novelraw Chapter 1 : Chapter 1
Chapter 1 : Chapter 1
Chapter 1: This Life
The Great Xia, the 91st year of Tianbao.
Tianyuan Continent, Anning County of Yunmeng Commandery, Yunzhou, in the northwest of Great Xia.
Although the summer solstice had already passed, the three suns hanging in the sky still blazed like red-hot iron balls, roasting the earth until heat shimmered upward from the ground.
Lin Bai crouched beneath an old locust tree, fanning himself furiously with a straw hat as though it were a palm fan. As he looked at the three suns overhead, the restlessness in his heart only grew stronger.
He could not help complaining inwardly.
“I’ve been in this world for fifteen years already, and every time I see those three suns, I still can’t keep it together. Am I the genuine Trisolaran here?”
“And their colors are even different too, one white and two yellow. Could it be that the great god Pangu, who split heaven and earth apart in this world, had double pupils?”
Just as Lin Bai’s thoughts were running wild, a palm smacked the back of his neck.
“You little brat, what are you spacing out for? Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
Lin Bai yelped in pain and jumped three feet into the air. He turned around to look at the tall man behind him. That man was his father, Lin Ye.
Because he spent all year exposed to the wind and sun, Lin Ye’s skin had turned a bronze hue, and his body bore one savage scar after another. Though broad and tall, his features were not coarse. In fact, he could even be called handsome.
Lin Bai got up and walked over to Lin Ye. Father and son headed together toward their family’s spirit field, while Lin Bai kept muttering under his breath.
“Dad, next time you call me, you don’t need to do it in such an affectionate way.”
“You little brat, all you know how to do is loaf around here every day.”
“I’m conserving my strength for socialism... no, for our family’s spirit field! I’m preparing to give it my all!”
Lin Bai argued in his own defense.
All things considered, Lin Bai’s family could be regarded as a wealthy household. They had a small shop in the city and an estate outside the city.
Those were all part of his mother’s dowry. As for the three mu of spirit field on the estate, they had been awarded to his father for military merit.
Strictly speaking, the Lin family’s spirit field was only spirit soil that contained spiritual energy. Back when Lin Bai’s father and mother had just married, his father had the spirit soil dug up and moved into the estate.
Before long, father and son finished inspecting the field and headed back. Nothing was wrong with it, and the spirit rice was growing well.
“There’s no problem. Come on, let’s go home.”
Lin Bai followed his father outside. Lin Ye still had to give instructions to the people specifically tasked with looking after the estate, the family of estate stewards.
The steward’s household consisted of three people: a married couple and their daughter, who was eight or nine years old.
It was harvest season now, so there was some concern that reckless fools might stir up trouble, though the security here did not really require too much worry.
There was even a joke that if someone shouted for help here, the constables would arrive faster than they would in the slums of Anning County.
While Lin Bai idled behind Lin Ye in boredom, he noticed that the little girl from the steward’s family was hiding behind her mother and secretly peeking at him. Amused, he suddenly felt like teasing her, so he winked at her.
In an instant, she darted back behind her mother again. Seeing that, Lin Bai could not help feeling delighted.
Lin Bai had come to this world fifteen years ago, but unlike the other transmigrator seniors of legend, he had not been born with innate awareness. Instead, starting at around the age of three, he had gradually begun receiving fragmented memories bit by bit, and the older he grew, the more of them he obtained.
Only a few days ago had he finally recovered all of his memories. Lin Bai guessed that it was probably related to his spiritual power. As he grew older, his spiritual power became stronger, and so he was able to receive more information.
That was why Lin Bai was like a child who possessed the mind of an adult. Yet deep down, he still retained some childish temperament, and from time to time he would do things that suited a child’s nature.
At last, after Lin Ye finished giving his instructions, he took Lin Bai out of the estate.
A donkey was leisurely grazing beside the main gate. Lin Ye led it over and hitched it to the flatbed cart. He drove in front while Lin Bai sat in the back.
As Lin Bai watched the scenery along the way, he saw some villages clustered together like little dumplings, while others lay scattered among the hills, with wisps of cooking smoke curling upward.
“Dad, why are we heading back so early today?”
“Your sister is coming back today. We’re going to the market to buy a few things.”
“Big Sister is coming back?”
At those words, Lin Bai was overjoyed. Lin Ye had two children in all, and Lin Bai was the younger one.
When his sister, Lin Su, awakened her spiritual talent at the age of fifteen, Father Lin and Mother Lin pulled some strings. Since her talent was also extremely compatible with Benevolent Heart Hall, she became an apothecary apprentice there in the commandery city.
Lin Su was eighteen this year, and she only got one five-day break every half year to come home and reunite with the family. Since Lin Bai had practically been raised by his sister from childhood, the two of them were naturally very close.
After his initial joy, however, Lin Bai felt a little puzzled. By all rights, it had not yet been half a year since her last visit, so how could his sister be coming home already?
As if sensing Lin Bai’s confusion, his father continued speaking.
“Your sister has already become a junior alchemist, so she can ask for leave and come home. Besides, your Awakening Day is two days from now. Did you forget? Of course your sister would definitely come back for that.”
Hearing that, Lin Bai understood.
If Lin Su could return for his Awakening Day, then she would unquestionably choose to come home.
Still, the news that his sister had become a junior alchemist truly surprised him.
Ordinarily, if a normal person wanted to become a junior alchemist, then without seven or eight years of accumulation, it was simply impossible. He had never expected his sister to achieve it in only about three years.
Then again, his sister’s talent was highly compatible with the Alchemical Dao, and her spirituality was strong, so it was not all that strange.
And speaking of that, one had to mention the most extraordinary aspect of this world: spiritual transcendence.
This world possessed transcendent power, much like the immortal cultivation and Qi refinement of the cultivation novels from his previous world.
Just as dragons and phoenixes were born with divine abilities, the human race of this world also possessed such a wonder. It was called spiritual talent, and once a person reached the age of fifteen, they had a chance to awaken it.
Some succeeded, while others failed. Or rather, those who failed were the majority.
However, Lin Bai lived in an era considered a golden age. There were pills that could raise the success rate of awakening, and there were pills that could allow those who had failed once to awaken again.
Moreover, after repeated improvements and innovations, the prices of those pills had become fairly affordable. Well, affordable at least by the standards of Lin Bai’s family.
If this had been the Near Ancient Era from more than three hundred thousand years ago, then talent awakening had been like gambling on raw stones. Either you had it or you did not.
Of course, awakening did not mean one could become invincible in a single step. One still had to accumulate Dao practice and strengthen one’s life essence before it was possible to reach a realm akin to that of the gods.
At that thought, Lin Bai’s attention drifted away from the scenery on either side of the road, and he began imagining what sort of spiritual talent he himself might awaken.
Would it be a bodily talent suited to the path of a martial artist? Or would it be a soul-oriented gift like that of a Qi Refiner, one naturally close to the Qi of heaven and earth? Or perhaps it would be the talent of a diviner, a seer who could know the whole from the falling of a single leaf.
He had already learned about all these common paths of the Dao during his most basic studies.
Time always passed quickly when one was immersed in fantasy. The moment Lin Bai lifted his head, he saw the distant top of a wall. That was the city wall of Anning County.
In certain respects, the productive capacity of this world was extraordinarily advanced. Anning County was not even a particularly large county town, yet its city wall stood nearly ten zhang high, and talisman-like things occasionally flashed across its surface.
Anning County had two main gates in total, one to the south and one to the north. As for the overall layout of the county seat, it was: officials in the east, merchants in the south, commoners in the west, and the market in the north.
The meaning was obvious from the names alone. The east housed the government offices and government personnel, the south was where wealthy merchants did business, the west was where ordinary people lived, and the north was the marketplace.
Still, aside from the east, which truly was strictly regulated and could not be mixed with the others, the rest were more or less interwoven.
In the southern district of Anning County, there was even a small area where common folk entering through the south gate gathered to do business, and there was a similar area in the west.
For example, when rich merchants and nobles wished to buy fresh vegetables and fruit, they could purchase them nearby. The reason the northern market existed was to regulate goods related to the transcendent.
For instance, the spirit rice produced by Lin Bai’s family could not be sold in their own shop. Anything containing spiritual energy could only be traded and sold in the northern market.
He had once heard that some wealthy merchants had joined forces to petition the county government, hoping to obtain something like exclusive operating rights so they could open branch markets free from the original market’s restrictions.
But it was said that the next day, every member of those merchants’ households had hanged themselves. Afterward, the government constables came to investigate and concluded that they had died by suicide, then rapidly closed and sealed the case. Even the forces backing those merchants remained silent as cicadas in winter.
After seeing an outcome like that, everyone understood that this was a subject not to be touched.
The Lin family estate lay outside the north gate. Entering from the north gate and heading off to the side would bring one to the market, while the Lin family residence and rice shop were in the south of the city.
After father and son bought a few things at the market, they noticed that it was getting late, so they hurried home.
Lin Ye and Lin Bai rushed all the way and finally returned to their family shop just as the suns were leaving behind their last lingering glow.
Subai Rice Shop was the name of their family business. It did not carry any special meaning. It was simply made from the names of the brother and sister, and since the Lin family sold rice, they had chosen that name.
The family shop employed two workers in total, named Chen Gui and Zhao Wen. Both of them were eighteen years old.
They had both successfully awakened spiritual talent, but theirs were only the most ordinary kind that increased physical strength, and neither of them had any cultivation method.
In the end, because Father Lin saw that they were honest by nature, and because their talents were useful for carrying and delivering rice for the family shop, he signed ten-year contracts with them.
Just as Lin Ye and Lin Bai stepped into the shop, the two clerks were tidying up while greeting them.
“Shopkeeper, Young Master Bai, the eldest miss returned a little while ago. Madam has already gone home to keep her company.”
“Big Sister already got home early? Dad, I’m heading back first!”
With the ingredients they had just bought in his hands, Lin Bai hurried home at once. Before Lin Ye even had time to say anything else, Lin Bai had already vanished, leaving his father only able to shake his head and laugh as he cursed.
“This brat is running off in such a hurry. It hasn’t even been that long since his sister came back last time. Looks like I’ll have to tidy things up myself.”
Though Father Lin said that, his hands were moving much faster than usual.
The shop was not far from the Lin family home. Before long, Lin Bai arrived.
The Lin residence was a four-courtyard house. On the way in, Lin Bai first dropped off the ingredients at the kitchen, and there he also learned that his mother and the others were in his sister’s courtyard.
The moment he pushed open the courtyard gate, he saw his mother and sister chatting in the yard.
“Big Sister! When did you get back? If I’d known earlier, I wouldn’t have gone to the estate. I could have stayed at the shop with Mom and waited for you.”