My words have become law; I truly have no desire to display my divine power before others.

The incense at the Ginseng Lord Temple burns softly.

The elder knelt on the prayer mat, his back ramrod straight, but his knees were already aching.

He knelt his whole life, from the age of twenty to seventy, for fifty years, and his knees were long ruined.

But he still knelt down, respectfully kowtowed three times, then straightened up and put three incense sticks into the incense burner.

The smoke curled up, past the peeling gold paint on the face of the Ginseng Master, drifted out from under the eaves of the temple, and scattered in the sunlight.

"Grandpa," the clan elder said in a low voice, "bless the ginseng-gathering village. Bless Lin Wusheng."

There was no one else in the temple when he said this.

He dismissed the young man who was tending the incense offerings, saying he wanted to be alone for a while.

The young man didn't ask any more questions, prepared the incense and candles, and then went out.

The clan elder knelt alone on the prayer mat, facing the clay statue of the deity, and repeated what he had said every time he had come over the past three years.

Bless the ginseng-gathering village. Bless the martial saint of the forest.

I said it three times. Each time it was softer than the last, and the last time it sounded like I was talking to myself.

He propped himself up on his knees, and his kneecaps made a "crack" sound.

He stood there for a while, waiting for the pain to subside, before turning around and leaving the temple.

The sunlight outside made him squint. He shielded his forehead with his hand and looked around. There was no one there.

The path in front of the temple was deserted, with only a few sparrows pecking at the rice grains dropped by worshippers.

The clan elders did not go into the village.

He went around to the back of the temple and slowly walked into the mountains along a path covered by weeds.

The road was very narrow, only wide enough for one person to walk on at a time, and the bushes on both sides almost completely blocked it.

He walked slowly, his cane poking small holes in the muddy ground.

After walking for about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, a stone wall appeared before them.

The stone wall was covered with vines and thick moss, like a layer of velvet covering the stone.

The elder walked to the stone wall, stopped, and took a few breaths.

He leaned his cane against the side and reached out to push aside the vines.

Behind the vines, a flat stone surface was revealed, with a small, fist-sized hole in it, dark and black, like the eye of the mountain.

He took out a cloth bag from his pocket, opened it, and inside were several pieces of pastry wrapped in oil paper.

Osmanthus cake, mung bean cake, and a piece of jujube paste pastry.

He stuffed the pastries one by one into the small hole, and then took out a letter with the words "To Lin Wusheng" written on the envelope.

He stuffed the letter into the hole, stepped back, and stood there, staring at the dark little opening.

There was no sound from inside the cave.

There were no footsteps, no coughs, no turning of paper.

There was nothing there.

The elder stood for a long time until his legs went numb, but there was still no sound from inside the cave.

He covered the vines again, picked up his cane, and walked back along the path.

After taking a few steps, he looked back again.

The stone wall is still a stone wall, the vines are still vines, nothing has changed.

Lin Wusheng is the pillar of strength of Caishen Village.

Everyone in the village says this, but no one knows that the needle is rusted.

Lin Wusheng is not 100 years old this year, but 130 years old.

Thirty years ago, he was already a hundred years old.

The lifespan of a martial saint is longer than that of an ordinary person; living to a hundred years old is not unusual, but this is the limit.

To save his life, the village gave him their only thousand-year-old ginseng.

That ginseng root is the treasure of the ginseng-collecting village, passed down for generations, and no one is willing to part with it.

But at that time, Lin Wusheng lay there, barely breathing. The clan elder knelt in the ancestral hall all night. The next day, he took out the ginseng, personally boiled soup, and brought it to Lin Wusheng's bedside.

Lin Wusheng drank the ginseng soup and came back to life.

But there's only one thousand-year-old ginseng root; once it's eaten, it's gone.

The clan elders have been wondering all these years what would have happened if they hadn't given him that ginseng root back then.

With Lin Wusheng dead, and no Wusheng left in the village, will those mountain bandits, those evil spirits, and those covetous outsiders pounce on the ginseng-gathering village and tear it to shreds?

he does not know.

All he knew was that if he hadn't been given food back then, Lin Wusheng wouldn't be alive today.

As long as Lin Wusheng is still alive, Caishen Village will remain Caishen Village.

But how long can this breath last?

He knew the strongest people in the village.

There is one in the late stage of the blood exchange, and two in the mid-stage.

In the Hundred Thousand Mountains, a late-stage Blood Transformation Realm expert is considered a master, but without a Martial Saint to oversee things, those hidden forces will have designs on him.

Last year at the grand ceremony, Lin Wusheng appeared.

He was wearing a faded gray cloth shirt, his hair was neatly combed, and his back was ramrod straight as he walked down the mountain.

The villagers gathered around him, some calling him "Grandpa Martial Saint" and others "Grandpa Lin." The children circled around him, and he smiled, patting one's head and another's face.

He looked to be in good spirits, just like in previous years.

But the clan elders knew it was different.

He stood outside the crowd, watching Lin Wusheng walk over.

He watched his steps, the amplitude of his arm swings, and the rhythm of his breathing.

Outsiders might not be able to tell, but he had been watching Lin Wusheng for decades, and he could tell that Lin Wusheng's steps were heavier than last year, his arm swings were smaller, and his breathing was not as steady as last year.

He's just putting on a brave face.

Lin Wusheng stood from beginning to end during the ceremony that day.

After the offerings were laid out, he led everyone in kowtowing and reciting prayers in a loud and clear voice.

After the ceremony, a feast was held in the village. He drank a few cups, chatting and laughing with people until it got dark before returning home.

The clan elders escorted him to the foot of the mountain.

Lin Wusheng stopped and glanced back at him. In that glance, there was nothing.

There was no fatigue, no pain, nothing superfluous.

He glanced at the clan elder, then turned and walked into the path, never looking back.

After that, Lin Wusheng went into seclusion.

He told reporters that he wanted to take advantage of his good health in the next few years and try to break through that threshold.

Through martial arts, one can attain the Dao and enter the legendary realm.

The villagers were thrilled to hear this, saying that if Lin Wusheng could become a Taoist master, the ginseng-gathering village would no longer have to fear anyone.

The clan elder said the same thing, in front of everyone, with a smile, as if he were stating something very certain.

But he knew for himself that it wasn't like that.

Lin Wusheng didn't want to break through that threshold; he had no choice but to.

His body was already exhausted, and all methods to prolong his life had been exhausted.

Instead of waiting for the oil to run out and the lamp to go out, let's take a gamble.

If it succeeds, perhaps it can prolong life, or perhaps it can truly lead to enlightenment; if it fails, dying in the cave is still considered dying in battle, not dying of old age.

The clan elders kept the news tightly under wraps.

The villagers only knew that Lin Wusheng had gone into seclusion, but they didn't know that his health was failing.

The villagers believed him because he was the clan elder, and no one dared to disbelieve his words.

He can fool others, but he can't fool himself.

He knew that Lin Wusheng was probably dead.

That hole can't be opened from the outside; it can only be opened from the inside.

After Lin Wusheng went inside, he bolted the stone door from the inside.

He can't get out, and people outside can't get in.

Every few days, the clan elder would bring food, stuffing snacks through the small hole and then the letter inside.

The contents of the letters were always similar—things happening in the village, things happening outside, and a line that read, "Everything is fine in the village, don't worry."

But over the years, they haven't replied to a single letter.

He didn't believe it.

He couldn't believe that Lin Wusheng had died like that.

Lin Wusheng is a martial saint, the most powerful person in Caishen Village in the past hundred years.

In his youth, he single-handedly repelled mountain bandits and killed a mountain demon with a single palm strike. He roamed the Ten Thousand Mountains for decades without ever being defeated.

How could someone like that die so quietly in a hole?

But he also knew that even a martial saint was human.

Everyone gets old and dies.

Lin Wusheng is already 130 years old; he should have died long ago.

His survival to this day is thanks to the thousand-year-old ginseng.

The elder walked back to the village, leaned his cane against the door, sat down in the main room, poured himself a cup of cold tea, and drank it sip by sip.

The tea was brewed in the morning, and it's already completely cold; it's very bitter.

Tomorrow is the grand festival.

He had to stay alert and not let anyone see through his disguise.