Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 197: Nurturing Refinement

[T/n: note on chapter title]¹

The humans and the fox on the boat were amused by the big fish’s reaction. Hu Yun jumped off of Yin Qing’s back, walked to the stove, and deeply sniffed the pot, then stared at Ji Yuan, waiting for his share.

Ji Yuan filled a bowl for himself, and estimated that the remaining portion was about the size of his bowl, so he took the pot off the stove and placed it on the ground. Then he put the spoon in the pot.

“Here, you have the most. The rest of the pot is yours, go ahead and eat!”

The red fox didn’t care about anything else. He just grabbed the spoon and started eating.

Ji Yuan tasted this Silver Essence fish soup, and found that it was indeed delicious. He couldn’t help but gulp it down.

He knew that there were actually more spiritual methods of refining this Silver Essence; it was after all a spiritual creature born from the gathering of water essence. However, there was no doubt that this method of stewing it into soup was by far the most delicious.

Yin Qing also finished the soup in his bowl. Seeing that Hu Yun was still eating it spoonful by spoonful, he figured there was still a lot left in the pot, so he went over to try and get him to share a little more.

“Hu Yun, give me some more. It’s too greedy for a fox like you to eat the whole pot.”

Hu Yun ignored him completely. He clenched the spoon with his claws and sped up. Finally, he picked up the entire pot, using it as a bowl, and drank up the last few drops of soup. Yin Qing’s mouth twitched.

Ji Yuan looked at the big black carp still lingering by the boat, and pointed to the pot behind him.

“That’s all we had. The boatman ate half a bowl, and the remaining four of us have each eaten one bowl. That was all.”

As they listened to Ji Yuan speak to the big black fish, Yin Qing and the red fox had also lain down on the old deck at some point, staring at the big carp in the water.

This was the first time that Hu Yun had seen any spirits or monsters other than himself Lu Shan Jun, so he seemed particularly excited and curious.

“Hey, haven’t you refined your horizontal bone yet? The water is so cold, how are you going to survive the winter?”

The big black carp stirred in the water and turned to face the red fox, whose head and two front paws were sticking out from the side of the boat.

“Bo…Bo…Bo…”

A string of bubbles came out.

“Mr. Ji said that you have accumulated virtue and been doing good deeds. Have you saved a lot of people? Have you ever seen a Water Lord in the water, or a water ghost?…”

“Bo…Bo…Bo…”

The big black carp still merely spat out a bunch of bubbles.

Obviously, the words coming from the fox’s lips did not match the movements of the fish’s mouth, but this scene gave Yin Qing and Ji Yuan a surprisingly harmonious feeling, as if both sides could actually understand each other’s questions and answers.

This big black carp had actually been practicing for a lot longer than Hu Yun, and his mind was much more stable than his. However, he was still a wild cultivator, as helpless as duckweed.² Plus, after Hu Yun had become one of Ji Yuan’s chess pieces, he often consumed red Qi and had access to some other conveniences, which made this black fish lag behind Hu Yun in his practice.

Of course, this lag in cultivation could not directly be equated with combat ability. Anyone with a discerning eye could see that, at this moment, not even a dozen Hu Yuns would be able to beat this big black carp.

After the fox and the fish had conversed for a while, Ji Yuan spoke.

“How about this? You, black carp, can just follow us on this small boat underwater as we travel down this section of the Chunmu River outside Chunhui Prefecture. I can protect you and ensure that you will not be driven away by the river gods and the underworld patrols in this section of the river. “

After Ji Yuan finished his sentence, he turned to Yin Qing.

“You will be studying at the Huiyuan³ Academy of Chunhui Prefecture in the future. Whenever you have a day off, you can come to a quiet section of the river outside the city and read to this big black carp..”

Yin Qing pointed his finger at his nose in surprise.

“Me?”

The big black carp also made popping noises in the water.

“Bo bo…bo…”

Ji Yuan’s expression was calm as he looked at Yin Qing. The latter’s spiritual essence was directed inward and flowing through his body, but his heart acupoint was a little fuzzy. Ji Yuan spoke in a meaningful tone.

“Yes. If someone with a delicate, nurturing, and refined mind can do good deeds, the black carp will not have to take detours in his practice.”

Seeing that Mr. Ji was serious, Yin Qing no longer refused, and gave a soft “okay” in assent.

Hu Yun and the big black carp to the side had obviously heard Ji Yuan and Yin Qing’s words. Although the black carp had not yet refined his horizontal bone, he had been cultivating in this section of the river for quite a long time, and thus was able to understand many people’s words; or, at least, the words just now were not all that difficult for him to understand.

Ji Yuan turned to the river surface solemnly.

“What I just said was just a unilateral discussion. If you don’t want to, then you don’t have to feel obligated.”

After Ji Yuan finished speaking, he packed up the bowls and the pot, scooped a small bowl of river water from his perch on the boat, and used it to put out the remaining charcoal in the stove. He gazed out at the river in the distance and saw that they were the only boat staying nearby tonight.

“Okay, it’s getting late. You guys are free to do whatever you want, I’m going to go to bed.”

After leaving these light-hearted words, Ji Yuan walked back to the cabin and lowered the hatch halfway down.

Yin Qing chatted with the fox and the fish outside for a while. Then he felt sleepy, so he went to the other side of the boat to urinate and then back to the cabin to sleep, leaving Hu Yun and the big black fish alone to continue chatting nonsense.

“Hey, Fish,⁴ did you know that there is a very ferocious tiger in my home at Niu Kui Mountain? If it opens its mouth wide, it could swallow you in one bite and still have room for more… And Mr. Ji has a very strange paper bird, Yin Qing said Mr. Ji folded it when he was bored. I suspect he’s just pranking me, there must be some kind of bird spirit inside…”

“Bo…Bo…Bo…”

. . .

At dawn the next morning, the boatman woke up in the aft cabin.

“Haaaah…”

He yawned and stretched, feeling full of energy and vitality. The energy in his body flowed more smoothly, and the fatigue he had accumulated over the past few days had disappeared.

“My goodness. Mr. Ji’s fish soup is indeed a very nourishing medicinal fish soup. I have never eaten a tonic with such miraculous medicinal effects. I am afraid that not even mountain ginseng is as good as that. How much does it cost…”

He got up, rinsed his mouth, washed his face, and then walked to the forward cabin. The hatches on both sides were still closed, and the two passengers were most likely still sleeping.

The boatman walked over to the side of the boat outside the cabin to the forward of the boat to collect the stove. When he arrived, he found that the pot and bowls had already been washed. Then he looked outside the forward cabin door in front of him. The dishes and chopsticks from last night’s meal had also been washed and placed outside.

‘This is what a true scholar is like!’

With this thought in mind, the man carried the stove and the pot in one hand, placing the chopsticks and the spoons inside them, and with the other hand held a long stack of bowls of different sizes. He walked back to the aft cabin around the side of the ship.

He changed to a clay stove with a stronger fire, and cooked a pot of porridge. The boatman took some bamboo strips and a handful of dry straw, walked to the stern, pulled down his pants, and squatted.

“Pfft…”

With a plot, a section of matter entered the water, and a black shadow fled from the bottom of the river to a long ways away…

Half an hour later, Ji Yuan and Yin Qing got up one after another. They said good morning to the boatman and ate porridge and freshly pickled vegetables from the pickling jar in the boat.

The boatman, who had already washed up and finished his meal, began rowing once more, pushing the boat towards Chunhui Prefecture.

In a very good mood, the boatman even started to hum, “ah, hey~! Ah, hey~!” The tune almost made Ji Yuan sing along with the lyrics to “The Beauty of West Lake in March”⁵ that ran through his head.

About two and a half days later, in the afternoon, the boat arrived at their destination. They docked at the large pier outside Chunhui Prefecture. Ji Yuan once again was greeted with the lively scene of the pier at springtime. Compared to the Tongtian River outside of the Capital Prefecture, it was less busy, but much more lively, like the very idea of “springtime.”

The boatman was reluctant to charge Ji Yuan and Yin Qing any fares. Even if he could still pretend to be ignorant after drinking Qianrichun that night, the fish soup he had eaten afterwards was truly a rare treasure, and it was definitely much more valuable than the boat fare.

Seeing his insistence, Ji Yuan did not persuade him much. He thanked him and led Yin Qing into the capital city of Chunhui Prefecture.

As opposed to the last time he had come here, although Ji Yuan was still not familiar with the region, Huiyuan Academy was very famous throughout Chunhui Prefecture, so it was not too difficult to find.

It felt similar to taking Yin Qing and Hu Yun on a stroll through this colorful city, so that Yin Qing could get accustomed to the new environment.

In order to prevent Hu Yun from causing unnecessary trouble in the city, Ji Yuan explicitly hung a small Yin wood plaque that the City God of Chunhui Prefecture had asked Master Yin to give him around the red fox’s neck. That way, even if the daytime or nighttime patrols saw through the red fox’s spiritual power, they would not attack him on sight.

At the same time, Ji Yuan was also putting together a crafty plan in his mind. He wanted to let Hu Yun see what the hard days of a monster cultivator were like, for example letting him meet the Old Turtle. That way, he could be more aware of his benefits and drawbacks.

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T/n: yessss let Hu Yun eat a bit of humble pie please, dude deserves a good pie in the face (*dramatic announcer voice* and the translator’s bias shines through once again-)

1. 孕 (yùn): pregnant, 玲珑 (línglóng): exquisite/detailed & fine/onomatopoeia for the clink of jewels. This one stumped me. I went with the best approximation that made sense.
2. Duckweed, or Lemnoideae is a type of aquatic plant that floats at the surface of still or slow-moving water. They lack stems, and can only really go wherever the water takes them, hence “helpless as duckweed”
3. 惠 (huì): act of kindness/kind, 元 (yuán): first/fundamental/era — I love that this academy is called “Fundamental Kindness”
4. Technically a very informal nickname, difficult to really translate. It’s like calling him “Old Black” or “Ol’ Fishy”
5. Music here