After returning home at noon to cook, Mo Tiange went back to the ancestral hall.
In the morning, the Old Master taught all the children of the clan to read. In the afternoon, however, only those children who were held in high hopes would attend.
Since Mo Tiange was a girl, she could neither take the imperial examinations nor conveniently seek employment in towns. Originally, there was no need for her to study much. However, the Old Master greatly admired her father's learning and thus regarded her with special favor. Additionally, her mother also felt that since her father was so erudite, she too should read more books, rather than frittering away her time on mundane gossip like ordinary village girls.
The afternoon lessons were much more relaxed than those in the morning. Five or six children either studied and practiced writing on their own or were taught individually by the Old Master.
When Mo Tiange entered, she bowed to the master as a student would, then went into the library.
The Mo Family was not a large clan. Their ancestral hall consisted only of a main hall, a courtyard, and east and west wing rooms. The main hall housed the spirit tablets of generations of ancestors. The backyard was where the clan gathered for New Year celebrations, births, and ancestral feasts. The front half of the east wing had been converted into a schoolhouse, while the rear half served as the library. The west wing housed a few elderly widows and widowers who, in their daily lives, took care of the ancestral hall.
The library was not large. Six bookshelves stood against the walls, holding over a thousand books in total—the collection passed down through generations of the Mo Family.
Mo Tiange pulled a stool over to the eastern side. The books on this shelf were all travelogues and miscellaneous tales, written in common language and containing many illustrations, making them perfectly suited for a child like her who had only just begun her studies.
She enjoyed reading these miscellaneous books. The Old Master said nothing about it. After all, she was a woman who couldn't take the exams; it didn't matter what she read.
Mo Tiange selected a book, then found a copy of the *Dajin Dictionary* to place beside her. She sat by the window and began to read.
The book was titled *Brief Records of Tianji*. It was said that the world was vast, with countless lands and oceans. The region they inhabited was called Tianji. Tianji was enormous, encompassing the Jin State and over a dozen other countries, both large and small. To the northeast lay a vast forest; to the west stretched a desolate desert; to the north were glaciers and wondrous icy landscapes; to the south ran an unbroken chain of mountains.
This book recorded the strange people and unusual tales of Tianji.
Legend had it that at the southern end of Tianji stretched a mountain range known as Kunwu. Kunwu extended for thousands of miles, a continuous chain of peaks and ridges. From east to west, no one had ever been able to cross it since ancient times. Mortals living not far from the mountains occasionally saw purple mists swirling within and flashes of multicolored light. Those who ventured into the mountains seeking them would become lost in the clouds and mist, and only by turning back could they find their way out.
Gradually, people began to say that these mountains were Immortal Mountains, accessible only to Immortals.
The Immortals residing on Kunwu Mountain absorbed the morning cloud dew and fed on the evening moon essence at night. They could ascend to the heavens and descend into the earth, capable of anything. If they found individuals with Spirit Roots in the mortal realm, they would take them back to the Immortal Mountain to cultivate. Once cultivation reached great completion, one would become an Immortal. Upon becoming an Immortal, one could turn their hand to summon clouds or rain, tread on clouds to travel thousands of miles in an instant, move mountains and overturn seas, ascend to the heavens and descend into the earth. They could also maintain eternal youth and achieve immortality.
Everyone in the world longed to enter the Immortal Mountains and cultivate an immortal's bones. Unfortunately, Spirit Roots were hard to find. For most people, Immortals existed only in legends.
The book recounted one story. In ancient times, a ruler of the Chu Kingdom was deeply enamored with the Dao and wished to cultivate to immortality. He summoned all Daoist practitioners in the land to the capital, seeking one of profound cultivation to appoint as the royal preceptor. Just as the Daoists from across the kingdom were competing in Daoist arts, a filthy, ragged beggar walked into the arena and said, "You lot aren't even fit to carry my shoes." The assembled Daoists were furious, but the beggar merely laughed heartily. He raised a finger, and a deep pool suddenly appeared in the center of the Daoist platform. With another wave of his hand, the pool vanished, replaced by raging flames. Everyone present was astounded. The King of Chu wished to appoint him as the royal preceptor, but the beggar shook the dust from his clothes and departed, vanishing in an instant.
It also recorded that in the Liang Kingdom, there was a scholar from a poor family who studied diligently and finally achieved top honors in the imperial examinations. However, at the celebratory banquet, he offended a powerful noble of the court and was assigned to manage the library of the Hanlin Academy. The illustrious top graduate thus languished in the library for ten years, his once-boundless future seemingly gone. Yet, ten years later, this top graduate, having found an Immortal Method within the library's collection, attained enlightenment overnight. When the noble he had offended learned of this, he was terrified. The top graduate merely laughed it off and rode the wind away.
Mo Tiange was reading with great relish when suddenly someone stood before her. She looked up, hurriedly closed the book, and stood up. "Master."
The Old Master nodded, took the book from her hands, flipped through a few pages, and asked, "Do you recognize all the characters?"
Mo Tiange replied, "There are some characters I don't know. I look them up in the dictionary. For those I can't find, I've written them down to ask you next time, Master."
The Old Master handed the book back to her. "Good. Reading widely is the best way to learn characters. Continue."
"Yes, Master."
As the sun slanted westward, Mo Tiange returned the book to the shelf and went out to clean the schoolhouse.
The other children had all gone home. The Old Master had also gone to the rear hall for his meal. The front hall was empty except for her.
After wiping the tables and sweeping the floor, she passed by the rear door of the main hall on her way to dump the trash and paused.
Inside, it seemed there was... a light.
She watched for a good while, then set down her dustpan and moved closer.
Women were not allowed to enter the ancestral hall. Even those who had taken a husband into the family had to have their husbands enter on their behalf. Therefore, Mo Tiange had never entered this main hall housing the spirit tablets.
At this moment, the main doors of the hall were closed. That hazy, indistinct glow—was it light, or was it mist? She couldn't see clearly. She looked left and right, saw that no one was around, hesitated for a moment, but her curiosity got the better of her. She set the dustpan aside, crept on tiptoe, and stealthily stepped inside.
The main hall was tall, and with the doors shut, the interior was pitch black, save for the faint light filtering through the latticed windows and the brightness from the rear door.
She cautiously approached and discovered that the light seemed to be coming from the highest spirit tablet.
Rows upon rows of spirit tablets were placed in the hall, at least forty or fifty of them, filling even the walls on both sides, making the scene look particularly eerie.
Mo Tiange felt a twinge of fear and wanted to retreat. But the moment she entered, the light grew brighter.
Unable to restrain her curiosity, she looked up to find its source and saw that on the highest tier, there was only a single spirit tablet.
The tablet was entirely white, very much like jade. Her grandfather's house had a statue of a Dao Lord carved from white jade. But this tablet was even whiter, and it seemed to be surrounded by a mist-like white vapor.
Mo Tiange looked around, dragged a chair from a corner over beside the spirit tablet, and stepped onto it. It was just tall enough. She carefully reached out to grasp the tablet.
She was small; she had to lean almost half her body onto the altar to get the tablet in her hands.
It felt somewhat cool. The white vapor drifted over her hands; she could see it clearly now.
Mo Tiange turned the tablet over and saw five characters inscribed on it: Mo Yaoqing's Tablet. There was only a name, different from all the others.
The white vapor grew thicker, even beginning to envelop her body. She stared at the tablet and saw the white light growing brighter and brighter as well. The light, initially just a hazy white glow, gradually transformed into a radiant, shimmering luminescence. Witnessing such a miraculous event, she couldn't help but widen her eyes.
Suddenly, the light flashed and shot straight into the space between her eyebrows. Startled, her eyes abruptly lost focus, then slowly closed. She tumbled down from the chair.