Chapter 289: Which Path to Choose? (2/2)

After reading from many books, he finally understood what it meant to respect Master and venerate the Dao. He also understood that the world was a very large place.

During the seven years, his father had aged quite a bit. Master had grown even older. Peach Blossom’s popularity in the bordello waned. Eventually, some moneybags from another county paid her debts and took her as a concubine.

Before she left, she came looking for Meng Hao. It seemed she viewed him as something like a little brother. She spoke some tender words, then, accompanied by Meng Hao’s smile, got into a sedan chair and left Eastern Emergence County.

According to their agreement from years ago, his two friends really did grow up to become the biggest bullies in the county.

Meng Hao, however, no longer called himself a bully. He didn't wear fancy, expensive clothes, but instead, a simple scholar’s robe.

It was green, just like the greenness of his youth. However, in just the same manner that spring changes into autumn, his face no longer carried the frivolity it used to, but instead, calmness. He liked to think, and to gaze off into the sky, even though he didn’t really know exactly what it was he was looking at.

He liked the wind and the rain. He liked to stand in the pavilion and look at the lightning off in the distance, and hear the thunder. When the rain fell down onto the earth outside, he liked to open up a book and read about how life had changed throughout the ages.

Everything was like a dream. Seven years passed like the falling of a rainstorm. Meng Hao didn’t feel like he had changed much, but from the perspective of others, he had changed quite a bit.

As he watched his Master continue to grow older, he often thought of bringing up the subject of the Roaming. He wanted to climb mountains, travel to distant lands, to see the realities of the world.

But in the end, he looked at the city, his father, and Master, and instead maintained his silence, saying nothing.

A year. Another year… soon, seven more years had passed. During autumn of that year, as the leaves drifted down to the ground, floating in the wind to return to the earth, his father fell sick. One night, a violet wind blew, and his father passed away.

Meng Hao stood in front of his father’s grave, a blank look in his eyes. He vaguely remembered how, fourteen years ago, his father had held him in his arms and taken him to meet Master. In the blink of an eye, fourteen years had passed. Meng Hao stood there silently, sipping from a pot of alcohol.

Finally he turned and left. He found Master, and told him how he desired the Roaming. It was the only dream he possessed now, and had been fermenting in his heart for years.

Before he left, Meng Hao kneeled before Master and kowtowed a second time. This was… the kowtow of Roaming.

Master watched early one morning as Meng Hao shouldered his scholar’s pack and walked off into the distance, framed by the rising sun.

Eventually, Meng Hao looked over his shoulder. By that time, Master was no longer visible. Later, he looked over his shoulder a second time, and even the Tower of Tang couldn’t be seen.

He was thoughtful for a moment, then gradually seemed to come to an understanding. He looked forward once again, and continued to walk off into the distance. He did not look over his shoulder a third time.

He reached a mighty river and encountered a ferryman, with whom he chatted about some of the legends of the river. Supposedly, an Immortal resided somewhere here.

In the books Meng Hao had read, he had occasionally come across the title Immortal. He decided to live next to the river. Unfortunately, in the three years that he did, he never saw an Immortal. What did see, however, was his own inverted reflection in the river waters, a different him.

He saw himself flying in the sky, practicing cultivation in the mountains, and some place called the East Pill Division of the Violet Fate Sect, where he concocted….

It seemed as if all he had to do was jump into the water, and he could become that other person, and this life would be over.

By the time the three years had passed, Meng Hao was twenty nine years old. In the end, he did not jump into the water. Instead, he left the river and travelled far off to another place.

A year later, in the depths of a seemingly endless forest, on a blustery and nearly moonless night, Meng Hao caught sight of woman floating in the air. There was also an abandoned tomb, with no incense burning in front of it. The surrounding forest was pitch black, and Meng Hao was a bit scared. A moment later, he found himself surrounded by countless shadowy forms. Suddenly, a sealing incantation popped into his mind.

He extended his palm, and everything around him vanished.

Starting then, he was very curious about this dark, mysterious forest. He continued to travel about in it, sleeping in thickets when necessary. He saw many, many strange things, including a variety of fantastic fierce and wild beasts.

It took three years to travel through the forest. When he emerged, he looked back, and an absentminded look covered his face. He had the feeling that if he wished, he could stay and become a part of the forest.

In a place like this, a person could become one with Heaven and Earth, and transcend the mortal life.

As Meng Hao gazed at the forest, he thought back to Master’s words from twenty-one years ago. There are many paths in life, as to which path he would choose… that was his decision to make.

“This place is not the path I wish to tread.” Lost in thought, Meng Hao turned and walked off into the distance.

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This chapter was sponsored by Darren Chen