Chapter 3: No ID

Compared with the strange immortal realm where men left their hair loose, women showed their faces, and everyone dressed scandalously and behaved outrageously, a devout pilgrim who visited the temple every year was nothing unusual.

The old monk said Zhu Sheng had a connection to the Buddha, so he let him stay at the temple. The guest rooms were empty anyway.

Zhu Sheng had just arrived and had nowhere else to go. He thanked the monk and accepted.

He pushed open the door. Inside, the room was elegantly furnished, a striking contrast to the courtyard walls’ weathered, desolate state.

A silk screen stood in the room. Four paintings of noble plants hung on the walls. Beside the carved wooden bed sat a pale-green vase shaped like a lotus stem, with two sprays of drooping crabapple blossoms leaning from its mouth. Beneath the smoky-blue bed curtains, the flowers looked brilliant but never gaudy.

Apart from the cosmic bag at his waist and the Budu Sword in his hand, Zhu Sheng had no luggage to put away.

He couldn’t use the cosmic bag, and he couldn’t put away the Budu Sword. More importantly…

Immortal Lord Wuyang looked down at his Sword Sect robe, stained with blood from head to toe. With his cultivation gone, he couldn’t even use the simplest cleansing spell.

He was still frowning when someone knocked.

A young monk of twelve or thirteen stood outside. His voice was bright and clear.

“I brought you some clean clothes.”

The boy’s name was Xuan Shi. He was the old monk’s younger disciple, and his master had sent him on the errand. Before leaving, he even took Zhu Sheng’s dirty clothes, promising to wash them and bring them back.

That evening, Zhu Sheng walked around the temple grounds, but still found no Illusion Core.

He saw nothing but birds and insects. He came away empty-handed.

Elsewhere, in the temple kitchen, Xuan Shi watched Xuan Kong turn the electric stove down to its lowest setting to simmer tofu. He propped his chin in his hands and thought aloud.

“Senior Brother, the new pilgrim in the back courtyard seems like he’s from the countryside. He’d never seen an electric light or a hot water kettle before.”

“And the way he dresses, you’d think he was into cosplay. Master sent him clothes with so many layers, and he doesn’t even seem hot in the middle of summer.”

“Who is he, anyway? Master even let him stay in the room at the far left.”

Xuan Shi had never seen anyone stay in that room. It had always been empty, but their master still made them clean it every day.

They had to air out the quilt every other day and change it, too. Then they had to burn a special incense that made the room smell wonderful.

Now their master had let some unknown person move in.

Xuan Kong took out his phone and continued playing the Avatamsaka Sutra. At the same time, he opened Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Practice and started doing the exercises.

“Why not worry about the summer homework you haven’t touched yet?”

Xuan Shi immediately wilted and groaned. He complained that he was a little monk—why did he still have to go to school and do homework?

Xuan Kong’s pen never stopped as he worked through a math problem.

“Because the Buddha can’t save the illiterate.”

“All living things are equal!”

Xuan Kong gazed fondly at his junior brother’s puffed-out cheeks.

“If you’re illiterate, you can’t even read the sutras. The Buddha can’t save you if he can’t find you.”

Xuan Shi: QAQ

Th-that’s a good point!

Put that way, compared with a page of untouched summer homework, the strange pilgrims in the back courtyard didn’t seem so important to eleven-year-old Xuan Shi after all.

With a new guest in the temple, they prepared a lavish dinner.

Zhu Sheng paused when he entered the dining hall and saw the dishes on the table.

Calling this a vegetarian meal wasn’t quite right. Ordinary vegetarian food didn’t include meat.

The old monk placed a braised chicken leg in Xuan Shi’s bowl and smiled at Zhu Sheng.

“The boys are both at an age when they’re growing. They need a balanced diet.”

The word “nutrition” was unfamiliar to Zhu Sheng too, but he could more or less understand what it meant.

Immortal Lord Wuyang had seen carefree monks who ate meat and drank wine. He wasn’t surprised.

The Buddha was in the heart. There was no need to fuss over details.

…

Summer evenings came late, but the temperature dropped quickly in the mountains. When Zhu Sheng left the dining hall, a cool breeze brushed his face, and he felt a chill.

He had begun to understand just how strange this immortal realm was.

After entering the Sublimation Realm, cultivators no longer needed to eat and never felt hungry. With every breath, they absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Zhu Sheng was already at the peak of the Tribulation Transcendence Realm. Yet after less than half a day in this immortal realm, he needed to eat like an ordinary mortal.

When he returned to the courtyard, he saw the light on in the room next door.

The other pilgrim hadn’t been in the dining hall earlier. Perhaps he didn’t eat with them.

The rooms were separated by only one wall, but Zhu Sheng hadn’t seen the other guest since coming up the mountain. He didn’t know whether the man had stayed inside all day or had just returned.

Immortal Lord Wuyang wasn’t the sort to make conversation with strangers. His jade-bright eyes swept over the faintly lit window, then he returned to his own room.

The thing called an “electric light” worked even better than the finest night pearls in his cosmic bag. The whole room was as bright as day.

Zhu Sheng stood beneath it, staring for a long time. He couldn’t work out how it worked, and there wasn’t the slightest trace of spiritual energy in it.

This immortal realm had so many things he’d never seen before.

After washing up, Zhu Sheng touched the switch. In the end, he left the light on, lay down fully dressed, and hugged the Budu Sword to his chest.

A faint noise came from next door. Footsteps. Judging by the sound, the person staying there was a man.

After a long while, the light next door went out.

Reason and instinct told Zhu Sheng not to truly fall asleep tonight. But as the night deepened, his body grew heavier, and his eyelids sank…

After Zhu Sheng had fallen into a deep sleep, the room next door—which had been dark for some time—suddenly lit up.

With a soft creak, the door that had stayed shut all day opened slightly. A long, slender hand appeared first.

The old monk stood beneath the courtyard’s old peach tree, looking up at the moon. He didn’t turn when he heard the sound.

“Won’t you go see him?”

He spoke very softly, as though he feared waking either the bright moon above or the person asleep inside.

A man half a head taller than the old monk stopped behind him. His gaze rested on the only illuminated room. After a long pause, he finally spoke.

“I’ve already seen him.”

In the moonlight, the man’s face looked a shade paler than most. His voice was low and cool.

It sounded like a piece of jade striking ice.

The old monk glanced at him. “Sneaking a look from the side counts as seeing him?”

The man didn’t answer.

The old monk, whose face looked so much like that of an enlightened master, rolled his eyes in a way that didn’t suit his appearance at all. Then he changed the subject.

“His cultivation has been damaged. Right now, he’s no different from an ordinary person. It’ll take time for him to recover.”

“And he seems to think he’s trapped in some sort of illusion or maze.”

The man nodded. “I realized that the first time I saw him.”

“Spiritual energy is thin in this world. Cultivators are rare, and cultivation and immortality are nothing but legends. Even if he recovers his cultivation, he won’t be able to advance any further.”

Immortal Lord Wuyang had devoted himself wholeheartedly to the Dao. And now that he was here, the Dao was gone…

The old monk sighed. “Knowing his temperament, he won’t stay on the mountain forever. What are you going to do?”

A gust of wind rose. Before it could make the half-open wooden window in Zhu Sheng’s room creak, the man lifted his hand and scattered the breeze.

The man walked over to close the window. The old monk shook his head inwardly.

He’d said all he needed to say. Better to leave them to it.

The old monk had reached the courtyard gate when he suddenly slapped his forehead and muttered to himself.

“There are so many mosquitoes and insects in the mountains. The guest in there has such delicate skin, and he’s lost his cultivation. What if some poisonous bug bites him during the night? It’s getting cold, too. I wonder if he’s got enough blankets, or if that bed’s too hard…”

The old monk wandered off, still talking to himself.

The moonlight flowed like water. The man stood outside Zhu Sheng’s room, wrapped in its glow. After a long while, he let out a soft laugh.

In the end, he didn’t push open the door, though he could have reached out and touched it. He used a calming spell, set up a protective barrier, and returned to his own room.

Zhu Sheng had forgotten when he’d fallen asleep the previous night.

He’d dreamed of strange omens: rivers flowing backward, birds and beasts fleeing and crying out one after another.

In the blood-red light, he’d seen a pure white sword.

The dream had been hazy, and he couldn’t make it out clearly. Perhaps it hadn’t been a sword at all, but something else.

The dream had been very short. Before he could look more closely, it ended. He slept peacefully for the rest of the night without falling into another dream.

As he sat in the dining hall, Zhu Sheng was still wondering what the blood-red dream had foretold.

The same four of them ate together that morning. The old monk was relaxed about table manners. Zhu Sheng heard Xuan Kong mention that he was going down the mountain to pick up an identity card he’d had replaced.

Zhu Sheng listened quietly for a while.

The identity card seemed even more important than a travel permit or household register. Everyone in this immortal realm had one.

It was useful for many things.

Xuan Kong had lost his identity card through carelessness and had applied for another.

Immortal Lord Wuyang set down his bamboo chopsticks and looked at Xuan Kong.

“Where does one go to obtain this identity card?”

He had no idea how to break out of this illusion, and he didn’t know how long he’d be stuck here. If an identity card was so important in this world, he should get one too.

Xuan Kong looked at him. “An identity card? You get one at the police station, of course.”

Xuan Shi chewed on his chopsticks. Even he, a primary school student, knew where to get an identity card. This man was much older than him and knew nothing. Was he really from some remote mountain forest?

Zhu Sheng asked another question. “Can anyone get one?”

He couldn’t use his cosmic bag and had no money. If getting an identity card cost silver, he’d have to forget about it.

At that, Xuan Kong finally looked at him with some suspicion.

“You don’t have an identity card?”

When Zhu Sheng shook his head, Xuan Kong immediately turned to the old monk.

“You brought home an undocumented person?”

As a well-educated monk, Xuan Kong had thought there was nothing wrong with the man his master had brought back, even if his hair was a little long, his clothes looked ancient, and he gave off an unusually otherworldly air, as if he didn’t belong in the mortal world…

None of that was a problem. But if this long-haired, otherworldly man was undocumented, that was a big problem.

Under his disciple’s scorching gaze, the old monk smiled at Zhu Sheng.

“Patron Zhu, you want an identity card?”

The former Crown Prince hadn’t expected to become undocumented one day. After a moment’s silence, he nodded.

The old monk took his time sipping his porridge. “That’s easy. I can help you.”

Xuan Kong stared at him, clearly thinking:

Master, what are you talking about? You can’t just get an undocumented person registered that easily!

Zhu Sheng didn’t know the details. He thanked the old monk and said that once his cultivation had recovered a little, he could repay him with spirit stones.

The old monk smiled mysteriously. “It’s no trouble at all.”

Xuan Kong and Xuan Shi: ?

A few snacks were all it took to get an undocumented person registered?

A little over ten minutes later, Xuan Kong went down the mountain with Zhu Sheng. Xuan Shi tagged along too, insisting that he wanted to go into town.

Xuan Kong was skeptical of the old monk’s assurance that he should just take Patron Zhu to get the identity card and that everything had already been taken care of.

Monks weren’t supposed to lie, but this monk liked eating meat and playing phone games. His assurances weren’t exactly convincing…

The three of them lived in that run-down temple, but Xuan Kong had never thought of them as real monks.

At most, they were followers of the Buddha.

Xuan Kong glanced at the person walking beside him.

Xuan Kong didn’t say much on a normal day, but the man beside him was even quieter.

The mountain path was long and empty, so Xuan Kong tried to make conversation.

“If you’re getting an identity card, you can’t go like that…”

He meant Zhu Sheng’s hair. “You’ll need to get it cut first.”

Zhu Sheng turned to him. “Cut my hair?”

“That’s right,” Xuan Kong said with a nod. “And you should probably change your clothes too.”

Little Xuan Shi chimed in solemnly. “People in the city don’t normally dress like that.”

At his words, Zhu Sheng’s thoughts returned to the day before. He remembered the clothes worn by people in the city.

Thinking of those garments that barely covered their bodies and left their limbs exposed, Immortal Lord Wuyang—who had faced dozens of experts without flinching—…

His brow immediately furrowed!

…

At the same time, farther along the mountain path, a man and a woman were resting. The man tipped his head back and drained half a bottle of mineral water, then stared at the mountain trail stretching out of sight and complained.

“I swear, where else could Director Zhang have filmed the show? Why’d he have to pick Sangshan? Climbing all this way nearly killed us. Will those pampered celebrities even be able to handle it?”

The woman wiped away her sweat.

“That’s exactly why they sent us to scout the route, isn’t it? To make sure the guests can manage it.”