2: Chapter 2: The Mysterious Book of Shangqing

Xia Shaoxin quickly closed the door, ran back to his own room, picked up the insect repellent powder used when entering the mountains, and ran back to the door of his grandfather's room.

He used a bamboo tube to blow the powder inside, scattering it throughout the room.

It was raining, so the powder easily became damp; it fell to the ground, turning into small clumps, and its potency was somewhat diminished.

Xia Shaoxin spared no cost, spraying a large amount, and the room was quickly filled with a pungent medicinal smell.

He then placed an insect trap inside.

The Five-colored Scorpion is a scorpion formed by absorbing poisonous miasma; it is only found in these mountains and cannot be seen anywhere else.

It is larger than a fist, and if one is stung by its tail, a cow would drop dead on the spot.

After waiting for a while and hearing no movement, he became impatient. He gently opened the door, slipped inside, and quickly closed it.

The room was dim. Xia Shaoxin used a fire starter to light the oil lamp on the table and searched every corner, but he did not find the Five-colored Scorpion.

He was instantly filled with despair; it seemed it had already run away.

The door had been left open, so it was normal for it to have escaped.

He immediately rushed out of his grandfather's room and searched the vicinity carefully, but found nothing.

He had no choice but to return, kneel three feet away from his grandfather, and burst into loud tears.

His grandfather's face was as black as charcoal, a typical sign of death caused by a Poisonous Insect. Xia Shaoxin dared not touch him, so his grandfather's lying posture was not peaceful.

The old man had sent off his wife, his sons, and his daughters-in-law, but in the end, he could not die a natural death, passing away in the typical manner of a Bug Catcher.

Xia Shaoxin's wailing was earth-shattering, carrying far into the light rain.

The nearest neighbors heard it and sighed, "The old man from the Xia family has finally died."

He didn't know how long he had been crying. When the rain stopped, Xia Shaoxin stood up, preparing to handle his grandfather's funeral arrangements.

He picked up a hoe, walked to a piece of wasteland not far away, and began to dig a pit next to his grandmother's old grave.

No one would come to help; his grandfather had to be dealt with as soon as possible, otherwise, it would trigger a plague.

Unexpectedly, Uncle Liu came over carrying a hoe.

"Has your grandfather passed?"

"Yes." Xia Shaoxin's tears flowed again.

"I will help you dig the pit; you go and burn the old man," Uncle Liu said indifferently.

"Alright, thank you, Uncle Liu."

Xia Shaoxin dropped the hoe and walked back to his house.

The relationship between the villagers and the Bug Catchers was very complex.

They were fellow villagers who saw each other constantly, but in terms of daily living standards, Bug Catchers were slightly better off, which inevitably stirred jealousy.

However, Bug Catchers were considered unlucky and short-lived, so no one wanted to associate too deeply with them.

Soon, Uncle Chen also came, and the youngest son of the Li family arrived as well.

They helped dig the pit; with more people, it was dug quickly and deeply.

Xia Shaoxin used the straw mat his grandfather slept on to drag him to the edge of the pit, then went back to move the firewood from his house and piled it up on a slightly drier patch of ground.

The villagers said nothing, supervising as Xia Shaoxin burned his grandfather completely and pushed the remains into the deep pit all at once.

With one shovel and one hoe after another, they quickly filled the pit.

Then they left in silence.

Xia Shaoxin continued to shovel some soil, piled it into a small mound, and placed the mud-stained malt sugar on the grave mound.

The rain began to fall again, and he wailed loudly.

The funeral of a Bug Catcher was especially simple: first a fire, then a burial.

There was no need for a funeral feast; that was not the custom, and no one would come to pay their respects even if he announced the death.

At this moment, he was the only living person left in the world, along with many grave mounds.

After mourning his grandfather, he went to his parents' graves to cry.

He cried until midnight before stopping.

"Grandfather has passed away. I must go to the town and ask the people at the Gu Bureau to remove me from this Bug Catcher registration so I can go far away and start a new life."

Standing at his grandfather's grave, he looked around. He felt no sense of closeness to this hometown called "Liushu Ao."

He had no other skills besides catching insects.

But he was confident in himself; being young, whatever he did would be better than this short-lived trade!

His grandfather had saved thirty thousand large coins, which amounted to over thirty taels of silver, enough to support him in going far away.

...

The Yue Kingdom imperial court had set up a Gu Bureau in Li Family Hollow, specifically responsible for managing the Bug Catchers.

This was the furthest place Xia Shaoxin had ever been in his life.

The villagers of Liushu Ao were not very knowledgeable, and basically, no one was literate. They didn't even know which prefecture or county of the Yue Kingdom they belonged to; in any case, the government office was in Li Family Hollow.

A trip to Li Family Hollow was a grand event for the villagers of Liushu Ao once a year.

Xia Shaoxin knew that the imperial Gu Bureau controlled all the poisonous miasma mountains in the Yue Kingdom, and the Poisonous Insects collected every year were sold to the country's Sects.

There were several Sects within the Yue Kingdom. It was said that they practiced the Great Dao of Purity and Non-action and should not have stepped foot into places filled with poisonous miasma, yet they were adept at using Poisonous Insects to refine Medicinal Pills.

In the past, the Sects personally controlled each mountain and drove Mortals to catch Poisonous Insects.

This easily led to conflicts between Sects over the struggle for poisonous miasma lands.

Even if they seized the poisonous miasma mountain areas, their own Disciples did not like to go to these places, so they recruited Bug Catchers from among the common people.

But Bug Catchers were short-lived, which harmed the Sects' Karma and involved them in Karma.

What the Sects lacked were people to manage this, and they had plenty of money, so it was better to hand this matter over to the Yue Kingdom imperial court.

The imperial court did not belong to any School; it submitted a certain quantity of Poisonous Insects to each School every year and sold the excess to the Sects at market prices.

The Sects obtained more Poisonous Insects annually than when they managed it themselves, and it was more stable; the imperial court also had a stable income, so both sides got what they wanted.

"Dawu Mountain," which Liushu Ao was close to, was one of the several mountain areas in the Yue Kingdom with severe poisonous miasma.

The next day, Xia Shaoxin went to the town of Li Family Hollow and arrived at the Gu Bureau, firstly to deregister his grandfather, and secondly to request the removal of his own registration.

The Gu Bureau official of Li Family Hollow was named Liu Xinglong. Upon hearing his words, he sneered endlessly: "Where did you hear that a Bug Catcher can be removed from the registry?"

Xia Shaoxin was a little flustered and said in a less-than-firm tone: "I heard other Bug Catchers chatting and saying that it was possible."

"Unless all the men in a Bug Catcher's family are dead, no one can be removed from the registry." Liu Xinglong looked at him as if he were an idiot. "I know you are the only one left in your family and you don't want to do it anymore, but Bug Catchers belong to the slave registry; how can you simply withdraw?"

"Don't lie to me. I've inquired clearly; my Xia family's status as Bug Catchers was only taken on because the Yan family was removed from the registry."

Liu Xinglong slammed the table: "Then do you know how the Yan family was removed from the registry? They had a relative who made a fortune outside and helped them pay a one-thousand-tael silver registration removal fee. Do you have any relatives?"

Xia Shaoxin was left speechless.

How could his family have any wealthy relatives? He was the only one left!

"One thousand taels! You aren't just making that up, are you, my lord?"

An elderly yamen runner nearby smiled and said: "The Gu Bureau official is not lying to you. Removing the registration requires one thousand taels; ordinary people cannot come up with that. Even if you don't marry or have children, you won't be able to save that money in twenty years."

Xia Shaoxin fell silent.

The old man seemed afraid he wouldn't understand and continued to explain: "It's just like at the Chunxiang Pavilion; for a top courtesan to redeem herself, it costs three thousand taels. Your one thousand taels of silver is the same as that girl Peony……"

"Hmph!" The Gu Bureau official scolded, "You old thing, stop talking!"

Xia Shaoxin couldn't help but smile bitterly. My worth is the same as the girl Peony?

He had seen that girl, and she was indeed better looking than a wife married for fifty-eight thousand copper coins.

His grandfather had saved his whole life and only had a few tens of thousands of coins, which amounted to only over thirty taels of silver—already a huge sum that farmers dared not even dream of.

Unexpectedly, it was not enough to marry a wife, nor was it enough to remove his registration.

"Furthermore, you must finish submitting this year's quota before you can discuss the matter of registration removal with me!"

"Also, don't think about becoming a fugitive. Our Yue Kingdom has Qi Refining Cultivators stationed here; running away will result in a miserable death."

Liu Xinglong's eyes were extremely sharp. He saw that Xia Shaoxin was a naive youth and warned him not to harbor any wild ideas.

Xia Shaoxin had indeed thought about becoming a fugitive.

Upon hearing that he would be hunted by Qi Refining Cultivators, he immediately lost heart.

"Work hard, don't let your imagination run wild. The life of a Bug Catcher is much better than that of a farmer!" the elderly yamen runner comforted him.

Xia Shaoxin felt choked up, and Liu Xinglong unceremoniously kicked him out.

He returned home in a daze, getting angrier the more he thought about it, feeling that his rage had nowhere to vent.

He slammed his hand against the kitchen wall: "They really don't give any hope of living!"

Unexpectedly, the old house was in disrepair, and with the heavy rain these past few days, the kitchen wall was actually pushed over. Debris and bricks fell down, hitting him right on the back of his head.

Xia Shaoxin was pinned under a pile of bricks, feeling severe pain in the back of his head. He struggled to get up, reached out to touch it, and actually felt a hard object sticking out of the back of his head.

"Damn, did the brick crack my skull open?"

Just as he was terrified, the hard object on the back of his head crawled out of his flesh on its own.

Xia Shaoxin was in so much pain he nearly fainted. The hard object fell to the ground; he picked it up and saw it was something the size of a fingernail.

He was greatly shocked.

"Could it be my skull?"

It's over; the Xia family line is broken.

Automatically removed from the registry!

The object grew larger in his palm at a speed visible to the naked eye, and soon turned into a round bronze mirror stained with blood, with a Chi Dragon on the back, looking very exquisite.

Xia Shaoxin was stunned. He had often seen this bronze mirror in his dreams over the past year.

They say what you think about during the day, you dream about at night, but he had never seen this bronze mirror and didn't know why he dreamed of it repeatedly.

He never expected that this bronze mirror actually existed, right in the back of his own head!

He wiped the bronze mirror dry, and it was bright and shiny. Suddenly, the bronze mirror flashed, flew up violently, and thud, embedded itself into the center of his forehead.

He was so scared he jumped up on the spot and reached out to grab the bronze mirror, but the bronze mirror bit by bit, forced its way into his head.

His consciousness gradually blurred, his eyelids drooped, and a simple yet bright bronze mirror appeared in his mind, constantly emitting light.

Inexplicably, some strange knowledge appeared in his mind.

He shouted in horror: "So I was a person from another world in my past life! I am a Transmigration!"

This bronze mirror was a treasure that accompanied him when he Transmigrated into this world, named "Shangqing Profound Mirror."

The reason it hadn't appeared until now was that it had been placed in the wrong spot.

It shouldn't have been hidden in the back of the head, but between the eyebrows.

If he hadn't knocked over the wall today and been hit on the back of the head by a brick, it wouldn't have found its correct position.

"What is the use of this mirror?"

The bronze mirror constantly emitted light, and some strange consciousness gradually became clear in his heart.

"So, as long as I sacrifice drugs to it, it can convert other things with similar appearances into the drugs I sacrificed."

He couldn't help but get excited.

"Does that mean if I sacrifice one Five-colored Scorpion to it, I can turn ordinary scorpions into Five-colored Scorpions?"

"Doesn't that mean from now on, I don't need to catch so many Poisonous Insects; as long as I sacrifice one, I can obtain countless Poisonous Insects?"

He opened his eyes, and the Shangqing Profound Mirror faded from his mind.

He touched his forehead; there were no bumps or cracks.

He picked up the mirror in the house; his appearance hadn't changed at all.

Xia Shaoxin breathed a sigh of relief and revealed a knowing smile.

Truly, Heaven never blocks all paths!

A Genius idea floated into his mind.