As the morning sun rose, its light scattered golden flecks across the distant sea. The diligent Ju Ying people had already begun their daily routines. Everything seemed normal, except for the strange white-clad girl who had suddenly appeared in the village.
Lei Xiuyuan followed a few villagers for a while before spotting her. The girl stood by the well, nervously greeting every passing villager with her newly learned foreign phrases: “Hello, have you eaten? Hello, have you eaten?”
News of her “miracle” from yesterday had spread throughout the village overnight. Now, everyone regarded her with a mix of awe and caution. Though still wary, their hostility had vanished. Those she greeted reacted first with fear, then bewilderment, before silently stepping back. No one knew how to deal with her.
Suddenly, Li Fei caught sight of Lei Xiuyuan in the distance. He stood with his hair loose and clothes disheveled, arms folded, watching her expressionlessly. She hurriedly greeted him with a smile: “You eat, okay?”
She had made a mistake! The villagers around her couldn’t tolerate such an error and began to hiss disapprovingly. Li Fei looked around in confusion, but everyone avoided her gaze. Suddenly, Lei Xiuyuan said something, and the villagers respectfully dispersed to attend to their farm work, no longer subjecting her to their merciless stares.
Lei Xiuyuan slowly approached Li Fei. When she looked at him, her eyes shone brighter than ever, yet differently from how the villagers gazed at him. Had she just woken up and rushed down here? The crystal beads by her ears swayed precariously, and one of her sashes was untied. On anyone else, such dishevelment might invite inappropriate thoughts, but on her, it merely looked endearing.
He glanced at her shoulder, noticing that the shape-shifting nine-tailed fox wasn’t perched there today. She was surprisingly brave to come alone.
“The well is an important source of drinking water for the villagers,” Lei Xiuyuan said as he reached her side. “With you standing here, others are afraid to draw water.”
What did he just say? Li Fei looked at him in confusion. She never imagined there would be a time when she and Lei Xiuyuan couldn’t understand each other. Why could she remember the foreign language but forget her native tongue?!
“…What did you say?” She forced a laugh. Seeing Lei Xiuyuan silently staring at her, she exclaimed, “Don’t tell me you really can’t understand me?”
Lei Xiuyuan noticed her leaning closer, her poorly fastened robe revealing a glimpse of her jade-like skin below her neck. He averted his gaze and turned to leave, but she suddenly grabbed his sleeve, pulling half of his outer robe off.
“Xiuyuan, wait!” Li Fei instinctively reached for him as she used to. “You must have many internal injuries again, and that horn… we need to heal it quickly…”
Before she could finish, he threw off her hand. She was startled to see Lei Xiuyuan’s cold gaze—of course, in her excitement, she had forgotten that he had lost all memory of her.
Li Fei slowly withdrew her hand and smiled at him. “If you feel unwell, just tell me. Don’t worry, I’m clever. I’ll learn the local language in no time.”
Lei Xiuyuan remained silent and quickly left her side.
Li Fei watched his retreating figure silently. After a while, a gust of wind brought the thumb-sized Ri Yan to her shoulder. Yawning loudly, it said, “Well? Got the cold shoulder again?”
Li Fei shrugged. “It’s not too bad.”
Perhaps due to the language barrier, she hadn’t experienced his usual sharp retorts. But thinking carefully, since meeting Lei Xiuyuan, he had never looked at her with such cold eyes before. She had always been treated gently, even when they argued at the academy, his gaze wasn’t like this.
She used to worry whether Lei Xiuyuan liked her or not. Compared to now, his eyes back then were practically on fire.
Her heart was still caught in that moment amidst the heavenly thunder and raging fire, where that stubborn boy had won victory through unflinching sacrifice. If she could, she would hold him tight, even if it gave him goosebumps. She would say anything, do anything, no matter how embarrassing.
But unknowingly, time had changed everything. Now she faced a stranger who had forgotten the past. She could only tuck away her passionate feelings and approach him like a wary cat, carefully, as if meeting for the first time, hoping he would fall for her again, praying he would remember everything.
Ri Yan absent-mindedly licked its beloved fur and said, “What if he never remembers? Will you waste your whole life here? If you ask me, just leave him be. What’s meant to be remembered will be remembered. Let’s go explore other places. The world beyond the sea is vast. What’s the point of being stuck on this island full of fools?”
Li Fei frowned. “Stop being so negative! I’m trying my best to seduce him!”
“Seduce? You?” Ri Yan laughed mercilessly. “You don’t have the talent for that. Give it up!”
“Then what should I do?” Li Fei took a deep breath. “What can I do? I won’t leave.”
Seeing her eyes reddening, Ri Yan inwardly sighed. Although she had always been anxious about her identity and later suffered when it was exposed, her love life had been relatively smooth sailing. That brat Lei Xiuyuan had never mistreated her, even Ri Yan had to admit that. So now, at the slightest hardship, she was ready to cry.
It deliberately snorted and sneered, “Even if you stick to him for a hundred years, you’ll just be a hundred-year-old leech! Do you call this seduction? He’d have to be crazy to like you!”
Li Fei looked at it helplessly. “Then what should I do? Ri Yan, you’re a spirit. Do you understand these things?”
Ri Yan immediately flew into a rage, jumping up with a squeak. “I’m done with you! Figure it out yourself! I find all this men and women stuff troublesome!”
Seeing its small white figure about to fly away, Li Fei hurriedly called out, “Where are you going? Teach me more of the local language. I can’t understand what they’re saying.”
Ri Yan didn’t look back. “Learn it yourself! You have a mouth, don’t you?”
Li Fei watched speechlessly as it flew away. Since breaking its seal, this fox hadn’t been able to stay still for a moment, always wandering about aimlessly.
She looked around. The village was surprisingly large, and although the busy villagers still glanced at her occasionally, they no longer gathered to stare. Looking towards Lei Xiuyuan’s courtyard, she saw the gate was tightly shut. Perhaps it was best not to bother him further for now.
Noticing a few friendly-looking older women drawing water across the way, Li Fei straightened her clothes and hair, then approached them cheerfully, greeting: “Hello, have you eaten?”
Lei Xiuyuan opened his eyes, gazing at the golden light sword in his palm. Since remembering how to channel spiritual energy into his body, he had begun to recall familiar cultivation techniques one by one. However, the spiritual energy here was scarce. Although Static Mountain had more abundant energy than other places, it still felt insufficient—he must have stayed in places with much denser spiritual energy before, as the process of channeling it into his body shouldn’t be this difficult.
As the golden light of metal-attribute spiritual energy slowly faded, Lei Xiuyuan fell into a trance. For some reason, he suddenly thought of that white-clad girl again. More than half a month had passed since her appearance, and his courtyard had become unexpectedly quiet. Previously, villagers would come to him with troubles almost daily, but recently, no one had knocked on his door.
The Ju Ying Island was flat and vast, with only Static Mountain as its sole peak. The mountain air was fresh, with surprisingly abundant spiritual energy, causing all spirits to keep their distance. Because of this, Static Mountain had become a holy place in the hearts of the Ju Ying people, imagined as a deity protecting all islanders.
As a fake divine envoy, he received respect but also had corresponding duties. For instance, powerful spirits often dwelled in the sea, preventing villagers from fishing safely, so it was his job to subdue these spirits. Later, this evolved into villagers coming to him for all sorts of matters, even for something as trivial as a stubbed toe, which was simply ridiculous.
Having not enjoyed such peace for a long time, Lei Xiuyuan felt a bit unaccustomed. He pushed open the courtyard gate and saw many people gathered in the distance, chattering noisily about something.
Lei Xiuyuan moved a few steps closer when suddenly a gust of wind brought a faint, lingering fragrance to his nose. This scent… was it that girl? As he approached, the villagers immediately made way for him respectfully. Someone exclaimed with shining eyes, “Divine Envoy! She says she’s not the Mountain Goddess, so she must be a mountain spirit under the goddess! And that white nine-tailed fox from before must be a divine beast raised by the Mountain Goddess!”
Mountain Goddess? Divine beast? Lei Xiuyuan remained noncommittal about the villagers’ wild speculations. In the center of the crowd, the white-clad girl was riding a fierce-looking, strange beast, healing an injured villager. A healing net covered the person, and the small wounds almost immediately healed, drawing admiring cheers from the villagers.
Noticing many others around were also injured and bleeding, Lei Xiuyuan frowned and asked, “What happened?”
A villager replied, “That ferocious beast came from the sea, we don’t know when. As soon as it landed, it snatched two people. When we tried to fight it, many got hurt. Luckily, the Mountain Goddess… oh no, I mean the mountain spirit girl was here. She tamed the beast with her powers. Look, that’s the one she’s riding. The mountain spirit girl can even heal wounds! I knew she couldn’t be a bad person!”
They’re so quick to trust, still the same as always, Lei Xiuyuan inwardly laughed.
Li Fei hadn’t noticed Lei Xiuyuan’s arrival. After healing the last villager with her healing net, she stood up and waved her hand. The ferocious beast she had been riding seemed to be lifted by an invisible hand and was placed before the gasping villagers.
“Kill?” she asked earnestly in her very broken local language.
Seeing the terrifying beast more docile than the tamest cat under her control, the crowd suddenly felt sympathetic. They waved their hands, saying, “No need, no need! Just drive it away!”
Li Fei hadn’t been idly wandering the village for the past half month; she could now understand about eight or nine out of ten simple sentences. She immediately complied with everyone’s wishes and drove the beast away. Suddenly, she caught sight of Lei Xiuyuan standing not far away. Her eyes immediately lit up, and she struggled to control the urge to run over to him. Instead, she walked up with a smile and said in her halting local language, “You… you came out?”
Lei Xiuyuan looked at her eyes, shining like black crystals, and after a long moment, replied flatly, “Yes, I did.”
With that, he turned and walked away again. Li Fei stood dumbfounded for a while before suddenly crying out, “You just spoke in the mainland language! You can understand me! Were you pretending not to understand before?!”
Indeed.
Lei Xiuyuan still didn’t look back.
Li Fei couldn’t hold back anymore. She rushed forward and carefully grasped his sleeve, urgently saying, “Wait, wait! Xiuyuan! You clearly understand the mainland language! Have… have you remembered anything else? Like who I am?”
No.
Lei Xiuyuan remained silent.
Li Fei kept questioning him for a while, but he stubbornly played deaf, not making a sound. Was he going to pretend he couldn’t understand the mainland language again? She could only helplessly watch his back and say in her very unpolished local language, “Nothing, you remember… nothing?”
Lei Xiuyuan finally reacted. He stopped and turned to look at her, asking in a low voice, “Xiuyuan… is that what you call me?”