Taking her home

"Na'er?"

Tang Wulin repeated the name, finding it lovely to hear.

"Your name is really pretty." As he spoke, a smile spread across his face without him realizing it. "Your voice is pretty, too."

Na'er looked at him, a trace of frightened moisture still lingering in her large purple eyes. Yet at his words, she gently pressed her lips together without speaking.

Tang Wulin didn't mind.

To him, it was perfectly normal not to feel like talking after what had just happened. Besides, the little girl before him, with her silver hair and purple eyes, was different from every other child he had ever met. She seemed so quiet and so light that, standing there, she almost didn't feel real.

"Where are your mom and dad?" Tang Wulin asked. "Where's your home? I'll take you back."

Na'er lowered her head and gently shook it.

Tang Wulin paused. Before he could ask another question, a decidedly ill-timed sound suddenly rang out.

"Grrr—"

Tang Wulin instinctively looked down at his own stomach.

It wasn't him.

When he looked up again, he saw that Na'er's little face had flushed slightly. Though dust still clung to her face, the embarrassment shone clearly in her eyes.

"Are you hungry?" Tang Wulin understood at once.

He was hungry himself, and hearing Na'er's stomach growl immediately gave him the warm feeling of having found a companion. Having just rescued someone, the little man was also brimming with a sense of responsibility. Almost without thinking, he took Na'er's hand.

"Come on, I'll take you home with me!" he declared with complete confidence. "My mom's cooking is delicious. If you haven't found your family yet, you can come to my house and have something to eat first."

Na'er gave a slight start when he took her hand.

Her hand was cool and soft. Resting in Tang Wulin's palm, it even eased the faint, elusive burning deep within his right hand a little. Tang Wulin didn't notice this himself. He simply assumed she was so cold because she had just been frightened.

"Don't be scared." As he walked, he remembered to turn back and smile at her. "My house is just up ahead. It's really close."

Na'er raised her head and watched him quietly.

From her angle, she could only see the little boy's profile. Dust from his earlier fall still clung to his face, his temple was slightly red, and his clothes were disheveled. Yet his eyes were bright, as though the image of him holding his little black hammer before the bad men had yet to fade completely.

She watched him for a long while before giving a soft "Mm."

Hearing her agree, Tang Wulin grew even happier and led her briskly toward home.

"Mom, I'm back!"

Before he even reached the door, Tang Wulin had already raised his voice to call out.

The courtyard gate soon opened, and Lang Yue's voice carried a hint of exasperation. "Honestly, keep your voice down. Don't disturb the neighbors... huh?"

Before she finished speaking, she got a clear look at her son.

He was covered in dust, his cuffs were dirty, and red marks remained on his face. No matter how she looked at him, he didn't seem like a child who had come straight home after behaving himself in class. Even more startling was the little girl with silver hair and purple eyes whose hand he held.

"How did you get yourself into this state?" Lang Yue frowned and hurried over. "Were you fighting with someone at school?"

"No, no!" Tang Wulin hastily shook his head and launched into a rapid explanation. "Mom, I ran into some bad men! They wanted to take Na'er away, so I stopped them. They kicked me, too, but I'm fine. Then I showed them my Martial Soul and told them I was in the Soul Master class, and they didn't dare do anything..."

He spoke faster and faster, gesturing with his hands as he vividly recounted what had happened in the street.

The more Lang Yue heard, the paler she became.

As soon as Tang Wulin finished, she practically dragged him into the house, bringing Na'er in along with him, then slammed the door shut with a bang.

"You foolish child!" Her voice was noticeably trembling. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? You're only six! How could you rush in all by yourself?"

Startled by his mother, Tang Wulin first shrank back, then raised his head again, looking somewhat defiant.

"But they were bad men," he said earnestly. "Dad said a man has to be brave. He can't just stand by and watch bad people bully others."

Looking into her son's bright, stubborn black eyes, Lang Yue suddenly couldn't voice the reproach that had been on the tip of her tongue.

Had he been wrong?

Of course not.

But precisely because he hadn't been wrong, she felt all the more frightened afterward as his mother.

She drew a soft breath, suppressed the panic in her heart, and crouched down to look at Na'er, who had been standing quietly beside them all this time.

"Your name is Na'er, right?" Lang Yue asked gently. "Where are your mom and dad? Where do you live?"

Na'er kept her head lowered. Just as before, she only shook it gently without speaking.

Lang Yue looked at her dusty clothes, worn and old, then at her equally grubby son beside her. In the end, her heart softened.

"All right." She sighed. "Let's get you both cleaned up first."

She first sent Tang Wulin to wash his face and hands, then wiped the dust off Na'er and dressed her in some reasonably clean little clothes from when Tang Wulin was younger. Once everything was taken care of and they sat down at the dining table, Tang Wulin couldn't help widening his eyes.

"Wow—"

"Na'er, you're so pretty!"

This time, his admiration was completely sincere.

Once washed clean, Na'er looked like an entirely different person. Her short silver hair lay softly against the sides of her face, her skin was as white as a freshly peeled lychee, and her features were as delicate as a little porcelain doll's. Tang Wulin's clothes were a little too big for her, with the cuffs extending past her hands, but that only made her seem even smaller, quiet and endearing.

Na'er looked up at him, then quickly lowered her head again, the tips of her ears turning slightly red.

Lang Yue brought over two plates of cookies and two cups of hot milk, placing them before the children.

"Have something to tide you over," she said. "Dinner won't be ready for a while."

Tang Wulin was already quite hungry, but this time, he was clearly more curious about Na'er. He stole glances at her as he ate his cookies.

And Na'er was surprisingly quick at eating.

Unlike Tang Wulin, she didn't talk while she ate. She simply kept her head down and ate quietly, but before long, her cookies and milk were all gone.

Then her gaze involuntarily drifted to Tang Wulin's plate.

Tang Wulin paused, then pushed his own plate toward her.

"Here."

Na'er looked at him without immediately taking it.

"It's okay. Go ahead," Tang Wulin said with a cheerful smile. "I ate loads at lunch. Besides, I'm a boy. Being hungry for a little while won't hurt me."

Na'er hesitated, but in the end, she couldn't resist the lure of the cookies. "Thank you," she said softly.

The words were very quiet, but Tang Wulin heard them right away.

"You can talk!" His eyes lit up, as though he had discovered something especially worth celebrating.

Na'er looked at him without answering, but the corners of her mouth seemed to move ever so slightly.

Lang Yue sat down then as well, making her voice as gentle as possible. "Na'er, do you know where your home is? Or do you remember your mom's and dad's names?"

Na'er shook her head.

"Do you remember any way to contact your family? Even a single number would do."

Again, she shook her head.

Lang Yue frowned slightly and asked, "Then how old are you?"

This time, Na'er finally spoke.

"Five and a half."

"Wow!" Tang Wulin immediately straightened his back and announced proudly, "Then I'm your big brother! I'm already six!"

Lang Yue gave him an exasperated glare, but didn't interrupt him.

She considered it for a moment and finally made her decision.

"Here's what we'll do." She stood up. "I'll take Na'er to the Administrative Officer first and see whether we can find any records of her family. If we can, that would be best. If not, we'll think of something else."

At that, she turned to her son.

"You stay home and behave. No running off, understand?"

"Okay..." Tang Wulin had wanted to go along, but faced with his mother's expression, which left no room for discussion, he could only obediently nod.

Yet as he watched Na'er stand up and follow his mother outside, a faint reluctance to part with her suddenly rose in his heart for reasons he couldn't explain.

It felt as though, once she left, she might not come back.

The courtyard gate closed, and the house fell quiet at once.

Tang Wulin stood where he was for a while before slowly returning to his little room.

He had intended to wait for his mother to return and hear how things had gone. But after sitting down, he couldn't help recalling what his teacher had taught him that afternoon.

Meditation.

Sensing Soul Power.

Sensing his Martial Soul.

Then slowly drawing closer to them.

Tang Wulin thought for a moment, then simply climbed onto his bed and sat cross-legged.

There was nothing to do right now anyway. He might as well give it a try.

He closed his eyes and slowly quieted himself.

Unlike that afternoon at the academy, his room was very quiet this time. There were no classmates talking outside, nor any footsteps from a teacher walking back and forth. The only sound in the room was his own breathing, one breath after another, gradually growing steady.

Before long, that familiar feeling appeared again.

First came a faint warmth.

Then came a sense of heaviness slowly rising from deep within his body.

Tang Wulin didn't rush to "grasp" anything as he had that afternoon. Instead, following the method Lin Ximeng had taught him, he first sensed his breathing and the rhythm of his body.

Slowly, his consciousness seemed to sink into a stretch of darkness.

Within that darkness, he "saw" his Martial Soul.

The little black hammer floated quietly there, still short, blunt, and pitch-black, without any dazzling radiance. Yet in the world of his consciousness, it was even harder to ignore than in reality.

Because it was so heavy.

It wasn't mere weight. It was like a little mountain compressed to its utmost limit, or a meteor that had fallen from beyond the heavens, only to be forcibly pinned in place. It hovered silently, while exceedingly faint currents of golden heat churned around it. Deeper still, a faint trace of blue-gold markings slowly faded from sight.

Tang Wulin couldn't understand any of this.

But instinctively, he felt that as long as he drew close to that hammer, he would grow calm.

So he tried to bring his consciousness closer, little by little.

The next moment, countless exceedingly fine points of light seemed to gather silently toward him from all around.

Those points of light were sparse and faint, nothing like the magnificent surges that accompanied powerful figures cultivating in stories. Yet they were steady, merging into his body bit by bit before sinking into the area around the black hammer. The small amount of Soul Power within him, weak to begin with, slowly began to circulate as well.

It all happened very slowly.

Yet it was perfectly clear.

And just like that, Tang Wulin truly sank into his own meditation for the first time.