The slumbering vegetable (2)

Intrigued, Ye De cautiously approached the choysum.

Naturally, Ye De Loved all life. So upon seeing the small and green vegetable, the next thought that crossed Ye De's head after why it was so hard was how unfortunate it was for such a cute looking vegetable to be here growing alongside all of his bokchoys. After all, that little choysum was the only one on his fields so Ye De figured it must be very lonely all by itself.

Ye De wasn't actually delusional, he's had such a hard life that his empathy was just so overflowing that he felt bad for even a vegetable. Thinking about the choysum, Ye De decided he wanted it to live a happier life, resolving to move that choysum to a field he would dedicate later to this very choysum, planting lots of other choysums so that this one wouldn't be lonely anymore- having lots of other choysum friends instead!

There was a problem though.

After coming to this decision in his head, Ye De started trying to move the choysum to replant it elsewhere. But upon laying his hands on the choysum Ye De realised that he couldn't lift it out of the ground.

"Thats weird" he thought, tugging harder this time with more force. Ye De had been a farmer for over a decade already and never before had Ye De ever encountered a situation in which he was unable to uproot a plant.

Ye De tried everything he could to move this choysum, going as far as trying to wedge it out while preserving the roots using a shovel but he couldn't do it, Ye De realised that he would have to take some drastic measures to relocate this seemingly immovable and indestructible vegetable.

Ye De would have dug up all the soil around the choysum to move it, but coming from a cultivator clan, Ye De had a sudden premonition that this choysum may one of those rumoured spiritual treasures of nature.

Coming to this conclusion, Ye De's attitude to the vegetable completely changed, he had previously been carefree and easygoing, but facing this vegetable, Ye De was suddenly dead serious. His plan had changed, instead of relying on his ancestors to get revenge, he would find out how to use this vegetable, and use it to get the revenge he had dreamt of all by himself.

It had been his lifelong goal to eradicate the Song clan which gave him nightmares day and night, and now Ye De believed he had the means to fulfil this goal.

Ye De regarded this choysum as a treasure, and thus decided to move his house of 10 years on top of this choysum in the hopes of concealing it from the world till he figured out how to use it.

Ye De made it so that nobody would ever discover such a treasure, he built a special room inside his house specifically for the choysum, so that he could monitor anything that happened to it.

With the concealment up and running, Ye De set off trying to find out how to utilise the treasure he had found.

Ye De never found out.

....

It had been another 10 years.

Ye De was now 45, he had painstakingly tried to discover just what exactly this choysum was, but every library he scoured, every alchemist he talked to, even in folktale, not one person knew of a choysum-shaped treasure like the one he had found.

Either this choysum was just a stupid green fraud, or it was a heavenly treasure never before seen by anyone on this layer of hell.

Ye De knew it was probably the former, but his unending optimism, his naivety remained from that time when he was just a young man in the Ye clan who wanted nothing to do with clan politics with the Songs, electing instead to be a simple farmer.

Ye De believed in luck, he believed in fate, Ye De believed in the choysum.

Ye De's desire for revenge had never waned these 20 years. The memory of his clan-mates' screams still echoed in his mind, as vivid as if it happened yesterday. And as such, Ye De's plan for revenge had reverted back to the rebuild the clan variant, albeit slightly modified.

Why hadn't Ye De continued searching? He was just 45 after all right? It was because Ye De recognised that building a cultivator clan from scratch required large investments of not only effort, but time. He would have to teach his children while he could still teach, no use spending another 20 years trying to find the secret because if he still couldn't find it, Ye De wouldn't be able to teach his descendants because he would be dead by the time they could start cultivating.

He decided to leave the secret of the choysum for later generations. Electing to start his Ye clan rebirth plan now. Ye De might not have the cultivation but he had the special techniques, the clan's unique cultivation manual, and the clan's specialty move all ingrained into his brain back from that time in the Ye clan when all the elders had poured the clan resources into Ye De. Ye De knew that he would be able to do it, he was not as young as before, he wasn't a dandling young master anymore, he now had real solid commitment.

He hadn't been completely wasting his time these years though. Ye De had placed the choysum matter as one of utmost importance. He decided that he would build his new clan around the choysum to help conceal its existence from the higher powers of hell. The problem with this was that Ye De needed a mountain to build his clan upon, but there was no mountain around the choysum. So Ye De decided to make one, over these 10 years Ye De had in addition to looking for the secret, been slowly moving rocks into his house to start building a mountain around the choysum.

Normally man-made mountains weren't a viable option for an aspiring clan to locate, because one would need a spiritual source to build their clan upon, Darkwell lake was one such source, and that was what the Song and Ye clans had relied on. A spiritual source was important as it increased the density of the essences in an area, ideal for a clan which aimed to raise new young cultivators, as the increased density would allow faster cultivation and comprehension of the essences.

But Ye De had broken through in his cultivation from the mortal realm, stepping into the ranks of cultivators for the first time. And along with this breakthrough he had made a discovery, the very discovery that solidified his plan revertion.

This choysum was not just a possible treasure, but also a dense spiritual source. Building a mountain around this choysum for his clan would be a legitimate option.

Ye De had deliberated the decision as it would require ridiculous amounts of effort on his part, and his conclusion was that the work would all be worth it as the mountain would protect the clan's new secreat as well as providing a spiritual source capable of nurturing a new generation of cultivators.

His progress over the 10 years had been massive, the small house had gone, a small hill had replaced it instead. Ye De never let up, he was committed and he would follow through with his plan till the end.

...

It had been 20 more years, Ye De had finished the mountain, built the clan up from the ground gotten a wife and three sons as well as accepting a few disciples to help his clan in its infancy after his death.

Ye De had taught his sons all he knew about cultivation, setting up the foundation for what would become the Ye clan in the future.

Ye De, 65 now, decided to once again set out in search of the secret to using the choysum hidden under his clan's mountain.

He never figured out how to, so the secret died with him, or would've had Ye De not had a son - Ye Hu who was told on one fateful day, about the very vegetable that was to become the family's most tightly held secret.