"You little brat, that's enough."
A dry, aged voice came from deep within the withered vine.
It was terribly weak, tinged with the anger of someone forcibly choked awake.
"Are you trying to drown me?"
Shi Hou stopped squeezing the leeks.
He lowered his head and looked at the pool of vivid green juice by his feet, glowing with an eerie fluorescence.
Then he looked up at the dry, yellowing old vine before him.
The pile of rubble had been soaked into a swamp by the leek juice. The thick green liquid submerged the old vine's roots and was seeping upward along his stem.
The edges of several curled, yellowing leaves trembled slightly.
"You can talk?" Shi Hou crouched down.
"No kidding."
The old vine's voice was a little stronger than before, but still hoarse and dry.
"I've lived for countless years. Why wouldn't I be able to talk?"
Shi Hou studied the sickly Gourd Vine before him.
He had imagined plenty of possibilities, but "waking up cursing after being doused with the juice of twenty-odd handfuls of leeks" was decidedly beyond his expectations.
"All right, as long as you can talk."
Shi Hou tossed the leeks in his hand into the pot for storage and clapped the green stains off his hands. "What's wrong with that body of yours, exactly?"
"What's wrong?"
The old vine's voice carried bitter self-mockery.
"I'm dying. Is that clear enough for you?"
Wind swept across the yellow, barren Gobi, rustling the foxtail grass on the courtyard's ruined walls.
The old vine's tone suddenly grew calm.
"My lifespan is nearly spent. The oil has run dry, and the lamp is guttering out. Life ends in decay. Such is the cycle of the Heavenly Dao. There's nothing to resent."
"But that stuff you poured over me,