“Then… when did you start remembering me?”
Lu Xiaochan just wanted to talk, even if the other person disliked him and wouldn’t let him touch them. Lu Xiaochan simply wanted to talk.
“A long time ago.”
“How long is a long time ago?”
Lu Xiaochan became happy again because the other person answered him.
Shu Wuxi’s voice was steady and composed; he seemed to be a bit older than Lu Xiaochan.
He remembered Lu Xiaochan, but Lu Xiaochan didn’t remember him. Most likely, he had seen Lu Xiaochan when the latter was still a small child.
Lu Xiaochan thought to himself, “I’m sixteen this year. I guess Shu Wuxi must have seen me about fourteen or fifteen years ago?”
Before Shu Wuxi could answer, Lu Xiaochan stumbled and almost fell.
He was used to falling, so he didn’t even feel startled in his heart anymore.
However, Shu Wuxi raised his bamboo branch and steadily supported Lu Xiaochan.
At that moment, Lu Xiaochan’s heart began to flutter.
It’s worth noting that bamboo branches are thin and soft, and would normally break under Lu Xiaochan’s weight. But this branch seemed to be infused with a strong energy, remaining so stable that it didn’t even quiver.
Shu Wuxi cared about him; otherwise, his reaction wouldn’t have been so quick.
Lu Xiaochan squinted his eyes and smiled, his heart full. He wanted to tell him everything, even nonsense. “When you say ‘a long time ago,’ do you mean in a past life? Or many, many lives ago?”
“There’s no such thing as past lives and present lives. You just need to believe what I say.”
“You’re being so vague… It’s making me curious and itchy to know more!”
Shu Wuxi must have been a cultivator, and of high cultivation at that. Since he and Lu Xiaochan had known each other “a long time ago,” could it be that Lu Xiaochan was also a disciple of the Four Directions Sword Sect? Or a descendant of the Eight Directions Mystical Sect?
“Forgetting is a good thing. If you insist on digging to the root, what you get in the end may not be ‘understanding.'”
Shu Wuxi’s voice was very calm, reminding Lu Xiaochan of moonlight in a dream, refined over thousands of years yet unchanged.
“If not ‘understanding,’ then what could it be?”
“Extreme pain.”
Shu Wuxi enunciated these two words with slightly more force than before.
Ordinary people wouldn’t have noticed, but Lu Xiaochan’s hearing was several times sharper than average.
“Extreme pain?” Lu Xiaochan scratched his forehead with his finger. “Someone once told me that the greatest pain in life isn’t birth, aging, sickness, or death, but…”
“Love and separation, long-lasting yearning, unfulfilled desires, and inability to let go.”
Each word fell heavily on Lu Xiaochan’s heart.
Shu Wuxi was the first person Lu Xiaochan had met from whom he found it difficult to sense any emotion in his words or actions.
But now Lu Xiaochan understood that Shu Wuxi’s calmness was an obsession compressed and sealed airtight after a long pursuit.
“You seem really amazing… but why did it take you so long to find me?” Lu Xiaochan mumbled quietly.
This was his self-talk; he hadn’t expected Shu Wuxi to answer.
“I’m sorry.” Shu Wuxi stopped in his tracks.
It was the first time Lu Xiaochan really wanted to know what expression he had on his face.
“Sorry… sorry for what?”
“For not finding you sooner.”
This was also the first time someone had said “sorry” to him.
“It’s okay. You know, I think I dreamed about you! In my dream, you had a really beautiful back view, so I always wanted to see you again! Just seeing you once in my dreams could make me happy for a long, long time!”
Even though he hadn’t seen the face of the exiled immortal in his dream, Lu Xiaochan was convinced it was Shu Wuxi!
“Because someone put a curse on your primordial spirit, I had to search through three thousand realms, which delayed me.”
Although they had just met, Lu Xiaochan knew that Shu Wuxi was not one to explain himself much. In his view, the result was what it was, and the process and reasons weren’t important.
“What bad guy would be so evil as to put a curse on my primordial spirit!”
Lu Xiaochan lowered his head in thought, feeling that many, many things had happened in the past.
He quietly followed Shu Wuxi for a while, but it was Shu Wuxi who spoke first.
“Why did you stop talking?”
“Talking? Don’t you find my talking annoying? Like cicadas on trees, making noise non-stop, disturbing the peace?”
Lu Xiaochan liked to talk, even when there was nothing to say, he could talk to himself for half a day.
The old beggar found him noisy and said if he had money for needles and thread, he would surely sew Lu Xiaochan’s mouth shut.
“I don’t.” Shu Wuxi’s voice was gentle, with a sense of self-restraint yet indulgence towards Lu Xiaochan.
Although Lu Xiaochan felt this must be his imagination.
Lu Xiaochan thought that if Shu Wuxi was a highly skilled cultivator, he would naturally be very patient.
“Then… how did you find me?”
“Your primordial spirit left your body and was led to me by ‘Biluo’. I asked you where you were, and you answered that you were in ‘Lushu’.”
Lu Xiaochan was stunned.
Could it be that after getting drunk, his answer in the dream was because his primordial spirit had left his body and gone to Shu Wuxi?
“What is ‘Biluo’… Surely it’s not the first layer of heaven that Taoists talk about, with its blue mist filling the sky?”
“Biluo is an ancient spirit beast. Its bones are ground into powder, mixed with a strand of your hair, and made into an incense bait. It’s then heated with heart blood. When the incense burns, it guides your primordial spirit back.”
Lu Xiaochan unconsciously touched his head, wondering when Shu Wuxi had gotten his hair.
“Where did you get the bones of this ancient spirit beast?”
“I caught it and locked it up. Every ten years, when the incense bait burns out, I take another of its ribs.”
Lu Xiaochan’s shoulders shuddered, and he instinctively touched his own ribs.
Also… he was only sixteen, but Shu Wuxi said “every ten years,” which meant he had been searching for him for more than ten years?
“Doesn’t… doesn’t it hurt?”
“Whether it hurts or not is none of my concern. I only need its ribs.”
“Do you also take…”
He dared not ask the rest of the question. The heart blood Shu Wuxi mentioned should be from Biluo, right?
At that moment, Lu Xiaochan suddenly felt that Shu Wuxi wasn’t like a Taoist cultivator, but more like an emotionless evil spirit.
Shu Wuxi, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped.
“Why are you touching your ribs?”
“I… I was wondering if in the future, you might need something and take out my bones too… Haha, hahaha…”
“I won’t.”
“Because I’m not an ancient spirit beast, so taking my ribs wouldn’t be useful anyway! Hahaha…” Lu Xiaochan laughed dryly.
Thinking about it, something still wasn’t right!
Where did Shu Wuxi get his hair from?
As he pondered this, Shu Wuxi led Lu Xiaochan to an inn.
“We’ll rest here tonight. You have no cultivation, so if I took you on a thousand-mile journey at night, your body couldn’t handle it.”
“Okay…” Lu Xiaochan thought, is Shu Wuxi bringing him to stay at an inn?
Unexpectedly, as soon as the innkeeper saw Lu Xiaochan, he looked extremely displeased.
“Beggars and dogs are not allowed inside! Get out! Get out now!”
Lu Xiaochan had thought that after all this time, he might finally get to sleep in a bed, but it seemed he was still going to be driven out.
However, Shu Wuxi took out a gold bead and placed it on the innkeeper’s counter.
The innkeeper’s eyes widened at the sight.
Lushu Town wasn’t a prosperous place. With such a gold bead, the innkeeper might not earn as much even running the inn for ten years.
“This… this young master, what are your instructions?”
“Give us your best room. Prepare hot water for bathing, and buy some undergarments and outer clothes that fit him. Enough for half a month of changes.”
“Noted! Please, both of you, please go upstairs!”
Lu Xiaochan had never been in an inn before. As soon as he stepped on the stairs, he missed a step and almost fell forward.
The innkeeper quickly moved to support him, but unexpectedly, Shu Wuxi’s bamboo branch went under Lu Xiaochan’s arm, lifting him up while the other end of the branch pressed directly against the innkeeper’s shoulder.
The innkeeper hadn’t even touched Lu Xiaochan when he was pushed back by a powerful force.
“Without my permission, no one is allowed to touch him.”
Shu Wuxi’s voice carried a hint of authority, frightening the innkeeper speechless.
“Take it slow. There are nine steps in total.” Shu Wuxi lowered his head and said to Lu Xiaochan.
His voice was gentle and soft, completely different from moments ago.
“Ah… oh…”
Lu Xiaochan grabbed the bamboo branch, steadied himself, and followed Shu Wuxi upstairs.
The innkeeper finally patted his chest in relief.
“Oh my, he looked like a frail scholar, but how… just now, how…”
The innkeeper didn’t know how to describe the guest. He slapped his forehead, wondering how, in just a moment, he had completely forgotten what the guest looked like.
The door opened, and Shu Wuxi led Lu Xiaochan inside.
This was considered one of the better rooms in Lushu Town.
Full of curiosity, Lu Xiaochan ran past Shu Wuxi, reaching out to touch everything.
“This is a chair!” He smiled as he felt the shape of the chair.
“This is a table! It’s round! Different from the tables in Wusi Tavern, which are square!”
“Is this a bed curtain? So soft!”
Lu Xiaochan realized his hands were dirty and might leave marks on the bedding, which Shu Wuxi would surely dislike, so he turned around.
Just as he was about to bump into a chair, Shu Wuxi silently moved it away with his bamboo branch.
“Is this a teacup?” Lu Xiaochan reached out to touch the rim of the cup.
He had never been in a house or stayed in a room before; everything here was new to him.
He could sense that Shu Wuxi was sitting nearby, quietly watching him.
“Are you looking at me?”
“Yes.”
“Do I look like a country bumpkin? Never sat at a round table or in a round chair?”
Just as Lu Xiaochan was about to feel for a chair to sit down, Shu Wuxi gently hooked his finger, and a chair was already securely placed behind Lu Xiaochan.
“Eh, when did a chair appear behind me?”
He sat down, felt around for a while, picked up a cup and placed it in front of him, then reached for the teapot.
Before his fingertips could touch the lid, they were stopped by the bamboo branch.
“The water is very hot. I’ll pour it for you.”
