ALL NOVEL Chapter 2: The Li Family
Li Mutian woke up at the Tiger Hour (Between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM), staring at the broken roof of his home, which emitted a faint glimmer in the pitch-black darkness.
The roof had a small hole for the past few days, and Li Mutian hadn’t had time to fix it. He hadn’t slept well for three days, and as he looked at his wife sleeping soundly beside him, Li Mutian sighed deeply.
‘Wife, I don’t know if it’s good or bad. The other day, those immortal cultivators flew around the Da Li Mountain as if they had gone mad, digging everywhere as if they wanted to unearth something. It terrified everyone, and every time a streak of light passed, they all knelt down and kowtowed…’
Li Mutian furrowed his brow, filled with worry. Living in the small villages at the foot of Da Li Mountain had always been carefree, but these days were filled with anxiety, everyone living in constant fear.
‘The mountain paths are narrow, and the court doesn’t bother with us. We don’t care about that. But when these immortals fight, a single immortal technique can wipe out every living being in the Li Jing Village.’
Li Mutian tossed and turned but couldn’t fall back asleep. He got up and looked out of the window into the deep night.
‘That kid are getting bigger day by day. Each meal he ate is heartier than the last. Tomorrow, I’ll send him to Mei Chi River to catch some river fish and crabs.’
‘If I were to die from an immortal technique one day, so be it. The Li family has been farming this land for over two hundred years. Mother can’t move, and Father can’t work.’
Li Mutian shook his head with a lowered gaze, turned his back, and left the room.
Outside, the big yellow dog was still dozing off. Li Mutian walked leisurely through the thin morning mist, looking at the waking Li Jing Village with roosters crowing, dogs barking, and cooking smoke rising.
“Xiangping—”
Li Mutian called out to the house with a loud voice. There was a clattering sound from inside, and when the door opened, a half-grown child stumbled out.
“Father!” Li Xiangping, with slightly delicate features and a mischievous look in his eyes, looked up at Li Mutian. “What work do we have today?”
“Go to Mei Chi River and get some river fish and crabs,” Li Mutian waved his hand. “There’s not much work today. Go and get some fresh flavors for your mother to enjoy.”
“Alright!”
Li Xiangping nodded excitedly and grabbed a basket and a long fork in one breath.
Li Mutian chuckled twice and headed to the fields.
Mei Chi River was shallow and wide, with extensive mudflats and reeds along the riverbank. Dozens or even hundreds of geese and ducks raised by the village roamed freely. They were let out early in the morning and would all go into the river.
Later in the day, when someone walked to the riverbank and called out, those geese and ducks, familiar with the sound, would follow and return home.
When Li Xiangping arrived, the geese and ducks had not been let out yet, and the sky over Mei Chi River was empty. Two small wooden rafts floated by the shore. Li Xiangping rolled up his pants, knelt into the mud, blindly groping in front of him. When he looked into the river, he saw a green tail.
“Good fish.”
Li Xiangping pressed down with force, holding his breath and catching the fish. With a quick pull, he had firmly grasped the green-tailed fish by its gills and pulled it up.
“Hehe.”
Li Xiangping laughed a few times and threw the fish into the basket. The fish in Mei Chi River were definitely not this foolish; this green-tailed one was probably a wild fish that had swum down from upstream, making it a great catch for the young boy.
Looking at his own feet, Li Xiangping seemed puzzled. There seemed to be an overly smooth spot on the riverbed, faintly shining with silver light.
Just as he was about to take another deep breath and dive to investigate, a loud voice echoed from the shore:
“Brother Xiangping!”
Li Xiangping instinctively hid the basket behind him and looked towards the shore. A teenager of about fifteen or so emerged from the reeds.
“Brother Ye, come and release the ducks—”
Li Xiangping breathed a sigh of relief, handing the basket forward. “Take a look at this green-tailed fish, I caught it barehanded.”
“Good fish!” Li Yesheng lowered his head to look at the basket, admiringly saying.
Li Yesheng’s father had been bedridden for years, and his elder brother was idle, often going hungry. On regular days, he had to go to Uncle Li Mutian’s house to beg for food. Cousin Li Xiangping always treated him like a younger brother.
After chatting for a bit, Li Yesheng shook his head. “Alright, Brother, I’ll go back to check on the ducks. If two are missing, my brother will definitely beat me.”
“Go, go, go.”
Li Xiangping was eager to see what was on the riverbed.
“Alright!”
As soon as Li Yesheng left, Li Xiangping held his breath and dived to the riverbed. He explored back and forth, and indeed, he felt a round object.
“Phew…”
Li Xiangping wiped his face and took a look at the item in his hand.
The thing was about the size of a palm, with a central round plate in grayish-blue, surrounded by a seemingly dark iron-made border. There didn’t seem to be anything extraordinary. The front was broken into seven or eight pieces, but it didn’t fall apart near the border. On the back, there was a rather strange symbol. After looking at it for a while, Li Xiangping couldn’t figure out what it resembled.
“It looks a bit like Aunt’s identification charm.” Li Xiangping’s aunt, Tian Kou, had the largest field in the village, and only she could afford to use an identification charm. Typically, village girls could get by with water as a tool for divination. When Aunt got that identification charm, Mother even took Li Xiangping to see it. Indeed, it was more convenient than using water.
But the identification charm in his hand was too blurry, and in the misty surroundings, he couldn’t see anything. Li Xiangping shook his head regretfully, threw the object into the basket, and turned back to continue catching fish.
Liu Jiangxian had been in the water for nearly half a month. From the third day onwards, the aura of moonlight had stopped growing, and despite his efforts for a week, there was no progress at all. Other than emitting light, he couldn’t do anything.
One morning, he was staring blankly at a large blue fish beside him when a big hand directly pressed the fish into the mud. The surroundings shook, and the hand grabbed the fish by the gills, lifting it away.
Liu Jiangxian, still caught up in the complex emotions of encountering someone new, saw a big hand scooping up his physical form. Seeing a somewhat handsome face, Liu Jiangxian felt a bit nervous for a moment. The other person chattered for a while, then casually threw him into the basket, where he stared at the blue-tailed fish with wide eyes.
In that instant, Liu Jiangxian realized a serious problem—he could hear, but he might not understand. The pronunciation in this region was somewhat like the dialects in the Min-Zhe area of his previous life. He truly couldn’t understand anything. This meant that even if he could make sounds, the other person wouldn’t understand him, which would greatly hinder his integration into this world.
As he observed the small fish being thrown into the basket, Liu Jiangxian focused on calming himself to sense the surroundings. Watching the boy carefully lift his pitchfork, Liu Jiangxian made a soft sound. With this perspective, he could sense the boy’s mental activities from this angle. His attention seemed to be focused on a particular fish at the bottom of the river.
With the help of this sensing perspective, every time the boy caught a fish, he would mutter to himself. Before long, Liu Jiangxian learned the specific pronunciations for numbers three to six and various fish species.
‘I need to do this step by step.’
Watching the boy leave, Liu Jiangxian sighed. The child seemed like a farm boy, and he should first give this bronze-like object to his parents.
He needed to interact more with people, see if he could gradually learn the local dialect, and, while preserving his own situation, find a way to enhance the power of moonlight.