Chapter 188: The Old Master’s Teacher Is an Immortal

The red-clad man stepped past the two servants, his figure appearing behind them. Then he added, “No need to keep kneeling. Keep on your way. I am not your ancestor, so there is no need for such courtesy.”

After saying that, he went on ahead. The two men, still standing in the snow, rose to their feet and, almost in unison, turned back to look at the receding scarlet figure.

After a single glance, Jian set off at once. He had not run far, however, when he noticed that Changshou had not followed, but remained where they had knelt.

“What are you standing there for, Changshou? Hurry up and run!” Jian shouted, his voice edged with urgency.

“Jian, doesn’t that man in red seem familiar to you?”

Changshou turned to look at Jian and asked in return. At those words, Jian froze.

Just moments ago, too frightened to think clearly, he had paid no mind to the sudden appearance of the red-clad stranger. Yet now that he recalled it, the man did seem strangely familiar.

Changshou’s words stopped Jian in his tracks. He turned back, lifting his torch as he returned to Changshou’s side.

“Think about the man in the portrait hanging in our master’s shrine hall. Doesn’t he look just like this man in red?”

“Yes. I think he is the very man from that painting. Look at him; he seems almost like an immortal. He must be our master’s teacher. Changshou, now our master is saved.”

The two of them spoke as they watched the red figure grow smaller in the distance. Then Changshou stepped forward and hurried after him, shouting as he ran, “Grandmaster, please wait!”

Seeing Changshou chase after him, Jian thought again of the portrait hanging in the shrine hall at the Yin manor. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the red-clad man was the same as the man in the painting. At once, he too set off in pursuit.

Just as the servants had suspected, the red-clad man walking ahead was indeed Zhou Qing, the teacher of their master, Yin Mao.

Hearing the cry of “Grandmaster” from behind, Zhou Qing felt a trace of confusion, for he had misheard it as something like “grandma.”

“What did you call me?”

“Grandmaster,” Changshou answered clearly and crisply as he reached Zhou Qing first, stopping before him.

“Grandmaster?” Zhou Qing pondered it silently. Could these two be people under the command of the disciple he had taken in years ago? Doubt stirring in him, he asked, “Why do you call me that?”

“Our master is named Yin Mao. He has set up a shrine hall at the manor, and inside hangs a portrait of his master. The man in the painting is you. He is our master, and you are his master, so we call you Grandmaster.”

Only after hearing the servant’s explanation did Zhou Qing understand and nod in realization.

He had roamed the world for many years. Half a year ago, he had come to the Tang Empire, and now that he happened to be passing near Turtle County, he had thought of the disciple he had once taken in by chance.

So this time he had intended to make a trip to Turtle County and see how that old disciple was faring.

He had not expected, on this lonely night road, to encounter two servants from his disciple’s household.

“What are you two doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Looking at the two servants, their faces somewhat weary, Zhou Qing asked a question. Then, after Jian and Changshou explained matters to him, he gained a rough understanding of the whole affair.

At last, Zhou Qing swept his sleeve and headed briskly toward Turtle County. Before long, his figure vanished from the sight of the two servants, who were chasing after him with all their might.

“Grandmaster is far too fast. Even if we run ourselves to exhaustion, we won’t catch him.”

“Yes. This is good news. Now that our master’s teacher has appeared, our master will be safe.”

After speaking for a while, the two servants returned to the ruined temple by the roadside. This time, they exchanged a glance, discussed it briefly, and then entered the temple together.

Zhou Qing’s appearance made them feel that the danger in the Yin manor had been lifted. After a full day’s journey, their bodies tired and their legs numb, they decided to spend the night in the temple and return to Turtle County in the morning.

“Changshou, do you think our master’s teacher looks like an immortal?”

“Yes. The moment I saw Grandmaster, I felt he was an immortal descending to the mortal world. Look at our master now, his temples already turning gray, yet Grandmaster does not seem much older than us. And his clothes, his manner, and the speed at which he traveled just now...”

“Exactly. Our master always says he is only half-trained, but would a disciple taught by an immortal be half-trained? And how could someone half-trained become famous throughout Turtle County?”

Inside the ruined temple, the two servants from the Yin manor lit a bonfire and sat around it talking about Zhou Qing. Meanwhile, Zhou Qing quickened his pace toward Turtle County.

Over the snow, his red figure seemed like a scarlet specter, flying forward at astonishing speed.

With each step, his body seemed to spring from the ground, leaping three or four yards at a time before landing lightly and vaulting onward again. His speed was far greater than that of a swift horse.

Why was he so fast? Because in the years of his wandering, apart from obtaining a fire spirit root ten years earlier in the forests of Mount Beique, he had also gained an earth spirit root in a place called the Black Hen Kingdom.

Of the five elements in this world—wind, water, thunder, fire, and earth—Zhou Qing now lacked only the wind and thunder spirit roots before his five elements would be complete.

Moreover, over those ten years, his cultivation had broken through the Essence Refining stage and advanced beyond it to the Hundred Apertures Spirit-Gathering, Spirit-into-Force stage of Spiritual Mobility.

One year to open the apertures, six years to cease grain, ten years to attain Spiritual Mobility. Zhou Qing’s current cultivation already far surpassed that of Wu Lichen in those days.

He had risen by another great realm, and on top of that he had acquired an earth spirit root, so compared with ten years ago, Zhou Qing was now several times stronger in both cultivation and means.

The earth spirit root differed from water and fire spirit roots. At Zhou Qing’s current level of awakening, he could not yet move through the earth or travel a thousand miles at a stroke. Yet the wonders of the earth spirit root were still of boundless use to him.

Since obtaining it, Zhou Qing had discovered that he could borrow the power of the earth. For instance, at this very moment, once the sole of his foot touched the ground, he could draw upon the earth’s strength to propel himself upward, traveling swiftly without expending the least bit of energy.

At the same time, he found that whenever his spiritual power was depleted, he needed only a thought to draw inexhaustible vitality from the earth to replenish what he had spent.

Beyond that, after acquiring the earth spirit root, he discovered that his body had become astonishingly hard as well. If an ordinary blade were to sweep across his neck, the blade itself would be ruined, while his throat would remain unmarked.

Though he had no wind or thunder spirit root, Zhou Qing, now possessing water, fire, and earth, was no longer an ordinary little cultivator.