My Daoist Life Chapter 11

Taking Action

I don’t know if it were because of our previous dialogue, but she didn’t go back to her own place for about an entire month. She even spent all her weekends with me and Grandpa. Since she didn’t have much else to do, she had plenty of time go out buying things for grandpa and I on the streets. In the village when a meat merchant came, she also sh.e.l.led out some money to buy a couple jin meat. So, I didn’t have to wait till new year or birthday celebration in order to get to eat meat.
I fell in love with shadow boxing, as long as I had spare time during the day, I would practice shadow boxing. A single big punch, was able to make me feel comfortable from head to toe. On the days when I am unable to shadowbox, I would always feel that there was something missing.
“Huang Jingyang, you are practicing kung fu everyday, are you thinking of becoming a martial artist?” Teacher Lin asked me one day.
What did I know of Martial Artists? I actually didn’t want to become a martial artist, it’s just that recently, I have been feeling a faint sense of danger slowly approaching. I didn’t know where the danger was coming from, but this sense of danger would sometimes make me have nightmares while sleeping. Waking up surprised and full of sweat.

I knew that that jade pendant had a lot of trouble attached to it, sooner or later, a day would come when that Teacher Lin’s boyfriend, Cui Chenlin, would discover my existence.

A person with that kind of aura is destined to be a mortal enemy of mine. I had already realized it on that day when I saw Cui Chenlin. His aura made me feel suffocated. However, I knew that there would be a day, when I would end up facing him directly.

Although I didn’t get rid of Teacher Lin’s Jade pendant, I instead kept constantly protecting Teacher Lin from being affected by its aura.

At the village entrance, there was a tree of osmanthus flowers, the flowers were in full bloom, with their fragrance spreading to over ten li. Of course, for a child of my age, the osmanthus fragrance was a reminder that the Mid-Autumn Festival was coming. Eating mooncakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival. This was a once in a year occasion, when children would eat them heartily. However, this didn’t mean much to me. In the previous years, Grandpa would go buy a few mooncakes. However, this year, the money inside Grandpa’s coin pouch was not even enough to make ends meet. Moreover, after the Mid-Autumn festival comes the time for Autumn harvest, which always involves quite a bit of expenditure.

These several days, Grandpa had been looking everywhere to find some work, and make some money, but at present there were not many opportunities to earn a livelihood in the village.

“Grandpa, shall I go capture some fish to take to town for selling?” I thought of a way to make money.

Actually, I had already thought about it, however, now was not that good of a time to sell the fish compared to raising them in the fish pond and waiting till new year’s time before selling. Moreover after being raised for several months in the pond, they would also have grown a bit and when the new year’s time comes, the price that they would fetch would be better. However, I could see that Grandpa was short of money at the moment.

“Don’t.” Grandpa had always felt that my way of fishing was a bad idea.

“Uncle, You need not worry about the Mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. I have been eating and living in your home for so long, without any effort. Living like a freeloader everyday. I find it embarra.s.sing.” Teacher Lin came forward. She was an attentive person. She had already made out the abnormality of just me living with Grandpa.

“How can that be okay. You spend your money everyday for buying groceries, how could we spend your money on this festival celebration?” Grandpa shook his head again and again.

“Uncle, no need for such formalities. If you disagree, then I wouldn’t dare live here from now. You don’t need to treat me as an outsider, please treat me the as if I were Huang Jingyang’s Aunt.” Teacher Lin said promptly.

In the end, Teacher Lin spent the money and bought a lot of food, and also a box of mooncakes. This was the first Mid-Autumn Festival, where I got to eat so sumptuously.

Teacher Lin came even closer to our family, and all the more reason I couldn’t let that Jade pendant harm her.

With the fall harvest, the golden yellow rice ears had all been turned into baskets filled with golden coloured rice crops before being moved into the barn. For my chickens, ducklings and goslings, this time could also be considered to be a sumptuous festival for eating. After the rice was harvested, there were countless insects and worms in the paddy field, which had become a grand banquet for them.

The Spring was for sowing, and Autumn was for harvest, this kind of seasonal rotation, and the world climate changes, apparently unknowingly made the seed residing somewhere within my body sprout even faster. I knew that there would come a day, when this seed would come out like a seed planted in the ground sprouts out.

The everyday boxing training was making my body stronger, and my skin was becoming fairer.

“Huang Jingyang, how come your skin is becoming whiter and whiter? Your skin is even whiter than Teacher’s? If you were a girl, you would definitely look very pretty.” Teacher Lin said while toweling my hair after my shower. Only now did I discover that my skin had become so unexpectedly fair. It was completely different from the other children in the village of the same age.

My face turned red, getting caressed continuously by a girl, would always make a man feel embarra.s.sed.

After returning from school, Teacher Lin would teach me five seal characters, and till date had taught me more than a hundred characters. I was already capable of recognizing all the characters on the bronze medal.

The words on the bronze medal were: Qian (乾) for Heaven, Kun (坤) for Earth, Zhen (震) for Thunder, Xun(巽) for Wind, Gen (艮) for Mountain, Dui (兑) for Lake, Kan (坎) for Water and Li (离) for Fire.
[TLNote: Basically the Eight trigrams are eight letters symbolizing something and the whole thing is quite symbolic in Daoism and you could either see http://www.wuxiaworld.com/what-dao-heck-a-very-basic-primer-to-the-dao
Or http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/Chinese_Customs/bagua.htm For Information on Eight Trigrams/Bagua]

Although I was able to understand the meaning of these words, the form of these characters and the design atop the bronze medal instead suddenly stunned me to the core. In an instant, I had unexpectedly comprehended the true meaning within the seal characters. Heaven, Earth, Thunder, Wind, Mountain, Lake, Water and Fire, seemingly I could already vaguely catch the somewhat intrinsic connection between these things.

At that moment, I had a faint feeling of standing on the border between this world, and a brand new one, but it was sadly slightly too far away. Getting close to this border would always be hard for me.

“Huang Jingyang, what is going on with you?” Seeing me fall into dullness, Teacher Lin promptly used her hands to shake me.

I also didn’t know what exactly had happened in that instant, I just scratched my head and again looked at the table below. When I saw the seal script letters written by Teacher Lin, although I could easily read them, there was none of that spiritual charm I had seen on the bronze medal.

“You must be sleepy. Nevermind, you have also acc.u.mulated too much fatigue today, so we will end today’s practice earlier than usual, so go to bed early. If children don’t get enough sleep, then it can affect their growth.” Teacher Lin tidied up the things on the table. After that, she picked me up and went towards the room.

“Teacher Lin, if in the future you get married, will you still sleep with me or not?” I asked dazedly.

Teacher Lin laughed with a pfft sound: “Then how about Teacher Lin marry you?”

“Good.” I readily agreed.

“ge ge, you don’t think Teacher Lin is too old?” Teacher Lin was feeling very happy, and a seldom seen smile was on her face.

“Teacher Lin is not old. Everybody in the village says that you are very beautiful.” I was muddle-headed and in dire need of sleep. The events that happened a moment ago had exhausted me extremely.

I stumbled onto the bed dazedly, and after that undressed tremblingly. Teacher Lin said while sighing: “Look at you, young adult, so sensible, but actually you are still a child. You even want to take Teacher Lin as your wife. Ought to be beaten.”

However, Teacher Lin didn’t hit me, and instead planted a kiss on my cheeks.

At night, I had a strange dream. I dreamt that Teacher Lin’s boyfriend Cui Chenlin had come and s.n.a.t.c.hed away Teacher Lin from me.

I said: “Teacher Lin is married to me. Later she will also sleep with me. I forbid you from harming her.”

Cui Chenlin laughed grimly: “I am not only going to take away Teacher Lin, I shall also kill you!”

I woke up crying. This time, Teacher Lin also woke up because of the noise.

“Huang Jingyang, what happened?” Teacher Lin felt really hurt seeing me cry, and promptly switched on the lights, knowing that I had had a nightmare.

“Teacher Lin, you must not go along with your boyfriend, he will harm you.” After having finished speaking, I again laid down on the bed and fell asleep.

The next day when I woke up, Teacher Lin had already gotten out of bed.

I promptly wore some decent clothes and went out to look, only to see Teacher Lin sitting on a stool in the courtyard, staring blankly at the Jade pendant in her hand.

After eventually mustering up my courage, I said: “Teacher Lin, you must not wear that Jade pendant, it will harm you.”

“When I am living in your house, why don’t I get nightmares?” Teacher Lin asked.

“Because of me. I can prevent the Jade pendant from hurting you.” I told the truth. I had already started considering Teacher Lin as a part of the family. Of course the talk of marrying Teacher Lin was just childish talk. At this time, I naturally knew nothing about what marriage was.

“Because of you.” Teacher Lin still found it hard to believe. Although she had a vague suspicion.

“See this.” I grabbed the Jade pendant from Teacher Lin’s hands, condensed a strand of Primordial qi, and suddenly shot it into the Jade pendant.

“Ah!”

A wretched cry came out from the Jade pendant.

Teacher Lin fell down onto her rear out of fright, after quickly standing up, she looked horrified at the Jade pendant in my hands.

This time, unexpectedly I wasn’t able to wipe the Jade pendant clean from the dark qi like the previous time, so again I gathered a strand of primordial qi and once more shot it into the jade pendant. After repeating this several times, the dark qi within the jade pendant was finally eliminated completely. After finishing, I handed over the Jade pendant back to Teacher Lin.

“You see, originally this Jade pendant was translucent. Due to filthy objects entering it, it had turned black. It will hurt you!”

Teacher Lin somewhat dreading, took the jade pendant from my hands. This time, the jade pendant had turned completely dark green. Holding within one’s hands, the smoothness and roundness of the jade stone could also be felt. Moreover, it also didn’t give off gloomy and cold aura upon touch like before.

“Why? What is the purpose of this?” Teacher Lin muttered to herself. She was clearly feeling very deeply hurt. How painful it was to be hurt by someone whom you were prepared to entrust your entire life to.

I didn’t know how to comfort Teacher Lin. I wasn’t able to understand the affairs of an adult after all. I just did not want Teacher Lin to feel heart-broken, I could only imagine her being taken care of by her family and loved ones.

I had slightly forgotten, that solving the problem of Teacher Lin’s jade pendant, would instead provoke an even more troublesome problem.

I had at first thought that Cui Chenlin would come very soon like the previous time, so I didn’t expect that even after pa.s.sage of several days, Cui Chenlin didn’t come.

Seeing me in a restless state for several days in succession, Teacher Lin knew that I was worried about the matter of the Jade pendant.

“Don’t worry about anything, Teacher Lin won’t let you get hurt.” Teacher Lin gently caressed and stroked my head.

“I am afraid that he will kidnap Teacher Lin.” I said anxiously.

“He can’t. Teacher Lin is an adult. He won’t dare capture Teacher Lin.” Teacher Lin forced out a smile.

Seeing Teacher Lin’s smile, I felt much more relaxed.

What was bound to come would always come. [<– robin:just="" a="" slight="" note="" here,="" in="" case="" this="" line="" confuses="" some="" of="" you,="" it’s="" the="" good="" old="" “if="" something="" bad="" is="" going="" to="" happen,="" then="" it’s="" gonna="" happen="" no="" matter="" what="" you="" do,="" so="" there’s="" no="" reason="" to="" worry,="" and="" if="" something="" good="" is="" going="" to="" happen,="" then="" you="" don’t="" need="" to="" worry="" either”="" thing,="" it’s="" in="" lots="" of="" other="" novels="" as="" well="" :)]="" one="" day,="" when="" i="" was="" preparing="" to="" return="" home="" along="" with="" teacher="" lin,="" and="" we="" had="" just="" walked="" to="" the="" school="" entrance,="" there="" was="" a="" person="" in="" front="" of="" us="" who="" was="" blocking="" our="">

That person was wearing black clothes, his skin was extraordinarily pale, deathly pale, and he looked somewhat scary.

He was Cui Chenlin.

He had finally come!

“Huang Jingyang, you go back first. Teacher Lin still has a bit of work to take care of.” Teacher Lin handed over the exercise books in her hands to my hand.