"Ugh!"
Jiu Xian groaned as he woke, clutching his head with both hands. His throat burned, dry, like he had swallowed sand. A desperate thirst overtook him. This was a feeling he was all too familiar with.
He looked around, trying to find water. Empty jars scattered everywhere; most broken, a few intact. Broken furniture, bent at awkward angles. Scraps of food left to rot where they fell; the room was in shambles.
Finally spotting a filled vase, he staggered over to it.
"!!! Curse the gods!"
A sudden pain shot through his foot.
He lifted his foot, holding it in his hands. A broken piece of a ceramic had wedged itself in his foot, cutting into his flesh. He could smell the iron as the blood leaked from the wound.
Forgetting about his thirst, he urgently rushed to the table, applied the ointment and bandaged his wound.
As the pain dulled, his thoughts drifted toward the previous night.
After Mie'ren left with the fairy, he drank with the villagers.
Smiling, chatting merrily.
A perfect lie.
When the villagers had all left, the silence gnawed at him. To drown out the noises, he drank wine straight from the jar.
He drunkardly stumbled through his room, emptying more jars than he could count. Breaking the furniture, throwing half bitten food everywhere in his wake, cursing the heavens.
Then, everything went black. He passed out.
A faint blush crept onto his face.
'Good thing, no one saw me like that.'
'I won't become a slave to alcohol again,'
Resolving himself, he set out to clean the chaos he had created.
"Ugh, I hate cleaning."
Jiu Xian picked up the garbage from around the room, threw it into a sack and wiped the floor clean. To mask the lingering smell of alcohol, he lit a stick of incense.
He sat in the bed. Smiling.
But as they say, an idle mind is a devil's workshop.
Every moment he kept idle his thoughts kept wandering back to her. He tried reading books, cooking, going out on a walk, but nothing seemed to work.
In the end, he found himself back on his bed, fiddling with a small pouch.
After staring at it endlessly, he made a decision.
He shut his eyes, opening the pouch and emptying its content on the bed.
Thud~
The objects produced a soft noise as they made contact with the bed. Taking in a breath, he opened his eyes, his vision turned to the ring and the jade that now lay on the mattress.
He picked up the jade.
"How does this thing work?" His eyebrows tightened as he turned the jade over in his hand.
He closed his eyes, relaxed his face, his fingers tracing every corner of the jade. For nearly half an hour, he experimented with different methods to activate it. Eventually, he collapsed onto the bed in defeat, holding the jade above his face as he studied it.
In a moment of carelessness—
His grip loosened.
Thud!
The jade slipped from his fingers and hit him square in the head.
A cool sensation spread across his skin, followed by sudden warmth that seeped into his body. Before his eyes, the jade began to crumble, turning into fine dust.
His mind flooded with unfamiliar information.
'Golden Sun cultivation Method—created by Bai Ruexue. By reversing the principles of Sliver Moon Method of the Ice Jade Palace, this Cultivation Method can allow one to cultivate up to the golden core realm.
Jiu Xian trembled, overwhelmed by the torrent of unfamiliar concepts— Qi circulation, meridians, cultivation realms. The terms felt foreign, yet strangely as if he had always known them.
His eyelids drooped, posture slumped. His breathing quickened. He felt sluggish.
He brewed himself a cup of tea to relax and began gathering his thoughts on a piece of paper.
'to meet Mie'ren again... I need to reach the Golden Core Realm.
My first hurdle will be Body Tempering Realm, and for that I need Qi-rich herbs or spirit stones...'
He smiled bitterly.
Finding spirit herbs in the mortal word, it was like finding needle in a haystack. As for spirit stones, it could be said that the chances of a dog talking were higher than a mortal stumbling upon a spirit stone.
Taking a sip of the hot tea, he turned his thoughts from the unachievable, and instead focused on the Golden Sun Technique.
For now, his only goal would be to achieve initiation in the cultivation technique, but even seemed to be a problem.
According to the new memories in his brain, the technique could only be practiced in the mornings, when the first rays of the sun met the earth.
With nothing he could do right now, his mind started wonder once again.
'What is she doing right now? Is she missing me?'
Slap!
The sound reverberated through the room. His cheek swelled, a large handprint painted over it.
'Might as well try to see if the villagers know anything about Qi plants,'
He stepped out of his house, a faint smile lingered on his lips, his eyes shining with a new light.
...
"Uncle Lao, how are you?"
"Ah, Xian'er. I'm as well as these old bones allow." Uncle Lao chuckled, the wrinkles on his face deepening.
"What brings you out? It's rare to see you outside of your house unless you're hunting."
"Nothing much. Just thought it was a good day for a walk."
"I see...just walking you say." Uncle Lao stared deeply at him.
The two stood in silence for a while.
"You must be feeling lost after Mie'ren left. You two were always together, like peas in a pod. Don't worry, Xian'er—You will find another, fated to grow old with you." He laughed and patted Jiu Xian on the shoulder.
Jiu Xian lowered his gaze."I don't know, Uncle Lao, I don't think I will ever find someone like Mie'ren again. She is the only one for me."
Uncle Lao sighed and continued trying to comfort him for a while before Jiu Xian finally managed to steer the conversation back.
"I understand, Uncle Lao. You are right. By the way... do you know anything about immortal plants? As village apothecary—you might have heard something in the passing,"
"Hmm... Immortal plants?" Uncle Lao stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I don't know much, but when I visited the Red Tiger Village, I heard a story. A young man supposedly found some wild ginseng deep in the Red Tiger Forest.
"He gifted the ginseng to the village chief— to marry the chief's daughter. They say when the chief consumed it, he grew twenty years younger."
Jiu Xian's heart stirred. Finding a clue so quickly felt like a blessing.
He thanked Uncle Lao and continued asking around, hoping for more information. Going from one villager to another, till he had visited everyone in the village.
The talk with the villagers provided him with many vague and inconclusive clues; some rumours, some ancient folklore, some legends.
Tired from speaking with the entire village — and from enduring their attempts to console him about Mie'ren, he walked back home and lay on his bed, letting out a long breath.
"There's no clear path laid out for me... What am I supposed to do, Mie'ren?" he murmured, staring at a certain spot in the room, the place where she had vanished.
'Immortality...Cultivation... I never wanted any of this. I only wanted to marry the woman I loved and live.
Like everyone in the village.
Yet here I am, chasing immortality like a fool.'
Too tired to stay awake, yet too anxious to sleep; he dug out the wine jars from the storage hut and drank until the world faded into darkness.
For mortals, immortality is but a distant dream,
like a star that shines but cannot be touched.