Chapter 157 Watching the Vast Ocean: How could one person possibly endure setbacks and hardships alone...?

The afternoon downpour washed away the oppressive heat, and wisps of cool breeze squeezed in through the narrow window cracks, wiping away the layer of sweat on my body.

After a long and arduous night, Zhou Ya finally felt satisfied. He pressed himself against her naked body, wearing only a long robe to cover his own. As he lightly brushed against Bai Yuan's smooth, silky skin, he felt an electric shock throughout his body, a sensation that lingered long after.

The soothing sound of flowing water reached his ears, and he held Bai Yuan tightly as if he couldn't bear to part with her, secretly wishing that this moment could last forever.

However, time cannot be held back; in the blink of an eye, night passes and day arrives.

After the heavy rain, it was another sunny day. The rising sun broke through the clouds early and shone brightly on the earth. As usual, the boatmen called out a few times and served morning tea to the passengers. They also carried a basket of steamed buns to sell along the way.

"Give me two steamed buns."

"Oh dear, you have such a big bump on your forehead, you must have bumped it badly."

"Yesterday I lost my grip and bumped into the corner of the table. Luckily, the boat didn't capsize."

Hearing the conversation outside, Zhou Yaren had no choice but to get up and leave the bed.

Yesterday, he and Bai Yuan were lost in their own world in the closed cabin, oblivious to the fact that the ship was being tossed about by the wind and rain, and many people were vomiting uncontrollably by the ship's side due to seasickness.

Afraid of waking Bai Yuan, Zhou Yaren carefully tidied up the mess and picked up the teacup that had fallen to the ground. Fortunately, only one of them was broken.

Zhou Yaren opened the cabin door and went out to the bow of the ship to change the tea set. He then brewed a new pot of tea. On his way back, he encountered a vendor who had boarded the ship the day before. His basket was full of fresh peaches, plums, apricots, and other fresh fruits.

Zhou Yaren walked over, drawn by the aroma of the fruit, and asked the vendor for the price.

The woman who was squatting in front of her basket picking through the items looked up at the sound, and upon seeing him, she was immediately stunned. Then her eyes lit up with joy. She had seen him a few days ago, a fleeting glimpse from afar that had stirred her longing, but she had never had a good opportunity to get close to him.

Despite the many inconveniences of traveling by boat, she still dressed up every day, hoping to look beautiful and presentable when they met again.

The woman quickly smoothed her meticulously styled sideburns, and rose with a shy, coquettish smile: "Does the young master prefer sour or sweet?"

Zhou Yaren was surprised that someone would talk to him, and replied with a smile, "Sweet and sour is fine, either is fine."

When the woman saw his smile, her heart raced and her cheeks flushed. She quickly said, "Peaches are sweet and juicy, very thirst-quenching, and plums are especially sweet and sour. I've picked out some of the freshest ones here. Please take them and have a taste, sir."

Zhou Yaren politely declined, saying, "Thank you for your kindness, but I will choose for myself. I won't take what others prefer."

“Young master, you don’t need to be so polite. Actually, I…” Upon being rejected, the woman was clearly anxious and didn’t know what to do. She stammered, knowing she couldn’t just force it on him, so she gritted her teeth and said, “I, my name is Ye Qingqing. May I ask your honorable name, young master?”

Bai Yuan stood in the narrow corridor, expressionless, watching the two people coming and going in front of the fruit basket.

Everyone loves beauty, and Bai Yuan certainly understands that. This blind man is handsome, so it's no wonder he attracts unwanted attention.

Before long, Zhou Yaren had turned around and walked towards Bai Yuan under the woman's unwavering gaze.

The woman crossed Zhou Yaren's shoulder line and was caught off guard by Bai Yuan's gaze. She was slightly taken aback. Strangely, even though that calm and collected gaze was devoid of any ulterior motives, it gave her the illusion that her thoughts and intentions had been caught red-handed. The woman immediately turned her head away in a flustered and ashamed manner.

Zhou Yaren came to Bai Yuan's side, her tone involuntarily tinged with a smile: "You're awake. I just picked out a few fresh fruits for you to try."

The distance between them was just right; the woman could hear him speak. It turned out that he had picked out the fruit for someone else, but she could only see the upper half of his face, as the lower half was obscured by Zhou Yaren's shoulder.

Bai Yuan responded with a sound.

As the woman heard them enter the cabin, Zhou Yaren's soft and gentle voice asked, "Are you tired?"

It's a very ordinary sentence, yet you can hear a special kind of intimacy in it.

The woman couldn't help but turn around and see Bai Yuan's profile through the slowly closing hatch. She had a straight nose and dark, cold eyes that exuded an unapproachable aura. These features adorned her narrow face, which was as white as frost and snow, and her angular features resembled an ice sculpture, giving her a startling beauty.

Coupled with her unusual and intimidating aura, she inspires fear in all who behold her. Even if one yearns for her, one must carefully consider one's own worth and would never dare to covet her, much less covet the person beside her.

The woman only needed to glance at her to realize her own limitations. She didn't want to compare herself to her, but she still felt a huge gap between them.

The cabin door closed, Zhou Yaren brewed some tea, placed several fresh fruits on the table, and then peeled the skin off one of the soft peaches.

The fuzzy peaches are large and thin-skinned. Once torn open, abundant juice overflows, dripping between the fingers and onto the back of the hand. Zhou Yaren handed the plump fruit to Bai Yuan. After the other took it, he raised his hand to his lips and licked off a drop of sweet juice from the back of his finger: "Mmm, so sweet."

Bai Yuan lowered his head and took a bite; it was unexpectedly sweet, and the peach aroma was very strong.

Zhou Yaren watched her reaction and her eyes crinkled into a smile: "Is it delicious?"

Bai Yuan nodded, with fruit in his mouth: "Sweeter than wild fruits from the mountains."

She had eaten very few fruits before, and her taste buds had always been stuck on the pile of wild fruits that He Yan had picked. Perhaps they were out of season and not fully ripe, with a sour taste from being half-ripe. Occasionally there were a few sweet fruits picked from the tips of the trees, but none of them could compare to the soft, sweet, and delicious flesh of this peeled peach.

"From the mountains?" Zhou Yaren asked, then realized something. "These peaches are picked from the trees by farmers after they ripen. You've never eaten anything good."

Bai Yuan wasn't unfamiliar with good food; He Yan was quite skilled at grilling fish. Although she didn't have much of a appetite, she would occasionally crave that crispy-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside grilled fish.

Zhou Yaren, unaware of her thoughts, took a bite of a plum and said, "You ate the sweetest one first, so this plum will definitely be sour."

Bai Yuan stared at Zhou Yaren peeling fruit with her eyes down, and inappropriately thought of He Yan. He used to be carefree, dashing, and romantic, and he had a period of carefree life, but he changed later.

"Ya Ren."

"Hmm?" Zhou Yaren answered her while peeling the peach.

How can a person remain unchanged after experiencing setbacks and hardships?

Just as time flows by and cannot be reversed, she also felt a sense of helplessness, as if she could never hold on to what she had lost.

Bai Yuan naturally missed He Yan, so he felt even more sorry for the person in front of him.

She had just called her name, and Zhou Yaren waited a long time for what she heard. When she looked up, she saw Bai Yuan staring at her absentmindedly, so she asked, "What are you thinking about?"

Bai Yuan placed the peach pit he had finished eating back onto the plate and gave a casual smile: "I wasn't thinking about anything."

Zhou Yaren then handed her the peeled peach.

"No need, you eat it."

"Where are the apricots? Would you like to try some?"

Bai Yuan shook his head: "I won't eat it."

So Zhou Yaren handed over a handkerchief to Bai Yuan to wipe his hands.

The peaches were quite large, and he felt full after eating one. After cleaning up the peels and pits, he washed his sticky hands.

The journey by boat was tedious, but not entirely without anything to do. Zhou Yaren would often peer out the window. Of course, the blind man wasn't looking at the scenery; he couldn't see, but he could capture things that were difficult for the naked eye to discern.

If there are fangs in the water and they are not lurking deep, he can detect them immediately.

Bai Yuan would often sit by the window, occasionally accompanying him to admire the scenery along the way. However, once the river emerged from the canyon, it entered an endless plain. The river channel gradually widened and leveled, and the turbulent current became calm and slow. Passing Mengjin and heading east, the boat traveled across the land of Qi and Lu. The continuous high mountains and canyons were no longer there. What came into view was a vast expanse of crisscrossing farmland. The wheat ears in the fields were ripe, creating a golden expanse of wheat waves in the wind.

Whenever the passenger ship passed through towns and villages, or areas with human habitation, Zhou Yaren would extend his divine sense to expand his hearing range and discern suspicious speech.

As the boat passed a village, smoke rose from the thatched roofs. Suddenly, Zhou Yaren heard a heart-wrenching wail, lamenting the tragic death of her beloved relatives, whose remains had been lost forever.

After clearing his mind and listening carefully, Zhou Yaren's expression changed.

“The Gu Master once killed people here to collect their skins.”

Bai Yuan frowned slightly.

They hadn't reached the ferry stop yet, so the two of them simply abandoned the boat, climbed out the window, and leaped across the river to the bank.

"Oh!"

Suddenly, someone on the deck spotted two figures, one in green and one in white, moving with the agility of swallows. He exclaimed in surprise, immediately drawing everyone's attention and sparking a flurry of discussion.

Zhou Yaren and Bai Yuan did not turn back, but continued walking towards the village houses.

After careful inquiry, a villager who had fainted from fright later told them that he had personally witnessed several fellow villagers, who had died in human form, suddenly rise from the dead a few days earlier and head towards the southeast.

Clearly, the Gu Master and the Wangxiang changed their course here, leaving Bai Yuan wondering, "Why aren't they taking the river route?"

If Zhou Yaren hadn't inquired along the way, they might have missed the Gu Master.

This place is not far from Haikou; it can be reached by following the Yellow River. However, Gu Shi and Wang Xiang chose to change their route here. Based on the route and direction, Zhou Yaren speculated: "They may be planning to go to Mizhou."

Bai Yuan was puzzled: "Mizhou?"

“During the Warring States period, Mizhou belonged to the state of Qi. After Qin unified the six states, Langya Commandery was established here,” Zhou Yaren said. “When the First Emperor toured Langya in the east, Langya Terrace was located in Zhucheng, Mizhou.”

Place names changed with the rise and fall of dynasties, and Bai Yuan was imprisoned for thousands of years. The place names in various places have changed countless times. After she was born, she didn't even have time to look at the map and had long been confused. After Zhou Yaren reminded her, she realized: "The place where the First Emperor sent Xu Fu to sea to seek immortality."

“That’s right,” Zhou Yaren said as she walked along the path through the wheat field with Bai Yuan. “Most of the alchemists who went to sea to seek immortality back then came from the Yan and Qi regions. Yan and Qi are adjacent to the sea, and Xu Fu was from Langya in Qi.”

The Annals of Qin Shi Huang records: "In the 28th year of Qin Shi Huang's reign, Xu Fu and others from Qi submitted a memorial, saying that there were three sacred mountains in the sea, named Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou, where immortals lived. They requested permission to fast and purify themselves, and to seek them with young boys and girls. So Qin Shi Huang sent Xu Fu with several thousand young boys and girls to the sea to seek the immortals."

Zhou Yaren said, "The Qin Emperor visited Langya three times, where he built a platform and erected a stele on the shore of the East China Sea. The alchemists, who were well-versed in astronomy and geography, climbed the Langya Platform to view the vast sea..."

Bai Yuan continued, "Then they found the Boundless Secret Realm, and Xu Fu played the trick of 'never returning.'"

The First Emperor spent money, manpower, and effort to send them off at Langya, worshipping the sea, and sent them to find the immortal mountain to seek the elixir of immortality. They were sincere and devoted. But how did Xu Fu achieve his goal?

He trespassed into the Boundless Secret Realm and committed a series of heinous acts of arson, murder, and looting.

“So I think,” Zhou Yaren said, “that Gu Shi and Wang Xiang are also planning to follow the route Xu Fu took to the east.”