The Heavenly Wandering Sword
Chapter 59
The poet wiped his eyes, shedding some of the moisture that had leaked out as he thought more about the poem he had just heard. Truly this man must be a great master. “Please senior master, can you tell this junior your name?” He bowed down again, hoping that in his future he would be able to hear more of this master’s poems. Li Jian glanced at him and grimaced inwardly. He hadn’t really intended to create something that would cause such a reaction with the mortals. He could almost hear the Universal Dao chastising him once again.
“Please get up master poet. This humble one is named Li Jian, from a small fishing village only. Please do not treat me as a master. Life is long and the willows bend in the wind. It is our fate that we met here today, so please I hope you enjoy your wine with more joy in the future.” The part about the willows had just slipped out. Perhaps he had too much to drink already?
“This junior one is named Xin Yisong. I thank you greatly for your words, you are so masterful at a young age and humble. You are a rare fine specimen of what we should all work towards.” Xin Yisong bowed again while Li Jian cringed inside. He looked over at Mei Min who only smiled at him curiously. “I believe that my servant and I will have to depart for the night. In the morning there are things that must be done. Please excuse us.” Li Jian made his excuses quickly and departed, leaving behind a few coins for the wine.
After they left, Xin Yisong sat there at the table and looked up at the moon. He wondered perhaps why the great master was clearly gifted in the art of poetry but also his parting words. “Life is long and the willows bend in the wind.” What did that mean? Is life truly long? What did life have to do with willows?
In a sudden flash as he sat there, the realization came to him. In the life of a single willow tree, the branches will keep growing and bending. Which direction they bend in will depend on the wind. No matter what direction however, the willow will become shelter for living things and continue to grow. With a soft cry of enlightenment, he was surrounded by a massive burst of light as he broke through to Level 2 of the Dao Immortal realm. He looked up at the sky as he felt his dantian and meridians open up, a surge of energy inside his body at the realization that even at his parting, the great master left him a gift. He had been stuck at Level 1 of the Dao Immortal Realm for decades. In fact, it was when his beloved had passed away that his cultivation had become bottlenecked. Now with a simple poetic sentence, he had finally broken through.
He hurried back to the inn that he stayed at and began writing immediately. He wrote a letter to his son and quickly gave it to the innkeeper. The innkeeper, a long time associate and friend of the poet looked at the address and immediately went off to the post office, waking up the postmaster.
“Hey innkeep, what the hell you doing waking me up at such a time?” The postmaster finally answered the door after a few moments of frantic knocking on his door. The Innkeeper handed him the letter and showed him the address on it. “Who do you think the letter writer is?” The postmaster narrowed his eyes, looking at the address before his eyes bulged slightly. “He wants a letter sent to the Sky Heaven Mountains? Who is it addressed to?” The postmaster kept reading and gapped a little at the name. Xin Wuyon – Sky Heaven Sect Master.
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Without any further questions, he quickly ran to the backrooms and gave one of the messenger boys a quick kick to his bed, waking him up and sending him on his way. It was a full days travel to the Sky Heaven Mountains. The road was arduous and tiring, but the messenger boy was one of the best. When it was almost noon, he arrived at the gates and handed the envelope to one of the guards at the gates. The guard took one look at name it was written from and ran all the way to the Elders manor where it was handed over to a guard there. The guard looked at it and his eyes bulged as well. It was rare to see a letter from the High Elder of the Sect, ever since the Elder’s wife had passed away.
Unfortunately when the guard went in and knocked on the doors of the Great Hall, he was informed by the Sect Master’s valet that the Sect Master had gone down the mountain to attend a Culinary competition to be held in a stadium close to Chao village. He could only leave the letter with the valet, who placed it on the Sect Master’s desk.
The next morning when Li Jian asked Mei Min what she wanted for breakfast, she got a rather pensive look on her face that worried him. It was his experience that whenever women became too pensive at a simple question, it would not bode well for him. “Are you going to the street vendors then?” She asked, almost as if she was a displeased cat. He however, just stared at him and sighed. “Yes, the street vendors. Where else do you want breakfast to magically appear from?”
Letting out a huff of annoyance, she sat on the bed and crossed her legs. “After what you made the other day, you want to just get something from a street vendor?” He glanced at her and laughed while getting up, ignoring the pouting expression on her face. “I made half a dozen dishes and you think I am a chef now?” He snorted slightly before leaving the inn, leaving her to pout in the room.
In the marketplace, he quickly found a man first to start steaming fifty meat buns for his sword spirit before he meandered through the various stalls there to look around. Finding a rare treat in the northern regions, he quickly purchased two bowls of rice noodles and a small pile of scallion pancakes but cooked with yeast for a fluffier, crispier risen version of his usual favoured ones before heading back.
“Kon Kon.” Once he gotten back, he had found that Mei Min was perched on a chair next to the table, the table already cleared with chopsticks laid out as she looked at him, obviously in waiting to see what delicious treats he would bring back even as she feigned disinterest in him and what he was holding. He set the noodle bowls down on the table along with the risen pancakes as Kon Wang appeared, looking at him as if waiting. He handed Kon Wang a small stack of coins. “Third stall on the street.” Kon Wang took the coins, realizing what his master meant and bowed deeply.
The man working the street stall almost died that day. He had just placed the last of the fifty bun order into a large bamboo container, wondering if he had just been scammed. He was almost out of ingredients too for the rest of the day but a fifty bun sale was a fifty bun sale. At worst, he used the buns for his later sales. However when the young man appeared out of nowhere, the old man’s heart almost stopped. The young man bowed and presented to him a pile of silvers that was more than enough for the buns. The old man accepted the coins with shaking hands, before the bamboo container and the young man both disappeared. Had he just steamed buns for a yokai?
As much as Mei Min had complained earlier about not having Li Jian’s cooking, she still devoured the rice noodles quickly. With a light vegetable broth, it held a lot of pickled herbs and vegetables as well as slices of marinated thin meat on top, the underworld deity finished the entire bowl in just minutes. When she got to the scallion pancakes, she ripped pieces off and ate them with relish, savouring the way the oily pancakes held just the right amount of chewiness in the center as well as the light crisp of the exterior shell. The scallions added a herbal scent to the flour. Li Jian just chuckled to himself and ate his own bowl of noodles. He had just about finished his breakfast when there was a frantic knock at the door. Turning his head towards the door, he saw Kon Wang materialize and open the door, a hand already on his sword half drawn with a meat bun held fiercely in his mouth.
The person who had knocked on the door was no other than Wang Lusong. “Great master you must help! The Hu family sent over some martial art experts to the Forever Diner and causing trouble!” Kon Wang just kept chewing his meat bun, eating them one bun at a time in one bite. Wang Lusong however saw that Li Jian was having breakfast with both a handsome young man and a beautiful young woman. Perhaps the great master’s tastes were as varied as his cooking?