"You'll get blisters in those." A woman holding her two year old child said as she looked down at Wei Zhiruo's water filled boots. "You better buy a new pair or exchange something for them. Are you new to Shajing, little girl?"
Wei Zhiruo raised her head tiredly, feeling there was no ill-will directed her way, she nodded. "I will just deal with it. I can go barefoot, can't I?"
"With so much rain and chill, you might get frostbite. The nights here are hundred times colder than this. I tell you, go find a small shop in the slum if you cannot afford a good pair, buy some wooden clogs if you can. You'll be thanking me later, child."
She nodded towards the woman to show she'd heard. Then she walked out of the eave under which they, and several others were standing to wait for the rain to stop.
After walking some distance, she stood in a dirty alleyway squeezing water from her ragged skirt. Finding them truly unsalvageable, she threw her water-filled boots into a ditch, along with some other extra falling pieces of fabrics clinging to her tender bones. Covering herself in a soggily wet cloak again, fidgeting and pulling its hood to cover her eyes, she started walking ahead barefoot. The rain hadn't stopped yet. It was still pouring as hard as yesterday and the day before that, and the day before that too…she'd lost count of how many days she'd spent this soaked.
Tall wooden buildings stood on either side of her with drooping eaves and gloomy boundary walls which were just baked mud, aged and worn. Everything screamed gray and black, dust and murk. Walking ahead on the fog-covered cobblestone pathways, she turned right, then left, and went farther and farther into the secluded corners of the slum. She still didn't spot any wooden clog sellers, so she walked towards the only glowing lantern in the mist.
In this early hour just a few breakfast shops had opened up, serving hot and steaming wonton soups in old and rusty bowls, wooden chopsticks thrown alongside crisp fritters and dumplings with little oil; the food smelled good, and made the cold and wet alley much warmer for the passersby. She even saw a few people crowd together around an oven while waiting for steaming tea to be poured to them.
"Are the wantons ready, auntie Huang? I told you about her, didn't I? My wife just recently married from Qianshui, so she is missing the taste of her home. She said your wantons taste the same as what her mother used to make—"
"Okay, okay, okay you old brat! I have kept it ready for you. Your little brother came yesterday to order this, how could I forget? Here take this."
Wei Zhiruo watched the young man pick the paper bag with a smile, then handing money he walked away humming a tune to himself. She walked into the breakfast shop. People sat with their heads covered and faces not showing, sitting down on their chairs slurping noodles.
She heard clanking wooden chairs, food simmering and soup bubbling, and the peculiar ring of metal hitting and clanking and footsteps hitting the concrete, threw a bunch of copper coins on one of the tables, pulling out a chair she sat down groggily. In a flash, she was chatting and replying to an old lady receiving her orders and with her tired eyes following the woman's bent figure going back to the kitchen leaving a lingering trail of spices warm smell.
Finding herself completely enveloped in silence, she looked at her palms and clenched her teeth.
'It's hopeless. Those people must have left long ago, ah.' Wei Zhiruo thought pensively.
Appearing in this sprawling city wasn't a random choice for her. This was the only famous place in the minds and imaginations of those villagers she met. They assured her, she'll find everything here —she wasn't gullible enough to believe that, but of course she still held a small hope she'd be able to make it to Xicheng in time or if not that, get some news. But reaching Xicheng would take another fifteen days. It would be a whole month since the day she fell down that cliff. How plausible was it to hope those cultivators wouldn't have left for their lands? Or that she'll eventually catch up to them?
It was a lost cause.
At least she was no longer a stranded child washed down by a river bank. Or at the mercy of impoverished villagers. She'd done healing, and laying in makeshift beds, choking and drudging through pain and fitful waking moments that hurt her soul and body alike. Wei Zhiruo felt no remorse in leaving every bit of jewelry on her body to those kind people in that village when she left, she just felt it was too cheap of an exchange.
Wei Zhiruo couldn't finish all the food in front of her. Gobbling enough to keep herself awake in the end, she pushed up her rattling bones to stand up again with sheer desperation, then walked out. Rain fell on her forehead, and she clearly heard one of the bones cracking loudly. Somehow, still shaking and swaying, her figure blew in the wind, and mist engulfed her like a hungry beast.
"Miss! Little miss!!"
She was so lost in dizziness that she didn't hear when the breakfast shop's owner, a scrawny looking old lady wearing a frown and dirty apron on her bony body came out hastily to her, running behind holding a few more copper coins in her hands, calling out to her, "Miss! Little miss! You forgot to pick your change! Huh? She's gone?"
The old woman didn't have good eyesight, so she muttered and relied on the little light from the lantern to keep searching for Wei Zhiruo, until she heard someone calling out from the side demanding to be served. Irritated, she begrudgingly let go of her concern and shouted loudly, "Alright, alright—I am coming, you brat!"
***
Wei Zhiruo was already far away. She stopped near a decrepit looking building and raised her right arm to push open the doors. Someone told her this place was a shortcut leading into that famed secluded alleyway called 'Nighttime Melody' through a backdoor— a famed black market region in Shajing, full of illegally running shops and businesses and also where her destination, an illegal pawn shop, stood.
She needed money if she wanted to travel to Xicheng.
Carriage, clothes, drivers, maids and food —she had nothing and needed everything. She still had a few rings adoring her bony fingers—she knew they were too precious to be easily accepted everywhere. A pawnshop, she didn't think it would give her the right price. But she didn't have the energy to fight, so she was ready to accept any decent enough price. As she was thinking about the issue of exchanging her ring, for a split her eyes strayed over those marks on her wrists laid bare in sunlight.
Her marble-white arms revealed a mark growing on her flesh — a few black crisp lines, entangling like a vine and growing on her wrist up to her right elbow, clutching, grasping her tightly, tendrils seeking her support. She'd found them this morning.
After watching it grow for fifteen days, she'd grown used to it. She knew she had changed. In fact, while she healed herself in that small abandoned shack, she noticed these changes as she ate and drank potions after potions, foul-smelling droughts and chugged on herbal wines to get back on her feet at the earliest—there was something fundamental shifting in her bones and flesh.
It was her bloodline. It Awakened.
How strange…she didn't expect such a surprise here. However, that did explain the ache, the tiredness she'd been feeling since initiating the rituals in the Wei House. The flesh on her rotted and festered, then regenerated as if gaining a new life. The fever didn't go away immediately though. It took days of insufferable tingling pain in her lengthening bones, stretching and strengthening organs and skin, and flesh filling her body making it look plumper, fuller, no longer the miserable skeleton she was before, when finally she felt strong enough to walk on her own. Fifteen days. It took so long to heal her battered body.
'But what if you were still a human? Could you survive that fall?' Wei Zhiruo thought and unconsciously traced her throbbing forehead.
There was a second mark rising there, like a bump or a birthmark. Strangely enough, the shock she felt watching this crimson mark on her forehead was far greater than anything she'd ever experienced.
She forgot how many years ago, but in her childhood she'd touched something similar in her dreams, hundreds of times and wished it would come true in her reality too. Each morning she'd recount those desires and sensations to her still alive grandmother and ask forlornly—
"Why am I incomplete, grandmother?"
"Incomplete, my dear?"
"Yes," In that memory, a young Amaranthus had kept holding her granny's sagging hands, her head laying on her warm lap as she framed what that feeling meant to her, "Like, only if I have this mark can I be complete. I don't know what this means granny, but it feels…uncomfortable."
"Does it now…hmm?" Granny was asking her, caressing her head, "Be patient my dear, it will pass. One day you'll wish this feeling had remained longer with you. But it will not stay and you will feel incomplete again. We all feel the same, my child. It comes when we are young, goes as we grow old. But it hardly ever results in anything for us. Maybe it will be different for you…you don't want to be different? Why? Alright, alright if you don't want to say don't, there's no hurry...do you remember the tale of our ancestors, Amaranthus? How we came to Cuiping and why we stayed here, or why we had to abandon our own world? Our magnificent heaven? Our one homeland?"
"I do," Amaranthus had replied, haltingly recounting what she'd heard of that tale being told in her academy. "Because we, the Blood-clansmen, forgot our way home! Forever stranded everywhere, never finding our path…that is what the book said is our clans accursed life. Only if we get the mark of Inheritance— only if we get the mark will we ever know what happened to us or why our ancestors were abandoned or banished from home, but no one has ever succeeded. It is said that at first Areme and Ureme, Sangtchi, Yirim, Yissem and Ruime, almost twelve branches migrated to Cuiping, right granny? And then Sangtchi became our clan's title for outsiders to know us as, Areme the clan's heirs. All the emperors and clan's heads had always been an Areme, as only we can awaken our blood to gain access into the Eternal Halls of Inheritance to read ancestral books and secrets, and because of that we are also expected to one day inherit that mark and lead the whole clan back to our homeland! Is it…that same mark, grandma? The one in my dreams?"
"Yes, yes…yes and," Granny had looked at her quite pleased and leaned in, gave her a wet kiss as she explained softly, "It isn't hard to understand my dear, but it just happened that way, our departure from home. We forgot whether it was a cataclysm of the extent of a star collapsing, or our galaxy vanquishing into smithereens, or our universe bursting into bubbles. We don't know anymore. Areme, alas! We all dream of that mark, my darling. It's a dream, a desire, an unrealized wish now part of our blood! Since we came here my child, only our branch has ever succeeded in arousing the Gods' blood, thick and strong enough to keep ourselves safe in this wild world of magic where strong fought and chewed on the weaker beings—you wouldn't know as that was before catastrophe struck this world and made everyone powerless! Long before you or me. What is that mark of inheritance, you ask my dear? It's something that becomes a part of you as you become a bloodline heir, a complete Blood-clansmen or what the older folks called us, the ancient witch clansmen, the shamans. One needs to cajole it, gain its recognition with hard work before it becomes one with you. Remember this, Ama, alright? When you feel this feeling again, don't go telling others about it —they won't like it. Even your father, or your mother. Will you keep this a secret between us?"
Wei Zhiruo coughed loudly, as she stepped outside the small door out of the house, coming to a slightly brighter alley.
She felt blood bubbling in her raw throat and reached up to feel the huadian.
'Of course it was a lie.' She thought as she found the pawnshop in front of her, "The real mark of inheritance...Pious chanting? Magical fluids and grueling training to accept the power of blood? It needed nothing. Empty hopes. It's funny how now when there is no one left in the clan…hah! How the elders would scoff! A human body with no lineage of Areme's inheriting their divine pure bloodline which they claimed only a true bloodline inherits —what a blasphemous thought, this!' But it has been this easy. Soon, the flower will bloom dripping with blood and she will witness the cause of her clan's banishment. Soon.
"Alright," She broke away from recollection and said to herself, "Xicheng, was it? Those cultivators might have left but what is wrong in hoping…Let's find out for ourselves."
***
"How much for these?"
Wei Zhiruo threw a signet ring over the countertop which landed with a clink. With the corner of her eyes, she watched the last customer walk out from the room full of gray curtains fluttering everywhere, leaving it bleak, suffocating and dingier. The old man standing in front of her was unshorn, with white hair, white beard and wore spectacles with golden metallic rims which gave him a very clean, almost austere appearance. In the midst of this slum, his place was probably the brightest and cleanest place of all.
"You want to pawn on your own?" He gave her a smile with his discolored teeth, some of which had turned black and were rotting, then picked up the ring with some interest, even a flash of greed flickering behind his round glasses which he hurriedly subdued and asked, "For this, child? Don't tell me you came scurrying along after stealing it from your mistress! No way something this precious is yours!"
"It's not mine but I do have the permission to sell it."
Watching her from head to toe with a surprised look which soon became a slightly suspicious one, he asked her, "But aren't you too young to be coming here for pawning? Where is your mistress, she came with you? Call her in, and we can talk with each other. There's no need for you to act as an intermediary, especially when trading something so precious as this ruby…"
"How much?" Wei Zhiruo stood stubbornly. "You either tell me its price or I can go somewhere else. I don't think there won't be a single pawn shop willing to accept this stuff."
He looked at her again, this time with more seriousness and asked, "You can sell this thing, are you sure of that?"
"It is my mistress's, and I happen to have her orders to sell this." Begrudgingly repeating the reason, Wei Zhiruo watched the dealer examine the stone underneath his magnifying glasses.
"Yes—," He pushed his spectacles over the bridge of his nose and took his time to draw in a tediously slow voice, as he put the ring back down on the table gently, "—I doubt there won't be any, but how many will give your mistress a satisfactory price? Isn't that why you found my place?"
"Then go on and tell me your price!"
The old man mumbled and bent down to take a careful look at the ring, at her again. He judged her silently for a moment, and quite frankly stopped hesitating.
He gave her a weird sort of embarrassed laughter, then said briskly, "The price…Oh really, you would need a good one for this! To be completely frank with you girl, I first thought you were a little thief on the run. It's not like these walls haven't seen such customers before, but since the Yamen here has started cracking down on us small shopkeepers, we've been extra careful. You don't look like a thief. You must be from a respectable household! A maid! I see the likeness, yes, ahh…The face is there, the clothes. Those aren't from Shajing, I know you are not a native from this place just by your nose! You must have come from western Dajin. I cannot guess from your complexion, here, but…But that dress—somewhere too west, that will make it Jinghai. No, that will be too far away, now, won't it? Or have I guessed right? Did she meet with some accidents on her way here, that mistress of yours? But does she know what she is selling here, girl? Rubies like these must've come down from Huanan Valley, and only a diamond level jeweler could ever engrave such details so delicately perched–"
"The price, old man," Wei Zhiruo knocked on the wooden countertop a few times to wake him up from his rambling, "Tell me the price. You're talking too much."
"Ten thousand silver coins," He quoted the price, then took off his glasses to clean them with a soft cotton piece of cloth he took out from his sleeves. Peering down at her with scarily keen eyes, he didn't budge. "Nothing I say can match its original price, that would have been around Eighty to Hundred thousand silvers! Good stuff like these are heirlooms, precious…! However, this much is all my small shop can give you at this moment. What do you think? Do you want to continue selling this to me?"
"Thirty thousand is the least I want from this," Wei Zhiruo shook her head, took back the ring under his reluctant eyes, and refused. "Just listen to yourself, old man. You know the real price, how can you ask me to sell it so cheaply? My miss didn't expect its original worth from this place to tell you the truth, but you are quoting way too less. Never mind, we can just walk back to that jewelers shop instead, at least he was willing to give twenty thousand for this."
"Now, now girl! Don't be in a hurry here, this is not how we jump in transactions. Give me a couple more minutes, how about a couple thousands more?"
The old man extended his hand to stop her. He waved his hands and soon someone came bringing out freshly baked pastries for her. Another maid poured tea for them, as they sat down on chairs and kept arguing. The old man kept persuading Wei Zhiruo. She pretended to consider his words when he said, "We can talk, alright? How about Fifteen thousand silver coins, that's a good price there!"
"Thirty thousand, nothing less. My miss refuses to accept anything else. As you must have guessed, we were unfortunate on the road, we got robbed. It was difficult even to save our lives and this thing is all she has in her possession right now. Don't cheat us, old man. My mistress is already losing her money in this transaction."
"Right, a pity for both of you, but what can I do? I need to make a profit too, right?" He wanted to say something more, but watching the scowl on this mention, he stopped and just shook his head. "Twenty thousand. No more. I'm being more than generous now. You can walk around whole of Shajing and no one will be ready to give so much silver in one transaction!"
"Twenty-five thousand…I can try persuading her."
***
The final deal between them took some more haggling, amounting to a little less than quoted price, some twenty-three thousand and three hundred silver coins, given in paper money she could exchange from any bank in Dajin. She got her hands on a bulging cotton purse carrying the silvers and pushed the door of the local pawnshop, and swiftly cut across the stinking street where the pawnshop stood bathed in darkness and faint redness coming from a lantern hanging at its door. Sun seemed to seldom reach down these hovels, and today, the dark gray sky completely turned this place into an alley still shrouded in night, bleak and depressing. She heard a bird chattering somewhere, its voice bleak and fading.
She walked quickly across from that place, when suddenly she felt a few vagrants following her. No doubt, it must have been that broker who wanted both the ring and his money back! She pulled down her cloak's hood tighter, and turned to walk into another narrow path. She knew there was a marketplace nearby.
By the time she reached the marketplace it was already noon. Both sides of the pathway were full of shopfronts, roadside stalls could be seen bustling with humans, and some sellers had even put out their products in front of them and sat down on pieces of clothes spread over the dusty road to sell their things.
The surrounding was uncharacteristically buzzing with boisterous laughter and chatting of people coming and going everywhere. There were children running, chasing and playfully talking with their companions. Carriages stood stalled, wagons and even hand-pulled vehicles could be seen coming and halting or lining up—bullocks, cows and horses, and even donkeys stood creating noise. There was mist and hundreds of lanterns and their shallow light.
In front of her was a wide town square full of crowd, and at the center, a raised platform stood—giant arcs formed of ancient looking stones —and a group of people were doing something there; a line of children moved and a fog swallowed them.
She then saw cultivators. Wide eyed, she saw them leading children who had been swallowed a moment ago, come hobbling down like ducklings. They noted down names and recorded details of children, sorting them into groups!
She took an unhesitant step forward.
"Hurry, hurry be quick! Get in the line! It isn't getting any shorter anytime soon!"
"Brother, are those really Immortals?!"
"Yes, and they've come to bring you with them! Now, be quiet and good and stand in the line, okay, Xiaobao?"
Shops were catering to bystanders, serving and attending people on the roads. Some men and women and their young ones in tow, all looking flushed with excitement, were pushing madly and shoving others, jostling to join that single line to reach that platform hurriedly, until a few cyan-colored cloaks wearing young men and women, all of them cultivators, called for order. Wei Zhiruo felt the same level of energy thrumming in the air as she'd done when she met Wen Haiming and his group of five.
She walked to join the line's tail.
"You are here for the test, younger sister?" The boy in front of her asked.
Wei Zhiruo nodded at him, "You too…brother?"
"Yes," He nodded happily, smiled, "My parents want me to give it a try. I know those immortals will take us away but they said they will pay us gold coins if we get selected!"
Wei Zhiruo couldn't help but ask, "How will they determine who is going to be taken away by them or not? Do we have a test?"
"You don't know?" The boy looked surprised at her ignorance. "You didn't hear them tell the process yesterday, did you? Oh, it's okay. Let me fill you in. They are judging whether we have something called Spiritual roots inside our bodies. Those who can learn their art and go to their city must have these roots! Only those who have these roots can go with immortals to their fairy world. I don't know how they'll do that —but my older sister is going. She was found possessing three spiritual roots! Look over there!"
He pointed his hands toward a small gathering of little children not older than twelve, and waved at one of the girls who waved back at him. She had the same facial features, albeit a little more subdued than her brothers. "She is Rong Hualan. I haven't told you my name, right? Rong Yuanchun. Call me Yuanchun. Pleasure to meet you…your name?"
"Wei Zhiruo," she replied, saluting hesitantly at him.
He saluted back, awkwardly with his tiny hands and scratched his head as he said, "Don't worry even if you don't have spiritual roots now, it doesn't matter. Not many have it here. Whether we become cultivators is up to fate. That's what my sister told me."
His sister wasn't mistaken in saying that, Wei Zhiruo muttered in her mind. She could almost count the number of children who stood separated in the corner. They were too few to count.
"I have it! I do have it, brother Song! I have spiritual roots!" Someone came running down the steps leading up the fogged platform. People began to praise him and some sighed with envy.
"He is so lucky!" Rong Yuanchun suddenly said listlessly. "Wouldn't it be amazing to become like those elder brothers someday? They all have nice swords and clothes."
"Yes," she nodded distractedly, not heeding too closely, looking where he pointed at.
A group of beautiful young men and women stood chatting there. Wei Zhiruo saw a few more cultivators. She felt it too —the energy that they brought was tantalizing her blood, like her flesh demanded she inhale them! Her mind felt numbly pleasured as she felt the brush of those waves touching her. It was becoming too exhilarating…
"Come forward! Hurry up."
A young woman cultivator shouted. Fog parted, a few more climbed the stairs and were swallowed out of sight.
She couldn't hear them, nor see what was happening in front of her.
A strange sensation gripped her mind, it dragged her soul into a depth within herself of which she'd never been aware of—like revelations, those ancient texts and scribbles that hadn't made any sense when she struggled desperately with them, unfolded one by one. Each word was like a fresh slap, jerking her awake to untraceable knowledge.
A name suddenly jumped in front of her eyes.
{"An Egret's Regret, the Thousandth Door to Ancient Talismans"}
As she read further and further into the unravelling scroll, the things surrounding her began to disappear, the brushing of wind, or faint noises. She felt weariness leave her body, calming and numbing her mind.
Outside, she didn't notice but many stray gazes landed on her. One of them even muttered out loud, "Is this an epiphany? No way! The child is too small. But not impossible…"
"Should we guard?"
"No, don't you see she is moving on her own?"
"Ah—right."
"Tsch! Pretentious," Someone else commented.
Wei Zhiruo didn't notice anything.
She was now somewhere else entirely to care.
Out of nowhere, she was sitting atop a meditation mat with her legs and hands folded appropriately in the manner 'Wei Zhiruo' had seen her sister sit a long time ago. Graceful, elegant and breathing in the stillness.
In front of her sat a picturesque lady, unconventionally beautiful —her eyes, her nose…her lips graceful and compassionate, each line was mellow and demanded her attention be on her. She bent slightly down to meet Wei Zhiruo's blue eyes with her black ones and sighed wistfully. Mist rose from under her feet, layer upon layer of her gauze-like fabric fluttered teasingly. A breeze rustled outside. Wei Zhiruo followed her sight, looking out a window that they both could see through, an illusion or maybe an intersection between fantasy and reality. Whatever that it might be, she knew it was magical.
"You're here." The woman muttered, "Too small. Too small to bear a burden so heavy…but since the book has chosen you, then heed keenly, my child."
Wei Zhiruo heard her voice muttering strange syllables, foreign and binding, all at the same time. Each word collapsed something in her mind, like a fine membrane was being pierced and stretched and enlarged. The chanting kept going on and on for hours, from day to night, from night to day and night again till it was going on for years and years and she sat there, like a stone listening—droplets of wisdom condensed in her mind.
Outside, it had just been an hour.
"Keep it in your heart, for now I will seal it for you," The woman requested, "But if you do find the opportunity to unseal it, recite it every day, without fail. It will guide you to your own Dao Heart. Don't ask what this is, it's not the time to know yet."
The woman gazed at Wei Zhiruo's blue irises hungrily, peering into something only she could see. "I hope you are already familiar with me, Su Lingwei. A few million years ago, before the great catastrophe of the Yanzhou world, I used to be like you. Young and frivolous. Uncaring of everything around me. So many things have changed."
In a voice like she was retelling her heart's disease to a stranger, a stranger she knew who would've already read her broken life story and sighed at it—she told about her youth, her death.
About her past as a young and happy cultivator who lost her family, lost her clan, then her sect and brothers and sisters and friends; there were things she didn't write about, things that happened later, like her days full of struggle to ward off alien God's offsprings and otherworldly creatures that suddenly broke through her world and started encroaching on it. About an age of turmoil. She talked for a while, and Wei Zhiruo, strangely, didn't want to interrupt.
"Sometimes I cannot help but wonder, was this my fate from the start?" Her trembling voice was filling the room, "To watch them die, all of them, slipping like a handful of sand, leaving me alone in this world. I did watch, I kept trying to stand up for the next person whom I could save, giving my all. They were my family, those whom I used to call close friends, companions. But in that war, every tall back fell and groveled in front of fate and I couldn't do anything but watch them be humiliated. I asked myself, if I could turn back time, would I dare go back? Do you know what I found?"
"What?"
"That I couldn't be whole anymore. Something in me is so broken that no time can heal it. I need rest, true rest, my child. Like my brethrens who once turned into sands and evaporated in this huge world, never to be recalled again, I too desperately desire that end for me. But I couldn't die. I once pledged to Purple Spirit Mansion, that their inheritance will have a real inheritor. Someone as worthy of it as I. I've waited…too long for you."
Su Lingwei broke into a small smile as she whispered looking into her eyes, "Thankyou."
This woman, she was once the pride of her sect, cherished and loved by thousands. Each of her brothers and sisters, and elders would have given anything to amuse her, to keep her safe and happy. When the Great Catastrophe of the cultivation realm came, she wasn't even twelve, but she grew up fighting against abominations hundred times stronger than her own human kind. Killing them, purging their nests and devouring their flesh till the sky turned red and blood bathed the earth and quenched the hatred of millions who had died innocently, tormented. Wei Zhiruo imagined how she'd have taken her sword and stood tall and brave alone, supporting the sky's weight on her shoulder keeping it from falling. Being left all alone in a world where no one was left to support you. That was so familiar. All too familiar.
"Won't you regret not going to your past and saving them? Undoing everything. I know you are powerful enough to attempt such magic." She couldn't help asking.
"I am powerful, little girl. Indeed, I am. You cannot imagine what height's I have seen. But no," Su Lingwei looked at her palms as she whispered. "No, silly girl. Some love, some loss, some passions and desires are too tied with karmas. Even if I could achieve that feat, facing so many familiar faces with their familiar ways—I will be the only alien creature in that world. And are you sure, the future they will see with my intervention will really be a better one? I am saying this to warn you as I recognize a similar affliction in your eyes—don't treat space and time magic too lightly. Many things are tied delicately, many scales are tilted in a way that your slight brush will topple the equilibrium and cause a storm you wouldn't be able to contain."
"But it is still your choice," The woman suddenly laughed slightly. "But before I die, can you bear witness to my last wish child?"
"Hmm, I can. It will be my honor to bear my senior's last words." Wei Zhiruo genuinely bowed to show her respect. "Please, go on."
Su Lingwei kept staring at a jade she held in her hands. She released it and it hovered.
"It is I, Su Lingwei, the last of the Su clan. She is ashamed to admit, she has seen the end of her line with no successor! These are her last words she left to her disciple, Wei Zhiruo. Ancestors, please bless this word. Su Lingwei…wishes to revisit poignant summers spent in her sect, hot and humid winds that once blew over her calls her again. She wishes to watch again how as a little child she, struggling to take the world in her palms, frolicked in quests and journeys. She was young, so innocent was her youth. But she had many regrets. One, she profoundly regrets her sect's involvement in the Hundred Year War between Immortals and Demons. She wishes, her successor will resolve the mystery behind why Yanzhou realm was cut away from the God realm, leading to its accursed fate. Two, she regrets not finding the traces of Rui Immortal, a task bestowed upon her by Rui Jade Pavilion. Three, she regrets not living a life which was true, faithful to true self. On her behalf, Su Lingwei's disciple is asked to walk these pathways, see those valleys and streams and fulfill those regrets. If she cannot, there should be no regret in her heart. Are you, Wei Zhiruo, willing to fulfill this task and take me as your master?"
"I do, I promise. Your disciple obeys!" Wei Zhiruo kowtowed, performing the ceremony elaborately.
"Good—come here," Su Lingwei called her to herself. "There are some immense seals weaved into your mind, but I feel a time will come when it will loosen. It will be soon. When that time comes, it will be painful to bear the explosion of too much information. This is Guayin's Green Jade. It will help you ease your discomfort and keep you awake in your most difficult moments."
"Disciple Wei Zhiruo thanks her master for her gift!"
Then they both sat, side by side, looking past the window.
But as silence stretched between them, Wei Zhiruo felt the moment of parting was coming closer.
"I wondered at one point...if those nights and days I spent in Zihe Sect were just dreams—," The lady suddenly stood up agitatedly, as if time was slipping away and she wanted to say everything quickly. She dragged her long sleeves trailing down the floor, her long hair scattered in the wind. "—Or do five-year-old's still cross into the Giant Barrier from mortal realms, leaving behind their relatives and loved, cherished families and elders, and jump into a scramble for the highest view atop the cultivation realm's mountain of success, even now? Do those innocent hands and feet still call and crawl through forests of trial, go through illusion realms, and test their spiritual roots like millions who had done the same in the past? I thought about this thing day and night, endlessly, and even after death, I couldn't help but think some more. Being a remnant spirit gives you time, a whole lot of time to dwell on these things that had appeared so worthless when we were alive. Like…What will this broken world look like in the future? Will it heal? But watching you embark on this journey, little girl, I think my world has healed enough."
Wei Zhiruo didn't know what this world looked like. She had seen Haishan, the Silent Valleys, Jinghai and Shajing—but these were hardly even a few dots over the world map and she knew this world was huge. Maybe one day, she will be better suited to assure this lady, but at this moment she remained silent.
"I cannot help but dream about those early days of my childhood." The woman sighed looking at her again, meeting her eyes this time.
Suddenly her face animated into a bright smile, and she seemed to be finally talking to her, not a ghost of herself, "I have a task for you—watch for me, see if those waves of Seven Colored Ocean and those winds in Cliff of Thousand Shrieks, those meadows and forests and rivers and streams remember that I'd touched them once, and crossed them over, leaving my traces behind. I hope they still hold my mark…I hope the wars have really come to an end and catastrophe has stopped. The invaders have left. I hope you who're here, will be living in a new world of peace we have left behind for you to frolic and cherish, and search for wider worlds within it, not the broken world we dwelt. I hope my dreams and dreams of fallen warriors have all come true…Will you see the rivers and mountains and then, tell them I said farewell?"
Wei Zhiruo didn't make a promise. She kowtowed and kept her silence.
"Good child. Take care of yourself. I have people waiting for me." Su Lingwei suddenly bent over her, kissed her forehead and then…
Wei Zhiruo watched the woman lose something vital from her eyes.
She was gone. What she left behind—it was just a shell. A gust of wind came, scattering her into dust and Wei Zhiruo was left alone, stunned, in that empty room.
She felt a stinging in her eyes.
Something seemed to have slipped from her hands again—
Then she was jostled awake.
"What happened?" Rong Yuanchun asked. "Never mind, it will be our turn soon! Are you awake, little sister?"
Wei Zhiruo rubbed her eyes and nodded at him. She felt a few sights on her, appraising her. Unknowingly she'd walked to the front of the line. Fog submerged them like it had done children who came before them. All ten children entering the encirclement this time, stood in a circle surrounding an ancient structure that looked like a plinth sitting in the center of a fountain pool which has likely been part of a ruin.
When names got called, the mentioned child would come forward and put her hands on the plate sitting on top of the plinth.
"Ning Fei, five Spiritual roots. Wood, with highest purity of Fifty percent. She has an average aptitude, selected as reserve candidate for Outer Sect." The girl called Ning Fei looked disappointed at this announcement, her lips shook but dared not show it fully. "Go, line up with them."
Ning Fei disappeared from the fog. Now, there were just nine left.
An old man with a flowing beard took a brief glance at each of their faces. For the first time, Wei Zhiruo noticed the muted atmosphere, the absence of noise and chatter and particularly, a strange ceremonious air that clung to everyone. Even five-year-old's seemed to be aware of somberness and appeared reluctant to break the fragmentary yet almost tangible sense of enormity that surrounded them.
A few more children came to check their roots. Then suddenly a very surprised voice announced, "Ning Yizhuo, Single Heavenly spiritual root of fire!! The purity is Ninety five percent. Excellent aptitude! She is hereby selected as Inner disciple of Tianlan Sect. Go child, line up with them. "
A few cultivators standing guard, looked carefully at the ten-year-old. The child stood graciously, then bowed to the elder in front of her.
It was Rong Yuanchun's turn.
"Rong Yuanchun…three spiritual roots of Wood, fire and Gold. The purity of each root is above average, and the aptitude for cultivation is good. He is selected as a candidate for the Outer sect. Boy, go and stand over there."
The elder pointed to the direction where the others stood, and motioned for the next one to come forward.
Wei Zhiruo walked in front.
She could feel a few gazes land on her, some curious, some demeaning —she didn't know what had happened for such attention to fall on her head, but just this amount of attention could never make the crown princess Amaranthus shrink. Gracefully she walked and went up to the raised plinth. She looked down at the surface which held a shining silver flat plate like artifact on top, engraved with enchantment like runes.
"Put your hands over that." The elder instructed.
She extended her hands and felt something warm seeping from her flesh, then something warmer responded in the plate and it turned a shade of purple.
The elder immediately turned grievous, or perhaps he was too excited as sweat beaded on his forehead and his lips quivered. He looked discreetly around himself, took out a paper from his sleeves which immediately ignited and turned to ashes, curling into a few wisps entangling in the air. The few spectators showed shocked, or agitated looks —
"It's a thunder root! A thunder root, a real mutated root with such purity—!"
"Quiet!" The elder waved his hands and silenced everyone.
After a few seconds of wait, a golden aura emanated from something the Elder held. A reply had come, and he seemed to judge something. Only then did he look at her kindly, and then loudly announced her results to everyone.
"Wei Zhiruo. She has a Single Heavenly root of thunder. The purity exceeds Ninety-nine, a near close to real perfection! The aptitude is considered more than excellent. She is hereby taken immediately as an Inner disciple of the Tianlan sect!"