Farewell to the Immortal

Saina cried out, then her eyes shone with startling brightness.

"Pain? If it hurts, that means we're alive!"

"We didn't die? We've been reborn?"

Saina was a village girl, but she'd spent decades with Su Li in her previous life and had heard plenty of stories about transmigration and rebirth from that old rascal.

Her mind was racing now.

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

Saina abruptly sat up. The movement was so sudden that the ill-fitting roughspun collar gaped wide open.

The moonlight fell right inside.

A patch of snow-white skin.

Saina was as thin as a bean sprout now, but her skin really was that pale.

It was the kind of pallor that came from being covered up in clothes all year, never seeing the sun. In the darkness, it was dazzling enough to make a man's eyes swim.

Su Li glanced over without thinking.

Mm.

They were nowhere near as impressive as they'd become later—barely bigger than steamed buns—but the shape... brought back memories.

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

But then she let go.

She even thrust out her barely-there chest on purpose.

"Go on, look. I'll be yours sooner or later anyway." Saina was back to her old self. "You had a whole lifetime to look at me last time. Still not enough?"

Su Li laughed.

Now this was the Saina he knew.

The bold girl who'd sneak into his bed in the middle of the night, using "saving water by bathing together" as an excuse.

"All right." Su Li patted her bottom. "Quit showing off. Hurry up and get me something to eat. I'm starving."

"And don't try to fob me off with that rock-hard bread this time. I want something hot."

At that, Saina immediately hopped off him.

"Wait here!"

"There's half a roast chicken at home. Old Buck's saving it to go with his liquor. I'll go steal it for you!"

With that, the girl turned and ran.

Her thin legs moved fast, but after a couple of steps, she suddenly stopped and glared fiercely back at Su Li.

"Don't you dare run!"

"If you run, I'll... I'll chase you to the ends of the earth with a giant hammer!"

Leaning against the tree roots, Su Li waved a hand.

"I won't."

"I'm sticking with you this time, too."

Reassured, Saina finally ran off, her back as cheerful as a rabbit just let out of its cage.

Su Li watched her disappear, the smile slowly fading from his face.

He touched his abdomen.

The [Sword Spirit Root] was operating on its own.

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

With each breath, a cool current flowed through him.

The hunger remained, but the weakness in his body was fading rapidly, replaced by a fullness of power he'd never felt before.

Was this the joy of cultivating immortality?

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

There was no sword.

But he felt like a sword himself.

Su Li murmured to himself, "I'd planned to see the edge of the world, to raise a little hell in the castles of those noble lords."

"But... I ended up back in this lousy village after all."

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

The land behind Wading Village really was blessed. The grass here always turned green earlier than elsewhere, whether sixty years ago or now.

Su Li sat cross-legged in front of the familiar stone stele, holding a battered wine jug he'd found somewhere.

The words carved into the stele were exactly the same as in his previous life: "The Grave of My Beloved Wife, Saina." Even the strokes and flourishes had the same practiced touch that only Su Li could recognize.

Well, he'd carved the inscription twice, after all.

"Old woman, I suppose we're even now."

Su Li tipped back the jug and took a swig. The harsh liquor rolled down his throat, but it couldn't warm the heart that was growing cold.

Saina had brewed it before she passed. It had been buried beneath the Old Locust Tree for three years, and he'd dug it up just today.

It tasted a little sour, with a hint of earth, but he drank it with relish.

This life had gone by quickly.

Compared with the long, seventy-eight-year stretch of his previous life, these sixty years had gone by in the blink of an eye.

Maybe it was because he'd been so content.

With that whatever-it-was, the [Sword Spirit Root], Su Li's body had become absurdly robust.

He didn't even catch colds or fevers. Even if a hammer weighing hundreds of pounds landed on his foot, he'd be skipping around again the next day.

The backbreaking work of smithing became like embroidery in his hands.

The heavy hammer that Old Buck once had to swing with all his might was as light as a stalk of straw to Su Li.

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

Other blacksmiths sweated like pigs, while white vapor rose from Su Li's body as he worked.

Other people's hoes dulled after two years, but the kitchen knives Su Li casually forged could cut through metal and jade. They became prized possessions that the noble lords in town fought over.

For once, Su Li never lacked money.

But he didn't spend much of it, either.

Aside from buying Saina face cream and the most fashionable silk dresses in the city, he spent the rest on all sorts of strange medicinal herbs and ores, hoping to find a way to advance his cultivation.

The result was ridiculous.

His cultivation hit a bottleneck when he'd just turned thirty.

It was an inexplicable feeling, like a bottle filled to the brim with water: another drop would make it overflow, yet an invisible membrane sealed its neck shut.

The [Sword Spirit Root] was indeed overbearing. It operated automatically twenty-four hours a day, devouring the pitifully scarce spiritual energy between heaven and earth like a greedy man starving to death.

But it was no use.

Su Li knew where the path lay.

If he wanted to, he could leave this lousy village with his abilities and make a name for himself in the wider world.

Perhaps he'd even stumble upon some ruins, soar to new heights, and become an immortal who could truly live forever.

But he didn't leave.

He looked at the stele, then at his own pale, slender hands, not even calloused.

"If I leave, who'll make you braised pork?" Su Li muttered. "You cooked for me for decades in my last life. This time, I'll look after you. Seems fair enough."

Saina remembered her past life, too.

From the very first day of their rebirth, that foolish woman had treasured Su Li like the apple of her eye.

Knowing that Su Li would become powerful one day, she'd only grown more careful.

Afraid he'd look down on her for being a useless village girl, she was always finding new ways to dress herself up. She even imitated the women in the city, barely daring to raise her voice.

Then one night, Su Li couldn't stand seeing her grovel any longer. He pinned her to the bed and gave her a thorough scolding, and only then did she finally return to normal.

They had no children in this life.

It was Saina's greatest heartache.

Su Li had explained more than once, spouting nonsense about how they were "different levels of life" and had a "reproductive barrier," but Saina still blamed herself for being unable to bear a child.

Several times, Su Li woke in the middle of the night to find Saina sitting by the window, wiping away tears with a little cloth tiger a neighbor's child had given her clutched in her hand.

Those moments truly pained him.

The [Sword Spirit Root] had given him the means to live forever, but it had also taken away his right to enjoy the happiness of family life as an ordinary person.

His body was simply too powerful—so powerful that a mortal woman's womb couldn't withstand the force of carrying his child.

"Maybe it's better we didn't have kids." Su Li patted the stele, as if comforting the old woman who'd loved to cry. "That way, we won't have a brat like Xiao Chui, away from home for decades at a time and leaving me to worry about him."

He said that, but who didn't want to hold a warm little bundle in their arms?