably the charity mortuary.

At first glance, it looked somewhat classical. On closer inspection, however, it proved to be a brick-and-tile compound fitted with glass windows—a faux-antique courtyard. Combined with the empty stretches of wilderness around it and the broken bricks and roof tiles glimpsed in the corners, the place gave off a distinctly sinister air.

“What a heavy aura of yin!”

“All right. Looks like it wasn’t just my imagination.”

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Hearing the Little White Snake suddenly mutter that remark, Feng Xue silently complained to himself. He lightly rubbed the scales on his ring and said,

“You haven’t said a word this whole time. I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

“You brought me to a place like this, and you’re actually asking why I’m not talking?” The Little White Snake’s voice suddenly became shrill. Feng Xue had no idea which nerve he had touched this time, so he cautiously asked,

“What kind of place? That spirit medium who runs a proper apothecary is the most amiable of the White Immortals. Didn’t your fox-demon grandmother become a household guardian spirit too?”

“How can those be the same? That was a hedgehog! Hedgehogs are terrifying to snakes! When she looked at me, I nearly thought she was going to eat me!” the Little White Snake said in horror.

Feng Xue was left rather speechless. How was he supposed to put it…

“I don’t really understand the hierarchy of fears among animals.”

There was nothing for it. From a human perspective, between a snake and a hedgehog, surely the snake was the more frightening one.

After Feng Xue said that, the Little White Snake withdrew into silence once more. By now, he was used to it.

He approached the courtyard gate and waited briefly. When no scene unfolded in which some master declared that he had known Feng Xue was coming all along, he grasped the door knocker and tapped three times.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

The slightly muffled clatter of the knocker rang out. Even in broad daylight, Feng Xue still felt an eerie chill.

Before long, a string of footsteps approached from within. Resisting the urge to shift into an over-the-shoulder view and peer over the wall, Feng Xue waited quietly for several seconds. Then the main gate slowly swung open with the creak of its wooden hinges.

“Sir, you are…”

The young man who opened the door wore a long gown with two pockets sewn onto the chest. A silver chain extended from beneath his clothes into one of the pockets, presumably attached to a pocket watch.

The young man was rather handsome, but there was a gloomy cast to his features. It was not the sinister, vicious sort of gloominess; he merely looked as though he had stayed up for several nights. Oddly enough, he had no dark circles beneath his eyes.

More importantly, in Feng Xue’s over-the-shoulder view, the young man had only twenty years of life remaining.

The young man looked barely past twenty. Seeing such a limited lifespan immediately made Feng Xue question the abilities of Master Qian.

Then he remembered that Doctor Lan had mentioned the theories of nourishing the soul with vital energy and blood, and of the soul nourishing the body in return. He remained polite as he said,

“Hello. I’m here to see Master Qian.”

“I’m sorry. My master has gone to inspect a yin residence for someone. He probably won’t be back for the next couple of days. If you have anything to say, I can pass it on to him when he returns.”

The young man stood at the doorway and showed no intention of inviting Feng Xue inside. Considering that this was a charity mortuary, however, that was perfectly understandable.

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Feng Xue was not disappointed by this news. If anything, he was rather pleased. Compared with a retired old Daoist priest, a young man was obviously easier to deceive.

After weighing the matter in his mind, he said aloud with an ingratiating smile,

“So you are Master Qian’s prized disciple. I’m sure you must be a highly accomplished practitioner of the arcane arts as well!”

“Not at all, not at all!”

The young man had clearly received little praise in his life. Though he verbally denied it, the corners of his mouth were already struggling not to curl upward.

At that moment, however, another voice came from inside the courtyard.

“Senior Brother, did Master forget to bring something? Oh… Who’s this?”

As he spoke, a figure came into Feng Xue’s view. This person was about two years younger than the young man in front of him and wore the plain robes of an unranked Daoist acolyte. The gloominess in his face was less pronounced as well.

As for the number of years remaining above his head…

“Fifteen thousand… roughly forty years. Not a lot, but certainly not a short time either.”

Feng Xue completed the conversion in an instant and said,

“Here’s the situation. I’d like to learn some arcane techniques, but I have no way to enter the field. I’ve heard that Master Qian is a true expert. I’m not asking to become his disciple; I only hope he can point me toward a way to study. I do have considerable wealth, and once the matter is settled, I will offer a generous reward!”

“Ah, well…”

A flicker of surprise appeared on the older young man’s face, but the younger one had already come to the doorway. He shook his head.

“Our master isn’t here. It’ll probably be another two or three days before he returns. Come back then.”

“He really doesn’t care about money?” Feng Xue wondered.

He was just considering whether to invite the two of them to the finest restaurant in the county and flaunt his wealth a little when the older young man suddenly spoke.

“What are you saying? Master always tells us that a guest who has come from afar should be welcomed. Can’t you see how heavy that luggage is? He’s traveled all this way. We should at least let him rest his feet and have a drink of water before he leaves!”

Feng Xue immediately suppressed the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, while inwardly he said,

“There’s hope!”