A Leisurely and Extravagant Life - Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Qi Cavity
Luo Baolin threw away his crutch and walked barefoot along the country path with a sickle in hand. The coolness of the morning earth beneath his feet gave him such a refreshing sense of health. Only those who have endured illness can truly know the value of being well.
“Baolin! Your leg’s healed already?” Luo Guangfu was shocked to see him working in the fields.
“Mm, it doesn’t hurt much anymore, so I came to help a little. Chunxiu is just one woman, how can she handle everything alone at home?” Luo Baolin replied with a smile.
“Still, you’d better be careful. A leg that just healed can easily get injured again,” Luo Guangfu cautioned.
“Don’t worry. I’ll just do some light work. We’ve got the thresher at home—once the rice is cut, the ox can carry it back.”
“You’ve got a fine ox there. More useful than a horse.”
“Heh, it works every day, but we don’t treat it poorly either. We feed it some grain every day, even add eggs.”
“That’s the way. Back in the production team days, livestock were more valuable than people.”
By midday, the whole village of Hemawan already knew that Luo Baolin’s leg was healed. Villagers came, just as they did when the ox carried rice, to the edge of his fields to see his leg for themselves.
“My, Zengcai’s skill at treating injuries is truly something. As the saying goes: ‘It takes a hundred days for bones and tendons to heal.’ Yet only a few days have passed and Baolin’s already working in the fields. Incredible.”
“Isn’t it? Remember Old Eight? Two years ago he rode the tractor into town, fell off, broke his leg, got a cast at the hospital, and it still took over three months before he could walk again. And Baolin, just a few days?”
“Seems from now on, for injuries like this, we’ll just go to Zengcai.”
Hemawan was a closed-off little mountain village. For entertainment, men and women often gathered together to tell bawdy jokes. Any unusual event was enough to spark gossip for ten days or half a month.
Now that Grandpa’s leg was healed, Luo Tianwang could finally go to school in peace… well, to sleep at school. Oh right, to study. But in those first few days, he really did spend most of his time asleep.
His condition fluctuated, but no one cared anymore. Even Zhao Pingshui, who at first had paid attention, slowly got used to it.
Though Luo Tianwang appeared asleep, he was actually conscious—his mind dwelled in that mysterious space. Around him floated five kinds of glowing motes.
The green ones were the most numerous and closest to him. Yellow ones were also plentiful but less active; though they gathered around him, few actually entered the space. Blue motes were fairly abundant, especially at dawn and dusk when they were the most active, forming a cloudlike mist inside the space that looked ready to condense into droplets.
The red motes were scarce but extremely active, constantly darting around his body without pause. Many entered the space, but they never gathered together; like restless firebrands, they even crashed into the green and blue clouds, scattering them apart.
The golden motes were the most aloof, never mingling with the others.
This time, Luo Tianwang noticed something strange: two golden motes fused into a single, slightly larger mote. He realized some golden motes were indeed larger than others—they must have formed through fusion.
He didn’t know what these motes really were. But ever since the green symbol had healed his grandfather’s leg, he knew these five types of motes must all be treasures, each with its own function—he just hadn’t discovered them yet.
Perhaps only by forming characters could their powers be revealed. So far, he knew only the green motes could form a symbol, the one that had healed both his wound and his grandfather’s leg.
That symbol had come from the tortoise shell. Maybe only through the tortoise shell could more symbols be gained.
“Vague yet existent, empty yet alive. In the stillness of utmost void, the divine machine stirs—formless yet with form. This is the light of innate nature, the floating image of wood and fire… Only through dual cultivation of the Munini method can the qi of yin channels be guided to converge at the qi cavity.”
The voice suddenly resounded in his mind, like a thunderclap. Instantly, the green cloud within the space whirled into a vortex. Countless green motes scattered through the air flocked toward him like moths to flame, rushing into the mysterious space, gathering together. Droplets formed rapidly—one, two, three…
Before long, tens of thousands of green droplets condensed into a small pool, filled with brilliant jade-green liquid.
Unfortunately, the vortex slowly stilled, and the motes around him dispersed. The blue mist never managed to form a vortex, nor condense into droplets.
“So this place is called the Qi Cavity,” Luo Tianwang finally understood what this mysterious space was.
What he didn’t know was why such a great change had taken place within the Qi Cavity that day.
That day he slept longer than usual. He had fallen asleep during first period, and by the time he woke, school was already over. A few unlucky students who hadn’t finished reciting their lessons remained in the classroom, including Luo Zejun.
“Luo Zejun, you’re always causing trouble. Yesterday you even gave Teacher Cheng a nickname. You’re really something, just looking for mischief,” Zhao Pingshui scolded, though he almost wanted to laugh.
Luo Zejun was bold indeed, daring to give a nickname to Cheng Yulian, that tigress of a teacher. Recently, she’d seemed a bit hormonally imbalanced, even dared to argue with the principal. Zhao Pingshui had been left embarrassed by her just yesterday, and now it looked as if Luo Zejun’s nickname was something he had egged on.
“Teacher Zhao, I swear I didn’t come up with that nickname. Someone else did. I was just unlucky—how was I supposed to know Teacher Cheng left her lesson book on the podium? If anyone’s to blame, it’s Tianwang. If he hadn’t woken up just then, I wouldn’t have blurted out ‘Old Witch.’”
In his carelessness, Luo Zejun actually repeated the nickname.
“You dare say it again! Want to bring the sky down on your head?” Zhao Pingshui snapped, giving him two sharp slaps.
At that moment, Luo Tianwang woke up, slipped his textbook back into his bag, slung it over his shoulder, and headed for the door.
“Hey, Luo Tianwang,” Zhao Pingshui called after him.
“What is it, Teacher Zhao?” Tianwang turned back.
“Nothing… you can go.” Zhao Pingshui scratched his head. He had felt like there was something he needed to tell Tianwang, but it slipped his mind completely.