Chapter 140: Internal Qi was Like Running River, Achieving the Great by Doing Little
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
After Wang Yao had finished preparing the herbs, he went out to practice Tai Chi in a seated position. He leaned against the wall and looked at the sky.
Lianshan was not an industrial city. So the air was nice and clean, and the sky always looked high and far.
Wang Yao had learned something from looking at the sky every night. He could predict the weather of the next day by observing the sky. He found the position of stars contained a lot of secrets, which were worth to observe and study.
Wang Yao didn’t go to sleep until the middle of the night. It was so quiet on Nanshan hill. Only the sound of wind could be heard.
Wang Yao got up before dawn the next day. He had a lot to do during the day.
After he had had breakfast, completed breathing exercises, and finished working in the herbal field, the sun was high up in the sky.
It was a nice day. The time was right, the land was fertile, and Wang Yao was ready. It was the perfect time to brew decoction.
Wang Yao made sure he had enough firewood before starting to brew a decoction. He also called his family to tell them that he wouldn’t go home for lunch.
“San Xian, I’m about to brew a decoction; don’t let anyone in!” shouted Wang Yao.
Woof! Woof! Woof! San Xian barked to accept Wang Yao’s instruction and then went on patrol.
Wang Yao started to brew the decoction inside his cottage.
He started a fire, put herbs inside the multifunctional pot, and adjusted the fire accordingly.
As said on TV, the taste of food depended on a cook’s experience in ingredients and cooking. It could apply to brewing decoctions, too. Brewing
decoctions involved a lot of factors, including the person’s ability to control
the time and fire.
The smell of herbs started to come out of the cottage from 9 am and didn’t stop until the afternoon.
Wang Fengming’s illness was the most serious among all three patients. Therefore, he required a large number of herbs, and it took much longer to brew the decoction for him. Professor Lu’s condition was not too bad, so he didn’t need a lot of herbs, and the process of brewing a decoction for him was easy. But, Wang Yao was serious about every single step of brewing decoctions from the beginning to the end.
When Wang Yao had completed brewing all the decoctions and walked out of his cottage to rest, it was late afternoon. The sun became red and was no longer shiny.
Because Wang Yao was going to meet Tong Wei in town the next day, he didn’t deliver the decoctions to his patients in town immediately.
Wang Fengming had already felt much better after taking the first dose of decoction Wang Yao gave to him. His spirits had lifted, and his eyes were brighter. Wang Fengming and his wife were very touched when Wang Yao gave them another two doses and insisted that Wang Yao should stay for dinner.
“Sorry, I have to go now. I’m meeting someone in town. Make sure you and auntie rest well,” said Wang Yao.
“Okay, thank you. Let me know if you need anything,” said Wang Fengming.
“Sure, thanks,” said Wang Yao.
Wang Yao drove out of the village after he had delivered the decoction to Wang Fengming. He then drove to Riverside Town, which was located to the southeast of Lianshan to deliver a decoction to Xu Maosheng. It was a twenty minutes’ drive for Wang Yao. Xu Maosheng and his wife were both at home when
Wang Yao arrived. Xu Maosheng stopped cooking tea leaves and came out to
welcome Wang Yao.
“Here is the decoction for your wife. After taking two doses, make sure she rests well, and she should be able to recover,” said Wang Yao.
“Thank you for coming here. You could have asked me to fetch it from your place,” said Xu Maosheng.
“That’s fine, I like driving anyway,” said Wang Yao with a smile.
Xu Maosheng finished drinking a large glass of water as he was talking to Wang Yao.
“Uncle Xu, don’t spend too much time cooking tea leaves from now on,” said Wang Yao. He noticed the redness in Xu Maosheng’s eyes and his warm, heavy breathing.
Xu Maosheng had to be very close to the fire when he was cooking tea leaves. He had toxins in his body from the fire and smoke due to years of
processing tea leaves. Only young and healthy adults could resist the smoke
toxins. Xu Maosheng was strong, but he was not young anymore. His health
started to go downhill, and his immune system was no longer functioning well. Fortunately, he loved drinking green tea, which could resolve the toxins a bit.
The tea leaves cooked by fire could resolve toxins caused by fire. How magical that was!
“You are right, and I don’t have the energy to work as hard as before,” said Xu Maosheng. He knew he was getting old and felt tired easily when he was cooking tea leaves. He took a whole day off to rest after cooking half a kilogram of tea leaves for Wang Yao.
“You can drink more tea,” suggested Wang Yao.
“I never stop drinking tea. I’ve got plenty of tea leaves at home,” said Xu Maosheng with a smile.
Wang Yao didn’t stay long at Xu Maosheng’s place. He drove back to Lianshan afterwards and called Tian Yuantu on his way.
Tian Yuantu insisted that Wang Yao stay after they met.
“Don’t leave, let’s have dinner together. Ask Mingbao if he’s available. I’ll call Professor Lu,” said Tian Yuantu.
“Okay,” agreed Wang Yao.
Tian Yuantu picked the same restaurant where he invited Secretary Yang for dinner last time. The restaurant was located on a quiet road. Apart from Wang Mingbao and Li Maoshuang, Tian Yuantu also invited a deputy chief of some bureau.
Wang Yao was not keen on dining with anyone from the local government. But, he found Wang Mingbao was very happy to get the opportunity to
sit with the deputy chief. After all, Wang Mingbao was a businessman. It would bring him potential business if he knew more people from the local government. Li Maoshuang had changed a lot. He no longer drank a lot of alcohol like before. He only had one glass of wine.
Wang Yao was happily chatting with Professor Lu. Professor Lu was in good spirits, especially after Wang Yao had given him a dose of herbal decoction for free.
They said goodbye to each other after dinner.
Tian Yuantu stopped Wang Yao.
“Are you available tomorrow?” asked Tian Yuantu.
“Sorry, no. Do you need me?” said Wang Yao.
“I bought a big area on a hill near town to build a vacation house. Are you interested in having a look with me?” asked Tian Yuantu.
“Near our town?” Wang Yao was curious about which hill it was. Lianshan was surrounded by large areas of foothills. The foothills were not connected to each other, but there were still quite a lot. Wang Yao’s village was located in the middle of four foothills.
“Yes, that’s why I asked Professor Lu to have a look at what kind
of buildings should be built here,” replied Tian Yuantu.
“Maybe on another day?” suggested Wang Yao.
“Okay,” agreed Tian Yuantu.
Wang Yao didn’t drink any alcohol. He drove home straight away.
The weather was nice the next day.
Zhang Xiuying called Wang Yao early in the morning to remind him of bringing Tong Wei to home for dinner. Actually, Wang Yao got up very early. Most villagers were still sleeping when Wang Yao was doing breathing exercises.
Wang Yao drove out of the village and headed to Tong Wei’s home in
Lianshan town center. He called Tong Wei when he arrived at her door. A moment later, Tong Wei came out. She was wearing light makeup and casual clothes.
“Hi, have you had breakfast?” asked Wang Yao.
“Yeah,” replied Tong Wei.
“Where would you like to go?” asked Wang Yao.
“Up to you. I don’t mind,” said Tong Wei.
Wang Yao found it difficult to find a suitable place as Lianshan was not big. The only interesting places were the hills around Lianshan town center where Wang Yao had visited numerous times. He thought both he and Tong Wei would probably find it boring to visit those hills again. Haiqu was nearby, but there weren’t many places worth seeing. Haiqu was close to the ocean while Dao City, where Tong Wei worked was close to the ocean too. Dao City had a much nicer beach.
Wang Yao couldn’t think of a good place to visit.
“What’s going on?” asked Tong Wei as she noticed Wang Yao didn’t start the car.
“I’m still thinking of where we should go,” said Wang Yao.
“Haha,” laughed Tong Wei. “I heard a place called Changqing hill has been quite popular recently. Shall we go and have a look?” asked Tong Wei.
“Sure,” agreed Wang Yao.
It was much easier when a destination had been decided. Interestingly enough, Wang Yao had never been to Changqing hill before. Wang Yao put the address in his GPS and drove off.
“How long are you going to stay this time?” asked Wang Yao.
“Three days. I have three days off every month,” replied Tong Wei.
“Sounds nice,” said Wang Yao.
“Right, when are you going to show me your herbal field?” asked Tong Wei.
I’ve been waiting for you to ask, thought Wang Yao.
“Anytime. Well, we can go to Changqing hill in the morning and come to my place in the afternoon. Then we can have dinner at my home. I’ll drive you home after dinner. How does that sound?” Wang Yao told Tong Wei his plans for the day.
“Sounds super!” said Tong Wei happily.
“Okay, let’s go!” said Wang Yao excitedly.
Wang Yao found the so-called Changqing hill was just a small hill with a few towers on top of it. Those towers were built recently. There was also a hotel on the hill. In fact, the place is very similar to Nanshan hill.
“Let’s go and have a look since we are here anyway,” said Tong Wei after she saw Wang Yao’s disappointed look.
“Okay,” said Wang Yao.
Although the hill was boring and there was graffiti everywhere on the towers and labels that hadn’t been removed, Tong Wei was in a good mood. She posed for Wang Yao to take photos from time to time.
What amazed Wang Yao was that there were quite a few visitors on the hill, even though it wasn’t even the weekend. He was wondering if those visitors were like him and didn’t need to work.
There were also a lot of stones on the hill.
He found there were many stones stacking up at one part of the hill. The stones were used by the developer to build a tourist attraction called “18 holes.”
“Shall we go and take a look?” asked Tong Wei when she moved closer to Wang Yao. She was slightly short of breath after climbing the hill. Her breath smelled as nice as flowers.
“Sure,” said Wang Yao.
The pathway on the hill was narrow, with stones on both sides. Some of the stones formed a hole. Many visitors liked to take photos on the stones.
“What a shame to have these stones here,” murmured Wang Yao.
“What did you say?” asked Tong Wei.
“Nothing,” said Wang Yao.
“Be careful!” someone suddenly shouted.
A large stone rolled from the top of the hill to the visitors, and it was only two meters away from Tong Wei’s head.
“Move!” shouted Wang Yao.
But Tong Wei was too shocked to move. Her face went white.
Wang Yao ran in front of Tong Wei and used his Qi to move the stone to a different direction. The stone, which was over one hundred kilograms changed its path and dropped into the river next to the hill, making a loud sound.
“Are you okay?” Wang Yao took a look at Tong Wei and was relieved after he found that she hadn’t been injured.