Eternal Life: I Can Sell Everything

Song Ciwan next sold a bundle of "human desires" she had obtained from Yu Chan.

[You have sold human desires—love, reverence, and longing—weighing two jin and one tael. You have obtained the Low Level Taoist Skill, Ganlin Spell, First Layer.]

Ganlin Spell: Transforms True Qi into sweet dew. When it falls as rain, it has a certain restorative and healing effect, effective on both humans and demons.

The spell’s incantation descended from the void. Song Ciwan quickly memorized it all at once and grasped the beginner level.

The Insight Technique’s panel showed that she had learned another skill:

Basic Taoist Skill, Ganlin Spell: (First Layer, Beginner 2/100)

Song Ciwan took a moment to silently process this new gain.

She then turned to the sleeping Yu Chan on the bed and formed a finger seal. Beneath her fingers, a small, delicate cloud the size of an egg appeared and floated over to Yu Chan’s face.

Soon, clear, sweet dew began to patter down.

In her sleep, Yu Chan seemed to feel an exceptional comfort, letting out a soft hum with her eyes still tightly closed.

The sweet dew didn’t wet her face; instead, it invisibly and tracelessly seeped into her skin.

The small frostbite marks on Yu Chan’s face, caused by the cold weather, were instantly smoothed away under the nourishment of the sweet dew.

However, the sweet dew could not heal the half-blue, half-black birthmark on her face.

Song Ciwan silently contemplated the feeling of casting the Ganlin Spell. This Daoist Skill wasn’t difficult and didn’t consume much True Qi, but its healing ability was a bit weak at the basic beginner level.

’I wonder how much its healing power will increase once I’ve reached a high level of mastery?’

Song Ciwan cast the Ganlin Spell once more on Aunt Jin Hua. As she contemplated the experience, her proficiency with the Ganlin Spell increased by 1 point.

Finally, she cast the Ganlin Spell on herself. The gentle, cooling sensation made her brow relax in an instant.

All in all, the feeling was wonderful.

In high spirits, Song Ciwan continued her selling.

[You have sold human desires—love, sorrow, and regret—weighing one jin and two taels. You have obtained the Yellow Level Martial Arts Technique, Mountain-Breaking Fist.]

Mountain-Breaking Fist: This technique progresses from external to internal. It is heavy and unadorned, with every opening and closing movement governed by strict form. When trained to its High Depths, its fists can shatter mountains.

Compared to the unranked Grasshopper, the Mountain-Breaking Fist was far more powerful. It was a perfect match for Song Ciwan’s Basic Divine Power, Infinite Power!

Finally, Song Ciwan sold another bundle of human desires, this one also from the Xu Mansion servant, Yu Shu: [You have sold human desires—sorrow, fear, and regret—weighing one jin and eight taels. You have obtained one year and eight months of Cultivation.]

As time leaped forward, Song Ciwan once again entered a state of cultivation in the void.

This time, she didn’t choose to cultivate the Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting. Instead, she focused all her efforts on cultivating the Mountain-Breaking Fist in that indescribable Void Space!

Mountain-Breaking Fist, First Form; Mountain-Breaking Fist, Second Form; Mountain-Breaking Fist, Third Form...

The Mountain-Breaking Fist was a Yellow Level Martial Art. Although Song Ciwan lacked a complete foundation in martial arts training, her Sutra of Sitting and Forgetting was compatible with the vast majority of techniques in the world, including Martial Techniques.

She trained without rest for one year and eight months, her familiarity with the Mountain-Breaking Fist progressing from initial awkwardness to proficiency.

An ancient sage once said that if you read a book a hundred times, its meaning will reveal itself. Wasn’t the same true for martial arts training?

When Song Ciwan opened her eyes again, tumbling out of the wondrous, void-like state, she checked her Insight Technique panel:

Martial Technique: Mountain-Breaking Fist (Mastery 2158/10000)

The various profundities of the fist technique flowed through her mind. Song Ciwan stood up and, with her bare hands, changed her face again.

She put on the crudely stitched Human Skin Mask, changed her clothes, and donned the iconic Black Cloak of a "mass-produced Divine Envoy."

Forming a hand seal, she activated Escape into the Night. She transformed into a shadow in the darkness, slipping out through a crack in the window.

The night wind in Huailing City was cold. The streets were under a deep-night curfew, with only the men of the City Patrol Department and the night watchmen walking the silent streets, their footsteps echoing softly.

The shadow under the cover of night circled half the city before finally slipping through another window on a different side of the Official Inn.

In the room, Yu Lin slept rather restlessly.

He had experienced too much that day. Being forced to leave his hometown and then settling in Huailing had made the seventeen-year-old youth feel the capriciousness of fate and the helplessness of his reality.

His experience on Cold Hill Mountain had been particularly bizarre and terrifying, and a deep-seated panic had been suppressed in Yu Lin’s heart ever since.

He just had no one to confide in, for he understood that from the moment he left his homeland, he was no longer the boy who could rest easy under his father’s protection.

On the contrary, he had to spread his own wings, straighten his shoulders, and become the great tree that could shelter his mother and sister from the wind and rain.

’Can I do it?’

Yu Lin didn’t know. Yu Lin was terrified.

It was in this state that Yu Lin had a bizarre and vivid dream.

The first half of the dream was hard to describe. There seemed to be floating islands, great flying ships, swirling immortal mists, and a bottomless, bottomless abyss ten thousand fathoms deep...

What else was there?

There was also a lean figure on the mountaintop, wearing a silver mask and a short, practical tunic. He stood ramrod straight, like a pine tree, as still as an abyss and as steady as a mountain!

Yu Lin heard the person say, "I am the Starlight Divine Envoy, serving under the perfectly just and impartial Nameless Divine Venerable. Because the Divine Venerable pities the suffering of the world, I have been specially commanded to descend to the mortal realm and seek out a fated person to whom I may impart the Dao and its arts. Today, I shall transmit the Mountain-Breaking Fist Technique to you. Watch closely. Do not make a sound, and do not speak of this."

Without waiting for Yu Lin to reply, the Starlight Divine Envoy on the mountaintop extended a hand, clenched it into a fist, and began to perform a magnificent and imposing fist technique.

Sand flew and stones rolled as the earth shook and the mountains trembled. It was truly as if thunder’s rage threatened to shatter the mountains, and lightning was tearing through the green peaks’ very bones. One could only suspect this person was not of the mortal world—as it turned out, he was indeed a Divine Envoy!

Yu Lin had always known his own aptitude was average. Among ordinary people, it was decent, perhaps even a little excellent, but in the vast Cultivation Realm, what did he amount to?

Despite his martial arts training since childhood, he was still only at the Refining Tendons Stage.

He could never learn an ordinary fist technique after seeing it just once. If it were a more profound one, he would find it even harder to understand.

But now, at this moment, he listened as the Divine Envoy demonstrated the fist technique while reciting its mnemonic: "A fist values divine speed; power must be issued swiftly. The posture is like a drawn crossbow; the rhythm, like a triggered mechanism..."

BANG! BANG! BANG!

As the fists moved, a series of sharp cracks echoed through the air.

Truly, the posture was like a drawn crossbow, the rhythm like a triggered mechanism!

Yu Lin was mesmerized, utterly entranced, as if he were on the verge of some great epiphany.

...

An unknown amount of time passed, until the Divine Envoy suddenly flicked his sleeve. Yu Lin’s vision blurred, and he jolted awake from the dream.

He shot up in bed, drenched in sweat. The fantastical sights from the dream—the islands, the great ships—had already blurred, but the fist technique he had watched and the mnemonic he had heard were imprinted crystal clear in his mind!

The Divine Venerable was real, and the Divine Envoy was real.

He had truly received a fortuitous encounter in a dream!

For a moment, Yu Lin’s heart surged with an indescribable, ecstatic joy.

Meanwhile, Song Ciwan, who had left at the opportune moment, also reaped a bountiful harvest.

[Human desires—joy, sorrow, fear—weighing one jin and five taels, available to be sold.]

[Human desires—joy, sorrow, obsession—weighing two jin and three taels, available to be sold.]

[Human desires—joy, sorrow, obsession—weighing three jin and one tael, available to be sold.]

...

In addition to the emotional auras provided by Yu Lin, her Dharma Transmission Skill had also shown clear improvement.

Side Door Taoist Skill: Dharma Transmission (First Layer, Beginner 15/100)

One Dharma Transmission had increased her proficiency by 10 points.

The night wind swept through the inn. Song Ciwan contemplated the various secrets of the Dharma Transmission Skill as she prepared to circle around outside one more time before returning to her room to rest.

Just then, a chilly gust of wind suddenly blew toward her.

The wind blew from ahead, passing over the shadow she had become, yet a faint, ghostly voice sounded from behind her.

"Divine Envoy, if you claim the Divine Venerable pities the world, why can you not see my suffering? You taught that person a Martial Technique, so what can you teach me?"

A cold breeze brushed the back of her neck, and Song Ciwan was instantly overcome by a bone-chilling horror.