The Cold and Aloof Palace Master's Daily Demon-Slaying Life

Within the vast Zuo family's industrial system, their family was classified as "tenant households of the same clan." Because they all shared the surname Zuo and carried a thin but real bloodline of the Zuo family, the rent for the Zuo family's sacred land was set relatively "merciful."

Every year, after paying the rent, the harvested rice would still be enough to feed the family, and occasionally enough to buy a few feet of new cloth, some oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, or even a string of candied hawthorns for the two sisters.

In my father's words, they were considered "rich peasants".

Those tenants who rented land from the Zuo family but didn't share the Zuo surname were truly miserable. The rent was terrifyingly high. After a year of hard work, after paying the rent, the remaining rice was often barely enough to feed the family, and they struggled to survive year after year. If the harvest was bad or someone in the family fell ill, they could immediately be driven to despair.

When she was little, she asked her father in a daze, "Why do the uncles from other families suffer so much more than us, even though they farm the same fields?"

I remember my father was weaving bamboo baskets when he heard this. He paused, looked up at the distant, misty mountains, then lowered his head and continued his work. After a long while, he said in a low voice, "Because... they don't have the surname Zuo."

His tone was complex, containing relief, a hint of reluctance, and mostly a numb acceptance of his fate.

At that time, she only vaguely understood.

She just felt that those children from other families were dressed in tattered clothes, thin and bony, and their eyes sometimes held envy, and sometimes a sense of alienation or even... resentment that she couldn't understand. She instinctively felt uneasy, and she never dared to ask these questions again.

But the underlying tone of childhood is ultimately bright.

Her parents never showed the slightest dissatisfaction or contempt because she and her sister were girls. On the contrary, she and her sister Leng Qiu were the apple of their parents' eyes. Her father would clumsily make kites for them, though they never flew very high; her mother would mend clothes under the dim oil lamp while telling them fragmented stories about immortals slaying demons and monsters, which she had heard from who-knows-where.

Her younger sister, Leng Qiu, was two years younger and quieter. She always liked to follow her around, calling out "Sister" in a childish voice. The two sisters would dig for wild vegetables on the ridges of the fields, catch small fish by the stream, and lie side by side on a cool mat in the yard under the starry summer night sky, counting the endless stars.

Those years flowed by slowly, like the crystal-clear stream in front of the door, babbling merrily, carefree.

The air is always filled with the scent of soil and rice.

Those were the best years in the world.

-

The winter when I was five years old was particularly cold.

My father, Zuo Zhongchun, caught a cold. At first, he only had a cough and fever, so the family didn't take it too seriously. After all, everyone gets a headache or fever sometimes. They just made some ginger soup to make him sweat it out, and that was it.

But Father's illness worsened day by day. His cough became more and more severe, his face flushed, his breath was hot, and he rapidly lost weight.

The mother grew anxious and called the town's doctor. The doctor took her pulse, prescribed some herbal medicine, and shook his head with a sigh: "The cold has seeped into her lungs, becoming a chronic illness. If it had been earlier, perhaps there would have been hope. Now… it's difficult."

The doctor didn't specify what "earlier" meant, but she understood later. "Earlier" meant when she first fell ill. If she could get a cultivator to help, even one who was only at the first level of the Qi Refining stage, to perform a basic "disease-removing technique" or "rejuvenation technique" to dispel the pathogenic energy in her body and nourish her damaged lungs, then this cold would be nothing to worry about.

You can ask a Qi Refining cultivator to help, but that will cost money, specifically "divine money".

Although their family had some surplus grain, it wasn't even enough to cover the "errand fee" for hiring a cultivator to make a house call, when converted to divine money.

Father lay on his bed, coughing terribly, his body curled up in a ball. Mother stayed by his bedside day and night, her face constantly wet with tears, and she quickly grew thinner and thinner. Her three-year-old sister cried loudly, only able to tug at her sister's clothes, repeatedly asking, "Sister, what's wrong with Father? When will Father get better?"

Standing by the bedside, watching her father's pained expression, her mother's despairing eyes, and her sister's bewildered tears, she realized for the first time how fragile mortals are.

A single cold gust can destroy a strong and upright man.

It can cause a warm home to collapse in an instant.

They took out all their savings and even sold some of their most valuable possessions to raise a small sum of money, which they then used to hire a Qi Refining cultivator who was said to be kind-hearted.

The money was sent out, but the person never showed up.

It was only later that I learned that the money was only enough to get the cultivator to "consider" it. And clearly, the cultivator's "consideration" concluded that it wasn't worth wasting precious magical power on such a small amount of money and a mortal family that was destined to receive nothing in return.

In this world where cultivation is the primary productive force, curing a common cold is nothing more than a simple act for a cultivator. But this "simple act" is an insurmountable chasm for mortals.

My father ultimately did not survive that winter.

On a cold, windy night, after coughing violently for a while, he suddenly calmed down, took his mother's hand, opened his mouth as if to say something, but in the end he just looked at her and his sister deeply, his eyes filled with reluctance, regret, and perhaps a hint of relief.

Then, his hand fell to his side.

His eyes never opened again.

Father is gone.

The sky over our family has fallen halfway.

The burdens of life fell squarely on Ning Yuhe's frail shoulders. A widow, with two young daughters, cultivated the sacred fields that would normally require a strong man to barely sustain them.

My mother is aging at a rate visible to the naked eye.

Her once gentle, smiling eyes are now bloodshot and filled with sorrow. Her once straight back has gradually become hunched. The calluses on her palms, layer upon layer, crack and heal, leaving deep lines.

Five-year-old Zuo Qingqiu and three-year-old Zuo Lengqiu were forced to "grow up" overnight.

They no longer chased butterflies, no longer laughed and played. The older sister learned to help her mother cook and take care of her younger sister; the younger sister also tried her best to walk behind her older sister with her short legs, doing some chores within her ability.

Life has transformed from a vibrant tapestry into a somber gray. The air is no longer filled with the fragrance of rice paddies, but with the bitterness of herbs and the saltiness of tears.

Until the autumn of when I was six years old.

The Zuo family sent people to various settlements to gather all the six-year-old children and bring them to the town's school for a three-month "enlightenment" program.

The so-called enlightenment is to teach children to read and then give them a basic, attribute-free book of health-preserving qigong exercises called "The Secret of Nourishing Qi".

The man was a cultivator from the Zuo family at around the fifth level of Qi Refining. He announced with a stern face:

"You will practice this technique for three months. Within these three months, if you can sense the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, you will have an 'open aperture' and the aptitude for cultivation, allowing you to continue your studies. If you cannot sense it, then you lack an open aperture and are destined to be a lowly mortal. After three months, you will return to farming!"

His tone was cold and devoid of any emotion, as if he were proclaiming some predetermined verdict.