Chapter Ninety-Seven: Reason

Shen Yu stood by the lake and watched for a very long time.

Only when the thunderous commotion in the sky, so violent it seemed to turn heaven and earth upside down, had truly come to an end, did he finally look away.

Li Yi, when unleashing his full strength, was formidable beyond reason.

Cultivators in the upper three realms draw upon the spiritual force of heaven and earth, while martial artists who reach that same level become, by their own bodies alone, one of the world’s most terrifying powers. Like true dragons, they can ascend to the heavens, descend into the earth, scale mountains, and overturn the seas.

Countless young cultivators who were qualified to witness this battle, and even many elders, wore expressions of shock and incomprehension.

Only Shen Yu remained calm.

Such a level of combat might be beyond the reach of ordinary people for their entire lives.

But for him, though distant, it was not all that distant.

At most, five years.

The saintess of the Jade Pool smiled at him and asked, “If you had fought him with all you had just now, would you have been confident?”

Shen Yu shook his head. “It would have been meaningless.”

In that earlier battle, Li Yi had naturally suppressed his cultivation and seemed constrained, but that body of his, strong enough to rival the upper three realms, still held an overwhelming advantage.

If their years of cultivation had been the same, Shen Yu was certain the one to win would have been himself.

He had begun cultivating at ten, entered the Soul-Wandering Realm at sixteen, and reached the Tribulation-Transcending Realm at eighteen, stepping into what the world called the true immortal domain of the upper three realms.

If one spoke of the speed of his breakthroughs and the age at which he achieved them, then for the past three thousand years he was certain he would rank among the top three.

The spiritual force dispersed, and sunlight broke once more through the clouds, casting color across the tranquil, serene lake.

That radiant, noble woman still had not left.

Shen Yu raised his brows slightly. “Do you need something?”

He Pianpian gazed into the distance and smiled gently. “In three months, the Jade Pool will begin the Peach Banquet. Most of the people from the Nine Holy Lands will come. I wonder whether you will have the time to attend?”

“The Jade Pool?”

Shen Yu was silent for a moment. For once, a ripple appeared in his eyes, like memory and emotion intertwined, complex and hard to name.

“I will go.”

It was a long while before Shen Yu finally nodded.

“Good. Then I shall receive you in grand fashion.”

He Pianpian smiled faintly at Shen Yu, her expression charming and alluring.

The nearby disciples of the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect who saw this scene all fell into a dazed trance.

Shen Yu ignored that smile as if it were nothing at all, showing no reaction whatsoever. He remained detached.

A scene like this might make one think him too proud and cold, but that was not the case.

Shen Yu knew far more hidden secrets than ordinary people did.

For instance, the people of the Jade Pool were most adept at illusions and seduction arts, especially the women among them. This seemingly gentle and otherworldly fairy would never be as simple as she appeared.

Shen Yu did not care for such tricks, but neither would he be foolish enough to go out of his way to step into that trap.

One youthful act of recklessness in his earlier years had already been more than enough.

...

One day later.

He Pianpian of the Jade Pool finally left as well.

Shen Yu made a trip to the pavilion. No one knew what he said to Jiang Zuoyao, but half an hour later he came back out.

Then he went to the top of the Buddha statue.

The spirit ape appeared instantly before Shen Yu.

Feeling the gusts of force before him, Shen Yu sat cross-legged and said, “I am leaving. When you have repaid all the kindness you owe the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect, come find me. I will take you to the Western Spirit Mountain.”

The little monkey pressed its hands together and bowed slightly in thanks.

Shen Yu nodded slightly in return.

The little monkey’s ancestor had once lived on the Spirit Mountain of Western Hezhou as well, and it, too, wanted to follow its ancestor’s path and go there to cultivate. Yet the world changes, and after so many years of upheaval, who knew whether that place still held such deep hatred toward it?

Fortunately, Shen Yu had already promised this when they first met.

That was one of the reasons this spirit ape had always protected Shen Yu.

After speaking, Shen Yu closed his eyes.

One page after another passed.

The next day.

Suddenly, boundless spiritual energy in the heavens surged madly toward Shen Yu, like ten thousand rivers flowing into the sea.

Such a method of cultivation was domineering to the extreme, instantly drawing the attention of many.

Yet as their shock was gradually replaced by numbness, and the strange phenomenon in the sky still showed no sign of ending, everyone slowly began to treat it as ordinary.

In the distance, several dozen disciples of the Dao Sect sensed that familiar aura in the sky and could not help but whisper among themselves.

“Isn’t Senior Brother Shen Yu afraid of being overwhelmed by spiritual energy doing this?”

“What do you know? Senior Brother Shen Yu can stand evenly against Li Yi within the same realm. Would he still worry about such a small matter?”

“Senior Brother Shen Yu usually says very little, but every time he fights it shakes heaven and earth. I never expected his cultivation to be this overwhelmingly dominant as well.”

“He is ruthless and doesn’t waste words.”

“Little brother, you seem unfamiliar. You are...?”

“I am the number one underling of Senior Brother Shen Yu, Ding Yi of the Discipline Hall.”

...

Shen Yu cultivated atop the Buddha statue for three days.

Three days later, as he slowly opened his eyes, the world around him finally returned to peace.

Shen Yu leaped down from the Buddha’s crown, then under the admiring gazes of everyone, walked out of the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect.

At a fork outside the sect, he paused for a moment, as if remembering something. He raised his head and looked around, then fixed on a direction and set off.

After crossing a not-too-steep mountain path and a timeworn stone bridge, he continued onward and reached a village after the better part of half an hour.

On the trunk of an ancient ginkgo tree hung a conspicuous wooden plaque, carved with the three words: Grass Temple Village.

Shen Yu stood beneath the tree and looked up quietly, making no sound at all.

Yet before long, the village erupted with footsteps.

The old men fishing by the riverbank, the sturdy men busy with farm work, the children playing outside the village’s ruined temple—all of them gathered here.

Shen Yu looked at the eyes fixed on him, eyes that carried fear and reverence, and understood something.

He had entered the True-Seeing Realm, a realm known as the boundary between immortals and mortals, so it was only natural for ordinary people to feel awe and fear before such presence.

The next moment, Shen Yu gently closed his eyes.

The world became calm and still.

But in the eyes of the villagers, the immortal wrapped in spiritual radiance seemed to have become a different person altogether.

Still detached from the dust of the world, yet no longer so ethereal, so far beyond human reach.

Shen Yu walked forward.

The crowd instantly parted down the middle, revealing a broad path.

An old man leaning on a cane stepped out and, finally gathering the courage, asked, “May I ask what brings you here, immortal one?”

Shen Yu’s gaze slowly swept across the villagers before settling on a boy with his mouth hanging open in obvious surprise.

Shen Yu said, “Have you made your decision?”

The boy instinctively shook his head, then hurriedly nodded, then for some reason shook his head again.

He seemed dazed.

...

It was already afternoon. Golden sunlight filtered through the clouds and spilled across the brown farmland, dreamlike and unreal.

Beneath the ginkgo tree heavy with golden leaves, Shen Yu sat on a stone bench while Du Shenyan stood beside him, too uneasy to sit or stand comfortably.

A few days earlier, when he had gone to the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect, there had been so many cultivators there that he had barely noticed the aura carried by Shen Yu.

But today, the other man’s mere presence was dazzling beyond measure, making one feel utterly ashamed of one’s own plainness.

Du Shenyan looked down at the shabby straw sandals on his feet and, for reasons he could not explain, felt unable to lift his head.

Countless villagers stood far off, stretching their necks to watch from a distance.

Shen Yu ignored all those gazes, his expression calm, simply waiting for the boy’s answer.

He had no intention of taking a disciple. It was only that there had been too many matters recently, so he wanted to wander around.

And he had once promised this little fellow a choice. Since it was something he had promised, no matter how small or how great, it was something that had to be done.

“I... I don’t want to go anymore,” Du Shenyan said after a long while, a little guiltily.

Shen Yu’s expression remained unchanged. He gave a soft mm and asked casually, “That little girl who was behind you a few days ago?”

Du Shenyan’s eyes darkened at once. He curled his lip and said, “There’s a rich pretty boy in the neighboring Lower Hang Village who was taken in as a disciple by an immortal from a nearby sect. They’ve been throwing drinking parties these past few days to celebrate, so she went there to play too... What’s there to be so smug about?”

His words were full of grievance, and Shen Yu could only smile after hearing them.

“Actually, I didn’t want to cultivate at all. I just couldn’t bear to leave here. What I did back then was only to show off a little in front of her.”

The boy hesitated, then said, “I’m not afraid of her family looking down on me. What I’m afraid of is... that one day she’ll look down on me too.”

Children from poor families learn to take responsibility early.

Such petty matters would usually not even merit a glance from ordinary people, yet for some reason Shen Yu took the initiative to continue the conversation. “Why would you think that?”

Du Shenyan sighed. “Because I’ve noticed lately that she doesn’t seem to like playing with me as much anymore. Especially after that fellow from Lower Hang Village showed up, she keeps arguing with me.”

The straw-sandal boy scratched his head, looking somewhat dejected. “I’m so afraid that in the future she’ll despise me for being a poor fool who knows nothing.”

Shen Yu said, “If that is the case, shouldn’t you be even more eager to become my disciple?”

Du Shenyan was silent for a moment, then said softly, “But if that happened, I would never see her again. I would rather she look down on me. I still want to see for myself that she lives well. A hundred years, by heaven, that’s so long. I’d be heartbroken to death.”

Shen Yu lifted his head. In the distance, the setting sun burned like blood, while a few cattle and sheep were returning from the mountains, leisurely and peacefully, the whole world full of idle tranquility.

He narrowed his eyes slightly, and for some reason a trace of displeasure rose in his heart.

Shen Yu disliked the emotion in Du Shenyan’s words. In his eyes, everything ought to be simple and direct.

“Du Shenyan,” Shen Yu called.

“Hm?”

The boy, suddenly called by name, grew somewhat uneasy. Could it be that he was about to be settled with after the fact?

“I have seen many things and heard many truths, so I know this: in worldly matters, the more humble a thing is, the more complicated it becomes. Human relationships and old affairs are exactly like that.”

For once, Shen Yu adopted a serious, reasoned manner. “When I was still young, I once chatted with a woman and said that worldly women were too coarse, too unsightly to bear looking at. Then she taught me a lesson.”

Du Shenyan stretched out his neck and asked uncertainly, “She didn’t beat you to death, did she?”

Shen Yu gave him a strange look.

The boy hurriedly straightened his expression and said solemnly, “Please continue.”

Shen Yu narrowed his eyes, as if recalling the past. In a low voice, he said, “Then she told me two things. First, that the affairs of the world are like drinking water; only the one who drinks knows whether it is warm or cold. Second, when trouble comes, one must never forget one’s original intention. One must see things through from beginning to end.”

Du Shenyan blinked in confusion. “What does that mean?”

Shen Yu said slowly, “The first lesson is telling you that sometimes an ordinary girl from an ordinary family may be a little calculating, a little competitive, a little sharp. She may not be especially likable, but that does not mean she is wrong. Perhaps many years later, ten years, twenty years later, when she has lived the life she had hoped for, she will find her former self laughable, even foolish. But that is only natural. Many girls who have never seen much of the world begin this way. It is merely a touch of embarrassment before an unfamiliar world, nothing more.”

He paused, then said with emotion, “As for the second lesson, it was to tell you not to think someone has changed or become worse simply because of a trivial inevitability. Remember your own original intention. You should strive all the harder, because childhood sweethearts are such a beautiful thing.”

Du Shenyan seemed to understand, yet not quite.

Shen Yu rose to his feet. “Go to the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect now and tell them I have left.”

“So soon?”

“Go.”

Du Shenyan nodded and immediately ran off into the distance.

Shen Yu held a few ginkgo leaves in his hand and wandered casually along the mountain path.

In truth, many people had appeared before this dilapidated little mountain village at some point without anyone noticing.

Disciples of the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect, disciples of the Dao Sect, Yuan Chengzai, Ding Yi, Jiang Zuoyao, Yun Qing, the supreme elder of the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect...

Yun Qing looked at the figure who was running at full speed toward the Returning Cloud Immortal Sect and said calmly, “That boy?”

Jiang Zuoyao smiled. “Take him in, then. Shen Yu found a disciple for our Returning Cloud Immortal Sect. I rather doubt his taste is poor.”

With his back to the others, Shen Yu had walked a hundred paces. He raised his right hand and waved carelessly into the air in farewell.

The next instant.

A flash of sword light appeared.

Shen Yu turned into a streak of brilliance and vanished instantly into the setting sun.