Go Back and Take a Look

I kind of miss the village chief and the others. I wonder how they're doing now?

Feng Wuhen had often eaten hodgepodge stew in Green Mountain Village. When he was little, he often ate from a hundred households—one bite from this family, one bite from that. Back then, he would pile together all the food the villagers gave him, mix it up, and eat it.

It had not tasted very good then. Once he was four or five, he asked the village chief to build a stove in his thatched hut. From then on, whenever he ate, he would pour everything into a pot and cook it again.

Later, when he was seven or eight, he followed someone to town. With those eyes of his, he saw a man's future and gave him a hand.

That man was the owner of a restaurant. When he learned that Feng Wuhen was an orphan without parents, his heart softened, and he let him work at his establishment.

He paid him fifty copper coins a month, provided lunch, and packed him a large bundle of leftovers every day to take home. Though they were called leftovers, they were really scraps from the kitchen—radishes, cabbage, eggplants, green beans, and occasionally meat that customers had only picked at with a few chopsticks.

Those scraps could not make a full dish if stir-fried separately, so Feng Wuhen tossed them all together and stir-fried them. Surprisingly, they tasted all right, and he ate that way for many years.

"Senior Brother, once this matter is over, can I go back and take a look at the place where I used to live?"

Qin Xiaoran and the others had already heard his inner thoughts. "Of course you can. Junior Brother Shen, Junior Sister Meng, do you want to go home and take a look too?"

Neither Shen Ziheng nor Meng Hongying wanted to. They had only been away from home for a short while and had not even enjoyed many carefree days yet. They did not want to go back.

Feng Wuhen was different from them. He did not have a good family background, and he had never cultivated before. It had taken him more than a year to travel from a small mountain village to Mount Great Spring, and by now, he had been away from that little village for nearly two years.

"We're not going back. We only left a few months ago and haven't even enjoyed a few days of freedom yet. We don't want to go back!"

Meng Hongying said this, and Shen Ziheng felt the same way. They had only been away from home for a few months; they did not miss it that much yet.

"Since neither of you wants to go back, why don't we accompany Junior Brother Feng to take a look? I happen to want to see what kind of place could raise someone as remarkable as Junior Brother Feng."

Qin Xiaoran's words made Feng Wuhen rather embarrassed. Mo Qingran had eaten more or less his fill and wiped his mouth. "I'm going too. I've been locked up for so long that I want to go out and wander around."

Xia Jingcheng and Hua Yichen exchanged a glance. "The two of us won't be going. Our disciples didn't contribute much to this matter, so it doesn't count as completing their training.

"So, we plan to take them somewhere else for further training and won't be going with you."

Hua Yichen continued Xia Jingcheng's words. "I sent a message to those three just now. They've notified the elders of the Dao One Sect, but since they don't know anyone on Mount Grand Mystery, they didn't notify anyone there.

"If you're in a hurry, you can set out after eating. Leave the rest to us."

Qin Xiaoran knew the two of them well and had complete confidence in how they handled things, so he agreed at once.

"Then we'll trouble you with everything afterward. We'll leave after we finish eating."

At the thought that he would soon be able to return, Feng Wuhen became a little excited and began figuring out what to bring back.

We're going back, so I'll have to go into the city and buy some things. What should I get?

Popular fabrics, wine, pastries, brown sugar, rock sugar... and some rouge and cosmetics for Sister Qiu next door...

Bing Ling's head began to ache as he listened to Feng Wuhen's mental list of things to buy. "I'm full. It's light out now, so the market should be open. Let's go buy some things to bring along. We can't exactly visit Junior Brother's hometown empty-handed."

Shen Ziheng and the others all rose. After bidding farewell to Xia Jingcheng and Hua Yichen, the martial siblings used their movement techniques to arrive at the market.

Meng Hongying and Qin Leyan felt that this group of men knew nothing about women's tastes, so they sent them off to buy food and drinks. They would handle the fabrics, jeweled hairpins, rouge, and cosmetics meant for the female elders.

Feng Wuhen and the others bought all kinds of pastries, as well as rock sugar and brown sugar, along with many eggs.

They had originally wanted to buy some chicks to bring back for the aunties to raise, but storage rings could not hold living things, and they did not know how to care for them. They decided to buy them in the town over there instead.

They then bought oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea. After having lunch in Radiant Moon City, they set out. The group traveled by flying boat for eleven days before arriving at the city closest to Green Mountain Village.

Feng Wuhen looked up at the familiar city gates, then stepped inside. He bought some local specialties there, as well as many chicks, which he placed aboard the flying boat.

He then led Shen Ziheng and the others toward the small mountain village where he had lived. They arrived at dusk. They did not dare fly the boat directly into the village for fear of frightening the villagers, so they stopped three li outside it.

Meanwhile, in the small mountain village, the villagers had just finished dinner and were gathered at the village entrance, chatting about this family's affairs and that family's gossip. As they talked, the subject turned to Feng Wuhen.

Auntie Zhang, who lived behind Feng Wuhen, spoke wistfully. "Little Feng has been gone for nearly two years now, hasn't he? There hasn't been a single word from him all this time. I wonder how he's doing. Did he successfully enter an immortal sect?"

When Auntie Cao, her good sister of several decades, heard her worrying over Feng Wuhen, she patted the back of her rough hand and comforted her. "Maybe he hasn't reached the place yet. The immortal sect Little Feng wanted to join is terribly far from here. He still had to earn travel expenses along the way, so he probably hasn't arrived yet!

"As for the other thing you're worried about, Little Feng is such a clever boy. He'll definitely be able to enter an immortal sect. Have you forgotten how that boy first appeared in our village?"

At Auntie Cao's words, Auntie Zhang recalled what had happened when Feng Wuhen first appeared in their village. In all her long life, she had only ever seen one such storm.

The wind had been so fierce that trees were uprooted, and even their houses had collapsed. Fortunately, the village chief had led them into a cave ahead of time to hide, or they would have lost their lives.

After everything ended, when they emerged from the cave and returned to the village to take a look, they heard a baby crying. The whole village followed the sound and found a wailing child.

All around him were trees that had been blown down by the wind. Those trees had been scattered into a miserable mess, yet that baby had somehow remained completely unharmed.

They had found it strange at the time. Some even believed the child was inauspicious and wanted to abandon him or drown him.

The village chief had stopped them. He said that since the child had survived such a fierce wind unscathed, Heaven clearly wanted him to live. How could they go against Heaven's will? So they kept the baby and named him Feng Wuhen.