Techniques and Dao

Chapter 55 No Rain Yet
Hua Sheng gasped.

Oh no! The tissue is wet! If I pull it hard, will paper scraps stick to my face? Then I'll have to wipe it back and forth like I'm wiping a table, wouldn't that be embarrassing? I've got it! If I stick another dry tissue on top, it will absorb the moisture from this tissue. This way, not only will the sweat on my forehead be absorbed, but both tissues can also be removed at the same time.

I was so clever!
Thinking of this, Hua Sheng couldn't help but feel smug. He took out another tissue and wiped his face. Just as the tissue was about to touch his face, Tai Shang Xiao Jun, who was concentrating on chanting the incantation, tilted his head slightly to one side, so the second tissue fell off and hung on the other side of his face!

Not only that, the lower half of the tissue was stuck to Tai Shang Xiao Jun's nose, which was covered in sweat.

The way it looks now is just like the talisman pasted on the face of a zombie in a classic Hong Kong zombie movie from the 1980s.

Oh no! I've messed things up! Sweat poured down Hua Sheng's forehead like a waterfall. If Tai Shang Xiao Jun saw me like this, would he chop me up?

So Hana used the remaining tissues to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead.

"If you dare stick tissues on my face again, believe me, I'll throw you into the alchemy furnace too?" Tai Shang Xiao Jun's deep voice came from beneath his face covered in tissues.

"a ha ha ha……"

Hua Sheng tried to cover up his embarrassment by laughing loudly, but the laughter sounded more like the smugness of someone who had successfully pulled off a prank.

"I was just worried you were too hot and wouldn't be able to concentrate, so I wiped away some sweat for you. Don't misunderstand!"

Tai Shang Xiao Jun freed one hand to pull the tissue off her face, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the nearby trash can. The tissue landed directly in the small trash can, which was only about the size of a bowl, from a distance of five meters.

"Beautiful! A brilliant three-pointer! Haha!" Hua Sheng quickly clapped his hands, then changed the subject.

"You guardian attendant! Return to your place!" The voice of the Supreme Lord Xiaojun became stern again.

Hua Sheng quickly returned to his original position, took the Bagua feather fan and continued to fan the large bronze pot wildly.

"Slow down the fan!"

"Great! Haha!"

After a while of peace, the clock on the wall struck five in the morning. Although Hua Sheng was still very sleepy, he dared not slack off, for fear of delaying the important alchemy. At this moment, Tai Shang Xiao Jun raised his hands, his fingertips dancing back and forth in the air. Then, golden sparks flashed from his fingertips, transforming into a golden talisman. He pushed the talisman, and it flew into the copper pot.

Then, with his palms facing the alchemy furnace, Tai Shang Xiao Jun, looking somewhat weary, slowly said, "Hua Sheng, I have been refining pills and casting spells all night, and my magical power is slightly depleted. When the Nine-Turn Rejuvenating Pill is finally finished, the fire needs to be even stronger, so that the furnace fire is a pure blue-white. You need to lend me a hand."

"Just give the order!" Hua Sheng placed the fan on his lap and rubbed his hands together, eager to get started.

"You can use your fire control technique to help my Six Ding Divine Fire burn even brighter, but try to keep it within a small area. Make sure the fire doesn't scatter and escape; concentrate it as much as possible, and keep the core of the fire as small as possible."

"No problem!" Hua Sheng recited the incantation for the fire control technique, pointed two fingers at the bronze furnace, and shouted, "Hurry, hurry, as the law commands! Fire!"

The two-story-high bronze pot was immediately glowed red-hot by the flames in the furnace. Tai Shang Xiao Jun wrapped his arms around it, trying to concentrate the fire as much as possible, and shouted, "Hua Sheng, concentrate the fire more, make the center of the flame smaller!"

Hua Sheng exerted all her strength, focusing the temperature on a single point. A whooshing sound filled the furnace, like a tornado forming within, as ethereal energy flowed rapidly, filling the entire coffee shop with an intoxicating fragrance. That flowing ethereal energy condensed into a circle within the copper pot, shrinking smaller and smaller until it finally transformed into a small sphere.

"Very good!" Tai Shang Xiao Jun drew circles in the air with his finger, contracting it with each circle, creating a golden spiral that continuously shrank. He said, "When I count to one, you must withdraw your true fire."

"Okay... wait! From which number do we start counting? From ten? Or from five?" Hua Sheng hurriedly asked.

Before he could finish speaking, Taishang Xiaojun shouted, "Three, two, one! Withdraw!" The two of them simultaneously withdrew their hands.

Hua Sheng used too much force to pull back the flower, causing it to fall from mid-air and land on its bottom.

"Ouch! I fell right in front of you where you pinched me. My injury hasn't healed yet, and it hurts like hell!"

Tai Shang Xiao Jun withdrew his true energy, slowly straightened up, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and leaned against the nearest table, looking utterly exhausted.

Suddenly, a clear, clanging sound emanated from the large bronze pot, like a marble bouncing inside. Then, the sound of a marble rolling echoed from the pipe above the pot, creating a beautiful, rhythmic melody that swirled overhead until a bright golden elixir rolled out from the end of the pipe. This elixir, resembling a tiny luminous pearl, emitted an intoxicating fragrance, instantly illuminating the entire shop.

As the light faded, Taishang Xiaojun gently picked up the Nine-Turn Rejuvenating Pill. As if holding an exquisite work of art, he rotated it back and forth to examine it closely before revealing a slight smile: "The Nine-Turn Rejuvenating Pill isn't the original flavor; it's coffee flavored."

He then conjured a small wooden box from his hand and placed the elixir inside.

"It can actually be refined into an elixir! A priceless treasure of the mortal realm!" "It's alright, so-so!" Tai Shang Xiao Jun yawned. "The equipment is a bit rudimentary, the guardian's skill is average, and the color isn't pure enough. If I had to give it a score, I'd give this elixir a seven out of ten. But those who bought coffee these past two days are lucky. The coffee brewed from the first batch of coffee beans roasted in the alchemy furnace can cure all diseases and prolong life."

"Such a good elixir only gets seven points? I think it should be nine points!" Hua Sheng was slightly dissatisfied with the seven-point rating.

"Alright, let's say nine points! But based on my normal performance, I can basically refine an elixir of quality above eighty-five points."

"Huh? You gave it a score of 7 out of 100?!" Hua Sheng's jaw nearly dropped to the floor. "Your standards are way too harsh!"

"Regardless of the score, it is still a Nine-Turn Rejuvenation Pill, more than enough to intimidate that ferocious beast Chaos," said Tai Shang Xiao Jun. "I've been busy all night and I'm a little tired. Hua Sheng, could you make me a cup of coffee? Oh, and remember not to add sugar or milk this time."

As dawn broke over the city, street cleaners began their arduous work. Pedestrians dragged their weary steps in the early hours of the morning. Among them were primary and secondary school students who, though still young, suffered from chronic sleep deprivation; white-collar workers who had just finished their monthly shifts at advertising companies and whose monthly wages were barely enough to cover their expenses; and lonely, empty young people who had partied all night and were heading home.

Hua Sheng and Tai Shang Xiao Jun, each holding a paper coffee cup, found a long wooden bench in a green space in the city center and sat down.

"On the street, there are people who are driven by fate to toil away." Hua Sheng looked at the crowd, raised his coffee cup, and stretched.

From the mortal realm to Saint Pingning, and now back to the mortal realm, he suddenly saw through many things. What were those people who toiled their whole lives for? He used to think that life had to have a goal to realize its value, but now, looking at these hurried passersby, he saw them as mayflies that live only a day and die at dusk.

"This time your coffee doesn't have any extra ingredients, are you satisfied?" Hanamoto leaned back in his chair and looked up at the city sky.

But Taishang Xiaojun did not answer. Huasheng turned his head away.

It turned out that Taishang Xiaojun had fallen asleep leaning against the bench. His coffee cup had been accidentally knocked over, and the pure black Americano was bubbling out from the small opening on the lid. Huasheng picked up the paper cup and wiped the coffee off the bench.

Hua Sheng casually took a sip from the paper cup. He didn't tell Tai Shang Xiao Jun that he had the same taste as him.

Among trillions of mayflies, even if you are the one remembered by everyone, what does it matter? After you depart, those mayflies that remember you will also hastily leave, and who will remember you generations later? You seem to have changed the world, but how could the world not be better without you? Who has ever seen that other world?

Is the so-called ambition, the sense of accomplishment that drives you to keep moving forward, just like wealth and lust, merely the shallow desires of ordinary people?
What is the meaning of life?
Perhaps, simply being alive is the meaning of life! Mortals are driven by desires to do things, but what they do is not important. Life itself has no other meaning, because life is the meaning of life, and the question is the answer.

If you can still live, then please try your best to live on.

Suddenly, Hua Sheng looked up at a building beside him as if he had noticed something. Seeing that no one was around, he concealed himself and flew to a glass window.

On the other side of the window was a white hospital bed, and Hua Sheng then realized that this was a hospital building.

A middle-aged woman was lying face down beside the hospital bed, while a little girl with tubes inserted into her body lay on the bed. The little girl looked to be only seven or eight years old.

Upon seeing the little girl's face, Hanamori almost cried out.

Better late than never!

No, no! Hua Sheng immediately denied it. This little girl only looked extremely similar to Wei Yu, but she was still a child. Not only was she a child, but her hair was black, not the silvery hair color like Wei Yu's.

Hua Sheng's eyes showed surprise and hesitation.

What surprised him was that this face not only looked extremely similar to Wei Yu's, but also seemed to be something he had seen before.

The only image in Hua Sheng's mind was of this child, dressed in a black dress, soaking wet, standing under the lightning and torrential rain.

He vaguely remembered the scene, as if it were a dream. No, it couldn't be a dream, fragments suddenly flashed through Hua Sheng's mind. That's right, it was the scene before he fell into the sea! The scene before he went to Shengpingning!

Yes, he had indeed seen this little girl before! For some reason, he had seen this little girl, who looked remarkably like Wei Yu, before he came to Saint Pingning!
The little girl was barely breathing, as if each breath exhausted all her strength, and each exhale might be her last. Her vital energy was extremely weak; she was on the verge of death.

He stood beside the dying little girl's bedside, still unable to understand.

The only thing Hanamori could be 100% certain of was that the little girl was just an ordinary mortal.

She is definitely not Wei Yu.

(End of this chapter)