Ginseng's Path to Immortality - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I slept for several decades. Upon waking, I stretched my limbs and burrowed out from underground.

I carefully inspected my rootlets. Good, not a single one was missing.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Shen Shen, why are you glowing with golden light?”

Hearing that, I turned my head and saw a giant white python coiled around a tree, speaking in a human tongue.

“Xiao Bai, it’s you! You can talk now!”

I remembered the last time I saw Xiao Bai; she was still just a little white snake.

Back then, she was covered in wounds and tried to eat me. I gave her a sound thrashing and casually twisted her into a little dough twist.

Xiao Bai cried piteously, saying she had been captured by bad people and nearly turned into medicine. She had barely managed to escape, only to be beaten up by a Ginseng Spirit.

Yes, I was that Ginseng Spirit who beat her up.

At the time, her crying was making me irritable, so I stuffed one of my small rootlets into her mouth to plug it.

Xiao Bai stopped crying and started chewing.

Then, I lost a rootlet, and Xiao Bai’s injuries healed.

From that moment on, the two of us became friends.

Xiao Bai flicked her tongue at me. “Shen Shen, do you remember how long you’ve been cultivating?”

I held up my golden little hands and counted on my fingers. “I’ve only slept a few hundred times… maybe a thousand years or so?”

Xiao Bai suddenly lunged and coiled herself around me. “A Millennium Ginseng Spirit! You’re a powerful tonic!”

I easily pinched Xiao Bai’s gaping maw shut. “Xiao Bai, you’ve gotten quite arrogant.”

Realizing the disparity in our strength, Xiao Bai blinked. “Hehe, I was just kidding.”

I stretched my limbs and transformed into human form. I hung Xiao Bai back onto the tree, casually tying her into an Auspicious Knot before heading down the mountain.

The Auspicious Knot shouted after me, “Shen Shen, where are you going?”

I waved my hand. “Down the mountain to repay a debt of gratitude.”

“I, Shen Shen, am about to become an immortal.”

All spirits cultivate for the sake of becoming immortals, and I am no exception.

I have devoted myself to cultivation for a thousand years and am now only one step away from the Immortal Gate.

Back when I was still a little Ginseng Spirit, I slept so deeply that I was dug up by someone. Fortunately, a child from that family secretly took me out of the medicine basket and threw me onto the ground, allowing me to survive by a stroke of luck.

Though that child might have just been playing around, to me, it was a heavenly grace that must be repaid.

I expect that only by severing my worldly karma can I ascend to immortality. After all, isn’t that how it’s always written in the storybooks?

So, I planned to go down the mountain to repay my benefactor.

The child who saved me back then is a young general in this life, and he just happens to be passing by the foot of the mountain today.

Sure enough, not long after I started walking, I caught the scent of my benefactor.

I hurried toward him, but since my human form only has two legs and I was moving them too fast, my left foot tripped over my right. I made immediate, intimate contact with the ground.

Ugh, the fragrance of the earth!

It smells so good! I think I’ll lie here a bit longer.

“Miss? Are you alright?”

Hearing this, I looked up and saw a handsome youth clad in armor, leaning against a tree and covered in blood.

From the looks of it, there was a high probability that he was the one who was not alright.

I recognized him at a glance as the reincarnation of that child from all those years ago.

“Benefactor!”

I let out an excited cry. The youth knit his brows in confusion.

I scrambled toward him on all fours, and predictably, I tripped myself again.

This time, I slammed squarely into my benefactor.

The person beneath me let out a cry of pain and then went silent.

Good heavens, did I just crush him to death?

I scrambled to my feet in a panic and checked his breathing.

Whew, thank goodness. He just fainted from the impact; there’s still hope.

But since he was unconscious, he couldn’t chew on my rootlets. I was at a bit of a loss.

The Auspicious Knot slithered down from the mountain at that moment.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Did you come down the mountain to repay a debt or to seek a vendetta?”

I truly lacked experience in this area. “I wanted to save him, but he’s unconscious. How do I save him like this?”

Xiao Bai huffed. “I know, but I’m not telling you! That’s what you get for tying me into a knot again!”

Feeling a bit helpless, I offered a sincere apology. “Xiao Bai-bai, I was wrong. I promise I won’t tie you into an Auspicious Knot next time.”

As for other kinds of knots… well, we’ll see.

Xiao Bai was satisfied. “Taking care of humans is very troublesome. You have to put him in a room where he’s shielded from the wind and sun, then stop the bleeding, bandage him up, and feed him medicine.”

I asked earnestly, “How can he take medicine if he’s unconscious?”

Xiao Bai replied, “Stupid! He doesn’t necessarily have to chew your rootlets! You can just soak a rootlet in water and give it to him to drink. It’s the same thing!”

Soaking a rootlet in water? Wouldn’t that just be… foot-washing water?