Chapter 35: A Gift for the Qixi Festival

Li Lin went to the marketplace to buy some supplies, then visited a cosmetics shop and purchased several styles of red forehead flowers that he thought looked attractive.

So-called forehead flowers were actually just forehead ornaments.

The name was simply different.

Do not underestimate these things.

They sold for far more than rouge.

After buying three different styles of forehead flowers, Li Lin paid several banknotes.

It was equivalent to losing half a gold ingot.

Yet he did not feel distressed.

After all, he had recently earned quite a bit of income.

More importantly, the Tree Immortal Lady had helped him several times.

This small token of thanks was actually rather shabby by comparison.

He returned to the village before dusk.

Some villagers were still moving about, making use of the final moments available for work.

He headed directly to the altar.

“Tree Immortal Lady!”

Li Lin called out.

However, there was no response from the altar.

Yet he could sense that the Tree Immortal Lady was inside the altar and simply had not come out.

“Could it be that gui sleep too?”

Li Lin found it somewhat strange.

But he did not think much of it and returned home first.

After dinner, he impatiently took out the handwritten copy of the Falling Lightning Incantation and began reading it carefully.

[Falling Lightning Incantation +1] [Lightning Arts +1] [Cultivation +1]

Hm?

Li Lin froze for a moment.

He had expected the Falling Lightning Incantation to increase the proficiency of Lightning Arts.

But what was Cultivation?

Immortal cultivation?

If that guess was correct, then this world’s waters ran very deep indeed.

Then again, it was not strange.

If gui existed, then the existence of immortals was perfectly reasonable as well.

Yet he had been in this world for more than half a year and had never heard any tales of immortals.

He continued studying the manual.

By the time he finished reading the entire lightning art text, it was nearly midnight.

He had a feeling that he now understood how to cast the Falling Lightning Incantation.

All that remained was practical application.

Excitement surged within him.

He wanted nothing more than to go outside immediately and call down a bolt of heavenly lightning to see what it was like.

But then he remembered that it was already deep into the night.

All the villagers were asleep.

If he summoned a thunderclap now, would he not be disturbing everyone’s rest?

So he gave up the idea and decided to leave it until the next morning.

Just as he was about to go to bed, he noticed a green snake tail gently swaying outside the window.

Li Lin knew the Tree Immortal Lady had arrived.

He immediately took a small silk-wrapped bundle from his luggage and walked outside.

In the courtyard, the Tree Immortal Lady floated about one metre (about 3.3 ft) above the ground with her back facing him.

“Tree Immortal Lady, I’ve bought the forehead flowers.”

Li Lin opened the silk handkerchief.

Inside were three different styles of forehead ornaments, all red.

The Tree Immortal Lady turned around and descended to the ground.

After examining them for a while, she took both the silk wrapping and the handkerchief.

She appeared quite satisfied.

Then she moved a little closer to Li Lin and bent down slightly.

In truth, the Tree Immortal Lady’s body was quite slender and elongated.

Her lower body was a snake tail.

Even while standing on the ground, she was already a head taller than Li Lin.

At this moment, their eyes were level.

Li Lin looked at her in confusion.

“Today isn’t the day for offering essence energy.”

The two of them had made physical contact before.

Whenever he offered essence energy, the Tree Immortal Lady would hold his hand.

Then...

The Tree Immortal Lady removed her mask.

A pale and beautiful face was revealed.

Her eyes were long and narrow, her eyelashes exceptionally thick.

She possessed a strange and enchanting beauty.

Li Lin had guessed that the Tree Immortal Lady would be beautiful.

He had simply not expected her to be this beautiful.

A red forehead flower appeared in her right hand, the one shaped like a three-petaled lotus leaf.

Then she pointed at her own forehead.

Li Lin understood.

He picked up the ornament and carefully attached it to her forehead.

Her Ladyship’s face was cold and smooth.

After it was attached, the Tree Immortal Lady floated upward to a height of about one and a half metres (about 5 ft).

Bathed in moonlight, she lowered her head and looked at Li Lin.

A questioning look appeared in her eyes.

Li Lin exclaimed in admiration,

“Very beautiful.”

Satisfaction appeared in the Tree Immortal Lady’s eyes.

Then she handed the mask she held in her left hand to Li Lin.

“You’re giving it to me?”

The Tree Immortal Lady nodded, then slowly floated back toward the altar.

The mask felt cold.

Its material was strange.

It seemed neither leather nor jade.

It also emitted a faint trace of yin energy.

Presumably it was some kind of special magical artifact.

Otherwise, the Tree Immortal Lady would not have worn it constantly.

With that thought, Li Lin put on the mask as well.

A faint stream of yin energy seemed to flow into his eye sockets.

Yet when he looked around, nothing appeared different.

Then Li Lin could not help looking into the distance, toward the mountainside behind the village.

The moment he looked, his eyes widened.

The entire mountain was covered with countless gui!

All of them were minor gui.

Each one resembled a child.

Even the larger ones only looked like children about one metre (about 3.3 ft) tall.

The expressions of these gui were strange.

Red light flickered within their eyes as they wandered aimlessly.

A few breaths after Li Lin saw them, they seemed to sense something.

One after another, they turned their glowing red eyes toward him.

In an instant, countless wild gui across the entire mountain saw Li Lin.

The scene of innumerable densely packed points of light nearly triggered trypophobia in him.

He hurriedly removed the mask.

The “illusion” before his eyes disappeared.

Li Lin had long heard that people possessing the Heavenly Eye ability disliked using that power at night.

Now he finally understood why.

It truly was disgusting.

Li Lin wiped away the cold sweat that had unknowingly appeared on his forehead and returned to his room to sleep.

His sleep quality that night was not particularly good.

One moment he would see the Tree Immortal Lady’s beautiful yet eerie face.

The next moment he would see mountains full of child-like gui.

The two scenes kept switching back and forth, making them extremely annoying.

When he woke up the next day, he washed his face and pushed open the door.

Today was overcast.

Xiaohu was already waiting outside the courtyard.

Upon seeing Li Lin, he excitedly waved.

“Brother Lin. You’re teaching me spear techniques today, right?”

“Wait a bit first.”

Li Lin looked at the cloudy sky and nodded slightly.

The Falling Lightning Incantation was easiest to cast during rain.

The next best conditions were cloudy skies.

Clear weather was naturally the most difficult.

If one could summon lightning on a clear day, it meant that person’s mastery of lightning arts had already reached an extremely proficient level.

Li Lin looked at a stone in the courtyard.

Originally, he had intended to carve it into a stone stool.

But later he had lacked the time to polish it, so it had remained there.

Using the bluestone as a target, Li Lin slowly began forming hand seals.

At the same time, he guided the yin energy within his body into his hands.

As one seal after another formed correctly, Li Lin felt his yin energy being guided into the air.

It seemed to resonate with something.

By the time the seals were complete, a large portion of the yin energy within his body had vanished.

Then a bluish-red bolt of lightning twisted downward from the sky.

The bluestone was struck and instantly shattered into fragments that flew everywhere.

Only afterward did the sound arrive.

A thunderclap from a clear sky exploded throughout the entire village.

Zhao Xiaohu instinctively covered his buzzing ears.

His eyes widened like bronze bells as he stared in disbelief at the shattered stone.

“My heavens... Brother Lin can use magic now.”

Li Lin’s heart was also filled with joy.

The Falling Lightning Incantation seemed even easier to learn than he had imagined.

Now he finally possessed a true long-range attack method.

“Brother Lin, I want to learn that!”

Zhao Xiaohu excitedly rushed into the courtyard.