Taoist, Must Everyone Become an Immortal?

[Strange Tales and Immortal Heroes] [A Slow, Meandering Journey] [No System] [Episodic Stories]

Winter at Xuanke Temple is especially long.

The young medicine apprentice stands beneath the corridor, staring at the bronze handle, then suddenly asks, “Daoist, do you think people have to become immortals?

My father is alone down the mountain. His legs are bad, and he coughs all winter.

If I become an immortal, who will make his medicine?”

The corridor is silent, with only the creaking of a well rope in the distance.

Su Yan sets down his brush and replies gently, “Go back and look after your father first.

Make his medicine when it needs making, and get married when the time comes.

Immortality isn’t achieved through cultivation. It’s lived.”

Setting out from Qingmu Town, Su Yan travels through Nanzhan Buzhou and Dongsheng Shenzhou.

He has seen evil cultivators sacrifice an entire city in pursuit of eternal life, and young men willing to do anything to save the ones they love.

Only after witnessing every kind of wonder does he realize how precious the ordinary is.

This is a classical collection of strange tales told through a travelogue.

Eternal life is the warmth and bustle of the human world. May you and I both find our own path amid it.