Chapter Ninety-Six: A Breath of Relief

Here, take a look at this. Chen Lan took a silk handkerchief embroidered with chrysanthemums from her pocket and handed it to Chen Jin.

Chen Jin accepted it and studied it from several angles. On the handkerchief were a few written words: on an auspicious stretch of days in early spring, at the White Jade Palace on Green Hill, a plume of purple smoke rose, and a treasure was carried out.

Chen Jin frowned deeply at the line. He had read plenty of Taoist texts and knew a fair amount about cultivation, so he naturally understood the date hidden in those words. He could translate it at a glance: from February 14th to February 16th this year.

“You wrote this?” Chen Jin’s first suspicion was still that Chen Lan was playing at ghosts and tricks.

“Excuse me, does that look like my handwriting?” Chen Lan rolled her eyes.

“True enough. Your writing isn’t nearly this pretty,” Chen Jin said lightly.

Chen Lan huffed.

Chen Jin ignored her expression. He formed a seal with his hands and murmured an incantation, sending his inner energy into the handkerchief.

This was the Tracing Spell. With even a single keepsake of the target, one could find the person; however, what it chiefly tracked was the aura left on the handkerchief.

And this handkerchief had stayed with Chen Lan for so long that her own aura had likely overwhelmed everything else, making mistakes very likely.

Still, Chen Jin was now not far from the level of settled spirit, and his mind and intent were drawing ever closer to that realm. He lacked only one transformation of the fivefold vital essence, and so he was already able to use a few of the powers associated with that stage, such as shaping thought into image.

With mixed vital energy or true essence, he could give form to whatever arose in his mind.

Very soon, the aura on the handkerchief was drawn out by Chen Jin. It was somewhat mixed and impure; Chen Lan’s scent alone accounted for seven-tenths of it, and the rest was a jumble of others. Some traces were stronger, some weaker, but none belonged to anyone Chen Jin had ever met.

The tracing spell had therefore failed.

“How is it?” Chen Lan asked, curious and cautious, when Chen Jin stopped chanting.

“I can’t make it out,” Chen Jin said, shaking his head.

“Where did you get it?” Chen Jin asked.

“I saw it on the desk in my room a few days ago. It took me a tremendous amount of effort just to understand it. I was kindly trying to warn you, and you didn’t find anything at all. Then you came back and doubted me. Hmph.” Chen Lan puffed up her cheeks as she complained.

“In your room?” Chen Jin’s brows drew together again.

For someone who could slip into their home and leave behind such a handkerchief, Chen Jin truly felt uneasy. And if that person had gone so far as to enter Chen Lan’s room, then the matter was even more troubling.

“Maybe it’s nothing. That fellow only left this behind. Maybe he’s one of our family’s ancestors?” Chen Lan began to ramble.

Chen Jin stayed silent. That sort of thing was the kind of nonsense only Chen Lan could say. She had not yet succeeded in cultivation, so it would not matter if she spoke carelessly. But Chen Jin was already a cultivator, and he had to remember that trouble often came from one’s mouth. He would not say such a thing.

What if there really were some ancestor like that?

Still, if there truly was such an ancestor, that would not be all bad. After all, anyone who could survive the age of spiritual decline must be formidable. With such a backer, one could probably do whatever one pleased in this world.

But that was only a thought. Only a thought.

Having someone like that pressing down from above would feel rather uncomfortable, after all. Better to cultivate oneself into an ancestor in one’s own right.

“I’ll set up a formation in your room later and see if I can catch that fellow,” Chen Jin said.

For now, he chose to believe that this was simply something left behind by another person, and did not pursue the matter further.

Phew. At last I’ve gotten away with it. Chen Lan let out a breath of relief. Then she looked at Chen Jin with bright, curious eyes. “How do you set up a formation? Can I watch?”

“Of course you can,” Chen Jin said with a smile, ruffling her hair.

Setting up the formation was simple: recite a spell, then find a few objects in the room to serve as conduits, and use them together with Chen Jin’s mixed primordial energy to form the array.

Chen Jin found three panda dolls in Chen Lan’s room, since she loved pandas. He injected his mixed primordial energy into the dolls’ eyes, then placed them on the desk, the wardrobe, and the right bedside cabinet. With the three points established, the formation took shape.

“That’s it?” Chen Lan muttered in both voice and heart. Why does this not look like what I’ve seen before?

“This is an ancient formation. While traveling to Green Hill, I obtained the true inheritance of a senior from a great stone,” Chen Jin said, making it up as he went.

In truth, this method really did come from Green Hill. It was a refined simplification created by Master Cloud Image because he was too lazy to bother with the complexities of elaborate formations. Its effect was only about eighty percent of the original, but it had the advantage of simplicity and of not being so conspicuous.

“I want to learn. I want to learn,” Chen Lan said, her eyes shining.

“Wait until you’ve made some real progress in refining essence into energy,” Chen Jin replied with obvious disdain.

Because the vital energies of heaven and earth had returned, the old path of gathering essence to refine energy had been renamed refining essence into energy, which was also more in keeping with the Taoist classics.

“All right.” Chen Lan nodded helplessly.

“Your spirit and thought aren’t bad; they’re just too mixed and impure. You should recite the Classic of the Way and Its Power more often to purify your mind. Then I’ll gather a pure mass of vital energy for you and drive it into your body, sparing you a hundred days of hard work in laying your physical foundation. So... study hard, understand?” Chen Jin’s eyes seemed to flash with lightning as he looked through Chen Lan, taking in every condition of her body.

This was mainly because Chen Lan still had not cultivated at all, so Chen Jin could easily see through her physical state. If she possessed even the slightest bit of cultivation, he would have had a hard time discerning it; that required the level of settled spirit.

“A pure mass of vital energy? Brother, you’re already that amazing?” Chen Lan cried out.

“Nothing special, nothing special. Just third in the world,” Chen Jin said with a laugh and a wave.

“Didn’t you have to achieve the Golden Pill of the Yellow Sprout before you could purify vital energy and refine it into a mass? Are you already some great master at the level of the Yellow Sprout Golden Pill?” Chen Lan asked in confusion.

“Where did you hear that? There probably aren’t any cultivators at that level these days,” Chen Jin said.

“...Online. I saw it in a post on a message board a few days ago. I don’t know whether it was deleted yet. I can look it up for you,” Chen Lan said after a brief daze.

“No need. Most of what’s on message boards is fake, and hardly any cultivators lurk there anyway. Stay off those boards in the future, understand?” Chen Jin said, sounding like a parent frustrated by a child’s lack of ambition.

Chen Jin’s mind moved swiftly, and without the slightest pause he began to lecture Chen Lan.

Chen Lan immediately nodded again and again. “From now on I’ll only listen to you, big brother. I’ll never go on those boards again.”

“Good. Study properly, and read the Classic of the Way and Its Power a few hundred more times,” Chen Jin continued.

“Got... it...” Chen Lan dragged out her reply listlessly the moment she heard that.