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Chapter 557: Fireflies in the Night (part 2)

It was an open-air classroom that all children in the city could attend. The lecturer was a middle-aged woman. She had no legs, and sat in a wheelchair as she gave a very serious lecture about plants and vegetation. She was surrounded by children between the ages of about seven and thirteen, and all of them were paying very close attention.

There was one young girl who seemed completely absorbed in the information as she listened and took notes. That young girl was none other than Shi Pangui’s sister. Seeing her reminded Xu Qing of his days back in the scavenger basecamp. After Grandmaster Bai had invited him in to attend lectures, he had paid attention as raptly as this young girl was paying attention.

After watching for a short time, he turned and left.

Another half a month passed.

Heavenfire Skycrossing was to last for three months. Xu Qing had spent the first month in the cave temple above. He had spent the second month in the city. He was not the type of person who liked a lot of hustle and bustle, so he spent most of his time in his room meditating.

Ling’er, in contrast, got bored easily. At first, she kept asking Xu Qing to go out with her, but eventually, when she got familiar with the city, she didn’t hesitate to go out on her own. Although Xu Qing doubted she would run into any trouble, he arranged for Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior to go along with her and keep her safe.

It didn’t take long for Ling’er to become a lot more popular than Xu Qing in the city. And thanks to Shi Pangui’s wife, she got to know a lot of the other women in the city, both those her age, and also the older ones. All of them seemed to really like her, and of course, everyone was curious about her relationship with Xu Qing.

Whenever that got brought up, Ling’er would blush shyly. Before long, the women of the city had taken it upon themselves to teach her how to cook. As they said, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

Ling’er excitedly devoted herself fully to mastering cooking. There were other women who emphasized how important it was for her to learn how to sew. After all, a woman couldn’t let her man go around in clothes some other woman had fixed. After that, Ling’er was even more excited to learn sewing. She was determined that, going forward, she would be the one to mend all of her Big Bro Xu Qing’s clothing.

Five days after Ling’er had started to learn how to cook, Xu Qing ate one of her meals for the first time. She bustled around the kitchen for two hours before presenting him with several dishes.

Xu Qing looked down at the blackened vegetables, then up at Ling’er’s expectant, and also slightly nervous, expression. He took a bite. It took him a while to chew it up and swallow it down.

“What’s wrong, Big Bro Xu Qing?” she asked nervously. “Is it good?”

A long moment passed, and then Xu Qing smiled. “It’s delicious.”

Ling’er burst with joy. “Then eat some more, Big Bro Xu Qing!”

Xu Qing hesitated, then went ahead and finished all the food. After, he prepared to go back to meditation.

“Don’t worry, Big Bro Xu Qing,” Ling’er said exuberantly, “I’ll cook again tomorrow!”

Xu Qing was quiet for several breaths of time, then he nodded.

Ling’er wasn’t the only one getting popular in the city. Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior also took human form, and quickly started becoming very well-known. In fact, he soon became more popular than Ling’er, despite getting a later start than her. The reason was that, while accompanying Ling’er around the city, he’d found a place where storytellers would ply their trade. After listening to one of the storytellers, and being far from impressed, he’d taken the stage and told the story of one of the books he’d read.

To people living in the Moonrite Region, it was a very fresh and innovative tale. What was more, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior also sprinkled in a few things from Xu Qing’s real-life story. Because of the vivid, lifelike nature of the narrative, he earned quite a bit of cheering and applause at the end.

At first, only a few people listened to his story. But the crowds grew every day. Given how many years the patriarch had spent trembling in fear at Xu Qing’s side, it had obviously been a very long time since he enjoyed any public praise. It was so enticing that he started taking advantage of the moments when Ling’er was studying cooking and sewing to sneak off and tell stories.

At the moment, he was sitting in a small roadside pavilion surrounded by a crowd of several hundred listeners.

Looking out at the crowd, the patriarch cleared his throat and then calmly said, “Last we left off, Seven Blood Eyes sent tens of thousands of dharmaboats to surround the Merfolk Isles. The Merfolk patriarch was no hero. The truth is that....”

The audience listened, entranced, as the patriarch told the story with great gusto, his voice rising and falling during all the right parts. Everyone felt like they were right there, watching the events play out. Duanmu Zang was up in midair, invisible, listening along and nodding occasionally.

That evening, when the blue of the ‘sky’ was starting to turn dark, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior stopped talking and cleared his throat.

“If you want to know what happens next, please come back tomorrow at the same time. The story will continue then.”

When the audience realized the story was over for the day, they seemed to get very anxious, and started crying out.

“Hey, at least finish this part of the story!”

“This installment was short. Too short. Way too short!”

“What even happened in the story this afternoon? I hardly remember!”

“No! You have to at least tell the next part! How could you stop right here?”

Hearing that, Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior smiled. “I’ve read tens of thousands of stories, and I can tell you that, although this part might have seemed boring, the reality is that there was a lot of important information hidden in the narrative. You can’t just gobble down the story! Savor what’s happening. Enjoy it!”

As the crowd hooted and guffawed, the patriarch hummed a little tune, clasped his hands behind his back, and slowly walked off to find Ling’er.

The shadow was very envious of how much Ling’er and the patriarch were shining. It also wanted to go out and have some fun. However, it didn’t dare. All it could do was lay on the ground and stare impatiently at Xu Qing as he sat there like a block of wood, meditating.

That said, Xu Qing did have visitors. Shi Pangui would come to visit, as did his little sister. She was only about eleven or twelve years old. Every time she came to visit, she would bring some type of simple food, like a roasted sweet potato, and would set it off to the side as a gift. Then she would stare at him nervously for a while as if she wasn’t sure what to say.

After a few visits, she finally got impatient enough that she blurted, “Big Bro, can you... can you concoct pills?”

She hadn’t forgotten how Xu Qing gave her sister-in-law some medicinal pills.

Xu Qing nodded.

The girl immediately got excited. Taking out a little notebook, she asked him a simple question about plants and vegetation.

He gently explained, “Seven-leaf clover, also known as mutagen-expelling grass, is a spirit plant with a single long blade similar to wood rices. It’s a perennial grass that grows in the shade in humid, wide-open areas. It will not grow in areas that the broken face of the god has looked at directly.”

The girl wrote down everything that Xu Qing said. Then she quickly asked a second question about something she’d learned previously. Both of these questions were things her teacher hadn’t been able to explain.

Xu Qing patiently offered a detailed explanation. The girl kept asking questions, one after another. As he provided the answers, he could see how determined this girl was to learn about plants and vegetation, also how outstanding her memory was. The latter was one of the foundational elements in learning about plants and vegetation. The question-and-answer session lasted for about four hours. After that, the girl came over every few days. On one particular day, she came with even more sweet potatoes than before, which she carefully placed off to the side before starting up with more questions.

Xu Qing eyed the sweet potatoes, smiled, and then launched into his explanations.

When evening came, the girl sighed contentedly and left with a smile on her face. However, later that night, her brother Shi Pangui brought her back to apologize and promise she wouldn’t bother him again.

Xu Qing looked at how nervous both of them looked, and was about to speak when he noticed the obstinate look in the girl’s eyes. After some thought, he just nodded. He was curious to see if the girl would come back to ask more questions.

A few days later, she came back.

This time, she changed tactics. She timidly took some medicinal plants out and asked, “Teacher, is this the golden twistgrass you mentioned?” [1]

Xu Qing looked at the little plant with an odd expression on his face. Then he looked back at the girl. Eyes shining with a profound look, he went on to explain how to tell golden twistgrass apart from plants that looked somewhat like it.

The girl apparently believed her tactic to be very effective, because in the following days, she kept bringing random plants to ask similar questions. Xu Qing always went into a very detailed explanation.

Time passed. Before long, the Heavenfire Skycrossing was coming to an end. Calculations indicated that there were only ten more days. At that point, the sea of flames would retreat, and the Heavenfire Skycrossing wouldn’t come again for a few more decades.

It’s almost time to leave, Xu Qing thought. With that, he cast his senses out until he located Ling’er, who was practicing sewing with some of the older women in the city. And then he found Patriarch Golden Vajra Warrior, who was prattling on to a large crowd. Xu Qing looked out at all the people in the city, and in the end, all he could do was sigh.

“You’re leaving?” Duanmu Zang asked. He had just appeared out of nowhere in the room.

Xu Qing nodded.

Duanmu Zang sat down. “You have nice alcohol.”

Xu Qing grinned. He transferred about half of the alcohol he’d brought along into a separate bag of holding and handed it to Duanmu Zang.

Duanmu Zang accepted it, looked inside, and then broke out into a smile. He looked up at Xu Qing.

“I’m not just going to take your alcohol without compensation. I noticed how you were zipping around up at the Heavenfire Sea. My guess is that you need the heavenfire from there to cultivate some sort of magical technique. I can lend you a secret treasure that will give you extra protection against the fire. It’ll allow you to sink much deeper into the lava. That way, you won’t attract attention as easily, and you should be much safer.”

As the words left his mouth, he reached out his hand and opened his palm. Resting there was a gruish brown eyeball covered with blood-red veins, looking right at Xu Qing.

1. Golden twistgrass was previously mentioned in chapters 21, 207, and 351. ?