Chapter 28: Follow your heart and find peace of mind

“Brother, it’s true. That thing is still sitting on your shoulder.” Hui Gen’er came over and said to me very seriously.

I was speechless, and Xiao Chengqian was already sitting in the driver’s seat, looking at me playfully and saying, “Haven’t you been a genius since you were a child, and can you open your third eye? Open your third eye and take a look, it will greet you with a ‘hi’.”

I sat next to Xiao Chengqian, exhausted and speechless. Zhao Hong and Hui Gen’er also got into the car. Xiao Chengqian started the car, and the car drove smoothly ahead in the night.

“How did you end up in this city?” I think life is a very wonderful thing. In a sense, Xiao Chengqian and I should be opposites. The unscrupulous methods of their organization are definitely not something I admire. It is possible that in the future, we will become complete enemies because of something that intersects with my life.

But at this moment, he came to help me. I was very relaxed talking to him, which was also a wonderful coincidence. Just like when my master left, he even hid it from me, but he took the old guy from Xiao Chengqian’s lineage with him. Is this also a kind of wonderful friendship? I can’t figure it out.

Xiao Chengqian drove the car and didn’t answer my question directly. He said, “Do you know? When my grandfather passed away, he also arranged for someone to take care of me. After all, our family has some hidden connections. One of them happens to be a ‘big uncle,’ a very big uncle, haha…”

A very big uncle? Is that also a strange existence? I was thinking that in the past, none of them appeared, but now they are appearing in my life in a queue. This is really… But a very big uncle, this description is really very funny, and I laughed along with him.

“Yes, it was that big uncle. He knew that another even bigger uncle was going to deal with you, so he told me about it unintentionally. I asked him how serious it was going to be. He said it wouldn’t kill you, but it would peel off your skin. According to that person’s methods, they would usually put a ghost head on you without you knowing it. In fact, this ghost head is also the wisdom of the Chinese people. In Southeast Asia, it is the most powerful thing in the art of jiangtou.” Xiao Chengqian talked far away, with a smile on his lips, and seemed proud.

I laughed along, patted his shoulder unintentionally, and said, “Lie down a little more, stay a little longer, and I’ll ask you to go down later.”

“What about me? If you want to say young master, those are big masters. Can’t we be a little master?” Xiao Chengqian was driving and talking nonsense.

Hui Gen said from the back seat of the car: “I think the name Xiao Ye is very handsome. Okay, please call me Hui Xiao Ye in the future.”

Zhao Hong was listening to my conversation with Xiao Chengqian to the point of being stunned. What I had on my shoulder, what big uncles, what jiangtou, I guess this kid is running towards the road of madness and not looking back.

I took out a cigarette and rolled down the window.

“No, the air conditioner is on,” Xiao Chengqian shouted.

“First, I don’t like the smell of air conditioning. Second, little… little master, right? Little master, I want to smoke. Even if the emperor comes, I won’t give him face.” As he spoke, I lit a cigarette.

“Look at you, all crumpled and wet. Can you even light it?” Xiao Chengqian looked down on me.

“Come on, I know you’re as noble as a prince, smoking a big gun.” I used the lighter a few times, and sure enough, the bucket of so-called water had soaked the cigarette too thoroughly to light it.

“Cigars? You people are really vulgar. They’re cigars!” As he spoke, Xiao Chengqian threw a box of Zhonghua cigarettes at me.

I took one out happily, lit it, and said, “I don’t like the flavor of Zhonghua, it’s too heavy! You really are vulgar, you don’t even know how to appreciate cigarettes, haha…”

Xiao Chengqian laughed and said, “Cigars are for me to be elegant and fashionable. Cigarettes are for you to appreciate. Zhonghua is for the aristocracy. You’d better smoke a well-wrapped leaf cigarette with your saliva, haha…”

This nonsense is actually quite ridiculous, but it inadvertently brought me closer to Xiao Chengqian. The night wind blew on my face, and I squinted slightly and said to Xiao Chengqian, “Little ghost, it’s not funny. If you have no principles, you know that it’s something that is resented by heaven and man. Don’t be hostile to me.”

Xiao Chengqian didn’t say anything. He seemed a bit irritated and lit a cigarette, then said, “This is not a matter between you and me. It’s a confrontation between forces. Our organization is not involved too deeply, or your master took a group of people away, and we are no longer qualified to be involved too deeply. I can talk to you like this, but I can’t tell you anything else. But remember, it’s not up to the two of us to confront each other.”

I smiled and said, “You can’t beat me.” Then I didn’t say anything else, just took a deep drag on my cigarette. The light blue smoke drifted away in the night, as if it were carrying a lot of sadness with it. When I was very young, I thought I could live a carefree life with my master, practicing Taoism, training, watching the sun rise and set, and living a simple life.

When I was older, I also wanted to travel the world with a sword, to fight for justice and revenge, to be absent from the world but to be remembered in its legends, to dream of being a hero.

It was only until now that I realized that I had lived up to my master’s words. Life is a constant intertwining of people, and in the midst of this intertwining is a thread called fate. Then, at the moment of intertwining, you may tie a new thread for each other, which is to say that you have planted a new cause and effect.

When I said this, my master scolded me, “Bah, isn’t this just like a shadow play? But it doesn’t stop me from performing well, working hard to live my life well, and then being at peace.”

Yes, don’t blame fate for being destined. Let us be like marionettes. A marionette can also make every step of its life wonderful and at ease in fate. Just like this moment, I want to treat Xiao Chengqian as a friend, then I must treat him as a friend fiercely. Even after that, fate may arrange for us to be enemies.

Thinking this way, I suddenly looked at Xiao Chengqian and said, “Don’t leave tonight.”

“Fuck, do you like me?” Xiao Chengqian rarely had such a vulgar side, which made me feel sad. After all, he was a descendant of the family, and no matter how much he pretended to be a prince, he was still the same as me, a bachelor at heart!

“It’s just a night of drinking. Don’t imply anything. I won’t fall for you even if you imply it.” I stubbed out my cigarette and said indifferently.

After almost a minute, Xiao Chengqian said, “Okay, I hope you’re not trying to get me drunk and get me to say something.”

When we arrived at our destination, it was a rented house. When I entered the house, the first thing I saw was Yuan Yi. Without saying anything else, I walked over and gave him a big hug.

Brother Yuan Yi seemed a little dazed and said to me, “How long has it been since the battle in the deserted village? I never thought that I would have the opportunity to fight alongside you in this lifetime.”

“Heroes don’t fall. Look at me, single-handedly riding a horse, and then killing it seven times in and out! Brother Yuan, I’m watching your figure, admiring it.” I said to Brother Yuan Yi half seriously and half jokingly.

“You little brat,” Yuan Yi laughed heartily. Perhaps the hero was the best answer he could give to his grandfather. I had never told him about the ghost market because I didn’t know how to explain it.

But at this moment, Yuan Yi suddenly asked, “Who are you?”

“I was also involved in the whole thing in the deserted village when I took Yang Sheng away. At that time, I had a fight with Chen Chengyi.” Xiao Chengqian said very simply.

Yuan Yi’s brother was stunned, and I said, “Life is a wonderful thing. In fact, we really don’t need to understand it too well. Live according to your heart and be at peace, and that’s enough.”

“Yes, that’s really enough,” Yuan Yi’s brother said in a low voice.

“Have the others not arrived yet?” I asked.

“They’re almost here. I’m the first to arrive,” Yuan Yi replied.

This was a wonderful gathering, as if many years later, we were doing something repetitive.

Jiang Yi arranged for me to meet Yuan Yi, Sun Qiang, and a friend named Gao Ning, who was a Taoist priest, not the Gao Ning from the Miao village.

So I said it was a wonderful gathering, as if we were still in those days, in that misty, deserted village, in that dilapidated house, waiting for the decisive battle with the old village chief, an unknown fate…

Only the older generation is gone.

We were at a regular barbecue stand, just like ordinary people, and the owner put a beer next to us, and then everyone drank it.

I can’t describe the mood I was in. It was as if I had suddenly felt a change in the world. Suddenly I shouted, “Come on, let’s drink a toast to the old village chief!”