The mountain range behind them was rapidly shrinking and was turning from a majestic wall of stone into a jagged silhouette against the darkening sky. The sun was currently dipping toward the horizon and it painted the clouds in hues of bruised purple and bleeding orange.
It had been half a day since they left the empty clearing where the village had stood. Half a day of walking in a silence that felt heavier than any gravity formation or pressure Li Yu had fought in.
Usually, the silence of the road was Li Yu’s preferred companion. He liked the rhythmic crunch of boots on gravel, the wind in the trees and the ntal space to work on techniques and laws. To calculate his next move, his next cultivation breakthrough or his next kill. But today, the silence wasn't empty. It was filled with a phantom echo.
He gripped his bamboo staff while traveling. However, this ti he was gripping hard and his knuckles were white. The wood felt cool and solid. It was a grounding tether to reality but his mind was still drifting in the scent of sandalwood and old tea.
He felt a hollow ache in his chest, a physical sensation of missing sothing he couldn't quite na. It wasn't just the high-level resources or the powerful laws that he had lessons in. It was a feeling of safety and strangely ho.
For a few brief hours, the constant low-level paranoia that kept him alive. The need to watch every shadow, assess every face for treachery, to be constantly scanning the surroundings had vanished.
Now, out here in the "real" world, the armor had to be strapped back on. And it felt heavier than before. If he had never felt that he wouldn’t be this way. However, having felt it now, it now lingered.
"Li Yu," Si Luo’s voice broke through his daze. She was walking a half-step behind him to his left with her usual playful deanor dialed down to a cautious observation. She had seen and felt the change in how he was since visiting the village. "We’ve passed that sa rock formation twice. The path splits here."
Li Yu stopped. He blinked a bit and the world sharpened back into focus. He looked around. Indeed, they stood at a fork in the dirt road. To the left, the path wound down toward a valley filled with the smoke of hearth fires. To the right, the wilderness continued.
He hadn’t even been looking at the road. He had been walking on autopilot, his spirit sense turned inward, picking apart the mory of the village, the words spoken and the tea he drank with the old woman.
"Right," Li Yu said, his voice sounding raspy, unused. "My apologies. We head to the valley. The map says there should be a town there. Cloud Drift Town."
"Are you... okay?" Bai Ruo asked softly from his other side. She was looking at him with concerned eyes. "Ever since we left the secret realm... or the village... your aura has been fluctuating. It’s... lancholy."
"I am feeling okay," Li Yu lied. It was a reflex. "Just organizing the gains. That village was a trendous opportunity."
Resources. He ntally scoffed at himself. Was that all it was? The jerky in his storage ring, the robe, the seeds? Yes, they were treasures. But that wasn't why his chest felt tight.
It was the mory of Auntie Tu wiping her hands on her apron before smiling at him. It was the way Grandpa Hua had scolded him gently for rushing his cultivation. It was the crushing normalcy of kindness that had no price tag attached. He felt like a traveler who had briefly stepped into a warm house out of a blizzard, only to be thrust back into the snow.
"Let's go," Li Yu said. "We need to find an inn before true night falls. We shouldn’t camp out tonight."
They descended into the valley. As they walked, the pristine isolation of the mountains gave way to the ssy reality of the mortal world. The air grew thicker, and began slling of animal dung, unwashed bodies and cooking grease. It was a sharp contrast to the sweet dicinal air of the hidden realm.
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For the first ti in his life, Li Yu found the scent of the world revolting. Not because of the actual sll, he had slled worse before. It was the difference in sll from the place he was rembering and missing compared to where he currently was.
A few miles from the town gates they ca across a scene. An ox-cart had slid off the rutted track and into a ditch. The axle was snapped and the wood splintered and jagged. An old man, his face a map of sun-spots and wrinkles, was on his knees in the mud.
He was trying to leverage the heavy cart up with a rotting plank. His wife, a frail woman with a hunched back, was calming the panicked ox and whispering to it while stroking its nose.
"It's no use, old man!" the woman cried out. "The wood is rotten. We’ll have to leave the grain and walk. We shouldn’t be out here as it gets dark."
"We can't leave it!" the old man grunted while straining until his face turned red. "The bandits will take it before the moon rises. This is the winter store!"
They were weak. Mortals. Ants in the grand sche of the cultivation world. Li Yu could flick his finger and vaporize the cart, the ox and the mud. Or he could fly past them without a second glance.
That was the usual way of cultivators. To soar above the suffering of the dust. They had other things to do and other things to worry about. Not everyone was like this of course but it was the majority.
But Li Yu stopped as he always did.
He looked at the old man’s desperate and trembling hands. He looked at the wife’s fear, not for her own life but for their livelihood. Perhaps for a family back ho that couldn’t be seen here.
And for a split second he felt like he didn't see strangers. He saw a shadow of Auntie Tu. He saw a flicker of Grandpa Si.
A phantom pain struck his heart. Why did these struggling mortals remind him of those powerful beings? Perhaps because in that village the powerful had chosen to live like this. Simple. Honest.
Li Yu walked over to the ditch. He stepped into the mud. The cold sli seeped over his boots.
"Young man?" the old man gasped as he was looking up in terror at the cultivator standing above him. Thinking that Li Yu was here to rob or steal he started to panic. "We... we have no money! Please, spare us!"
Li Yu ignored the plea and instead smiled at the old man.
"Move aside, granduncle," Li Yu said softly.
He bent down and placed his shoulder under the splintered corner of the cart. He lifted. The cart groaned, the mud creating a sucking sound as the wheel ca free. Li Yu set it down gently on the hard-packed earth of the road.
"The axle is broken," the old man stamred, his fear turning to confusion. "We can't..."
Li Yu looked at the broken wood. He rembered Granny Mu, the carpenter in the village. “Practice your carving. It steadies the hands.”
He knelt. He pulled a simple iron dagger from his pack. He found a thick piece of wood from the roadside. With quick and precise movents, he shaved the bark, shaped the joint and smoothed the surface. He was no expert when it ca to carving but he was good enough to get the shape by copying how it looked over. With his strength a knife was enough instead of an axe.
He fitted the makeshift axle. "It should hold until you reach the town," Li Yu said with a smile. He was now dirty with mud all over him.
The old couple stared at him as if he were so kind of strange beast. They were confused by his actions. The old woman fumbled in her pockets and pulled out two withered and bruised apples.
"Benefactor... we... we have nothing to repay you..."
Li Yu looked at the apples. They were ugly. They were spotted. They were nothing compared to the Dragon-Phoenix bun Uncle Liu had given him but their aning was the sa. He took them.
"This is paynt enough," Li Yu said with a smile. He then took a bite of one. It was sour, aly, and dry.
He chewed it slowly and was savoring the imperfection. The aning behind the gift was far more important than the gift itself.
“Thank you," he said to the old woman.
As the couple hurried away and kept bowing profusely, Li Yu felt a small knot in his chest loosen. It wasn't gone but the act of helping, simply and without agenda, felt like a tribute to the place he had just left. It was strange, this is sothing he would have done before but today it felt more special.
"You're soft, Li Yu," Si Luo teased gently as she handed him back his staff, though her eyes were warm.
"Practicing my control," Li Yu replied cheerfully. The trio stepped back onto the road. "If I can't fix a wheel without crushing it, how can I fix any of my problems?"
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