Chapter 5 Before the magnificent (Part 1)

The wind blew gently through the bamboo forest, and Xiao Chengqian and I felt our hair fluttering slightly in the breeze. The wind was warm and gentle, like the kind that comes in the spring. It seemed to dissolve the slight dryness in the sunlight, allowing the warm sun to evenly warm every part of the body.

Xiao Chengqian and I looked at this picture in the warm sunshine and breeze, and were silent for nearly a minute before Xiao Chengqian said to me, “Let’s take a walk in the bamboo forest.”

“Take a walk here? Aren’t you afraid of getting lost?” I remembered my childhood experience. The first time I saw the magic of the formation was brought to me by this bamboo forest.

“Can this entry-level formation make you lose your way? Or make me lose my way? Don’t bullshit, okay?” Xiao Chengqian carefully put his cigar back in the box, then took out a cigarette and lit it. He originally wanted to give me one, but after thinking about it, he took it back.

I grabbed it and lit it, saying, “I’m just injured, I don’t need to be so careful.”

Xiao Chengqian smiled and didn’t say much, his head bowed and he became even more silent.

I said, “Hurry up and tell me. I’ll go keep Chengqing company later.”

“Well, is he going to go to Uncle Li’s grave again and talk to himself?” Xiao Chengqian exhaled a puff of smoke, and the sound echoed throughout the bamboo forest. Accompanying his words was the sound of our footsteps on the bamboo leaves.

I don’t know when it started, but the descendants of the Li and Wu clans have completely “integrated” with each other, and their elders have begun to call each other “uncle” and “auntie.”

But they still can’t get used to calling each other “brother” or “sister,” even though they have already accepted it in their hearts.

“Yes, not only him, but the masters also often do this. That night, I saw the master carrying a jar of wine and talking in front of Uncle Li’s grave. He cried and laughed all night and got himself drunk. I heard him say something about the little sister… the next morning, I wanted to help him come in and sleep, but I found that Uncle Chen and Uncle Wang had also fallen drunk in front of Uncle Li’s grave.” I said casually, but deep down I couldn’t help but feel sad.

In my pocket was a copper coin, a gift from Uncle Li. It was a precious natural treasure, and I often played with it. The coin had become incredibly smooth, with a special kind of brightness… Sometimes the expression of longing is in these small details or small movements.

Behind a habit, sometimes it represents a certain emotion. It is like when a person goes somewhere, the thing they miss the most is the taste of their mother’s cooking.

“Some feelings are so deep that they cannot be expressed in words. Do you know? That time we met in the holy village…” Xiao Chengqian and I stopped in an open space. There was a large, flat rock here, and we both chose to sit down here.

The warm sunlight was divided into tiny specks by the bamboo leaves and shone on his and my faces. Xiao Chengqian was smoking a cigarette, slightly tilting his head and squinting his eyes, thinking of the reunion that day.

I have stopped playing that scene several times, but every time I hear it, I can’t help but feel an urge to cry.

Chen Chengyi must have had some regrets in his life, some big and some small, some important and some not so important, but this time, missing the reunion because of the coma was a regret that was very important to me.

I listened quietly as Xiao Chengqian talked about the reunion, and it was not enough to hear about the regrets of missing it so many times.

“That time, at the Holy Village… I really didn’t know that the elders would appear like that, as if they had fallen from the sky. I was so tired of holding up the Holy Village. After all, I was the only one who could protect these important people there, but sometimes I suspected that Wu Tian’s patience was almost at its limit. Many times I couldn’t sleep at night, or I would wake up from a nap, because I felt that if I couldn’t even protect myself, how could I protect others? Sometimes I thought that it would be better to die together, but that was just an escape. Life always goes on, even if it is in purgatory. When he talked about those days, Xiao Chengqian’s voice became low.

Those were probably the hardest days for him. I can empathize with him. It was like when I took on the responsibility as the eldest brother of the Shan lineage after my master and the others went missing.

We have gone through many years and traveled to many places… In times of hardship, people are particularly vulnerable, but the sun will still rise the next day, and responsibility will whip you forward without turning back, even if you are living in purgatory.

I have never thought of running away, even though I have been weak many times. But that is not a false sentiment, because I am proud that we have experienced the storms and the ups and downs, and finally reached this point.

And I will not be stingy with my expressions of affection, because I have lost and know that some feelings should be expressed as much as possible. Life is limited.

The wind does not stop when the tree wants to be still, and the child wants to take care of his parents, but they are not there to be taken care of… I am afraid that some relationships will pass before I have the chance to say and express them.

How can one experience the sticky and heavy feelings without going through them? This is not contradictory to the strength of one’s actions. Just as Xiaobei once told me, if a man’s heart is not soft, how can he become a hero if he can’t even cry? Because he doesn’t have a heart that is compassionate to the world, how can he have the courage to do what is right?

At least, the mature and dashing man I understand is the one who can cry and laugh, and even accept what is right and wrong, but never evade, and knows what he is carrying.

I think… that kind of man who dries his tears last year, becomes cold and ruthless this year, then fights without winning, and creates a myth is probably from another world. That kind of god-like existence, I can only look up to… Whether it’s me or Xiao Chengqian, we’re just ordinary people, or even people who are forced to keep moving forward by life. All we have is the bottom line in our hearts, and we are seeking peace of mind and a responsibility that we must do.

“Yes, when it comes to their appearance, we should thank Xuan Zongzi. If it weren’t for his superb water control skills, he would have sent us out of the Holy Village and delayed Yang Sheng and Wu Tian’s group. I think it wouldn’t have been so easy for Master and the others to enter and exit the Holy Village, and to rescue you…” It was really a fluke that Xuan Zongzi sent us away. Because they were fighting for the Tianwen Stone, Yang Sheng and his group didn’t have time to worry about us and escaped from Gui Dao Bay, which bought them some time.

After all, Wu Tian is the strongest being in the Holy Village, and he brought his ten strongest “followers” with him, which drained the power of the Holy Village by half.

“Actually, it wasn’t completely without warning. Do you know? There are some very “stinky” beings in the Holy Village, but they are very powerful. They usually hide in the inner village… they are those cultivators who should have died, but borrowed the lives of others! The reason they are said to be stinky is because they should have died a long time ago, but they are still forced to live… they all have the stench of a corpse, but they are still forced to live. These people were rarely seen during that period of time. Later, a few days after Wu Tian and his men left, they would occasionally appear once or twice to maintain the order of the Holy Village. Strangely, each time they appeared, they were relatively young, one or two people. Xiao Chengqian’s cigarette had burned to the end. His brows were slightly furrowed, and his expression on his face was slightly puzzled, as if to express that he was puzzled that day.

I laughed at Xiao Chengqian’s expression and said, “Don’t you ever wonder about anything? At that time, Wu Tian was traveling with his capable subordinates, and the old weirdness that continued to maintain the village seemed to have disappeared. Don’t you dare to fight?”

What I meant by “take a chance” is that he should take advantage of the opportunity to escape with everyone.

Xiao Chengqian did laugh when he heard my question, and said, “Chengyi, if it were you, would you dare to take such a gamble? It is already difficult to keep everyone alive every day. Under such pressure, who would still have the spirit to take risks? This is what is meant by the saying, ‘The bold die young, the timid die old’?

“The important thing is that you are afraid that if I come out of Gui Dao Bay, I will return to Shengcun, but you will all be gone, and I will be alone…” I quickly added, “Yes, not only him, but everyone should be like this.

After all, if everyone is together, they can still fight together. If I am alone, then I am no different from the fish on the cutting board.

“You understand, so why say it?” Xiao Chengqian smiled wryly and continued, “It was so hard, so difficult, and the elders suddenly appeared in the Holy Village. What do you think I felt? I remember that day, when they appeared in the afternoon… that day, Huigen was injured and had just been carried back to the so-called confinement room in the Holy Village…”

I was silent again. In fact, I knew what their lives were like after I left.

Except for Xiao Chengqian, everyone else was imprisoned by Wu Tian. It was impossible to think about the ordinary life in the outer village before. They instantly became the lowest-level prisoners, and anyone in the Holy Village could torture them.

If it weren’t for Xiao Chengqian’s presence, they wouldn’t even be able to keep their lives. It was also because of Xiao Chengqian’s presence that the torture was still above the bottom line. Otherwise… I dare not imagine.

However, Xiao Chengqian’s position in the Holy Village is only like this. Even if the torture is above the bottom line, isn’t it still torture?