Li Qingshan said, “Did you come to see off Dragon Li?”
Steward Liu said, “We…. We also came to see you off, Second… Qingshan. You’ve really grown, don’t take the matters from back then to heart.” The current Li Qingshan had already become an eminently formidable personage in his eyes. He felt awkward just talking to him.
The other villagers also came forward and offered their congratulations one by one. They each even carried local products that they stuffed in Li Qingshan’s hands.
Li Qingshan looked at these familiar faces, his heart at once filled with myriads of deep emotions. For a while he didn’t know what to say, where to start. The Crouching Bull Village he’d wished to leave day and night all the way since his childhood suddenly emerged in front of his eyes with incomparable clarity. Every house, every stalk of vegetation, all of it was vivid in his eyes.
That deep well that had stranded him for more than a dozen years and that he’d always wished to jump out of, these muds and mosses he’d been fed up with, all became intimate and dear at this moment. Village Chief Li hugged Dragon Li, wildly streaking old tears. The present scene’s chaos and clamor suddenly became silence when they came to Li Qingshan’s ears.
He even saw Big Brother Li and Big Wife Li inside the crowd. They cowered and hid from the city n.o.bles. They looked at Li Qingshan, looking as if they wanted to go forward but didn’t dare to either. They were incomparably regretful at this moment. There was no telling how much glory they could shared in if they hadn’t fallen out with Li the Second. Their eyes shone with a l.u.s.ter of hope when they saw Li Qingshan look at them.
But Li Qingshan’s line of sight immediately turned away. That which must be severed had been severed long ago. Water splashed on the ground couldn’t be taken back any longer. It wasn’t that he couldn’t let go of these feelings, but they were already in completely different worlds now. They also didn’t understand that rather than obtaining great riches, it was easier for them to die a violent death if they were to be his close relatives.
Yan Song pa.s.sed down the order and everyone retreated to the sides. A carriage dragged by two horses drove over. Each horse was an especially divine spirited horse.
Li Qingshan, protector Yan, and Dragon Li all boarded on the carriage together with those four children. The carriage traveled slowly and stopped in front of the county government offices. Ye Dachuan and the adviser happily came up and sat down. There would certainly be no danger with the protection of these masters.
Li Qingshan’s eyes immediately brightened when he saw the thing in Ye Dachuan’s hands. “Stone Rending Bow!” He’d left this bow behind in his yard inside Suncheer. That courtyard had already been tidied up when he’d gone and taken a look after he’d come back. New residents had settled in, and of course no one knew where the Stone Rending Bow had gone. He hadn’t gone on a diligent search either, and hadn’t expected it to be with Ye Dachuan. He lightly pulled the bowstring with his forefinger; it was easy to the extreme. It wouldn’t be a problem to fire even a hundred arrows in succession with his current strength.
Li Qingshan once again saw the owner of this Stone Rending Bow in a long pavilion ten miles outside the city. Sick Yellow Tiger said, “Congratulations Qingshan for once again making progress.” He discovered he could no longer see the depths of this young man, but he was indeed well informed. Only an innate master could defeat another innate master face to face. He’d truly achieved the words he’d once spoken, and in a mere few months’ time at that.
Li Qingshan said smiling, “Chief hunter, you haven’t wasted your time.” He could see that the current Sick Yellow Tiger was already infinitely close to the level of a first-grade master. They once again set on their journey after a few farewell cups. Finally they left Suncheer City behind them as it definitely disappeared from their sights.
Li Qingshan quietly said inside his heart, “Farewell forever, my homeland.”
He’d understood long ago already that he wouldn’t be coming back, no matter if if he died and became dust on this journey or soared to the skies. Homeland would be wherever he went from this day onward.
They traveled by day and rested by night, journeying for three days inside the mountains. The horizon widened all of a sudden; a vast plain spread out in front of Li Qingshan.
Golden fields of wheat as far as the eye could see surged in waves and waves of wheat in the summer wind. Ribbons and ribbons of chimney smokes rose from one hamlet after another therein. It was a greatly different sight from Crouching Bull Village.
Yan Song said, “We’ve come out of Suncheer’s area. We can reach the ferry crossing downriver in another three to five days. Then we can switch to a boat and directly sail to Blessed Peace and even Clear River City.”
Li Qingshan took out that map Gu Yanying and gifted him. A dot of light brightened with a flash of his thoughts. The ferry crossing downriver was but several dozen miles away from them. Yan Song said in astonishment, “A Mind Map, and even a Mind Map of the Verdant province. The value of this thing is considerable. Qingshang, where did you get it?”
In general, the greater the area a map covered, the rougher it would be, while the smaller it was the more detailed it would be. But a Mind Map was detailed to the extreme even when including ten thousands of miles, solidifying ten thousand miles inside the mind. Although it was a mere low rank spiritual device, it was still very precious, let alone this sort of Mind Map covering the entirety of the Verdant Province.
Li Qingshan suddenly said, “Protector Yan, Lord Ye, let us part ways here!” During these days, he’d already gotten from these two people a rough understanding of these rivers and lakes, of this world, at least what they knew of them. He wouldn’t be confused any longer when he went out.
Ye Dachuan said, “What, you’re not going together with us?”
Li Qingshan faintly shook his head. “I’m planning on taking a walk and travel alone on the road. I’m truly sorry for making you wait three days for me.” In essence, the reason why he’d chosen to journey together with them had perhaps merely stemmed from a certain kind of fear. For a man who’d never left his village for over a dozen years suddenly trying to reach the world outside, to reach the so-called great cities, he would have some faint timidity inside him no matter what, even to the point of relying on those two people who weren’t even as strong as him, merely so they could look after each others on the road.
Everyone thirsted for adventure and longed for freedom, but everyone would feel fright and be at a loss of what to do when a genuinely free world of incomparable vastness was put in front of them. Li Qingshan was also the same.
But now was the time to put these feelings aside. When he’d left these overlapping ranges of mountains behind, this vast plain, these resplendent golden fields, these limpid streams and rivers, these faint handwriting on the map, all of it reflected inside his eyes. It was so beautiful and vivid. His footprints hadn’t stamped on even one ten thousandth part of the map.
The few people looked at each others and didn’t know how to persuade him. They suddenly heard Li Qingshan spread open his arms and say to the vast plains, “I am going to wander everywhere in those five lakes and four seas, through the nine provinces under the heavens, taste every fine delicacies on this world, drink every fine liquor under the sky, cultivate the fiercest divine skills, battle the strongest enemies, bed the most beautiful women. World, I am coming, hahahaha!”
His voice began soft and ended loud. The sound of his laughter was like the jolt of thunder. The words he said were a declaration foolish enough to make one smack one’s lips. Was it stupid? Perhaps it was. That bull that had listened to him say these stupid words was here no longer, but he no longer needed to ask of anyone, “Can I realize my dreams?”
He didn’t need someone else’s answer and didn’t need someone else’s approval, so of course he didn’t mind someone else’s gaze either. The answer had long been inside his heart.
Those people followed the departure of this tall figure with their eyes on the hillside, after they agreed to meet again inside Blessed Peace. They saw him merge into that golden plain and roll about inside the wheat fields like a big child. He vanished from sight very quickly.
Those were originally funny childish actions, but they all recalled the same few words at the same time inside their hearts. “A dragon returning to the sea,” “A tiger entering the deep mountains1”
Li Qingshan didn’t follow the main roads. He dashed all along the way in the wilderness and very quickly caught up to a small dot on the map. That was a county city much more prosperous than Suncheer. He didn’t bother remembering its name but directly rushed to the biggest restaurant in the city and ordered the seat with the best scenery. He chose a table filled with the best wines and food. Every dish was a local specialty. Not only he’d never eaten many of them, he hadn’t even heard of some of them. Every jar of wine had been aged for twenty years. They couldn’t be compared spiritual wines, but even so they had their own peculiar tastes.
The owner came to entertain him personally when he saw a great customer had come. He suddenly smiled and said after drinking a few cups with him, “Widowed wine is tasteless. This n.o.ble son certainly has to be accompanied by a few beautiful women!” He took Li Qingshan for a later generation indulging in pleasures who’d managed to escape from his family with great difficulty.
Li Qingshan first stayed blank, then smiled. “I must! Why wouldn’t I be, I have a bunch of money!” He was just like the most vulgar of upstarts.
He wanted to cultivate painstakingly and go toward the nine skies, but he didn’t plan on being a suffering monk. He’d vowed to marry a woman like Gu Yanying, but before genuinely making the vow to spend their days and grow white hairs together with a certain woman, he wasn’t planning on being an ascetic monk either.
Man certainly didn’t live in the world for only the sake of pain and suffering, otherwise it would be better to just die and be done with it. These distant dreams of his were seeds of hope planted inside his heart rather than self-torment.
Therefore, more than a dozen lovely dressed women wearing makeup sat beside him and joked with him, beaming with smiles. Their mouth continuously shouted “my lord” or “n.o.ble son,” and those with bigger guts even stretched their hands inside his clothes against his chest.
Li Qingshan was at first a little uneasy and was teased by a few women of pleasure. But he relaxed very quickly, embracing left and hugging right without the slightest care. His face with filled with laughter, but his eyes were clear and limpid like water from beginning to end. He was like a child playing a very novel game.
Children were also easily bored however. He wasn’t planning on really doing anything. It wasn’t that he had some dislike for these brothel women, but he’d seen the almost ultimate beauty of Gu Yanying or even Halfmoon, so it was especially easy for him to be fed up with such a game.
He didn’t understand before. Only now did he know the meaning of “She turned her gaze and smiled a smile of a hundred graces, outshining the fairest faces of the six palaces2.”
Bang!
Someone suddenly slapped the doors open and shouted, “Be quiet!” The berating came from a young n.o.ble son wearing splendid clothes and a sword, a precious crown atop his head. As the saying went, three women were enough for a drama. It was difficult for a table drinking with women of pleasure not to be extremely raucous.
An elegant women stood behind this n.o.ble son and looked at Li Qingshan with a face full of disgust.
Li Qingshan put his index against his lips and made a long “shhhh.” Then he stood up with a yawn and casually groped out some silver notes that he put on the table. That group of brothel women no longer cared about him and went to fight for the silver notes instead.
Li Qingshan walked beside the n.o.ble son and observed him. This n.o.ble son put his hand on the handle of his sword. He was arrogant but he had the capital for arrogance. Li Qingshan could tell that he was already an innate master. No, he should be one with the natural endowments to be a qi refining warrior. The woman behind him was also the same. Two qi refining warriors naturally had the qualifications to consider everyone else beneath them. Li Qingshan was merely a hedonistic son for them, and killing him in one strike of the sword wasn’t necessarily anything extraordinary for them.
1. “A dragon returning to the sea, a tiger entering the deep mountains” is a quote from the cla.s.sic Chinese novel Water Margin. It means someone returning to or finding the environment he was made for.
2. “She turned her gaze and smiled a smile of a hundred graces, outshining the fairest faces of the six palaces” is a stanza from the poem Song of an Everlasting Regret from Tang poet Bai Juyi.