Li Tongya felt his heart skip a beat, and his vision swam dizzily. Hastily turning his head, he looked down toward the pale-green spirit rice swaying unsteadily in the field, and said softly:
"You... best wait until you have completed your Profound Vision Wheel before we speak of other things."
Liu Rouxuan laughed with a titter, drew close to Li Tongya's face, her fine brows easing gently, and whispered into his ear:
"Then, brother Tongya, mind you don't run off with someone else first..."
Li Tongya's face flushed scarlet. Half-vexed and half-ashamed, he rose and said:
"Mind you cultivate properly!"
With that he fled out of the courtyard like one running from a fight, making for the distance.
Li Tongya walked a stretch along the stone path, washed his face in the river, and only then gradually calmed himself. Unable to help it, he smiled wryly:
"I fear I've fallen into her clutches."
"Elder Brother truly has taken a liking to that Liu Rouxuan! Father has really played a master stroke!"
Lo and behold, Li Xiangping sat laughing at the water's edge, calling out to Li Tongya with a smile:
"When Father had you take on Liu Rouxuan back then, Elder Brother, you saw only the outward scheme — the trading of ground to govern the border and keep a faction from growing too great. But a man in the game is blind: you could not see the inward scheme aimed squarely at you, Li Tongya!"
"Third Brother, do stop teasing me!"
Li Tongya smiled wryly, shook his head helplessly, and answered:
"The more I look at Father, the more I feel there is always something left to learn from the old gentleman."
"That there is!"
Li Xiangping nodded, then said in all seriousness:
"The three Snake-Yuan Pills Xiao Yuansi left behind, I mean to save for the day you and I break through to the Jade Capital Wheel, to use in storming the pass."
"As for the Fog-Maze Formation, Father and Yesheng have already given their blood. I shall then personally carry that dharma mirror quietly up to the little courtyard on the mountain. As for the Mystic Water Sword Art... I fear I have no talent for it, Elder Brother, so you had best keep studying it a while longer."
Li Tongya scooped a handful of river water to wash his hands, then answered:
"Chijing has been at the immortal sect for nearly three years now, and this first planting of spirit rice is soon to ripen. In the days ahead, you and I will not be idle."
---
The snow in Lijing Village this year fell thicker than in years past. The spirit rice in the fields had ripened, its pale-green ears encasing grains of jade-white spirit rice, standing straight and unbent in the fields, unyielding even under the weight of the heavy snow.
This spirit rice was nothing like common grain. Its leaves were sharp as knives, and the stalks had to be reaped with axes. Li Tongya and the others attached the Golden Light Art to their sickles and only then managed to harvest those few fields of spirit rice.
Watching the green sheaves pile into a stack of bundled mounds, Li Qiuyang stamped the snow from his feet, clapped his hands, and laughed:
"Brother Xiangping, this spirit rice looks proper cheering."
Li Qiuyang had completed his Profound Vision Wheel last month, and had sworn the Profound Vision Spirit Oath in the clan ancestral hall, learning a few arts as well. The boy was now ten, and as his features had lengthened he had turned rather handsome, with something of a grown look about him.
He had, a year ago, already stored up his full eighty-one strands of spiritual power, but his attempt to condense the Profound Vision Wheel had fallen short, and so he had had to spend another year drawing breath in meditation to recover his strength — which had very nearly let Liu Rouxuan catch up to him.
"Not bad."
Li Xiangping smiled too, his own dharma power circulating without cease, for he had already completed his Orbital Wheel.
Tian Yun had carried twins, bringing a pair of children into the Li family, and it had made him grin from ear to ear. The old man Li Mutian had looked the children over again and again, and according to the clan's generation order, the boy was named Li Xuanfeng and the girl Li Jingtian.
"The White Origin Fruit is not yet ripe, but this spirit rice is already harvested. Let's carry it back for now."
The village laborers behind had long since clipped the leaves of the spirit rice one by one with shears and bound them with coarse rope before they dared, two at a time, to lift and move the bundles. Those spirit-rice leaves were as sharp as blades, and the men had suffered no little hardship.
When they reached the foot of Lijing Mountain, a thin mist began to creep and spread. Li Yesheng said in a low voice to those behind:
"Keep close! If you fall into that formation, mind your own lives!"
The village laborers quickly acknowledged him, and the party trod the stone path to the summit and set their sheaves of spirit rice down in the courtyard. Li Xiangping then waved a hand:
"Take them down."
Taking the rice down from its stalks required dharma power to pluck, and then a special hand seal had to be worked to strip the husk from the grain, all so that the spirit rice's spiritual energy would not be lost.
In this whole business of harvesting spirit rice, all a mortal could do was cut and haul with sickles to which the Golden Light Art had been attached. The truly vital steps still needed a cultivator to handle.
"Third Uncle! Cousin!"
Li Xuanxuan came out of the courtyard, cupping his hands toward Li Qiuyang and Li Xiangping. He was now past seven, his frame slowly filling out, and his face bore no small resemblance to the departed Li Changhu.
"Xuanxuan, come over here."
Seeing Li Xuanxuan moving toward Li Qiuyang, Li Xiangping's expression shifted at once, and he hastily called out. Once Li Xuanxuan had settled at his side, he smiled:
"This child tested with a spiritual aperture before the year's end and cultivates with astonishing speed. In a few more months, I'd reckon, he'll have finished his Profound Vision Wheel."
Li Xuanxuan heard this and was taken aback, doubt sprouting in his heart as he brooded:
"The family plainly never measured my root bone, nor passed down any methods to me. What can Third Uncle mean by this...?"
Yet a smile stayed on his face as he nodded toward the enviously staring Li Qiuyang.
"Xuanxuan, you're truly formidable!"
Li Qiuyang could not help but praise him, and thinking of how he himself had needed two full years to condense his Profound Vision Wheel, he felt a twinge of shame.
The two chatted a while, and it was not until Li Tongya came up the mountain that Li Xuanxuan took his leave. The brothers then spent several hours stripping the rice from its stalks and hulling the grain. Li Mutian divided it into sacks and, hefting one lightly, said:
"Hundred and twenty catties of spirit rice — forty catties of spirit-rice bran."
"When another crop comes in two years, this tribute should suffice."
Li Xiangping saw Li Qiuyang off, then set the two sacks of spirit rice and bran upon the table to inspect them. Each grain of rice was as smooth and lovely as white jade, and he could not help but sigh in admiration. He put the rice away in the house and then said softly to Li Tongya:
"Xuanxuan is seven, his frame settling. The time has come for him to cultivate."
Li Tongya froze a moment, then nodded thoughtfully, and with Li Xiangping strode together into the house.
The charcoal fire burned in the room. Old men drowse in winter, and Li Mutian had long since gone to sleep. In the main hall only Li Xuanxuan remained, huddled by the stove warming himself.
Li Xuanxuan watched the snowflakes drifting down the mountainside, gazing blankly at the snow-cloaked Lijing Mountain. When he saw the two men, he rose at once and asked:
"Third Uncle, why did you tell Cousin that I was about to finish my Profound Vision Wheel? If it turns out I have no spiritual aperture, won't I be a shameful laughingstock..."
Li Xiangping carefully closed the doors and windows, made a silencing gesture to Li Xuanxuan, and said in a low voice:
"Come with me."
Li Xuanxuan fell mute at once and obediently followed behind Li Xiangping to the very depths of the courtyard, before a grey-brick-tiled house.
Li Xiangping took out a key, undid the padlock on the door, and gently pushed it open. He said quietly to Li Xuanxuan:
"Come in."
Seeing Li Xiangping so solemn, Li Xuanxuan grew uneasy as well. The room inside was spacious, with only a blue stone platform in its very center, upon which stood a grey-green mirror on a stand.
Incense had been burned in the room, and its scent was soothing and reassuring. Li Xuanxuan peeled a glance at Li Xiangping, who stood silently staring at the mirror, and dared not speak.