Transmigrated into a Grandpa, Embracing the Laid-Back Life

Chapter 448: Lantai Secret Garden!

Autumn wind swept fallen leaves across the official road, horse hooves striking the packed clay with a monotonous clack.

Three days later.

The capital’s towering gray walls reappeared on the horizon. Su Ming led a rented nag by the reins, blending with merchants and displaced people entering the city, and slowly moved toward the gate with the crowded flow.

He still wore that washed-out gray long robe and a bamboo hat. But any sharp-eyed high-level cultivator would notice that after returning from Qingshi Town, something in Su Ming’s aura had undergone an extremely subtle transformation.

If the Su Ming from before was a sword kept in its scabbard yet still leaking traces of sharpness from time to time, then now he was like an ancient well, bottomless and unfathomable.

All the mundane anxieties, the worries for his family, the killing intent toward the Yongchang Marquis Manor — they had dissipated with the dawn mist after those three knocks that morning at the Su family old residence. His aura had retracted to the utmost, as if he had finally shrugged off a weight he had carried for five years. Even his footsteps on the bluestone slabs were light, as if dropping a single feather.

Past the bustling market, Su Ming returned with practiced familiarity to the secluded courtyard the External Affairs Office had arranged in the city’s eastern district.

He had barely pushed open the gate when Zhou Tong, the junior clerk from the External Affairs Office, came forward to meet him.

"Senior Su, you're back. The room has been cleaned every day. Hot water and spirit tea are ready."

Su Ming nodded slightly, voice gentle. "Thank you, Clerk Zhou. I need to meditate these days. If nothing urgent comes up, do not let anyone disturb me."At dusk, the setting sun ran red across the sky.

Su Ming had just gone through a full cycle of the Like Water Art in the room, sealing the faint spiritual energy stirred by travel. A subtle green stream of light slipped silently through the window lattice and hovered before him.

It was Elder Qingquan’s communication talisman.

"Come to the main hall for tea."

Those five terse characters carried the casual familiarity unique to an elder.

smoothed his

high seat. Instead, he had pulled a low tea table close to the open hall doors and sat cross-legged facing the few

had boiled, gurgling as steam made the lid hop

low table and respectfully performed a

"Disciple pays respects, Master."

head down, focused on wiping a white porcelain teacup with a square of cotton

"Back?"

like a family elder asking a nephew who’d

Ming sat cross-legged opposite the

water into the white cup with the precision of a silver thread. Tea leaves

everyone at

Ming nodded. His voice carried a sense of released

the brewed tea toward Su Ming and gave a soft "hmm,"

cultivators who had seen the world’s vicissitudes, knowing the

a warm current of spiritual energy through his meridians,

gaze swept over the courtyard wall toward the capital’s distant, endless palace

a while now.

Su Ming paused slightly.

place — a site the court

assumed it was merely the imperial family's private repository

and shook his head obediently. "Disciple has never

carrying traces of years and experience. He set his cup down and produced

the Great Xing Emperor’s private vault? That’s a relic left behind by

the open hall with a weight

previous dynasty of Great Xing. In its day, it