Chapter 150: Got It

Chapter 150: I Know

The little musician, who suddenly started crying while playing a ditty and then broke down sobbing, startled everyone. They asked him if he was in trouble, or if he was reminded of something sad, and if he was reluctant to leave or had nowhere to stay, he could settle down and live with them.

The tips he got this time around were especially generous.

By the time Shang Yunduo, red-eyed, left by boat, the townspeople who had seen him off outside the city gates suddenly realized that the person who had been playing tunes for them these past few days was actually an immortal.

“Immortals… aren’t they supposed to be all high and mighty?”

“Do immortals even cry?”

“Immortals… immortals are people too!”

“Everyone has problems sometimes, right?”

He was so upset he actually cried.

“Too bad we can’t help…”

The crowd chattered, unaware that they had already helped Shang Yunduo a ton.

On the flying boat, Shang Yunduo sat on a chair, tilting his head up to stare at Pei Jie’s face, his eyes still moist.

Pei Jie thought it was funny: “What are you crying about?”

Shang Yunduo choked up, stammered: “I—it's just—I haven't seen you in so long… And suddenly being able to see again… tears of joy… joy…”

It wasn’t totally out of the blue; they had felt it was coming over the past few days. Hearing him sob uncontrollably, Pei Jie tried to hold it in for a moment, then couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

He’d never seen anyone who cried as much as Shang Yunduo.

Shang Yunduo looked at him pitifully.

Pei Jie wiped his face, then let go of his cheeks. “Alright, alright. Your eyes are fine.”

Shang Yunduo: “Mm.”

Pei Jie: “Do you see things the same as before?”

Shang Yunduo shook his head, then nodded. “I still can’t see far very well, but I can see up close. I can see that mountain over there.”

He pointed for Pei Jie. “There’s a bird’s nest on that tree.”

Pei Jie: “…”

That was already normal eyesight for a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator.

Seeing that Pei Jie didn’t speak, Shang Yunduo shifted his chair, pressed his face into Pei Jie’s stomach, wrapped his arms around his waist, and whined. “Senior, let me look at you again. I haven’t seen you for so long. I missed you so much.”

Pei Jie: “…”

They saw each other literally every day, ate together, and lived together.

“Move over.”

“Okay!”

Shang Yunduo made room for Pei Jie, and once Pei Jie sat down, he clung to him tightly, wrapping his arms around him. After leaning in for a while, he would turn his head to look at Pei Jie, then lean back, then look again.

Pei Jie: “How about you sit across from me?”

Shang Yunduo: “No, I want to stay close to you.”

Pei Jie: “Then sit still.”

Shang Yunduo: “Okay.”

Once he was settled, he grabbed Pei Jie’s hand, looked at it, and rubbed it. Pei Jie tried to pull his hand back but couldn’t; Shang Yunduo pulled it closer and kissed it.

Pei Jie: “…”

Not satisfied, Shang Yunduo propped himself up, swung a leg over Pei Jie’s waist, put his hands on the chair back on either side of Pei Jie’s head, and stared at him with tear-filled eyes. “Senior, you have no idea how happy I am to have you back.”

Pei Jie: “…”

No, he knew. He knew damn well.

Shang Yunduo stared at him without blinking. Pei Jie felt a bit uncomfortable. “Want to dual cultivate?”

“Huh?” Shang Yunduo shook his head. “No, I want to look at you carefully.”

Pei Jie: “…”

Fine. Go ahead, look.

He just closed his eyes, letting Shang Yunduo look as much as he wanted.

Shang Yunduo really kept staring. He thought everything about Pei Jie was beautiful, even the way he looked when he wanted to be left alone.

He wanted to kiss.

When the kiss landed, Pei Jie sighed. “Thought you didn’t want to dual cultivate?”

Shang Yunduo: “I just want to kiss.”

Pei Jie: “Okay, kiss. Where else you wanna kiss?”

Of course, everywhere.

A bit later, the flying boat landed on a relatively flat mountainside.

After a bit, Shang Yunduo rested his head on Pei Jie’s chest, letting his heartbeat settle.

“Stop touching. Close your eyes and sleep.” Pei Jie swatted away the fingers that were messing around endlessly on the scars on his chest.

Shang Yunduo: “I won’t sleep. What if I wake up and can’t see again?”

Pei Jie: “Then you can go back to playing the guqin and busking.”

Shang Yunduo: “…”

He turned his head and gently bit Pei Jie’s chest, leaving a shallow tooth mark overlapping the one from earlier.

“Brother…”

Pei Jie shivered slightly and asked, “Wanna go again?”

Shang Yunduo shook his head. “I want to see the scars on your back.”

Earlier, Pei Jie had refused to turn over so he could see.

But the scar on his chest was a sickly bruised red, and he wanted to know if his back had become the same.

Pei Jie was silent for a beat. “Seeing it won’t change anything.”

Shang Yunduo: “Can it be cured?”

Pei Jie stroked his hair.

Shang Yunduo: “Not even with the Spirit Rhino Shell Pill?”

Pei Jie thought for a moment, then explained, “The injury I got that day was fatal. If I were a regular Foundation Establishment cultivator, I should have died.”

Shang Yunduo shot up.

Pei Jie pulled the blanket up. “I didn’t die. I just need time to recover.”

Shang Yunduo: “But...”

Pei Jie’s meridians were perfectly fine. He didn’t seem seriously injured at all.

They had just finished Dual Cultivation. Why couldn’t he detect anything wrong with Pei Jie, except that the old wounds refused to heal?

What kind of weird affliction was this?

“There’s no cure for this?”

Pei Jie: “There is one.”

Shang Yunduo: “...Core Formation?”

Pei Jie: “Yes.”

Shang Yunduo: “Then I’ll go refine a pill right now.”

Pei Jie caught his arm. “There’s no rush. Play me a tune first; music can help with the pain too.”

Shang Yunduo: “Does it hurt that bad?”

Pei Jie: “Not really. I’m used to it.”

Shang Yunduo threw on his clothes, grabbed his qin, and tucked the blanket around Pei Jie. “What do you want to hear?”

Pei Jie: “Anything’s fine.”

Shang Yunduo thought for a moment, then played all the pieces Pei Jie liked from the music sheet.

He could see faint specks of light flickering over Pei Jie, drifting like tiny sparks into his qin and his body.

The trees outside the window, the birds in the forest, they too flickered. Even some kind of rodent gnawing on roots underground poked its head out of its burrow, looking around for the source of the sound.

Their flying ship was invisible, so of course they couldn’t see it. They only stared in confusion toward the sound, locking eyes with Shang Yunduo through the window.

Just like those pairs of eyes he’d seen when he first got his sight back.

Shang Yunduo: “I just remembered a song.”

“Hmm?”

Shang Yunduo sang softly, “Where the sun does not reach, youth comes of itself. Moss flowers as small as rice grains, yet they still bloom like peonies...”

Pei Jie watched him quietly for a long moment, then asked, “Is this because of those medicines?”

Shang Yunduo: “Yeah... but also not really. I just suddenly thought... Do the spirit plants born from nature really belong only to cultivators with spiritual roots? Are they worthless without spiritual roots? If that’s the case, why not just have a world with only cultivators? But look—ordinary people far outnumber cultivators, ordinary plants outnumber spirit plants, and animals without spiritual roots outnumber demon cultivators. The world belongs to all living beings. Since it belongs to all, and since these herbs work for all, why should only cultivators be allowed to use them?”

“Of course, weakness doesn’t equal righteousness. The strong get more because they’re strong—that’s fair enough. But even so, you shouldn’t hog everything and leave nothing for others. I know many sects and many rogue cultivators buy spirit stones and herbs from ordinary people at super low prices...” He paused, looking down at the qin still in his arms. “Of course, I’ve done that too...”

Pei Jie chuckled. “That doesn’t count—you didn’t bargain.”

“...” Shang Yunduo scratched his head. “But I never thought, ‘Oh well, leaving these things to ordinary people is just a waste.’ And even if it is a waste, so what? Does it become useful when cultivators hold it? What counts as useful? Can buying them up get you to ascension? They can’t ascend, right? And even if they could... what good would their ascension do for the world and the common people?”

Not to mention distant matters: the Spirit Rhinoceros clan was imprisoned, the other creatures of Spirit Rhinoceros Valley suffered along with them, and King Lingxi self-destructed, taking every animal and plant in the valley down with him.

In Sifang City, ordinary people had to pay spirit stones every year just to stay in their own homes. To afford it, many started mining as teenagers, wasting their whole youth in the mines. Yet the spirit stones they mined never belonged to them.

And then there was Wuyou City—chaotic for no reason at all. If people had grievances, couldn’t they fight elsewhere? What had the ordinary citizens done to deserve it?

They had passed through the demon territory and many human towns. Chaos had its own causes everywhere, and the only places that weren’t in chaos were those under the protection of Large Sects.

To put it nicely, that was protection; to put it bluntly, the ordinary people and low-level cultivators inside those cities were penned in and oppressed by the large sects.

Listening to his rant, Pei Jie smiled. “Mm, well said.”

Shang Yunduo: “Right! Since they take the spirit stones and herbs, they should at least leave some benefits, some hope for others, shouldn’t they? This is a cultivation world! There are so many spiritual herbs and medicines in this world. Why should only cultivators live long, a hundred, a thousand, even ten thousand years, aspire to Core Formation and Ascension, while ordinary people die disabled from just a minor injury? That’s wrong—at least in a world with Spells, it’s wrong. What even is an immortal? What kind of immortality are they cultivating? If they want to ascend and become immortals, why can’t they show more compassion toward ordinary people? They’re not hindering anyone’s cultivation.”

Pei Jie listened silently, then sat up and touched Shang Yunduo’s face.

Shang Yunduo scooted closer, leaning against him.

Pei Jie: “Sometimes I think you are completely unsuited for cultivation, and sometimes I think you are the one most suited for it.”

Shang Yunduo: “Huh?”

Pei Jie: “Do you want to help mortals?”

Shang Yunduo nodded, though he didn’t really know how.

This cultivation world was so vast, and he was merely a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Pei Jie: “Then do it.”

Shang Yunduo: “Don’t you think I’m overreaching?”

Pei Jie: “Aren’t you already doing what you can?”

Shang Yunduo was stunned, and for some reason his face flushed. “I was only doing it to heal my eyes, I just...”

Pei Jie: “So what? Isn’t that even better?”

Shang Yunduo thought about it—he couldn’t just delete himself. “Hehe, will it interfere with your cultivation?”

He felt that since leaving Spirit Rhinoceros Valley, Pei Jie didn’t seem as eager to cultivate as before.

Pei Jie: “No. You won’t disturb me. Besides, you should be practicing your qin anyway. However you practice, it’s still practice. There is no fixed form for cultivation; just follow your heart.”

Shang Yunduo was relieved and said a little shyly, “At least you don’t think I’m childish.”

Pei Jie: “How is doing what you believe is right childish? It’s one thing to not agree with something, but belittling others because you can’t do it yourself—that’s what’s childish.”

Shang Yunduo: "..."

He stared blankly at Pei Jie, silently repeated his words, then looked up with starry eyes and said, "Senior! You are so handsome!"

Pei Jie: "..."

He threw the medical book he had bought two days ago to Shang Yunduo. "Try the dog-eared page to see if you can refine it into a pill."

Shang Yunduo took it; it was a prescription for wind-cold remedies.

Pei Jie: "The prescription is fine. If you want to improve the efficacy, you can add one or two spirit herbs that strengthen the foundation and enhance vitality. If you can't think of what to add, first try to study the properties of these herbs and bring out their medicinal properties."

Shang Yunduo looked at the prescription baffled, then looked up at Pei Jie. "Senior, did you already want me to refine this a few days ago?"

Pei Jie didn't deny it.

But the herbs in the prescription were all ordinary medicinal herbs. Shang Yunduo only had Spiritual Sense to assist him; alchemy still mainly relied on spiritual power to judge the timing of refining the liquid and forming the pill. But having him suddenly learn ordinary medicinal herbs might make things difficult for him.

If Shang Yunduo were still blind, he planned to give it to him to cheer him up when he encountered a bottleneck in alchemy.

With him watching, just refining it should be much easier than other pills.

As for now...

Shang Yunduo: "Senior, you really get me!"

Pei Jie was noncommittal. "When we reach the next town, you can buy some herbs and give it a try."

Shang Yunduo: "Mm!"

As autumn turned to winter, remedies for colds would surely be in greater demand than those for external injuries.

In addition, he needed to catch up on the cultivation techniques he hadn't been able to practice due to blindness. He also needed to improve his cultivation as soon as possible, at least to have the ability to survive against opponents below the Golden Core stage.

He also had to try out some techniques and ideas he had secretly learned from the demon clan.

Shang Yunduo's life became busier and more fulfilling.

Also, he couldn't neglect the Spirit Rhino Shell Pill.

When he was blind, he had tried once to refine the liquid needed for Spirit Rhino Shell Pill. Most steps were not difficult, but mixing the ingredients was troublesome. He had never found the right timing and was afraid of wasting all the herbs, so he didn't refine it again. Now that he could see, he could look for similar prescriptions and experiment more to get the hang of it.

He also had to resume the household chores, so that his senior could focus on cultivation without distractions.

During the journey, the released Spirit Rhino lay on the deck watching him run around, flitting about. Soon, the smell of food wafted from the ship, herbs needing to be air-dried hung under the eaves, its food bowl had new fruits added, and on the small table next to the couch were placed freshly squeezed juice and freshly brewed tea.

Pei Jie quietly took a couple of sips of juice, then drank a cup of tea to rinse his mouth. Watching the energetic and busy Shang Yunduo, he thought that he was finally back to his old self.

Author's note:

Yunduo: Even after regaining sight, I still have to earn my keep!

Senior: I knew you were suited for the Xiaoyao Sect.

Note: Where the sun does not reach, youth comes naturally. Moss flowers, as small as grains, also learn to bloom like peonies. — Yuan Mei, "Moss"