A Jiu dropped her sickle and sat down, emphasizing again during the break.
"I told you not to listen to my grandma's nonsense. She just taught me how to meditate, but I'm inconsistent, doing it for three days and slacking for two. At most, I use it to keep warm."
But Peng Chao still seemed unconvinced. He also sat down to rest, his hands busy. While twisting a grass rope to weave a second one, he said:
"I've been sickly since childhood. When I was eleven, I went with my mother to offer incense and met an old Taoist priest. He divined my fate with his fingers and said I had a 'boy's destiny', that I would be abandoned by my relatives, and that my fate was marked by the 'Hua Gai' star, destined to walk the path of cultivation, or I wouldn't live past twelve."
If this girl wouldn't talk about her cultivation methods, Peng Chao figured he could talk about his own.
"'Hua Gai'?" A Jiu was puzzled, treating it as a story.
"'Hua Gai' means I came with the wisdom of a past life, but was orphaned and lonely. Just then, my mother fell ill and passed away at twelve. Before she died, she told me to find the Taoist priest, so I went to find him. Who knew the old priest had died?"
A Jiu thought, aren't cultivators supposed to cultivate their bodies to live for a hundred years, or even achieve immortality?
A Jiu became interested. It was quite pleasant to listen to stories when tired from working.
"What happened next?" A Jiu asked.
Seeing the girl's interest, Peng Chao smiled and said, "His master was still alive. He told me that the old priest had revealed heavenly secrets and thus incurred divine punishment. We don't know if it's true or not, as I was young then. I stayed at the Taoist temple for a few days, skeptical. Every morning, I got up before five to recite the morning and evening lessons, and followed the temple rules, like not eating after noon...
Later, I saw them meditating and practicing standing meditation every day, so I learned too. I thought it was some technique for longevity. But without understanding the inner principles, my hands swelled up, and I couldn't hold chopsticks for several days. So I gave up. The Taoist priest's master, Daochang Ji Ming, never taught me anything. So, I went down the mountain... Guess what happened then."
"What happened?" A Jiu wondered if the deceased Taoist priest had come back to life.
"On that very day, I heard that their ancestor had emerged from twenty-six years of seclusion. I rushed back to see him. But everyone knew that the ancestor was already two hundred years old when he went into seclusion. If true immortality was possible, I would have resolved to achieve results by dying in the temple. But unfortunately, when I finally met that white-bearded immortal, he drove me away, saying that I would meet a destined person in fifty years, and that person would be my master."
At this point, Peng Chao sighed, "I think your grandmother is my destined master."
So that's how it was. A Jiu felt this was too ethereal.
"Weren't you deceived by that old immortal?" A Jiu muttered.
"No, no. It's too difficult to meet him. I knelt for five days without eating or drinking. The people at the temple feared I would die there and bring disgrace to their name, so they begged the ancestor to see me. He wouldn't lie to me."
Peng Chao was unwavering. He wanted to say that the aura of an old cultivator is absolutely different from that of ordinary people, so this ineffable trust was something only he knew and couldn't explain.
"And then you went down the mountain?" A Jiu slowly rubbed the hemp rope.
"Yes, from then on I waited, until I met my master and was enlightened at fifty. By thirty, I felt something was wrong. Just waiting wasn't a solution. As the Yangming School of Philosophy states, knowledge and action are one. So, from the age of thirty, I started looking for books everywhere. From them, I learned some breathing techniques..."
Hearing this, A Jiu covered her mouth, embarrassed and wanting to laugh. No wonder her grandma said she thought she was great just by reading a few books.
Seeing Grandpa Peng's dark and helpless expression, A Jiu didn't dare to laugh out loud.
She pretended to empathize and said, "Then I can't help you with this. If my grandma is willing to take you, that's good. If she's not, you can't drag her back even with eight oxen."
Peng Chao looked into the distance, his eyes filled with confusion.
"Alas... but I don't want to miss this opportunity. The books say that at thirty one establishes oneself, at forty one has no doubts, and at fifty one knows the mandate of heaven. I am already at the age of knowing the mandate of heaven. If I don't achieve results before the age of sixty-four, my life will have been in vain."
A Jiu didn't know how to respond. She didn't understand much herself, and her grandma had only taught her some mental techniques.
"Peng Chao, have you no shame? You've wasted decades yourself, and now you're trying to fool my granddaughter? Haven't you reflected on yourself?"
Madam Wang suddenly appeared, her footsteps light. Her shadow was still ten yards away, but in a blink of an eye, she was close.