Chapter 57: Encountering an Old Acquaintance

Seeing Qiu Zhizhi falling toward the moat, the elderly eunuch hurriedly reached out to grab him back. Unfortunately, he missed. Letting out a muffled sigh of frustration, the old eunuch produced a tally and flashed it before the soldiers.

He issued his command: "After him! It hasn't snowed yet; if he's alive, send him on his final journey; if he's dead, hang his corpse at the city gates..."

Qiu Zhizhi felt as though he were having a very, very long dream. In his dream, he seemed to have transformed into a tiny fish, swimming carefree and unrestrained through the water!

Then, one day, he was enveloped by a massive dark shadow—it turned out to be a giant fish opening its mouth, and he was nearly swallowed whole.

Having narrowly escaped, he had no wish to be eaten, and so he desired to become a giant fish himself. Yet there were always even larger fish attempting to devour him. With no other choice, he fled all the way, and devoured all the way! Gradually, the river could no longer contain him, and so he made his way into the vast currents of a mighty river...

Slowly, even the great river could no longer hold him, and he wondered if he could make the river broader and wider. Yet, with that, the river water grew shallow, leaving him with no option but to follow the river out into the boundless sea.

Once he entered the ocean, he discovered that he was still not large enough, and so he resumed the cycle of fleeing and consuming. Until one day, he became the very largest fish of all!

Yet new troubles arose. He had come to know the vastness and boundlessness of the sea, but still he knew nothing of the height and distance of the skies! He knew not why such a thought should arise, but once the notion took root, it could never be eradicated...

Thus he began to stockpile his strength, gazing up at the firmament, until one day, he felt he was ready to take flight... And then, quite predictably, he failed! He plummeted heavily back into the ocean, stirring up monstrous, towering waves.

An inexplicable phrase echoed in his mind: "If the accumulation of wind is not deep, then it lacks the strength to bear great wings..." He seemed to understand, and yet he seemed not to understand at all! Another day, he grew confident that once more he could take flight...

A colossal fish, defying all reason, leaped straight up from the sea. At that moment, a stream of flowing light flashed, and he was transformed. With a single sweep of his wings, he struck the water for three thousand miles; swirling winds gathered the clouds, and he soared aloft upon a whirlwind for ninety thousand miles! Only scattered specks of brilliance fell back into the sea.

At that moment, he knew the loftiness of the skies, and he also felt the difficulty of gathering swirling winds and piled-up clouds. Thus, after an unknown passage of time, he suddenly sensed something in the south calling to him. Without reason and without a shred of reluctance, he spread his wings once more and flew toward the south...

Time lost its meaning, and the passing seasons became a blur. Journeying ever southward, he finally reached a realm of profound mystery. There was no fear, nor any hesitation; he cast himself into it without a single backward glance...

His immense body dissolved into streams of flowing light that scattered across the mystic realm. A brightly colored butterfly emerged from within the light, took form, and fluttered gracefully, weaving through the radiance...

As he flew beyond the flowing light, the universe underwent a drastic transformation. He threaded his way among towering skyscrapers, keeping company with the endless torrent of traffic. Inadvertently, it seemed as if he caught sight of his former self on that sun-drenched afternoon, happily confessing his love.

For reasons unknown, he gave chase. Everything was normal—normally rejected, normally watching her step into the wedding hall...

With a single beat of his wings, the flowing light dissipated. He was still within the mystic realm. A thought stirred in his mind, and flapping his wings, he flew out of the profound domain. Once again, he retraced the mountains, rivers, and seas of his journey, passed through a forest, plunged back into the mortal world, and flew across fields of flowers...

At last, he flew to a mountain-nestled Daoist temple. The temple felt familiar, yet somewhat strange, like a memory from a very distant past...

A young Daoist acolyte was chanting the Dao De Jing in front of a pavilion. He felt greatly perplexed, listening in a daze. Desiring to draw closer and listen more clearly, before he knew it, he landed on the acolyte's shoulder. Finding the view indistinct, he hopped onto the acolyte's head, then onto his hand, and finally fluttered right into the pages of the book...

When the last traces of light faded completely, a child's voice rang out. This time it was so clear that he had no need to deliberately draw close to listen!

"...I do not know its name; I style it the Dao, and for lack of a better word, I call it the Great. The Great means passing on, passing on means going far, and going far means returning!..."

"Great", "Passing on", "Going far", "Returning".

The final speck of light vanished. Then, heaven and earth turned a brilliant white. Amidst the hazy mist, he opened his eyes. Greeting his vision was an exquisite back, somewhat familiar...

"You're awake!" a cool, detached voice came. The sound made him pause for a moment. It was very familiar, yet not the crispness of his memory; instead, it carried an unfamiliar, icy aloofness! He asked tentatively in bewilderment, "The young mistress of the Li family?"

As he spoke, the person before him had already turned around. Her beauty remained as lovely and captivating as ever, bright and stunning! However, her gaze lacked a trace of liveliness and held an extra bit of chill. Qiu Zhizhi's heart stirred, and he instantly understood the crux of the matter.

It was probably just like in the original story, finding herself cuckolded by a mistress...

"Many thanks to the young mistress of the Li family for saving my life..." Regardless of anything else, gratitude was still in order. He had taken two heavy blows from that old eunuch; had he remained soaked in the water the whole time, to say nothing of whether he would have bloated, once it started snowing, he certainly would have frozen into an icicle!

"We can be considered acquaintances. You don't need to keep saying 'young mistress this' and 'young mistress that'. My name is Li Mochou!" Qiu Zhizhi felt somewhat embarrassed. He had no idea what Li Mochou meant by this, and it was rather difficult to respond...

After pondering for a moment, Qiu Zhizhi decided to change the subject first: "May I ask, young mistress, where is this place?"

Qiu Zhizhi's deflection of the topic left Li Mochou somewhat disappointed. Although she had just been heartbroken by Lu Zhanyuan, telling Qiu Zhizhi her real name was not meant to express anything to him.

It was simply that, finding herself isolated and helpless in this strange land, she had unexpectedly fished out a childhood playmate, and had instinctively sought some solace! It was as ordinary as heartbroken men and women turning to alcohol to drown their sorrows. Yet Qiu Zhizhi's reaction greatly annoyed her.

This accursed Daoist priest didn't even know how to offer a shred of comfort at a crucial moment; he thoroughly deserved to spend the rest of his life keeping company with mud-sculpted statues of the Three Pure Ones!

Flinging back the words, "Aren't you quite good at divination? Figure it out yourself!" she turned and walked back to the bow of the boat.

Only then did Qiu Zhizhi realize that they were aboard a rather small vessel. For some reason, a saying suddenly popped into his mind: "A hundred years of cultivation bring people together to cross the same boat, a thousand years of cultivation bring them to share..."

He hurriedly shook his head to throw off this terrifying thought. Right at that moment, his stomach let out a hungry rumble. It must have been his dizziness from hunger that had given rise to such a horrifying notion!

Scanning his surroundings, he found no food in sight. Qiu Zhizhi was now somewhat at his wits' end. He first checked his injuries; thanks to his self-circulation of the Innate Skill he had recently integrated to protect his body and heal himself, he was already seventy or eighty percent recovered.

This was probably the reason he felt hungry—healing required energy, after all. Just as Qiu Zhizhi was pondering how to catch a fish and roast it over a fire, a dark shadow drifted close. Qiu Zhizhi hurriedly reached out and grabbed it...

Taking a closer look, it turned out to be a flatbread pancake. Seeing Qiu Zhizhi staring dumbly at the pancake, Li Mochou actually blushed slightly. She then feigned composure and said, "Eat up! We'll get some proper food when we reach the next market town!"

With that, she turned around, took another wrapped flatbread from inside her tunic, and began nibbling on it in small bites...

A moment later, Li Mochou spoke: "Years have passed since we parted. Why don't you ask where I've been all this time?" As she spoke, she gazed at the scenery on both sides of the canal, yet her eyes were hollow and lacked much spirit.

"Presumably it wasn't a particularly happy or noteworthy matter, so I suppose I won't ask!"

After a moment of silence, Li Mochou replied in a tone devoid of either joy or sorrow: "Indeed, it wasn't anything particularly happy; better left unmentioned. But your divination is quite accurate—try to give fewer fortunes to people in the future..."

Qiu Zhizhi felt rather awkward. He wanted to stroke his horsetail whisk, only to discover that the one in Li Mochou's hand appeared to be his own. Sensing it without needing to reach out—thankfully, his long sword was still with him...

"Actually, back then I wanted to say that I'm not very good at divination, but you left before I could even start..."

Then, remembering something, Qiu Zhizhi asked with puzzled curiosity, "By the way, what brings you to Bianliang?"

"It's nothing. I took something I shouldn't have and got chased all over the place. Nothing major! What about you? As the dignified third-generation chief disciple of Quanzhen, instead of staying on Mount Zhongnan, why were you practicing winter swimming in the canal?"

It seemed Li Mochou had no desire to dwell on the matter, and as he was equally reluctant to discuss his own, he replied, "I'm fine too. The weather was just a bit cold, so I went to warm myself by a fire. The owner wasn't too pleased, so they knocked me into the river..."

Through their conversation, he learned that he had been fished out of the canal by Li Mochou in the early hours of that morning. According to her, had she not found his face somewhat familiar, he would likely have perished in the waterway.

They were currently on the Huiji River, heading southeast. Their next stop would be Qi County. Qiu Zhizhi hoped to grab a quick meal, take a bath, and wash his clothes by the way. Although his garments had dried, the mere thought of how long he had apparently soaked in the water made his entire body feel uncomfortable!

By the afternoon, the two of them arrived in Qi County. They casually found an inn, ordered a few simple dishes, booked two separate rooms, and went off to rest!

As he stepped into his room, Qiu Zhizhi awkwardly said to Li Mochou, who was just about to push open the door to the adjacent room: "Um... I will earn money to pay you back!"

Li Mochou glanced at him and simply uttered a cold, "There's no need," before pushing her door open and stepping inside...

Indeed, our Reverend Chonghe was broke yet again! This time, it wasn't because he had failed to bring money with him on his journey; rather, he had given his funds away to refugees along the road, figuring that while he wouldn't starve without money, they certainly would!

He just hadn't expected that he wouldn't starve to death, only to nearly die of embarrassment...