Chapter 4 (1/2)
The pouring rain that has suddenly come still has absolutely no signs of ceasing. The moment s.h.i.+ Wuduan touched the constellation tablet, his body becomes still.
Ever since he was very young, s.h.i.+ Wuduan has had a terrible att.i.tude. The moment he learned how to turn sideways, he started rolling off his cribs. The moment he learned how to crawl, all the things in his rooms started having accidents. After he learned how to run, everything got worse, he was truly a little calamity on legs. To control him, the only way is to have somebody follow and stare at him every moment of the day, who can immediately burst any naughty ideas the moment they start to form.
Until that one day, the Taoist master discovered his interest with the constellation tablet.
Whether he was on a surplus of energy to create ruckus around or not, as long as there is a constellation tablet, even though it is only as small as a person's palm, it is enough to him to still and docilely sit there and mess around with it for a whole morning or afternoon - even when the tablet is just a dead piece of stone without any stars and star threads.
In the cave, the only sounds remain are those of the rainfall, the sound of burning wood crackling, and the sound of a young man using his small stick to draw all over the mud.
s.h.i.+ Wuduan squats on the ground, his body still soaked, his wet hair hanging on his back. There are a few strands of hair lying on his forehead, docilely lying on his soft side profile. The mud on his face is still not cleared, after drying, it makes him look like a wild kitten, but his expression is very serene.
So serene that it somehow does not look like a child.
The s.h.i.+ning star threads that seem to have a life of their own hang on his hands, forming an intricate and inseparable arrangement. On the constellation tablet that is no bigger than half a meter (=1/3 current meter) squared, the stars that are as large as one piece of sand slowly move. It looks like there is a hand that puppeteer the tablet of stars, yet there seems to exist an even bigger, almost unimaginable hand, forever pus.h.i.+ng behind the stars so no one can stop its motion, and have been for billions of years.
Unsure of the reason why, Bai Li suddenly feels this young man lies very far away from him, as far as between the ground and the stars, that no matter how far his hands reach he could not touch him, so he cannot resist saying: ”You don't have to calculate it, it's wasteful of your energy. In our fox spirit clan, who can cultivate without going through tianjie? It's fine if I can just tolerate until it pa.s.ses.”
s.h.i.+ Wuduan made a replying sound, but the small stick in his hand has not stopped, who knows if he even heard.
The calculation that he draws, though outsiders would think it is complicated, it is actually only the introductory 'San Lian Suan s.h.i.+'(*), it is not that advanced. s.h.i.+ Wuduan obviously thinks that Bai Li is a child like himself, thus having such few years on this earth, so what karma could he have possible acc.u.mulated. That is why he decided on such a simple calculation.
(*) lit. formula to calculate the three connections
Unexpectedly after a moment, he frowns and makes an 'oh' sound. The mud on his face has dried so it feels a bit itchy. Using the wooden stick to scratch his face, he says like in a monologue: ”Why can't I calculate it? How strange.”
Bai Li repeats what he said: ”So don't calculate anymore.”
If he never said that it would have been less bad, but s.h.i.+ Wuduan has a child-like nature. Normally the constellation tablet on Jiulu mountain cannot be brought down from the mountain at will, it was not easy s.h.i.+ Wuduan can bring out this small one, he whole-heartedly wants to show off to Bai Li, so how can he just quit? So he pretends to be mature and waves his hand away: ”Don't be anxious, 'San Lian s.h.i.+' is only for the children who just entered cultivation to practice their calculation, even pointing randomly on it can generally tell you something so it's often not that accurate. Let me change another calculation then you'll see.”
Bai Li just opens his mouth but before he can stop him, s.h.i.+ Wuduan has waved his mud-spotted hand to wipe away the bunch of calculations he just wrote down, then uses incredible speed to write down an even more jumbled up, tiny bunch of calculations. Bai Li is only able to see the number of star threads on that constellation tablet inexplicably grows exponentially, from the few docilely wrapped around s.h.i.+ Wuduan's hand they grew to be a bunch of threads that weigh down on the young man's fingers. Not moments later, s.h.i.+ Wuduan's arm is not visible from his wrist and below.
The stars lying on the constellation tablet s.h.i.+ne with a witchy light, even the glow of the fire next to them is suppressed. Bai Li gives a quick glance and realized that even with his cultivation power his mental state can still be shaken by those chaotic stars, so he quickly averts his eyes, not daring to look any longer.
s.h.i.+ Wuduan is still young. Only half of the calculation has been written down when sweats soak his temples and the hand raising above the tablet was wrapped by the continuous outpour of star threads so much that it started to shake a little. The star threads slowly glow under his fingers, but his face beneath the glowing, flickering lights starts to show a dark aura.
Bai Li stares in horror, he feels like that thing is sucking something from s.h.i.+ Wuduan's body, so he quickly grabs the fingers that are tightly bound by the star threads.
The moment he touches the star threads, some source of power immediately repels him, his fingertips burning. Bai Li looks down and discovers that the finger that touches the star thread has swollen red.
He cannot resist but call out: ”Wuduan!”
Yet s.h.i.+ Wuduan does not seem to hear. He is swiftly drawing on the ground, like his entire body has been submerged in the immeasurable sea of stars.
The star calculation technique even though may sound very deep and hard to understand, or very grand, to the common person, but among cultivators, it is not that rare, not even to mention in large and reputable sects like Jiulu mountain, the small and ordinary sects also practice this technique. However, on Yin Sheng lands cultivators tend to orientate more toward 'kungfu cultivation' or 'Taoist spells'. When building foundations people would learn a little about star calculation like when children would read San Zi scripts in order to learn how to write, so their knowledge is merely in pa.s.sing. Not everyone has the perseverance and natural talent in this discipline.
The absolute majority of 'dao' cultivators at most can only reluctantly understand 'San Lian s.h.i.+', or hear of the 'Wu Lian Suan s.h.i.+' (*), even the especially talented can only use the method 'Xiao Tou s.h.i.+'(**) to do little things like scout the mountains or find somebody.
(*) lit. formula to calculate the five connections
(**) little stone head