Note: The academies managed by the Daoists are the most numerous in the world, and each has its own focus. For example, scholars from Longridge Academy often have expertise in rainmaking and water management, those from Hillcrest Academy excel at dispelling evil spirits and gathering feng shui, while scholars from Trueman Academy are skilled in swordsmanship, adept in both the literary and martial arts.

***

After Jason Allen listed out all these academies, he realized that his work was only half done. He couldn't help but let out a big yawn. The materials available for his research were almost exhausted. He stood up, stretched lazily, and strolled over to the window. Suddenly, he looked up, and his heart was instantly startled:

“What a huge moon!”

At this moment, the bright moon hung high in the sky, shining with the brilliance of a silver plate. Because of this, in Jason Allen’s perception, it seemed to occupy half the night sky. Normally, the moon gives people a sense of beauty, but tonight, after Jason Allen glanced at it a few more times, he couldn’t help but feel a strange, indescribable sense of eeriness, as if it were an evil giant eye lurking in the darkness.

In fact, the beautiful impression people have of the moon, especially the full moon, mostly comes from the poems and works of literati, as well as the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, which symbolizes family reunion.

However, few people consider that out of the 365 days in a year, New Year’s Eve is also about family reunion, but according to legend, it’s about gathering as many people as possible to bolster courage and setting off firecrackers to scare away the monster called “Xi.” So why is it that on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, the gathering of the whole family is considered auspicious and beautiful?

Behind the dust-laden memories of history, there is actually a bloody legend!

In the distant past, when people still lived in clans, every night of the full moon brought great danger! Especially in the eighth month, the threat was greatest, and only by gathering the entire clan together could they possibly withstand the madness and peril!

As time passed, that terrible danger gradually faded away, and people forgot the perils of the past, but the custom of gathering on the fifteenth day of the eighth month was passed down...

At this moment, as Jason Allen gazed at the full moon, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of indescribable restlessness and agitation, though he just found it a bit odd.

The banquet outside was still in full swing, and as the main character, he had to go out and socialize for a while, which inevitably meant being forced to drink some wine. After a while, the alcohol hit him, so he prepared to return to his bedroom to rest. However, before leaving the table, Jason Allen unintentionally overheard a conversation among some of the elders:

“The moon is so big and round tonight...”

“Yeah, I heard the elders say that the year the demon star descended, the night sky had just such a bright moon, and then the demon star vied for brilliance with the moon!”

“Old Harris is right, I still remember...”

Jason Allen didn’t pay much attention to these few sentences. He returned to his room and fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. In a daze, he felt unbearably hot all over, so he simply took off his inner robe and lay bare-chested, but still felt increasingly uncomfortable. Half-awake, he staggered up to get some water.

Even after Jason Allen finished an entire pot of cold tea, he still couldn’t quench his thirst. His throat felt as if it were burning, so he simply walked out bare-chested, intending to draw some well water to drink his fill. Unexpectedly, as soon as he stepped into the open, exposed to the moonlight, he immediately felt a gradual sense of comfort spreading throughout his body.

“Huh, what’s going on?” Jason Allen couldn’t help but be a little surprised, but he just chalked it up to the aftereffects of drunkenness, thinking he was slowly sobering up.

But what Jason Allen didn’t know was that, if someone were watching from a distance, they would notice that as the bright moonlight shone on his body, a faint, almost imperceptible purple mist began to seep from the countless pores of his body.

That mist, somewhere between fog and haze, formed a thin, light layer around Jason Allen’s body, yet it gathered without dispersing, slowly rising above his head. The higher it floated, the more condensed and distinct it became!

In these times of poor communication, beacon towers would burn dried wolf dung and sprinkle sulfur powder to send military signals. The resulting yellow smoke would gather without dispersing, maintaining its shape even in strong winds, rising straight into the sky, and thus was called “wolf smoke beacons.”

At this moment, the mist above Jason Allen’s head, after floating up more than ten zhang, condensed even more, almost becoming tangible, as if it existed somewhere between form and formlessness. Under the bright moonlight, it seemed to shoot straight into the heavens, a truly awe-inspiring sight! However, ordinary people could not see it.

In many unofficial histories and anecdotes, there are tales of pythons spitting pearls, old foxes swallowing orbs, and cultivating with moonlight on nights of the full moon. But if you think about it carefully, it doesn’t really make sense:

You have to know, cultivation is actually something that goes against the laws of nature—in plain terms, it’s an act of defying the heavens.

And even if you count the “almost full” fourteenth and sixteenth days, there are only three nights of full moon each month, which means only thirty-six days in a year, theoretically. But in reality, the appearance of a true full moon is subject to many conditions: if it rains, there’s definitely no moon; if it’s cloudy, there may not be a full moon either. Only if the day is clear and sunny can there be a night of the full moon.