Chapter 2: The Li Family

Li Mutian woke up at the Hour of the Tiger, staring with wide eyes at his own dilapidated roof, which revealed a bit of light through the darkness.

A few days ago, a small hole had appeared in the roof. Li Mutian had no time to fix it. He hadn't slept well for three whole days. Looking at the woman sleeping soundly beside him, Li Mutian sighed deeply.

"Women don't know the gravity of things. A few days ago, those immortals who fly high and low went crazy, flying back and forth in Great Lishan, wishing they could dig three feet into the ground. It scared everyone into shivering; every time a stream of light flew past, they would kneel and kowtow..."

Li Mutian's brows were tightly furrowed, his heart filled with worry. These few small villages living at the foot of Great Lishan had always been carefree, but these days they were walking on eggshells, everyone fearing for their own safety.

"The deep mountains have narrow roads; the imperial court can't manage them, and we don't care to be managed. But when these immortals fight, a single immortal technique could leave not even a dog alive in Lijing Village."

Li Mutian turned over and couldn't sleep anymore. He got up and looked at the thick night outside the window.

"If I'm killed by an immortal technique one day, it's fate. The Li family has been farming this wasteland for over two hundred years; my ancestors can't be moved, and my father can't be stirred." Li Mutian shook his head, hands behind his back, and went out.

The big yellow dog outside the door was still sleeping soundly. Li Mutian walked slowly through the morning mist, watching Lijing Village waking up from its sleep—roosters crowing, dogs barking, and hearth smoke curling upward.

"Xiangping, hey—" Li Mutian shouted at the house. There was a clattering sound inside, and as the gate opened, a half-grown child rushed out, babbling.

"Father!" Li Xiangping's features were quite delicate, his eyes cunning. He looked up at Li Mutian. "What work are we doing today?"

"Go to Meichi River and get some river fish and crabs." Li Mutian waved his hand. "There's no work today; go get your mother something fresh to eat."

"Yay."

Li Xiangping nodded excitedly, grabbed a rope basket and a long fork, and slipped away in one breath.

Li Mutian laughed twice and headed to the fields.

————

Meichi River was shallow and wide, with large stretches of mudflats and reeds along the banks. The dozens or hundreds of geese and ducks raised in the village didn't need to be fed; they were let out in the early morning and all went into the river.

By evening, someone would walk to the riverbank and call out once. Those geese and ducks were well-trained and used to the sound, and they would all follow them home slowly.

When Li Xiangping arrived, the geese and ducks hadn't been let out yet, and the Meichi River was empty. Two small wooden rafts swayed by the bank. He rolled up his trouser legs and sleeves, knelt into the silt with both legs, and felt around blindly in front of him. He stared into the river and caught sight of a green tail.

"Good fish."

Li Xiangping pressed down hard, held his breath, and dove in. His right hand tightened, and he had already grabbed the green tail by the gills and pulled it up.

"Hehe."

Li Xiangping laughed a few times and threw the fish into the basket. The fish in Meichi River were definitely not this stupid; this green tail was most likely a wild fish that had drifted down from upstream. It was a big bargain for this child.

Looking at the bottom of his feet, Li Xiangping's expression seemed to hold doubt. A spot at the bottom of the water seemed overly smooth, vaguely revealing a silver light.

Just as he was preparing to hold his breath and dive again to investigate, a loud call rang out from the bank:

"Brother Xiangping!"

Li Xiangping subconsciously hid the basket behind him and looked toward the bank, only to see a child of about ten years old emerging from the reed cluster.

"Little Brother Ye, here to let out the ducks..."

Li Xiangping breathed a sigh of relief and handed the basket forward. "Look at this green tail, caught it with my bare hands."

"Good fish!" Li Yesheng lowered his head to look at the basket and smiled enviously.

After chatting for a few sentences, Li Yesheng shook his head and said: "Alright, brother, I'm going back to watch the ducks. If two go missing, my brother will beat me to death."

"Go, go, go."

Li Xiangping was also in a hurry to see the object at the bottom of the river and hurriedly shooed him away.

"Alright!"

As soon as he left, Li Xiangping held his breath, dove in, and reached the bottom of the river. He felt around back and forth and really did find a round object.

"Pfft..."

Li Xiangping wiped his face and looked at the object in his hand.

This thing was about the size of a palm, a grayish-blue round small plate in the center, surrounded by a circle of what looked like dark iron-made small edges. It didn't look like anything extraordinary.

The front was shattered into seven or eight pieces, held together by the rim so it didn't fall apart, but the back was drawn with a rather strange symbol. Li Xiangping looked at it for a long time and couldn't tell what it looked like.

"It does look a bit like my aunt's mirror." Li Xiangping's aunt's family had the largest field entrance, and only she could afford a mirror; ordinary village women just used water to look at themselves. When his aunt got that mirror, his mother even took Li Xiangping to see it; it was indeed more convenient than water.

But this mirror in his hand was too blurry; it was foggy and he couldn't see anything. Li Xiangping shook his head regretfully, threw the thing into the basket, and turned to continue catching fish.

————

Lu Jiangxian had been in the water for half a month. Starting from the third day, the aura of the moon's essence had stagnated and stopped increasing. He tried hard for another week, but the result was that there was no progress at all; other than making himself glow, he couldn't do anything.

In the early morning, he was staring blankly at the big green fish beside him when a large hand directly pressed the fish into the silt. The surroundings shook, and a hand grabbed the fish by the gills and pulled it away.

Lu Jiangxian was still in the complex emotional state of seeing a human for the first time when he saw a large hand reach out and scoop up his main body.

Seeing a large, quite handsome face, Lu Jiangxian was a bit nervous for a moment, only to see the other party chattering a few times, then turning his hand and throwing him into the basket, staring eye-to-eye with the green tail.

In an instant, Lu Jiangxian also realized a serious problem: he could hear, but he might not be able to understand.

The pronunciation of this land was a bit like the dialect of the Min-Zhe region in his previous life. He really couldn't understand it at all. This meant that if he could make sounds, the other party wouldn't be able to understand his words either, which would greatly hinder his integration into this world.

Watching the small fish being thrown into the basket one by one, Lu Jiangxian concentrated his spirit to probe the situation around him.

Watching the boy carefully raise the wooden fork, Lu Jiangxian gave a light "huh." In this perspective, he could vaguely probe the boy's psychological activities; his attention was focused on which fish at the bottom of the river.

With the help of the probing perspective, every time the boy caught a fish, he would talk to himself. Not long after, Lu Jiangxian mastered the specific pronunciations of the numbers 3 to 6 and different varieties of fish.

"Take it one step at a time."

Watching the boy get up and leave, Lu Jiangxian sighed. This child looked like a farmer's child and should hand over this bronze-like object to his parents first.

He would have more contact with people, see if he could slowly learn the dialect of this land, and while ensuring his own safety, find a way to enhance the power of the moon's essence.