Chapter 37: Inheritance

Because he was despised by his mother, he almost didn't get any lunch.

His mother had already entered berserk mode, so to avoid bad luck, after lunch Shen Siyuan didn't dare stay home any longer. He hopped on his dad's motorcycle and headed straight for Listening Wind Monastery.

However, the motorcycle couldn't ride up Little Xiao Feng Ling, so Shen Siyuan found a shady spot nearby to park. If he didn't park in the shade, by the time he went back he'd probably get his butt roasted on a hot plate.

He picked up the shovel from behind the bike, slung it over his shoulder, then pushed aside the weeds and headed toward Little Xiao Feng Ling.

From afar, he saw the old Daoist priest standing at the crossroads waiting.

"Daoist Master, been waiting long?" Shen Siyuan walked up to him.

"No, I just arrived too." The old Daoist priest said with a smile.

Under the afternoon sunlight, his wide sleeves fluttered, making his immortal bearing and Daoist air all the more evident.

"Where's my great-granduncle? He didn't come with you?" Shen Siyuan said, glancing around.

The old Daoist priest led Shen Siyuan up the mountain as he slowly began, "He left last night."

"Left?"

Shen Siyuan had some idea where he had gone.

The old Daoist priest did not say much more about Yu Youcai.

Instead, he began talking about his own Listening Wind Monastery.

"Listening Wind Monastery was built by Xuan Yuanzi. Xuan Yuanzi came from the Longmen Sect. Daoist Master Xuan Yuan studied the Confucian classics as a child. Before he turned twenty, he suffered three major illnesses, nearly perishing. From his illness he gained enlightenment, and thus came to admire…"

"Later, Xuan Yuanzi listened to the wind and contemplated the moon at Dragon-Tiger Mountain, and finally achieved some realization. He then came here and established Listening Wind Monastery…"

"Uh… the Longmen Sect achieved Dao on the territory of the Orthodox Unity Sect?"

"Haha, don't mind such details. Whether Longmen Sect or Orthodox Unity Sect, though their philosophies differ, they are all fellow cultivators, walking the path of cultivation, seeking where the Dao resides…"

As the two talked, the old Daoist priest led Shen Siyuan to a massive bodhi tree.

It's not only Buddhist temples that plant bodhi trees; over in Qionghai, bodhi trees are quite common, so having one in front of a Daoist monastery is actually not strange.

And behind the bodhi tree was a heap of broken walls and ruined tiles—this was the old Daoist priest's Listening Wind Monastery. Judging by its scale, the monastery wasn't large, but even so, aside from the main hall, everything else seemed to have collapsed. Weeds and thorns grew wildly from the cracks between the bricks and stones.

The old Daoist priest stood behind Shen Siyuan, and seeing him surveying the broken walls and ruins before him, couldn't help but heave a long sigh.

"Our Listening Wind Monastery may not be some famous mountain temple, but its lineage has lasted several hundred years. I never imagined that in my hands the monastery would be destroyed and the lineage severed…"

"You can't be blamed for that. Within the past century, the great man created a prosperous age unprecedented in all of Huaxia's history. In this era when the divine way fades and the human way flourishes, how many temples could preserve themselves?" Shen Siyuan offered words of comfort.

Although he hadn't lived through that era, from scraps of text in books he could understand—this belonged to the torrent of history, rolling forward, crushing all demons and monsters.

"Enough of that." The old Daoist priest pointed toward the side hall.

"There's a well there. From the wellhead, walk ten steps east, and there's a stone slab. Lift the slab and dig down…"

Shen Siyuan trampled through the weeds, used the shovel to push aside the thorns, and walked into the broken walls and ruins. His gaze fell on the statue of the Three Pure Ones in the main hall. He thought for a moment, set down his shovel, and bowed several times toward the damaged statue.

The old Daoist priest following behind Shen Siyuan saw this and showed a look of gratification.

After paying his respects, Shen Siyuan picked up the shovel again and went to the spot the old Daoist priest had described.

He saw a dry well; the well curb was covered in rope marks. Looking inside, the well walls had long since caved in.

Shen Siyuan walked ten steps east from the wellhead—this was toward the side hall, and the path was paved with bluestone slabs.

"Is it here?" Shen Siyuan stamped his foot and asked.

"Yes, right here." The old Daoist priest said.

Hearing this, Shen Siyuan didn't dawdle. He first pried up the stone slab with the shovel, moved it aside, and only then began digging down.

However—

Several hours later, Shen Siyuan, drenched in sweat, couldn't help but look up and ask the old Daoist priest standing outside the pit: "Daoist Master, how deep did you bury this thing? How much longer do I have to dig?"

"Almost there, almost there. If it weren't buried deep, wouldn't anyone just dig it up?" The old Daoist priest said with a smile.

Shen Siyuan was quite helpless. "From the first time you said 'almost there,' I've dug for almost another hour."

"Look, isn't that it?" The old Daoist priest suddenly said.

Shen Siyuan hurriedly followed his gaze and saw, poking out from the soil, a section of something black and steep.

He hurriedly used the shovel to clear the dirt around it, and only then was the full thing revealed—a brownish wine jar.

He carried the wine jar out of the pit, and couldn't wait to open it, only to find that the mouth not only had a lid, but was wrapped in deer-skin paper, and on top of that, sealed with a thick layer of wax.

"No need for all that trouble—just smash the jar open." The old Daoist priest said.

"This jar isn't an antique, is it?"

"It's just an ordinary wine vessel, what antique."

Hearing this, Shen Siyuan didn't hesitate. He directly smashed the jar open with the shovel, and everything inside spilled out.

Shen Siyuan glanced over and found a small booklet, a damaged jade seal, a finger-length jade tablet, and an iron chain—an iron chain?

Shen Siyuan first picked up the jade seal to look at it; after all, in ancient times this thing carried extraordinary significance.

Unfortunately, the jade seal was severely damaged. Only seven characters remained on it: 【Imperial Edict, Bestowed by Imperial Grace, to Pacify the Mountain】. The rest was broken off, and what characters they were could no longer be known.

"You can actually read the characters on it?"

The old Daoist priest heard Shen Siyuan mutter them aloud and was greatly surprised—these were cloud seal script, which ordinary people found very hard to read.

Shen Siyuan didn't explain. It wasn't that he recognized them, but that the Nine Hells Demon Lord did. Because the Great Wasteland civilization's heritage shared many similarities with Huaxia's, Shen Siyuan even guessed that there might be some connection between the two worlds. This was also why the Ten Thousand Souls Banner had carried the Nine Hells Demon Lord's remnant soul to this realm.

Siyuan picked up the jade tablet again. There were also a few characters on it.

【Token of the Red River】

Around it were some water patterns.

Shen Siyuan set it down and picked up the booklet beside it.

On it was written 【Embracing Wind to Sleep】, though these characters were no longer in cloud seal script.

"This is the heritage object of our Listening Wind Monastery. I now hand it over to you. If you can gain some realization, I hope Fellow Cultivator will help pass it on. If not, then the lineage of Listening Wind Monastery ends here—it is fate."

Having spoken, the old Daoist priest bowed deeply to Shen Siyuan, extremely earnest.

"Don't worry, Daoist Priest." Shen Siyuan said casually.

Shen Siyuan opened *Embracing Bao Feng Mian*; the opening was an exposition on wind and clouds, followed by some cultivation diagrams, with red arrows on the diagrams marking the circulation of Qi, and detailed annotations at every position.

Looking at its movements, it was somewhat like Tai Chi—cradling an empty object in one's arms, settling the thoughts and concentrating the spirit.

This was probably also the origin of the name *Embracing Bao Feng Mian*, though judging by the earlier exposition, Shen Siyuan felt *Wind and Cloud* would be a more fitting name.

This cultivation method was exceedingly exquisite; to begin learning it was actually not difficult—the difficulty was that nowadays spiritual energy was utterly absent, with no door through which to enter, and in the end it could only degenerate into a form of Tai Chi calisthenics.

"If that is so, then I leave it to you, little friend. May your cultivation advance swiftly, that you may attain the Great Dao and unveil the secrets of heaven and earth… hahaha…"

Shen Siyuan, who had been browsing *Embracing Bao Feng Mian*, sensed something was wrong. He turned his head to look, only to see that the old Daoist's lower body had already dissipated, yet he wore a smile, without the slightest trace of fear or panic—only a kind of serene acceptance.

"Daoist Priest…"

Shen Siyuan instinctively wanted to summon the Ten Thousand Souls Banner, to draw the other into the banner and stop him from dissipating.

But his movements were still a step too slow; the old Daoist dissipated directly into the air.

It turned out his heart's wish was not to become an immortal, but to hope that Listening to Wind Monastery could be passed down.

PS: Begging for monthly tickets, begging for subscriptions, many thanks~