บท 90: Life Like Grass and Trees
No one dared to come to the ruins of White Floating Mountain anymore.
Because all the people who had come before were dead, and the bloodstains were still on the stones, unable to be washed away even by the rain.
Chen Xia was left alone, accompanied by the lonely ghosts all over the mountain.
He hadn't expected that a person could change so much and so quickly.
Perhaps it was because he had stayed on the mountain for a long time that his sense of time had become a bit blurred, thinking that changes should take hundreds of years.
But for mortals, actually ten years was enough.
After all, the lifespan of mortals had an obvious end in sight.
Chen Xia just sat in the small cottage, still waiting slowly. He knew that Xia Chan would come back, even if it took decades.
But Xia Chan would definitely come back. Returning to one's roots. This place was Xia Chan's root.
He was silently watching the changes in Xia Chan's life, and these changes also influenced him.
To gain insights, one had to put oneself in the situation first.
Calculated by the age of mortals, Chen Xia was now over fifty years old, already considered an old man, with white hair all over his head and a slightly bent waist.
Living alone in this small cottage, he could be described as lonely.
Fortunately, there were the lonely ghosts all over the mountain accompanying him, although Chen Xia didn't recognize these lonely ghosts.
Occasionally, some people would come up the mountain to take refuge, but generally speaking, they weren't good people. Most of them would have evil intentions and want to kill Chen Xia.
So there would be one or two more lonely ghosts on the mountain.
Time was like unstoppable water, flowing slowly forward and then unconsciously speeding up.
In the thirtieth year.
Xia Chan took the position of the leader of the bandits. At the age of thirty-five, she was full of ambition and wanted to strive for a higher position in the chaotic times.
There were constant battles and killings, which never stopped. Several times, she almost died, but survived by chance.
Maybe it was her fate not to die. Xia Chan would often laugh at herself like this.
She, a homeless person, could achieve what she had now. It was really a trick of fate.
In the days that followed, she fought even more fiercely, as if she didn't care about her life. She even directly fought with the soldiers of a country.
However, how could these bandit robbers defeat the well-equipped soldiers of a big country? Naturally, they suffered a great defeat and fled in all directions.
The homeless Xia Chan fled into the deep mountains and old forests. Looking at the vast mountains, her expression was full of confusion. She didn't know where to go.
She was no longer the girl who was wholeheartedly determined to practice cultivation.
Another twenty years passed like this.
Chen Xia's seventy-year-old body was already very old. So he made himself a rocking chair and sat outside drinking tea when he had nothing to do.
The small cottage was also on the verge of collapsing. Chen Xia thought about finding time to repair it sometime.
He took a sip of tea. Even the teacup was already old. This was the power of time.
Footsteps came from down the mountain. An old woman walked slowly up the mountain. Looking at Chen Xia with a complicated expression, after a long while, she whispered.
"Senior brother."
Chen Xia nodded slightly, and a smile appeared on his aged face. "I've been waiting for you for quite a few years."
Xia Chan pursed her lips, twisted her hands together, and didn't move forward again. She just looked at Chen Xia and asked as before.
"Can I really practice cultivation, senior brother?"
"Yes, you always can." Chen Xia replied slowly in his aged voice, with a very certain tone.
"Why?" Xia Chan was very puzzled. She hadn't been able to figure this out after thinking about it for decades.
"What do you think cultivation is?" Chen Xia asked back.
Xia Chan was stunned for a moment. Looking at Chen Xia with her cloudy eyes, she replied.
"Not eating grains and ascending to immortality."
"That's not cultivation." Chen Xia shook his head and explained. "That's becoming an immortal."
"Oh, right." Xia Chan laughed at herself. "My life has been really ridiculous. I clearly said that I wouldn't come back, but I still had the cheek to come back."
"It's nothing." A smile appeared on Chen Xia's aged face. "I've also been waiting for you all along."
Xia Chan was stunned for a moment. She lowered her head, didn't know what to say, and after a long silence, she asked Chen Xia softly.
"Can I come back again in the future?"
"This is originally your home. You came here earlier than me. Why do you need to ask me?" Chen Xia replied.
"Right." Xia Chan smiled and walked slowly down the steps and down the mountain.
In the following ten years, she never came back again.
Chen Xia's small cottage was completely dilapidated. He was too lazy to repair it. He moved the things inside out and built a thatched shed, living a rough life outdoors.
He was now over ninety years old. Calculated by the lifespan of mortals, his life was almost coming to an end. So he looked very old, with all white hair and a hunched back.
Chen Xia was waiting for the arrival of the last moment.
In the thirtieth year.
The extremely old woman staggered up the mountain, leaning on a cane. Her eyes were so cloudy that she could hardly see things, but she still saw Chen Xia and called out.
"Senior brother."
"Yeah." Chen Xia nodded.
"I still haven't figured out whether I'm suitable for cultivation or not." Xia Chan said this tremblingly. She was so old that her hands would tremble even when she didn't move them.
"Yes, you are." Chen Xia nodded. Although he was also old, he was much better than Xia Chan.
"Hehe, maybe so." Xia Chan laughed like this. She took a step forward and finally walked into the sect.
She murmured softly.
"If I hadn't gone down the mountain back then, would it have been different?"
"Or if I hadn't come up the mountain at that time and lived down the mountain instead, maybe it would have been another scene."
These were the things she had thought about for many years.
"When I was a child, I always felt that as long as the eldest senior brother was there, I didn't have to be afraid of anything. Although the master's wife and the other senior brothers were not nice to me, it was enough as long as the eldest senior brother was there."
"But later, the eldest senior brother also left me."
Xia Chan slowly turned her head. Her wrinkled face looked at Chen Xia. There was no emotional fluctuation on her face. She just asked curiously.
"Senior brother, do you really care about me?"
Chen Xia shook his head. "I don't know."
"Hehe." Xia Chan laughed softly, her eyes cloudy. She nodded and said.
"I don't know either."
She faced the rising sun, walked to the high place of the ruins, knelt slowly towards the sun, put her hands together, just like when she was a child, and bowed respectfully.
"Pay respects to the Mysterious Yellow Supreme, the Three Thousand Great Dao, the Infinite Heaven and Earth, the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, the Great Celestial Venerable who controls life and death, changes the Five Elements, and has divine powers."
Her aged voice wasn't as clear as when she was a child.
Xia Chan's body didn't move anymore.
She was dead.
Chen Xia stood there blankly. This was similar to when he observed the tree hundreds of years ago, but also very different.
A person's life is like the life of grass and trees in a season.
Chen Xia made the dilapidated house into a coffin, put the clay figurine and Xia Chan inside together, and buried them in the ground to let them rest in peace.
After finishing all this, Chen Xia waited for a nice morning to come and then slowly stepped out of the mountain gate.
With one step, he changed from an old man to a young man. His white hair suddenly turned black, and his waist straightened.
His figure that had stayed on White Floating Mountain for nearly a hundred years disappeared.
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