Jin Se

Chapter 4

The pouring rain that has suddenly come still has absolutely no signs of ceasing. The moment Shi Wuduan touched the constellation tablet, his body becomes still.

Ever since he was very young, Shi Wuduan has had a terrible attitude. The moment he learned how to turn sideways, he started rolling off his cribs. The moment he learned how to crawl, all the things in his rooms started having accidents. After he learned how to run, everything got worse, he was truly a little calamity on legs. To control him, the only way is to have somebody follow and stare at him every moment of the day, who can immediately burst any naughty ideas the moment they start to form.

Until that one day, the Taoist master discovered his interest with the constellation tablet.

Whether he was on a surplus of energy to create ruckus around or not, as long as there is a constellation tablet, even though it is only as small as a person's palm, it is enough to him to still and docilely sit there and mess around with it for a whole morning or afternoon - even when the tablet is just a dead piece of stone without any stars and star threads.

In the cave, the only sounds remain are those of the rainfall, the sound of burning wood crackling, and the sound of a young man using his small stick to draw all over the mud.

Shi Wuduan squats on the ground, his body still soaked, his wet hair hanging on his back. There are a few strands of hair lying on his forehead, docilely lying on his soft side profile. The mud on his face is still not cleared, after drying, it makes him look like a wild kitten, but his expression is very serene.

So serene that it somehow does not look like a child.

The shining star threads that seem to have a life of their own hang on his hands, forming an intricate and inseparable arrangement. On the constellation tablet that is no bigger than half a meter (=1/3 current meter) squared, the stars that are as large as one piece of sand slowly move. It looks like there is a hand that puppeteer the tablet of stars, yet there seems to exist an even bigger, almost unimaginable hand, forever pushing behind the stars so no one can stop its motion, and have been for billions of years.

Unsure of the reason why, Bai Li suddenly feels this young man lies very far away from him, as far as between the ground and the stars, that no matter how far his hands reach he could not touch him, so he cannot resist saying: "You don't have to calculate it, it's wasteful of your energy. In our fox spirit clan, who can cultivate without going through tianjie? It's fine if I can just tolerate until it passes."

Shi Wuduan made a replying sound, but the small stick in his hand has not stopped, who knows if he even heard.

The calculation that he draws, though outsiders would think it is complicated, it is actually only the introductory 'San Lian Suan Shi'(*), it is not that advanced. Shi Wuduan obviously thinks that Bai Li is a child like himself, thus having such few years on this earth, so what karma could he have possible accumulated. That is why he decided on such a simple calculation.

(*) lit. formula to calculate the three connections

Unexpectedly after a moment, he frowns and makes an 'oh' sound. The mud on his face has dried so it feels a bit itchy. Using the wooden stick to scratch his face, he says like in a monologue: "Why can't I calculate it? How strange." Bai Li repeats what he said: "So don't calculate anymore."

If he never said that it would have been less bad, but Shi Wuduan has a child-like nature. Normally the constellation tablet on Jiulu mountain cannot be brought down from the mountain at will, it was not easy Shi Wuduan can bring out this small one, he whole-heartedly wants to show off to Bai Li, so how can he just quit? So he pretends to be mature and waves his hand away: "Don't be anxious, 'San Lian Shi' is only for the children who just entered cultivation to practice their calculation, even pointing randomly on it can generally tell you something so it's often not that accurate. Let me change another calculation then you'll see."