The Farewell of the Undying

Saina let out a cry, her eyes suddenly shining with a frightening intensity.

"Pain? If it hurts, that means we aren't dead!"

"We didn't die? We were reborn?"

Although Saina was just a village girl, she had spent decades with Su Li and had heard that old rascal tell plenty of stories about transmigration and rebirth.

Her mind raced at lightning speed.

"Su Li! Are we... back to when we first met?"

Saina sat bolt upright, and because of the sudden movement, the collar of her ill-fitting coarse cloth tunic fell open.

The moonlight shone directly inside.

It was a patch of snow-white skin.

Even though Saina was as thin as a bean sprout right now, her skin was genuinely fair.

It was the kind of whiteness that never saw the sun, hidden beneath layers of clothing, and in the darkness of the night, it was enough to make one dizzy.

Su Li instinctively glanced over.

Hmm.

Although the scale was far from what it would become later—barely the size of a small steamed bun—the shape... he felt quite nostalgic.

"What are you looking at!" Saina followed his gaze, looked down, and her face flushed bright red as she hurriedly covered her collar.

But immediately after, she let her hands drop.

She even deliberately puffed out her chest, which didn't have an ounce of meat on it.

"Look all you want, I'm going to be yours sooner or later anyway." Saina's bold spirit returned. "Didn't you look at it for a lifetime in our last life and still not get enough?"

Su Li laughed.

This was the Saina he knew.

The fierce girl who dared to sneak into his bed in the middle of the night and dared to use saving water as an excuse to bathe with him.

"Alright." Su Li patted her bottom. "Stop making a scene here. Hurry up and get me something to eat. I'm starving to death."

"Don't try to fool me with that rock-hard bread this time; I want something hot."

Hearing this, Saina immediately jumped off Su Li.

"Wait right there!"

"There's half a roast chicken left at home that Old Buck was saving for his wine. I'll go steal it for you right now!"

With that, the girl turned and ran.

Her thin legs moved with incredible speed, but after a few steps, she suddenly stopped and turned back to glare fiercely at Su Li.

"You aren't allowed to run away!"

"If you dare to run, I will... I will chase you to the ends of the earth with a giant iron hammer!"

Su Li leaned against the tree root and waved his hand.

"I won't run."

"In this life, I'm still sticking with you."

Having received his promise, Saina ran off, fully satisfied. Her retreating figure was as joyful as a rabbit just released from its cage.

Su Li watched the direction she disappeared in, the smile on his face slowly fading.

He touched his abdomen.

[Sword Spirit Root] was operating automatically.

The invisible particles in the surrounding air were rushing into his body like iron filings drawn to a magnet.

Every breath was accompanied by a cool current flowing through his entire body.

Although the hunger remained, the weakness in his body was rapidly fading, replaced by a sense of overflowing power he had never felt before.

Is this the joy of a cultivator?

Su Li reached out and clenched his hand in the empty air.

There was no sword.

But he felt as if he were a sword himself.

"I originally wanted to see the end of this world and run wild in the castles of those noble lords," Su Li muttered to himself.

"In the end... I still returned to this broken village."

In the blink of an eye, another sixty years had passed.

The land behind Wading Village was indeed blessed.

Whether it was sixty years ago or now, the grass here always turned green earlier than anywhere else.

Su Li sat cross-legged in front of that familiar stone tablet, holding a worn-out wine pot he had scavenged from somewhere.

The words carved into the tombstone were exactly the same as in his previous life: Beloved Wife Saina's Grave. Even the strokes and flourishes possessed a familiar dexterity that only Su Li could recognize.

It made sense, after all; he had carved this epitaph twice now.

"Old woman, I suppose we're even this time."

Su Li tilted his head back and took a swig of wine. The spicy liquid rolled down his throat, yet it couldn't warm the chill settling in his heart.

This wine had been brewed by Saina before she passed, buried under the old locust tree for three years, and only dug up today.

It tasted a bit sour and carried a hint of earthy musk, but he drank it with great relish.

This life had passed by quite quickly.

Compared to the long, seventy-eight-year tug-of-war of his previous life, these sixty years felt like nothing more than a nap.

Perhaps it was because life had been too smooth.

With that "Sword Spirit Root" or whatever it was called, Su Li's constitution was absurdly robust.

Forget about colds or fevers; even if he smashed his foot with a several-hundred-pound iron hammer, he would be jumping around again by the next day.

The backbreaking labor of blacksmithing had become as easy as embroidery in his hands.

The heavy hammer that once required Old Buck to swing with all his might felt as light as a straw in his grip.

The villagers all said the Su Family Smithy had produced a freak of nature.

While others sweated buckets while smithing, Su Li only emitted wisps of white steam.

The hoes others forged would lose their edge in two years, but the kitchen knives Su Li knocked out casually could cut through metal and jade, becoming treasures that the noble lords in town fought tooth and nail to acquire.

In this life, Su Li had never truly lacked money.

But he hadn't spent much of it, either.

Aside from buying Saina that snow-cream and the trendiest silk dresses from the city, he exchanged all the remaining money for strange herbs and ores, hoping to see if he could push his cultivation a little further.

The result was ridiculous.

Just as he turned thirty, the energy within his body hit a wall.

It was a very mystical sensation. It felt like a bottle filled to the brim with water; even a single drop more would cause it to overflow, yet the mouth of the bottle was sealed by an invisible membrane.

The [Sword Spirit Root] was indeed overbearing, operating automatically twenty-four hours a day, devouring the meager spiritual energy of this world like a greedy, starving ghost.

But it was useless.

Su Li knew where the path lay.

If he wanted to, with his abilities, he could walk out of this broken village and venture into the outside world, where he would surely make a name for himself.

He might even stumble upon some ruins and soar to the heavens, truly becoming one of those immortal beings who lived for eons.

But he didn't leave.

He looked at the tombstone, then at his own fair, slender hands, which didn't even have a single callus.

"If I left, who would make red-braised pork for you?" Su Li muttered. "I let you cook for me for decades in the last life; it's only fair I serve you in this one."

Saina had her memories.

From the very first day she was reborn, this silly woman had guarded Su Li like the apple of her eye.

Knowing that Su Li would eventually possess great power, she became even more cautious.

Afraid that Su Li would look down on her for being a useless village girl, she spent every day dressing herself up and learning to act like the women in the city, not even daring to speak loudly.

It wasn't until one night, when Su Li could no longer stand her submissive act and pinned her to the bed to give her a good "lesson," that she finally returned to normal.

They had no children in this life.

This was Saina's greatest heartache.

Even though Su Li had explained it to her long ago, spouting nonsense about "different levels of life" and "reproductive isolation," Saina still felt it was her own womb that was at fault.

There were several times when Su Li would wake up in the middle of the night to find Saina sitting by the windowsill, wiping away tears while clutching a small cloth tiger given to her by the neighbor's child.

At that moment, Su Li truly felt a pang in his heart.

While this [Sword Spirit Root] had given him the capital for immortality, it had also stripped him of the right to enjoy the simple family joys of an ordinary person.

His body was too strong—so strong that a mortal womb simply couldn't withstand the gestation of that power.

"It's better without kids, anyway." Su Li patted the tombstone as if coaxing that tearful old woman. "It saves us from raising a brat like Xiao Chui, who doesn't come home for decades and leaves me worrying."

That was what he said, but who in their heart didn't want a warm little bundle to hold?