Lady Lin’s First-ever Journey to Immortality

This is a small variety store covering an area of less than 10 square meters. It’s so crammed that some goods have to be placed on the sidewalk. Many products are dusty. It seems like people seldom come here to buy things. The store is crowded and the ceiling is low. Only Pug Nose can move freely in it. Being dragged by the old man, Lin Luoran trips over a stool at the door and almost falls.

If it were not so, she would not notice the wooden box on the shelf.

It’s a one-square-foot box made of wood. What kind of wood? It’s not easy to make out, since the box is covered with dust. It is placed at the bottom of the shelf.

Why is there a strange familiar feeling in her heart?

Lin Luoran thinks for a while and decides to take the box.

The old man narrows his eyes with a smile. “It seems that you have found something interesting.”

Lin Luoran wants to single out the wooden box. However, seeing that Pug Nose is greedy, she doesn’t want to bring herself any trouble. Therefore, she pretends to make a selection among the products.

“Let me see.”

Actually, the variety store is more like an antique shop with products such as rusty metal balls and defective wooden cups. Only the fruit in front of the door appears fresh. The fruit is like the jujube on the earth. Lin Luoran puts one into her mouth. It tastes sour and bitter. Lin Luoran wears an awkward look.

Her hands are already teeming with dust, but she doesn’t find anything she wants except the wooden box she saw in the first place. Pug Nose wears an expression as if saying “My goods are all good”, which almost drives her to tears.

“I just want the fruit. It doesn’t grow in my hometown. I want to try it.” Lin Luoran points to the “jujube” and says.

Old Pug Nose walks up to her. “One pound of chilies for one pound of the fruit. After all, the fruit is imported from a faraway land. ”

Lin Luoran is rendered speechless. She runs across the street to see Uncle Anthony. Having got two pounds of dried chilies, she returns to the variety store and pretends to look around. She picks out a not-too-old big iron box and the wooden box, and puts them in front of Pug Nose.

“I want two pounds. Can you give me a box to carry them?”

Pug Nose stares at the two boxes and resolutely holds the big iron box in his arms. “I will lose money if two pounds will need such a big box.”

The wooden box is of the sliding type. Pug Nose hands Lin Luoran the box with some “jujubes” in it. Lin Luoran gives him the chilies and leaves without looking back.

Pug Nose weighs the two pounds of spices. He is very satisfied with the business.

Lin Luoran settles the account with Uncle Anthony, and then goes back to the starship. She’s not in the mood to go shopping, because she’s eager to find out the secrets of the wooden box.

On the starship, four people gather around Lin Luoran to see what good things she has brought back. However, they only find a dusty wooden box. In the box is nothing but some fruit similar to the jujube. The little fox is eager to try everything. It eats a “jujube”, but the sour taste makes it wrinkle its forehead. Everyone laughs, and the little fox jumps to its feet and runs away with sour tears.

Lin Luoran chats with Xiaozhi for a while, and then watches the production of chilies. The red peppers are all dehydrated on the assembly line.

Another batch of peppers has ripened in her space. Agricultural robots accurately cut off each pepper with a thin spider-like hand, without hurting the buds, branches or leaves. That makes Lin Luoran feel reassured.

Lin Luoran takes the box into her space. She hasn’t examined it yet, when the fire phoenix flies out and howls, “Phoenix wood!”

Lin Luoran lifts the wooden box. “You mean this?”

Fire phoenix nods. Phoenixes perch on parasol trees, so Lin Luoran knows that the box is made of parasol wood. Others living in space are awakened. They come over to see what’s going on. Lin Luoran wipes the dust from the wooden box, exposing its body with wood grain.

The one-square-foot box is engraved with a simple yet magnificent cloud pattern symbolizing good luck. Lin Luoran examines the exterior and interior of the box but doesn’t find any special figure. But where does the familiar feeling come from?

She doesn’t give up. She explores the interior with her spiritual mind. There are no interlayers and no Reiki, which suggests that it is simply an ordinary wooden box.

Feeling deeply bored, three monsters go away.

Lin Luoran doesn’t know what to do with the wooden box. White Fairy hesitates for a while and then steps forward smilingly. “I once heard that parasol wood can neutralize the effect of the spiritual mind. You can try other methods.”

Lin Luoran understands. She thanks White Fairy and takes the wooden box to her room.

Sitting in a chair, she taps the box all over with her fingers. The box produces a clear sound like a mountain spring. After all, parasol wood is perfect for making instruments. However, the slightly thicker bottom of the box makes a somewhat awkward sound.

Lin Luoran has a knit print on her finger. Soon a glittering golden blade appears at the fingertip. She carefully takes apart the wooden box and finds a hole at the bottom… Is it an interlayer?

Lin Luoran’s heart thumps. She feels nervous. What can be in the interlayer? She has to calm herself. When she is prepared to uncover the layer, she hears something outside her space.

Someone is knocking on the door.

Lin Luoran takes a deep breath, places the box on the table and then quickly emerges from her space.

It’s Colin.

“Lady, the female pirate Windsor contacts the Edward again and asks if we will take the same path as her.” He calls Lin Luoran “lady” in a natural way. Well, when Colin Weir takes his business seriously, he can outshine most butlers and render them out of work.

Lin Luoran ponders over Windsor’s invitation and asks Xiaozhi if it knows the routes to the Nami Star.

“With the flight permit, we are allowed to enter the network of flight path. There are several routes to Nami Star. Which one would you like to take, sister?”

“The fastest one. Colin, tell Windsor to follow us if she would like to.”

Colin Weir nods and says to Windsor accordingly.

There is no reason to guard against evil persons day and night. Even if the Edward heads to the Nami Star alone, they may encounter other pirates on the way. Whether or not Windsor has an evil intention will be clear as time passes by. Anyway, Lin Luoran is confident about her power to hold the pirates in check if they want to do harm. Now it’s time to test the sincerity of the glamorous pirate leader. Lin Luoran hopes she won’t be disappointed.

After handling these trivial matters, Lin Luoran has calmed down. She enters her space again.

When she opened the interlayer to reveal the old yellowish book hidden at the bottom of the box, she is stunned.

She is too familiar with this thing—the cotton bookbinding thread and the blue back cover. Except for the wormholes, it is exactly the same as the incomplete medicine book passed down by her ancestors.

The blue back cover shows that the book is the second half of her medicine book!

Lin Luoran takes out the first half of the medicine book that she has kept, and compares it with what she has just got. It turns out her guess is correct. The missing part of the medicine book of the Lin family was actually found by her in a small variety store on the N2 planet.

Did the familiar feeling come from this unknown medicine book belonging to her ancestors?

She knows the second half of the book was lost many generations ago, so how did it end up on the faraway planet? Lin Luoran remembers that when she was a child, Mr. Lin relied on the first half of the book to identify medicinal materials. He gathered herbs on the back mountain of Li’s Village to make money, so that he could support Lin Luoran’s education.

Every time she held the banknotes of small denominations to pay for her tuition, she secretly vowed that she would earn a lot of money when she grew up. She would make her parents lead a comfortable life.

When she was sick, Mr. Lin boiled medicine for her according to the drug-decocting method described in the medicine book. Indeed, she was very weak when she was a child. She used to be thin and short, and got ill from time to time. Mr. Lin often went to the mountains in search of medicinal herbs of highly nutritious value, while Mrs. Lin would kill a chicken she raised and stew the meat with herbs for Lin Luoran.

The higher her personal ability, the more clearly she remembers what happened in her childhood. What efforts her parents had made to bring her up under such difficult conditions! She didn’t feel this way when she was young, but now she finds that her gratitude for her family has become all the more intense after they were missing.

She remembers Mr. Lin sighed a few times. He knew that the prescription in the medicine book could improve Lin Luoran’s health. How he hoped to find the second half of the medicine book… Father, I have found the other half of the medicine book. Do you know about it?

Between heaven and earth, where can her family be… Are they in a place farther than the distant starry sky?

Looking at the two parts of the medicine book, Lin Luoran can’t help crying.

Her tears drop on the blue cover, which gives off a shimmer of white light. Lin Luoran’s eyes are blurred. She doesn’t notice that two halves of the medicine book have merged and become an integrated whole again in the light. The cotton thread of the book also becomes invisible. It seems that the book has never been torn apart, as if she had gone back in time and space.

“Why are you crying?”

It’s a relatively mature female voice tinged with the sweetness of a child. Lin Luoran dries her eyes and looks up. The girl sitting by the bed is about 13 or 14 years old. She has big bright eyes and has her hair in a bun. A ribbon flutters on her head. Indeed, the light-hearted girl is a feast for the eyes.

Her cheeks are now much thinner, the nose is more defined, and the eyes are bigger. Lin Luoran asks uncertainly.

“You are, Momo?”

She has grown taller. Nevertheless, her features and voice clearly show that she is Momo, the little girl Lin Luoran once met after she entered the Bearing Essence Period. Lin Luoran doesn’t expect to see Momo, the teenager Momo at this time.

Lin Luoran forgets her sadness for the moment and says unbelievably, “Momo, how come you grow up?!”