The Red Dust Qi

"The tea's aroma is rich, the taste lingering and sweet, akin to the first warmth of spring!" Gu Ning'an set down the tea bowl, savoring the lingering sensation of the "spring tea" on his lips, which stirred memories of days gone by.

Hearing this, Shopkeeper Wu's wrinkled face relaxed into a smile. "Excellent! Excellent! Excellent! Sir, to have you grace my humble abode and enjoy a cup of tea is a privilege that fills my belly with knowledge."

This remark, Gu Ning'an recalled, was something Shopkeeper Wu had also said years ago.

With a chuckle, Gu Ning'an teased, "What's this? Before you prepared the tea, did you drink two liang of my ink? Now that you bring it up again, are you hoping for more?"

Shopkeeper Wu snapped out of his reverie, waving his hand. "Ah, sir, your ink is too precious. To drink it once was already a great honor; how could I dare ask for more?"

"But," he hesitated, his old face reddening as he continued, "my daughter's birthday is in a few days. When she was little and weak, she drank your ink tea. Now that she's grown, I wonder if she might be fortunate enough to have another cup to nourish her body."

At this point, Shopkeeper Wu's face was flushed with embarrassment. His daughter, born prematurely, had weighed less than four jin. After losing her mother at birth and being unable to nurse, her constitution had been frail from the start. He suspected that, without the efficacy of Gu Ning'an's "ink tea," she might not have survived her infancy.

Reflecting on his own month-long struggle with a stubborn cold, he was all the more unwilling to let his daughter endure such suffering. Thus, he thickened his skin to request another bowl of "ink tea" for her.

Gu Ning'an studied the old shopkeeper with interest. Over the years, this man's skin had indeed grown thicker. The once simple and honest young man who could barely string a sentence together without stammering was long gone.

"Little Sanhua's birthday is soon. I already have a gift prepared for her. As for the ink tea, it works once, but more would have no effect." Gu Ning'an glanced at Shopkeeper Wu's squinting eyes and raised his voice slightly. "What's this? Do you think I'm being stingy?"

"No, no!" Shopkeeper Wu quickly replied, awkwardly smiling. "Sir, you've always been generous. Always generous…"

"You!" Gu Ning'an pointed at the old shopkeeper and continued, "Why are you just standing there? Come sit and tell me how you've managed to grow this teahouse into such a success over the years."

"If your story is good enough, then maybe, just maybe, you'll get that ink tea."

Upon hearing this, Shopkeeper Wu moved with surprising speed, taking two large strides to sit beside Gu Ning'an. After clearing his throat, he began recounting his journey with great enthusiasm...

...

Outside the octagonal pavilion, the rain gradually subsided. Inside the teahouse, the more impatient traveling merchants donned their raincoats and bamboo hats and began to leave.

Wu Guniang remained in the teahouse, but her thoughts were entirely focused on the octagonal pavilion in the back. She eagerly awaited the rain to stop so she could close the teahouse and listen in on her father's conversation with Mr. Gu...

As the rain on Muyun Road ceased, darkness fell, and a sky full of stars spread across the heavens like countless grains of sand.

The teahouse doors were now closed. After dinner, Gu Ning'an and the Wu father and daughter each retired to their rooms.

There were plenty of vacant rooms in the back of the teahouse, so Gu Ning'an didn't need to sleep in the main hall or share a room with Shopkeeper Wu.

Shopkeeper Wu, who was thoroughly drunk, snored like thunder. Even with two walls between them, Gu Ning'an, seated on the edge of his bed, could hear it clearly.

With no other choice, he activated a technique to isolate himself from the external noise.

Sitting cross-legged on the bed, Gu Ning'an's thoughts stirred, and a wisp of red dust qi appeared at his fingertips.

The red dust qi, thread-like in form, swirled around Gu Ning'an's fingertips like a mischievous little sprite.

During his five years wandering the martial world, he had encountered powers such as incense energy and the collective wishes of mortals. However, the aura emanating from this red dust qi was something entirely foreign to him—profound, transcendent, and perfectly aligned with this world.

This was the essence he could perceive from the red dust qi.

Taking out the Path of Dao book from his robes with his left hand, Gu Ning'an didn't open it. Instead, he formed a sword gesture with his right hand and guided the red dust qi to brush across the surface of the book.

No strange phenomena appeared on the Path of Dao, but Gu Ning'an had the distinct sense that the red dust qi became slightly "excited" as it neared the book—though he wasn't sure if it was just his imagination.

After more than thirty years of cultivating with the Path of Dao, he was thoroughly familiar with its contents. Before discovering the book's fraudulent nature, he had never noticed anything amiss. After all, the teachings within had taught him a life-saving technique.

That technique, Command Technique, involved closing one's eyes, meditating to harmonize with heaven and earth, and using one's will to command and control all things.

In his first real battle, Command Technique had allowed him to slay a man-eating tiger. Though the book's explanation of the method was brief and vague, it had undeniably saved his life.

Later, during his travels across the martial world, the versatility of Command Technique became even more apparent.

It wasn't until he discovered that the Path of Dao was a "fake" that Gu Ning'an realized he'd been unable to see the forest for the trees.

The so-called Path of Dao contained very little explanation of magical arts. What it primarily recorded was the tale of a being—neither truly immortal nor mortal—wandering the martial world.

Thus, it was unsurprising that the Path of Dao had been dismissed by others as nothing more than a collection of "fictional stories."

"If people heard that I practiced cultivation based on storybooks, they'd think I'd gone mad," Gu Ning'an thought wryly, mocking himself. Yet his mind returned to the strange sensation he'd experienced on the day of the Return to Silence.

Back then, he'd felt his physical body "expanding" by the day—or more precisely, his soul growing larger and larger.

Just before waking, he found himself gazing down on the entirety of heaven and earth. In that moment, an inexplicable thought emerged in his mind: if he so desired, he could devour everything within his sight.

Had it not been for the sudden intervention of the red dust qi disrupting his Return to Silence, he suspected he would have either died or transformed into some terrifying abomination.

Pulling himself from these thoughts, Gu Ning'an set the Path of Dao down and used Command Technique to control the wisp of red dust qi once more.

The thread-thin red dust qi began spinning nimbly in the air.

Despite the simplicity of this maneuver, Gu Ning'an felt his internal energy depleting rapidly. Controlling this seemingly delicate strand of red dust qi was far more exhausting than moving a thousand-jin boulder.

Swish!

With a flick of his right hand in a sword gesture, the red dust qi straightened into a taut, razor-sharp blade, slicing through the air in the direction of his swing.

A piercing sound accompanied its movement, and where the red dust qi passed, it left behind a faint white scar in the air.

Whoosh!

Exhaling deeply, Gu Ning'an willed the red dust qi to return to his body.

This brief exercise made him realize the terrifying destructive power the red dust qi could unleash in combat.

Moonlight filtered through the cracks in the window, illuminating the room. Gu Ning'an lay back, his mind brimming with questions he could not answer. Deciding not to dwell on them further, he pulled the quilt over himself, emptied his thoughts, and drifted off to sleep.