Chapter 3: This is Cancer

For commoners to privately cultivate immortality is a capital crime; this is the iron law of Great Xia. After all, once they cultivate immortality, the imperial court can no longer control them.

But at first, Ji You and they didn't speak the same language...

This world uses the ancient Chinese language system, but the pronunciation is very different.

He couldn't understand and couldn't speak, so he could only pretend to be insane, posing in professional basketball-playing stances in suspenders on the street all day to avoid suspicion.

And the immortal book he picked up in the depths of the Yunling Mountains was regarded by him as the foundation of his life.

What else can one do at night in ancient times without a mobile phone? Cultivate!

Gradually, he began to have some foundation in the immortal Dao, and hearing the scholar on the tree reading aloud, his language skills also became quite familiar, so he wanted to understand this world more.

Then he learned from a book called *Xia Law Immortal Regulations* that for commoners to privately cultivate immortality is a crime that leaves people confused...

And the only paths left for him were two.

One is to work harder, cultivate to the perfection of the Lower Three Realms before reaching twenty, so that the Seven Great Immortal Sects will exclaim that they've found a treasure, and the imperial court will be helpless.

Two is that there is a mountain stronghold north of Yuyang County, where all the private cultivators who hate the Immortal Sects and the imperial court are gathered. They are widely inviting heroes to expand their power, and it looks like the future is promising, and the path to promotion is relatively transparent.

Ji You thought about it and finally decided to go up the mountain next autumn to prove the Dao as a peerless bandit.

The reason is simple: there are too many orthodox cultivators who eat the people's fat and blood, and he doesn't really want to become one of the straws that break the back of poor families like Old Qiu's...

The next day at noon, the red sun was thin, and it was the day for Yuyang County's field produce liquidation. The bailiffs responsible for this matter held killing-prestige sticks and walked in three rows on the street, looking majestic and extraordinary.

"Faster, faster, move faster, don't dawdle."

"This year, with the protection of the immortals, there are no disasters or harms; it is a bumper year. And since Great Xia is at war with the Wu-Man outside the Northern Plains, the national treasury has been empty for a long time, so the Old Master has ordered that this year's tax must be paid in full."

Under the urging of the bailiffs, thousands of households in Yuyang County opened their cellars, moved out the 60% of grain produce they had prepared, carefully counted it, divided it into two portions, and registered it.

One portion was the Great Xia land tax, and the other was the Immortal Sect offering.

A thousand years ago, the Azure Cloud World had wars between various countries. To forge a thousand-year hegemony, the Great Xia Taizu made an offering agreement with various Immortal Sects.

In the agreement, as long as the hidden immortals could help Great Xia unify the Central Plains, there would be more taxes collected every year thereafter to be used as Immortal Sect offerings.

The immortals of the past would go down the mountain to slay demons and eliminate evil, and by the way, treat the illnesses of young children in the village. But after Great Xia entered the Central Plains, those legends became swan songs that only appeared in operas.

Later, the Azure Cloud World had another struggle for religious fortune. Various Immortal Sects recruited disciples widely, and the share of immortal offerings rose every year, pressing the people until they couldn't breathe.

And they themselves all hid in the Immortal Mountains to comprehend the Dao and cultivate, eating the people's fat and blood, seeking the ethereal immortal Dao, and ignoring worldly affairs.

To the already numb Great Xia people, this seemed to be the heavenly justice passed down since ancient times.

But as a foreign monk, when Ji You first learned about the relationship between the offering and the offered, there was only one word in his mind.

Cancer.

Immortal Sects, immortal Dao, immortals—they have become like disordered cellular tissue, cutting off the sustainable development of society and unscrupulously squeezing the vitality of this world.

This is cancer.

Ji You stepped over the threshold of the Ji family's ancestral home, watched the bailiffs walk past on the street, and thought to himself that since things had come to this, let's eat first.

The Yuyang Ji family was nominally gone, and their fields had been occupied by others. Although there was no need to pay taxes, eating was a problem.

It wasn't just food; he didn't have any of the basic configurations for transmigrators, such as a beautiful master, a seductive senior sister, or a loli junior sister.

And Old Qiu, his family couldn't even scrape together this year's tax, so he should have gone to his father-in-law's house to borrow grain early this morning.

When Old Qiu was a steward at the Ji family, he didn't have to worry about food and drink, but after the Ji family was gone, he had to rely on borrowing grain to live every year, which had long since caused dissatisfaction from his father-in-law's family. Last year, he was even scolded on the street, so he didn't want to add trouble.

Fortunately, the merchants on Archway Street were all once Ji family industries, so he still had some face here. Choosing a shop to work as a beast of burden, he could still mix in a full meal.

However, just as Ji You walked to the door of the restaurant, a sound of horse hooves suddenly came from the main road of Archway Street.

Looking up, three red-wood carriages surrounded by pearls and emeralds drove along the street, extremely luxurious, as if they shouldn't exist in the same world as the mud-brick houses on both sides.

In the first two, an old man and a woman were sitting, both wearing gold-embroidered white robes, with luxurious long swords tied to their waists, spiritual light flickering around them, expressionless, with the posture of immortal wind and Dao bones.

The third carriage arrived later. Sitting on it was another woman, wearing a smoke-gauze skirt with scattered flowers, her eyes like water, her sitting posture dignified, carrying a bit of arrogance, quite like a lady from a great family.

However, upon seeing Ji You on the roadside, the woman on the carriage frowned slightly and reached out to lower the beaded curtain.

After this hurried glance, the three carriages drove along the street toward the county government office.

"It seems the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan immortals are visiting to pick up Fang Ruoyao to go to Shengjing. Why didn't Young Master Ji go with them?"

"Young Master Ji has an extraordinary bearing; naturally, he wouldn't look down upon an Immortal Sect like the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan."

Ji You came back to his senses, followed the sound, and saw two diners in the restaurant staring at him with malicious expressions.

These two, one named Jia Sicong and one named Dong Wei, were both classmates of the original Young Master Ji.

When the family business was still there, the Young Master Ji was a playboy who would scold even a dog he saw on the roadside, so he had made quite a few enemies among his peers.

Jia Sicong walked in front of him: "Miss Fang is setting off for Shengjing the day after tomorrow. She specially held a banquet for guests at the mansion the night before last. We all went, but we didn't see Young Master Ji? You, as a fiancé, are a bit too chilling."

"Brother Jia is confused; didn't Fang Ruoyao break off the engagement with him long ago?"

Shengjing is the capital of Great Xia. The Nanshan Heavenly Tian Shuyuan, the head of the seven great Immortal Sects of the world, is there. It is said that the Taizu Emperor was a saint from the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan. After the hegemony was forged, he naturally built the capital based on Nanshan.

In rumors, Shengjing City is extremely prosperous, with pavilions standing high, which has made countless literati and poets fall in love, creating eternal articles like *Shengjing Fu* and *Yong Jing*.

Fang Ruoyao being selected as a disciple of the Heavenly Tian Shuyuan and going to Shengjing is naturally enrollment. It is not false for the county people to say she has stepped to the heavens.

"Ji You, don't pretend to be deaf to me."

Ji You leaned over the counter: "Shopkeeper, this young master wants two cages of fresh dumplings."

Jia Sicong paused, then flew into a rage: "What two cages of fresh dumplings? I finished eating long ago!"

"I'll help you eat."

Ji You watched the steaming fresh dumplings being served: "Talking so lively, you wouldn't be unable to afford it, would you?"

Jia Sicong flushed red after hearing this: "Do you think I'm the same as you, a wild orphan? Never mind two cages, what about ten cages?"

"Then I want ten cages, meat ones. Serve three cages first, and keep the remaining seven; I'll go home and get a basket to take them away later."

Dong Wei stared with his eyes open for a long time, the more he pondered, the more he felt something was wrong. This damn thing wasn't them taking him for fun, but him cheating for food.

Watching Jia Sicong about to open his mouth again, Dong Wei immediately grabbed his elbow: "Stop talking, he's already drooling."

"?"

After the ears were quiet, Ji You found a seat by the window, picked up a pair of bamboo chopsticks from the chopstick holder, and began to enjoy this gift from nature.

Ten cages of fresh dumplings; he planned to eat three cages himself, and take the remaining seven in a basket back to the Qiu family. That girl Qiu Ru, silly all day long, actually had some good fortune.

With this sitting, the leisure of noon passed by in a hurry.

Ji You calculated the time and felt that Old Qiu should be back from his father-in-law's house in Thirty-Mile Shop, so he planned to go home to get a basket.

However, just as he stood up, the discussion of several diners at the door caught his attention.

"Have you heard? Something happened to the third house east of Nanya River outside the city."

"What happened?"

"A five-year-old girl was spotted by an immortal from the Fengxian Mountain Villa, saying something like... spiritual light piercing the top, immortal opportunity immeasurable? They want to take her to make medicine."

"When did this happen?"

"This morning at the hour of the dragon (7-9 AM), heard that the father and daughter were borrowing grain at Thirty-Mile Shop at that time..."

"There hasn't been an immortal in our county for thousands of years. How can there be that kind of immortal opportunity in a girl's body?"

"How would we know about the immortals' affairs? In short... that girl... sigh..."

(Give the newbie some reading and monthly tickets; these two data points are very critical during the new book phase, begging...)

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 4 =====