Chapter 119: Two Doors

As a new servant on Tianqiao Peak, Yan Liqiang’s assigned duty was storekeeping. He was responsible for managing an ore warehouse.

Compared to cleaning the toilets, this work couldn’t be any easier. The only thing Yan Liqiang had to do was handling the paperwork of every ore coming in and going out of the warehouse.

There were fixed times for the ores to come in and go out of the warehouse on Tianqiao Peak. The ores were delivered there by a specific person and the Senior Martial Brothers on Tianqiao Peak would produce a receipt to retrieve them. The ores went out from the warehouse every morning between seven and nine o’clock and came in between one and three o’clock in the afternoon. Apart from these two intervals, Yan Liqiang basically had nothing much to do for the remaining time. Therefore he had a lot of time to cultivate or do whatever he wished.

This job was definitely a privilege for Yan Liqiang.

Following Yan Liqiang, Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng were promoted as servant followers, thus becoming Yan Liqiang’s assistants and legitly freeing themselves from the chaotic farm work.

On the second day of their promotion on Tianqiao Peak, the three of them moved away from the small mountain basic at the foot of Tianqiao Peak to a courtyard on Tianqiao Peak. With this, their standard of living was instantly significantly upgraded and their meals were no longer salted vegetables and steamed buns or steamed buns and salted vegetables every day. They were finally able to start enjoying the privileges on Tianqiao Peak.

On Tianqiao Peak, Yan Liqiang’s superior was a servant with the surname Huang. On top of Attendant Huang was the manager and on top of the manager was Hall Master Su of Tianqiao Hall.

Apart from being obligated to abide by the various commandments and rules of the Divine Sword Sect on Tianqiao Peak, there was an additional taboo which no one had ever dared to violate— using Hall Master Su’s real name. This was because Hall Master Su’s full name was Su Xiaoai [1]. Hall Master Su would most definitely flip if anyone dared to call him by that name and it was guaranteed that said person would get into trouble, extremely big trouble.

This was a warning Attendant Huang had eagerly given Yan Liqiang upon his arrival at Tianqiao Peak.

Yan Liqiang didn’t expect that Hall Master Su of Tiaoqiao Peak— a bearded, coarse manly man, to have such a girly name either. He had to restrain himself from bursting out in laughter and nodded seriously when he heard Attendant Huang’s warning for the first time.

Attendant Huang was an old man who seemed very amiable and decent. He was one of the seniors among the Divine Sword Sect and had worked for the sect for a few decades. He was still only an external disciple in his sixties. Ten years ago, he had only progressed into a Supreme Martial Warrior by relying on medicinal pills when he was in his fifties. Due to his work abilities and his attentiveness, he was noticed by Hall Master Su and promoted as an attendant on Tianqiao Peak.

One was a young servant age fourteen, the other was an old attendant in his sixties. There was only a level of rank difference between them, yet the disparity in their age was a few folds. One had boundless future prospects ahead of him, the other was already almost at the end of his time. Due to this, Yan Liqiang was even more respectful towards Attendant Huang. He was polite and never dared to overstep his boundary even in the slightest. Ever since arriving at Tianqiao Peak on the first day, Yan Liqiang had truly committed to asking for tasks every morning and then reporting back to his immediate superior at the end of the day. He was never ostentatious and Attendant Huang was extremely satisfied with him.

The heavy snow continued on for three days before it finally stopped. Such weather was extremely rare in Lai Province and the Divine Sword Sect. Even so, it didn’t cause any damage or loss for the Divine Sword Sect. However, quite a number of people did find this phenomenon odd. After the snow stopped, the unsold earth vinegar which Yan Liqiang, Gu Zexuan, and Zhao Huipeng had previously made, gained fame overnight within the sect.

There was no such thing as an impenetrable wall in this world. News about Yan Liqiang being promoted into service spread within the sect after brewing for a few days, suddenly causing quite an uproar among the external disciples of the sect.

Following this news, the earth vinegar that Yan Liqiang produced also spread like wildfire. Through rumors and information, it was said that Yan Liqiang had managed to clean the toilets on Tianqiao Peak extremely well with the earth vinegar he had made, thus drawing the attention of Hall Master Su of Tianqiao Hall, who later promoted him into service on Tianqiao Peak.

With this, the price of the earth vinegar which initially couldn’t even be sold for a measly 20 copper coins suddenly skyrocketed in just two days — to a bottle for 50 copper coins, to a bottle for 100 copper coins… then 500 copper coins for a bottle… causing a shortage of supply to meet the demand. This made Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng grin from ear to ear.

Although meals and daily necessities were inevitable, the earth vinegar at 500 copper coins a bottle was a lot more expensive than most fine wine. Yet, the Divine Sword Sect never lacked wealthy people. As the saying went: ‘martial arts is to be practiced by the educated and the wealthy’. Those who could truly focus on training martial arts were often from clans of a decent background. At the same time, all toilets of various sizes in the sect had a huge demand for the earth vinegar. Putting aside the external disciples who wished to copy Yan Liqiang’s ‘success story’, even high-ranking officers like the Elders and the Sect Master would wish to live in a cleaner environment. Therefore, they didn’t have to worry about the earth vinegar not selling.

At this point in time, Yan Liqiang had completely handed over the entire business of the earth vinegar to Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng. He instructed Gu Zexuan to slowly sell them; just selling a few bottles every day would suffice. They had to try their best to slow down the speed of pushing out the products, so he established a quota for Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng. Regardless of how the both of them planned to sell or how many people wished to buy, they had to slowly sell the batch of earth vinegar they had made together so that the stock could last for three months until the earth vinegar they made with Huo Bin and the rest were ready to be sold.

“The three of us could only make so much earth vinegar. The amount was too little to earn anything. The earth vinegar we made with Huo Bin’s cooperation is the one that will truly earn us money. Over this period of time, the ones we made were merely to create a topic of discussion and draw others attention, so we can control the number of sales when the price is rising. Zexuan, go find Huo Bin tomorrow for a discussion. Have him find a few shillabers to ramp the price up for earth vinegar…”

“Um, what do shillabers and ramping mean?” Gu Zexuan stared at Yan Liqiang in slight embarrassment. Prior to his meeting with Yan Liqiang, he never felt dumb, he could at least be considered a little smart. However, after meeting Yan Liqiang, Gu Zexuan had started to question his own intelligence because he couldn’t understand or even heard of the many terms that Yan Liqiang had mentioned.

Yan Liqiang briefly explained to him about shillabers and ramping prices, then enlightened him about some marketing strategies. When Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng heard about those rotten business marketing tricks people used in later generations, they were dumbstruck. The way they looked at Yan Liqiang was as though he was an alien.

…

After handing over the earth vinegar business to Gu Zexuan and Zhao Huipeng, Yan Liqiang no longer had anything to do with it. Apart from working at fixed hours, Yan Liqiang now mostly spent all his remaining time every day on doing one thing— exploring the secret of the strange rock in his sea of consciousness.

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At this point in time, cultivating Muscle Tendon Changing and Marrow Cleansing had pretty much become a way for Yan Liqiang to recover his stamina and mind.

As the saying went: ‘Something that stays in your mind will someday spring up in your life!’

Yan Liqiang kept exploring every day without rest and gradually felt that he had seemed to discover a way to interact with that mysterious rock. At the same time, he also uncovered many secrets the rock held…

‘Interacting with a rock’. No one would believe it if word got out. They’d probably think Yan Liqiang was mad. Yet everything was real.

The key to interacting with that rock was not through any verbal language or written text, but the heart. To put it more precisely, pure consciousness and spirit energy.

Every time Yan Liqiang closed his eyes and concentrated his attention towards that rock in the sea of his consciousness for nearly three hours, his entire consciousness would be sucked into a mysterious and boundless void by that rock.

It was the same mysterious and boundless void Yan Liqiang had seen during his first time.

The first time he went in, Yan Liqiang didn’t even know how to exit. He later discovered that he only needed to shut his eyes when he was in that void and think about his physical body at the same, he’d exit from there in a flash and regain his movement. If he didn’t try to exit on his own accord, then he’d eventually be ‘kicked out’ by the rock when he was extremely exhausted, just like what happened during his first time.

Every time he got forcefully kicked out by the rock, Yan Liqiang would feel as though he had pulled all-nighters over a few consecutive days to work on tender documents in his previous life. His entire body felt extremely fatigued, just like he had just been thoroughly drained. Other than sleeping, he wanted to do nothing else.

After a few tries, Yan Liqiang realized that whenever he passed through that rock and stayed in there, it seemed like some sort of formless spirit energy in his mind would be depleted and that spirit energy was the bridge which facilitated his communication to the rock.

Within the mysterious void, Yan Liqiang tried many times and even used different methods to keep track of time. He then realized that no matter how long he stayed in the mysterious void, the time in the outside world seemed to be completely frozen the moment he entered. Sometimes, when he felt like he had stayed inside there for a few hours when the time he exited he realized that the time outside seemed to have stopped the moment he entered the mysterious void.

Yan Liqiang was clueless on this situation either. With his not-so-profound scholarly knowledge and self-cultivation, this situation only reminded him of a line he had read from a book in the past—’To a line, a dot would always be stationary; to a surface, a line would also always be stationary. To a living being, a surface would also equally be stationary.’ In our living world, as long as you didn’t move a rock or a table, they would forever stay stationary. From this, we know that if one watched everything in the lower dimension from a higher dimension, everything in the lower dimension would forever be stationary.

Yan Liqiang simply couldn’t figure out just what sort of place was that mysterious space within the rock, but at the same time, he didn’t care either. The only thing which bothered him the most was whenever he entered that mysterious place, he would always be able to watch the scenes from his past on those two magical light screens which would appear inside.

One of the light screens would always play everything he had experienced when he was in Pingxi Prefecture and freeze after the scene where he was murdered.

The other light screen would be playing everything he had experienced in his current body up to this point. The contents of the light screen would always increase every time he came. The additional content were things he experienced between the last time and up to the point when he entered this place again.

Everything playing on those two light screens was like separate documentary films— one of them had already finished recording while the other one was still in progress.

Could it be that apart from being able to let him reincarnate, the rock in his sea of consciousness was also a self-recording video gallery and QQ photo album created by some sort of unimaginable existence? — this thought flashed across Yan Liqiang’s mind. But after seriously thinking about it, he realized just how ridiculous and hilarious his line of thinking was. Such creativity and invention probably only existed in silly films like ‘From Beijing with Love’ starring Stephen Chow; impossible in reality.

Therefore, he believed that those two light screens were definitely not just boring films. They must have some other reason for appearing that he had yet to realize.

With this question in mind, Yan Liqiang spent more than a month repetitively entering and exiting that mysterious space, studying the ‘documentary films’ playing in those two light screens over and over again.

The more he watched those two documentary films, the more he realized those light screens, which were playing different documentaries in them, were like two doors. It seemed as though he only had to push against it gently and his entire body would be able to fly into it…

Every time he entered the mysterious space, it seemed to be waiting for him to fly into one of the light screens. This seemed to be an extremely important choice he had to make.

Yan Liqiang had no idea what was behind those light screens and didn’t know what would happen if he chose any one of them. That was because the more he observed, the more he felt the foggy void behind those light screens was filled with the unknown and uncertainty. He kept observing, lingering around, hesitating and pondering for nearly two months.

Over these two months, Yan Liqiang would always be overwhelmed by grief and agony every time he saw the scene in the first light screen where Yan Dechang died.

If one wished to know the taste of pears, then he’d have to personally try a taste of it…

Finally, one night after two months, Yan Liqiang clenched his jaw, stamped his foot and barged headfirst through the first light screen…