Taihua Lord dragged me toward the Sword Grotto the whole way, telling me all about Lord Mengxue's virtues. Although I thought Lord Mengxue was actually quite interesting, if I wanted to get to know him, I could do it myself. Taihua Lord was truly becoming unbearable.
As it happened, Lord Mengxue was also the sort who disliked speaking of his private thoughts. Once Taihua Lord got the conversation started, he began recounting all sorts of things the three of them had encountered back then.
However, all three of them shared one trait: they disliked asking about other people's pasts. They were classic cases of speaking only if they felt like it. Along the way, Taihua Lord simply talked to himself, never asking whether I wanted to listen.
"Taihua Lord, did Lord Mengxue never tell you about his origins either?" I asked.
Taihua Lord thought for a moment and nodded, but soon said, "We each have our own troubles, I suppose. Back then, my master drove this old man down the mountain, so I was too ashamed to speak of the Taihua Sword Dao again. I felt that I had brought shame upon it. As for Lord Changjian, you already know what happened. And as for Lord Mengxue... After all these years, he has lived so plainly in food, clothing, housing, and travel. Whenever he has nothing to do, he likes to sit alone and stare blankly in silence. This old man guesses that perhaps he encountered some matter of the heart and couldn't move past it, so he left home and never looked back. That should be the deepest root shared by the three of us: we don't want to look back, yet we can't help thinking about it..."
"That sums it up very reasonably." He had indeed gotten that