The Seal of Simplicity

Spiritual energy had been depleted for twelve hundred years. No immortals, demons, or monsters remained beneath heaven. Mortals enjoyed peaceful lives. No one remembered that spiritual energy had once flowed across the land, and no one remembered how it had vanished. Li Xian, a night-shift security guard, found a rusted iron box in the ruins of a demolished building. Inside were a bronze seal and a scroll of silk. The first line of the scroll read: “To guard the uncarved simplicity is to keep the spirit still.” That night, an old woman crouched beside the flower bed in his residential compound, clutching a dead cat. She grinned at him. A rat’s face. Fangs. Red eyes. The seal grew hot in his hand, and the rat spirit was hurled against a wall. Uncle Zhou, the guard on the neighboring shift, said around his cigarette: “Looks like your seal’s come alive. Something big is happening in this world.” The return of spiritual energy was no natural disaster. It was a human calamity. Something underground was drilling at the seals on the spiritual veins, clearing a path for its former master from eight hundred years ago. And Li Xian’s grandfather, the previous Guardian of Simplicity, had been dragged to his death. Others cultivated immortality by fighting and killing. Li Xian cultivated immortality by… staying still. Others had sects and powerful backers. He had only a seal, a scroll of silk, and an old security guard who had watched over him for six years. And a silver-tongued fox spirit, eight hundred years old and still fond of chewing tea eggs. The Nine Stages of Simplicity: the body is like bedrock, returning every blow; sit as firmly as a mountain, unmoved as the rivers and land. But only upon reaching the final stage did Li Xian understand: Guarding simplicity is not about guarding death, but life.