Ten Years in the Mortal World

Spring passed and autumn arrived; the cold left and the heat returned. In the mountains, time lost its meaning, and the years slipped by unnoticed. In the blink of an eye, ten years had passed.

Over these ten years, the small settlement at the foot of the mountain, known as Green Ox Village, had seen three different village chiefs. The old locust tree at the village entrance had grown another ring thicker, and Granny Wang's little grandson had grown from a swaddled infant into a half-grown boy running all over the mountains.

The young couple from out of town, living at the eastern end of the village, had also transformed from unfamiliar faces people pointed at to good neighbors praised by everyone in the village.

The man's name was Ye Xuan. He was handsome and refined, yet he put on no airs whatsoever.

He would help Old Man Zhang repair his leaking roof, fetch water and chop wood for Widow Li, and during the busy farming seasons, he would go wherever an extra pair of hands was needed.

He was incredibly strong, able to do the work of three sturdy men alone, yet after finishing, he wouldn't eat a single extra bite of their food. He would just smile, wave his hand, and say it was merely a small effort.

The woman was named Ying'er. She had a fresh and radiant appearance, and her temperament was as gentle as a spring breeze in March.

Her embroidery was exceptional. Every time the manager of the silk shop in town saw her work, his eyes would light up, claiming that such craftsmanship would be considered top-tier even in the capital.

She also knew how to brew medicinal meals. Whenever a child in the village caught a cold or an elder suffered from backaches, she could always concoct a bowl of medicinal soup that was neither bitter nor astringent, and they would recover after just a few doses.

The villagers all said that this young couple was a pair of immortal lovers who had descended to the mortal realm.

Ten years.

To a cultivator, it was nothing more than a fleeting moment spent in a single secluded meditation. Some mighty figures comprehending a law in a secret realm would open their eyes to find a century had passed. Ten years was not even enough time for their beards to grow an inch.

But for Ye Xuan, these ten years were the slowest, most earnest, and most human years he had lived across his two lifetimes.

Early morning.

A hint of fish-belly white had just appeared on the horizon.

The mountain mist had yet to disperse. The milky-white, gauze-like morning haze flowed gently through the village, like the gentlest hand of heaven and earth softly brushing over every tiled eave, every old tree, and every inch of dew-kissed soil.

The distant mountains were layered one upon another. The closest one was dyed in emerald green, the slightly further one faded into a blue-gray, and the furthest merged with the horizon, making it impossible to tell where the mountain ended and the clouds began.

The air was filled with the earthy sweetness of the soil, the fresh fragrance of wildflowers, and the scent of firewood drifting from an unknown stove.

The rooster crowed three times.

At the first crow, the sky was still dark. Only the most diligent farmers would roll over and silently calculate the day's chores in their minds.

At the second crow, cooking smoke began to rise from chimneys scattered across the village, thin and soft, like the first breath exhaled by the earth.

By the third crow, Ye Xuan was already awake.

He did not get up immediately. Instead, he lay quietly in the dark for a while.

Beside him came Ying'er's even and long breathing, her warm breath gently brushing against his shoulder.

Her hand had somehow climbed onto his forearm, her five fingers slightly curled, like a little sparrow refusing to let go of its branch even in sleep.

Ye Xuan did not move.

He turned his head and, by the faint starlight filtering through the cracks in the window lattice, quietly watched Ying'er's sleeping face.

After ten years of mountain village life, her cheeks had grown a bit plumper, bearing a healthy flush. The corners of her mouth were slightly upturned even in sleep, as if she were having a sweet dream.

Her hair was scattered on the pillow like black satin, with one disobedient strand resting on the tip of her nose, rising and falling with her breath.

Ye Xuan gently raised his hand and used the pad of his finger to brush that strand of hair away. His movements were so light, it was as if he were touching a fragile piece of moonlight.

Ying'er wrinkled her nose, mumbled something indistinct in her sleep, rolled over, and wrapped the quilt tighter around herself.

The corners of Ye Xuan's lips curled up slightly.

He carefully moved Ying'er's hand off his arm, tucked the corners of the quilt in for her, and then rose soundlessly. He put on a washed-out, coarse cloth short shirt and pushed the door open to step outside.

The wooden door had been repaired by him last winter.

He remembered it clearly.

That day, the first snow of winter had fallen, and the northern wind howled through the cracks in the door, making Ying'er freeze and sneeze repeatedly while huddled under the covers.

Without a word, he braved the wind and snow to go up the mountain, chopped down an old pine tree as thick as a bowl, and used a woodchopper's knife to whittle it down into a door panel bit by bit.

He had not used his spiritual energy.

Cut by cut, he relied entirely on his physical strength.

His hands had blistered with blood, and it took him a full three days to craft this perfectly fitted new door.

Ying'er's eyes had turned red with heartache. She held his hands and applied badger oil to them, shedding tears as she rubbed it in, saying, Husband, why go to such lengths? Wouldn't it have been fine to just use... use that?

Ye Xuan knew exactly what she meant by that.

He smiled and shook his head, saying, Ying'er, mortal matters should be done in a mortal way. That's what makes it meaningful.

Ying'er nodded, only half understanding, but she still ached for him for days, secretly boiling an extra egg for him at every meal.

Creak!

The sound of the door hinges turning was exceptionally clear in the quiet early morning.

Ye Xuan took a deep breath, letting the crisp and sweet mountain air fill his lungs.

He stretched his body, his bones emitting a series of faint popping sounds.

By now, he had long lost his original pale and effeminate appearance.

Ten years ago, Ye Xuan's skin had been almost morbidly pale, and his figure was as thin as a stalk of green bamboo that could be snapped by the wind at any moment.

Although his features were exquisite, they always carried an unsettling gloom and sharpness. He was beautiful, yes, but he made people afraid to approach him.

Back then, every pore on his body exuded an aura of danger.

Now, his skin bore a healthy wheat complexion, the result of ten years of wind and sun in the fields.

His shoulders were broader than before, and his arms had grown thicker. His muscle lines were smooth and unexaggerated, neither bulging and knotted like a martial artist's, nor frail and weak like a scholar's. They perfectly contained a restrained sense of power.

His facial features hadn't changed much; he still had sword-like eyebrows, starry eyes, and a high-bridged nose. But those once sinister and cold eyes had now become deep and reserved, like two profound mountain springs, calm and unrippled on the surface, yet hiding an all-seeing radiance beneath.

His temperament had changed as well.

In the past, he was like a drawn sword, its sharp edge exposed and aggressively overbearing.

Now, he looked like a handsome scholar who was well-read in poetry and literature, yet equally skilled in farm work.

The girls and young wives in the village would privately say that the man of the Ye family was even more handsome than the top scholars in the storyteller's paintings in town. Yet he wasn't sleazy in the slightest; his gaze was clean and pure when he looked at people, and he had two shallow dimples when he smiled.

What a lucky catch for that little lady named Ying'er.

Ye Xuan walked into the courtyard and began his morning exercise.

The courtyard was not large, but he kept it in perfect order.

On the left were the vegetable beds planted by Ying'er. Cucumbers climbed up the bamboo frames, their leaves still bearing crystal-clear dewdrops; the bean vines intertwined, blooming with small purple and white flowers; a few chili plants stood tall and spirited, their heavy green and red fruits hanging from the branches.

On the right was an old apricot tree of unknown age. It was said to have been there when they first moved in, with a trunk so thick that a single person couldn't wrap their arms around it.

When it bloomed in spring, the tree was covered in pale pink and white, and the falling petals blanketed the ground. Ying'er always liked to catch them with a bamboo basket, saying she was going to make apricot blossom cakes.

In the center of the courtyard sat a stone table and two stone stools, which Ye Xuan had carved himself from rocks he carried down from the mountains.

His craftsmanship wasn't exactly refined, leaving the table surface somewhat uneven, but Ying'er had spread a tablecloth she embroidered herself over it and placed a coarse pottery vase filled with wildflowers on top, giving it a unique rustic charm.

Chopped firewood was stacked neatly in the corner. Beside it stood a few farming tools: a hoe, a sickle, and a carrying pole. They were all wiped spotlessly clean, gleaming with the dark gray luster typical of ironware.

There was also a sword.

An ordinary iron sword.

It leaned casually against the corner, squeezed in with the farming tools, completely inconspicuous.

The blade had no patterns, the hilt had no decorations, and it didn't even have a scabbard, wrapped only in a piece of coarse cloth.

If a knowledgeable swordsmith were to see this sword, they would probably shake their head and sigh. The iron was coarse, the carbon content uneven, and the quenching process was an absolute mess. Let alone killing someone, it would be a struggle just to chop wood with it.

But Ye Xuan cherished this sword.

It was bought from the blacksmith shop in town during his first year in the village, costing one hundred and twenty copper coins saved up from three months of selling firewood.

One hundred and twenty copper coins.

This amount should have been insignificant to him, a man who once threw around heavenly materials and earthly treasures, spending money like water.

But those one hundred and twenty coins were saved up one by one, earned by carrying ninety-six loads of firewood, walking over three hundred miles of mountain roads, and wearing out two pairs of straw sandals.

Every single coin was soaked in sweat and the blood blisters on the soles of his feet.

Therefore, even though this sword was incredibly crude, in Ye Xuan's heart, it was more precious than any immortal sword he had ever owned.

Ye Xuan walked over and picked up the iron sword.

The blade was cold, carrying the dampness of the morning dew.

He did not strike any starting stance, nor did he circulate his qi to regulate his breathing, nor did he channel spiritual energy to form sword aura or sword light on the blade.

He simply stood naturally in the middle of the courtyard, feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, holding the iron sword, and facing the air...

Cleave.

Thrust.

Slash upward.

Parry.

These were the four most basic and unadorned movements in swordsmanship.

Any newly initiated sword cultivator disciple would learn these four stances on their very first day. They were simple to the extreme.

But Ye Xuan was practicing them.

And he had been practicing them for ten years.

Ye Xuan slowly practiced just like this.

One cleave. One thrust. One upward slash. One parry.

The sparrows on the old apricot tree chirped, mocking the young man's clumsy swordplay.

The big yellow dog from Granny Wang's house next door lay on the low wall, its ears drooping, yawning out of sheer boredom. It had watched this scene for ten years and was long used to it.

The morning light gradually brightened.

Golden sunlight crested the silhouette of the distant mountains, pierced through the branches and leaves of the apricot tree, and cast mottled shadows in the courtyard. The light and shadows swayed gently with the breeze, falling upon Ye Xuan as if draping him in a thin shirt woven from fragmented gold.

His movements remained very slow.

But if someone looked closely, they would discover a bizarre thing...

His breathing was perfectly in sync with the rhythm of the morning breeze.

His pacing was perfectly synchronized with the speed of the sunrise.

The arc of his raised sword exactly matched the curve of the distant mountains.

The direction of his falling sword pointed straight at the last fading morning star.

His sword was no longer an isolated iron tool, but had merged into the entirety of heaven and earth, becoming part of this morning mountain landscape.

Like the wind blowing through the treetops, like water flowing over pebbles, like clouds drifting past mountain peaks.

Perfectly natural.

Seamless and flawless.

The final stance.

A straight thrust.

This was the simplest, most direct move in swordsmanship.

There were no fancy tricks, no variations. It was just gripping the hilt tightly and thrusting the blade forward.

Ye Xuan's body leaned slightly forward, his back foot pushing off the ground, his front foot stepping out half a pace.

The entire process was still very slow, so slow that one could clearly see his sleeves gently billowing from the airflow he stirred up.

And then...

Hiss...

An extremely faint sound.

So faint that only Ye Xuan himself could hear it.

That was the last trace of residual pill toxicity in his body, flowing along his meridians, converging into his dantian, and then swept up by his spiritual energy from the dantian, channeled through the meridians of his arm to the palm holding the sword, and finally expelled from his body through the pores of his fingertips.

Phew...

Ye Xuan exhaled a breath of foul air.

This foul air was grayish-black, carrying a pungent, foul stench, so thick that one could almost see tiny particles tumbling within it.

The foul air landed on the ground.

Sizzle!

A puff of white smoke immediately rose from the surface of the bluestone slab, making a sound like burning metal. When the white smoke dissipated, a depression the size of a copper coin had appeared out of nowhere on the originally smooth stone surface. The edges of the hole were scorched black, and faint wisps of residual black qi were slowly fading away.

If an alchemist were present, they would likely be scared out of their wits by this scene.

Because this expelled foul air was essentially the unabsorbed medicinal dregs of dozens of rare spirit pills, along with the toxicity generated by their accumulation in the body over years and months.

Ye Xuan knew how terrifying these things were.

Back then, in order to raise his strength in the shortest amount of time, he had swallowed countless spirit pills and miraculous medicines almost like drinking poison to quench thirst.

Those pills did indeed cause his cultivation base to advance by leaps and bounds in a short period, but the price was also extremely tragic.

His meridians were filled with spiritual energy remnants of various conflicting attributes. The wood attribute fought with the fire attribute, the metal attribute caused internal friction with the earth attribute, and there were also some impurities of unknown origin whose composition even he couldn't identify, churning into a muddy sludge within his dantian.

Ye Xuan's spiritual energy was the same.

It was true that his cultivation was at the late stage of the Soul Formation realm, and his total spiritual energy was massive enough. But that spiritual energy was like gold mixed with half sand; it looked weighty, but its actual purity was worrisome.

If he didn't solve this problem, his path of cultivation would end here.

Let alone breaking through to the Body Integration realm, he wouldn't even be able to touch the peak of the late Soul Formation stage.

Because the higher the realm, the more stringent the requirements for the purity of spiritual energy.

Ye Xuan's foundation had already been eaten away by that pill toxicity until it was riddled with holes.

This was an almost unsolvable dilemma.

In the cultivation world, there was a saying: When pill toxicity enters the bones, the immortal path is severed.

Once most cultivators went down the wrong path of substituting cultivation with pills, they could never turn back. Their talent would be nibbled away bit by bit by the pill toxicity, their cultivation would gradually stagnate, and ultimately, during a bottleneck breakthrough, they would lose all their power to spiritual energy backlash, or even explode and die.

But Ye Xuan was not like most cultivators.

He had the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Scripture.

The Cleansing Method recorded within it could gradually separate, refine, and expel all impurities in the body in an extremely gentle yet thoroughly complete manner.

It was just that this process required an extremely long time.

Furthermore, there was a very harsh condition...

Cultivators had to completely integrate into the rhythm of nature. They had to work at sunrise and rest at sunset. They had to subsist on plain tea and simple meals, clearing their minds and limiting their desires. They had to let their bodies return to their truest, most primitive states, relying on the natural power of heaven and earth to achieve purification.

To put it bluntly, it meant living the life of a mortal.

The life of a true mortal.

It was not the kind of theatrical show that cultivators called experiencing the mortal realm, where they lived in manors built of spirit wood, ate porridge boiled with the meat of spirit beasts, and euphemistically called it living in seclusion.

Instead, it meant genuinely casting aside all the pride and habits of a cultivator. It meant picking up a hoe to till the earth, carrying a yoke to water the crops, sitting on the ridges of the fields to gnaw on cold steamed buns, and collapsing onto a haystack to sleep soundly when exhausted.

Ye Xuan had achieved this.

It took him a full ten years.

Three thousand six hundred and fifty days and nights.

Every single day, he rose with the sun to chop wood and carry water, worked the fields, returned at dusk, ate simple fare, and went to sleep early.

Every single day, he practiced the four most basic sword stances: cleaving, piercing, sweeping, and parrying.

Every single day, he utilized the cleansing methods of the Six Paths of Reincarnation Heavenly Sutra to force the pill toxins out of his body, bit by bit, strand by strand.

The process was tedious to the extreme, agonizing to the extreme, and drawn-out to the extreme.

Sometimes, an entire month would pass, and the expelled pill toxins would not even be enough to dampen a fingernail.

Yet Ye Xuan never grew impatient, and he never gave up.

Because he knew...

Haste makes waste.

In the past, he had relied on the resources provided by Empress Zi Yao and the others, wildly consuming pills to cause his cultivation base to skyrocket.

Now, he needed to slow down.

He needed to slow down until he was breathing in tandem with the vegetation in these mountains, moving in harmony with the sun and moon in the sky.