Chương 272: Enduring Eternity (IV)

so, how do I bring it up? I mean, I've already kind of ousted myself--I'm fairly certain that at least Long Tao, Wan Lan, and even Lao Shun now know that I'm not exactly just some random guy with very deep parental heritage. But I've kind of been burning through things these past few days--first with Xing Feng and then with Lao Shun and the recipe--if I whip out yet another thing, won't even the thinnest of veils I've got now just be completely pulled back? Eh.

We came to a rest after finally coming out of the worst parts of the forest--the corpses littering every inch of the place were gone, now only buried in the patches of moss, and Xing Feng finally woke up. It was a bit of a scene, with the girls gaslighting him (for his own good... yikes, I don't like the sound of that) that he'd all just dreamed it up and that he was actually quite tired and slept for a whole day straight!...

whether the kid bought it or pretended to buy it, I don't know, but he calmed down as Long Tao started cooking yet another meal. There wasn't much he could do, though, with our dwindling supplies; I'd have planned on getting a few extra things in the city, but being unceremoniously dragged out so quickly kind of got in the way of that. And, at least according to the one map of this place in my head, I don't think there are any major settlements nearby.

Perhaps some villages and such, but I'm really not in the mood to just stumble and meander about blindly on the off chance we'll come upon a random, hidden village.

"I have something for you." My announcement was met with a rather comedic response; everyone scurried over from their corners as though chased by demons, looking up at me while sitting on their knees, eyes expectant. Even Long Tao arose from his comatose, meditative state and joined us. I started slowly taking out one tome after another and handing them over while offering an 'explanation.'

"I have been perusing my, uh, my aunt's heritage," I said.

"Looking for something that I can make to be a central method of cultivation. My hope is to use it at the very beginning, until everyone establishes their own path, which is when I can look for something else more specific to the individual's circumstances. Most of you, I imagine, won't get any benefit out of it, as you'd have developed so wonderfully, but I'd still like you to learn it--should our little group ever become even bigger, I'd like to have at least one unifying factor between all of us."

"..." Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Hm? What do you want?" I caught Lao Shun sitting next to me, hand stretched out.

"Where is my copy?"

"... what?"

"This unifying method. I want to learn it, too."

"Why?"

"I'm curious."

"Don't you have a recipe to study?"

"That's that, and this is this."

"... whatever." I shrugged and gave him my copy, and he took it with a faint grin, scurrying back into the shadows immediately after. Everyone fell silent while I dug into the stew Long Tao made. Watching them flip pages as their expressions kept shifting was rather sweet, I have to admit. I've come to cherish these less and less frequent moments of quiet and serenity. There's just something about the deep dark of the forest and its quiet juxtaposed with their energized expressions that feels oddly... nostalgic.

It makes no sense, as I've never spent a night in the forest, let alone several, but it's sort of like watching TV shows set in a coastal town and getting all nostalgic about it without ever even living in a coastal town.... brains are weird, what can I say? ** What was its purpose? It swayed to the side as an array of light pierced downward, its intangible body beginning to contort and shift, blending into the pebbles and sand.

It began to wiggle away invisibly, leaving the space between two tall boulders just in time to avoid being buried under the weight of the two of them collapsing. At the same time, it kicked up against the floor, its shape once again twisting in an odd way, as the loose figure began to fan out six fins to the side of a flat and tall bodice, with the tail fin coming in last--it was flamboyant, almost feathery in its make, colored from red to golden across its glistening surface.

It flapped them and began to sway through the still waters, curving left just in time to avoid a chomp from a hidden stonefish. The cute, barnacled little thing appeared confused for a moment before it sank down into the sand, disappearing once more. Meanwhile, it swam slightly upward, avoiding a stray current from forcing it to expend more energy than necessary, all while asking the exact same question for who-knows-which-time: What was its purpose?

The flat body began to balloon rapidly as the fins collapsed unto themselves, and the oily, shiny texture of skin turned to the rough one of the stone; it sank back down into a pile of similar rocks, a mere moment before a young woman appeared from above, her hair splayed wildly in the water. The woman didn't linger, swimming away immediately, whereupon the inconspicuous boulder rattled against the other stones and began to float, slowly turning into a transparent, elongated eel. What was its purpose?

A school of blackhead fish parted as they saw it, as though peasants opening a way for their king, and it swam onward, slowly sinking toward the floor yet again and avoiding another stray array of light. Every year they come, they arouse the waters with their heinous magic, and they kill thousands of the innocent within the waters, seeking... something. It wanted to stop them, but it was not to be. It could become anything, but the Laws bound it.

The eel dug into the sand headfirst, its translucent body turning algae-green, the smooth surface becoming rough as it joined the slow-dancing choir of other lake grass around it. Several humans swam above it, none the wiser, as it untethered itself once again, becoming an ordinary salmon fish, its scales just faintly glistening. What was its purpose?

It swam against the tide, as it were, as most other fish seemed to be swimming in the opposite direction, likely running from yet another battle that humans had engaged in. They loved it, it noted--the fighting. They loved it almost as much as it loved the idea of the unexpected. The difference was that they could fight any day, but it had never experienced the unexpected.

It stopped, unnaturally so, just in time to avoid a plunge of a steel sword that dug into the sand below, kicking up a small storm of dust that consumed it. When the dust vanished, it was not there--gone as it always did, eternally unseen, always aware.