The Laba Festival

The twelfth lunar month.

Cold wind, light snow, deep night.

Two figures supported each other as they trudged up the mountain, one step sinking deep, the next shallow, through the heavy snow beneath the faint moonlight. Their footsteps creaked.

"Senior Brother, I really can't go on!" One figure collapsed into the snow, panting heavily.

She was about eighteen or nineteen. Sweat soaked her hair, plastering it to her face, yet she still looked like a lotus fresh from the water. Dressed in a purple robe with a short blade at her waist, she had a delicate, feminine air.

"Junior Sister Su, hold on! If we don't keep moving, that Enlightenment Mirror Demonic Monk will catch up!" The other was a tall young man with a face as handsome as jade, named Li Yiyan. He wore a gray-black robe, carried a pack, and leaned on a long saber. He was exhausted too, but gritted his teeth and pressed on.

"No! No! I've been walking for a day and a night! I really..." Su Yeye, the one called Junior Sister Su, caught her breath and swallowed before continuing, "...can't go on!"

The two had only reached the True Sight realm and had just cultivated true qi. They were returning from Ying Yin City to their hometown of Jin Yang City when they stopped for shelter at a temple, only to catch the eye of a lustful monk from the Seeing Colors Sect.

In the depths of winter, the monk had been bored to tears at the temple. When he saw the handsome young man and beautiful young woman, lust immediately stirred in him. He declared that he would take them both under his wing, cherish them properly, and help them comprehend the Seeing Colors Sect's supreme mystic art!

The two came from the great sect of Ying Yin City, Saber Dragon Gate, and were members of prominent families in Jin Yang City. How could they accept that?

They had come to blows at once.

Though the monk was also in the True Sight realm, his cultivation was profound, and he had been born with tremendous strength. Wielding a Precept Blade and a Zen Staff, he had driven them into a desperate flight.

"But if that monk catches up, he'll violate us! Junior Sister, are you really willing to suffer such humiliation?" Li Yiyan said to Su Yeye.

"I... really can't walk any farther. I can only..." Su Yeye said through her tears. She had walked for a day and a night and eaten only a couple of mouthfuls of snow. She was truly exhausted and hungry, with almost no strength left.

"But I don't want to suffer this humiliation, Junior Sister!" Li Yiyan said through gritted teeth. "Come on. I'll carry you!"

Those vile bald monks of the Seeing Colors Sect were men and women alike, just like the women of the Heavenly Maiden Sect. Both were infamous.

"Senior Brother..." Su Yeye was so moved she didn't know what to say.

He could have abandoned her, but instead he was going to carry her.

Li Yiyan shifted the pack from his back to his chest, then carried Su Yeye on his back. Stumbling through the deep snow, one step sinking deep, the next shallow, he headed toward the distant light.

"Junior Sister Ye! If that monk catches up, I'll kill you first, then myself! Saber Dragon Gate won't suffer this disgrace!"

"...All right. I'll do as you say, Senior Brother!"

He didn't know what lay where the light shone, nor whether anyone there could save them.

But he refused to sit back and await his fate. Doing something, anything, was better than doing nothing.

On a nearby ridge behind them stood a burly monk in a gray-brown robe, a Precept Blade strapped to his back. He watched them. It was Wu Jing, his face leering as he followed them patiently. He only had to wait until they were both utterly spent and weak. Then he could cherish them however he pleased.

Benefactors! What you see is emptiness, and emptiness is what you see. What difference is there between a man's form and a woman's?

Let this humble monk teach you the Buddha's Dharma, and welcome you both to the joys of paradise!

Thinking this, Wu Jing murmured, "Namo Colorless Bliss Buddha," and slowly followed in their footsteps.

Carrying someone on his back weighed heavily on Li Yiyan. But for the sake of his own rear end, he still managed to summon every last ounce of strength and inch toward the light on the mountain.

People never knew how strong they could be until they pushed themselves!

The closer they got to the light, the more they smelled the fragrant porridge, along with the scents of red dates, peanuts, lotus seeds, and other ingredients.

"Senior Brother, that Laba Congee smells wonderful!" Su Yeye said from Li Yiyan's back.

So it was Laba today!

"Senior Brother, put me down! Let's hurry over together and beg for a bowl of Laba Congee!" After resting for a while and thinking of its taste, Su Yeye felt strength returning to her limbs.

"All right! I still have some silver on me. Hopefully that monk hasn't caught up too quickly. We can eat our fill, rest a little, and then fight him again!" Li Yiyan said.

The light in the mountains came from the little temple where Shi Feizhe and Chong Jiuyuan lived.

At that moment, Shi Feizhe sat in the main hall with a bowl of Laba Congee, spinning a tale to the old geezer Chong Jiuyuan about Ode to Gallantry.

"The Laba Congee on Gallant Island is boiled with a poisonous herb that can break your intestines, along with a hundred and eight medicinal herbs. So not only is it harmless, it can even increase your power. My cousin Shi Potian saw no one else drinking it, and he..."

"Bullshit!" said the old man sitting across from him, Chong Jiuyuan. He looked just as he had two years earlier, when Shi Feizhe had first met him.

He didn't look like he was about to die at all.

"Poison is poison. Boil it with other herbs, and it still won't turn into a tonic! This Cousin's Adventure is nowhere near as good as Three Idiots Wreaking Havoc on the Jianghu." The old man took a sip of Laba Congee and said,

"Though that Northern Darkness Divine Art was made up, it had a certain clueless, lovable charm."

After spending so much time with Shi Feizhe, the old man had learned the term "clueless, lovable" too. As he put it, true qi was formed from "Blood Qi Spirit." Every person's true qi bore the imprint of their own will, so how could anyone just absorb someone else's?

Unless the person had cultivated the wrong art in the first place!

Wasn't randomly absorbing someone else's true qi a recipe for turning into an idiot? What if the other person's true qi forcefully had its way with you?

"Old sir, I'm just telling stories and shooting the breeze. Don't take it so seriously! You're not like some people who, the moment something doesn't suit them, start arguing for hundreds of words, are you?" Shi Feizhe said, eating his Laba Congee.

Mm... Last year, he'd burned the Laba Congee, but this year it had turned out pretty well.

"Then at least make it something people can listen to, something that makes sense!" the old man said with a cold laugh. "You can't just decide that because you think the world is a certain way, it has to be that way! That's ridiculous."

"Are you going to listen to Cousin's Adventure or not?" Shi Feizhe was at a loss with this argumentative old man.

For more than two years, the old man had contradicted him about everything.

He ought to change his name from Chong Jiuyuan to Chong Jiugang, "Chong the Contrarian"!

"Listen? Of course I'm going to listen!" the old man said.

At his age, tending flowers and vegetables in peace and listening to Shi Feizhe make things up was enough to satisfy him.

A lot of it went against everything he knew, but it made for an entertaining fireside tale.

"My cousin looked at the green Laba Congee, downed a bowl, and smacked his lips. It tasted pretty good—sweet and fragrant, with a hint of grass. It was way better than eating meat and fish. With everyone watching, he had another bowl."

"Bowl after bowl. Who knows how many he drank? His belly was round and full before he finally said, 'It'd be nice to have some pickles with this.'" Shi Feizhe followed the story as he remembered it, making up whatever nonsense came to mind.

"Who eats pickles with Laba Congee? You're making things up again!" the old man said.

"The world's a big place. How do you know people don't eat pickles with Laba Congee? You probably don't even know that some places eat sweet tofu pudding!"

"If it's not sweet, how are you supposed to eat tofu pudding?"

"I..." Shi Feizhe was about to say more when he heard a "knock, knock, knock" at the door.

Shi Feizhe: My cousin's adventure—those were my cousin's own words.