531 Caugh

After hearing Chen Changsheng’s words, Xu Yourong sat stunned in her positionby the window for quite some time, not knowing how to respond. In the Plains of the Unsetting Sun, they had experienced life-and-deathsituations together, stood side by side and back to back, and had also brushedaway snow, so they had long understood each other's feelings. It was just thatshe had not known that he was a young Daoist boy from Xining Village, so afterleaving the Garden of Zhou, she had also only thought about the promise she hadmade to him and prepared to end the engagement. But then, the Li Palace hadannounced to the world that the Sword Pool had reappeared and that many peoplehad seen the swords from it. After making a few comparisons, she finallyconfirmed that he was him, finally understood that fate toyed with people’shearts, even playing such a joke on her. But what did that matter? As long as he was him, she clearly understood whatshe desired. On the Bridge of Helplessness and sitting by the pot eating ribs,she had been waiting for him to say something, but he had never said it. Onlynow, at such a late hour, did he inexplicably appear by her window and speakthose inexplicable words. Fine, this really was like his path of the sword. Just like Wang Po's path of the sword, very straight. He had used his words to straightforwardly pierce through the window paper infront of her and straightforwardly bring her back to the Divine Path of theMausoleum of Zhou. Xu Yourong stood up and looked at his figure through the window, and thenextended her hand to open the window. The snowflakes were buffeted inside by the wind, falling upon her face with aslight chill. "The dilong is burning too hot, the room is a little warm." (TN: A dilong 地龙, floor/earth dragon, was basically a variation of the kangwhere channels under the floor conducted heat into a room from a heat sourcethat was elsewhere.) She looked at Chen Changsheng and said this seemingly to explain why she hadopened the window and met with him, but she had not noticed that thisexplanation was rather cute. Chen Changsheng looked at her face, not noticing the nervousness she revealedas she gave this explanation that resulted in this cuteness. He just felt thatshe was very cute. "I was just standing outside and also felt it was a little hot," he earnestlysaid. It was currently in the depths of winter, in the dead of the night, theweather cold and the ground frozen, with snowflakes dancing in the air. "How long have you been standing?" Xu Yourong asked as she looked at the snowon his body. Chen Changsheng considered the question, then shook his head. "I forgot." Xu Yourong asked, "Why didn't you just come in?" Chen Changsheng answered, "I was afraid of disturbing your rest, and…Shuang'ershould also be here, right? I was worried that she would see us and saysomething." Xu Yourong asked, "Then do you want to come in now?" Chen Changsheng replied, "No need, I came…because there's actually something Iwant to give you." Saying this, he slipped off the string of stone pearls from his wrist and verycarefully snapped it. He then stuck his hand into the window and said, "Thereare ten in total. Pick five." In truth, he had long forgotten that there had been no agreement between themto divide up the treasures of the Mausoleum of Zhou. He simply believed it wasonly right and proper that since they had discovered the Mausoleum of Zhoutogether, anything they found in the Mausoleum of Zhou should be dividedevenly, whether it was the Halving Blade Style or these ten stone pearls. "This is…" Xu Yourong's curious voice suddenly halted and she raised her headto look at him and say in a somewhat incredulous voice, "This is those ten…thatwere around the Mausoleum of Zhou?" If this were some other expert, even a Prefect of the Orthodoxy like LinghaiZhiwang, they would be unable to see anything wrong with these seeminglyordinary stone pearls, because these stone pearls truly emanated no Qiwhatsoever. However, she had begun studying the Heavenly Tome Monoliths whenshe was little more than ten, and she had personally seen these Heavenly TomeMonoliths in the Garden of Zhou, so she was naturally able to sense thatsomething was different about them. "Yeah." Chen Changsheng looked back at her and said, "The Garden of Zhou hasnot disappeared. If you want to go back and take a look, I can bring you in." He didn't describe it as 'entering the Garden of Zhou', instead asking if shewanted to go back. This was because to him and her, the Garden of Zhou wastruly too important. Upon hearing that the Garden of Zhou had not collapsed and that he could evenenter it, Xu Yourong was astounded. But the truly important thing was still those stone pearls in his palm. She solemnly asked him, "You truly plan to give them to me?" Chen Changsheng solemnly replied, "Without you, I would already be dead, andthen how would I have possibly been able to find the Mausoleum of Zhou, letalone the Sword Pool?" Xu Yourong thought about it, then casually picked out five stone pearls andswiftly stowed them away in the Tong Palace. She felt that Chen Changsheng's argument made sense, so she very calmlyaccepted them, like the gentle wind and faint clouds, right and proper, frankand upright. What Chen Changsheng most admired and most loved about her was this sort oftemperament. "Then I'll go now." Entering the palace in the snowy night, the window being opened, seeing her,and even giving her the stone pearls—everything he needed to do had been done,and now it was naturally time to return. This was what it meant to come in highspirits, but leave upon losing interest, the so-called elegance of adistinguished scholar…but he was a youth, not a distinguished scholar, so hesaid he was going to go, but his feet did not move. Xu Yourong said, "Go back first." Chen Changsheng affirmed, but his feet still did not move, and he still didnothing but look at her. She slightly turned, almost as if she wished to avoid his gaze, but inreality, she was leaning out the window. The closer she got, the more nervous he became. She extended her hand and brushed the snow off his shoulder, just like how shehad brushed the leaves off his shoulder on the Divine Path. It was very gentle, very calm, very familiar, very composed. The paper of the window had long been pierced through, even the window hadbeen opened, but he still needed a final confirmation. The action of brushing away snow was this confirmation. Chen Changsheng felt like his severed meridians had all been healed and hisbody brimmed with vigor. As he looked at her, his eyes glowed with light. Xu Yourong did not look him in the eyes, instead gazing off into the snowynight, feeling her face to be somewhat hot. She softly whispered, "Tomorrow, Iwant to go to the Orthodox Academy and look around." Chen Changsheng no longer had any hesitation, turning around and walking intothe snowy night. He was very sure now that he would definitely be able to sleep this time. …… …… At five in the morning, Chen Changsheng woke up, used five breaths of time tosteady his mind, then opened his eyes. After washing his face and mouth andputting on his clothes, he went on a run around the lake. If one carefully calculated, he had not even slept for four hours. Strangelyenough, he was bursting with energy, bearing none of the black bags that wereoften seen under Tang Thirty-Six's eyes, and his feet seemed to be borne alongby the wind. As time passed, more and more students began to run along the lakeshore, butnone of them were faster than him and some would occasionally be lapped by him.When those students that had been lapped saw him, they would hurriedly bow. No matter how young he was, he was still the principal, let alone the factthat he had been affirmed last night as candidate for Pope. As a result, thestudents were even more reverential than normal. He, on the other hand, could not see any difference. He calmly returned theirgreetings with even more patience than usual. In the small cafeteria across the lake, the breakfast being served was goldenmillet porridge, but he couldn't tell any difference between it and regularmillet porridge. Not even when Xuanyuan Po took the Mountain Sea Sword from thepile of firewood and flaunted it in front of him, saying how in his practicelast night, he had succeeded in attracting thunder and lightning, was ChenChangsheng able to see any difference in the Mountain Sea Sword compared towhen it had first emerged from the Sword Pool in the Garden of Zhou. In brief, he was rather scatterbrained. From time to time, his gaze would flitover in the direction of the Imperial Palace. "You're not sick, are you?" Tang Thirty-Six asked, yawning. Chen Changsheng came to his senses and, seeing the two black bags around TangThirty-Six's eyes, returned, "I think that you might be sick." Tang Thirty-Six angrily thought, if it weren't for the fact that I had beenkeeping an eye on your sick self half the night but ended up getting too tiredand sleeping in the snow, there's no way my energy would be so lacking rightnow. The reason Chen Changsheng looked in the direction of the Imperial Palace wasbecause last night, she said she wanted to come, and he was waiting for her. Of course, he wanted to tell the story of the relationship between him and XuYourong to others, especially his friends. Tang Thirty-Six had always been his best confidant, but Xu Yourong had saidthat she did not want him to tell others, so he could only hold it in. After breakfast, he washed his face and brushed his teeth again, changed intoa clean set of clothes, and stood by the window, waiting. It was only because he was normally so obsessed with cleanliness that this didnot attract the attention of the rest of the Orthodox Academy. After waiting for some time, he heard the cry of a crane from the distance. He followed the crane's cry, and it didn't take too long before he saw theWhite Crane deep within the winter forest, as well as she who had come ridingon the crane. Xu Yourong was still wearing that big cotton jacket from yesterday, but thisdidn't make her seem unrefined. Instead, she gave off a warm and gentleimpression. Probably because she did not want others to see, she used the secret techniqueof South Stream Temple to make her appearance much plainer, just as she haddone in the Garden of Zhou. Seeing her normal and average face, Chen Changsheng did not despair, butinstead felt even closer to her. Perhaps it was this closeness that let him rediscover the willingness tocasually converse with her like he did in the Garden of Zhou. He examined that big cotton jacket that made her seem especially cute and,after hesitating for a while, screwed up the courage to say a few words. "The smell of beef ribs is very strong. Do you want to change into a new setof clothes? Maybe you want to wear some of mine first and I'll help you washyours?" Xu Yourong stared at him, stunned, then she became truly angry and ashamed,and began to turn around and walk back towards the White Crane. Chen Changsheng quickly came to his senses and felt his way of doing thingswas truly ridiculous. He quickly caught up with her and then constantly madehand signals towards the White Crane. The White Crane was old friends with him. Without waiting for Xu Yourong, itflew off with a cry. Xu Yourong stood in the snow, stunned once more. Starting from two years ago, she failed to understand why the White Crane wasso close to Chen Changsheng and treated him with such kindness. "Back then, just what did you do to it?" She looked at Chen Changsheng and asked, "Why is he listening to you?" This was the first time the two talked about their childhood. "I mentioned it before in the letters we wrote to each other when we weresmall, you just forgot." As Chen Changsheng thought about this matter, he feltrather unwell, but when he thought about what had just occurred, thisunwellness all transformed into unease. "I misspoke a moment ago, don't beangry. Just think about those words Tang Tang said." The ‘words’ being mentioned here were naturally those of Tang Thirty-Sixcalling him a pig. …… …… The White Crane had gone off forever, the winter forest was devoid of peopleand free to wander about. (TN: This is a reference to the poem "Yellow Crane Tower" by Cui Hao. Theoriginal line is ‘Once the yellow crane left it will never return, for onethousand years the clouds wandered carelessly’.) The snowflakes slowly descended. Under the umbrella, Chen Changsheng and XuYourong strolled through the secluded forest of the Orthodox Academy. "I, Zhexiu, and the others all live here." Chen Changsheng brought her to theforest's edge and pointed at the nearby house. As he spoke, he recalled that she had visited the Orthodox Academy on thatnight and might have even seen that scene in the restaurant across the street.He explained, "Don't misunderstand, on that day, Tang Tang insisted on draggingme and Su Moyu there. Su Moyu was once part of the Li Palace Academy,thirty-third on the Proclamation of Azure Sky, so you might have heard abouthim before. Right now, he's also with us." His words had touched on two topics. He had spoken very naturally, and hiswords also naturally contained the pride of youth, like he was showing off hisaccomplishments to her. Suddenly, a voice rang out from the winter forest. "I knew something was up with you! It's no wonder you didn't even touch thehand of that girl when she was in your bosom that night. As it turns out…youactually had a lover!" As the voice rang out, a pile of snow suddenly burst apart and Tang Thirty-Sixstood up from it. ……