Daily Life in the Countryside After Being Reborn Chapter 446 - 10: A Once-in-Sixty-Years Opportunity

Xiao Xian had not experienced kneeling as punishnt for five or six years. Hearing i Nian suddenly say such a thing, his knees involuntarily bent forty-five degrees, and just as his feet were about to kiss the ground, the consciousness of being a "modern person" violently woke up, reminding him of a saying that goes, "A man’s knees are lined with gold," and another that says, "One may kneel to heaven and earth, and kneel to one’s parents," but there was not a single saying about recklessly kneeling to soone else’s ancestors.

The forty-five-degree bent knee imdiately straightened back to one hundred eighty degrees, "That’s not right, even Mr. Bai or Granny i never asked to perform the master’s salute," which implied they should not think about taking advantage of him.

"Bai Juyi accepted you as a disciple shortly before his death, it’s common to have overlooked the kneeling ritual. As for i Xiang, before she left, she never anticipated soone like you would appear out of the blue. I ask you to kneel, and naturally, there will be benefits," i Nian had just finished speaking when Xiao Xian, from aside, with a "thump", kneeled straight before the position where the genealogy was placed, and vigorously kowtowed three tis, until his forehead turned red.

"All right, three kowtows. One for heaven and earth, two for all ancestors, and three for the benefits you ntioned, no more, no less." In the space, Little White Jiao was amazed at his young master’s skill in seizing the right mont.

A muscle on i Nian’s cheek twitched suspiciously, but he didn’t pursue further, and kowtowed several tis before the spiritual tablets and genealogy.

"Are you curious why, as a woman, I can enter the ancestral hall, and why there are only so few spiritual tablets enshrined here?" Prompted by i Nian, Xiao Xian noticed that the stone table used for offerings in the ancestral hall had only two tiers and not many spiritual tablets were on it. Roughly counting, there were about fifty or sixty. Xiao Xian was not aware of i Family’s origins, but according to i Nian, there should be much more than these spiritual tablets.

"The ancestors of the i Family can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn period, from the ti when the existence of the ’I Ching’ originated in China, marking the beginning of i Family’s path of cultivation." i Nian stood up and, facing those dozens of spiritual tablets, slowly recounted the history of the i Family.

The i Family originally served as imperial gardeners in the court. By the end of the Spring and Autumn period, amid the chaos of war and displacent of the common people, the founding ancestors of the i Family’s cultivation, i Yang, moved his family of ten into the deep mountains.

The ancestors of the i Family cleared the wilderness to beco self-sustaining. Under harsh natural conditions, the people of the i Family learned to use natural laws to extend their life and eventually even mastered the basic techniques of spirit control. This was the earliest thod of cultivation for the i Family. From then on, after seven or eight generations, the longest-lived among the i Family could reach an age of one hundred and twenty years.

"Counting from the Spring and Autumn period, which is before the common era, it has been over two thousand years of history until now, the i Family should have gone through hundreds of generations. It’s indeed strange that there are so few spiritual tablets, are all those enshrined here one in a hundred elites?" Xiao Xian peeked at the spiritual tablets and didn’t see i Xiang’s na.

"On the contrary, the spiritual tablets on display are for those of the i Family who failed in cultivation. You should notice that i Xiang’s na isn’t there. If those truly distinguished in cultivation were to be enshrined, as the foremost in cultivation among the i Family for over two millennia, even as a woman, her na would still be placed there to receive offerings from descendants," i Nian’s words carried an undertone of emotion, and Xiao Xian couldn’t quite discern whether it was jealousy or lancholy.

"You enshrine those who failed?" Xiao Xian understood the inherent flaws of the populace: the victors are kings, and the vanquished are bandits. It was indeed a rarity that those who failed in cultivation were still offered tributes by later generations.

"The failures of our predecessors serve as lessons for the later generations. Those who fail in cultivation are bound to be dispersed souls and spirits. When descendants draw lessons from the deaths of their predecessors and make trials, the threats lessen. Shouldn’t those who dared to risk their lives to pave the way for future generations be venerated?" i Nian’s eyes blazed, his voice raising slightly.

Xiao Xian silently nodded, then shook his head, "What about the other descendants of the i Family, surely not..." Xiao Xian didn’t continue, as the path of cultivation ultimately leads to success or failure.

"Thirty-five years ago, after my father i Junlin failed in cultivation and exploded, and my mother committed suicide due to grief, i Xiang, despite opposition from several elders within the family, disbanded the remaining descendants of the i Family." At that ti, not long after i Xiang and Bai Juyi parted, facing the double bereavent of her parents, she single-handedly fought against three elders of the clan by herself, causing serious injuries to two and damage to the elixir of one, forcing the family to