Dao Of The Salted Fish

Wen Zhihao’s life took on a new routine.

Each week, Wen Zhihao would go into town to sell some items for mortal money. His business with the glowing flowers was especially good as the days became shorter, though finding flowers became more difficult.

Once a week, he would spend the evening with Sun Fuyu, exploring the surrounding area both forest and mortal towns. The two of them became familiar with the mortal towns, and the residents of the town became familiar with them.

(Wen Zhihao hoped that the other cultivators in the sect wouldn’t find out that it was his and Sun Fuyu’s fault for making cultivators seem more approachable.)

As the two of them became faster at flying, they could explore further. As two cultivators, there was nothing to fear about walking around after dark, and their eyesight was better than non-cultivators too.

For the rest of the time, Wen Zhihao could be found in a number of different places. In the morning, he often helped out the kitchen staff, had breakfast with Sun Fuyu, and annoyed Huang Ling while playing with the kittens (they were growing, but still cute!). He napped at noon, and then spent the afternoon sometimes in the gardens, sometimes wandering outside the sect, sometimes working on his talismans, and sometimes watching Sun Fuyu train (and telling him to have a break whenever he noticed Sun Fuyu reaching his limit).

Despite the colder months, Wen Zhihao didn’t feel as cold as he should—or maybe it was because his warming talismans were good and he no longer needed worry about saving money on heating.

Speaking of talismans, Wen Zhihao typically spent the first few days per month after receiving his talisman-quota completing said quota. The bar was really quite low, but of course, he didn’t say anything. He quietly saved his allowance of spiritual stones. For the rest of the month, he fiddled around with more useful talismans (to him), while going through the cultivation manuals. His own simplified notes were really starting to look like An Idiot’s Guide to Talisman Cultivation.

Elder Liu had surely given up on him, and so didn’t push him to excel, which was perfect for Wen Zhihao. Some of the other talisman cultivating disciples initially gave Wen Zhihao suspicious looks, but after they saw his messy notes, they realised that he wasn’t at all their rival, thus allowing Wen Zhihao to have relaxed competition-free days.

After each day, Wen Zhihao would burrow into his blankets and sleep deeply, and in the morning, he would wake up actually feeling rested. His previous life under the heavy hand of corporate capitalism started to feel long passed. There were many things he missed from his old world, but only now, here, could he feel this calm and content.

The author is being a salted fish and giving you a time-skip, but nothing much happened so it’s okay!