What Time Is It?

Before Yang Baitou was even able to pay his last respects to his master, he had been imprisoned. And what disappointed him most was the "mountain" he was sealed under.

What made this "mountain" very special is the fact that it was buried beneath the earth. The tip of the "mountain" was the only visible part of it.

It was in other words; the world's most underwhelming and smallest mountain. At least that's what Yang Baitou thought. He had at least hoped to be sealed away under a certain mountain he'd run across in his Jianghu days; the one that looked like five fingers sprouting from the earth.

The emperor had formations drawn around the mountain that allowed light to pass through the stone layer; thus giving Yang Baitou a way of distinguishing how much time he had spent in his prison.

There was no worry over hunger and thirst, because an immortal needed no food and water to survive. Yang Baitou merely had to absorb heaven and earth energy.

Now there are circumstances where should an immortal choose to eat and drink, the body would run it's natural courses and a restroom trip would have to be made to cleanse the body of its impurities. Although, he did long for things like food and wine he could only patiently wait for his punishment to end.

Time passed slowly at first; and Yang Baitou tried to escape many times before giving up. An invisible force would drag him down when he attempted to force his way out using his newfound immortal strength.

After a few months, he had resigned to attempting to escape. To distract himself, he sang songs, made mud dolls which enacted soap operas, and created clay furniture to decorate his immortal prison.

Time passed again and two years had now passed. Nearing insanity, Yang Baitou was running out of things to distract himself with. Then when he lost all hope; a paper lantern seemingly popped up over his head followed by a distinct,"Ding!" He had forgotten all about his spatial ring.

Following his return home, he had meant to go over the many treasures that he had accumulated during his years in Jianghu. He wanted to gift the many things to his master and younger sworn brother; but he had forgotten as he obviously got distracted by his own thoughts of romance.

Sitting down cross-legged, he touched his thumb to his index finger and placed it over his abdomen. With a shout he waved his hand in a counter-clockwise motion and willed the spatial ring on his pinky to empty it's contents before him.

Of course he didn't need to do all those fancy theatrical movements. Then again who could honestly blame him; he was already going crazy and wanted to play around a bit.

Looking through the many objects he found that some of them were truly useless to him such as: a small obsidian necklace engraved with runes, a garden hoe, and what looked like a "reverse-scale" blanket he acquired from a town that told legends of their village founder who brought down a great flood dragon.

Some object that gave him interest were odd in many ways.

There was a peculiarly eye catching black-iron knife. From his knowledge it was a knife his mother and father used for multiple purposes. It was a Miao style knife; specifically one of the Hmong people.

This knife though was stained; it had a certain rust that could not be cleaned off. It also had an interesting grip made of goat bone as well as a pommel shaped to resemble a bull's head. It all came with a cowhide leather holster adorned with the Hmong ethnic sewing patterns.

When he had chose this knife the villagers had handed him a book of paintings depicting cutting techniques he could practice. He had intended to learn them as he had a hobby for cooking.

What he looked at next was an axe; it was made of a black-steel. Its length was no longer than the average man's forearm. It looked rather plain but it too had come with a set of drawings depicting woodcutting techniques. It was an object from the north; from one of the cities claiming its objects came from the Xia dynasty and that it was forged by Shennong after receiving black steel from the heavens. With nothing to do he considered trying wood-cutting techniques to pass time. And if he got bored enough he could just throw the axe at various targets he created.

He then went looking around the various pill bottles and elixirs and discovered that he had a pretty decent haul. Although they were useless such as: a cure-all elixir that came in droplet doses, a limb-regenerating pill, an sack of assorted aphrodisiac dried fruits with ancient writing that most likely states; "keep away from children and miscreants.", and a slew of generic knock-off pills of which his master had taught him how to refine.

And what came at the end were a mound of scrolls and scriptures. The scrolls and scriptures ranged from martial arts manuscripts to x-rated materials as well as books on the many schools of thought. This would serve as a way of passing time for Yang Baitou.

Thus he began passing time again studying the various things. He first started with the martial arts manuscripts. His master had made him build a solid foundation for martial arts starting him with basic fist techniques, grapples, and ancient languages should he find any old manuscripts.

With high hopes that Yang Baitou would gain insight in his travels, Xue Bai neglected to teach him any specific techniques from his own collection. He anticipated Yang Baitou to collect and learn various techniques while he had been gone six years.

Little did Xue Bai know that Yang Baitou never really needed to learn sophisticated techniques for a massive portion of cultivators in Jianghu around Yang Baitou's generation were frauds. They had come up with fancy and frightful names like: "monkey stealing grapes", "egg snatching grasp", "mad badger fist", and "probing lightning fingers" for their fancy theatrical hand movements and crane imitations.

Yang Baitou was an introvert at his core, he didn't deal with strangers much unless it was required. He was also well experienced in blending in with a crowd. Given the fact that he was chubby and barely met the requirement of being considered as fair looking; most cultivators brushed him off as a scrub cultivator who was powerless and not worth the hassle.

Those that did notice him were small time ruffians and bandits; they were drawn to his fair skin complexion and clothing. They assumed that he was possibly a child of an aristocrat or noble in disguise.

These people were easily dealt with after a couple of basic punches and throws. He didn't kill as he felt these people could turn their lives around. He understood that these people turned to these methods because they were finding a place to belong and they were no richer than beggars.

After a good lecture and small donation were given, Yang Baitou would usually make his way towards his next unknown destination.

In the circumstance that Yang Baitou ran into any real cultivators; he would converse his way out of situations. Most real cultivators loved to tell stories of their youth and struggles; thus it was rather easy to befriend them considering all you had to do was lend an ear and sympathize/empathize. Even great villains may have had noble intentions misunderstood.

Yang Baitou may have been an introvert but he was no fool; he yearned for the friendship and brotherhood he heard of in stories. The friends he made would, forever, hold a place in his heart.

And so Yang Baitou studied and reviewed the four manuscripts he had: the "Mating Mantis Fist", "Master Lee's Guide to Joints and Pressure Points: Deluxe Edition with All Pain Expansions", "Misleading Ripples and Vibrations", and "Chiyou's Necessary Book of Enchantments and Spells."

Though possessing odd names that would leave most people scratching their heads. The techniques in such manuscripts and proved very strong. The "Mating Mantis Fist" was yin in nature and was created by a demigod for his daughter when he found that an evil minded warlord had his eyes set on the demigod's daughter. While consulting the Lord of the Soil and Ground. He happened upon the scene of two preying mantis' mating ritual in which the female beheads and devours the male's upper body without it even knowing what happened. From there he was inspired by the female preying mantis and developed a set of martial arts that as yin in nature for his daughter. The martial art was more powerful when cultivated by a woman as they would be able to enhance they're beauty and allure while at the same time allowing them to heighten their bloodlust to kill with out mercy.

Master Lee's book consisted of the knowledge gained from an ex-physician turned assassin after his wife was murdered and son taken from him and made a slave; all this a result of not being able to cure a terminal disease of an official. The only clue Master Lee had of the killers was a note written in left-handed calligraphy saying, "Good Luck." Using his past in medicine and experience as a bonesetter, he developed a fearsome martial arts that allowed a person to use the most minimal of pressure to inflict maximum pain upon even the most seasoned of fighters and knight errants. He was eventually pointed in the direction of a rather well known gang in his city. Master Lee would eventually get his revenge and free his son from his slave-life.

The "Misleading Ripples and Vibrations" martial art manuscript taught the reader of and how to manipulate their attacks. It was an assassin technique that would leave its victims dead from internal injuries with no discernible damage to the outer body. It also taught how such techniques could be applied to weapons to destroy armor and cut through meat like butter.

All these techniques required a high cultivator level as well as great fortitude to train in any of them.

Most challenging of all the manuscripts was "Chiyou's Necessary Book of Enchantments and Spells." With such a simple title it would seem anybody could learn it. But to no avail, this technique held a list of requirements. One and the most important of all involved having to be that the cultivator learning such techniques must be of a specific blood lineage; specifically one of Chiyou's descendants. With such dumb luck, Yang Baitou happened to be of Miao lineage and thus he attempted the easiest of spells. The spell he tried first was one of illumination. It required one to chant and dance as well as give an offering, such as a rock, for a "sacrifice." And so after dancing and chanting for a half a minute; Yang Baitou was ready to quit when the rock "sacrifice" started to glow.

The rest of Chiyou's spells and enchantments involved specific instruments, ingredients, and offerings. He had wanted to try them all out, especially the summon and possession spells. The only ones Yang Baitou could test were elemental enhancements and those involved writing runes and incantations with various animal bloods or the blood of a virgin boy for the best quality enhancement.

Feeling like the manual was making fun of him he angrily chose to put it away in his spatial ring.

And so another couple of years had passed. And then suddenly light stopped coming in from the tip of the mountain. Yang Baitou would then perform the incantation and dancing ceremony necessary for illumination. He got tired of dancing after a while and tried modifying the incantation chants. He was shocked to find that he didn't even need to dance. It turns out Chiyou was a great trickster who didn't even care if he was tricking his people; seeing them dancing and singing must have brought him great pleasure. He later found that as long as you chanted the necessary incantation in your mind and willed it enough, the spell would activate.

And so for the longest time, Yang Baitou did not know how much time had passed. Left in the darkness, he found no motivation in illuminating the cavern. He sat thinking and eventually would drift to and from sleep. In his dreams he saw visions that felt so real. He dreamed of things. He was a soldier who died in a war protecting his doomed country. Lived the life of a girl who was sold into prostitution only to die of a sexually transmitted disease. And even became evil warlord that played his role of a villain to unify a nation against him; then offer himself up as a sacrifice for a benevolent emperor to be created and reign for centuries to come.

As he came to understand these visions as the fragments of his past lives, he came to accept who he was in the past and who he was at that very moment. Just as he had come to attain enlightenment, the darkness was driven away and a ray of light shone upon him again.

His punishment was not done yet. At this point he started to reading the scrolls containing the many schools of thoughts and philosophies and he came to a realizations that people shouldn't restrict themselves to a single school of thought or ideologies.

In between reading scriptures he would take breaks and practice his knife skills and axe skills. He had become proficient in his knife skills; so much so that he could carve incredibly detailed statues out of clay. Sometimes he even made lifelike soldiers and played a giant game of chess with them. by fiddling around, he'd discovered that elemental enhancements worked very well with his knife. So much so that when he called activated certain elements, a phantom of the mythical beast pertaining to their respective element would manifest.

Yang Baitou was shocked at first but understood that this occurred as a result of his gold revolving core and the five principles engraved upon it.

His axe skills had improves also. He was able to cleave the very wind itself and create gusts of wind that were in itself very sharp and tore apart his statues like butter. He had become proficient in throwing his axe too. Out of boredom and laziness, he enchanted it with runes that would return his axe to his hand when he whistled.

And so time began to progress again. And he would repeat the process of meditation and his other activities. Yang Baitou had forgotten about time and no longer worried about it. Eventually he came closer and closer to the answer that satisfied him very much. So much so that he felt his heart racing as he scrambled about to write his thoughts in the dirt.

He finally came to understand that he didn't need to run away from his love. It was acknowledgment and acceptance that would bring him happiness. He didn't need for Dong Bai to love him back; nor did he need his master's forgiveness. He only needed to remember the memories he made. And moving on with his life was what he needed to do. He would eventually find another that he could love.

Coming to this realization. He began shouting for his master to unseal the mountain and that he was ready to leave.

As he was yelling, the opening where light came from had shattered and bits of rubble fell through. Among the falling rubble and debris he made out the shadow of a human figure.

Despite being so sudden, the scene, if viewed from a third person perspective was symbolically similar to seeing an divine being fall from the heavens following a divine war.

This particular divine being seemed to have its head splashed with blood.

Without a thought he leaped into the air and caught the fallen deity. When they landed he looked down; curious as to what the face of this deity was. And to his dismay it was a face he was too familiar with. The face of his master's wife, Dong Bai.

She seemed to be heavily injured and he therefore gave a droplet of his cure-all elixir. He wiped her face clean as her head was covered in blood.

In his focus and concern to save his first love, he did not notice that his body was emanating a gold aura that dissipated from his back.

Bewildered by the fact that he had just gotten over his first love. He did not imagine in his wildest imaginations ever think he'd see her again; especially not in such a sorry state that would cause his heartstrings to throb in pain at the thought of the love of his life's demise.

Taking a deep breathe he calmly set down the unconscious Dong Bai upon the clay a'kang he had constructed and quietly draped his "reverse-scale" blanket over her to keep her warm and comfy. After taking even more deep breaths he then paced a good distance away from the unconscious Dong Bai.

At that spot he face-palmed himself to see if he might be dreaming. And with the pain confirming his cognizance; he screamed from the top of his lungs into his palms, "UGHHNHNNHNNHHHNH!"

Realizing that he would never be done with the way he felt towards her, he hated himself for being the biggest hypocrite in existence. His earlier epiphany had merely been a lie he concocted to fool himself into thinking he could move on; at least the part about not needing Dong Bai to love him back. Love can easily make humans selfish. And he didn't know this because he had yet to fully grasp that love itself is a metaphysical bitch with no remorse or care for how much suffering it would give a person.

Following his muffled screams he leapt. Thinking he would be pulled down by the seal placed on him, he jumped with no hesitation. As he was closing in on the tip of the mountain, he closed his eyes in acceptance of the rebounding force he was supposed to feel.

Not feeling a pulling force, but a warm torrent of wind on his face, he opened his eyes. This warm feeling in itself was one he had not felt for a long time. It was the embrace of the sun's warmth as well as the breeze of the outside air. Knowing he was outside at last, tears fell down his chubby cheeks.

Noticing he was in midair, he turned to look at the scenery around him.

On his face, he wore an expression similar to one a newborn child would make at the discovery of its birth.

He saw buildings, some that towered and reached close to the heavens. And the forests that surrounded the mountain had become no more than farmlands.

He then began to descend and while falling he caught sight of a couple of individuals conversating next a woodshed. They had surrounded it and were shouting. None of the individuals noticed him as it seemed they were searching for something or catching rats.

He landed back in the hole that was hidden by a cornfield, the one that used to be a "mountain."

Noticing that at least he was not alone in this place he ran to his a'kang. He was considering that the current situation was not all that bad as he wasn't alone; his master's wife was there to accompany him.

Full of questions about what events had occurred while he was imprisoned he walked over to the a'kang. There he sat patiently and quietly waiting; watching the lady sleep peacefully. At least he thought she was sleeping.

He didn't know but earlier when he was screaming, she awoke to his muffled screams as it was loud enough in the mountain to feel the reverberations in her soul. Dong Bai got up and rubbed her eyes.

Yawning, she turned to see a man with his palms up to his face and back turned towards her. He was a fat man with the height of an average Chinese mainlander.

She was about to speak when a loud, "Boom!" came and a small shock wave hit her, knocking her off the bed. She got up slowly and pinched herself.

She felt pain and her confused and speechless face said many things, "What the f**k did I just see?"

Before she could think much about what had happened. The fat person who had jetted out had come down like a javelin missile. In the midst of the flying dust, the girl got back on the bed and covered herself and shut her eyes tightly. She then readied a pocket knife she had in her pockets. Dreading every little moment know, she stayed motionless as her fear grew with the sounds of footsteps towards her direction.

She felt the fat person from earlier sit next to her as he slightly displaced the heavy blanket that covered her. Feeling his stares, she couldn't bare with it anymore and chose to confront her captivator. She opened her eyes and thrust the knife towards the fat man next to her while yelling, "Die, pervert!"

Shocked by the events unfolding before him, Yang Baitou's adrenaline flooded his mind. Utilizing what he had learned in seclusion, he disarmed her in a flash and put her in a wristlock.

She cried out, "Ouch!" which prompted him to let go instantly.

Yang Baitou stepped back and stated, "My apologies, I never meant to hurt master's wife. I was startled by the sudden act of a knife approaching me."

She was confused by what Yang Baitou had just said. And so Dong Bai asked, "Who's your master's wife? I don't even know why I'm here right now. I should be asking you who you are."

Yang Baitou thought for a short while and stated, "Ahh. Do you perhaps have amnesia Miss Dong Bai?"

Angered by the reply she received, "Dong Bai" angrily complained; "I'm not this Dong Bai lady and I'm not your master's wife. My name is Xue Yating. Now why am I being held captive, what did those ruffians do to me?"

Piecing things together in a moments thought, he finally understood what was happening.

Agitated he asked Xue Yating, "Xue? Are you related to a Xue Bai by any means? Also, What time is it?"

Xue Yating pulled out her cell phone to check what time it was.

"It's four o'clock in the afternoon. And I am related to a Xue Bai. We pray to his ancestral tablet at home every year. Why would you know of him? He's been dead ever since the fall of the Han dynasty. Unless... no way. The legends are really true?"

"Fall of the Han dynasty and master's death? What preposterous words are you speaking of? How long have I been down here and what legend are you speaking of?"

"Mmmm, this may take a while for me to explain to you. We tell our children a legend our ancestor Xue Bai created. He told his children this story and they tell it to theirs. The legend itself tells of a great warrior who had traveled the warring states and done a many good deeds. And in doing so the warrior gained the favor of the the heavens itself and was bestowed immortality. Through the immortal's adventures it had attracted the attention of the warlord Cao Pi; a man desired the secret to immortality and thus sought out in search of the immortal. Knowing of the power behind an immortal, Cao Pi offered the lives of millions of innocents and even the emperor to summon a being from another dimension to our own. To protect the immortal, emperor Xian was forced to seal away and keep its whereabouts a secret. Only after a millennia had passed and the malevolent existence targeting the immortal was gone were the descendants allowed to release the immortal. As payment for its safety the one who released the immortal would be granted a wish that would be fulfilled."

After explaining so much, Xue Yating had to take a break to catch her breath.

His emotions welling in his heart as he finally understood what had happened, Yang Baitou cried. He hated himself for his childish thinking. It was never about his master's wife; he had merely been blinded by his own feelings of love. But he figured that must have been a part of his master's plan.

He never knew that Cao Pi was such a threat. He had always been crafty but never did Yang Baitou anticipate that Cao Pi be putting his sights upon Xue Bai's treasured immortal elixir, one of the last remaining from the Qin dynasty following it's downfall. To give such a priceless treasure like that to a mere orphan picked up from the gutters made Yang Baitou clutch his heart.

For his sworn brother who knew of his pending doom and devise a scheme of imprisonment just to protect him. Yang Baitou wept for his junior who held no control over his own fate. And lastly he wept for the land he once knew.

The scene of an immortal weeping would be a fitting subject of a painting for it conveyed so many emotions.

After a long bout of crying he said while sniffling, "Well I, Yang Baitou, am a man of my word and if my master says I shall grant a wish; then I will do anything in my power to help you."

Smiling at Yang Baitou; Xue Yating stated, "Greetings to Immortal Yang. I, Xue Yating, am happy to meet you and hope you can grant me my wish."

Replying to her, "It is my honor to formally meet miss Xue. State your wish to me whenever."

Right as he finished his sentence, she stated with excitement, "I wish for you to help me get a boyfriend."

Yang Baitou was stunned speechless and Xue Yating was elated at the thought of her wish being granted. This scene would forever be immortalized in his memories.