"Do not heed the sound of rain beating through the woods; why not stroll along, chanting and whistling?"
"With a bamboo staff and straw sandals, I travel lighter than on horseback. What is there to fear? Let the misty rain cloak my life."
His white robes became a blue scholar's gown, his jade crown became a bamboo crown, and at his waist hung a mottled little bronze bell and a black stone seal. One hand rested on a rust-speckled longsword as Li Yu, the scholar of Changhe Town, stepped out of his home.
Following the ancient town streets and treading the country paths, Li Yu headed toward Green Mountain.
"See that? If you don't study a proper trade, you'll end up like Li Yu someday!"
The villagers by the roadside used Li Yu as a negative example to teach their children. "A scholar is good for nothing. Be like him, and you won't even find a wife in the future!"
"Sure enough, ups and downs were what life was all about!"
Hearing the villagers' mockery, Li Yu smiled and shook his head. "This journey into the mortal world really was the right path. If I had been my former self, how could I have felt such ridicule and scorn? Standing so high above others, detached from ordinary life—how could I cut away this body and become an avatar of Chaos?"
Without ever experiencing an ordinary life, one naturally could not transcend life.
His great sleeves fluttered in the wind. Though his blue scholar's gown looked unrestrained, it gave him a different kind of grace.
Li Yu looked at everything before him, felt the truth within this plainness, and felt that he had truly chosen the right path.
"How long had it been since I last walked?"
Feeling the long-forgotten exhaustion