Seeking Immortality - Chapter 1

Immortals came to town to recruit disciples.

Every child under the age of ten was allowed to try.

My parents gritted their teeth and sold two mu of poor farmland so they could take my two older brothers and me to have our spiritual roots tested.

Every family ahead of us left with their heads hanging.

When my turn came, the testing stone lit up for a single breath.

It flashed like a firecracker at New Year.

The immortal in flowing white robes swept an indifferent gaze across my excitement-reddened face and said one word: “Keep him.”

Father came home clutching a hundred taels of silver. Mother kissed my forehead again and again.

“It’s only a shame your two brothers weren’t chosen.”

I lifted my chin with dignified pride and thought, There is only ever one hero in a storybook.

The villagers came to congratulate us. They said they had always known I was extraordinarily gifted. I was the only child chosen from the entire town.

I peered out from beneath the adults’ arms. The one praising me was Granny Shitou.

Only yesterday, she had said I looked like a fool and was nowhere near as clever as her grandson.

Mother laughed loudly. “The night I gave birth to him, I dreamed a golden dragon flew into my arms.”

That was strange. Hadn’t Mother said I was born at noon?

Erdan sniffed back his snot. “Once you start cultivating, will you still be friends with us?”

“Of course.”

I put my hands behind my back and copied the way the teacher at the village school walked.

“Once I become an immortal, I’ll bring you all pills of immortality.”

My friends crowded around me and cheered.

Erdan pulled half a piece of melted malt candy from inside his clothes.

“Then I’ll wait for you to come back.”

I popped it into my mouth and said indistinctly,

“You’ll get the first one. But we have a deal—you can’t keep having such a runny nose.”

Erdan agreed with a silly grin and wiped his cheek with his sleeve, stretching the snot into a long string.

My parents hugged me over and over, and my two brothers secretly wiped away tears.

I waved a hand. “What are you afraid of? Just pretend I’m going away to school. I’ll come back to see you at New Year.”

I spoke with magnificent conviction, but the moment I boarded the flying vessel, I almost started crying.

Clutching the little bundle Mother had packed for me, I huddled in a corner.

A small figure beside me began crying before I did, his shoulders shaking.

I asked him, “Do you miss your parents too?”

“No. I miss my nursemaid.”

He said his father was a prince and a nursemaid had looked after him since he was little.

My mouth fell open.

A prince.

The most important official I had ever seen was our village headman.

Now I was actually speaking to a prince’s son.

I really was heaven’s chosen genius.

He said his name was Li Zhengyang and asked me mine.

Embarrassed, I answered softly, “Sanniu.”

“That’s not a name.”

I got angry.

“How is it not? My eldest brother is Lin Daniu, my second brother is Lin Erniu, so of course I’m Lin Sanniu.”

Tears still clung to Li Zhengyang’s face as he shook his head.

“No, no. That won’t do. People will laugh at you when we reach the sect.”

“Why don’t I give you a name?”

I looked at his little body, even smaller than mine, and felt doubtful.

“Can you read?”

“I started studying at the imperial palace when I was three.”

Fine. For now, he was a tiny bit better than me.

Swaying his head like a learned scholar, he said, “Your family named you Niu because they wanted you to grow strong and brave. Then you should be called Lin Qiang.”

I repeated the word several times, then clapped my hands.

“Good. One day, I’ll definitely be the strongest person alive.”

“When that happens, you can follow me.”

I thought Li Zhengyang and I would live together once we entered the sect.

But the steward poked me in the forehead and said,

“He is a genius with a single spiritual root. Of course he’s going to the inner sect.”

I wondered what kind of spiritual roots I had.

He flipped through his register and said without expression, “Five spiritual roots.”

I counted on my fingers. That was four more than Li Zhengyang.

So I was even more impressive than a genius.

One of the other new disciples laughed.

“Idiot. Five spiritual roots are the worst.”

On my first day in the sect, I became the laughingstock of the outer court.

I lay beneath my quilt and cursed that young disciple a hundred times in my heart.

Just you wait.

What did great talent matter? As long as I cultivated diligently, I would be no worse than anyone else.

And so began my days of meditating, practicing swordsmanship, and sweeping the outer court.

Oh, and there was one more thing: learning to read.

My family was poor. None of us three brothers had ever attended school for a single day.

My second brother envied educated people most of all. He often stood outside the school window and secretly watched the lessons.

After two months, I knew many characters. Unable to contain myself, I wrote a letter home.

I made the characters very large in case the old scholar in our village could not see them clearly.

“The sect is enormous and beautiful. I eat my fill every day.”

“I’ve grown taller. The sect gave me new clothes.”

“The teacher here doesn’t charge tuition. I wish Second Brother were here.”

“I found two glowing stones. They shine at night. I want to give them to Mother so she won’t need to burn lamp oil when she mends clothes after dark.”

I wrote, crossed things out, and wrote a great many words.

In the end, I took ten large pages and the two glowing stones to the steward’s office.

“Immortals and mortals belong to different worlds. This letter cannot be delivered.”

I took the letter back, my heart heavy.

“Then I’ll give it to Mother when I go home for New Year.”

The steward stopped me.

“Who told you that you could go home for New Year?”

In the year 18,600 of the Immortal Calendar, they told me I would never see my parents again.