The Urban Dao Child.

Yang Dao and Dao Yin had been in the village of the old mortals for a day. After the sunset and the elders finished their dinner, they returned to their homes. The population of the village was not very high, just twenty old men and women.

Most of them were couples and just a few of the old men were single. However, they all had a good equation together and they would be always joking around. Yang Dao and Dao Yin wanted to go out and make a mud house of their own, but the Old man gatekeeper did not agree, he gave them both the spare room in his house.

Yang Dao asked, “Grandpa, your house seems to be the biggest in the village, why so?”

The old man chuckled and with an embarrassed expression said, “I happen to be the leader of the village. We vote every month and the winner gets to live in this house.”

Yang Dao nodded and said, “This is interesting.”

The old grandma beckoned to Dao Yin, and after having the girl sit down on the ground, she started to oil Dao Yin’s hair. The girl asked, “Grandma what are you doing?”

The old lady smiled and said, “You need to take care of this beautiful hair when you are young, so you need to oil them daily. Or who knows, this young doll you have after you leave you for a vixen.”

Yang Dao was shocked and said, “Grandma, I can never do that.”

Dao Yin smiled and did not answer, she enjoyed the banter and the massage. Yang Dao looked at the old man who shook his head at him. After chatting for a long time, the two old people went back to their rooms and Yang Dao went into their room with Dao Yin.

Dao Yin said, “Yang, should I oil your hair too?”

Yang Dao was surprised but then nodded. He sat down on the floor letting the girl do what she wanted to his hair. The girl said, “Yang, what do you think about the day we spent here today, did you learn something?”

Yang Dao shook his head and said, “I did learn something, but I cannot share it with you just yet.”

“Why?” asked Dao Yin.

“You must first put your best effort to learn what is it that we were sent here to learn, if you cannot overcome the hurdle, then I will help you. That sounds okay?” asked Yang Dao.

Dao Yin thought for a bit and then hummed in affirmation. Yang Dao then hugged the girl to sleep. They woke up to the croaking rooster. This was a new experience. They did not run their cultivation techniques, but they were not tired after all, they had yet to do some heavy work.

They came out of their rooms, and the old grandma said, “You two, good morning.” with a smile on her face.

Yang Dao and Dao Yin replied with a smile, “Good morning to you too, Grandma.”

The old lady nodded and said, “You can go to the pond and wash up at the shore. There will be no old people at this time.”

The two nodded and left for the pond. Just when they were about to go out of the house, the old man’s voice sounded, “Do you two have any spare clothes on your person? How will you change after bathing?”

Yang Dao and Dao Yin realized this problem only now. They did not have any clothes outside the space rings, and to operate the space ring, will need they had to use the spiritual essence, which they were forbidden to use.

The Dao Couple exchanged a glance when the old man came over holding a pair of linen robes. With a smile on his face, he gave the robes to the two people and said, “Off you go now.”

Dao Yin and Yang Dao were both overwhelmed by the generosity of this old couple. They bowed to them before walking to the pond hand in hand. They came to the pond and found that there was a big boulder in the center of the pond. Even if they had done everything, Dao Yin was still shy to appear unclothed in front of Yang Dao, and that too in the bright daylight.

Yang Dao took off his clothes and then swam to the boulder, while Dao Yin followed after him. The two bathed in silence, humming small tunes. The boy came out first and then guarded the place for the girl.

On the way back to the village, they found the men and the women in the village walking in the direction of the pond. They greeted the people politely, and Dao Yin asked an old lady, “Grandma, do you take a bath with grandpas?”

The old lady shook her head and patiently answered, “They bathe on the other side of the boulder, and we take the other side, no matter the relationship, a lady must have shame when outside the house. Men are not to be trusted. Ofcourse, our doll Yang is different from other men.”

Yang Dao smiled at her praised and bowed in acceptance. After the people left, Dao Yin said, “Shameless.”

Yang Dao scratched the back of his head. The two came to the house and since the old couple was out, they decided to cook. Dao Yin helped the boy with chopping and slicing the vegetables. She did not know how to cook so Yang Dao would be using this time to teach her.

The two people were going to make dumplings and porridge for the old people in the village. Yang Dao used the ingredients in the house and Dao Yin patiently watched his actions. Usually, the girl was not this patient, however, when she was around Yang Dao, she will be able to stay calm.

His actions would resonate with her core and vice versa. Just when they were finished cooking, the entourage of the old people returned, they all were surprised to smell the fragrance in the air.

Soon, Dao Yin and Yang Dao served them breakfast. The people all praised the two youngsters. Yang Dao said, “Grandpas, and Grandmas, I would like to say something.”

The people nodded for him to go ahead and Yang Dao said, “I was thinking, that you all will have to swim to the center of the pond to take a bath, and around the boulder, it is very deep, so I was wondering if you all would allow me to do something about this.”

The old people were shocked. The old man gatekeeper said, “We all wish to do something, but it will be affecting the scenery. We do not want to destroy the tranquility of the shore.”

His answer was a denial, however, the old lady suddenly said, “What do you old man know? Shut up and let Yang finish his idea.”

Yang Dao scratched the back of his head and said, “I was thinking that there is a lot of bamboo in the forest, so I could make a retractable partition screen, that way you all can take a bath near the shore. If you think the device is not in harmony with the natural scene, I will take it down. After all, I have nothing to do.”

Dao Yin was surprised by his last sentence, but when she thought about it, she nodded. She said, “Also, grandma, I noticed that you all have to go to the waterfall in the forest to gather drinking water. How about I help Yang to make something that will bring the water to the big jars directly from the falls?”

The old people were surprised by their ideas and after thinking about it, all the mortals would do things in order to ease up their lives. This seemed to be something they were missing. After discussing, the old village head said, “You two can do what you wish until it is too much.”

Yang Dao nodded and said, “Only these two things.”

The old people nodded and then they got busy eating the food. Yang Dao and Dao Yin also finished their breakfast before they went to the forest behind the village. The villagers had gardening tools, among which Yang Dao found a rusty old knife.

Then with Dao Yin, he stood in front of the bamboo forest. He asked, “We cannot exert any physical strength which is beyond mortal limits too, right?”

Dao Yin nodded and the boy pursed his lips, he said, “Big sister Bai surely likes to make things difficult.”

The girl smiled and said, “We can take turns. Okay?”

The boy nodded and then he hacked down the bamboo in front of him.

…

A week has passed since the two people started working, and they will take two breaks in the day and in the evening they will be so tired, that they will sleep in the room as soon as they finish eating. They realized something, and during one of their discussions, they named this realization the Dao of mortals.

When a mortal works for convenience in daily life, they are doing things that become a way of their life. This way of life was similar to the cultivation they did. In a nutshell, mundane jobs and chores were the cultivation of mortal people, parallel to the immortal or spiritual cultivation. However, just like the banks of a river, they meet up at the horizon becoming one with the Great Dao.

After a week, they connected the houses with bamboo pipes leading from the falls to the houses, and all the houses had a small pond dug in, to provide the overflowing water a way to assimilate back with nature.

The old people liked this and they again praised the two. This whole thing was like an extension to their dao, after all.