Lei Xiuyuan pulled up a chair and sat beside her, assuming the role of a teacher, though his attitude was far from it. He tapped the book in front of him and instructed, “Write each word I’ve circled in red ten times.” With that, he began toying with the teacup in his hand, keeping his distance from her.
…Is this how he teaches? Li Fei felt a little disappointed. She had expected them to be closer.
Opening the thin book, she indeed found several simple-looking characters circled in red on each page. As Li Fei flipped through the pages, she suddenly realized that the red circles weren’t freshly drawn, but the cinnabar seal wasn’t very old either. They must have been marked in the past few days. Had he been planning to teach her to read all along?
Li Fei couldn’t help but smile as she carefully began writing the characters with a charcoal pen. Outside, the rain pattered softly, and the silk paper windows were damp. The tea in Lei Xiuyuan’s cup exuded a fragrant aroma. This was nice; she could be close to him again, and hear his steady breathing. They were together again.
“Xiuyuan, there are illustrations in this book. Is this… a fish or a person?”
She pointed at a blurry illustration in the book. Unlike the exquisite illustrations in mainland books, this drawing was crude and even exaggerated, barely qualifying as a picture.
Lei Xiuyuan rested his chin on his hand and glanced at it. “That’s a merman. Human upper body, fish lower body. They live in the southern seas.”
Li Fei’s interest was piqued. “Are there such strange beings? Have you seen one?”
He shook his head. “They’re very rare. Even here, they’re just legends. They’re said to eat humans and often lure men at sea with their singing.”
Seeing him become quite talkative on these subjects, even forgoing the difficult foreign language, Li Fei couldn’t help but tease him to say more. “I’ve heard there’s a place called Fire-Hating Island, where the people…”
“Their skin is as black as coal, and they can breathe fire,” Lei Xiuyuan quickly interjected. “It’s in the west, quite far. I haven’t had the chance to go there yet.”
“Oh, and there’s a flower called the Twelve Lives…”
“The Twelve Lives flower is even rarer. I’ve heard it only blooms in winter. It should be budding this season.”
At first, Li Fei deliberately drew him into talking about various interesting overseas legends, but soon it became Lei Xiuyuan doing all the talking. From south to north, he spoke of sights and legends he had seen and hadn’t seen, his words flowing endlessly. She had rarely seen Lei Xiuyuan like this before. In the past, he had been indifferent to almost everything except cultivation battles, as if nothing in the world could pique his interest. But now it was different. He even had so many books in his room and had planted several legendary flowers.
She had once asked him what he liked, and back then, Lei Xiuyuan couldn’t answer. Now, his shining eyes and unconscious gestures honestly told her that he had found things he liked.
“You know, you’re quite similar to my master,” Li Fei said with a smile as she slowly wrote characters. “You both love exploring unknown places, collecting anecdotes and legends, with rooms full of books.”
Lei Xiuyuan still tried to deny it. “I’m just trying to understand the world I live in. It’s not about liking or disliking.”
Li Fei laughed. “If you like something, just admit it. What’s there to be embarrassed about? You were like this before, aren’t you going to change now?”
Lei Xiuyuan suddenly fell silent for a moment, then asked in a low voice, “What was I like before? I mean, when I was on the mainland.”
Li Fei looked at him with a smile for a while, then held up the paper full of characters and waved it. “That’s a long story. How about I tell you a bit every day, and you teach me to read every day? Fair enough? I’ve finished writing. Take a look.”
Lei Xiuyuan didn’t frown at her little trick. He took the paper and looked at it, then noticed her right hand was black and dirty. His brow furrowed immediately. “How did you manage to get your hand so dirty just from writing?”
Li Fei shrugged. “That’s how charcoal is. I didn’t bring ink and brushes with me.”
Right, she had come overseas alone. For these past few months, she had been sleeping in the woods, with irregular meals, and even secretly picking up charcoal from the villagers’ trash. Several times when he left the island at night, he would pass by Static Mountain and always see her figure sleeping on a tree trunk.
Lei Xiuyuan paused for a moment, then got up and wrung out a cloth to throw to her. “Clean your hands. I’ll grind the ink.”
The inkstone and fragrant ink were certainly not products of Ju Ying Island. Li Fei absentmindedly wiped her hands, focusing on watching him grind the ink. Even if a person loses their memories of the past, some instincts remain unchanged. Lei Xiuyuan’s ink-grinding motion was still the same as before, first rolling up his sleeves three times, his left hand holding his right sleeve, looking particularly refined.
As she watched, she smiled. “You do look like a teacher.”
Lei Xiuyuan made no comment. After grinding the ink, he saw that she had only managed to clean one finger after all that wiping. His brow furrowed even more as he snatched the cloth from her, saying coolly, “Do you think you’re still a child? Can’t even clean your own hands properly.”
He grabbed her hand none too gently and began scrubbing without mercy, turning her skin red. The girl across from him remained silent, allowing him to rub her fingers. For some reason, Lei Xiuyuan’s movements gradually became gentler.
Her hand was as soft as if it had no bones. At first, he didn’t think much of holding it, but as time passed, he suddenly found his mind wandering. She wasn’t the kind of woman who exuded charm that made one fantasize at first glance. She was beautiful, yes, but just as the villagers had defined her—a mountain goddess or mountain spirit, with an otherworldly air, not the down-to-earth kind of beauty.
Yet he suddenly wanted to embrace her, a completely inexplicable instinct.
Lei Xiuyuan quickly finished cleaning her fingers and let go of her hand just as quickly. The ink was ground, the brush was ready, and the paper was laid out. He should have started teaching her to read in earnest, but Li Fei across from him still said nothing. He glanced at her and saw her eyes full of tears, red and puffy.
“…What’s wrong?” Lei Xiuyuan suddenly felt a bit panicked, more so than when he had first woken up and realized he couldn’t remember anything. For a moment, he felt at a complete loss.
Li Fei wiped away her tears with her sleeve, her eyelashes wet, but she managed a smile and said softly, “It’s nothing. What you just said reminded me of some things from the past.”
Often when she did something silly, Lei Xiuyuan would say half-helplessly, half-teasingly, “Do you think you’re still ten years old?” Hearing him use the same tone now filled her with emotions. She hadn’t lost him. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t remember. She would surely tell him all the sweetest words in the world, never again letting him be confused for inexplicable reasons.
“We’ve known each other since we were little,” Li Fei said, switching to a brush to write. “Later, we joined the same sect. I’ve always liked you, really liked you. You’re the one I like most in this world.”
After saying this, she smiled again at the dazed Lei Xiuyuan. “I’ll tell you the rest tomorrow. For now, let’s start with the reading lesson.”
As night fell, the rain stopped. The villagers were shocked to see the mountain spirit girl, who hadn’t appeared in the village all day, walking out of the Divine Envoy’s courtyard. The Divine Envoy even thoughtfully escorted her to the gate himself!
How did their relationship suddenly become so close? When did this happen?!
“You can stay in the village. We can have someone empty out a house for you,” Lei Xiuyuan said, looking at the crystal bead strings swaying in her hair, reminded of the large leaf she had held over her head this morning, with crystal-clear raindrops falling from its tip. No wonder others thought she was a mountain spirit, a beautiful young girl wandering alone in the mountains.
Li Fei shook her head. “No need to trouble them. The spiritual energy on Static Mountain is quite abundant. I’m comfortable there. I’ll be going now. Thank you for continuing to teach me to read tomorrow.”
She left as soon as she said it, with Si Zhi Jiao flying up to Static Mountain in the blink of an eye. Tonight, the mountain spirit would again sleep in the open.
The villagers gathered in front of Lei Xiuyuan’s courtyard, both delighted and somewhat fearful. Some of the bolder ones joked, “We waited all day but didn’t see the mountain spirit girl. So she was with the Divine Envoy. Um… why did she leave again?”
Lei Xiuyuan replied, “She’s a mountain spirit, so naturally, she returns to the forest.”
Some of the older women in the village, who had been holding back for days, finally couldn’t resist and urgently said, “The mountain spirit girl is clearly in love with you, Divine Envoy! Why didn’t you ask her to stay? It breaks our hearts to see her coming and going like this every day! Don’t you have any compassion, Divine Envoy?”
They had noticed long ago that although this Divine Envoy looked young, he was quite strange. At first, they had sent young, beautiful village girls to him, but the girls were sent back home as soon as they arrived. After this happened several times, the Divine Envoy became very displeased and warned, “If this happens one more time, I will leave this place and no longer protect you.” This scared the villagers so much that no one dared to mention it again.
Such a fine man, so handsome and capable, yet so unromantic. It was truly frustrating.
Lei Xiuyuan only smiled slightly, not responding to the older women’s questioning. No one dared to ask a second time, so they could only respectfully watch him enter the courtyard and close the gate.
In a corner of the courtyard lay a large leaf, left behind by Li Fei this morning. Perhaps due to being infused with her spiritual energy, the leaf hadn’t yellowed or withered, but instead looked even more lush and green. Drops of rain that hadn’t yet dried were rolling off its tip.
Lei Xiuyuan picked up the leaf and looked back towards the dark Static Mountain. Tonight, the white-clad mountain spirit would be resting on some unknown tree. He tore off a piece of the leaf and gently blew on it. He didn’t know how to play this thing; even the village children could produce a complete tune, but in the hands of this otherwise capable person, the leaf could only make a harsh sound.
Due to the infusion of spiritual energy, this dull, tearing sound traveled far. After a moment, a similarly torn leaf-blowing sound came from Static Mountain. So she didn’t know how to do it either.
Under the night sky, the discordant sounds of leaf-blowing echoed back and forth. No one could explain the meaning of this behavior, yet they seemed to enjoy it. Only the villagers suffered, unable to sleep due to the noise.
It seemed that starting tomorrow, they would need to find someone to teach the two how to blow leaves properly, the villagers tearfully decided.