Yin Na assumed that Grandma Peng Ling’s long peasant life had left her experienced and jagged in some aspects of her character. That’s what hardship and being a member of civilization does to its long-term survivors.

Nothing but a show of force would convince her otherwise!

With the delivery by the owl, Yin Na collected a weekly payment from Merchant Li Hong, one of his victims he forced his subscription of the Dao of Benefits upon. He didn’t even bother reading the letter from the sender included in the package, which judging by the lack of weight (only 6 taels!) meant that it would be full of meaningless apologies because Li Hong was probably going to flee from his current residence.

Yin Na successfully made Grandma Peng Ling convinced that he was the real deal. Here was a miracle that few mortals imagined could be possible: collecting passive income via wildlife delivery at odd hours of the evening!

Who cares if the ‘art of the deal’ wasn’t a real gentlemanly Confucian or Daoist activity? Now, she wanted to pay anything, even if it meant simply hearing something she wanted to hear.

“Very well, sir Daoist,” she said. “Little treasure, lend the Daoist one of your martial art manuals.”

“Eh?” Song Ying Jie said. “Oh…um, okay. Which one?”

“Maybe that ‘Jumping Across Clouds’ manual.”

“Okay.” Song Ying Jie went to the back of the room where a wooden storage chest lay in the corner, and he dug noisily through it until he got out a tattered, blue book with the characters “Jumping Across Clouds” vertically written on the cover.

“Here you go, Daoist Wayseeker Crow sir.”

“Thank you,” Yin Na said. “And you don’t need to keep calling me by my full Daoist title. You can call me ‘Crow brother.’”

“Yes, Crow Brother.” Song Ying Jie said, before giggling. “It sounds funny!”

Yin Na placed the book faced down in front of him without opening it. He looked like he was deep in thought, before he said,

“As a Daoist, this technique seems a little…simple.”

Grandma Peng Ling instantly grasped Yin Na’s meaning behind his simple statement. Instead of falling into rage, she tried to mask the conflict on her face, which Yin Na noticed instantly. Thus, he was quite grateful when she relented.

“Little treasure, go fetch another manual.”

“Okay, Grandma,” Song Ying Jie said. “Which one?”

“Oh, maybe the book on stances?”

Yin Na was handed another manual, with the words “6 Zodiac Manual” written on it. He then took out silver coins, shinier than the moon which caused both the two mortals beside him to stare in amazement.

He flipped them multiple times in the air, making a show of mentally taking note of which side they landed on each time. His Golden Core also came in handy, as he used his flame elemental talent to make a few random coins glow with heat. When he flipped about fifty silver coins, both the grandmother and the grandson were amazed that the table was covered in coins laying in the shape of a random geometric pattern.

Yin Na closed his eyes for the span of ten breaths, before announcing:

“This youth’s talent in martial arts and vitality of spirit will result in many healthy children. Song Ying Jie will climb the ranks of the Purple Robe Sect, eventually becoming a clan elder within a decade’s time.

“The marriage between Song Ying Jie and Wang Lian will be nothing short of auspicious. The most fortunate date will be exactly a year from today.

Grandma Peng Ling almost cried tears of joy. “Oh, thank you, Sir Daoist!”

“Thank you, Crow Bro,” Song Ying Jie said, mirroring his Grandmother’s enthusiasm.

“What should we name the firstborn?” Grandma Peng Ling asked.

Yin Na’s eyes turned dark, but he quickly closed them in Daoist humility and dignity.

“Hmph!” he snorted mentally. “This old hag is getting ahead of herself here.”

“Each reading requires considerable qi and has a long cooldown period,” Yin Na spoke vaguely. “However, there are…workarounds.”

Yin Na hoped that Grandma Peng Ling understood the implication of being lent another martial arts manual, but she disregarded the offer or pretended to not understand his meaning.

“Hmm, perhaps I’m getting too excited,” she said. “We have an entire year to prepare, isn’t that wonderful, little treasure? Now the pain of uncertainty has been mended, you can train in bliss and I can rest easy this year knowing that you will have a family soon!”

Yin Na saw in the corner of his eye a flicker of unease across Song Ying Jie’s face, before the youth smiled and nodded.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

After Song Ying Jie passed out with his stomach bloated with bear meat, Yin Na took the opportunity to say goodnight to the grandmother. He insisted that he couldn’t encroach on their hospitality any further, and that he would be sleeping outside with the stars as the roof over his head. As he began to walk out the doors of the hut with the two manuals tucked into his armpit, Grandma Peng Ling called after him.

“Sir Daoist. Please, I need to speak a few words with you.”

Yin Na knew this was coming.

“Yes, what is it?”

“It’s about Hao En Hui,” she said. “You asked who this man was, earlier.”

“Yes,” Yin Na said. “Who exactly is this man?”

Despite his uninterested tone of voice, Yin Na’s engrained vigilance kicked in. He wished he still was a cultivator and could use spiritual sense to scan his surroundings, but instead he rapidly scanned the night sky for any difference in qi or motion. He could never dismiss the possibility of a spy or a trap!

“Well, little treasure doesn’t know this, but his father is actually the son of a Cultivator.”

“I see.” Yin Na nodded mysteriously before bluntly saying, ”And you’re the lover of Hao En Hui, this Cultivator, correct?”

“It is as sir Daoist says,” she sighed. “I know that time functions differently between Immortal and mortal worlds, but I was once a lively maiden when I was young. I waited each decade for Hao En Hui’s return. I have a feeling that he would not have aged a second if he were to show up right now in front of me.”

Yin Na did not want to leap to any judgments ahead of time. In fact, he did not even want to fully believe Grandma Peng Ling’s words yet, even though it made a lot of sense for a half-Immortal son to be born with such talent and aptitude in mortal martial arts.

“Ying Jie’s father, my son, tried to follow in Hao En Hui’s shadow, but his journey through the Jiang Hu was short lived, having only obtained three martial arts manuals to show for his progress. He died of kidney disease, and left the books as an inheritance to his grandson. I don’t encourage Song Ying Jie to follow his father’s path in chasing Hao En Hui’s shadow, but I can’t help telling him the same stories that Hao En Hui told me during our romantic years. Without my pushing, he is destined to climb out of this mortal ladder and into the world of Cultivation, does Sir Daoist think my evaluation is accurate?”

Yin Na said: “It is rare and praise-worthy for a mortal to even be aware of the existence of cultivators, while ordinary folk will dismiss them as legends. Alas, even though I am a Daoist, my skills are a far cry from being able to qualify in the world of Cultivation and Immortals. As for Song Ying Jie, I’d need to muster more… reserves for another prediction.”

Yin Na deliberately gave an answer that implied that he had never experienced the Cultivation world, while also opportunistically pressing for another exchange. Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale!

Grandma Peng Ling’s face visibly showed distress. She was crestfallen, as her voice pleaded:

“The world of Jiang Hu is inextricably linked with the Cultivation world. Sir Daoist must have made plenty of encounters and formed deep connections with many individuals— is there any way whatsoever for sir Daoist to be able to find news of Hao En Hui back to me?”

Yin Na was surprised at Grandma Peng Ling’s rather uncharacteristic demand for her age, and the fact that she did not want to lend Yin Na another martial arts manual.

Yin Na resisted a harumph, as he said, “I’m sorry. I will have to think about what I can do tomorrow.”

Yin Na left without giving Grandma Peng Ling a chance to respond, and climbed all the way back to the top of the cliff which overlooked Grandma Peng Ling and Song Ying Jie’s hut.

Instead of sleeping, Yin Na spent the entire night reading over the Jumping Over Clouds manual.

“So this is a mortal martial arts manual,” Yin Na smiled with excitement. Learning new things always made Yin Na giddy, particularly when it would benefit his cultivation progress.

“It doesn’t look that much different from a Cultivator or Alchemy manual. It’s written in faded ink on paper, and there are even pictures. And- oh my, the language is in antiquated poetry. Is that Song Ying Jie really an idiot? How did he comprehend these words and bring the application of their teachings to reality in so short of a time just by himself?”

Yin Na wracked his brains for a few hours. As he was already born more intelligent than the average cultivator, compounded by his upbringing and vast experience and inspiration accumulated over his lifetime, he was able to grasp the meaning behind the characters at an inhumanly fast rate.

Yin Na laughed in triumph: “It’s a good thing I lost an arm, and not a leg!”

He succeeded in pumping a second jump after clearing his reading of the first section in the manual. “Now I can double-jump!”

Jumping was a vital part of the Jiang Hu world.

Apart from horses, one could argue that it is the primary means of locomotion for martial artists. One wasn’t taken seriously in the Jiang Hu unless they could effortlessly pump their legs across water or treetops.

In comparison to the world of Cultivation, jumping and gliding may be far less impressive, as Yin Na was used to the sight and sensation of zipping through space and Heaven using living mounts such as the Spicy Oil boar or treasures like flying swords. Cultivators often reached a level where they could zip and disappear into a prismatic light that enabled them to travel dozens of li within seconds, as opposed to the speed of mere mortal horses while jumping

.

However, the process of acquiring jump height based on pure physical strength was invaluable experience, which would undoubtedly affect kicking techniques and other agility-based skills as a cultivator. The hardship, muscle fatigue and mind-numbing repetition inevitably crosses over into other aspects of the learner’s personality.

It was just a fact that after crossing certain thresholds of power, such as becoming a cultivator, that certain skills, even the most basic, became outdated and impractical to learn when one’s time was better devoted to learning other survival skills and techniques.

However, for Yin Na, this was a vital and fundamental skill needed for walking across walls, jumping across rooftops and defying gravity in the mortal realm!

“I can’t stop here. Let’s see how far I can get tonight!”

Three jumps!

Four jumps!

Yin Na took a quick nap which lasted the time it took for a small bundle of incense sticks to burn, before finally learning how to execute five jumps in the air before landing.

The morning Sun had nearly broken through the dawn.

“I’ll save the reading of the Zodiac manual later.”

It was too much to learn Jumping Across Clouds and a book of martial art forms in one night.

“Hehehe, wouldn’t it be suspicious for a Daoist not to be able to glide? For the record, I’ll just say I skimmed these manuals out of scholarly interest.”

Yin Na then jumped down the cliff using Jumping Across Clouds, just as Song Ying Jie did the day before.