Chapter 19: So High Above

The wind blew over from the medicinal field.

There was no fresh, clean scent of ordinary vegetation.

The spiritual power inside his body suddenly trembled.

He instinctively looked up at the neatly arranged field.

The Qingwu grass in the field bent low with the wind, like waves.

Shen Yi noticed him stopping in place and leaned in to ask, “What’s wrong?”

Xu Ning pulled his gaze back.

“Nothing.”

Not far away, someone from Qingwu Village had already come out to greet them.

Leading the group was a middle-aged man around forty, dressed in a deep blue cloth robe.

His features were gentle, and his brows carried the cautious look of one long accustomed to a subordinate position.

From a distance, he clasped his hands and saluted them.

“Honored immortals have come from afar. Zhou Huai apologizes for not greeting you sooner.”

Luo Zhao’s face immediately lit up with a familiar smile when he saw him.

“Manager Zhou, it’s been a while.”

The two seemed to know each other.

Zhou Huai looked up at him, and his smile deepened as well.

“So Young Master Luo is here too.”

The words were courteous and complete, yet they stopped precisely at courteous and complete.

Luo Zhao was about to say more, but Zhou Huai’s gaze had already moved past him, landing on Lu Hanyi.

“This must be Fairy Lu of Cold Sword Peak.”

Lu Hanyi’s expression remained cold as she simply produced the Document Jade Slip.

“Collect the Yangmai Grass.”

Zhou Huai quickly lowered his head and accepted it.

“The Cold Sword Peak document—our manor received the transmission yesterday. The herbs have already been prepared.”

“Senior Sister Lu, please wait a moment. Once this old man verifies the document, I’ll have someone deliver them.”

He then looked at Xu Ning.

“And this is?”

Xu Ning produced his Guest Elder Token and the Precepts Hall sealed letter.

“Xu Ning, Guest Elder of Zhaoyue Cliff, sent to deliver the sealed letter and retrieve the Manor Seal and spiritual materials for the sect.”

Zhou Huai’s hand paused almost imperceptibly as he took the sealed letter.

In an instant, he returned to normal.

“So it’s Young Master Xu.”

He held the sealed letter in his palm and said respectfully, “The Precepts Hall sealed letter cannot be opened outside. Please follow me into the manor, Young Master Xu, where we’ll verify the seal and complete the handover in the main hall.”

The process went smoothly.

He had done this kind of errand countless times.

Qingwu Medicine Garden sat behind the village.

From the outside, it was merely a fairly large courtyard estate.

Gray tiles and white walls, a modest gate, with dried bundles of herbs hanging on both sides of the entrance.

Past the gate, one could see several rows of drying racks, laid out with processed low-grade spiritual materials, their contained spiritual energy exceedingly sparse.

Xu Ning followed the group through the front courtyard and instinctively glanced at the surrounding mountain terrain.

Qingwu Village backed onto a low ridge, with rolling hills embracing it on both sides, and a stream winding past the front.

Shen Yi followed his gaze and said softly, “This place gathers wind and holds water. Good for farming.”

“Junior Sister knows feng shui?”

Xu Ning was somewhat surprised.

Shen Yi’s brows curved, a rather proud look on her face.

“I know a little bit of everything.”

Xu Ning nodded, then looked toward the village again.

He didn’t understand mountain terrain or feng shui, and couldn’t tell how much real skill lay behind her words.

But since entering the village, aside from the medicinal fields he’d seen earlier, he hadn’t spotted many proper grain fields.

If this land was truly suited for farming, why were his eyes filled with spiritual herbs everywhere?

Or perhaps the farmers of Qingwu Village simply grew only what the medicine garden needed.

In the main hall, Zhou Huai had already ordered a table to be prepared.

The sealed letter was verified, the Guest Elder Token checked, and the Manor Seal retrieved.

Every step was clear.

Xu Ning only needed to place the Guest Elder Token on the verification stone plate, then accept the bronze square seal Zhou Huai handed him.

The seal was small, with the characters “Qingwu” carved into its base.

As Xu Ning took it, the spiritual power inside his body stirred again.

This time, it was clearer than at the field’s edge.

His fingertips paused slightly, and he looked up in confusion.

Zhou Huai glanced at him.

“Young Master Xu?”

Xu Ning scanned the surroundings but found nothing unusual.

“It’s nothing.”

He tucked the Manor Seal into his cloth pouch.

“That’s everything. Thank you for your trouble, Manager Zhou.”

Zhou Huai lowered his gaze, his smile still respectful.

“It’s my duty, my duty.”

Beside them, Lu Hanyi’s Yangmai Grass had also been retrieved.

The medicine box was sealed tightly, with a Pill Hall verification strip affixed to it.

Lu Hanyi glanced at it once, then stored it away.

She had a Spirit Storage Bag, and with a single sweep of her sleeve, the large box of Yangmai Grass vanished inside—far more convenient than the rest of their group.

Setting aside the others, Xu Ning felt a twinge of envy himself.

Noticing his gaze, Lu Hanyi gave him a faint, indifferent look, let her sleeve fall, and turned to leave the main hall.

No one questioned it.

Everyone present had grown accustomed to that icy demeanor, so no one paid it any mind.

Luo Zhao laughed and smoothed things over.

“Manager Zhou handles things with such thoroughness as always.”

“Looks like we’ll be able to set out back to the sect tomorrow morning.”

“Of course.”

Zhou Huai nodded.

“You’ve all traveled far. Rest at the manor tonight.”

“The low-grade spiritual materials to be brought back to the sect have all been counted and prepared. They’ll be loaded onto the carts tomorrow morning.”

Liu Manqing asked in a gentle voice, “Is it a large quantity?”

“Not insubstantial, but they’re all cheap goods.”

Zhou Huai paused here, as if afraid the words sounded dismissive, and added another line.

“It’s just that the sect sent few hands, so I’m sorry to trouble you immortals for the trip.”

Luo Zhao waved his hand.

“This is how External Affairs Division errands go.”

Zhou Huai chuckled in acknowledgment without engaging too warmly.

Xu Ning took the scene in.

Up to this point, the mission had gone more smoothly than he’d expected.

The sealed letter was delivered.

The Manor Seal was obtained.

Lu Hanyi’s Yangmai Grass was retrieved.

All that remained was loading the carts and returning to the sect tomorrow.

If not for the awkwardness of traveling together, it would have felt like a casual trip down the mountain.

Zhou Huai soon settled them into the guest rooms in the back courtyard.

The medicine garden’s rear yard was small, with several guest rooms arranged along a covered walkway.

A few trays of freshly washed medicinal roots sat drying under the eaves, their water droplets still wet, falling onto the bluestone floor and leaving traces of varying depth.

After days on the road, everyone dispersed to their own quarters.

Sun Buping entered his room and didn’t come back out.

Luo Zhao, restless as ever, left the courtyard before long—whether to catch up with Zhou Huai or inquire about tomorrow’s loading, no one knew.

Once everyone had gone their separate ways, the back courtyard gradually quieted down.

Under a few old trees, four children from the village were squatting on the ground playing with pebbles.

Liu Manqing watched for a while.

When she noticed one child sneaking glances at her, she smiled and walked over.

She opened her palm, and a few candy beans rolled out—round and glossy, dusted with fine white sugar.

“May I watch you play?”

She asked with a smile, “These candies can be my thanks.”

The children’s eyes lit up at once.

“Yes, yes!”

The first to reach out was a little boy with dirt smudged on his cheek.

He grabbed just one and pulled back, as if afraid that a moment later, someone might snatch it away.

Another little girl with twin braids didn’t move right away.

She crouched in front of Liu Manqing, tilted her face up, and stared seriously at the candy beans.

“Are they sweet?”

“A little sweet.”

Liu Manqing offered her palm closer, smiling at her.

“Try one.”

The girl hesitated a moment before picking one with her fingertip.

She didn’t eat it, but carefully clutched it in her palm and whispered, “Thank you, miss.”

The warmth in Liu Manqing’s eyes deepened.

She casually picked up a dried grass root the children had left on the ground, brushing off the dirt.

“Where did you dig this up?”

“By the field ridge.”

The little girl answered crisply.

“The grass there grows slow. Mom says we can’t go often.”

“Why not?”

“We’d trample the manor’s medicine sprouts.”

Liu Manqing nodded.

“Your mother’s right. Medicine sprouts are delicate. If they get trampled, they won’t grow evenly later.”

Hearing this, the children relaxed considerably.

They crowded around her and began chattering about the village.

Liu Manqing listened with a smile the whole time.

She didn’t ask much, occasionally adding a word here and there to keep the children talking.

The wind swept past.

Lu Hanyi had originally only stepped out for air, but hearing children’s voices, she glanced over.

She saw Liu Manqing crouched under the tree, patiently listening to the children’s chatter.

Noticing this, Lu Hanyi’s steps paused slightly.

Liu Manqing seemed to sense it and looked up.

Once the little girl with twin braids finished speaking, Liu Manqing distributed the remaining candy beans, then rose and brushed off her skirt.

She smiled and offered a salute.

“Fairy Lu.”

Lu Hanyi looked at the children.

“You’re quite good with children.”

“I’ve seen plenty of them in the past.”

“After all, I was once the young miss of a manor myself.”

Lu Hanyi looked at her, somewhat surprised.

The Liu Manqing before her had a mature bearing, her brows always carrying a practiced, graceful subtlety.

That worldly familiarity didn’t match the picture of a manor’s young miss that Lu Hanyi had in mind.

At least, not one of those sheltered young ladies raised amid silks and finery.

Liu Manqing smiled.

“That was a long time ago. Around one or two cycles of sixty years, I’d say.”

For cultivators, one or two sixty-year cycles wasn’t very long.

As long as one broke through to Qi Refining, a cultivator could expect two to three hundred years of life.

But for mortals, that span was already an entire lifetime.

Lu Hanyi looked at Liu Manqing and suddenly seemed to muse aloud.

“If you had never cultivated, you’d probably be surrounded by children and grandchildren by now.”

The smile on Liu Manqing’s lips stiffened.

She looked up at Lu Hanyi, her gaze deeper than before.

After a moment, she laughed softly again.

“Perhaps so.”

But if she had truly been a mortal, she likely wouldn’t have lived long enough to see children and grandchildren.

People like Lu Hanyi, raised in a immortal sect since childhood, had reached a position in over twenty years that ordinary cultivators couldn’t attain in a lifetime.

She naturally wouldn’t know how mortals died in those years.

That year, the Zhou dynasty fell, a great drought swept the land, and the fields yielded nothing.

Her parents’ manor had still held some grain reserves, but then the starving, desperate people broke through the gates, smashed open the granary, and smashed through the front hall doors.

To this day, she still remembered her mother’s jade bracelet shattering on the ground.

She also remembered someone shouting at her to run through the flames.

She ran.

And she never returned to that manor again.

Liu Manqing did not say any of this aloud.

Lu Hanyi looked at her, her brow creasing almost imperceptibly.

“What’s wrong?”

Liu Manqing snapped back to herself and shook her head with a smile.

“Nothing.”

She lowered her head and adjusted her cuff.

After a long moment, the faint smile returned to her lips, her voice still soft.

“It’s just that Fairy Lu truly dwells high above, doesn’t she?”