“Sun Shuo.” After a long while, Hu Hai finally broke the silence in the side hall, his voice hoarse with tension. “Put this compass ladle away. I don’t want to see it again.”
“…Yes, sir.”
Hu Hai opened his eyes. What met his gaze was no longer the palace chamber with swirling incense and floating curtains, but the bustling noise and chaos of the modern world.
The blazing sunlight was mostly blocked by the large black umbrella overhead, but it still made his body somewhat uncomfortable.
The harsh honking of car horns continued behind him. Hu Hai realized he had actually been standing dazed in the middle of the road and quickly walked a few steps to avoid onto the sidewalk, standing in the shadow of a skyscraper. Passersby noticed the small red bird on his shoulder and the wisps of silver hair visible from under his hood, frequently turning back to look, but nothing more than that. Most people kept their eyes straight ahead, hurrying busily through the streets and alleys. They all had their own lives—at most they would spare a stranger a second glance.
But this kind of society made Hu Hai extraordinarily uncomfortable, making him acutely feel what it meant to be out of place.
If it weren’t for Imperial Brother insisting on living in this city after awakening to continue his career as a doctor, he would definitely have persuaded Imperial Brother to move somewhere isolated from the world.
Hu Hai closed his crimson eyes, thinking of the fragment he had just recalled. But in truth, he could barely remember what Sun Shuo’s face had looked like. His father emperor’s and Zhao Gao’s faces had also become blurred and unclear through the long years. Even Imperial Brother’s original appearance—he could no longer remember it clearly.
Time truly was a terrifying thing, capable of making everything in the world unrecognizable.
Was this persistence of his really worth it?
Imperial Brother had abandoned him, which meant he was no longer needed…
Then what meaning was there for him to continue living in this world?
Hu Hai held his black umbrella, slowly walking deeper into the commercial street.
He decided to make one last effort.
Lu Zigan blinked in astonishment, suspecting that the fellow who had boldly pushed through the door was actually a phantom.
Hu Hai calmly folded his black umbrella and said unhurriedly to the Mute House’s acting shopkeeper, whose mouth was agape with surprise behind the counter, “I want to borrow the Luoshu Nine Stars Compass.”
“How do you know… Ah! No! I don’t have any such compass here!” Lu Zigan touched his nose, lying clumsily.
Hu Hai glanced at the Golden Mask still hanging on the wall, thinking that the boss leaving Mute House to these two unreliable fellows, Lu Zigan and the doctor, was truly a waste of such a treasure. Though he had not left his home for half a year, he could still use the Golden Mask to spy on what had been happening here.
Of course, he had no need to reveal this.
Lu Zigan watched as the silver-haired, red-eyed Hu Hai slowly sat down in front of the counter. Every gesture and movement perfectly embodied what it meant to be an aristocratic young master, making Lu Zigan feel an overwhelming sense of oppressive aura for no reason. This feeling that made even breathing feel constricted made Lu Zigan very uncomfortable. Stealing a glance at Hu Hai, who seemed to know everything, Lu Zigan could only honestly say, “There is indeed such a compass. What do you want to borrow it for? Are you looking for your imperial brother?”
Speaking of this, Lu Zigan paused, choosing his words carefully before saying cautiously, “The doctor has already returned to his own body. Perhaps your imperial brother he…” Lu Zigan didn’t continue, because he noticed Hu Hai’s expression had become extremely ugly, his already bloodless face turning white as paper.
“I know.” Hu Hai was unexpectedly calm. He had suffered alone for half a year, considering every worst-case scenario thoroughly. He had lived without Imperial Brother before, so he just wanted to know the truth and put an end to his hopes.
Lu Zigan spread his hands helplessly, “Although our goals align—we’re both looking for someone—the Luoshu Nine Stars Compass can only be activated once a month, and even then you have to rely on luck. It’s not certain it can traverse back to half a year ago. This month’s auspicious day coincidentally clashed with the doctor’s emergency surgery, so we missed it. If you haven’t changed your mind by next month, we can go together.”
Hu Hai slowly nodded.
“So, leave a contact method? I need to calculate next month’s auspicious day for activation before I can contact you, right?” Lu Zigan was no longer as tense as at the beginning. His gaze swept over Hu Hai from head to toe, thinking this Young Master Hu probably didn’t even have a cell phone.
“No need. I’ll come find you.” Hu Hai took two objects from his pocket and placed them on the counter, saying flatly, “This is payment.”
Lu Zigan’s gaze immediately fixed on them. After a long while, he reached out and put the two objects together.
This was the broken white jade longevity lock.
“Master! Are you sure it’s here?”
Across from the Mute House shop, two figures, one large and one small, were crouched at the base of a wall whispering. The small one was filthy all over, like a little beggar. The commercial street had heavy foot traffic, and passersby would occasionally toss a few coins in front of him. But if anyone shifted their attention to the similarly raggedly dressed, long-haired young man with his head slightly bowed beside the child, they would feel even more sympathetic and might dig into their bags to throw down a few more coins.
Sigh, a trafficked child and a blind, disfigured young man—should they post on social media for a rescue campaign? Look, this young man was even playing with a snake? Must be a street performer? That little white snake looked so cute!
“Master! Master! Are you listening to me?” Tang Yuan had no concept of master-disciple hierarchy, tugging at his master’s ear and nagging dissatisfiedly.
The young man withdrew his hand from the snake basket in front of him and casually lifted his head. In that instant, passersby nearby caught sight of his face, and sharp intakes of breath rose one after another.
Unlike his dirty, soiled clothing, this young man’s face was extremely clean, handsome and distinguished, with long eyebrows and pale skin, as beautiful as an elegant ink wash painting. However, at the center of his brow was a ghastly dark red scar that completely ruined his features, making people sigh with pity. Moreover, his eyes were covered with a black cloth strip, clearly indicating impaired vision—he was blind.
But even such a man, sitting casually cross-legged in the corner against the wall, covered in dust with his long hair trailing on the ground, could absolutely not conceal his extraordinary noble aura. Some people also noticed that the tattered clothing on this young man was actually a strange Daoist robe—a lake-colored Daoist robe whose original color was indiscernible, with crossed collar and wide sleeves, embroidered with the eight trigrams of the I Ching, arranged in some mysterious pattern.
“Your second senior brother isn’t here.” This young Daoist sighed slightly, unable to hide the disappointment on his face. “I told you the day we came down from the mountain wasn’t an auspicious day. I wanted to consult the trigrams again, but you couldn’t wait. Sigh.”
“What?! He’s not here? Are you sure?” Tang Yuan immediately flew into a rage. It hadn’t been easy for them, master and disciple! They had walked for over half a year from the mountains to reach this big city, going through countless hardships—their experiences could rival Xuanzang’s journey to the West for Buddhist scriptures! And now they were telling him the person he wanted to find wasn’t here?
Tang Yuan urgently pressed, “Did you see clearly? Aren’t there two people in that shop? Neither of them is my second senior brother?” Tang Yuan knew that although this makeshift master of his couldn’t open his eyes, he could indeed see. Well, to put it in modern terms, he probably sensed things through spiritual awareness.
“Neither of them.” Stroking the little white snake that had crawled out of the basket and was coiling around his fingertips, the young Daoist was also melancholy. After sensing that the God-Sealing Array imprisoning Zhao Gao had been broken, his first reaction wasn’t to investigate the situation, but to find someone else to shoulder the responsibility. After all, he was naturally lazy and had long lost the passion of his youth. Without much thought, he decided that the one who could take over this mess would naturally be his second disciple.
That’s right—he had always known his second disciple was still alive, but had never let the other party know of his existence.
Tang Yuan irritably ran his hands through his long-uncut hair, grumbling bad-temperedly, “So what do we do now? Tch, I thought I’d see Second Senior Brother and could mooch a big meal!”
“We’ll have to go back. Nothing’s gone wrong for half a year, so probably no accidents will happen. The Heavenly Dao has its own rules of operation.” The young Daoist coughed lightly, irresponsibly indicating he wasn’t going to manage anything.
“You mean… we… return… the same way?”
Tang Yuan forced out each word through gritted teeth, completely devastated. He shouldn’t have held such high hopes for this makeshift master in the first place. Coming to find this second senior brother he’d never met was probably just an attempt to dump some hot potato. Now that he couldn’t dump it, he was simply going to dust off his hands and pretend nothing happened? Let this hot potato fall to the ground with a splat without caring?
Moreover, along this journey, they had basically taken buses segment by segment or walked directly! Even more tragic was that this glutton master ate his way along the road but didn’t bring enough money—truly empty-sleeved! They hadn’t even stayed in hotels! Most of the time they slept under overpasses! And now he was telling him they had to return the same way?!
Tang Yuan felt he had truly boarded a pirate ship. At his age, he should be carefree, carrying a school bag to school every day! Not wandering around with this mentally problematic master!
The young Daoist innocently blinked twice, saying in a very helpless tone, “There’s no choice, Little Tang Yuan. Who knew that in recent decades, doing anything anywhere requires something called an ID card? Can’t move an inch without proper documentation! You think I want to live as a hermit in the mountains? Can’t eat anything there…” The final complaining words gradually lowered under his little disciple’s furious gaze and were swallowed back down.
“Didn’t you transcend the need for food eight hundred years ago?! Why are you still thinking about eating?!” Tang Yuan roared angrily.
Little Tang Yuan’s roaring made Hu Hai, who had just stepped out of the Mute House shop, instinctively glance in this direction, but then he didn’t pay much attention and opened his black umbrella to leave.
After taking just two steps, he suddenly remembered that the young man being grabbed by the collar by the child with a helpless expression seemed somewhat familiar.
Hu Hai turned back, but the corner where there had been two figures, one large and one small, was now completely empty. Even the coins on the ground had been taken away, vanished without a trace.