Jiu Xian woke up with a severe headache, his head ringing and throat parched. He stood up from his bed.
"Ouch! What the!" He accidentally steped on a broken wine jar. Looking around he saw many broken jars and broken pieces of furniture.
As he applied bandage to his wound, his mind slowly drifted towards the last night.
After Mie'ren left with the immortal woman, he drank with the villagers, drowning his sorrow disguised as happiness for Mie'ren.
Walking alone towards the house that was to become his and Mie'ren's home. Drinking wine, jar after jar. Shouting and letting out his anger on the furniture and finally falling asleep from the excessive drinking.
He blushed in embarrassment, his face turing red.
I need to drink in limit from now on, he thought as he finished tending to his wound and started cleaning the mess he had made.
Done with all his chores he picked up the ring and the jade given to him by the immortal woman.
"How does this thing work?" He pondered out loud as he held the jade in his hand.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus and the jade but nothing happened. He fiddled with the jade for about half an hour trying various ways to activate the jade, after which he brought the jade towards his forehead.
The cold jade sent a warm feeling inside of him and stated turning into dust.
His head filling with new information.
'Golden Sun cultivation technique, develped by Bai Ruexue, reversing the principles of sliver moon technique used by the Ice Jade Palace, can help to cultivate till the golden core realm'
Jiu Xian felt overwhelmed by the new information. Qi, spiritual energy, cultivation realms.
He sat down, brewed himself a cup of tea and thought about his future course of action.
To meet Mie'ren again he HAS to reach golden core realm, his first challenge will be the body refinement realm. Tempering with his skin, muscles, bones and blood respectively. He will be needing qi filled natural resources, of which he had no idea where to find, but luckily skin tempering didnt require much resources.
All he had do was do was some physical exercises as per the Golden Sun technique, but the mentioned exercises were to be performed at sun rise, there was not much he could do as it was already afternoon.
So with nothing much to do he walked out of his house to see if the other villagers had any idea about spiritual plants.
"Uncle Lao, how are you?"
"Oh my! Hello to you too Xian'er. I'm doing as good as these old bones of mine allow me to." Bao Lao said, his wrinkles deeping with his smile.
"So what's up? It's rare to see you outside of your house unless you go hunting." Old lao continued.
"Nothing much, just out on a walk to freshen my mind."
"Oh! Right! You must be feeling lost after Mie'ren left. You two were together all the time. Xian'er don't worry there are plenty of fish in the sea. You will find someone else to spend your life with" Old Lao laughed as he patted Jiu Xian's soulder.
"I don't know uncle, I don't think i can find someone like Mie'ren again. She is the only one for me." Jiu xian said, his eyes fighting to hold back tears.
Old Lao talked for a long time, trying to get Jiu Xian to give up on Mie'ren and move on before Jiu Xian finally managed to ask him.
" I get it uncle Lao. By the way do you know anything about immortal plants, you are the apothecary of the village. You must know something about them."
"Hmm...Immortal plants? I don't know anything about them...but when i went to red tiger village the people there told me about how a young man found a ginseng deep in the red tiger forest.
" He gifted to ginseng to the village chief to marry the chief's daughter. When the chief consumed it and i kid you not, he grew about 20 years younger."
Jiu Xian thanked old Lao and went to find the other villagers to inquire further.
The answers provided by the other villagers were smiliar to that of old Lao. Worth checking out but nothing too conclusive.
Tired of interacting with the whole village and all the villagers trying to console him about Mie'ren he returned home and rested on his bed.
"There is no path laid out for me. What am I to do Mie'ren?" He looked towards the spot where Mie'ren dissappeared and said.
Immortality? Cultivation? He did not want such things, he just wanted to marry Mie'ren. Start a family, have a couple of children and grow old with his wife. But life rarely goes as one plans.
He did his best to busy himself with thoughts about cultivation but at the end of the day he still felt bitter about not being able to be with his childhood friend.
For mortals immortality is but a dream.