Father suddenly turned his head, his gaze dangerous, like two cold bolts of lightning illuminating A Cheng's pale face.
"Get in here!" Father's words were anything but polite.
A Cheng, for reasons unknown, truly stumbled and scrambled into the house, even tripping over the low threshold.
"Father, you're back."
Father's face always seemed to be ashen, like a bird half-rotted in the mud, feathers fallen off, revealing a greenish, bloated belly.
A Cheng almost never hoped to see any trace of kindness on that rough face. Just as he imagined, the owner of that face was dead; he had died in his childhood.
Yet, he was, to some extent, a living person; Father could speak, and his words were beyond doubt.
"Pack your things, leave immediately."
A Cheng didn't ask why, silently lowered his head and entered the house, not looking at Bi Li in Father's arms, even though she was tilting her head, staring at him, and blood was seeping from her body.
The mountain spirit's gaze must still be so pure, perhaps stirring up ripples of hesitation, but it should still be… A Cheng packed his bag, went out, looked up, his gaze sweeping over the ground, the grass stalks on the ground, Father's shoes, pants, the blood on his pants, his waist, Bi Li, her eyes.
A Cheng suddenly lowered his head and shivered again. Father looked at his son with disgust, "Hurry up! Keep up!"
In that brief, intertwined moment, A Cheng saw Bi Li's eyes, filled with pain and bewilderment.
The Father and son, carrying an otherworldly mountain spirit, ran hurriedly towards the distant horizon under the stars and moon.
They ran for about four hours. Summer days are long, and the sky was already faintly brightening.
They arrived at a deserted wilderness, where waist-high cogongrass stretched to the sky. Father led A Cheng into a shed hidden by the grass. He seemed very familiar with the place, pulling out a medicine box from under a rotten, moldy bed board. He took out some ointment, cut open Bi Li's clothes around her waist with scissors, revealing a roughly bandaged wound that was no longer bleeding. Father untied the linen bandage, revealing a gaping wound, seemingly pierced by a knife or sword. He applied medicine to Bi Li and handed A Cheng a broken iron pot, telling him to fetch water from a nearby small river.
A Cheng carried the pot, his hands covered in ash. He scraped the bottom of the pot; there was some residue that smelled strange, like medicine, or perhaps blood.
The soil in the wilderness was very moist, and mud always clung to his shoes. A Cheng tried to rub his shoes on the cogongrass. He didn't know why, but he was very concerned about this little bit of decorum now.
After walking for a quarter of an hour, he found a trickling stream winding through the grass. A Cheng eagerly scooped water, but the pot's opening was too wide and the water too shallow, so he couldn't fill much. Eventually, A Cheng cupped his hands, filling the pot scoop by scoop.
Returning to the shed, Father had already started a fire. Seeing how long he had taken to return, he merely nodded, uncharacteristically refraining from scolding him.
Father cut down Bi Li's thick skirt, tore it into long strips, and put them into the pot to boil.
A Cheng sat beside the boiling pot.
Father's back was somewhat illuminated by the morning light, but facing the fire, looking from behind, he still seemed shrouded in shadow. A Cheng said nothing; he had nothing to say.
Bi Li in the shed let out a painful groan. A Cheng rushed in, threw himself by the bed, and held her hand.
The mountain spirit girl looked at him.
A familiar gaze, one Father had shown A Cheng countless times.
Disgust.
A Cheng felt as if the soft hand in his had grown thorns; he pulled back as if electrocuted.
"You… killed… someone."
Father's low chuckle came from outside the shed, like the cry of a jackdaw in the thin morning air.
A Cheng plopped down onto his bottom, "You know?"
Bi Li whispered, "Like Xiao Luo, A Cheng, you have an unclean scent on you."
A Cheng thought, yes, a woman as pure as moonlight like Bi Li would surely hate someone stained with blood.
Bi Li continued to murmur, her gaze fixed on the simple shed roof, where there were several cobwebs, shriveled cocoons, and the corpse of a large spider.
"Xiao Luo, he came to find me. But this time he brought many… people. Xiao Luo told me to bring him here. Later, someone beside him, stabbed me. It hurt so much."
A Cheng listened silently, his heart filled with mixed emotions.
"Xiao Luo, he is still Xiao Luo, he said I was in the way, and then he said I was innocent, I don't understand… A Cheng," she finally moved her gaze from the shed roof and looked at A Cheng, "What do you think he meant?"
A Cheng forced a smile. He didn't even know if that Xiao Luo was old or young, but from what Bi Li had said initially, he could probably tell that Xiao Luo was an ambitious person.
Bi Li continued to question him relentlessly, repeatedly recounting her memories with Xiao Luo, which made A Cheng very agitated.
"He doesn't want you anymore, he wants to kill you! Don't you understand?!"
Bi Li froze, "What is 'kill'?"
A Cheng was speechless.
Bi Li didn't understand the suffering of mortals; she had no emotions or desires.
A Cheng tried to explain what killing was, what death was, but Bi Li still only half-understood.
Finally, she understood. "It means never waking up again, right?"
A Cheng felt a bit powerless, "Death isn't sleeping. After death, there are no more dreams."
At this, Bi Li became afraid.
"No dreams? Then I don't like death."
A Cheng sneered, yes, no one liked death. Death should be an existence that all sentient beings fear and avoid.
Father steamed the boiled bandages dry with internal energy and went into the shed to bandage Bi Li.
"Go, keep going," Father said indifferently.
The expression on A Cheng's face immediately receded the moment he saw his Father. He silently picked up his pack and carried Bi Li.
Father gave him a mocking look, said nothing, and carrying the medicine box, led the way out.
They traveled frantically. When they reached the city, they asked the inn when they could leave. Father wanted to go out to sea. Learning that the next caravan would depart in half a month, he rented a carriage and set off on his own.
There was no need to worry about bandits during the journey, because there were no bandits.
What they had to worry about were wild beasts, or rather, mountain and water spirits.
Father, with A Cheng and Bi Li, had practically fled their homeland.
The day after they left the province, a piece of news spread throughout the Pure Land.
The Vajra Sect was annihilated.
A Cheng looked at the gloomy sky.
He didn't like the climate here; it was humid and stuffy.
This was Guangdong.
The Lion Appearance Sect's stronghold.
In the fourteen provinces of the world, each had a sect guarding it.
Guangdong's Lion Appearance Sect was the foremost in the world.
Simply because they once produced a disciple named Li Dingxun.
Second in historical records, first among mortals, a match for ten thousand men.
Upon learning of the Vajra Sect's annihilation, the Lion Appearance Sect was furious and immediately dispatched masters to the Western Regions overnight.
The two families, one in the east and one in the west, were thousands of miles apart, yet their relationship was as close as if they were one family.
A Cheng thought that he should also be considered family with the Lion Appearance Sect.
It was just that he was now homeless.
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