Chapter Eighteen: Mysterious Mechanism

  "What's wrong with you?"

  "I once saw it in an ancient book, the 'Bing Chui', said to be carved from a rare stone from outside the heavens. It's smooth inside and beautiful on the outside, but legend has it that anyone who gets their hands on this thing will encounter great calamity. They say it was cursed by a sorcerer from the southern borders. But it had long been lost, I never thought it would be discarded in a paddy field."

  Xu Xian was left speechless and said: "You can't know everything, can you?"

  "I just know what I know!" Pan Yuzhan smiled. "I happened to see it, how did you know he picked something up and brought it home?"

  "Wait a minute and I'll explain it to you. Hey, brother, the illness in your family was probably caused by that ice cicada."

  The villager was half-believing and half-doubting, fearing that the two were colluding to deceive him. Xu Xian asked: "Is it true that you feel better when you leave home, but uncomfortable at home?"

  "Yes, yes, I walked over ten miles to get here and it actually feels much better."

  "That's it, hurry back now. Your family is still suffering from the poison of the ice cicada, and every moment you delay increases the danger."

  The villagers thanked him hastily and left in a hurry.

  Looking at the empty porch, the two finally let out a sigh of relief. Pan Yu's two black lacquer-like eyes stared at Xu Xian, who felt uneasy: "There are flowers on my face!"

  "Alright, I said. I've heard of the disease he's talking about. There's a kind of rock that emits invisible light, just like sunlight, but this light is very harmful to people. The symptoms are just as the person described, I just happened to have heard of it before."

  Pan Yu's expression turned contemplative, "This is truly unheard of, yet it sounds reasonable. I'm just curious, how did Han Wen know this? I've never read anything like this in the books I've read since childhood." Her bright eyes stared at Xu Xian.

  Xu Xian felt a wave of frustration: why could others cross over and casually flaunt their modern knowledge, while he himself was subject to such suspicion. Facing a Pan Yu who possessed the confidence that "any book you've read, I must have read too", and with his extraordinary insight and high IQ, any excuse would be full of loopholes.

  "Alright, alright," Xu Xian said helplessly, "It was a Taoist priest who passed by my house when I was young and told me."

  Pan Yu gazed at Xu Xian, blinked a few times, and her long eyelashes fluttered with it. Then she let out a long "oh", which seemed to be a reluctantly acceptable meaning.

  Xu Xian finally let out a sigh of relief.

  With a creak, the door opened while the two were talking. An old employee bowed and backed out of the door, his face flushed with joy, thanking them profusely. It seemed he had achieved his goal. As the door was closed again, he said through the gap: "Thank you!"

  Xu Xian couldn't help but step forward and ask the old man: "Old fellow, are you done yet?"

  "You're done for! I'm overjoyed today, great joy!" Although Old Employee was scolding, his face didn't have a hint of displeasure, but was instead filled with delight. Xu Xian asked tactfully, "I wonder where this joy comes from?"

  The old man seemed tired, someone sent a bed, thirsty, someone sent water, and waited for this sentence. Without asking Xu Xian much, he immediately spoke eloquently. It turned out that he had a small concubine who was recently pregnant. Originally, it was a good thing for him to have no children all the time, but the old man thought that his age was not possible! So he came to calculate a divination, first to see if it was his own kind, and second to see if it was male or female. As a result, both things were satisfactory, and the old man couldn't help but be delighted at having a late-born son!

  Xu Xian weakly leaned his head against the door panel: This fortune teller not only serves as a weather satellite, but also has the functions of parental affection, X-ray and so on. It's really a must-have product for home and travel!

  "Look at that long, bony Daoist fairy wind, with hair like a crane and a face like a child - he's the very image of an enlightened immortal. After calculating his fortune, it turned out to be an old divine being." The old gentleman spoke with relish, praising the fortune teller for several sentences before leaving in high spirits.

  Xu Xian elbowed Pan Yu softly and whispered, "Hey, do you think that child is his? He's so..." Xu Xian used her hand to mimic an old man's posture.

  Pan Yu shrugged and said, "How would I know?" Pan Yu ignored the gossiping soul of Xu Xian, who was about to knock on the door. Before his hand even touched the door panel, it swung open by itself. A little girl with two buns on her head and wearing a Taoist robe smiled mischievously and said, "You must be the scholars from the Tianxue Academy! My master told me to come pick you up." The little girl was lovely and charming, with big black eyes that sparkled as they darted back and forth.

  Xu Xian sighed and said: "To have such a disciple, if not a man then a woman."

  Pan Yu smiled and said: "Apart from this, who else could it be?"

  Xu Xian said, "This is just your ignorance, Ming Yu. In the southern barbarian lands, there is a country where people can change from male to female, but not completely, so they become neither male nor female, and are called 'yao ren' (people with both yin and yang)." Although she was only disguising herself as a man using her exquisite magic, and was still a woman at heart, the four words "neither male nor female" still made her feel uncomfortable for no reason.

  Pan Yujiao's footsteps slowed slightly as she smiled and said, "You're bragging, you've probably never even left Jiangsu or Zhejiang before, how would you know?"

  "It was a Taoist priest who passed by my house when I was young and told me." Xian's Wanjin Oil explanation method achieved another great success, and he vowed to never pretend to be a expert again.

  Pan Yuxiao said: "Is your family a Taoist temple? Every day there are Taoist priests passing by, and they can all write poetry and essays, with extensive knowledge and strong memory."

  The two of them laughed and followed the little girl into the temple, where she turned around and closed the door. In an instant, all the noise was shut out, and the small courtyard became as quiet and secluded as if it were deep in the mountains. The bamboo grove was lush, the rocks formed a fake mountain, and a cool breeze swept by. Xu Xian had a vague feeling of having been there before, but he couldn't quite recall it.

  Turning over a heap of artificial hills, along the stone slab road through a bamboo forest, a little girl is jumping forward in front, humming an unknown children's song, and the sound of the bamboo forest rustling in the wind blends together, as if the sea of bamboo is also swaying.

  Pan Yu furrowed his brow slightly and whispered to Xu Xian, "This courtyard can't be this big." Just now, he could see the corner of the wall from outside the door, it was just a small Taoist temple. But after walking in for a good cup of tea time, they still hadn't reached the end.

  "It's either an illusion or it's true!"

  His words somehow touched something, and in an instant the light of the sun in his soul burst forth. As soon as he finished speaking, he heard the little girl leading the way exclaim: "We're here! We're here!"

  The clear voice of a little girl interrupted the thoughts of the two, and when they looked up, they had already arrived at the main hall.

  "Master, master, they've come, they've come." The little Taoist priest ran in to report, and before entering the door, he carefully glanced back at Xu Xian.

  Xu Xian and Pan Yu exchanged a smile, feeling that their trip was not in vain.

  She stepped into the hall, but there was no "old immortal" with crane hair and childlike face as described by the staff member. Instead, there was a young Taoist nun in her early twenties, wearing a pair of cloud-patterned shoes, dressed in an apricot-yellow robe, with her black hair styled in a bun and adorned with a wooden hairpin. Her simple yet elegant attire gave off an otherworldly aura, which, combined with her stunning beauty, made her seem like a celestial maiden descended to the mortal world.

  Xu Xian thought: Could this be the legendary Little Secret?

  The nun approached with a gentle smile and bowed first, saying: "I am Yu Xuanji. I have met the two fellow Taoists. My Taoist name in the sect is Tianji Zi."

  Perhaps it was Xu Xian's illusion, but he always felt that Yu Ziyuan, although saluting the two of them, had her eyes fixed on his face. But then he laughed at himself, feeling good about himself. With a peerless beauty like Pan Yu in front of him, would that woman put her attention on another man?

  Yu Xuanji reported his own Dao number in the door, but saw Xu Xian with no reaction at all, only with a hint of smile on his lips, and felt that Xu Xian was profound and unpredictable.

  "Is Taozhang the master of this temple?" asked Pan Yu.

  Xu Xian said with a puzzled expression: "Didn't that old man say that the master of this place is an elderly person?"

  Yu Xuanji exclaimed: "Pan Gongzi has good eyesight." He also said to Xu Xian: "Xu Gongzi, you just said 'either illusory or real', this is really confusing, who can tell what's clear?"

  A pair of scissors-like autumn pupils floated with a warm smile on Xu Xian's face, giving Xu Xian a feeling of spring breeze brushing against his face. However, amidst this warmth, there was something that made people unable to get closer. That thing wasn't pride or aloofness, nor was it profundity or mystery, but rather a peculiar posture of standing out from the crowd with an otherworldly independence.

  Xu Xian had once felt something similar on Pan Yu's body, but it was absolutely different. Pan Yu's eyes seemed like a deep pool, clear and transparent as Xu, yet somehow couldn't see what was contained in the pool water.

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