Longevity: All My Disciples Are Delusional

Li Changsheng runs an agency in Chang’an City. His specialty is doing as little as possible. He takes on a disciple named Zhao Tieniu, an orphan of the frontier army who can see ghosts. Zhao thinks I’m a hidden master. I think there’s something wrong with his head. Later, I take on fifteen more disciples. Every one of them is the same kind of wild fantasist. I send them to catch a ghost in the Imperial Ancestral Temple. It’s really just a little eunuch who starved to death. Burn some paper money and he’ll move on. But they report back to the emperor and insist it was the temple’s guardian spirit manifesting. The emperor believes them and even commissions a plaque for me: “Your Every Wish Granted.” I tell them to do broadcast calisthenics to stay healthy. They imagine it’s the “Taixu Body-Tempering Art,” and after practicing, every one of them thinks they can take on ten men at once. Fine, as long as you’re happy. But then I realize something’s not right. Those things my foolish disciples imagine up seem... to be real? Could I, a useless master who only wants to bask in the sun, actually be some immortal revered since time immemorial? Don’t be ridiculous. I just want to quietly live the life of a slacker.