Birth

Chapter 10: Emergence

Here, mountains surrounded them on all sides, with a valley in the middle. The cliffs facing the valley were as steep and sheer as if they had been carved with a knife. It was difficult to reach the valley from above; the only way in or out was through an underground cave in front of it. A small river flowed out of the cave. Following its bed upstream and passing through a narrow opening that could admit only one person at a time brought you into the valley where Xia Xue lived.

From the outside, the place already looked like a paradise cut off from the world. Once inside, it felt even more so. The valley held a flat stretch of land a little over thirty zhang square, where green grass flourished, flowers bloomed in profusion, and colorful butterflies flitted about. In the center stood four small wooden houses in a row, with a stream flowing past them. A line of weeping willows grew beside the water. If a poet came here and saw such a sight, inspiration might strike, and he could well compose a masterpiece that would be passed down through the ages. Chu Xiaotian, however, felt no such thing. Farther upstream to the north lay a small pool, three zhang square. A waterfall about one zhang wide plunged from the mountaintop into the pool, sending up a broad veil of mist.

"What a wonderful place! This really is a paradise hidden away from the world!" Chu Xiaotian exclaimed, gazing at the valley before him in amazement.

In the world he had lived in before, a place like this existed only in legends. Yet the first thing he had seen here was this very paradise. He couldn't help but marvel at how wonderful this world really was.

"Of course! I found this place when I was little. Nobody else knows about it. There are little silver fish in that pool, and I grew up eating them!" Xia Xue said with a proud grin, lifting her chin at Chu Xiaotian's words.

"Xia Xue, you're amazing. You even found a place this wonderful! I've decided to stick with you from now on. I'm sure I'll have plenty to eat and drink!" Chu Xiaotian gave her a thumbs-up and heaped on another round of praise.

From their earlier conversation, he knew that Xia Xue was an orphan. From the time she could remember until she met her master, she had lived alone for a full ten years—and she had been only five when it began. For a little girl of five to survive on her own was truly remarkable. Of course, the valley deserved most of the credit. If it hadn't provided her with shelter from wild beasts, and if the pool hadn't held silver fish to fill her stomach, she might have starved to death in the mountains or ended up as a wild animal's dinner.

"Hee-hee, you're funny. But you won't get anything out of following me. Of these four rooms, the one in the middle is my alchemy room. The room to its left is the kitchen, and the one to its right is mine. You can have the room to the kitchen's left. Remember, don't even think about sneaking in without my permission. My cultivation is higher than yours, and I'm an Alchemist. In a one-on-one fight, you're no match for me," Xia Xue said, giggling behind her hand as she pointed at the four wooden houses in the middle of the valley.

She wasn't bragging. Although she had been completely outmatched when fighting a pack of wolves, Chu Xiaotian—a fellow who knew nothing and relied on brute strength—really wouldn't be her match one-on-one.

"Come on, Xia Xue. What kind of person do you take me for? How could I ever do something like that?" Chu Xiaotian looked deeply aggrieved, as if he had suffered a terrible injustice. Whether he had actually entertained the thought was something only he knew.

"Hee-hee, my master said all men are like that. Don't bother denying it. The more you protest, the guiltier you sound." Xia Xue gave Chu Xiaotian a radiant smile. The glint in her eyes left him so frustrated he couldn't find a word to say.

All he could do was rub his nose in embarrassment and fall silent. Xia Xue had nothing more to say either, and they fell into silence, their eyes wandering aimlessly around the place. It didn't last long, though. Chu Xiaotian's stomach broke it with a loud rumble, making Xia Xue cover her mouth and giggle again.

"Uh, I'll go find something to eat." Chu Xiaotian wasn't particularly thick-skinned. His face reddened slightly, and after tossing out those words, he dashed toward the pool at the north end of the valley.

According to Xia Xue, there were fish in the pool. He had eaten wild fruit for so many days that his mouth had gone completely bland. Now that fish were available, he'd have to be out of his mind to go looking for more fruit.

The fish here weren't very big, only about half a chi long. In roughly a quarter of an hour, Chu Xiaotian caught seven. After cleaning them and removing their entrails, he made a wooden rack, propped up the fish, and began roasting them beside the pool.

When he was little, Chu Xiaotian had often gone into the mountains with a slingshot to shoot sparrows and other small birds to roast and eat. Cooking fish was no great challenge. Before long, the tempting aroma of roasted fish drifted from the wooden rack, making both of them swallow hungrily. After sprinkling on various seasonings he'd gotten from Xia Xue, they began to enjoy their feast. These fish tasted better than any Chu Xiaotian had ever eaten. Their flesh was sweet and tender, and every bite filled his mouth with the rich aroma of fish.

Chu Xiaotian wolfed his food down. In just a few bites, he had polished off a half-chi-long fish. As for Xia Xue, she had always cooked fish in soup and had never tried roasting it. Her first taste of such delicious grilled fish earned Chu Xiaotian lavish praise, and he nearly floated with pride.

Of the seven fish Chu Xiaotian had caught, he devoured five, while Xia Xue, who had a small appetite, stopped after two. After thoroughly enjoying his first big meal in this world, Chu Xiaotian wiped his mouth, stretched, and lay down on the ground to chat with Xia Xue. Most of their conversation revolved around this world.

Xia Xue answered all the questions of her "wild man" of a savior, who had emerged from the deep mountains, and Chu Xiaotian learned a great deal about the world. Time flew by, and before they knew it, dusk was settling in. Night would soon fall. After roasting a few more fish for dinner, Chu Xiaotian made an excuse and left the valley. Xia Xue went into her own room to begin cultivating. It was something she did every day: during daylight, she usually gathered herbs or made pills, and at night she cultivated the technique her master had taught her.

When dawn broke the next day, Xia Xue woke from her sleep. Before she even opened her eyes, she caught the aroma of roasted meat. Smiling faintly, she stepped out of her room and saw Chu Xiaotian sitting where they had roasted fish the day before, cooking a rabbit. He had killed it that morning with a single blow from a stick; it wasn't one of the animals whose blood he had sucked dry the night before. Xia Xue had asked him about his disappearance the previous night, but he had casually fobbed her off with an excuse, so she hadn't pressed him.

After sharing a meal of rabbit and tidying up, the two left the valley and headed out of the mountains. Xia Xue had run out of herbs to make pills with. She had planned to gather some in the next couple of days, but the battle against the pack of wolves the previous day had left her badly wounded. Although her pills had kept the injuries from becoming too serious, she still couldn't go into the mountains to gather herbs for the next couple of days.

So Xia Xue decided to take Chu Xiaotian to a nearby town to show him around and see if there was anywhere he could learn a cultivation technique. Her valley was only half an hour from the nearest town, called Greenwood Town. According to Xia Xue, the town had a Mad Blade Martial Hall, whose master was a powerful fighter named Ba Dao. He was at the peak of the Pulse-Opening Realm, just one step away from entering the Sea-Opening Realm. If Chu Xiaotian could join the Mad Blade Martial Hall, he wouldn't have to worry about finding a cultivation technique.

One was a stunning beauty dressed in flowing white, while the other was a man in animal skins with wild hair and a scraggly beard. No matter how you looked at it, they made a classic beauty-and-the-beast pair. The moment they stepped into Greenwood Town, countless people turned to stare.

"Hey, isn't that Miss Xia Xue? Wasn't she always alone? When did she pick up a wild man?"

"I'm handsome and dashing, and when I said I wanted to follow Miss Xia, she turned me down. Now she lets a kid who looks like a wild man follow her around. That's just infuriating!"

"That fellow doesn't look like much of a fighter. I really wonder why Miss Xia would let him tag along."

"..."

Their arrival drew a crowd of stares, along with a flurry of hushed whispers. It also showed that Xia Xue was quite popular in this little town. Besides her remarkable beauty, there was another important reason: she was an Alchemist. Across the continent, an Alchemist was a symbol of high status and was bound to attract plenty of followers. Xia Xue was only a first-tier Alchemist, but she was still capable of refining pills. And no matter what tier they were, pills earned people's respect throughout the continent. Quite a few people had previously approached her with all sorts of intentions, asking to follow her, but she had turned them all down.

Now, seeing Xia Xue accompanied by a fellow who looked like a wild man and didn't seem like a fighter at all, these people couldn't help feeling resentful.