Fourteenth: Unorthodox Paths, Part One

Mingjin passed by a large lake.

Layer upon layer of lotus flowers, ranging from white to pink, covered the lake. Only a small gap remained in the center, shimmering in the afternoon sun, almost blinding Mingjin. He had been investigating for over ten days using the map Yu Qiao had given him, but still hadn't reached a conclusion. Mingjin was feeling weary and his mind was scattered. Seeing the pond of flowers, he decided to temporarily change his perspective. As he approached, he noticed that half the lotus flowers were still buds, while the other half were in full bloom. Even from a dozen steps away from the water's edge, Mingjin could already smell the fragrance of lotus blossoms.

The water here was clear, a pale blue-green. Mingjin looked at the stones surrounding the pond, intending to sit down and rest. Seeing a lone lotus seedpod swaying in the afternoon breeze closest to her, she felt a playful urge and sat down, reaching out to touch it. Her eyes were still fixed on the lotus seedpod, and the light was making her dizzy for a moment, when suddenly, with a "bang," an unidentified algae-green object emerged from beneath the water in front of her. Startled, Mingjin flipped over and fell sideways into the water.

"ah."

Mingjin had been using wind magic to levitate herself, but before she could even unleash her magic, she found herself lying on something. She quickly sat up and discovered she was sitting on a giant lotus leaf. She hadn't noticed it at all while sitting on the shore, and the leaf was completely dry.

With a "bang," a head popped out from beside Ming Jin's hand, its hands resting on the lotus leaf. It was completely dry, with clean hair and face, and it smiled at Ming Jin, saying, "Woman, we meet again."

Mingjin looked closely and realized that the person who had suddenly appeared was Zhulian, the younger sister of the Lotus Sisters who had sold him things at the Gathering of the Forest: "You scared me to death. Did you conjure up these lotus leaves?"

"I was just playing in the water, and those lotus pods are mine too. I was just about to tease you when I saw an old friend, but I ended up drawing you into the water. I'm so sorry. All these lotus flowers are mine, and that one is my sister's," Zhu Lian said, pushing herself out of the water and pointing to the other side of the pond. Unfortunately, Ming Jin's eyesight wasn't good enough, and she couldn't tell which lotus flower her sister was.

Zhu Lian gracefully sat down on the edge of a lotus leaf, her legs still submerged in the water. Ming Jin sat cross-legged on the lotus leaf, carefully engaging her intuition to savor this rare and wondrous experience. Looking down, she noticed that Zhu Lian's hands, resting on the lotus leaf, were still like lotus roots. Zhu Lian, who had been calling her sister over, turned and saw Ming Jin's gaze fixed on the two arms she had woven. She then generously showed them to Ming Jin: "These past few days, the weather has been nice, so I've been spending all my time playing in the water and haven't focused on my cultivation for a while. Wait a moment, and I'll be able to create a pair of human hands. Sister Zhu Lian has been practicing her skills lately; I just called her. But she can't come right now, so I'll take you there."

At this point, Mingjin noticed that the lotus leaves beneath her were slowly moving. It turned out that, out of her sight, there was a small waterway among the lotus leaves. However, after walking a little further, Mingjin's initial surprise subsided. Turning back to look at the path she had come from, she realized that Zhu Lian had made way for the lotus flowers and their pods. After they left, the lotus flowers returned to their original positions, transforming into a pond full of blooming lotus flowers.

How did you tell your sister?

Zhu Lian emerged from the water and, mimicking Ming Jin, forcefully bent her legs with her hands. However, her legs hadn't yet transformed into human form and looked more like lotus roots. Therefore, Ming Jin was terrified as Zhu Lian manipulated her legs, always worried that she would break them with her sudden movements.

"Can't you smell it?" Zhu Lian was quite surprised to hear Ming Jin's words.

What do you smell?

"It's a fragrance specifically used to deliver messages, a tinkling, jingling fragrance."

These words left Mingjin's mind blank. She was currently surrounded by a large group of lotus flowers, and the fragrance was already making her dizzy. Searching for any tinkling floral scent amidst this was simply impossible.

"It's a tinkling, tinkling, tinkling fragrance of flowers. Usually, the fragrance of flowers is like flowing water, light and gentle, but this fragrance is stronger." Seeing Mingjin's undisguised confusion, Zhulian explained to Mingjin in the limited human language she knew. Unfortunately, she realized that her description was too vague and unreliable, so she had to give up. "It's okay, you're human, it's not a big deal if you don't understand our language."

"So you communicate using scent. Can you lotus flowers recognize the fragrance of other flowers?"

"No. If you can't successfully transform into human form, you'll live your whole life in this pond. Why would you need to interact with other flowers, plants, men, and women? I only became friends with Sister Caoxiu after I transformed into human form. The fragrance of flowers is infinitely diverse, but because a group of flowers can only live in one place, they can only say so much, and the fragrance gradually becomes balanced. So, if you humans don't have a sensitive nose, they probably all smell the same."

The lotus leaf, serving as a small boat, came to rest in a secluded patch of lotus blossoms. Zhu Lian stopped the lotus leaf, and Ming Jin, whose legs were a little sore from sitting, shifted slightly. Zhu Lian, watching Ming Jin's movement, asked curiously, "What are you doing?"

"My legs are a little sore, it's nothing."

"Sour?" Now it was Zhu Lian's turn to be confused. "What does 'sour' mean?"

"It means your legs are still on your body, but you can't use them anymore," Mingjin offered a simple explanation.

However, Zhu Lian still didn't understand at all.

Then, another person, holding onto a lotus leaf, climbed out of the water. However, compared to the strangely shaped limbs of the lotus-chasing creature, the lotus-chasing creature looked like an ordinary seventeen or eighteen-year-old girl. After they ran out of the water, water droplets slid smoothly down their bodies, but they didn't feel wet at all.

Can I touch you?

"sure."

Mingjin reached out and touched Zhuilian's hair, finding it to be dry.

"What are you doing?" Zhu Lian asked curiously.

“My hair stays wet for a long time after it gets wet. It’s only after I learned the Wind Technique that I can dry my hair quickly.” As she spoke, Mingjin clasped her hands together, then used the Wind Technique, placing her palms towards the two sisters, and a gentle breeze blew onto their faces. Zhulian felt the breeze was very comfortable, closed her eyes for a while, and then laughed heartily.

“Human magic is truly wondrous,” Zhui Lian laughed. “Zhu Lian and I have been studying for a long time, but we can still only maintain human form temporarily.”

"Why did you sisters train to take human form?" After having fun, Mingjin stopped using her wind magic and asked curiously.

"At first, when we were still lotus flowers, we were very envious of humans who could move freely, running around on the ground without being confined to the water. Fortunately, Uncle Jiang knew how to transform into human form, and since he was bored, he taught us and named us 'Chasing Lotus,' hoping that we could realize our wishes soon. Later, we discovered that there were endless benefits to being able to move freely, so we were even more willing to learn." Chasing Lotus and Following Lotus explained the story one after the other.

"So these are the two characters. I thought it was from your Lotus language, so I only remembered the sound. Boss Jiang has a knack for naming things. It's quite a coincidence, my cousin's nephews are named 'Maijin,' which is very similar to your names."

"Really!" Zhu Lian said happily. "I was worried that Uncle Jiang might give us weird names, but now that I hear that people are named like that too, I feel much more at ease."

After the initial excitement, Zhui Lian remembered something important: "By the way, what's your name?"

“Oh, right,” Ming Jin realized he hadn’t introduced himself yet, “My surname is Ming, and my given name is Jin. We people also have courtesy names, and mine is Tian Guang. You can just call me Tian Guang.”

“‘Ming’ I know, it’s the sun and the moon together, I especially like this character,” Zhuilian tried hard to recall what Lao Jiang had told them before, “‘Jin’ is which character?”

Mingjin touched some water to his right hand and wrote a character in his palm.

"I haven't learned this character before," Zhu Lian said, watching Ming Jin's movements and imitating them as she practiced the character in her own palm. "What does this character mean?"

"It means axe. Have you ever seen woodcutters in the mountains? The axe, also called a jin, is what woodcutters use to chop down trees."

"Did Uncle Jiang give you this name?" Zhu Lian couldn't understand, looking back and forth between Zhui Lian and Ming Jin's faces.

"Why is it named Axe?" Zhui Lian asked, puzzled.

"Do you know about the Eight Characters?" Because Old Jiang was very good at transforming into human form and was very accustomed to human customs, he was particularly interested in some of them, including the Eight Characters. Therefore, he had specifically explained it to the two sisters. Although the two sisters were not very interested at first, after listening to Old Jiang ramble on and on, they were able to recite a few sentences without even thinking.

"I know, I know, we're very familiar with each other."

"After I was born, my father consulted an elder in the clan to calculate my birth chart, and they found that I had too much Yang Metal. The fortune teller suggested a few characters to balance it out. But my father had a unique idea: since there was so much Yang Metal, he thought we should have even more, so that with more spiritual practice, we would have the ability to protect ourselves. Although other relatives and elders thought this was against common sense, my mother found my father's idea very interesting and strongly supported it, and no one else said anything. However, when I was five or six years old, even cats and dogs disliked me. I would fight with people in town every day, and I always won, regardless of gender. A neighbor who knew about my name joked that it was because of this name that I could win against everyone. However, when I later became a disciple, my master still felt that the name was too sharp, and he didn't like unusual things, so he gave me the character 'Tian Guang' (天光), hoping that I would be calm and not get involved in troubles."

“So that’s how it is…” Zhui Lian nodded.

"What do you mean? I don't understand..." Zhu Lian nodded in imitation of Zhui Lian, but after pretending for a few moments, she pursed her lips bitterly and asked helplessly, "What does it mean? What does it have to do with having the same name and birth chart as Axe?"

Zhui Lian looked at Zhui Lian helplessly: "It's okay, I'll explain to you later. I just didn't expect to run into you here. How did you end up here?"

Mingjin briefly explained the purpose of her trip, which Zhuilian understood. Unfortunately, after the two sisters met in the forest, they lamented their poor ability to transform into human form. So, after returning, they had been cultivating in this pool, resting underwater during the winter. They had only recently woken up and were not yet aware of what had happened around them.

“Both of us have shallow cultivation, so we can’t travel too far after transforming into human form. Our biggest hope now is to maintain our human form and not be discovered at this year’s Earth Forest Gathering,” Zhu Lian said. “However, I feel like I’m the only one who can’t transform anymore. I visited Sister Cao Xiu and Uncle Jiang at the beginning of spring, and they can already transform into perfect human forms. Although Sister Cao Xiu still has some difficulty speaking, it doesn’t affect her much. It’s so heartbreaking that I’m left behind.”

“Speaking of the Qunlin Society,” Zhui Lian suddenly plucked a long hair from her head and held it in her hand. In Ming Jin’s eyes, the hair instantly transformed into a lotus bud. “I have already learned from Uncle Jiang how to invite people to join the Qunlin Society.”

As she spoke, Zhuilian reached out and inserted the lotus flower horizontally into Mingjin's hair bun. Mingjin wanted to touch the lotus flower to see what it looked like, but when she reached out, she found that the lotus flower had disappeared.

“This is my token,” Zhui Lian smiled. Zhu Lian, seeing that she could already use this technique skillfully, was greatly surprised. She grabbed Zhui Lian’s sleeve from behind and complained slightly that she had learned it too quickly. “When the next Gathering of the Forest opens again, I can use this technique from a distance, and this lotus flower will reveal its true form and emit a faint light. At that time, Tian Guang, you only need to hold the flower stem to get to our stall. In fact, if I practice more, this magical artifact will have even more uses.”

"That's so convenient, thank you so much," Mingjin said happily. "If you can take the first step, then taking the second step will naturally be a piece of cake. It's just a matter of practicing more. With the experience of the first step, taking the second step will be much easier."

"Then I'll take your kind words," Zhui Lian replied.

Thinking back, she realized she had lingered there for quite some time. Afterwards, Zhu Lian took Ming Jin back to shore in her lotus-leaf boat, saying goodbye that she would learn the spell as soon as she got back and would definitely adorn Ming Jin's hair with another flower. Ming Jin readily agreed, but as they walked, she suddenly imagined that if she befriended a few more flower fairies and tree spirits, her hair would become a vase.

But then I remembered something else.

"What was the token that Boss Jiang gave Elder Hong? Was it a piece of ginger tucked into Elder Hong's hair?"

Then I thought of Hong Junyu's calm and kind face, but with a piece of aged ginger on his head, drinking tea with the owner at the tea stall, which suddenly made me laugh out loud.