Chapter 23, "In a Moment of Despair".
The person in the mirror slowly turned his eyes and met Meng Chiwan's eyes. The faint smile on his lips remained unchanged, as if he was looking at her, or as if he was looking at something else.
Meng Chiwan stared at him, lost in thought.
The person in the mirror was clearly Lin Shuchun, but his eyes were not as empty as in the illusion. Strictly speaking, this should be considered the first time she had seen Lin Shuchun's true appearance.
His delicate features, combined with his compassionate yet gentle eyes, truly resembled a painting in springtime.
Then she felt her sleeve being gently tugged. She turned her head and saw Yun Xianqing looking at her with her clear eyes, seemingly a little aggrieved.
He laughed and said, "Is it that good-looking?"
A hint of joy suddenly welled up in Meng Chiwan's eyes, and she smiled, the smile spreading out and flowing into his heart. She said, "Beautiful. But Yun Xianqing is even more beautiful."
Then, she reached out her hand to him.
Yun Xianqing was stunned for a moment, not knowing what she was going to do.
Her hand brushed across his cheek, lightly touching his earlobe, lingering for a moment behind his ear before withdrawing, her knuckles holding a leaf, which she gently waved in front of him.
Her eyebrows were curved, and she clearly looked the same as before. But for some reason, she seemed different in Yun Xianqing's eyes; her eyes were brighter, her eyelashes longer, and her skin whiter and more supple. It was as if a layer of veil had been placed over her.
Yun Xianqing suddenly felt his heart begin to pound, making him feel irritable. He suppressed the strange feeling in his heart and then regained his calm and composed demeanor.
He took the leaf from her hand, and the strange feeling returned the moment his knuckles touched, but he didn't show it at all. He simply raised his hand and gently crushed the leaf, calmly saying, "Thank you, young lady."
Meng Chiwan twirled the mirror in her hand, then asked hesitantly, "Has the Immortal Lord ever seen this mirror before?"
"No."
She then asked, "Does the immortal lord remember who he is?"
Yun Xianqing stared at her intently for two seconds, his dark eyes clearly audible even in the quietest of times, yet he still said, "Never."
Meng Chiwan carefully put the mirror away and placed it in the storage bag she had obtained earlier. Then she said, "You said you would take me to find the knot in my heart. Have you found it now?"
She stopped and looked at him, waiting for his answer.
"It hasn't been completely found." Yun Xianqing paused, as if sensing something, before speaking after a long while.
"Shall we continue?" Meng Chiwan pursed her crimson lips and asked instinctively.
The two continued walking up the mountain.
Along the way, various low-level demons and monsters appeared, and the spiritual energy in her already depleted spiritual veins was completely exhausted, almost as if it had been drained, with not a single drop left to be squeezed out.
But she gritted her teeth and persevered. She didn't want Yun Xianqing to look down on her.
Yun Xianqing was clearly aware of her predicament, but he did nothing. He would just occasionally pull out some pills and water from somewhere and bring them to her lips, with the monsters or demons she had just killed right at her feet.
The two continued walking like that, neither of them calling for a stop.
Until we arrived at a familiar place.
The place of eternal rest.
The familiar Buddhist shrine, the familiar weeds.
She took out another Buddhist rosary from her storage bag and placed it in front of the shrine.
Yun Xianqing suddenly asked, "Have you seen anyone here?"
Meng Chiwan gently swept away the dust in front of the Buddha shrine, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't sweep it all away. She sighed and said softly, "I guess you could say I've seen it."
Originally, this was her secret. But now that there's someone else around, and since Yun Xianqing asked, there's no point in hiding it anymore.
Besides, the fact that her heart almost stopped when he asked her that question couldn't fool him.
This person now completely understands all her thoughts. Unless she can truly achieve inner peace someday, hiding all her emotions and not even letting her own heart know.
"When did we meet?" Yun Xianqing asked again, his tone indifferent, as if he were asking a trivial question.
“In a moment of despair.” She said each word carefully, and the smile in her eyes resurfaced from beneath the water. These four words seemed utterly ordinary to her.
Yun Xianqing suddenly fell silent, then asked her, "What is a moment of despair?"
"Seven years old," she answered without hesitation. The year she was in despair was the one she had chosen from the long years. It was because she had gone from hope to despair, from having some hope to giving up completely, that it was so desolate.
In the years that followed, no amount of hardship could compare to that year when I was seven.
“That year I was always ignorant. I didn’t want to suffer any hardship. My father could seek justice for me, and my mother always taught me to grow up and become strong, so I was arrogant and fearless. Until that year I taught Ma Jianshan, who had always bullied me, a lesson, and then I fell seriously ill. My mother went to get medicine for me, and after returning, she was bedridden for a long time. My father worked day and night by himself.”
"And then? Later, that day, my father went up the mountain to gather herbs for my mother, but he didn't return for a long time. My mother settled me in, and despite her illness, she went up the mountain in the rain to look for him. I vaguely opened my eyes and saw my mother's back as she left. Little did I know that would be the last time I saw her." Meng Chiwan recounted with a soft sigh, her tone devoid of emotion, as if she were telling someone else's story.
"So, you've been thinking that if you had just let Ma Jianshan bully you and his gang without fighting back, maybe everything would have been fine?" Yun Xianqing squatted down, took out a small broom from her storage bag and handed it to her, then said, word by word.
"...Isn't that how it is?" Meng Chiwan asked back, as if suppressing some emotion.
"You've met a Buddhist monk, haven't you?" He didn't answer her, but looked at her hands sweeping away the dust and sighed softly.
“The rain was pouring down that day. I couldn’t drag my parents along, so I kept going uphill, praying that someone would kill me and send me to my parents. But I barely made it to the Buddhist shrine, wanting to ask the monks or Buddha, why? Why must I suffer all this? Why can’t I have evil thoughts?”
Yun Xianqing looked at her, her eyes seeming to be filled with something, but she was busy cleaning the Buddhist shrine with her head down and didn't notice.
“Buddha couldn’t hear me. I collapsed to the ground; the place had long been abandoned. I laughed at myself. I was clearly only seven years old. I closed my eyes and decided to die like this. I would rather die than defile this supposedly tranquil place. If Buddha wouldn’t save me, then he would watch me die.”
"But then, I saw him."
Yun Xianqing gently asked her, "Are you a Buddhist practitioner?"
“It was him. Buddha is high above, yet he was willing to lend me a hand. He said he would save me, that he would use thousands of years and all his strength. I looked into his golden eyes and cried again. I protested the injustice of the world and denounced the favoritism of heaven, but he just looked at me. Buddha's light emanated from my body. He asked me to persevere a little longer.”
"He told me that there was still hope."
Yun Xianqing moved closer to her. The surroundings were completely silent, with only the irregular sounds of sweeping the Buddhist shrine breaking the silence.
“I believed it. I still believe it now. I was just wondering if it was possible for those two corpses to come back to life. I wanted to go look for them again when I went down the mountain, but I didn’t find them. I thought, what if they come looking for me again someday? So, I swallowed everything and have lived until now. Whether I am the sinner who killed my parents or not, as long as there is still a chance, I am willing to live on.”
“I’m not afraid of hardship. I’m only afraid of having no hope. Maybe I’m inherently bad, but that day, I really wanted to kill Ma Jianshan. But he really wasn’t a good person either. I also wanted to ask him, what are you living for?”
In front of the shrine, a Buddhist rosary was radiating golden light, just like... the eyes of the Buddha.
She picked up the prayer beads, which felt like warm water droplets radiating heat from her fingertips, a warmth that seemed to reach deep into her heart. Then, all the prayer beads she had placed before the shrine began to emit a golden light.
The prayer beads in her hand suddenly broke free from her fingers and floated into the air along with the other prayer beads, gathering into a string.
The golden Bodhi beads slid from her fingertips to her wrist, clinging to her skin and warming her entire body.
After a long while, the golden light slowly dissipated, turning into a string of seemingly ordinary beads.
Meng Chiwan raised her wrist and looked at the Buddhist beads. The shock in her heart was indescribable for a moment.
"You've already escaped that body of water. But you were still missing a little hope. Chi Wan, it's not all over yet, is it?" Yun Xianqing suddenly smiled, her smile as warm as the bracelet.
"Yun Xianqing, did you already know?" Meng Chiwan's hands trembled as she gently stroked the bracelet, sensing the spiritual energy within the spiritual veins.
Is she considered to have reached the Foundation Establishment stage?
Skipping the Qi Refining stage and going straight to Foundation Establishment?
Yun Xianqing's features were gentle, and a smile spread across his face. He said softly, "Can't Chi Wan see the lotus mark on her body? It's so dazzling that it's almost blinding."
Meng Chiwan looked around and indeed saw no lotus mark. She was then surprised to realize that the lotus mark she saw that year had always been on her body and had never disappeared.
That Buddhist practitioner...
He said he would help her, but is he really taking action?
A warm feeling welled up in her heart, as if she had found the most difficult and best herb to find in the world.
From this day forward, she is now a proper independent cultivator!
If she's lucky, perhaps someone will actually call her a fairy.
Her greatest fear was having no hope, but now, hope spread throughout her body. With every step she took, it seemed as if happiness would fall from her body and turn into sugar water, making her feel sweet all over.
That period of confusion should be over. If possible, she still wanted to help Lin Yudong and see Lin Shuchun.
What kind of person has such a beautiful name?
A note from the author:
Finally! Cultivation has begun! Things should get exciting soon! [Sprinkling flowers]
I really like Chi Wan! [orange candy]
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